writetryout6

[hswan...@gmail.com]

The field was empty. The wispy mist that had settled over the forest still float between the trees and left an ominous haze a top the black pines. He stood in the middle of the clearing, his wet hair stuck to hollow cheeks, his clothing was dark, due to the fact it was drenched in water. He shivered as he watched me. Knowing exactly what I was planning to do. Tightening the grip of the revolver in my wet hand, I flawlessly leveled the gun at his head. And without a pause squeezed the trigger.

“You know, I must admit whenever you have the night shift, the pie tastes a lot better.” I smile as I scoop up another forkful, of the famous pie that was almost gone.
“Oh Alan you’re just the sweetest thing.” She giggles, blushing and brushed her blonde hair out of her face.
“But you are right,” we both laugh as she wipes off the other side of the red counter , playfully twirling her checker boarded waitress uniform. Loping along, eyeing me for attention. I snicker at her blonde bounciness. The cook, a hefty dark-skinned man, glanced out just in time to watch her do one last little twirl as she reached the end of the counter.
“Hey! Doris stop acting like a damn ballerina, and get back to work!” He snarled at her, nodding at two well-known customers that just entered the café.
She slapped the rag down, turning and glaring at his sweaty face with her skinny fingers on her hips.
“While all right then, not like I wasn’t wiping off the counter!” She grumbles throwing the rag back in a sink, out of sight from any customers. She floats back to me and leans over so I could plainly see down her shirt, as she took my empty plate away.
“Anything else I can get ya’ honey?” she smiled, disappearing into the kitchen to take care of the plate then appearing a second later.
“No thank you I am stuffed as could be.” I stretch my arms out, and pat my stomach, as if to show her how full I was. She giggles and leans close to me, so that I could smell her cheap perfume.
‘When are you gonna agree to take me out, Al? I’ve been asking since you started eating here.” She places her face in her hands, and bats her big shiny blue eyes at me, in a child-like fashion. I am about to tell her, that I’m not handsome enough for a pretty little thing like her, but I feel my phone vibrates in my pocket.
“Hold that thought,” I smile, a disappointed look crosses her face, and gracefully pull my phone from my pocket. I know who it is before I even put the phone to my ear. No one else would call this late.
There is just crackling at first, then a voice echoes some sort of greeting, that is inaudible. The voice is gravelly and full of static that I don’t think is from the phones. After a second what he was saying becomes clearer.
“You’re wanted at the House. Mr. Smith has a job for you.” The crackling echoes for a second and then he hangs up. I sign and place the phone back into my pocket.
“While, looks like I have to go, but I will see you tomorrow night.” She huffs and stomps her foot at me.
“I thought we were going to talk.” Rolling her eyes as said this.
“Sorry sweetie, duty calls.” I get up from the stool, leaving a couple twenties on the counter. Walking across the tiled floor, with Doris’s unhappy trio of fare-wells echoing in my ears, I feel an empty hole curve out a spot in my stomach, a sensation that I always feel when I go to “work.”

