Untiltled
By Little
I stared at the unfinished story, grimacing. I looked up and around my small cluttered apartment, noting that the walls needed cleaning and that the table’s leg was still propped up by a book. The light bulb hanging from a string off the ceiling, which was the apartment’s only source of light, flickered almost constantly at night, and occasionally turned itself on during the day. The grey carpet was stained and dirty, heaped with pizza boxes and dirty clothes, swarming flies, and crumpled up balls of paper that should be my income but instead were my greatest source of misery. The broken husk of a thing that used to be a shower lingered on in the apartment’s other room, spraying water that was as cold as Death itself when it worked at all.
The only thing that worked in the place was the toilet, which somehow remained clean and efficient. That always confused me. I stared down at the paper again, breaking off my train of thought. The story I was currently attempting to re-write was about a man who kills his best friend after finding the friend and his girlfriend having sex in a parked car. A cop sees the murder, and he freaks out and shoots the cop, too. The story goes on as the protagonist is painted by the media as a ruthless killer. He then has to evade the authorities and attempts to flee the country. He fails, is arrested, and sentenced to death after a long trial, and is killed through lethal injection.
I had the whole story finished, and then Derek went out, got drunk and ended up pissing on my laptop, shorting it out and erasing all the files. Stupid son of a bitch ruined me. I beat the shit out of him afterwards, but he was as drunk as a post, so he said he hardly remembered it, let alone felt it.
I desperately tried to remember the details of the story, and scribbled the occasional word down, the pieces of paper filling slowly. I couldn’t remember it all, and a few sentences later, I gave up. What’s the use? It’s gone. I stacked what little progress I had on the table, pinned down by my dead laptop. It’s become a large, shiny paperweight, a reminder of when I could afford a few expensive luxuries.
Sighing sadly, I brushed my long brown hair out of my face. Sickly grey light filtered through the apartment’s one window, illuminating the room. It was mid-afternoon, and a cloudy day. I’d predict rain, but I don’t have the Weather Channel (let alone a TV) to back up my prediction.
I began to doze when there was a rap on my door. I jerked to awareness, shaking my head rapidly, and looking around. I absorbed my grim surroundings and sighed. I was never motivated to clean up these days and whoever my guest was; he or she probably wouldn’t care. I yelled, “Come in, whoever the hell you are! Door’s unlocked!”
The door opened, and Derek walked in, dirty blonde hair as long as mine, eyes rimmed red. He was wearing one of his white t-shirts that seemed to specialize in showing dirt and pizza stains. His jeans were tattered and had a few rips in the knees. He was grinning, that goddamn smug grin so easily appearing on his pale skin. Taking a few more steps inside, his shoes crunched a pizza box. He looked around and said, “Nice place you got here.”
I replied, voice laced with sarcasm, “Thanks.”
Chuckling, he replied, “No problem. I’m guessing you need cash by the look of the place?”
I nodded vigorously, “Got fired from my shitty little job at Smith’s Restaurant.”
I used to have a part time job at a little, family oriented restaurant. I waited the tables in the Family Section with all the yelling, snot-nosed brats and their mothers. Their fathers sat in the bar section of the place (which was a lot cleaner and less irritating) and nursed their beers, watching football games with their friends. The cook in the back called the place the ‘Couples-Near-Divorce-Restaurant’. I found that hilarious. I got fired for stubbing my toe against a table and yelling ‘Fuck!’ during the middle of a kid’s birthday party.
Derek smiled faintly, “Needles and I are going to rob Patrick’s Bar. You wanna help?”
I ran through some basics. I had forty dollars in my bank, twenty in cash, and about a dollar in change around the room. I could last until the end of the month with cheap food, but rent would bankrupt my ass. A robbery could get me anywhere from two-hundred to three-hundred bucks. It would be just enough to cover rent, but if I got caught…
I was out of cash. Better to be in jail then on the streets, I guess.
I nodded, “I’m in.”
____
Derek filled me in on the plan the next day. Patrick had been running a behind-the-counter betting operation, and had racked up about six grand, according to Derek. My share would be around two grand, an even third of the cut. It’d cover expenses and rent nicely for a few months. That might even be enough time to think of something new to write. All I had to bring was a metal crowbar stolen from the construction site down the street. Needles even provided the ski masks.
I lounged around for three days, crowbar sitting by the door. I wrote a few pages of a outline for a new story. It was about a guy who smuggles dope across the border, and gets busted. He gets sent back to his gang by the feds but they figure it out and get him to be a double agent. He balances things for a bit, and then the government starts cracking down on the gang using the information he gives to them. The gang tries to kill him so the protagonist starts running for it. The government finds out, thinks he’s running from them, and starts to pursue him. The media finds out, and blows him out of proportion as a major player in the drug business. He has to try to make it to Mexico.
Good enough premise, I guess.
Needles knocked on my door the day after. He was wearing a leather jacket, and patched brown cargo-pants. I wouldn’t have been surprised to see Hell’s Angels or some other gang name stitched across the back of the jacket, just for looks. His long black hair dangled in front of his dark eyes. His skin was tanned from the long months of being out on the street in the summer, either smoking something or begging for change. His hands always skittered around as he talked, making gestures and motions in the air. Needles don’t seem to be aware he’s doing this most of the time.
