This one’s for you, Dad…
Long view
From
A
Bullet
Hole
By Paul Allih
COPYRIGHT © Paul Allih 2011
Smashwords Edition
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CHAPTER ONE
A nickel plated nine millimeter rests at my temple as sweat beads roll down my face. My utilities were cut off about five days ago for non-payment; it’s sweltering in here and the heat wave outside is not helping. The smell of rotten food fills the single bedroom unit and the disgusting odor takes me over with a sick feeling of regret. Flies fornicate in orgies around the musty scent of spoiled milk, molded cheese, and rancid meat. This is what rock bottom looks like for a superhero.
This means to an end has been a long time coming and I can no longer disregard it as "paranoia". My period of sacrifice is over; it is now someone else's turn to step up. Seeing what I have seen, I have my doubts that anyone will. Who in their right mind would want to after what they have read about me? This is what brings me to my polished chrome point. Ladies and gentlemen, this is not a suicide; this is a murder. I am finishing off a part of myself so that the other can somehow survive. These pieces have been dying for quite awhile, but they have unexplainably held together; pulling me under with them.
I have tried to save you all in so many ways, but you don’t want to be saved—you want to fester in your moral collapse. The only things you care about are your goods; your charge cards, your satellite television, and how you look in the latest sedan. You don’t see how your material lusts have left you vulnerable as prey and you could give a shit less. We will see how you feel after I re-write your epitaph in your own blood. And before I end this existence and move on to the next life, I will count your everyone of your tears.
I know better now, I should have just let you all rot in your self-made hell and continued with my own preservation. It’s too late to stop it anyway; the ball is already set in motion. The timers have been set at the headquarters of America's Bank and the Law building. First to go will be the bank, and then it won’t be too long before the second one goes off at the Law building. As Shakespeare said, “Kill all of the lawyers”.
You take one gallon of bleach, sixty three grams of potassium chloride and then heat until it reaches 1.3 on a hydrometer. Allow the mixture to cool, filter the crystals, and then heat it again. This is form of purification is known as "fractional crystallization". Then you melt five parts of wax with five parts Vaseline, add some gasoline to the mix and pour it over the crystal powder. Once the gas evaporates, you have enough plastic explosives to rupture a city block. It’s amazing how much havoc you can wreak from so little in your kitchen.
Things were supposed to get better, but that is just wishful thinking when you are riding a downward spiral. You think for one moment that everything will be alright, brought on by a tiny glimmer of hope. When you have exhausted every possibility of redemption, descent becomes destiny. This is how the natural order of things works; what goes up must come down.
When I met Grace outside of my twelve-step meeting for Veterans of foreign wars, I thought everything was about to change. She was waiting for her Survivors of Incest meeting down the hall when our eyes met. After our grinning introductions, we started talking as if we had known each other somewhere before, another life maybe? Skipping our meetings that night, we decided to grab a beer and the rest became our lives; entangled.
Time and time again she tried to tell me that I needed to get away from it all. I didn’t listen because I thought I knew better—I thought I knew you better.
Tick-Tock...
Her soft, pale skin radiated such beauty; every graze would burn the forests of emptiness. Armed with a melting smile, she would stare though the dark hair that curtained her eyes; penetrating my frozen soul.
Tick-Tock…
She made me feel whole; combating my darkest sections while sheltering my weakest. No one knew about me… no one was supposed to know. Now she is gone and it’s your fault, it’s my fault, god's fault; blame is cheaper to pass around than bullets.
Tick-Tock, Tick-Tock…
I can’t say that I have ever known normalcy, even before I learned to question its meaning. Take away the meaningless job, questioning my manhood, and how much I could use to fill the empty spaces; something was off. It would have been easy to blame it on the war, but I thought I was better than that. Every day that I was over there I told myself that it couldn't happen to me. When you are a Marine you are trained to believe that you are a merciless killing machine; god's weapon—the next step on the evolutionary ladder.
As a civilian, I was a graphic designer; wasting my artistic merits by piecing together horrible marketing clichés. Even working for myself, I still felt like a slave in the grand scheme. The work itself took my mind off of the things that constantly plagued me. I would listen to my favorite tunes and get lost in my love for creating while keeping the demons at bay.
