Post by curvestone on Feb 6, 2007 18:54:02 GMT -5
Catharsis Part 1
By Nathan Cook
In and out of oceans and mountains, my mind traveled. Backward and behind weeks and months, trading spaces with stars in places I could not dream to find, I flew slowly, silently back from the depths of my mind.
“Can you hear me, Sebastian?” said a warm, tender voice over my head.
“I can hear your words, but all meaning may soon enough be lost,” I moaned, putting my hand on my head. The headache was back and worse than before. It felt as though all the pain I’d felt in my nineteen years of life was bottled up into one sensation. That’s saying something.
“Can you tell me how you got her, Sebastian?” asked the voice.
“Drugged, I know. Dropped here, I'm guessing,” I replied, propping up my back.
As my world stopped swimming and my eyes came to terms with their surroundings, I gave a low moan. I was in a dark alley way. As my eyes adjusted more, I could make out the shape that fit the voice. Her hair was long, her arms were thin, her figure was narrow, and her features were as pleasing as a cherry cheese cake. I recognized her soon as my sight could allow it. How could I forget a psychiatrist that kind. “Dr. Hamilton?”
The figure nodded.
“By the dampness of the ground and by my soggy hair, I take it it stopped raining?”
She laughed at this and pointed to the sky sarcastically.
“How did you find me?” I inquired, rubbing my forehead.
“You have GPS in your phone that I have been able to track ever since you checked into rehab.”
Big Brother is watching, I thought to myself.
Putting my arm over her shoulder, she walked me to her waiting car. “I'm taking you home. Someone as newly rehabilitated as you shouldn't be alone in this kind of town,” she said pulling out of the alley.
Looking around at the houses we were passing, a sudden jolt of fear struck my body, “Where are we?”
“Oh, just passing through the state border into Alabama.”
“We going east or west?!” I shouted in a panic.
“Calm down. Calm down. We're headed southwest from Tennessee,” she stated in a confident tone that must have been meant to ease my nerves.
In a moment of raw terror, I made a final decision. “Don't stop,” I told her, putting my hand on her arm rest. “Don't stop here, Jane. Don’t stop anywhere. Don't stop. Don't pause. Don't park to pee. I need to make it to Jackson, Jane, and I need to make it there now.”
Jane Hamilton looked at me for a moment, and then looked at the road. She took a look at me. She took a look ahead. She must have moved that neck a total fifty times before she nodded slowly and whispered a soft, “yep.” She nodded more normally and smiled at me and the road. “Yep, okay. I'll take you across the state to Jackson, but you do something for me. It's a long ride to Jackson, and I want you to tell me your story. I want to know why you don't think being in that center wasn't a form of rehabilitation.”
“Because it was containment. I wasn't there ‘cause I needed help with my problem. I was there so I wouldn't become someone else's. I’ve never done drugs. I’ve tried to tell you time and time again, but you never let me.”
“Tell me the story then,” she said, smiling as though she was trying to out-do the headlights.
"What story?”
“You’re life. Tell me why you were in drug rehab. Fill me in.”
She must have been joking.
“That story’s longer than War and Peace!”
She chuckled faintly and whispered, “I doubt it. Besides, it’s a long ride to Jackson.”
Taking a deep breath, I began, “Okay. Now, scientific and psychiatric studies tell us that certain people are incapable of loving and/or enjoying certain and/or all people and/or experiences. Sexual sadists are thought to be incapable of human emotion. Certain people traumatized by abuse and rape are thought to be nearly incapable of achieving certain levels of intimacy. For some reason, science seems to think that people cannot recover. I don't like this notion. I do not believe it is right. Personally, I don't find this conclusion the least bit sound. I believe that all people are able to fix things, and that all people can overcome. I believe in the human spirit, and I believe in what it can accomplish. More importantly, I believe what I believe not just because I think it may be right. I know it is. I experienced it. Hell, I lived it.
