{"id":307321,"date":"2026-03-09T07:10:00","date_gmt":"2026-03-09T11:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/electricliterature.com\/?p=307321"},"modified":"2026-03-05T21:56:04","modified_gmt":"2026-03-06T02:56:04","slug":"whidbey-by-t-kira-mahealani-madden","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/electricliterature.com\/whidbey-by-t-kira-mahealani-madden\/","title":{"rendered":"This Cocky Stranger Is Offering to Kill for Me"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

An excerpt from Whidbey<\/em> by T Kira M\u0101healani Madden<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

I didn’t know anything about Whidbey Island when I chose it, only that it was far. Only that it would take a great deal of work to get there, and more work to be found. When I say I closed my eyes and pointed to a map, I really mean that. I did. Red votive candle dripping over foil in the center of our dining room table, my girlfriend, Trace, sitting across from me, a full moon over north Brooklyn. Safety<\/em>, we repeated, a Trace manifestation, and I hovered my hand as if feeling for heat\u2014but when we opened our eyes to Elko, Nevada, it wasn\u2019t exactly far enough, so I moved my finger further west to Whidbey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One month later Trace flew me to Seattle. We bought the one-way ferry ticket online, drove to the Mukilteo terminal. Then, there was my boat pulling in. Huge and white with a green lid over the top deck windows, a monstrous face to it, the gaping garage. Cars thumped from the ramp onto the ferry as I stepped on board, and it was dark in there, between all that machinery. I rolled my suitcase between cars and cinched my shoulders for better posture, wondering if any of the passengers were wondering about me. Who\u2019s that girl with the practical green suitcase?<\/em> the faces would ask. What about her?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I had thoughts this self-dramatizing, which was often, I imagined being hurled down a flight of stairs right after thinking them. Sometimes, knocked out by a mail truck, envelopes bursting onto a wet street. On the boat I followed passengers, and one of them\u2014a gaunt freckled woman smeared white with sunscreen\u2014held a door for me at the side of the garage. Thanks, I said, and trailed her and the others up the damp stairwell, like I knew where we were all going. Rather than carrying my suitcase by the handle, I let it clack-clack on each step, the sound echoing awfully. A few of the people looked back at me, just to see who, I guess. I had to commit to the choice now. I clacked all the way up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The second door brought us to a passenger seating area, and for a moment I was back in Penn Station. For a moment, I\u2019d never left. A white sign read Upper Deck, and windows dotted the whole perimeter, casting a greenish pale light; tables, bolted between pleather booths, collected glossy half-finished puzzles. The room wafted fried fish and cleaning products, and doors led out to a deck. Out there, the day drizzled sloppily over the parking lot and water. Late May, first breezes of summer, but still a cold that crept up shrewd. People walked past me out onto the deck, no umbrellas or anything; they just stood beneath the rain, jackets darkening. They smiled, white caps melting on the mountains behind them, phones clamped onto sticks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I found a seat inside at the rear of the boat, and with an uneasy quiet, the glass window vibrated, woke to movement. The shoreline of Washington, the trees, Trace waving from our rented Honda Civic, they all grew smaller.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Children chased each other down the aisle between the ferry\u2019s benches. I flinched at their sounds, their little squawks and shrieks, thump of a tripped sneaker. One child aimed a toy slingshot, and powdery glittering balls arced through the air, fell slowly. Laughter, their mouths all laughing, before a man tiptoed beside them, arms up in a playful shield.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then he sat across from me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m Rich, he said, extending his hand. He gripped mine in that firm too firm single thrust this is a professional handshake<\/em> way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He was handsome, for a man, with black seal-like eyes and a tight stern forehead, hair blown back as if in motion. He carried a plastic drugstore bag lumpy with clothes, which he twisted, then let spin around his wrist. He looked around my age, mid-twenties, Middle Eastern\u2014from where I couldn\u2019t tell\u2014and a bright rope of scar ran up his forearm and into his sleeve. I wondered if he was asked about that scar a lot, maybe the reveal was a benchmark in his romantic endeavors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally, I said, I\u2019m Birdie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019d introduced myself with pseudonyms off and on for most of my life, names I\u2019d lifted from films, sometimes historical figures. When forced to sign Greenpeace clipboard petitions, I was Judy Barton. My coffee orders and library books belonged to Mary Ann Zielonko. Online, hotel bookings, mail: Wilma Dean Loomis or Jacy Farrow. It\u2019s good, sometimes, to be another person<\/em>, one therapist had said, long ago. The sound of my own, true name prickled, an ash in my mouth, and already I knew I was getting away with something. Birdie Chang, I told this man.