The World of The Gunny

This is the semi-autobiographical love story that took home the Skyway Writer's Festival award for short fiction. I figure I might as well post it here too.

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AUTUMN

This is the point in the story when the hero stands tall over his vanquished enemies. It’s supposed to be the point when everything is finished, loose ends are tied up, and the problems brought forth earlier are solved in a neat and tidy fashion.

You know how many chicks would swoon over this story? You could sell it to Bantam or Zebra or any of those fucking porn-for-single-women publishers and make a fortune off of desperate chicks in need of a love story. Hell, you’ve got everything in here: love, betrayal, crime, atonement, sex – oh god, the sex – it’d be perfect.

Wipe that sick look off your face. You did what you had to do. You just shot seven worthless street trash cocksuckers who won’t ever be missed. You know that these guys are straight off the smuggler’s truck, have no ID of any kind, and if people notice that they’re gone, they’d sooner suspect that INS finally got a hold of them than think someone killed them.

So why do you feel like taking this gun and using it on yourself? Guess you answered your own question there, stupid – because of her. You don’t want to know what she’ll do when you tell her what happened here. She’ll likely look at you in disgust, think that you’re some kind of fucking monster. Maybe you’ll find out that this was all for nothing, that you broke your promises and sold everyone out only so she could dump you afterwards.

No. Fuck that. After all that’s happened, she couldn’t…

She couldn’t…

“You look like you’re going to throw up. You haven’t gone soft on me, have you?”

Jack looked at Aaron with a frown so deep, it was almost like a caricature of a frown. He walked forward, gun in hand, and passed the weapon off onto Aaron’s chest with a bit of a shove behind it. “We’re even.”

“All right, kid. Hey, before you leave, I want you to know that you did good tonight. Those fuckin’ coked-up spickos didn’t even see it coming. Go home, we’ll clean up here.”

SUMMER

“Look, it’s five thousand. You want this done right, that’s the price it’s gonna be.”

Jack shook his head. “Come on, Aaron, you know I’ve been out for almost half a year. I don’t have that kind of money.”

“Kid, it ain’t my fault that you just up and quit because your old girlfriend came back.”

Jack shot Aaron a severe look. “That’s a low blow, Aaron. Would you want the people you care about to get involved in this shit? I mean, I’ve already got the fucking FBI tapping my phones; god help me if I wanna get credit anywhere; now my old boss just put a hit on me? Come on, man. I don’t want this shit following me for the rest of my life.”

Aaron held up his hands, palms facing away from him, and grinned. It was a shifty grin, the kind any peddler of shoddy merchandise would use to hawk his wares. “All right, all right. I’ll cut you a break, but you gotta do a few things for me. You know this isn’t some small job you’re asking. You’re asking me to take out a man in prison and make it look like an accident. You’re gonna have to pay me back in kind.”

Jack felt his stomach clench. He had anticipated this, the whole eye for an eye philosophy that gangsters used, so it didn’t surprise him that Aaron would ask him for a few “favors”. It was the type of favors Aaron would ask that bothered him. He imagined getting caught transporting balloons of heroin; being strip-searched, with the latex-clad, un-lubricated gorilla fingers of some chunky narcotics officer probing his nether regions.

“So? What’s it gonna be, kid?”

He was about to respond when he considered the consequences of declining Aaron’s offer. He suddenly pictured her, eyes blank and lifeless, with a bullet hole dotting the center of her forehead. It would only be a matter of time before some hitman decided to take up the contract to kill him, and anyone else in the vicinity.

When he came back to reality, his hands were shaking and his pulse raced. Aaron stared at him from across the diner booth, waiting for an answer. Jack swallowed hard, and in a gravely tone of voice uttered the words, “Deal.”

***

“All right, kid. Once more, from the top.”

“His name is David Kay. He’s the head of a crime ring in the suburbs, dealing mostly in drugs and extortion – you know, protection paymen—“

“I know what extortion is, kid.”