“My parents were two very disturbed individuals. They were abusive. A belief that all problems in life, including political issues, were my fault caused them to strike me periodically. They beat me and starved me for the first twelve years of my life. If it hadn't been for the next two years, they were in a mental ward and I was with my aunt in Philadelphia.
“With her, things were even worse. She was my father's sister, seeing seemed to be the more perverse of parent, made sense. On Friday and Saturday nights, she used to take me into her room. There would be about five girls waiting on most days. At first, we would play cards, but it would evolve. We would start with poker. Soon, someone would suggest making socks one item, if you catch my drift. After everyone but me was down to nothing, they would ask for the favors. I was going through puberty, so I didn't really have a problem with entertaining attractive women in their twenties and thirties. With the different role models life had been dealing me, I didn't have a part of my mind telling me that it was wrong.
“About seven months into it, I started becoming exceedingly independent. I didn't bother sticking around for girls' night in. I had been finding new and better ways to entertain myself. Now, my aunt might not have been the soundest of people, but she could pull a job like nobodies business. She worked good hours as the secretary for one of the heads of a marketing industry. He paid her amazingly well for both her professional and unprofessional services. This being the case, she could easily afford to send me to a good, high-class school.
“By this time I was fully aware of what my aunt was doing for a living and what we were doing on poker nights meant. It was this that spawned my lack of respect for those sorts of women. I didn't care about them in the least. They became no more than skirts who could show me a fun night and be out of my hair afterwards.
“For me, girls were slowly divided into several groups. In the first were the easy girls, the girls with no self-respect. In the second were the dumb girls that were too easy. These were the ones with too much ego and not enough to show for it. Some guys called them preps. To me, they were just pathetic. The third group housed the nice girls that didn't want to be with any guy. These girls were nothing more or less than a challenge that would become more than worthy of my skills. The next group is where I put the girls that were just too much. They didn't have to be ugly, preppy, nerdy or anything. Some girls behaved in a way that was too much. I kept away from them, usually. In the final group were the real prizes. These beauties were severely above me. They were intelligent, classy, and amazingly talented. Some would be innocent and some would be harsh and intense. Some would be humble and some would be down right narcissistic, but they always had good reason. These were the girls that were always just right. I don't know why, but the only girls that ever became my friends fell into this category. The other girls in the categories were never thought of as friends. They were prey.
“Like many of the guys my age, I took to training myself to woo women. It was like inhaling. I didn't even realize that I knew how, but I did. Like breathing, I learned to control it and harness it. I could be a born gentleman, appearing softer than rose petal. I was dangerous. With ease, I could get any girl I wanted. I was an attractive boy from the beginning, but no one knew it until I moved away from my parents. That was the only chance the bruises ever got to heal. Now, with my new found charm, I was a thorough-breed lady killer.”
We hit a bump in the road. The coffee that had been resting on the dashboard spattered down all over my pants. Hastily, Jane handed me a paper towel from the floor of her car.
Wiping myself off I asked, “Don't you ever clean the floor of this car?”
“Haven't got the time,” she replied with a shrug, her eyes refusing to leave the road. “Now go on with the story,” she chuckled. “I'm not sure I like you anymore, Sebastian... Sebastian... Sebastian?”
“Lion Heart. My name is Lion Heart.”
“I wondered what 'H' stood for. You were put in the cent under just your name and an initial.” She took a deep breath. “'Lion Heart'?”
“I'll explain when we get to the part of the story,” I explained, a curious grin on my face. “Where was I?”
“You were learning how to trick women,” she moaned, rolling her eyes.
“Ah, yes,” I chortled faintly. “My skills served me well. No girl was a match for me. How could they be? With practice, I had learned how to pull off even the hardest of stunts. I could convince an eighteen-year-old that I was the stuff she needed. Given twelve minutes I could make a quartet of prep girls think I could make their day more exciting. Nothing was impossible. Nothing. The mere feeling of power overwhelmed me. It was simply fantastic!