Stuck working late one night, I was listening to my MP3 player as I pieced away at a border. Absorbing the music and drinking coffee, I was making the best of what I thought at the time to be an awful situation. There was a project due the next day and I had put it off for far too long. It was a mindless ploy, using big tits and tight asses to sell the lowest common denominator in products. No matter what you do in this world, you will always play slave-boy to somebody for a paycheck.
There I was working, when suddenly my eyes rolled into the back of my head as I felt this force crush into my skull. I blacked out for a second, the time frame of a blink, only to wake up on the floor. Looking up as I came to, I saw this dirty skeeze with crank bugs around his mouth looming over me. He glared at me with a grime-toothed grin as two of his friends were looting my office. As I tried to sit up, he pointed a gun in my face and said, “Unless you want some .38 caliber dental floss, I'd just stay fuckin' put.”
Flash backs of the desert hell that I was in years before hit me like a brick wall. I looked into his grey, faded eyes with fearful rage as one of his friends walked up behind me. He hit me over the head with what sounded like an aluminum baseball bat. The force knocked me out; smashing into my hair, scalp, and my skull with a clinking-thud. I’ll never forget that sound. While I was out cold and bleeding from my cracked cranium, they took whatever wasn’t bolted down. They made off with my computers, the cash register, and my dignity.
I woke up in the hospital the next day; fading in and out of consciences. My head was bandaged, covering the one hundred and fifty stitches that were holding my damaged melon together. A pounding headache echoed through my skull like a bullet train. It felt like hell even though I was on a morphine drip. You can only squeeze so much morphine into your veins before you just pass out. Two tours in Afghanistan without physical injury and this is how I ended up. I am irony's sick joke.
Fighting the pain, dizzily, I opened my eyes in a blurry haze. The nurse in the room told me what happened and how long I had been there. As she checked my vitals, I tried to mutter a request for a cup of water. She left me to get the doctor and contact the detectives who were waiting to get my statement. Despite having my senses crushed with a baseball bat, I remembered what happened for the most part. I don’t think I’ll forget that meth sore ridden face as long as I am alive.
Two detectives came in to see me before I was released; Philips and Moore. They showed me some pictures, but none of them were the ones who had accosted me. After asking me a few questions they left, leaving me with the feeling that I was not really a priority. In the end, the interview with police proved itself to be useless. They did not bother getting the video tape from the security camera nor did they question any of the surrounding businesses. There was no effort to contact the local pawn shops and no one would be taken in for their crimes in this case.
As my wounds healed, I called the local pawn shops myself with the serial numbers of my computers, but there was nothing. Out of curiosity, I checked for the goods on a local trading board and that is where I found my computers. I thought about calling the detectives, but I figured that they would probably just sit on it long enough that the goons and my stuff would be gone. They get paid either way, so why should they care?
CHAPTER TWO
"My name is Michael Carson, and I am Veteran of a foreign war."
Free coffee and free donuts mending broken spirits, distraught beings infected with their own sorrow of truth. This is the circle where you are supposed to expose your inner being for everyone to see. Every Thursday night from 8pm to 10pm, I would stand up and lie to these people. I led them to believe that I was an over working graphic designer with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. They thought I was a man who never made time for anything that did not revolve around work because I was so haunted. This was the best approach, especially when my truths were much darker than the fiction.
"My name is Michael Carson, and after all of these years, I am still adjusting to civilian life."
It felt like I was wearing this mask, surrounded by men and women who came back from Iraq and Afghanistan missing limbs or suffering from nerve damage. Some of them were alcoholics and drug addicts, covering their external and emotional wounds with momentary highs. Many of them may have different stories, but sadly their stories all end the same way. They felt neglected by their government and the people who they thought they signed up to protect.
I remember sitting in the back as Jeff went on with his story about how he was in helicopter crash; a crash that left him looking like a real life human pig man. Jeff was missing his left ear and most of his scalp was so badly scarred that he cannot grow hair. All that is left in place of his nose is a skeletal, nasal portal barely covered with patches of flesh.
He talked about how he came home one night and found his wife being drilled by his best friend. Dropping the take out upon discovery, he just stood there in the doorway—shocked at the scene. His friend tried to stutter an explanation as Jeff glared at his distant lover who could not look him in the face—a broken heart and a carpet covered with chicken a-la king in the aftermath. A three month long messy divorce and a prescription to Zoloft later, there was Jeff baring his soul to us; the forgotten ones.
