Put A Bullet Through Her Head

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

"Put a bullet through her head!"

"I'm sorry. Could you repeat that?" The officer is standing away from the table, his preoccupied head bent down towards a notepad upon which he is scribbling - or maybe doodling.

"I said I'm going to put a bullet right through her head!" That oughtta get his head to look up! But it did not.

"And what would you do this with?"

"A gun, duh."

"What sort of gun?"

"Kind that shoots bullets."

"Hand gun? Revolver? Rifle?"

"Yeah, one of those. Haven't decided yet."

"So you don't even own a gun?"

"Purchase is imminent."

"Perhaps you should get back to us after your purchase."

Now the fucker finally looks down at me with eye contact seated in consternation at the interrogation table.

"Look, I'm trying to file a report on myself here. You don't seem to be taking it seriously."

"Like I said, come back after you make your purchase." He distractedly rubbed his chain like he was trying to remember something on his grocery list.

Police are trained to believe the worst in people. What's with this guy??

"It's your job to investigate threats and report them to the person in question."

"That's the fact, Jack."

"OK, well, here I am, threatening bodily injury. How you going to be useful ignoring me?"

"That's exactly how I plan to be useful."

Million cops in the world and I get the one truth-seeker. He's got me cornered but I'm forced to play out my hand.

"You sure you want to take that chance? Something happens later and people find out you did nothing, wouldn't want to be you!"

"I'll just have to chance it," he replied in borderline boredom.

"So you're not going to tell her anything?"

"Nope."

The word just hung in the air, mocking me, waiting for me to leave in defeat.

"Well, what if she tries tries to approach me?"

"Then you'll just have to tell her how you feel. But I'm not going to report you as a gun-wielding maniac just to get someone to avoid you." Read me like a fucking book. "Anything else I can't do for you?"

I'm supposed to be the one dishing out the sarcasm. Must be losing my touch to get played like this, so openly and obvious.

"Nope," I replied matching his earlier tone.

Then I sloughed my way out wondering why is it when I try to convince people I'm not an asshole they bet their life I am and when I try to convince them I am one they wholly refuse that too.

Proof Of Proof

Billy Boy closed the hotel door to his room with a solemn thud. Today was the day to prove his worth once and for all - or die. He'd thought of nothing else since the day before when the challenge was thrown down and he'd convinced himself there was no other way.

What he didn't know was that Laughing Larry had caught wind of what was going down and waited in the hallway for Billy Boy to come out. Then Laughing Larry laughed.

"Haha, boy! He playin' you like a fiddle! Yes, sir, a boy gonna do what a boy gonna do."

"I ain't no boy! And don't try talking me out of it. My brothers, my pa, everyone done tried. Nothing you say can stop me!"

"Who's trying to stop ya?? I can use the laugh. Suckered like a newborn babe."

"I'm not listening to this."

"Cockeyed Clint is fastest gun in the territory. And he got you playing his game, his way, on his terms. What a moron!"

"You'll see who the moron is - "

"When I see your dead body in the street."

"I'm not backing down and that's final."

"Ol' Clint knows you're a boy, gotta prove yourself. A man would up and walk away, not carin' 'bout words of a loudmouth loser. See, I know Clint long time back and seen him play this game before. It only works on boys."

"But I'm a man!"

"Nah, a man wouldn't have nothin' to prove. You ever stop to think why Cockeyed Clint work so hard to get fastest? You think it's because he's a better man?? That's a hoot, boy!"

"What you driving at?"

"Ol' Clint got something eatin' at him, eatin' at him bad. Drive him crazy round the clock."

"You're second person saying something eating at him."

"A man can spot it. A blind boy cannot. That what give Clint his edge. He's a snake, that one! Haha!"

Billy Boy hesitated as he connected the dots. What does drive a man to become a gunfighter? What makes a man need to prove himself that badly?"

Laughing Larry saw his words hit home. "See, boy, if ya really wants to kill Cockeyed Clint, just ask him when last time he please a woman."

Larry turned to exit down the stairway, laughing all the way.

***

Out of the saloon strode Cockeyed Clint into the bright morning sun. The street tensed as this scene had played out before and knew the dreaded outcome. How can such evil play out under this innocent light? Was the world to be exposed as a futureless fraud?

"I told you, boy, I didn't want see you here after sunup. Should of rode out when you had the chance."

Billy Boy's inkling of truth from the hotel hallway was gaining momentum. He saw nothing before him but a desperate soul with something to prove. Why should he answer to this clown?

Billy's calmness irked Clint to the core. He played the only card he knew how to play.

"Draw, boy!"

Billy only relaxed all the more. "You wouldn't like it if I did."

