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November 2008

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Our print division, Comet Press, is currently accepting submissions for horror, suspense, and dark crime novels and novellas. Visit www.cometpress.us for details.

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DEADLINES: AN ANTHOLOGY OF HORROR AND DARK FICTION, will be released in November of 2008! Visit www.cometpress.us

One Afternoon
by Charles Clifford Brooks III

When the world weighs me down I go to the park. I watch people walk their dogs, steal kisses on the lawn, play football, or talk of days too long ago to remember. Some are lost in their own battered minds and mumble incoherently to themselves trying to chase the bats from the belfry. Others are care free and alive in college life. People fascinate me.

I have seen so many happy toddlers ride the swings and slides while their parent used this time to meet their lover. The kids are too young to know one “friend” from another and never think to tell the other parent about it. Subconsciously I think the children do know and repeat that behavior in their adulthood. It would explain the cycle of misdeeds instead of relying on “sin”, the Devil’s temptation. Religion is only a salve we use to shuck off moral responsibility. Marx was right about the opiate and the masses.

But other parents are devoted to their little anthropomorphic answered prayer, and dote on their every step. I find a quiet contentment in these moments. I know that the kid will one day feel smothered by all the attention, and lash out to find freedom. Damned if you do and damned if you don’t. Parenting must be the hardest gig.

In the park my senses ache as I cruise the jogging paths and smell violence in the bushes where I know some passerby was snatched maybe an hour ago, somehow I know the poor man is wondering if he’ll make it out alive. I feel nothing for the mysterious dark deeds just beyond my line of sight. It’s none of my business. I guess there is a pheromone that one monster such as I can whiff off another which causes us to keep our distance. I haven’t heard of a predator of the predators in the jungle of humanity, but I know it’s only a matter of pressure and time.

I keep moving.

I do not agree with senseless violence for need of money or sex. I do not have this lust. No, I am a voyeur peering into a living science experiment of abnormal psychology. Life is precious because it astounds me. If I was bored with it I’d burn it all to the ground.

I park myself on a bench which is easy walking distance from my apartment. An oriental lady is walking her dog and fidgeting with her jogging pants. She is frighteningly slim but obviously appears to think she is overweight due to the nervous tugging at her sweatshirt. Her eyes dart around and she won’t look up at men. When they pass the dog smells freshly washed but she reeks of vomit; a delicate functioning psychosis.

***

On inclement days I travel to shopping malls to see similar faces void of the sunshine and trees. There are far fewer eccentric types, if you can believe it, but the teenagers are thick enough to block every fire exit. Still believing in fairytales, the young couples, holding hands for the first time, attempt to get comfortable in their own skin. They cast quick glances at each other and blush on contact. Youth is precious for so many reasons.

Their counterparts, the elderly, hold hands too. Many, though no longer spring chickens, are in love as if love had found them only yesterday. Although, a few cling to the other out of sheer terror, their eyes wide to catch the villain certainly waiting right around the corner. In the world, now scary places where they feel alone and detached, they wonder why life can’t just slow down. Fear is the fruit of old age.

The solitary, self-abandoned ones are the most tortured. The Invisible are mousey members of this Theater of the Absurd who dress so drab they blend in like motel curtains and seem to be in constant prayer to avoid all attention from anyone who cares to look. Yet others, the Ignorant Undead, are equally as weak and self-conscious. These pretentious, motley men and women pass me in the corridor like the spiteful ghosts with intentionally pasty complexions, wearing pitch-colored eyeliner and lipstick (the girls and boys!).

Terribly shy, they both want to swirl alongside everyone else in this indoor pulse of civilization. Yet, so terrified of rejection they strike first, deeming themselves “outcasts” before the status quo has a crack at it. The eternal wallflowers will more than likely never come out of their shells; I just let them wisp by like the lightest of summer breezes. As for the second group I want to tell those reject cast members from “Dawn of the Dead” to get their heads out of their asses and stop hiding behind a pathetic “gothic” façade. They scare no one but the elderly and that is not a difficult feat by a long shot.

But I say nothing. I just watch. It’s what I do.

***

Breaking from my thoughts, I get up from my park bench because I see a man, probably just retired, coming my way intent upon a conversation. Undoubtedly he’s either estranged from his wife due to the uncaring air a man was taught to carry in “the old days”, or an unmarried antique who waited too long to find a partner. Either way, he’s lonely, desperate, or eager to regale another with the victories of prowess so long ago even he can’t remember the details.

I take off; passing the man as he begins to open his mouth in salutation.

“Hot day...” The guy hurried.

“Hmmm.” I make some noise in the affirmative, fold my paper under my arm and keep going.

I loath to have people look at me.

***

My apartment, since it’s in an old building and I am in the basement so to speak, has access to the old dirt storage rooms that only the superintendent knows about. There is old furniture, apparel, and countless other items from tenants who died and had no family to cart off the crap the landlord couldn’t quietly sell. I pick through the photos and wonder about the black-and-white happy faces in weddings, family reunions, or some special Christmas. Whole lives are in boxes and chest of drawers. I have found old clothing that fits me. In fact, I’m wearing some of it right now. I wash it first, of course, but the vintage quality of some of these get-ups is too good to let go. Besides, it’s not like I took it off their corpse!

I don’t have a job. Well, not a nine-to-five sort of thing anyway. I read tarot cards for some seedy business practitioners, and others of questionable morals, who are too wealthy not to be paranoid. If I see a “future difficulty” and the man across the table is sure it’s a rival or witness for the prosecution that needs “removal”, I can do that too. Death is easier than the cards.

