La Mal

Make no mistake, I killed the bastard. I am trying to decide whether I did the world a favour or not, but I do not dispute I killed him. Murdered him, well that is another thing entirely. Murder is something that a legal system, and some fancy pants lawyers to decide. I have no intention of letting that decision take place with me in the room.  That is why I am in another dingy hotel room, in another unnamed city, in yet another state. I have been 'on the lamb' as they say since the night I put three bullets in him. I figure that 3 bullets of the calibre I used cost me about 4 dollars, it remains the best 4 dollars I've ever spent.

Of course I was there the night in question, I was at the dimly lit bar that was our mutual haunt. He was just too far into his cups to notice me at the other end of the bar. Not that I was trying to be noticed, I was just there to have a few drinks, and ponder why the world allows scum such as him to live, let alone prosper. Because don't believe his lies, he was prospering.  Not driving a Ferrari type of prospering, but well off enough to afford what he wanted, and he certainly wasn't missing any meals.  He said he 'offered to throw himself out' that much is mostly true. He did make that snide remark to the bouncer, but by the time he said it he was already being escorted to the back door. The door that I knew lead to a dead end alley. He knew it too, we all knew it, alleys have several uses, and trash disposal isn't the only use an alley can have.

As the bouncer, not actually an ape, but a fairly gentle giant, closed the door behind him, I was already paid up and out of my seat headed towards the front door. He and I needed to have a nice quiet conversation, and I figured now was as good a time as any. I walked out the front door, turned left, and looked down the dimly lit alley to see him swaying ever so gently near the back door. He paused a moment as if he was getting his bearing, and decided that the brick wall/dead end part of the alley was not for him. That's when he turned and saw me. He was drunk, drunk as a lord, drunk as drunk can be, and I am quiet sure he would have never remembered any conversation we would have. Still, I tried. I called his name and he peered at me trying to ascertain who the hell I was.

That is when the knife came out, and he might say it was ever so slowly, but I was there and I was about three drinks behind him in the race towards oblivion. I knew he carried a knife, he always said that knifing a man was more personal, it showed you cared enough about the other person to get that close. I,on the other hand, do not like having too much physical contact with other people, so I prefer a different type of protection. For a 'knee bobbling' drunk he certainly was quick, and his attempt to get up close and personal with me (knife in hand) left me little choice but to draw the revolver I had inherited from my father and fire one quick shot at him.

I aimed a bit high and to the right trying just to wound him, to stop him from coming any closer, and carving me up like a xmas goose. I knew he was a fair hand with a blade, and I did not feel like losing my good looks to his handiwork.  The first bullet wouldn't have been fatal, on that much we can agree. It was never meant to be fatal. But it didn't even slow his drunk ass down. He kept coming for me, and now there was a look in his eyes that I had seen before. It was a 'tell' of his. His eyes were normally a light shade of blue/grey, but when they turned into a steely blue, there was going to be trouble. Even in the dim light of the alley, I saw his eyes literally change colour to that steely blue. I knew then it was him or me, and I figured it was going to have to be him.  I don't remember saying anything to him, either before or after the first shot. I just remember that I knew shot number two had to count, and I made it count. I shot him center mass, watched him stagger a couple of steps then shot again.

I've no idea if the third shot him or not, he crumpled to the ground, and I ran off in a blind panic. I did not walk away 'as cool as the other side of the pillow.' I ran like a scared rabbit, and I have been running every since. I ditched the revolver in a convenient, large, body of water, and I headed for parts unknown. I've moved an untold number of times since that fateful night, a night that I get the pleasure of reliving when I am finally able to fall asleep, which is happening less and less. I guess I should be grateful for the fact that I get to relive that night, after all, for him it was the end. For me it was almost like a beginning, a beginning of a loop of a nightmare that is played at varying speeds in my mind both awake and asleep.

  I killed him, that much is true, it was not planned, it was not clever, and it was not murder. I had my reasons, most of which he knew, he was a clever lad, the ones he didn't know were the ones that only I know.  The reasons that only I could feel, the ones that only I could think. He would never have been able to suss out those reasons even if he'd lived to be a thousand years old. That the kind of person he was. I realize that his 'death' has been ruled an homicide, and remains unsolved. I've no plans to turn myself in, and ask for the king's mercy, and I've also no idea if there were any witnesses to the event, my gut tells me that if there had been, they would have come forward by now, but that is the rub, one never really knows these types of things until it is too late .It was a mercy for him, and for the rest the world. Sometimes the ugly has to removed the hard way.