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rich was holding a paperback copy of Animorphs, a series I\u2019d loved as a kid. On the cover, the boy in a brown jacket transformed into an eagle in vivid, holographic layers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Haven\u2019t seen one of those in years, I said, pointing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He bent the book back and forth in his hands, testing its flexibility. It made no sound. One-dollar cart at Elliott Bay, Rich said. Collected these as a kid. Guess I wanted to take a trip back in time. And you know, the story really holds up. He slapped the book with the back of his hand. There\u2019s some serious literary merit here, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I hated men. More precisely, I hated how a man like Rich could carry a book like Animorphs on a boat, unashamed, gleeful. He could slap it. Some serious literary merit<\/em>\u2014he could say something like that, and it would be considered refreshing, sweet. What a confident man<\/em>, my mother, Wendy, would say, not trying to prove a thing<\/em>. Another woman might note his vulnerable masculinity<\/em>, of course she would, he\u2019d asked for it. But we were all trying, all the time, I reminded myself. That\u2019s how we become the people we are, impressionistically, chiseling lumps of selfhood off the truer, moldering form. There was always the effort to prove, though only certain people got to do so with pleasure. I tried to reel empathy from any part of myself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I hated how a man like Rich could carry a book like Animorphs on a boat, unashamed, gleeful. He could slap it.<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I used to like that story, too, I said. Same generation, I guess. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It ends sad, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It had to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rich spun the bag of clothes again. The plastic left pale ridges across his wrist. He said, what are you, twenty? Twenty-three?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Twenty-eight, I said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No shit?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Asian genes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Same, he said, tilting ear to shoulder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I must have looked confused. I said nothing. There was nothing I could think of to say. Rich waited for me to go on, then smiled. He said: You Stanford sun-hat Asians always gonna forget brown Asians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I rolled my suitcase directly in front of me, snapped the handle down. Then I wrapped my legs around the sides of it and squeezed, remembering the book that was inside.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You don\u2019t know anything about me, I said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think you\u2019re tired, this man said. Real tired. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am tired.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What do you have going on on the rock? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The rock?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Whidbey? he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trace and I had rehearsed several potential responses: I was visiting family<\/em> (boring, no follow-up questions). I was meeting with researchers to study moss and hydrology<\/em> (for this I\u2019d googled the absolute basics). Always I could default to I don\u2019t speak English<\/em>, the quickest way to be left alone, forgotten. But Rich was frank and direct and didn\u2019t regard me with pity; no, he didn\u2019t have that pitying scrunch between the eyebrows, the soft tone\u2014it wasn\u2019t there. He knew my real name, and speaking to him felt like a challenge, one I shamefully, senselessly, wanted to pass. So I told him the truth: I\u2019m hiding from someone. From a lot of people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rich fanned the corner of the book with the tip of his thumb. Back and forth, tightly, like a deck of cards. He looked right at me, unmoved, elbows on his knees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Someone<\/em>, Rich said. He hurt you, or he wants to? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He already did, I said. He\u2019s a pedophile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rich didn\u2019t budge. His big seal eyes blinked sleepily. Trace would toss me off the boat if she knew I\u2019d shared this much. My mother would say, You have got to be joking<\/em>, maybe even get uncharacteristically violent. I knew better than to spill; I knew anyone could be a friend of Calvin\u2019s, maybe someone he\u2019d met inside, someone with my photo and information printed and folded in their wallet. But there were so many lessons I\u2019d never learned in my life, so many mistakes I\u2019d continued to make, and some thrill giving up and into that person.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So you\u2019re hiding? he asked. Why now?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now people know about it, I said. So he\u2019s back. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don\u2019t know about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other people know, I said, trust me. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I thought of the book. The photo on the cover. The New York Times Bestseller stickers glinting from her cheeks on the wall display at the airport. Trace had pulled my hand to keep walking. I was supposed to spend the summer on Whidbey to reset<\/em> and recalibrate<\/em> unplugged, to find that safety bubble<\/em>, at last. These were other peoples\u2019 words, but I knew how to use them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What does this guy say he wants? Rich said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He says all kinds of stuff. Says he wants to apologize. