Tuesday, January 10, 2017

A Load Off His Back

He asked her a simple question. She responded by spitting back a venomous answer.

Out of the blue. Out of nowhere. Apropos of nothing. Out of all proportion to the situation.

What the fuck was that?

This woman was deranged, and not in an interesting way. She seemed confused with anger and misplaced emotion; her thought process was diseased.

Communication between them was a torturous process. Always had been. They were not on the same wavelength since day one and it had only gotten worse.

Time had distorted miscommunication exponentially.

He went down one road and she another. Parallel roads. No crossroads in site.

But this time she had crossed a line. This was the final transgression. This time she would pay.

He had nothing to lose. Nothing. Nothing to hold on to, nothing to look forward to.

What was the fucking point in even trying?

He would kill her when she got home from work and then kill himself.

He went down to the basement to fetch the shotgun. It was a Mossberg 500 Persuader 12 gauge shotgun with a pistol grip. She did not even know he owned it. He took great satisfaction in her ignorance. As the years went by his comfort level with owning the gun increased, and settled into a warm place in his heart as it became clear to him exactly how he would use the weapon.

A vicious weapon with a menacingly evil look. His father had always told him - if you are going to do a job you might as well do it right.

He would do this job right.

He came back up from the basement and settled down to re-runs and whiskey. Seinfeld. Jesus, this stuff was funny. Never failed to lighten his load and to validate his appreciation for an irresponsible approach to life. It made so much sense to him.

These people had it right. Why take life seriously? Why should anyone give a shit about anyone else but themselves?

You care about other people you get fucked.

Simple math, baby.

He watched. He laughed. He waited. He drank.

The crunch of tires on crusty, frozen snow woke him up. Shit, must have gotten a little too deep into the whiskey.

He took another sip. Heard her footsteps on the stairs and stood up from the recliner.

He blasted her with both barrels as soon as she stepped inside the door. Did not give her a chance to say a word. She talked too goddamn much anyway.

Her body flew backwards out the door and landed, broken and twisted, with a thud.

He had a box of double 0 buckshot on the arm of the recliner, ready, so he could reload and kill himself.

But he had doubts. Suddenly he felt lighter. Like a choke collar had been removed from his throat and he was breathing for the first time.

Suddenly he felt like he could do anything. He was happy. Holy shit he was happy.

He put down the gun, pulled the phone out of his pocket and called his buddy Zack.

"Hey Zack, you wanna go out for a beer? I'm buying." When Zack asked what the hell was going on he said "I'm celebrating. I just got a load off my back that is going to make my life a lot easier. I'll meet you at Zampisi's."

He pocketed the phone, grabbed the car keys, stepped over her body without even looking down and walked confidently towards his truck.

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