“Yeah, sorry. Anyway, he’s only been in charge for a few months since he killed the last boss – Daniel Proston. I don’t really know what happened between the two, but there was supposedly a power struggle going on right around the time I was trying to leave.”

“You left that part out.”

“What? Oh, Jesus, I’m sorry… Yeah, I wanted to get out before it got me killed. I mean, I just got back with my old girlfriend and—“

“Nevermind, it’s not important. So, Mr. Kay was the new boss?”

“Yeah, I was there when it happened too… I’d just told Danny that I was leaving, he got angry and went for his gun, and that was when Kay shot him.”

“Was he protecting you?”

“No, I think I just gave him the diversion that he needed. Danny wasn’t exactly the… calm type. He was pretty edgy most of the time, ‘knew whenever somebody was even thinking about starting shit. Plus he was one of those psychos who trained at a shooting range like five times a week. I don’t think Kay would’ve risked making an attempt if the odds weren’t tipped in his favor.”

“So what did he do?”

“He told me to leave and that was that… well, for the first month or so anyway. He would contact me periodically asking me to do work for him. I’d do recon for him, sure. I mean, I owed him that much for saving my ass. But then he started asking me to do more, offering me cash for jobs. Lately he’s been getting pretty insistent, which is why I’m here talking to you guys.”

The door opened, letting light into the dim of the questioning room for the first time in what seemed like hours. Jack’s pupils suddenly contracted, and he turned away from the door while making a wincing expression. He didn’t understand why they were treating him like a prisoner when he was volunteering information. Then again, he didn’t understand why cops did a lot of things. They seemed to flout logic frequently, which was probably why he didn’t have a problem with breaking the law.

“His story checks out. We have dossiers on the men he described.”

The narcotics officer nodded and turned to Jack. “We’ll need you to identify a few people. Then you’ll need to tell us exactly where he does business and with who. You do this for us, we’ll have no trouble getting you immunity.”

***

It’s moments like these that make it all worthwhile. I look at her under light filtered through blue fabric; picturing every curve, every contour of her body like it was the backyard of my childhood home. I’ve seen it all before, but it’s only now that I notice the smoothness of her belly, the smallness of her breasts in contrast to her hips that’s only really noticeable when she’s lying there, naked. She rolls onto her stomach and I notice her hair. It’s fine, sandy colored; it flows down between her shoulder blades and hangs over her breasts just above the nipples. She looks at me with a mixture of tender caring and sexual mischief, and she beckons me toward her with one curling, outstretched finger.

Right then and there our bodies collide; my arms wrap around her hungrily and my lips close around hers with such longing that I forget she has to breathe. I let up, kiss her cheeks and chin, her forehead and her nose. When I reach her neck her body responds instantly, and when I finally enter her I realize that here and now I love her more than anything in the entire world. She is all I see, my entire existence summed up in something that is so a part of me, but so very different at once. We come together; she is my avatar and I am hers. I tell her “I love you” in a string of declarative statements repeated between each kiss. I love her, and for that, I am willing to do anything.

SPRING

“I don’t deserve you.” She spoke with a sigh, resting her head against his chest.

“Don’t say that.”

“It’s true. You were off doing god knows what trying to get out, and I was down here with Will. I—“

“Look, I’m not gonna say what you did was right. I’m not gonna defend it because frankly, it hurt like hell to hear you say that. But I know what frame of mind you were in, and I know what kind of prick Will is to exploit that in a woman. You were used, that’s all.”

She looked down, ashamed of herself, but more of the fact that Jack was being so understanding. “I’m so sorry…”

“It’s over now. We’ll get on with our lives.”

They sat for five minutes in utter silence, save for their breathing. Finally she looked up at him and said softly, “Promise me something.”

“Anything.”

“Promise me you’ll never go back. Promise me that you’re out for good. I can’t lose you, not after all we’ve been through.” Her eyes started to well up with tears; she pictured him in a closed casket.

“It’s over now, baby. I’m never going back to that.”