The House is covered up with the shadow of the full moon, making it darker than it should be. I slam the car door shut and slink, my shoulders slumped and my collar up, toward the side door which is more like a crimped piece of tin shoved up against a large hole in the wall, then an actually door. The House isn’t a house at all; it’s a huge, broken down old warehouse that sits, rusted, on the edge of the dock, waiting for a demolishing that will never come.
I smack my fist against the door, and it echoes loudly off the tin walls. It takes a second, before a face appears on the side, to peer out at me. He doesn’t say anything just gives me a studied look, up and down, side to side and then slides the door open, permitting me passage. I step around him, and come in, still a little taken aback by the immense size of our meeting spot.
The entire warehouse is empty, which doesn’t make it look any smaller, except for a small table, with one man seated in a metal chair with two larger men standing on each side. It’s Mr. Smith.
I walk across the room, more than aware of my feet loudly slapping against the concrete and breaking the silence that so placidly held the room before I entered. As soon as I get within a few meters of him he stands and greets me with a sullen nod. Mr. Smith is a short man; much shorted then me with a grim expression always plastered on his pale face. He wears a blazer, with shoes that I believe are too big for his feet. His hair is blonde, but he slicks is back with enough grease to make it look more dirty brown then blonde. If anyone who didn’t know who he was, saw him, just wandering the streets the with a grim-faced frown and his awkward little gaunt, they would have a hard time not laughing.
There is no chair for me to sit down in, so I stand my hands neatly folded in front of me as Mr. Smith takes his seat and leans back, running one hand through his greasy hair.
“Last job I gave you, you made no mistakes.” He places his elbows on the table, and puts his knuckles against his tight lips.
“It’s rare that I get a guy that can do that.”
“Thank you sir.” He nods, at my acknowledgement and snaps at one of the bodyguards, who immediately reaches down and picks up a suite case that was at his feet that I hadn’t noticed till now. The hefty guard places it on the table in front of Mr. Smith.
“I was planning on giving this job to another guy,” He scratches his chin and snaps open the suite case, “but then I remembered how well you handled your last case. So I decided that you could have this one. As a reward.” He pulls out a manila folder, pushing the suite case toward the guard, who shuts it and neatly takes it from the table. He puts the folder in front of him, and looks at me.
“I am hoping that you happen to remember Marcus Jin?” I feel my lips tighten and my stomach drop, I place one hand on the table to keep my balance. He watches me for a second then smiles, and then opens the folder.
“That’s what I thought.” He pulls out a picture of an aged man and places it in front of me.
“Mr. Jin, as you know, has risen in the ranks, shall we say, and now owns many of the upper parts of Manhattan and New York City. But,” he points at the picture,” as you can see he is getting closer and closer to death. And we believe that when he passes we will be able to take the area that his dynasty has controlled for the last twenty years. Unfortunately Mr. Jin has a young son, Lee, that he has molded to be his successor when he passes. This boy,” Mr. Smith pulls out another picture of a twentyish old boy sitting at a restaurant, a smug look on his young face, “is the obstacle in our way. And that Mr. Volta is where you come in.” He pauses and we make eye-contact. I look down at him; the hole in my stomach is growing bigger.
“You want me to kill Marcus Lee’s son so we can take control of the upper Manhattan area.” This isn’t a question, as it is more of a statement. Mr. Smith unfolds his hands, and lays them on the table, leaning forward, and staring up at me.
“There is another reason I want Lee Jin dead, Mr. Volta. I wasn’t going to give you this job, given the fact that you may be more emotional involved with Marcus than anyone else. But then I realized something,” He stands, his hands stretching out, fingers tensing like spiders getting ready to jump on their prey, “your emotional involvement with Marcus Jin in the past is what is going to make it so much easier for you to destroy his son.” His voice grows quiet, and he slowly sits down again folding the pictures back into the folder.
“Now tell me Mr. Volta. Do we have a deal?” He holds out his hand, while his lips tighten with a slim smile.
I take his hand and shake it without pause.
“Of course sir.”
“Wonderful.” He claps his hands together, and gives me the folder.
“Everything about the little son of a bitch is in there, I expect him dead by the end of this week.” I nod my head and turn to go, feeling numb on the inside.
“Oh and Mr. Volta one more thing,” I turn back around as he stands and licks his lips.
“Have fun with this one. I know you’ve waited a long time for this.” I leave without a physical acknowledgement of his comment.
But inside my head, behind my eyes I can feel a burning. A burning that lasts as I walk into the frozen night. A burning that continues as I get into my car. A burning that I had mostly forgotten about until, I heard his name. And now I had been given the honor of ending his legacy. I would destroy the only thing that would keep his memory alive after he was long gone. Exactly like he had destroyed my life.

My home is large and empty. The cold that seemed only to chill my skin while I was outside has seeped into the unfilled space that lays dark until I come home. It didn’t use to be this to be like this. If I had come home this late she would have kept the house warm, sat in a chair in the living room, with a dull lamp lighting the words of an oversized book in her hands. When she heard me come into the room, her eyes would slowly rise from the tightly packed pages and she would smile, not once looking tired, and shut the book, and place it in her lap.
I ruin my own fantasies by dropping my keys on the darkly tiled kitchen table, the noise echoes throughout the house, an empty howl, screaming to all my unfeeling furniture that I was home. It would never be home though. Never again would I call this place a home. It was nothing more than a space that slept and ate in. Other than that every single connection that I had with this now dreadful inhabitance died along with her.
Trudging up the wood stairs I stop a second on the landing. No matter how dark it is I can still see the blackened spot at the top. A stain that the cleaner apologized for not being able to remove. A flash of her lying at the top of those steps, eyes rolled into the back of her head, mouth wide open in a wretched silent scream, and hands strained forward clawing for me, danced mockingly through my eyes.
I place my hand on the railing and squeeze my eyes shut. She was still there. Stuck silently screaming behind the darkness of my lids. I thought that part of it had been forgotten. All of it. Everything that had happened. But I had just forced myself into a delusion that it had just floated into the skis, when really it hadn’t. She was there in the back of my head all along. This act. This thing that was part of my job that I was going to do tomorrow would send her away. I would forget, and the stain would stop being noticeable, the house wouldn’t smell like her, I could flirt with Doris and feel nothing. I would forget. If I destroyed this man, I would redeem myself, I would redeem my life, and most importantly I would redeem her.
I started walking up again, not being able to keep my eyes from the brown spot that shined unnaturally in the moonlight that came in through the skyline. My room was empty, cold, and too big. Exactly like the rest of the house. I lie down, but I have a feeling that I won’t sleep and I’m right. I lie staring at the ceiling for hours, the same sequence of events flashing through my head, over and over, and over again.