Sniffling and holding back his tears; he informed us with a shameful chuckle, “At least work is going good, right?”
I guess everything has a bright side.
This is the drama that you inject into your life when you think you are doing the right thing, for god, for country, and for yourself. It hurts the most because you could have done something to stop it from happening, but you just signed up not knowing. For reasons beyond your grasp in that moment, a part of you took to the path of the self-sacrificing masochist. Later you learn that you enjoy the pain, yet you don't understand why. Self preservation is a natural instinct; self destruction goes against the grain of nature’s order, spawning chaos—chaos is freedom in its purest form.
After sending an email under a fake name to the seller of my computers, I polished my nickel plated 9mm and waited. Butterflies filled my stomach like the first time I entered the combat zone; waiting is the hardest part. Notified that I had a new inbox message, they told me that they still had the computers. As I read the prices, I shook my head; they were marked for less than half of what I paid for them. Thousands of dollars in medical bills for me equaled to a couple hundred bucks for them. Agreeing, I hit send and I waited for them to tell me where to meet them. While I was feeding bullets into the clip, I received another message. This time, they told me to meet them at “9 pm behind the drug store on 71st Street”. I agree to the meet up, hit send, and then the butterflies in my stomach simultaneously vomit.
I got to the drug store about a half hour early because it was hammered into me to be prepared more so than the enemy—strength beyond strength. As I scanned the scene around me, I understood why they wanted to meet there. It was a dead end street shrouded by windowless concrete. A broken streetlight hung over the darkness, flickering in the thick brush. The entire back lot was surrounded by trees; no one could see in and I could not see out.
With the car turned off, I sat there with my gun by my side; held down out of sight. My shaking nerves were keeping me rattled; I needed something to take the edge off. Reaching into my glove box, I pulled out a pint of whiskey and took a few sips. As the warmth coated my insides, my shaking was numbed. I had no plan to speak of, so anything that took place was purely off the cuff. Putting the bottle back into the glove box, headlight came around the corner flashing into my mirrors. I took a deep breath as they pulled up next me. The passenger side window came down and the driver asked me, “Are you, Don?”
Hesitation hit me; I lost myself in a flashback when he was grinning over me with a gun in my face. Snapping out of it; I gave the greasy meth head a simple nod. As I was waiting for him to recognize me, he said, “Alright, pop your trunk!”
As he put his car into park I crotched down, acting as if I was grabbing the latch to the trunk. Putting the gun between my legs, I cocked the hammer back. I pulled the lever, the trunk popped up as I slid out of the car. He had his back turned to me as I pointed the gun at him. When he turned to face me, he looks down the barrel of my 9mm. The nickel plated steel glimmered under the flickering street light as panic washed over his state.
Raising his hands he said, “Look man, I don’t know what's goin' on, but…”
Something bestial surfaced in me, “Shut up, asshole! You’re going to put those computers in my trunk or I am going to blow your fucking brains out!”
He lowered his arms as he took a closer look at me, “Oh, man… I knew I fuckin’ knew you!”
My nerves let loose, causing my wrist to shake, “You better fuckin’ know me! Now get those goddamn computers and put them in the trunk!”
The meth head decided to dare me, “Fuck you, asshole. You aren’t going to shoot anyone! Look at you… you’re shaking like a bitch!”
My mind went blank and my finger clinched. My muscles tugged on the trigger as I left my body. The gun went off with a kick, flames shot out with the sound of boxed thunder. There he was in front of me, wearing a stunned expression and a hole in his forehead. Head trips ensued; grainy black and white scenes from so many years ago. Bodies drilled with bullets and left abandoned like rotten garbage. Limp carcasses lying about on road sides; face down in the dirt, laced with the hopes that their next life has more purpose.
Smoke aired from the fresh hole as blood trickled out. He just stared at me blankly while his demise cradled him. His gaze penetrated my soul as I relished in the thought that my face would be the last thing that he would ever see on the plain of existence. The sight filled my eyes, burning the image into my retinas when I finally realized what I had done. Everything that surrounds death is touched with a chill and I felt it shiver up my spine; like steely fingers kissed with ice. This was not like being on the battle field; this was not a justified killing in the eyes of the law.
