He knows I hate him. He doesn’t seem surprised to see me as he welcomes me with his trade mark corporate grin. He never stops smiling at me. Not as we argued, not as we struggled & not even when I pushed him to the floor and got my hands on him. I squeeze his neck until his eyes seem to pop from his head. He’s got plenty of fight in him but I have him pinned to his apartment floor. He manages to wiggle one of his arms out from under my knee. He then takes a swing at me that catches me in the shoulder as I tucked my chin. So I squeeze harder. I squeeze until my finger nails start to dig inside his fragile corporate skin. I squeeze until both of my hands flood with the pain of bitter satisfaction  Then I squeeze some more. So much in fact his wind pipe finally gives. The cracking reminds me of splintering sugar cane in South Carolina summers. The fight in him finally leaves his undernourished body. And even in this state he somehow looks better. Death becomes him. He wares it like a tailored suit on Sunday morning. I stare at his lifeless body as he stares back at me with lifeless eyes. I see his aura float away from the fresh kill of his bony carcass. It reminds me of how steam looks leaving the surface of just boiling water. I should get going but my numb body won’t move. We were brothers once. The gravity of what I’ve done hits my heart and makes my breathing stop for a time. A half dozen seconds past before I inhale sudden. The sensation of touch has returned to my once numb extremities. But now my hands are snitching. Both of my mitts quaver uncontrollably as new blood fills the veins in my finger tips. This blood also fills my hands with a pain I cannot measure. Like an intense flame next to frost bitten skin. This is crazy. “Look what you made me do!” I shout with a voice that cracks as I try not to cry. I need to get going and my body wont let me. I have got to calm down. Losing my cool means losing everything I know. I inhale through my nose and exhale through my mouth and wait for the adrenaline to ware off. All I can do, as my heart rate finally slows, is gaze at the blood that’s under my finger nails. They say drinking the blood of an enemy gives you his power. I contemplate that, as well as my own sanity for even considering it. A Knock on the door breaks my concentration.

tap tap tap…

“You’ve got to be kidding me?” I say in a voice so low I barely moved my mouth to say it. The green lights of his microwave say that it’s 1:13 in the morning. “Where you expecting company?” I whisper as I take my attention off of the clock and place it on him. He’s still got that corporate smirk on his face. That fake looking grin that turns the surface of the lips to face the surface of the teeth. My attention then turns again to the now silent door. He always said that he would never give a spare key to anyone. But…

tap tap tap…

…do I really want to trust a liar? I tip-toe over his strangled neck and silently make my way to the door. No surprise awaits me as I line my left eye with the peephole glass. (I know you.) I think to myself as I secretly watch her impatiently wait. A little young for my taste but she’s absolutely gorgeous even with this distorted view. I watch her like a stalker holding my position contemplating my next move. For if she has a key I will have to kill her too. My plan was for one murder not two. I continue to spy with my other eye closed. I watch her while my heart pounds loud enough for her to almost hear. She has on a long trench coat and high heeled red shoes. Just as I wonder if she has on any clothes underneath she makes a move. She looks at her wrist watch and then pulls her cell phone from the deepness of her trench coat’s pocket. (This can’t be good.) Who else would she call but his corporate ass? If she hears his phone ring she’ll know he’s here and just think he’s sleeping. (Not that he isn’t  However, when all is said and done I want the police to have a vague time line, not a defined one. I must find his phone before it rings. His apartment is small and neat. So I go from section to section scanning the room like a dog looking for a squirrel. Then I see it on his night stand just as it lights up and I know it’s too late. But it only vibrates quietly, just enough to move itself a few inches sideways. (Whew) Again I step over my fallen foe and put my left eye to the whole in the door. Her lips move sexy while she leaves him a voice-mail he will never receive. She hangs up; she looks at the door disappointed and then leaves. I’m disappointed too. For me and this guy were supposed to unite and change the game. This guy was welcomed in my family by my mother as one of her other children. This guy was the most intelligent man I knew. But money, power, envy and vanity changed everything. Now it’s time to get to work.