……. I am coming home late from a job, a job that she begged me not to take. This side of this gang, it’s just too dangerous Alan. She grabbed my hands, and looked up at me. I am pleading that you don’t take this job, it’s too dangerous. I laughed. I told her that I’d be fine, that she’d be fine, that we’d be fine. But I was wrong, I was so absolutely wrong. The light in the living room is on when I pull up to the house. I’m excited to see her. Talk about something other than work. Open the door; shout out her name, like they did in the 60’s coke-a-cola commercials. She usually doesn’t come to the door, just calls out a greeting that bids me entrance to her favorite room. This time there’s no answer. No banter. No noise. I think nothing of it, throw my coat on the chair, walk to the living room. Lamps on but she’s not there. Her blankets on the floor, as well as a broken glass.
This is where I should have changed it. There is a moment before something terrible happens, when there is a realization that everything could have been changed. If I had realized it. Realized it a spilt second before it happened, it would have been different.
The butt of a gun contacts my head, and I am on the ground, face smashed against broken pieces of glass and spilled wine. I reached down to my hip, my arm was too slow. His shoe makes contact with my face, and he grabbed my gun. They tied my hands to a kitchen chair. There’s blood all over my face. My gun is gone. They’re shouting at me, voices echoing, I feel the house getting emptier and emptier as their voices get louder and louder. I can see one of them has her by the arm at the top of the stairs. She looks calm, placid, but an entire ocean of fear broils underneath. One of the men gets close to my face, he hits me again. The room spins, I am on the ground. I can still see them at the top of the stairs, he still has her arm. The man bends down pulls his mask off. Marcus Jin, he’s younger, hair only has a speckle of grey. He bended closer, one knee against the blood stained ground. His lips on my ear. My head spins, he’s everywhere, she’s everywhere. I am going to kill your wife, and I want you to watch, every second of it, because it will be forever ingrained in your skull. He moves. There. There they are, the other man puts a gun to her head, and we look at each other one last time as he pulls the trigger. I open my mouth and scream a second too late. Jin and his comrade leave, he cuts the tape from my hands, and smiles as he does, his voice crackling against my face. Remember. They leave silently as they entered. Crawl toward the stairs. Maybe there is hope. Some sort of hope, floating next to her. I drag myself up, leaving a pathway of scarlet behind me. My feet resting on the landing, my face towards hers, I touch her. I know she’s gone, her mouth agape, just like mine, the whites of her eyes, gleaming in the moon. She’s dead, and it is because of me. Marcus Jin did this because of me. My job. My lover. My fault.

I roll to my side, the silent scream that she didn’t make rumbling against my ears, till the early sun rises through the window, decidedly bringing an end to Lee Jin.