"Draw!"

"OK, here goes: When's the last time you pleased a woman?"

The muted snickers Cockeyed Clint heard from the street were worse than bullets going through his body. His physically rocked as if being shot.

"You sonabitch! Draw!"

Billy turned to ride away. Yes, he had been a sucker to have been manipulated by this frustrated simp.

"Don't you walk away from me! Coward! Yellow-belly! People will laugh at you rest of your life."

But the joke was on the gunfighter as the muted snickering had exploded into full blown laughter by the onlookers. As Billy, no longer a boy, rode off back to the chaparral, Cockeyed Clint whirled around in terror as if he'd been stripped naked. In a fearful fright he fetched his horse from the stable to the jeers of the onlookers, never to be seen again.

"No wonder he been playing with his gun so much!"

Town hookers cackled, "Tell him we offer a virgin discount!"

Larry watched with delight, having the best laugh he'd had in a long while.

Thoughts From A Boston Prison

My coworkers' reaction when they dragged me off to prison.

So I'm in a place where everybody knows my name but nobody wants to. If it were up to me I’d have no name. As if anything is up to me.

I wondered why me, the new guy, had a cell to myself. They’d only snigger in reply. Then I saw this etched on the wall of my cell:

Every day gets me closer to being out of here.
Every day I lose another piece of myself.

I asked someone what happened to the previous guy and they told me he committed suicide. So it seems he had more days to do than pieces to give.

Dear God, Jesus. So I'm to take his place?

An old Eagles song recycles through my mind at night on my lonely bunk, the music a barrier to the heartbreak of the cold steel surrounding me.

There are stars in the Southern sky
And if ever you decide you should go
There is a taste of thyme sweetened honey
Down the Seven Bridges Road

Other odd characters from the past stream through my head, pushing to get in their say. I let them because anything is better than listening to the screaming voice within.

Boris the Bullet Dodger (“Why do they call him that?” “Because he dodges bullets!”) whom I’d met in his later years spilled his Life Confession to me. Something that happens a lot for some reason.

“I’m a hard man to kill! But dodged them all I did. Every last one.” Then his voice trailed off. “I thought I was winning.” Then he looks at me with a wry cry-smile. “But you see, mate, I looks up one day and see I was living to dodge them bullets and was too late for the stopping. Thinks to meself: What choice I got? Let them kill me?”

The agony of waste echoed through his eyes, begging for comfort in the boundless void. He’d been struggling, fighting, scheming, and dodging his entire life to get…nowhere.

“It’s not about winning or losing the game. It’s about not playing in the first place. I thought honesty was for suckers. That’s what I told meself. You can fill in the rest. The treasures I missed out on…”

When you’re on the run the smallest moments get magnified. It’s strange when it’s happening because you can feel it’s a "moment" but have no idea why. But five, ten years later you still recall.

I was in a Starbucks line, this middle-aged woman ahead of me chatting up her friend as if she were in her own house, me trying not to get noticed to avoid capture. She's talking about “kids today” and her marketing strategy of manipulating them with FOMO to get them to act not in their best financial interests. She bragged how you can see "the fear in their eyes" when she was making her pitch. The witch.

I was envious of her being a “legitimate” criminal while simultaneously infuriated how everyone really is on the make, dog-eat-dog, but only the sanctioned perpetrators get a free pass. Then she began to talk of her school age daughter and I thought the kid’s life must be hell with the lies she must obey in that house.

I trust no one’s who’s never stepped outside the everything-that’s-legal-is-OK circle. But the sun don’t shine for me, either. In moments of silent crisis like this, the voice of happy-go-lucky Finny roars back to life. Thank God no one can see me cowering.

There's me, the shithead to be.

"There's only one crime, Harry Boy." He told me that with that patented smile of his, like he'd just discovered a gold mine. "It comes in many forms and shapes, many flavors and sizes - but it's all the same at the end of the day. Ain't that a hoot!"

He was always looking for a hoot. I felt hopelessly inadequate in the shadow of this shooting star but like most people I couldn't resist his light. We were just kids and I wondered why he was even thinking about crime, life had hardly begun. I wasn't planning on being a criminal and didn't want to hear his annoying insight.

But I was planning on it deep in my heart - to betray Finny's star, just as Cain had done Abel. When I saw the opportunity I took it. I've been crying and beating myself up ever since and what's funny is that in moments of my worst self-torture it's his voice I hear telling me to stop. Then the tears come out.

To this day I try to work Finny's words into every conversation I can, branding others as I have been by his endless optimism.

"There's only one real crime, ya know."

"Oh, yeah? What the fuck would that be?"

"Hiding your love."

I've yet to hear an honest rebuttal.