“Alas, the whole affair only lasted a good two months. The important points are that I was becoming very sick and that it wasn't just hormones. I knew all along that I was trying to avoid something.”
“Poker nights?” Jane interrupted.
“Surprised? I was. For the first few months, it was fun. After that I only felt... disgusting. I started to get uncomfortable whenever I was around my aunt, almost dirty.
I could not go on having meaningless sex with older women every other night. There's nothing hot about behaving like that,” I paused to take a look at Jane, whose expression remains indescribable.
I waited patiently for some other reaction. Finally, she spoke. “Then why did you have sex with all those other girls?” she asked.
“Control. I was doing what I wanted each time. I decided the ‘when’s, the ‘who’s, and the ‘where’s. It was about making it all me, but I couldn't ever make it work entirely. Each time I had to alter it a little. I had to work it out in a way they would agree to. It's all about control... and getting out of the house.
“Whenever I wasn't in the mood for a girl, I'd simply meander. At least several days out of the week, I'd visit the gym that my aunt set me up at. Without it, I doubt I'd have been able to do half the things I did after Philly, but I digress. On other days, I might hang out at the movies or go shopping. I liked the ‘me time.’ No matter what, I'd try to spend two hours at the very least in the library everyday. I liked learning. I liked knowing things that other people didn't. It was part of the control. Knowing more made me feel superior. Superiority spawned power. Power is the essence of control.”
“Trying to get an ego, huh?” laughed Jane.
“Feeding one, actually. All those activities centered around self. I was always trying to make myself better for me. At the gym, I made myself better physically. Shopping, I was making myself look all that cooler. In the library, I was making myself smarter.”
“What about at the movies?” Jane broke in. “How were you building yourself at the movies?”
“In the greatest way of all: artistically. I would learn and learn and learn of what it mean to build plot, what it meant to deceive, and what it meant to behave in any way. I learned of how to run a convincing bluff. I even learned how to inspire and be inspired. The movies were fascinating. After not long at all, I started attending releases of old movies. I started renting the classics. Watching movies was one of the only ways that I could mix growth with pure relaxation. Attending museums is the other.”
“Oh,” Jane paused, another curious look resting on her face. “I see.”
“Well, I told you how my aunt was making very good money? She bought me my own laptop. It became like my best friend.
“Shockingly enough, out of all the scores of girls I'd been with in the previous eight months, none had become my friends. You see, I didn't care about people that much. I didn't have specific attachments to people. I understood them, which was pivotal to my female relations, I enjoyed being around them, but as I said before, I enjoyed independence, and I had become exceedingly good at it.
“So, the computer became my best buck-o. I would carry it with me absolutely everywhere I went. I believe I've sufficiently stressed how independent I was by now? I also ate dinner by myself on most nights and lunch by myself every weekend. Sometimes I'd pick up a girl, and then I wouldn't be eating alone, but that's beside the point. I would always take that computer with me into the café, diner, restaurant, or wherever and plop down with it doing whatever I bloody-well felt like. My favorite thing to do, by far, was writing poetry. Man, was I good poet. No joke! I could paint a picture more vivid than the world itself. Each and every time, I told a story that could make you laugh, cry, get angry or get inspired. It all depended on what I was trying to accomplish. No question about it, I was good.”
“I definitely think the ego building worked,” Jane laughed, slowing down the car. Out the window, I could make out the lights of a small town. Ahead of us was a small gas station. Jane pulled in.
“What in the hell are you doing?” I cried, trying to take the wheel.
Pushing me away, she answered calmly, “I’m fillin’ ‘er up. We’ve got close to nothin’ left and we can’t make it across Alabama and half of Mississippi without something to run on.”
I scoffed. I was already cutting it close as it was. This was just wasting my time more. Surprisingly, it didn't feel like she took too long filling the tank. I smiled sarcastically at Jane as she left to pay cash for the gas.