It’s early. Light barely skims the edge of the road at the upper east quarter of Manhattan. Across the street is large pent house closed in by a restaurants and a spa shouldering it. He is on the top floor. Most likely asleep, with a pretty little one night stand lying next to him. The folder on the seat next to me has a copy of his weekly actives and locations. All the work is done for me, now all I have to do is pull the trigger.
I exhale slowly, and try to relax. I can physically feel the bags under my eyes. No sleep cam e last night, instead every time I closed my eyes, flashes of the stain on the stairs rolled along like a projection from an old movie. Rubbing my face I drop my head a little bit and shakily exhale into my hands. This was my job I had to emotional unattached myself. Concentrate on the objective that Smith gave me, not my own personal vendetta. I raise my head, reopen my eyes. Try to stay vigilant. Try to concentrate. Three hours pass till finally, a slim figure, saunters out the door, and waves commandingly at the valet.
The picture that was given to me matches his determiner perfectly. He sways along the front of the hotel waiting for the valet to get his car. Nice silk suite, probably tailored to fit his tall skinny frame. Ray bands perch on his bony nose far enough down that he can look judgmentally look over them, with frozen black eyes and scoff. His black hair is styled with sticky gel that gleams in the afternoon sun. He’s cocky over-confident, but when valet pulls up a grey Ferrari Enzo I can’t help but think he has a good reason to be. The valet says something to him as he gets out of the car, and hands the owner the keys. The kid laughs, and smugly takes them.
He drives off into the coming afternoon daylight before I even have time to start my car. I know where he is planning on going, making the speed at which I’m driving trivial. I will catch him, no matter how fast he drives, or how smart he thinks he is, I will catch him
The café is small. Family owned. He goes there every morning. Sits at the same seat under the same umbrella, sipping at a steamed drink, staring into the moving screen of a phone. He’s calm, relaxed, just another normal day for him.
Out the window he’s forty feet away I am parked diagonally from him, behind his back so he can’t see the car or me. I can feel the frozen metal of the revolver under my coat. Placing my forehead against the window, I leave a foggy mark with my breath as I glare down the unknowing boy across the street. Just count the steps, and put it too his head…and pull. My finders lightly yank at the revolver, but I titer for a second. Marcus Jin’s voice floats this way and that around my ears. They waited so that it could be staged. They wanted fear to come steaming from me in a lapsed sense of anger. They wanted me to think that at the last second, our lives would be spared. Even though part of us knew they would never commit to mercy. They made me live. Live with regret, live with a hatred of myself for letting her go, for not being able to stop them.
I remove my hand from the holster at my hip. I don’t just want Mr. Lee Jin gone, I want him terrified. I want him to be on his knees begging for mercy, and the moment right before he believes that his child-like pled was heard and he has been spared, I would do exactly what his father did to me. I just had to scare him first.
I pull the rifle up from a black bag in the back seat. Better shot more precise. Sticking it through a crack in the window, I peer through the scope. Each individual piece of greasy black hair gleams against the sunlight. I want to just pull. Watch as his blood spatter onto the clear white glass table. Exactly like anyone else’s would. But I restrain myself. Move a quarter of a centimeter to the left where his coffee cup sits pleasantly on the table. I take my aim, and pull. The cup explodes sending shattered pieces of silicon, and coffee everywhere on the table.

“What the fuck were you thinking?!” Smith slams the folder on the table, and grabs at his head, as if he is trying to keep the anger bottled up inside himself. He smacks his hand again against the steel table.
“How could you miss?! And, and on a job like this.” He turns his back on me, making a noise alike to an enraged cat that had its tail pulled. He whips back around in a fury.
“You don’t miss! You never have missed!” He’s screaming now, rubbing his ringed fingers back and forth through his hair.
“Sir-,” he cuts me off almost immediately.
“Now that little fuck will disappear back into some hidden building in some back woods town, till he has the chance to take the throne. Everything is ruined!” He’s gasping, his breathe copying the swinging of the light bulb above his head.
“Sir please-,”
“I gave you this job because I was sure you could handle it and take him out with no screw up’s, but this is the biggest screw up we’ve had in fucking years!”
“Sir please, you haven’t even let me explain why I missed.” Smith turns, his normally pale face alight with frustration, and stares at me.
“What are you talking about?”
“You told me to have fun with this job, and that is exactly what I am doing. I don’t just want to kill him but I want him to be scared when I do it. And right now he’s pissing in his pants like a frightened little girl. Tonight he is driving to a private airport in Albany with two guards. I will make sure he never reaches that airport.” Smith slowly lowers his hands into his pockets, and thoughtfully looks at the swinging lamp.
“Well I did tell you to have fun,” he thoughtfully scratches his chin the color of his face slowly returning to its normal pale white, “and if you had a reason for doing what you did.” He pauses for a second and then studies me with an unsure look on his face.
“As long as you make sure he never reaches Albany, I guess I’ll let this little trip up go. For now.” He signs, and plunks down into the chair, the yelling has exhausted him. He waves his hand at me, dismissing my presence from his House, and meticulously begins to pick at the stray edges of my folder.
As I leave the ware house one thought doesn’t betray my conscience, she still is spread out on top of the stairs blood still is raining down the stair case leaving an undeniable stain and she is still silently screaming at me for help, but not for long. Soon, we will both have justice and I can stop remembering, stop seeing her every time I close my eyes. I can get her out of my head for good.