I walk into their bars or office, fedora squarely on my head and two- tone leather shoes tapping beneath me, and then whore out their future. My cards are ancient and my methods almost extinct. A gypsy shut-in who lived in my building told me I had “the sight” when she saw me once as I passed her door on the way to the rooftop. I wanted to see the predicted meteor shower, but instead I was shown how to read the future. The gypsy, Stella, confided in me that she was, as far as she knew, the only other soul who had so much of “the sight” in her.

I was so excited I slit her throat immediately to make sure I had no competition or another pair of eyes who had seen so deeply into mine. She didn’t see it coming and never made a peep. I find it ironic she didn’t “see” it coming. Poor old girl thought she had found a friend in this city that had all but forgotten her. I remember she said it was odd that I didn’t have an aura. I guess it is because I don’t have a soul, or at least that’s what my aunt used to tell me just before the State locked her away.

Today I use my sacred sight and tell it like it is, good or bad, and watch my clients either relax with a smoke or gulp down a drink in panic. I keep my own hours and rent an apartment that’s connected to crypts holding all the old suits I could want. My life isn’t bad.

***

I don’t have any family. Both my parents died when I was young and the aunt who raised me was admitted to a psychiatric hospital three years ago. I still go see her on the weekend, but for the most part I slip into mystic teachings from the books carted into the basement after the gypsy woman was finally found. Her library was just dumped in one of the rooms nearby. I was eyeing those tomes while I was there but afraid to take any and tie myself somehow to the scene. If I have an addiction, it’s to books.

I haven’t much interest in a wife. Anything beyond a nod-of-the-head based relationship is an anomaly in my life. I don’t believe in sex without at least the intent of love. “Love” is like some exotic, gorgeous-but-lethal flower just out of my reach. Attempting such an act of tenderness would no doubt lead to more death as it does with so many others….who usually hire me to do the killing. (So much Shakespeare comes to mind when these hard truths seep into my mental peripheral vision.)

I could care less about a “kindred spirit”. Friends are only those who haven’t snitched on you yet. So I leave all that to the idiots addicted to human contact and spend my free time listening to old Sonny Stitt or John Coltrane records, eat sushi on occasion, and sleep when the urge hits me. I don’t wear a watch or bother with television.

***

Traffic is the cause of the humidity I am convinced as I trod along the sidewalk. I do not own a car. My clients send a car for me or I walk. I don’t fear street crime. I carry a Smith and Wesson .45 in my belt. I don’t mind a good fight, the sound of discharging bullets is cathartic, but I’m not sad if the night comes-and-goes without a brawl. Even our most ignorant understand the gun. The weapon is more for practicality than principle. I feel the weight of my pistol as it rests in its holster at the small of my back as I stroll down this street. It feels alien even though I ooze a dark mood.

“What’s goin’ on, player?” Asks a young male with a haunted look in his hollow eyes and a t-shirt that has not been washed since Ronald Reagan was President.

“I’m in a hurry.” I grumble in return.

“Please! I only need twenty bucks to get my bus ticket home and out of this entire shit hole. Anything.” He keeps putting himself in front of me when I attempt to slither around him.

“I don’t carry cash, kid.” I have heard this story before and wonder what chemical he’s dependant on.

“C’mon. Anything!” I am feeling embarrassed as this guy grows louder and draws attention to us both. Of course this whole “Second Phase of Begging” is designed to shame the victim into forking over cash.

People are starting to look at me. I hate people looking at me!

I ease over into a side alley and pull out my wallet. Once in the shadows, I drop a ten dollar bill on the ground as if by mistake and then bury the blade of my knife in the base of his skull when he bends to grab it. They die pretty quick and quietly that way. I wipe off the blade on the back of his t-shirt and pick up my ten dollars.

Straightening my jacket, I simply wait for a slow drag of pedestrians then saunter back out into the sunlight. No one knows the better and a drug deal gone wrong will be assumed the cause when the guy starts to stink. On second thought, since I live in this neighborhood, maybe I’ll call it in from a pay phone before the kid starts to “turn”.

Now I’m feeling hungry. The diner across the street has a great clam chowder and peach cobbler. I salivate like Pavlov’s dog as I think about it.

“The usual” will be brought to me immediately. The waitress is a roughly attractive woman who was probably a knock-out at one time but is now one drunk, abusive man away from giving up.

She has a thing for me I think. Maybe it’s any man who appears sober and thereby perhaps a nonviolent possible first date. I just eat, keep my eyes glued to the paper, and tip very well. She deserves my ten dollars.

Yes sir, I think I’ll go there before The Mad Hatters Gentlemen’s Club. I usually don’t frequent strip bars, but this particular place has a dancer, Ambrosia, who pays a good chunk ‘a change for my cards. It’s been a pretty good day. I’ll just get a bite to eat and then head that way.

Tonight I’ll meander back to the park and meet a man at my favorite bench. I’ve been given a complete first edition collection of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes novels to kill him for selling heroine to children. The actual reason for his execution is due to some personal beef between this cat and one of my clients, Tommy the Hump. The fact that he sells drugs to kids is just a personal pet peeve.

But when it’s all done I’ll hit the sack. Maybe throw on Kind of Blue by Miles Davis until the night swallows me whole. I smile at the mere thought of it.

♦♦♦