At this point, you may notice we all have long hair. The explanation for this is, haircuts are a waste of money compared to food, and none of us are quite cheap enough to cut our own hair (except when absolutely necessary). We have a degree of pride, you know. I wouldn’t want to be homeless anymore then you do.
Needles always speaks softly, as in a whisper. He’s spoken like that for as long as I can remember. Even in high school, it’d be hard for you to get Needles to get above normal volume. In a way, his voice kinds of sums him up. Whenever he went to a party, he wouldn’t be the center of attention. He’d be off to the side, doing God only knows what and not getting any attention for it at all. Once, when the cops busted into a party he was at, he just hopped the backyard’s fence, strolled out of the neighbour’s yard and walked down the street. While about forty other people were arrested on various kinds of substance possession, Needles walked down the street in one of his pairs of cargo-pants with at least a gram of every kind of imaginable substances stuffed in his pockets, and nobody noticed him (or cared enough to stop him).
He wordlessly handed me a ski mask. I plucked the crowbar (it had acquired a grimy film over the past three days) from the corner and grinned. Needles smiled, and said quietly, “Let’s go.”
___
First off, let me guess this straight: I have nothing against Patrick. I like him. I think he’s a great guy. He’d cut you off at six drinks, but besides from that, he was pretty nice. He let us bums hang around and occasionally give us a free drink or two. Now, me robbing him of six grand does not change my perception of him. I respected him, for raising a bar in the slums, and not having backed down to gangs or the Mob’s protection fees.
The day was cloudy, bleak, and damp, with a cold wind howling occasionally. When has it ever been anything else? I accompanied Needles to the point outside the bar, with Derek already leaning against the plaster, staring across the street to the rows of abandoned buildings. His eyes lit up as we approached, and he grinned as he pulled on a ski mask, and kicked open the door, running in.
Of course, we had no choice but to run in after him. Needles, smiling nastily, pulled out a switchblade and put on his ski mask. I followed suit, with the crowbar held tightly in my sweaty palms.
I liked the bar, always have and always will. The floor was wooden, the stools were covered, the heater worked, and there was a small TV hanging on the wall. Patrick began, “Hello, mates, what can I-” and then paled, seeing a black handgun clutched in Derek’s hand. How was I supposed to know he had a gun, and was crazy enough to use it?
Patrick’s hands desperately scrambled beneath the counter as Derek yelled, “Shit!” and fired twice. Patrick brought up the shotgun, and fired into the roof, collapsing from shock as the bullets rammed through him, leaving coin sized holes. Wood splintered down from the roof as Derek yelled, “Needles! Get the shotgun!”
I paused for a second. Derek was a murderer. How long would it take him for me to be written out of the equation? Three grand as a cut is better then two grand as a cut, after all. I raised the crowbar, held it for a second, and then smashed it into Derek’s head. He crumpled without a sound as Needles darted up from behind the counter. He stared at Derek’s corpse, looked back to me, and sighed wearily. He raised the shotgun nervously, then threw it to the ground, and leaped over the bar counter. I stared at him as he ran out of the bar, leaving me alone with a bloody cadaver. Somebody would’ve heard the shots, even if it was a few homeless bums. Patrick would be missed.
I went behind the counter, and quickly found a jar filled with hundreds. I scooped it up and sprinted out, ripping off my ragged mask on the way. I glanced around the gloomy street, empty on a cold day except for a collection of vagrants huddling around a barrel fire. I began to walk.
Four hours later, after a nice walk around town and stashing the cash in my pockets, I arrived at a train station. Walking up to the ticket booth, I had to weave through a thick crowd. The cashier glared at me. In his eyes, I was filth, most likely. I said, “One ticket. Earliest train.”
He sullenly handed me a ticket after I handed over a few bills, and I departed. I ripped my ticket in half and walked to the departing station. After throwing the useless halves into the overflowing trash, I waited.
Two hours later, and three trains later, the final train of the day was beginning to race away. Night was falling. I stood up and leaped into an open cargo compartment. The few remaining denizens of the station didn’t blink. It was a common enough sight for a dirty person to jump onto a train.
I shared the dry compartment with shipping crates and four fellow jumpers. We all looked equally down on our luck. One sitting next to a large container labelled with ‘FISH’ threw an unlit match and a cigarette at me. I accepted both, nodded, and tucked the pair away.
I had lots of time, six grand, and a train heading to n unknown destination. The cops will be looking for me eventually, but I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it. In the compartment, I realized it’d make a decent story, what I just did.
I went forward two compartments into the dining room, took a dozen napkins, stole a pen off a fat woman while she was yelling at he children to shut up, and creeped back to the shipping containers. I’d be noticed if I stayed in the nice sections, and be asked for a ticket.
I leaned against a container, and cast all thoughts of being caught out of my mind. Nobody would care enough to actively hunt him down within the next two days. As I fished the cigarette out, I splayed the napkins in front of me. I lit the cigarette, wielded the pen and began to write.
Author
Topic: A Few Short Stories: The Robespierre (Read 7461 times)