I think about the increase in jail time when a murder is premeditated as I pull my supplies from my pick up truck. I pull a wheel chair out from the back first and unfold it so that it’s ready to roll. Then I take a plastic Halloween bag from the cab stuffed with goodies that says “Trick or Treat” I place the bag in the wheelchair and dig through it for my mask. After my new look, I head back to my dead friend’s apartment rolling the chair, bag & my masked self with double time steps. He was still waiting. He was still smiling and his eyes were still open. No matter, I have been planning this for a year. I told him not to let any position he held, or how much money he made, let him think that he could disrespect me. He did anyway, so I waited while he had the satisfaction of playing me like a sucker. The smile on his face, almost professed that he knew I was coming. No matter, what’s done is done. I have a nice resting spot for you in at the bottom of Floridian waters. But first we dress up. Its Halloween night, & I chose this day so that I could transport his bony ass easily. Now that were all dressed up, it’s time to move. After I wipe his apartment down with ammonia and Pine Sol, I lock the door behind us and then wheel his dead ass to the elevator. My truck is on the roof just 2 flights up. Of course  the elevator stops on the next floor up. Some drunken couple gets on with us. They make an interesting couple. He is even skinnier than my dead friend and he nailed his costume. He is dressed as Waldo from the “Where is Waldo?” comic strip. They are staring at us as they enter the elevator, so I put the attention on me. “Waldo… right?” I say as the man looks at me but the woman stares at my lifeless buddy. “Who are you guys supposed to be?” she says cutting across her boyfriend’s answer of “Yes!” She makes the tandem an odd couple for she has to be 400 pounds easy. She is dressed as a witch with a cleavage friendly black velvet dress. “I am the Grim Reaper and this is death.” I say to the suspicious looking odd couple. The door opens on the roof but they keep staring at my dead companion’s masked face. “What’s his problem?” says the busty woman with glassy eyes staring. “He’s drunk and he’s stuck in character!” I say as we all exit the elevator. They exit to the roof as I do, and as I look at my truck my heart stops. For his beautiful booty call is next to my truck looking through the tinted widows! (Jesus Christ!) With her back turned to the doorway I was rolling him through, I try to back pedal to the elevator quickly. Thankfully the elevator was still there but she saw us. “HEY!” she screams from about 20 yards away as I hit the button in a panic. I’ve never seen a fucking door open or close so slowly. As the elevator goes down I can hear the fast paced clicking of those high heeled red shoes. “Dammit!!!” I say as the door open slowly again. My acquaintance and I are now in a wheel chair race. I run full speed while his masked light bulb head flops wildly back and forth. We are at his apartment’s front door and back to square one. I unlock the door and push us both in feverishly. Now we wait. Again I try to control my breathing so she won’t hear me if she comes to the door. I wait again with one eye on the peephole. Again, she appears on the opposite side of it. She doesn’t knock this time; she just stares at the peephole as I stare back. Almost like she knows, or does she? (If she had a key she would have used it by now.) My common sense calls. So I try to relax my mind into a plan B. Quietly I wheel him next to his TV facing him to the living room couch. Then I take my mask off and sit down on the very couch he’s facing. And there he sits, still peering at me with those open eyes through the holes of his mask. Kind of creepy, but with the mask on I can’t see his mouth at least. Interestingly enough, the mask I brought for him has a horrified face with that same corporate smile. Wow. I lay back and try to relax. Somehow I fall asleep with the last image in my head being that of my fallen comrade.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

I awake to a pounding at the door. “Police… Open Up!!!” (Sonofabitch) This can’t be happening. The disorientation of just waking up makes me hope that I’m just paranoid.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

This is your last warning! I rush for my bag as I try to make sense of this. I pull out my true pal who never betrayed me like the one that sits across from me staring. It’s a 44 Caliber snub nose Bulldog, and we have been cool for a long time. “Prison is not an option. I’m not built or fit to be caged.” I say looking at him as I point the gun to the center of my brain. I say the Lord’s Prayer silent as the Cops scurry outside. Then I speak out loud so that the cops and my very dead pal can both hear me. “All I ever wanted was for us to ball together” “All I ever wanted was your respect” “All I ever wanted was the brother my real life brother failed to be.” He never answers me, he just sits, stares and smiles as the cops burst through the door. I pull the trigger and see a brilliant flash of light before nothingness.

“Baby… Baby?!.” (My lady says waking me up from my terrible dream.) “I hope you had a good nap because we have a bunch of cars pulling up to the house. “Give me a minute” I say as I hit the closet and put on my Grim Reaper outfit. The doorbell rings as we both make our way down the stairs. “I hope you didn’t invite “him” she says and continues. “You know he’s not welcome here anymore.” I say nothing still a little shaken up off my mind’s vivid horror movie. Until I opened the door that is. I didn’t invite him, I didn’t tell him or his circle about this party and I certainly didn’t know what he was wearing. But there he was in my doorway, holding a 44 Caliber snub nose Bulldog, wearing that same horrified mask that possessed that same corporate smile. I am speechless as he points the gun at me before screaming…

HAPPY HALLOWEEN…
Fin~