Killed a guy once. My buddies said he deserved it, but I wasn’t sure. When it happened, I wasn’t sad, not really. I was pissed. Pissed that he’d done what he did to provoke me. Had a temper back then. Still do. But I’ve learned to manage it, for the most part.
I parked in front of the Grab-n-Go minimart. Needed some Slim Jims and a six of Coors Light. Every time I stopped at a convenience store, I was transported back to that day, forty-four years ago.
The day I’d killed a guy.
We were outside of a 7-Eleven, drinking beer and screwing around on our boards. Carrying on. Giving a ration of shit to all the losers buying milk and bread and Ho-Hos.
Me, Skins, and Tommy. Sure, there were plenty of more worthwhile pursuits we could’ve been pursuing, but we were young. Immortal. Assholes. Like every other teenager we ran with.
An old guy parked, head-in, and got out of his old-guy Taurus. Gray hair, three days of stubble, looked like someone just shot his Doberman. Glared at us. Probably saw youth being wasted. Probably saw him in us, then fast-forwarded to his miserable life. Skins called him an old fuck, and we all laughed. Guy looked like he was going to say something, but he just scowled and went inside.
Came back out a few minutes later, carton of Camels in his hand.
Skins and Tommy were leaning against his car; I was sitting on his hood.
“Hey, old geezer.” I nodded at the smokes in his hand. “Those things’ll kill you.” ‘Course it looked as if he already had one foot—and half his torso—in the grave.
“Get the fuck off my car,” the guy said, squinting like Clint Eastwood in that movie where he shoots a teenager.
“You call this heap a car?” I said. “Sporty, just like you.”
“You young punks are all the same. Full of piss and vinegar, mostly piss. It’s all bluster. Get offa my car.”
I didn’t move.
He set his carton of cigarettes on the car‘s roof. “I ain’t afraid of a chickenshit like you.”
I slid off his hood slowly. I was four inches taller and outweighed him by fifty pounds.
He put up his fists in an old-timey boxing stance.
I squared off, too. “Don’t want to hurt you, old man. But I ain’t no punk.”
“You all are. Get a job. Do something with your life, losers.”
I stepped forward, feinted a jab. He threw up his hands to cover his face. “Now who’s the chickenshit?”
He fumed. Pulled a knife.
I pulled a bigger one.
“You ain’t got the balls,” the old guy said.
I slapped the blade from his hand, clamped an arm around his throat. “Now who’s the punk?”
“You’re still a punk,” he croaked out. “And you’re still a chickenshit.”
I tightened my grip. Pressed the point of my knife into the soft spot under his chin.
“Do it, and you’ll regret this moment the rest of your lousy, pitiful life,” he said.
He was right, I did. Never got caught—no prison time for me—but every day during the past four plus decades, I regretted that decision. Of course, regretting something and coming to terms with it were two entirely different things.
• • •
Enough dwelling on bad memories. I hopped out of my car. A few teenagers loitered out front. They glanced my way. I stopped in my tracks. Glared at them.
“Hey, old fart. Your diaper is sagging. Full of shit?” one of them called out.
My temper flared as I walked over to where they sat on the curb. Three of them. Ratty t-shirts, vapesticks in their hands. “What’re you going to do fuckwad? Throw your dentures at us?”
I pulled a knife from my pocket. Flicked it open. “How about I show you what I’m going to do?”
Three punks, four wide eyes. One pair of eyes, however, flickered like flames. They belonged to the kid who pulled his gun.
I knew how this was going to end.
Peace, finally, for me. For him, a lifetime of regret.
~ fin ~
Alan Orloff’s novel, Pray for the Innocent, won an ITW Thriller Award. His debut mystery, Diamonds for the Dead, was an Agatha Award finalist; his story “Dying in Dokesville” won a Derringer Award; and “Rule Number One” was selected for The Best American Mystery Stories. His YA thriller, I Play One on TV, will be published by Down & Out Books in July. www.alanorloff.com
Comments are closed for this post.