In the corner of my eye, I could see an old pick-up truck pulling to the station. It pulled to halt making a most disagreeable sound. Out of it hopped a burly, old man with overalls and long, scraggly hair. Pulling up beside them was a similar looking truck out of which came a man dressed in orange, blood-stained overalls. As the two men went inside the store, I made my way toward their trucks.
When Jane opened the door of her car, there I sat, a loaded pistol clutched in my hand, a shot gun and several packs of shotgun shells plopped on my lap.
“Jesus Christ,” she whispered upon opening the door. Her expression was one of subtle terror. It was as if she were petrified. She just stood there, her eyes big like two harvest moons. It seemed to take her an hour to move the slightest muscle. In all reality, it was only a matter of moments that she stood there staring. First her jaw quivered a little. Soon, she was blinking uncontrollably. Next thing I knew, she was pacing outside the car like a father outside the delivery room.
“Sit down and I'll tell you the story,” I whispered, trying to sound regretful and guilty. She sat. As casually as she might have had I not been in the car, she pulled out.
Looking at her, I could tell that she was greatly unsettled. Her eyes were again like saucers. Her hands were gripping the wheel so tight that I doubt a crew of specialists could remove them.
She was scared. Never the less, I had something I needed answered. Hesitantly, I broke the silence. “I’m going to kill someone,” I said firmly.
She through me a frightened look, but her past experiences with me seemed to massage her nerves. She knew me. She definitely knew me. She might not have known what I was capable of at that point, but she was certainly aware of what I wasn’t.
She gave a quick and austere mono-log of how I shouldn’t engage in this sort of violence ever.
“I’ve killed plenty of men in the past nineteen years I’ve been alive. The only difference between murdering this man and any other is that I’ll enjoy him more.” Turning toward her, I continued, “You know me. I have a reason that God himself could not argue with. I will tell you why. Just help me.”
Taking a deep breathe, she eased her grip on the wheel. In a voice that seemed to breathe trust, she said, “Jackson, then?”
Nodding, I let out a small chuckle.
“Now tell me this story,” she said, staring me down like a misbehaving child, “and don’t leave anything out.”
© Nathan Cook, 2007
By Nathan Cook
In and out of oceans and mountains, my mind traveled. Backward and behind weeks and months, trading spaces with stars in places I could not dream to find, I flew slowly, silently back from the depths of my mind.
“Can you hear me, Sebastian?” said a warm, tender voice over my head.
“I can hear your words, but all meaning may soon enough be lost,” I moaned, putting my hand on my head. The headache was back and worse than before. It felt as though all the pain I’d felt in my nineteen years of life was bottled up into one sensation. That’s saying something.
“Can you tell me how you got her, Sebastian?” asked the voice.
“Drugged, I know. Dropped here, I'm guessing,” I replied, propping up my back.
As my world stopped swimming and my eyes came to terms with their surroundings, I gave a low moan. I was in a dark alley way. As my eyes adjusted more, I could make out the shape that fit the voice. Her hair was long, her arms were thin, her figure was narrow, and her features were as pleasing as a cherry cheese cake. I recognized her soon as my sight could allow it. How could I forget a psychiatrist that kind. “Dr. Hamilton?”
The figure nodded.
“By the dampness of the ground and by my soggy hair, I take it it stopped raining?”
She laughed at this and pointed to the sky sarcastically.
“How did you find me?” I inquired, rubbing my forehead.
“You have GPS in your phone that I have been able to track ever since you checked into rehab.”
Big Brother is watching, I thought to myself.
Putting my arm over her shoulder, she walked me to her waiting car. “I'm taking you home. Someone as newly rehabilitated as you shouldn't be alone in this kind of town,” she said pulling out of the alley.
Looking around at the houses we were passing, a sudden jolt of fear struck my body, “Where are we?”
“Oh, just passing through the state border into Alabama.”
“We going east or west?!” I shouted in a panic.
“Calm down. Calm down. We're headed southwest from Tennessee,” she stated in a confident tone that must have been meant to ease my nerves.
