Today in The Gutter:
A special flash piece directly from Beau Johnson's new book.
A special flash piece directly from Beau Johnson's new book.
Of Dreams, Scenarios, and Plans by Beau Johnson
Maurice and
me, we are men of extremes. Some would suggest different, even over the top. Either
way, the life we’d chosen to lead ensured we pretty much had to be something
along these types of lines. Only when such traits spill over into things they shouldn’t
do complications arise for people like us. With this comes thoughts of
over-compensation and I can understand why some people defer to this kind of
thinking. A misconception is what this becomes, as over-compensating and
confidence are not much more than distant cousins once you’ve gotten under the
hood.
This
comparison is what I’m attempting to enlighten Maurice to when the snake begins
to twitch. Meant his eyes would no longer meet mine, and it’s totally understandable
why this occurs. I mean, the size of the thing Milligan hooked me up with is
huge, taking three of us just to get it in the glass.
“You’ve
always been big on fear, this we know,” I say. Nothing. Nada. His concentration
beyond me, through the glass, and towards a situation which, for the time
being, remained asleep. It slept because I’d tranquilized the thing six hours
prior, secretly hoping today would become the day. “But do you recall telling
me your greatest fear?”
I know he
didn’t, not in the way he should, but this is the thing, the difference between
employer and employees. Us guys, the workers, we don’t forget. At least I don’t.
When someone goes and lets you in on such a nugget, you go and squirrel that
shit away. Never know when an opportunity may arise or a situation might
present itself. It’s pragmatic is what it is. That and then some.
I’m getting
ahead of myself. Realizing, I move forward, blocking Maurice’s sight line to
the glass. I hold up both my hands. “What I want you concentrating on is this. No,
come on now, I want you to take a good hard look at the shit you set in motion.”
I flex what’s left of my fingers. “Used to be eight of these bad boys, right? Now
you’d be hard pressed to say I have three. Used to have both ears too, Maurice,
and this eye here, it never hung the way it does now. You think any of this is
givin’ you a clue as to the reason we are here today?”
I didn’t
require an answer, not really, and I tell the man so. “However, the place I do want
to go is how we arrived here, as in our juncture. Translation being: you should
have maybe sent someone a little more inclined as to how one goes about one’s
job, I think. Double translation: they should have at least gone and checked
for a pulse before they buried me.”
Had his boys done that, I’d never get to show Maurice why I can no longer grow hair. The bullet that rode my skull from one temple to the next destroying the only part of my head I’d been able to comb since before the nineties.
Had his boys done that, I’d never get to show Maurice why I can no longer grow hair. The bullet that rode my skull from one temple to the next destroying the only part of my head I’d been able to comb since before the nineties.
“And you do
realize how this makes you look? Not just for setting in motion what you did,
but the reason as to why.”
I go on, say
my piece, Maurice looking more like an ugly Daddy Warbucks than ever before. “The
way it looks to me is this: Janice never would have glanced my way if she were a
woman being satisfied.”
His eyes
expand at this, a little more rage let out of the box. Seems I’d gone and hit a
soft spot. He double downs with snot
bubbles, great big giant fuckers, which begin to foam above the gag.
“You tryin’
to tell me there’s more than scrap metal in yer pants there, Boss?” I smile as I say this. I can only imagine the
sight of me. Made me want to laugh and scream at the same fucking time. I mean,
of all the things we’d done, all the jobs we’d pulled, that it would come down
to a woman, a woman he’d already divorced.
Eighteen
years gone in an instant, poof.
Laugh or
scream. Shit or get off the pot. All
told, I sometimes wish the grave had been a little less shallow.
“But what it
comes down to, specifically, is this: how do you truly destroy a man? You
obliterate that which he creates. Your words, Maurice. From your lips. Brings a
whole new kind of light as to why I had junior join us here today.”
Perfection. All
of it. Especially the veins upon his neck, each one now popping like cords.
I go one
step further and share what Milligan passed along: that if I could see my way
to rearranging a shoulder or two, my selection, it didn’t much matter; python
or anaconda, each would take a man. Done, it’s on to constriction, the
application, and how it’s this which would come first. What impressed me more is
when I found out how the feet would go last, the anaconda going on like a
condom, its meal taken by the head into a digestive system unlike any other. Truth
be told, it kind of made me wish Maurice had had other children. Or that his
child had children. And I know how this makes me sound, I do. But I also know
how I feel.
“It’s not
like I had any kind of choice, Maurice. Not once I realized I was still alive.”
His nostrils
flare at this, flare again, but I pull him forward anyway. The legs of his
chair screeching every inch of the way.
Four feet
from the glass, I plant myself beside him, my backside into the very same chair
his son had been strapped to not minutes before. As I sit, my dream scenario
continues: Maurice unable to do anything but stare, nothing but remorse leaking
from his eyes. I acknowledge this by placing an arm around his shoulder and
squeezing it with fingers both phantom and real.
Twenty
minutes on and junior’s eyes flash open, his struggles against his bonds causing
an agitation I’d been anticipating since awakening last Fall. It brings a
different type of panic to the festivities as well.
I stand and
cut the gag from Maurice’s mouth.
I tell him I
do this because I can. Pragmatic or not, over the top or not, I'm confident I'm about to like what I hear.