“Promise me!” She suddenly gasped. “Promise…”

He kissed her softly, touching her cheek with the fingertips of his left hand and sliding them into cupping her face from her jaw to her ear. His thumb brushed away her tears and his lips kissed where they had run. “I promise.”

WINTER

“You’re a good kid, Jack.”

“Thanks.”

“No, I mean that. If that had been my bitch, I’d have rolled down to her dorms, found the little asshead that she was screwing, and fed the fucker’s balls to my dog.”

Jack looked out the window, watching the skyline lights and rows of concrete roll by. “She’s moved on. I have too.”

“Well, I guess I have to thank her. You wouldn’t be working with us if it hadn’t been for that loose bitch.”

“I guess not…”

“I should hook you up with my sister, she told me you’re her type.”

Jack smirked. “I don’t think I want to be dating my boss’s sister, Kay. Thanks anyway.”

Kay smiled, shrugged, and became silent. After a moment, he said, “Hey, do something for me.”

“What’s that?”

“Don’t ever squeal to the cops, man.”

Jack cocked and eyebrow and laughed. “The cops? Fuck, man. I’m a lot of things but I’m not a snitch. Don’t worry… What brought that up anyway?”

Kay looked at Jack sternly. “It’s my job to worry, kid. Just do that for me, okay?”

“Yeah…” Jack stared at Kay quizzically. “No problem.”

“Good.”

AUTUMN

“You should talk to my uncle Danny, Jack.”

“Hmmm?” Jack looked up from sweeping out the hanger floor at his friend Steve, who stood in the doorway smoking a cigarette while jabbering on about his uncle.

“I mean, if you’re looking for a job, that is. And trust me, if you want to really stick it to that uppity bitch, you should get involved with something that deals with as much vice as possible.”

“I dunno if it’s my thing, man.”

“Come on, what else are you gonna do? Buy cheap-ass booze on line staff salary? You’re barely making minimum wage here and you’ve nearly gotten killed how many times?”

“Three, by my count anyway. But I chalk the last one up to dirty spark plugs.”

“Fuck, man! You could be making a grand every weekend for that kind of risk.”

“You shittin’ me?”

“Fuck no, man! People that work for my uncle Danny, they drive fuckin’ sports cars and bang any chicks they want. Here, I’ll give you his fuckin’ number. It’s the least I can do. I’ll tell him to expect your call.”

Jack smirked and nodded. “Okay, man. Gimme the number after work and I’ll give him a call.”

***

“GODDAMN FUCKING BITCH! YOU FUCKING COCKSUCKING WHORE! I’LL FUCKING KILL YOU!”

My rage takes over, and all I can see is the steering wheel vibrating from my repeated blows. She left me for some manic-depressive Bible thumper, the fucking whore. My respect for her flies out the window along with my cigarette, my can of ginger ale… my dignity. Suddenly I’m lost on some back road and all I can do is pull over before this nightmare gets me in more trouble than it already has. My body doesn’t know whether to switch from yelling to crying, so I do both. I scream until my throat is sore and cry until my cheeks burn from the salt.

But I don’t feel better; I don’t even feel drained. I’m still angry enough to kill and sad enough to die. I get home a few hours later and try to drown myself with bourbon, all while trying to get her face out of my mind. She looks at me from my innermost thoughts with disappointment, quietly condemning my resort to alcohol. “Fuck you, whore.” I say to myself. She has no right to be upset with what I do now. The bitch in my mind can watch me try to drown her with booze for all I care. She fucking deserves it.

FULL CIRCLE

A sense of relief washed over Jack as he went on to explain what had happened. There was no disgust in her eyes, no tone of voice that made her seem any different than before. She was honestly concerned, and slightly curious. “Is he dead?”

“Yeah, Aaron told me they lynched Kay in prison, made it look like suicide. It’s over.”

Quietly she sat with him, looking off into the distance. “So what happens now?”

He turned and kissed her; it felt like an eternity since they had last kissed. When he pulled away, she still looked at him with a question lingering in her face. Lightly, he took her chin between his thumb and forefinger, tilted her head down, and kissed her between her eyes. “We start over.”