In a moment of raw terror, I made a final decision. “Don't stop,” I told her, putting my hand on her arm rest. “Don't stop here, Jane. Don’t stop anywhere. Don't stop. Don't pause. Don't park to pee. I need to make it to Jackson, Jane, and I need to make it there now.”
Jane Hamilton looked at me for a moment, and then looked at the road. She took a look at me. She took a look ahead. She must have moved that neck a total fifty times before she nodded slowly and whispered a soft, “yep.” She nodded more normally and smiled at me and the road. “Yep, okay. I'll take you across the state to Jackson, but you do something for me. It's a long ride to Jackson, and I want you to tell me your story. I want to know why you don't think being in that center wasn't a form of rehabilitation.”
“Because it was containment. I wasn't there ‘cause I needed help with my problem. I was there so I wouldn't become someone else's. I’ve never done drugs. I’ve tried to tell you time and time again, but you never let me.”
“Tell me the story then,” she said, smiling as though she was trying to out-do the headlights.
"What story?”
“You’re life. Tell me why you were in drug rehab. Fill me in.”
She must have been joking.
“That story’s longer than War and Peace!”
She chuckled faintly and whispered, “I doubt it. Besides, it’s a long ride to Jackson.”
Taking a deep breath, I began, “Okay. Now, scientific and psychiatric studies tell us that certain people are incapable of loving and/or enjoying certain and/or all people and/or experiences. Sexual sadists are thought to be incapable of human emotion. Certain people traumatized by abuse and rape are thought to be nearly incapable of achieving certain levels of intimacy. For some reason, science seems to think that people cannot recover. I don't like this notion. I do not believe it is right. Personally, I don't find this conclusion the least bit sound. I believe that all people are able to fix things, and that all people can overcome. I believe in the human spirit, and I believe in what it can accomplish. More importantly, I believe what I believe not just because I think it may be right. I know it is. I experienced it. Hell, I lived it.
“My parents were two very disturbed individuals. They were abusive. A belief that all problems in life, including political issues, were my fault caused them to strike me periodically. They beat me and starved me for the first twelve years of my life. If it hadn't been for the next two years, they were in a mental ward and I was with my aunt in Philadelphia.
“With her, things were even worse. She was my father's sister, seeing seemed to be the more perverse of parent, made sense. On Friday and Saturday nights, she used to take me into her room. There would be about five girls waiting on most days. At first, we would play cards, but it would evolve. We would start with poker. Soon, someone would suggest making socks one item, if you catch my drift. After everyone but me was down to nothing, they would ask for the favors. I was going through puberty, so I didn't really have a problem with entertaining attractive women in their twenties and thirties. With the different role models life had been dealing me, I didn't have a part of my mind telling me that it was wrong.
“About seven months into it, I started becoming exceedingly independent. I didn't bother sticking around for girls' night in. I had been finding new and better ways to entertain myself. Now, my aunt might not have been the soundest of people, but she could pull a job like nobodies business. She worked good hours as the secretary for one of the heads of a marketing industry. He paid her amazingly well for both her professional and unprofessional services. This being the case, she could easily afford to send me to a good, high-class school.
“By this time I was fully aware of what my aunt was doing for a living and what we were doing on poker nights meant. It was this that spawned my lack of respect for those sorts of women. I didn't care about them in the least. They became no more than skirts who could show me a fun night and be out of my hair afterwards.
“For me, girls were slowly divided into several groups. In the first were the easy girls, the girls with no self-respect. In the second were the dumb girls that were too easy. These were the ones with too much ego and not enough to show for it. Some guys called them preps. To me, they were just pathetic. The third group housed the nice girls that didn't want to be with any guy. These girls were nothing more or less than a challenge that would become more than worthy of my skills. The next group is where I put the girls that were just too much. They didn't have to be ugly, preppy, nerdy or anything. Some girls behaved in a way that was too much. I kept away from them, usually. In the final group were the real prizes. These beauties were severely above me. They were intelligent, classy, and amazingly talented. Some would be innocent and some would be harsh and intense. Some would be humble and some would be down right narcissistic, but they always had good reason. These were the girls that were always just right. I don't know why, but the only girls that ever became my friends fell into this category. The other girls in the categories were never thought of as friends. They were prey.
