Past and Present.

The smoke danced out of barrel of the business end of my .45 like one of those Hawaiian dames. Just like what lightning strikes, then came the thunderous crash of my six shot hand cannon. What kind of day was I having? Seemed like it was gonna be the same as all of ’em, and a couple minutes after midnight I was standing there, ankle deep in a kiddie pool of blood. Believe you me, I’m just as intrigued as you are. Who was laying there, face down with a noggin full ’ah lead?

The poor bastard was a guy I grew up with then as fate would have it, witness his last moments on god’s green. He wasn’t so bad of ’ah guy. He’d offer to cover to the tip anytime we grabbed a burger, he’d always wipe his feet before he walked into someone’s place and he’d never forget to floss.

He was raised like all of us, medium sized roman catholic family. They’d have meatloaf every Tuesday and go to church every time someone died or got married. His old man worked a union gig on the docks, and was home when we woke up and went to sleep. He spent too much time at the bar. His mother was beautiful but, sad. She smiled but wasn’t a happy smile. You know that expression you make when someone tells you a bad joke and you don’t want to be rude? Typical family, daddy drinks and mommy cries. My buddy carried it on his back till the day I seen ’em drop. Over the years we grew older and for the most part grew up, but this guy, he just couldn’t let the past behind ’em. The load on his shoulders was so heavy it stumped his growth. He never liked when I used ta say that to em.

Quicker then we wanted it, we became teenagers. I got a paper route and he started smoking’. I’ll just spell it out, we went our separate ways. I didn’t like it, but the high road was the one I had to walk, and this guy took the road Robert Frost was talking about, the road less traveled. He got into drugs, I got into college. When I left town, I didn’t care what I left behind, I never knew it would come back 20 years later and bite me in the ass. I left him behind and now he’s laying in front of me in a pool of blood, full of bullets that came from a gun that still warm to the touch. The gun that felt like it was gonna break on account of how hard I just squeezed the trigger.

March 13, 2008