The bridge sits on the intersection of two relatively big rivers. It’s a hundred meters across, and made of strong orange, brick columns holding it up. Even in the darkness I can hear the black water freely slamming the brick columns below. It was chilling hearing all that noise and not being able to see a damn thing. Like struggling through a tangled forest in the middle of the night. Debating where to place your foot, hoping it’s not between two large branches that may or may not trip you up. I had my footing now I just had to decide when the right moment came to take a step forward.
They would leave early. There would most likely be two cars, multiply guards, and a lot of guns. He would be in the second car. Hoping that that wouldn’t be predicted. But they were wrong; it was more predictable than ever. And that made it easier
The noise of something loud, rolls over the sound of the river. It’s an engine. Two engines. I sink down, closer to the last brick column I am hidden against. Headlights of the first car gleam by me. It’s big, most likely an SUV. The lights get brighter, within a few seconds it rolls by and unto the road. I count to ten. Here is the other car, an SUV as well the lights gleam in the same manner as the last.
Stepping out from behind the column, I am nearly blinded by the bright lights of the car. The brakes sequel as the car comes to a halt. One of the bodyguards yells from inside, he’s too slow. My gun comes out and his brains spatter the head of the seat. The passenger goes the same way. A car door slamming turns my attention to the rear door. He’s out of the back seat, he’s looking at me with terror in his eyes. Perfect. I level the revolver, and pull the trigger, but he’s moving forward toward the edge of the bridge. Another two shots miss him, he places his hands on the wall, glances at me once more, and then vaults himself over the bricks before I have time to shot him.
A twisted mix of utter frustration and anger wells in my throat. The jump was only twenty feet it wouldn’t have killed him. It would just provide a getaway, I run to the other side of the bridge. In the rising sunlight I can see his outline floating along in the water. No. He’s not getting away. Not now. Not ever. Before I can rightfully argue the choice of chasing him down the river, I’m shoving my gun in the holster, placing my hands on the bricks, and throwing myself over the edge of the bridge into the blackened rushing void below.
Icy water shoves its way up my nose, and into my ears, nothing but swirls of black, cover my eyes, and I’m drowning. I force my stiff arms forward, and kick, and I burst through the surface, gasping. It has gotten lighter faster than I imagined it would and whitish fog, begins to dance among the black trees that line the sides of the river.
Ahead I can see a little head bobbing along down the river. Occasionally a tan arm will appear out of the blackness of the water, as he attempts to swim to the sandy bank. Another arm fly’s up, he’s making progress, he’s getting nearer to the shore. But I’m getting closer to him
Tightening my arms I begin to push a little against the current, that is taking me right down the middle of the river. I must get to the left bank of the river to follow him. I’m getting closer. Within fifty meters. He’s reached the shore now. He struggles up to a standing position, and wads his way to the blackened shore, clothes stretching and sticking to the water.
He’s out, for a second he pauses, and looks at me. Panic crosses his face, and he begins to trip his way into the forest, that resides by the bank. My weary legs snap against the sandy shore and after a shocking moment of relief I’m after him, through the woods following his smooth shadow outlined by the now rising sun. I am running through a real jungle now, attempting to not catch my feet on the roots..
There is a burst of dulling light through the trees silhouetting the dead branches ahead of me. A break in the forest. I trip over a branch and into the clearing, squinting my eyes as the morning fog gleams onto my face.
The clearing is huge, covered in dying yellow grass that sways in the misty fog above the tree tops that surround the circular clearing. I pull out the revolver as I stand, looking across the barren field.
He’s glancing back at me, and as he turns his drenched body he falls, his wetted pants sticking to the grass. I move across the field, not running, but walking, the slick handle of the revolver balancing on the edge of my fingers. He stands when I’m ten feet away. His drenched silken clothing slick ahainst to his body. Not bothering to run, his head slowly droops a little, and his arms, which had been up by his chest in defense have dropped in subordination.
The wet revolver is freezing in my drenched hand. Slowly I level the gun at his head, and pull the trigger.
The noise seems to silence the entire forest. He falls to the ground without a sound, blood staining the grass, never to come out. I close my eyes and lower my arm. The entire world seems to go quiet. Silence wrapping them up. My head is finally quiet. Finally, Jin is lying on the ground. Gone. And finally I am free of the memories.
I close my eyes, expecting, darkness, expecting peace. But it’s not there. A frozen stream of blood, colder than the water, leaks its way up my spine as her dead face with an unmovable stain underneath her, bursts through the darkness, like the dim lights in the forest.
I drop to my knees. Her silent scream echoing in my ears. I feel limp. I clamp my hands on head, screaming for it to stop. Shoving the revolver against the side of my head, I pull the trigger over and over again. But I’m out of bullet, and all it does is click mockingly against my skull.
She was there all along. Succeeding in revenge against the man who destroyed our lives was pointless. It wouldn’t have, and it didn’t change anything. She would always be there. No matter what I did, the pupiless whites of her eyes would always be stuck in in my head. Her noiseless scream would always be echoing in my ears.
She was dead, and it was all my fault. Not Marcus Jin’s fault, not the dead Lee Jin who lay before me’s fault. Mine, and mine alone. That’s why he hadn’t killed me.