“Like many of the guys my age, I took to training myself to woo women. It was like inhaling. I didn't even realize that I knew how, but I did. Like breathing, I learned to control it and harness it. I could be a born gentleman, appearing softer than rose petal. I was dangerous. With ease, I could get any girl I wanted. I was an attractive boy from the beginning, but no one knew it until I moved away from my parents. That was the only chance the bruises ever got to heal. Now, with my new found charm, I was a thorough-breed lady killer.”
We hit a bump in the road. The coffee that had been resting on the dashboard spattered down all over my pants. Hastily, Jane handed me a paper towel from the floor of her car.
Wiping myself off I asked, “Don't you ever clean the floor of this car?”
“Haven't got the time,” she replied with a shrug, her eyes refusing to leave the road. “Now go on with the story,” she chuckled. “I'm not sure I like you anymore, Sebastian... Sebastian... Sebastian?”
“Lion Heart. My name is Lion Heart.”
“I wondered what 'H' stood for. You were put in the cent under just your name and an initial.” She took a deep breath. “'Lion Heart'?”
“I'll explain when we get to the part of the story,” I explained, a curious grin on my face. “Where was I?”
“You were learning how to trick women,” she moaned, rolling her eyes.
“Ah, yes,” I chortled faintly. “My skills served me well. No girl was a match for me. How could they be? With practice, I had learned how to pull off even the hardest of stunts. I could convince an eighteen-year-old that I was the stuff she needed. Given twelve minutes I could make a quartet of prep girls think I could make their day more exciting. Nothing was impossible. Nothing. The mere feeling of power overwhelmed me. It was simply fantastic!
“Alas, the whole affair only lasted a good two months. The important points are that I was becoming very sick and that it wasn't just hormones. I knew all along that I was trying to avoid something.”
“Poker nights?” Jane interrupted.
“Surprised? I was. For the first few months, it was fun. After that I only felt... disgusting. I started to get uncomfortable whenever I was around my aunt, almost dirty.
I could not go on having meaningless sex with older women every other night. There's nothing hot about behaving like that,” I paused to take a look at Jane, whose expression remains indescribable.
I waited patiently for some other reaction. Finally, she spoke. “Then why did you have sex with all those other girls?” she asked.
“Control. I was doing what I wanted each time. I decided the ‘when’s, the ‘who’s, and the ‘where’s. It was about making it all me, but I couldn't ever make it work entirely. Each time I had to alter it a little. I had to work it out in a way they would agree to. It's all about control... and getting out of the house.
“Whenever I wasn't in the mood for a girl, I'd simply meander. At least several days out of the week, I'd visit the gym that my aunt set me up at. Without it, I doubt I'd have been able to do half the things I did after Philly, but I digress. On other days, I might hang out at the movies or go shopping. I liked the ‘me time.’ No matter what, I'd try to spend two hours at the very least in the library everyday. I liked learning. I liked knowing things that other people didn't. It was part of the control. Knowing more made me feel superior. Superiority spawned power. Power is the essence of control.”
“Trying to get an ego, huh?” laughed Jane.
“Feeding one, actually. All those activities centered around self. I was always trying to make myself better for me. At the gym, I made myself better physically. Shopping, I was making myself look all that cooler. In the library, I was making myself smarter.”
“What about at the movies?” Jane broke in. “How were you building yourself at the movies?”
“In the greatest way of all: artistically. I would learn and learn and learn of what it mean to build plot, what it meant to deceive, and what it meant to behave in any way. I learned of how to run a convincing bluff. I even learned how to inspire and be inspired. The movies were fascinating. After not long at all, I started attending releases of old movies. I started renting the classics. Watching movies was one of the only ways that I could mix growth with pure relaxation. Attending museums is the other.”
