Goupil: Happiness Is A Warm Gun

"You realize, don't you, that these therapy sessions are an absurdity."

"Oui, oui! You say this before."

"And I'm saying it again. Give up this quest to return to contract killing. Make a life for yourself outside of that. There's a reason you're having trigger dysfunction."

"You Americans more guns than any place in world. I know, I've been every place in this world. I don't need morality from you, Mr. Doctor. I need understand what is going on."

"From your agitation it seems you tried once more to shoot and failed."

"Yes. In the woods. Aim at tree and mind locks like always now. Not even real target! When I'm there, looking through the scope, I hear everything, every bird, every wind, I feel nothing but nature and no part of me wants to leave, just surrender and sleep. How can I turn away from peace having taste it?"

"Maybe you don't need to."

"Maybe I don't need live indoor! You to pay my rent? I put down the gun. I make vow not to pick up. Longer I stay away easier it get. But money almost gone. I never find anything."

"Maybe you didn't give the jobs you tried an honest shot?"

"I should give them rifle shot! How do you Americans stand your slavery? You live like dogs so fat cats can live like kings. Where is sense in this? Why do you not rebel? You have all this money here but leave most in hands of tiny few. I come here. I try playing by your rules. I lose all respect for America."

"No one can earn a living for you."

"This I know!"

"The system won't change on your account."

"This I know, too!"

"Then just what do you expect?"

"I don't know! I always know I could never part of...this, this prison you make for people. I must breathe. I must live on outside. That what made it OK for me to kill you people, you make me what I am."

"But you have to be a part of something somewhere. Remember your fast food arrest, driving through with your exposed erection. This separation leaves you out of control. Is that how you want to live? It's a miracle your entire career didn't end that night."

"Police say I am weird Frenchman like they expect me to do that, just like they say Europe men bathing suit too small. So they let me go before they find out my background. Yes, was very close call and that scare me. I don't want to live like that, no, but no choice. Killer is only option for me."

"But you can't pull the trigger."

"No."

Goupil by this point had completely closed off his body, arms folded and legs crossed, half turning away. There was something he didn't want to see. He was secretly glad the psychologist had been of no help of getting him back into shooting form. It meant he had a plausible excuse for not understanding what he didn't want to face: that he'd never be able to kill again, that to do so would be the same as killing himself.

"So we're back where we started."

Goupil sat in a brooding silence. He hadn't told even half of his misadventures or his life on the run with his Russian-American connections knowledge (covering the tracks of Rep. Rohrabacher, years before the Presidential scandal came to light). He realized now it wasn't so much that he'd abandoned his former life as it had abandoned him, as if he'd failed to make payments on a car and it had been towed away - and would be just as difficult to get back.

Stepping back out into the afternoon summer sun, Goupil paused to watch the downtown passers-by. He hated them with their "business attire" and worldly affairs on their minds, fools who hadn't been around the block yet. If they had, Goupil would not be so alone. The true assassins were in boardrooms high above in the surrounding skyscrapers. They plot the destruction of the world as a response to imagined "enemies" who want to save it. But they don't care what anyone says as long as they believe in the concept of money.

What Goupil knew he could not share. What he saw he could not explain. A "rigged" system was not a mere perspective for him but rather his experience. He'd helped do some of that rigging. He thought he could outsmart the devils he ran with and in a way he did by remaining alive. But they had the power of state behind them knowing that in the end those on the outside would be too marginalized to affect anything. As a discarded tool of the system, Goupil was left with only facing himself.

In a vague way he felt he still had something to offer - he just couldn't imagine what. He could write a book of his life, that would be fun! They had broken the code, he owed nothing to his previous employers anymore. But who would believe him? Who would take the word of an assassin lest they be deemed an assassin too? He'd tried to get the word out before and failed. But maybe instead of trying to convince people this time, Goupil would just write for himself.

There's a truck driver shortage in this country allowing even an immigrant "job taker" to get on board. As much as he hated guiding the big rigs around town, Goupil did enjoy the solitary nature of the open road. He decided he was just to die slowly and disappear as if he'd never been born. Perhaps in a movie some act of fate would save him from oblivion but his lonely hours on the road convinced him since he'd never given love a chance (since he never thought he had a chance), how special could his misspent life have been anyway? He didn't need to be a voice telling the world it's evil, the world already knows.