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The Paper Heap of Tragedy |
| Written by Cody James Brinkman | |
| Thursday, 27 December 2007 | |
Cody brinkman The smoke was curling and rising in large blue and gray clouds in the basement of James’s house. His bare cabinets where nicked and stained. Outside the din of traffic had died down, and the silhouettes of the people walking by on the street shuffled by less frequently. James threw his money on the table. Sixty-seven dollars and fifty cents. That was the money that he had withdrawn earlier that day, emptying his bank account. Then he took out the repossession slip of his car. Looking down at the table his eyes felt like they where burning. He didn’t want to look at more bad news. Out came the pink slip. Out came the notice, that if he didn’t have fifteen hundred dollars to give the IRA tomorrow he would lose his house. One heap of paper tragedy. James couldn’t lose his house. He lost his wife, his son, his dog, his car, and three days ago he sold his guitar. That house was his goddamn house. His father built that house with bloody hands, and it, along with a huge stack of bills was all James had left of the old man. He went over his options. He couldn’t borrow money from his brother; his brother lived in Seattle and was probably broker than him. Lord knows he wouldn’t get a loan from his bank.Options presented themselves, and cancelled themselves like that. It was then made very clear that desperate times would indeed call for desperate measures.It was eleven o’clock at night. James went and got his gun. He went upstairs and grabbed a black jacket and his ski mask. Walking down the street that night James saw the masses going to and fro. Millions of people who could be in his shoes tomorrow all of them could be victims of such unfortunate accidents. Production costs had risen, they couldn’t afford to have as many employees. We just found that your father owed a lot of money James, I hate to do this, but it’s law. Then there was always the blatant gnashing of metal on metal when the dump truck backs into your car. Yes it could happen to anyone indeed. Everyone has something they need to protect at all costs,something they can’t lose. Anyone could be driven to such dastardly actions. The headlights twinkled on the street. Someone was coughing, hacking a lung in a nearby home. This neighborhood was **** now. It was nothing like it had beenwhen James’s father had built the beautiful home. In fact James’s home was the last on his street that wasn’t bought up and turned into seedy apartments. It was a Victorian styled home, with a white wrap around porch. The gables had been custom cut from wood by a friend of James’s father. They were James’s favorite part of the house. Yes cars puttered by, shoes stepped in puddles on the street, babies cried in their cribs, and James walked into EZ Mart and pulled the mask over his face. “Hands in the air, put your ******* hands in the air!” he screamed pulling out his gun. Behind the counter the clerk threw his hands in the air and began screaming, pleading not to be shot. “Just empty the register and your fine!” James screamed waving the chrome forty-five in the man's face. That was one hell of big gun for that clerk to be staring down. “Hurry hurry hurry!” James was screaming, he was scared shitless, and he hoped his voice sounded convincing, because it sounded like a squeak in his head. The clerk had gotten out the bag and was shoving cash into it. That’s when James saw the safe behind the counter, underneath the cigarettes. He got greedy. “What’s in the ******’ safe? Open it up! Now!” James screamed. His body had converted the fear to a natural sort of high, and it went to his head. He jumped over the counter, grabbed the bag of money from the register, and knelt down on one knee, jamming the gun against the clerk’s head as he opened the safe. Just as James heard the click of the safe beginning to open, he saw a shadow move to his right, slightly behind him. Then he heard a loud pop! He felt the bullet tear into his upper thigh and sear his flesh. He whipped around to see a thin frightened teenager holding a small rifle. The kid was struggling in his nervousness to reload the gun when James raised his. He didn’t even think of what he was doing before he squeezed the trigger twice. The boy dropped to the floor. The clerk was sobbing on the floor, the safe lay open, and James was losing blood. He scooped a few handfuls of cash into his bag, and quickly limped out of the door. He went outside and realized he still had his ski mask on. He cursed and ducked into an alley, his leg felt like it was ripping open.He got into the alley, pulled off the ski mask and shoved it into his bag, and tucked his gun in his pocket. He continued hobbling down the alleyway as fast as his leg would permit. He made the right into the side street; it would be safer going home that way. The bullet continued to bite him, but all he focused on was getting home. He had achieved his goal, he had the money to save his house, and probably have some left over. He smiled to himself, a maniac’s smile. A smile that only folds across the face when your flesh is ripped open,you may do years in jail, and you have a bag full of money. James heard sirens not far off. He needed to hurry. He was nearly there, a few houses up and he would cut into another alley and be home. There was the smell of thick smoke in the air. The sirens seemed to draw near. They had responded fast. James made it to the alley and began to move down it when he froze. At the other end of the alley, on the street that James lived on, he saw flashing lights. What were they doing at his house? How did they know it was he? He crouched behind a dumpster and cursed himself. He crept closer to the end of the alleyway staying tight against the wall of the brick building. He neared the edge of the alley and stuck his head around. There were no policemen there to arrest him. No pack of wild dogs. Not a single patrol car in fact. James had gotten away with his crime indeed. The flashing lights came from two fire trucks parked on the street, and the raging inferno they were putting out. James’s house, the house that his father had built, that his parents died in and left to him, was burning to the ground. Copyright 2007 cody brinkman |
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