“Oh,” Jane paused, another curious look resting on her face. “I see.”
“Well, I told you how my aunt was making very good money? She bought me my own laptop. It became like my best friend.
“Shockingly enough, out of all the scores of girls I'd been with in the previous eight months, none had become my friends. You see, I didn't care about people that much. I didn't have specific attachments to people. I understood them, which was pivotal to my female relations, I enjoyed being around them, but as I said before, I enjoyed independence, and I had become exceedingly good at it.
“So, the computer became my best buck-o. I would carry it with me absolutely everywhere I went. I believe I've sufficiently stressed how independent I was by now? I also ate dinner by myself on most nights and lunch by myself every weekend. Sometimes I'd pick up a girl, and then I wouldn't be eating alone, but that's beside the point. I would always take that computer with me into the café, diner, restaurant, or wherever and plop down with it doing whatever I bloody-well felt like. My favorite thing to do, by far, was writing poetry. Man, was I good poet. No joke! I could paint a picture more vivid than the world itself. Each and every time, I told a story that could make you laugh, cry, get angry or get inspired. It all depended on what I was trying to accomplish. No question about it, I was good.”
“I definitely think the ego building worked,” Jane laughed, slowing down the car. Out the window, I could make out the lights of a small town. Ahead of us was a small gas station. Jane pulled in.
“What in the hell are you doing?” I cried, trying to take the wheel.
Pushing me away, she answered calmly, “I’m fillin’ ‘er up. We’ve got close to nothin’ left and we can’t make it across Alabama and half of Mississippi without something to run on.”
I scoffed. I was already cutting it close as it was. This was just wasting my time more. Surprisingly, it didn't feel like she took too long filling the tank. I smiled sarcastically at Jane as she left to pay cash for the gas.
In the corner of my eye, I could see an old pick-up truck pulling to the station. It pulled to halt making a most disagreeable sound. Out of it hopped a burly, old man with overalls and long, scraggly hair. Pulling up beside them was a similar looking truck out of which came a man dressed in orange, blood-stained overalls. As the two men went inside the store, I made my way toward their trucks.
When Jane opened the door of her car, there I sat, a loaded pistol clutched in my hand, a shot gun and several packs of shotgun shells plopped on my lap.
“Jesus Christ,” she whispered upon opening the door. Her expression was one of subtle terror. It was as if she were petrified. She just stood there, her eyes big like two harvest moons. It seemed to take her an hour to move the slightest muscle. In all reality, it was only a matter of moments that she stood there staring. First her jaw quivered a little. Soon, she was blinking uncontrollably. Next thing I knew, she was pacing outside the car like a father outside the delivery room.
“Sit down and I'll tell you the story,” I whispered, trying to sound regretful and guilty. She sat. As casually as she might have had I not been in the car, she pulled out.
Looking at her, I could tell that she was greatly unsettled. Her eyes were again like saucers. Her hands were gripping the wheel so tight that I doubt a crew of specialists could remove them.
She was scared. Never the less, I had something I needed answered. Hesitantly, I broke the silence. “I’m going to kill someone,” I said firmly.
She through me a frightened look, but her past experiences with me seemed to massage her nerves. She knew me. She definitely knew me. She might not have known what I was capable of at that point, but she was certainly aware of what I wasn’t.
She gave a quick and austere mono-log of how I shouldn’t engage in this sort of violence ever.
“I’ve killed plenty of men in the past nineteen years I’ve been alive. The only difference between murdering this man and any other is that I’ll enjoy him more.” Turning toward her, I continued, “You know me. I have a reason that God himself could not argue with. I will tell you why. Just help me.”
Taking a deep breathe, she eased her grip on the wheel. In a voice that seemed to breathe trust, she said, “Jackson, then?”
Nodding, I let out a small chuckle.
“Now tell me this story,” she said, staring me down like a misbehaving child, “and don’t leave anything out.”
© Nathan Cook, 2007
and 
all
time for me 
echoes, hope you all are doing well 
