Since Michael set up the blog and posted first, I thought I might take some pressure off and be the first to put up an actual story. Since this summer I’ve been writing religiously (or in other words, only on Christmas and Easter), with stories ranging from the clever to the complex to the sloppy to the truly-God-awful-and-completely-unpublishable. I’m not sure how often I’ll be posting, but I’ll try to keep it frequent just for you, whoever you are. Please, let me know your opinions, suggestions, and interpretations of whatever I put out there, even and especially if it’s negative (but not too harsh, please. I’m delicate). It can only benefit us both.
So, without further adieu, here’s my first short story, Cacophony:
Cacophony
A car. An alley. Headlights.
“Hey, don’t leave me waitin’ around like this again, man! I musta been here for a month or two.”
“Yeah, well, you can wait. I was busy.”
“Sure, sure, busy, busy. Ain’t we all. You got ‘im?”
“Of course I have him.”
“Hey man, okay, okay, calm down. Where is ’e?”
“Trunk.”
“Alright, well, hows about we get ‘im outa there?”
Click.
“Ok, slow now, let’s just set ‘im down, nice an’ easy like. Here, take this out, we gotta be able to talk to ‘im.”
“Please, please, you’ve made a mistake! I don’t know who you are, I don’t have anything! You’re looking for somebody–”
“Shut it! You talk when we say you talk!”
“Hey, come on now, let’s not be violent, I think you hurt ‘im. Aw, look man, he won’t be able to say anythin’ if you keep kickin’ ‘im like that.”
“That’d be just fine with me.”
“No, no, we need to find out where the stuff is, you know that. Why’d you think you brought ‘im here, so we could stare at ‘im while ’e’s bleedin’?”
“Fine. Then let’s at least make him say something useful.”
“Yeah, okay. Hey buddy, you gonna cooperate with us?”
“I’m not who you’re looking for, I swear, I’ve never seen you before in my life!”
“Well o’ course not, we’re not the ones you been screwin’, now are we? You didn’ think they’d come all the way out here, did ya?”
“I swear, I swear, please just let me go, I can give you some money, I won’t go to the police, please just listen to me!”
“Hey, pal, my partner here asked you a simple question. Are you going to cooperate with us, or not?Because if not, I wasn’t quite done with you.”
“Yes, yes, I’ll do whatever you say, just–”
“Wait wait wait wait. Hold on. You sure this is ‘im?”
“What? Of course I’m sure.”
“No, like for positive, sure. Here, I’ve got a picture, I think this might really be the wrong guy.”
“I– I don’t…”
“Look, ’ere, buddy, put your face up by this picture… Shit. This ain’t the right guy.”
“What? But– how did–?”
“Ah, don’ worry about it, easy mistake. I mean, these boys do look pretty similar. We should let ‘im go. Why don’ you cut ‘im loose? An’ pal, I really am sorry about all this.”
“Oh thank God! Thank you so much! I don’t–”
Bang.
“Whoa! What the hell! Jesus, man, what’d you do that for?”
“We couldn’t a actually let ‘im go, you know that. I don’ wanna hafta compromise, you know?”
“So you just shoot him? I was right next to him!”
“Ah, come off it. I couldn’t a hit you if I tried, you was so far from ‘im.”
“Jesus, man, what the hell! Why’d you even have me untie him if you were just going to shoot him?”
“I dunno, it’s jus’ a habit. Anyhow, it’s a nice rope.”
“A nice rope? Jes–”
“Would you cool it? You might be the funniest guy I’ve seen, you know that? One minute you’re kickin’ the shit outta ‘im, an’ then when I join in, you’re goddamned Mother Theresa over there. It’s like you never even seen somebody get shot before.”
“Yeah. Well . . .”
“Shit, you haven’t? Damn, I woulda given you some warning! Ha ha, that’s jus’ funny! Welcome to the business, my friend!”
“Um.”
“Okay, but all kiddin’ aside, we gotta do somethin’ about this. I say we jus’ go to his effin house, for Chrissake.”
“What?”
“This guy, the real one, we got so unlucky, I say we jus’ go to the one place we know he’s gonna be.”
“I don’t–”
“Look, that was my bad, but I’ll warn you next time! An’ there ain’t gonna be a next time, don’ worry, we’ll do it all smooth like, we jus’ go in, get ‘im, an’ get out, no problemo.”
“. . . Yeah. Sorry, yeah, all right. Let’s go.”
Knock, knock, knock.
“Hello?”
“Hello, ma’am. My name’s George an’ this is Ben, an’ we’re sellin’ our premium vacuums, really a great buy, an’ we were jus’ wonderin’ if you’d be interested?”
“Oh, no, I’m sorry, we don’t usually order things from travelling salesmen. If you wanted to mail us something–"
“Ma’am, I don’ think you understan’, these are some nice cleaners, maybe we can jus’ give you a demonstration?”
“No, I don’t usually let strangers in our house.”
“Well, maybe there’s someone else home we could talk to?”
“My husband’s home, yes, but we’d rather not–”
Bang.
“Shit! God damn it, you said you’d warn me!”
“Come on now, you saw, she wasn’ about to let us in, an’ she said ’e’s here.”
“Yeah, probably sitting up in his room with a gun after hearing that! That was loud as hell!”
“Well, nothin’ you can do about that.”
“Yes there is, a silencer, damn it!”
“Look, we gonna stand here like idiots or we gonna go do our job?”
“Alright, let’s go, but come on, no more bullshit, please.”
“Hey, Rivers, we got a call coming in.”
“Oh yeah? Where from?”
“Down on Maple, a woman said she heard gunshots at the neighbor’s.”
“Okay, let’s go check it out.”
Sirens.
“You know, when you did it, I thought you musta been outa your mind, but now, well, I guess ’e’s jus’ a tough guy to track down. I mean, the odds we get the wrong guy twice in a row…”
“Huh.”
“An’ even if this had been the right house, her husband wasn’ even home!”
“Yeah, well, she probably says that when there’s two strange guys asking to come inside.”
“Funny, that didn’ do quite what she wanted, huh?”
“Um.”
“Look, false advertisin’, that’s all it is.”
“It doesn’t even matter. This is the wrong house anyway.”
“Like I said, the odds are jus’ against it.”
Sirens.
“Shit! Where did they come from?”
“I dunno, let’s move, come on!”
“This is the police, put your weapons down and your hands up!”
“Here, come on, behind this car! We’re gonna hafta fight back, we’re not gonna get away runnin’!”
“You said this would be no problem! Easy, you said!”
“Hey, now is not the time!”
“If you do not put down your weapons, we will be forced to shoot. This is the police.”
“You ready?”
“What–”
Bang bang bang bang bang.
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