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Does he, apologize?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Depends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On what?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On how you see it. How you think of apologies. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So what\u2019s your issue? he asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A woman pushed inside from the deck, and the wind fluttered Rich\u2019s hair before the door snapped closed. She was yelling into her phone to someone named Joey, and she said his name a lot: Joey, I said what I said. Listen, Joey, I\u2019m not coming to Ballard, Joey, don\u2019t be so stupid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The issue, I said, is he finds me. He doesn\u2019t go away. He\u2019s out now, and he writes me\u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Words aren\u2019t violence, Rich said. He shook his head. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is a violent person.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well, Rich said. You say he\u2019s a pedophile. Why would he care about you now?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I didn\u2019t like somebody else talking about Calvin like he knew him, coolly calling him a pedophile. It was unnerving to hear it so casually with no bulk to it; his tone ground my deliberateness and my fear to dust, the life I\u2019d lived leading to that word of who Calvin was, and the thorned acceptance of what that made me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You don\u2019t know what the fuck you\u2019re talking about, I said. I looked him in the eyes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oh, there it is, Rich said. He smiled again. There, that\u2019s where it lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I looked down at my fingers as if something were stuck there, something to be addressed. My fingertips, frayed from picking. Blood dried in horseshoes around the nail beds. I tried to focus it, the swell, the heat rising inside, a crimp in the gullet. Not the crying kind\u2014but the other feeling. There it is<\/em>. I looked back up at Rich.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s \u2019cause you\u2019re too nice, Rich said. Guys fuck with girls like you because you let them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019d kill him, if I could, I said. I\u2019d shoot him in the dick. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s how you\u2019d do it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The dick, then the head.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nah, you wouldn\u2019t, he said. Let me guess, you sleep with a gun, right? What kind?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I said nothing. Rich leaned closer. A focused crouch, hands ready, as if dribbling a ball.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tell me. Smith and Wesson, 38 Special? You sleep with a big boyfriend, too?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m a dyke, actually.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hey, girl, I\u2019m cool with that, he said. Then, a thought behind his face. Slightest twitch at the corner of his mouth before he said it: You\u2019d let him do it again, before shooting him. You don\u2019t have that in you. Guarantee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You\u2019d let him do it again, before shooting him.<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

You have no idea, I said, and we sat there for a moment, the fluorescent ticking overhead. The boat slowed. I didn\u2019t go to Stanford, I said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The woman screamed at Joey some more from a nearby bench. She plugged one ear as she listened to what he had to say. I thought Joey had been a boy, but now it sounded as if he had been a lousy lover and owed her money. She hung up and threw the phone into her big purse, said, Unbelievable<\/em>, to the rest of us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Where\u2019s the bad guy live? Rich said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Florida.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Florida Man.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Don\u2019t shit on Florida, that\u2019s a boring thing to do, I said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

You still live there?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Exactly. So where\u2019s he in Florida?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do you know what a pervert park is? I said, trying to prove a lax knowledge of my own life. That\u2019s what they call them in Florida. Where he lives. It\u2019s called Gateway to Grace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I work East Coast a lot\u2014cargo ships, cruise lines, Rich said. I\u2019m down there next week, staying through summer. I got friends in Opa-locka.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What do you do, exactly?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rich nodded his head like he was thinking. He said: Boats. Marina stuff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He slapped the book down next to him, then buried his face in both hands, breathing in hard. He flicked the tip of his nose with a thumb. Sniffed. Outside the glass doors of the ferry, a little girl on the deck threw pieces of bread, or crackers, at some gulls that curved down to them. Behind her, the clouds parted a Magic 8 Ball blue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well, Rich said, looking up at me. He looked calm, almost sedated. You want me to kill him for you?