knew he was on a path that would take him far from anything he had ever known before. An eye for an eye, he thought. Tires squealed and rubber smoked, as he accelerated the car out of the Hilton’s parking lot. Already plans of revenge were beginning to take shape as he drove into the entrance of an apartment complex across the street from the house where he and Kelly lived. He could see their now dark home. Joey left all alone by his mother while she had an affair. He must be in his room watching TV, Slore thought. The windows loomed cold. Feelings of sadness flooded his soul, as he parked in a handicapped space near the leasing office. There were so many questions to answer. He wondered where they’d gone wrong. He recalled that Henserling’s wife was killed in an automobile wreck last year. Maybe that was when it started. He wondered aloud, “Have I put in too much overtime and not paid enough attention to my wife?”
“If you can’t run with the big dogs, Henserling, you ought to stay on the porch,” Slore said to the night as he started the car. He was not sure where he was going as he backed out of the parking space and drove to the main entrance. He braked at the stop sign and, seeing no cars, he turned right, heading back toward town.
A flash of light… and somewhere far off he heard himself sob, as crazy thoughts electrified him and flashed vividly across the silver screen of his mind. Slore drove on, but in his imagination he saw himself being led into a great courtyard by two large men with black hoods pulled tightly over their heads. All he could see were their eyes. Each man had eyes like a leopard dog’s, one blue and one brown. There was a host of people chanting and tormenting him as he was dragged up the steps to a platform. When he looked up, he saw for the first time that he was being led up to a guillotine. The crowd shouted, “Kill him.” A man was forced to his knees, his head placed in the hollow of the guillotine and Slore became the executioner. The man to be slain was Henserling. Slore protested the execution, but the crowd demanded it. He reached for the rope that held the blade. The crowd cheered when he yanked the hemp line and the blade fell.
There was a honk and Slore saw the traffic light was now green. He drove on. He was looking for a bar, but suddenly, he changed his mind and decided to pick up a couple of six‑packs at a “stop and rob”.
Taking the beer from the convenience store, he drove to the Northeast Stadium parking lot. When he got there, he turned the lights off and coasted to a stop. Pushing the seat back, he opened the first of the twelve beers. Parked here like this reminded Slore of his first date with Kelly. They met at San Antonio College, where they were both taking night classes. He and Kelly had been in the same sociology class. She sat two rows over from him. On their first date, they left class early for take-out coffee and donuts. They came to this parking lot and talked for hours. That night he had not even kissed her.
This was a night for tears and beers. Like a volcanic eruption, hot and violent, his brooding anger finally reached the surface of his mind. It only took Slore two hours to finish the two six‑packs of Coors. When the beer was gone, he carefully drove from the empty parking lot. He knew he was drunk, but he no longer cared. With a helping hand from the beer, depression began to overcome him, and he drove straight home. He did not hurry. He was now more calculating and decisive than when he had driven away from the apartment complex almost three hours before.
Parking his car in the drive, he calmly approached the house he once loved to call home. Tonight was different. Tonight he hated the small stucco house. He climbed four steps until he stood in front of the brown door, numbered in brass, 202. Slore took his key and very quietly pushed it into the lock. A turn to the right and the door swung open. As a deer moving in twilight, he walked into the dark living room. He knew where everything was placed. The smell of the house was his own. He went straight to the gun cabinet.
Reaching on top of the cabinet he took the small brass key in his hand and unlocked the glass doors. Running his hand over the row of gun barrels, he knew by feel what it was that he wanted. When his left hand felt the large steel barrel of the shotgun, a shiver charged through his body. He picked up the Model 870, placed it under his left arm, and reached inside the cabinet for three twelve‑gauge shells.
He was well-trained. Rolling the shells into the shotgun there was almost no sound. Very, very slowly he slid the pump back and placed one shell in the chamber. Clicking off the safety, he moved past Joey’s room toward the bedroom where he could hear Kelly breathing.
He stood in a time warp. In the darkness of their bedroom, his thoughts ran amuck. An advancing tide flooded his thoughts. He fell through a hole in his mind and felt as though he was being carried on a caisson, pulled by a team. Only this team was eight reindeer. The driver was Henserling. Slore was outside his body and watched as Henserling cracked the whip over the heads of the reindeer. Along the route around the White House and down Pennsylvania Avenue, there was no crowd. The only person the funeral parade passed was Kelly. Slore felt sorry for her as they approached. She was dressed all in black, wearing a long black veil. As they passed her, Slore raised his head from the black casket to see her happy, smiling face. He noticed that she held thousands of one hundred dollar bills. The money floated to the ground, as his death box passed by and down the street. As he lay back into the darkness of the coffin, he heard Kelly laugh.
A great debate raged within his head. The debate was led by a voice of despair for one team. Compassion spoke for the opposition. Time stood still as he tried to decode the twisted emotions he felt. Very slowly, he raised the stock to his shoulder. Trembling, he paused then turned the stock down. He put the barrel into his mouth and reached for the trigger. He wondered how Kelly would feel when his warm, sticky blood blew over her head and the covering she slept under. He closed his eyes.
Despair was everywhere in the room. In his mind, he saw the color of despair as a purple liquid that seemed to cover the lining of his brain. The purple despair ran down the barrel of the Remington. Slore had never felt this close to death. As he prayed for God to forgive him, a new emotion stirred in the depths of emptiness. This new life had a name… revenge.
Nervous drool clung to the black barrel of the shotgun. Slowly, Slore removed the gun from his mouth. There would be no suicide at this address tonight. No 911 call. He felt his knees quiver. Weakness drizzled like slow moving honey over his entire body. He was in a trance as he moved away from the bed. Like a zombie soldier he marched down the hall and into the living room. He was demon tormented when he returned the gun to its place in the cabinet, flipping the key to the left, resetting the lock.
Not wanting to lie by Kelly, he fell in a life‑sucking stupor on the couch. The couch became a sponge and withdrew what little energy he had left. He slept. Tonight would not be a peaceful sleep. He was filled with dreams of death and destruction. There were visions of evil and disarray. Slore heard the clop of pounding horses’ hooves. He felt the air rush by his helmet, as he snapped and popped the reins leading to the lead horse pulling the iron chariot.
Suddenly, a light broke from behind a cloud and encircled the chariot. There was a great voice that said, “Follow me.” When the voice spoke, the team, driver, and chariot were lifted from the ground. Slore was free and the horses now had wings. Instantly, he was able to see strange, long-tongued, scaly walking snakes, with widespread wings coming to wrap around him. The snakes encircled his chest. Ripping him from the chariot, they squeezed the air from him. A big yellow‑eyed snake licked Slore’s neck and sunk fangs deep into his flesh, drawing his soul up and out through small holes in the fangs.
Tonight, there were no dreams of happiness, just restless alpha waves bouncing around in his sleep. Months later, when asked to recall this night, he would conjure up a montage of sights and sounds. No matter how hard he tried to remember this night, it would always be out of focus.
When the morning light crept through the small kitchen window that faced east, the sun fused with an array of colored glass from the sun catcher hanging in the opening. Swirls of brilliance were cast into Slore’s eyes. At first, he was not exactly sure where he was and he lay very still in that first awakening.
Then he heard water running. When he smelled coffee, he sat up and looked directly into the glass front of the gun case. The third long gun from the right was the twelve‑gauge shotgun. A vague remembrance began to slip into his consciousness. His body ached from head to toe.