When his body finally hit the ground, panic washed over me in a flood. My heart started beating like a drum and I felt a familiar cold through-out my body. I knew I had to get the hell out of there before someone called the police. Without thinking twice, I jumped into my car and calmly drove from the back to the front of the parking lot. Pulling around to the front to the exit, the hatch closed on its own. Keeping my eyes forward on the road, I did not look around nor did I look back. I maintained my view straight ahead.
As I placed the warm 9mm in the glove box, I breathed in and out to keep myself at some kind of ease. There was a maddening tremble riding through me, but at the same time, there was a strange comfort that soothed. I started feeling sensations that I thought had long since been dead. The first time you kill someone you feel a heavy guilt that sticks with you like an uninvited guest. No matter what you do, that ghost is there everywhere you turn. The second kill is not much better, but after your third and your forth it becomes easier. You tell yourself that it is either you or them; survival is never a choice.
There was a lot of work I had to do to distance myself from the crime. I had to come up with an alibi as well cleanse myself of all evidence. Gunshot residue is one of the first things forensic investigators look for on a suspected shooter. When I got home, I meticulously cleaned the firearm inside and out. Then I stripped myself of my clothing, immediately throwing them into the washer on heavy. I scrubbed my hands with a mix of lava soap and bleach; enough bleach can clean anything.
After all was said and done, I sat in the darkness of my living room; reflecting with a glass of whiskey. There was no remorse I could feel for the life I had taken. The regret that I felt was induced by the fear of being arrested. There was this twisted form of empowerment that filled within me, one that let me know that I was at home in my feelings. Squeezing that trigger again changed my outlook, my output—my existence felt purposeful again.
CHAPTER THREE
Grace tells me, “I go to the meetings because my dad and my brother used to have their way with me when I was a child. I don’t remember much of it; it was uncovered when I went to hypnotherapist to quit smoking.”
My stomach reacted to what she was telling me in a 360 spin, but her honesty was commendable. This kind of honesty was the type that I could never display. As much as she had been through, Grace didn't descend into the madness that weaker people would have. There was a strange cool to her, something that almost made me envious. She dealt with her horrible situation personably, not having to exploit her pain on a midday talk show for false sympathy.
"Mom knew all about it; she just didn’t know what to do, ya know? While I was at school one day, her, my dad, and my brother packed up and moved away. I remember how I waited and waited to be picked up but no one ever came. My teacher took me into his office and he called my Aunt for me. From there on out I stayed with her and her seven cats; it made her happy. To this day we still haven't a word from them and I never bother looking. When I was twenty-five I went to the hypnotherapist to kick my three pack a day habit, and boom; I have more to worry about."
“Did you ever quit smoking?”
“No.”
“Oh…”
After taking a sip from her red wine, she asked, “So, tell me… why do you go to your meetings?”
I shrugged and gave her a spoonful of mistruth, because lying is sometimes the best policy. Telling her, “Well, I served two tours in Afghanistan and I pretty much go to give support to the other vets, y’know? But really, I'm not much of a sleeper and I work all the time, so…"
I am a slave to denial.
She looked at me with sympathetic eyes and said, “Aww Poor baby, it sounds to me that you need a nice long, vacation.”
If only she knew.
The day after the shooting, I went to my office to inspect the damage done. The place wasn’t completely trashed; the windows and doors were still intact, that was a plus. I walked around, stepping over pieces of my draft table that the thugs had ripped apart. My filing cabinets were beaten and warped; the drawers were trapped in the bent frames. Looking at all of the destruction I didn't know how I was going to pick myself up after this.
When I turned around, I noticed the dried puddle of my blood on the floor. It covered the dirty tile, stuck to the last project that I was working on. Losing myself in the sight, I came to the conclusion that my time here was over. The man who would slave over pasted promotions was gone. All that was left of him was a dried, faded spot of crimson. This is what was left of me, Michael Carson, spread out in pieces; scattered and fragmented.
Crawling out of the deepest hole of self pity, I was startled by Phil. Phil Vincent was not only the owner of the plaza, but the owner of the pool store next to my shop. I called him “Pool store Phil” as a silly nickname. He was a short, scrawny old man from New Jersey who moved to Miami when he retired. Though he never told me what he was retiring from, I always thought him to be a former bookie. The way he spoke and carried himself, he was the perfect example of a mobster from a Scorsese flick.