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I glared at him. His stubble, his dry knuckles. I imagined him snapping off gloves, a dirtied spade, wiping prints from a revolver with a soft, meshy cloth. Then I imagined Calvin\u2014bound and blood battered\u2014screaming for his life in a ditch near the Everglades. A gator would finish him. It was all ridiculous.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I can do it for you, Rich said. It\u2019d be my honor. Even the score in this small way. For the sun-hat nice girls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He leaned back and crossed one foot over a knee. I crossed mine too. The children in the aisle were gathered by their parents. Backpacks and strollers. Arms flung around necks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No one would ever connect us\u2014who could connect us? I\u2019d have no reason to kill this guy. But I could. Easy, without a hitch, trust me I could.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What are those people eating? I said. Rich looked outside, where I pointed. The birds multiplied and the little girl screamed. Orange life buoys clung to the deck gates, quivered brightly and weakly as the boat moved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Probably chowder bowls, he said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

They love chowder here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019d be fun actually, Rich said. Taking your guy away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I liked that he wouldn\u2019t drop it. That he was asking something of me. A permission. He needed me to play along, to assuage some want. I knew what that looked like.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I told you, I was going to kill him, I said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You don\u2019t have it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I can be scary, I said. Ask anyone who knows me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don\u2019t know anyone who knows you. Then, after a pause, he said, You couldn\u2019t scare anything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I scare.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Scare me now, Rich said. Come on. Gimme your best. Scare me good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I looked out the window to the water, the deep blue mat studded with white. An identical ferry passing by. Mount Rainier glowing like a postcard. I once went on a date with a woman who said she\u2019d never get serious with someone who rolled a suitcase. That it was a lazy, humiliating thing to do\u2014to not hold a suitcase by the handle, a proper handsome Samsonite from long ago, luggage with dignity. I didn\u2019t know how to scare this man. I never would.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Are you lying? he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You seem like a liar. I just need his name. Gateway to Grace. Give the name. After this we never met. You\u2019ll never hear from me again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Give me your name, I said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rich Amani, he said. Do you trust that I\u2019m a good person? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Absolutely not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I respect that, he said. That\u2019s fair.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do you think I\u2019m a good person? I asked. Out of the ferry\u2019s loudspeaker, words clanged, indecipherable. The boat slowed even more. The island: closer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Good and nice aren\u2019t the same, he shrugged. Does he deserve to die?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He doesn\u2019t deserve to live. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s the same thing, Rich said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don\u2019t think it is, actually.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Say it, Rich said. Just say it out loud. It\u2019s good for you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Passengers opened the doors to exit. Cold air trailed through the room, and I pulled my jacket tighter to my chest. The ride was ending, a ramp ahead lowering to the boat, bridging to the rest of my life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I said, Every day, when I wake up, it\u2019s the first thing I wish for. Him gone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well, give the name, then. If you want me to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I stared at Rich and he stared back. A dare with our eyes, who\u2019d break first. That Disney villain scar, his twisting bag of clothes\u2014I smiled, caught myself, straightened back up, serious now. Scary. Something mirrored between us, but he still didn\u2019t think I could.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Calvin Boyer, I said, and Rich stood as soon as I said it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well, that was easy, he said. Birdie, good for you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He slipped the book in his back pocket and walked away toward the deck.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An excerpt from Whidbey by T Kira M\u0101healani Madden I didn’t know anything about Whidbey Island when I chose it, only that it was far. Only that it would take a great deal of work to get there, and more work to be found. 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