Still playing the game.

Four and a half years ago when I started this thing I implied that I may post a story or two.  Well, it's #FictionFriday again.  Yes, I know.  I'm still cheating.  So what?  It's my blog and I'll cheat if want to.

So, for today, I present the first 1400 words of a something, short story, novelette, novella or even a perhaps even a novel.   Needless to say, my heart wasn't in it and I lost interest.  It comes across as "forced" to my ear, I don't like it's rhythm.  I'm a notoriously harsh critic of my own work, never satisfied. Write, rewrite, edit, re-edit, throw it all out and start over, lather, rinse, repeat  ad infinitum, ad nauseam, yada, yada, yada...

Midlife Crisis He dropped three perfect ice cubes into a crystal old fashioned and splashed a few ounces of Svedka 100 over them.  Barely audible music, a classical piece, played low in the background.  Perhaps Debussy, or Rachmaninoff.  He wasn’t sure, and didn’t particularly give a shit.  Everything seemed to run together these days.  The smell of rain drifted in through the open window, the night air cool in anticipation of the coming change of seasons.  He couldn’t quite remember who he was, or just exactly who he had been.  It was all still there of course.  It lay there buried just beneath the surface of his reality.  If he tried, he could remember the facts of his past.  He would probably even be able to recall the highlights, had there been any.  It was in the details where he fell short.  It hadn’t been a particularly bad or traumatic past, or for that matter noteworthy, it had just been there.  A past that he didn’t give a flying fuck about.  His marriage had been fun while it lasted.  It just hadn’t lasted.  They both had known it was time to end it.  The divorce had not been amiable.  Both of them had been too bitter.  Joan, because although she enjoyed the money, the amenities and the lifestyle he provided to her and the kids, she resented his job.  She said he worked too much; too many long hours, and never spent any time with her.  Stupid bitch.  How could she have it both ways?  His bitterness sprang from her promiscuous lust.  She relieved her boredom with sex.  With the gardener, the pool guy, the maid, the neighbor, his wife and their dog as well.  Well, he wasn’t completely sure about the neighbor.   With any one but him.    A mostly responsible father, he paid his child support, and as a dutiful ex-husband he paid the court ordered spousal support.  She hadn’t gotten much less than she had asked for, and complained incessantly that she couldn’t maintain her lifestyle.  Happily he paid it, just to piss her off, so she couldn't complain about it.  Joan loved to complain.  Not so secretly, he hoped the bitch would choke on the alimony, or at least gag on a dick.  Joan had made her bed, now she could lay on her back and fuck in it. As he approached middle age his generic and not overly exciting life had lead him into certain risky behaviors.  At first they were relatively benign. His midlife crisis had begun with a speeding ticket.  Seventy-five in a thirty five zone.  He was probably lucky it hadn’t been 135.  That ticket fueled his downfall.  A blowjob from an intern.  Sex with his son’s girlfriend, she had been almost 18.  He didn’t know if it was an addiction to adrenaline or just a need for something different.  He had spent every day just existing, now he needed to live.  Some men had affairs, some bought a Corvette or Porsche.  He had found another outlet.  Some people felt too much and used alcohol or weed to numb their perceptions. Others felt too little and tried to stimulate their senses with acid or coke.  Drunks, stoners, tweakers, huffers, crack heads, speed freaks, or junkies.  He had little use for any of them.  They were a waste of protoplasm, breathing his air and polluting the gene pool.  Already dead but too stupid or stoned to realize it.  He was just helping them achieve their destiny.             It certainly wasn’t a righteous, moral or a holier than thou attitude that had taken him down this road.  It was simply something to do. Something different.  Something exciting.             He had started with a huffer; it had been easier than he had thought.  A can of silver spray paint as a lure, a brain destroyed by constant abuse, and an old necktie.  There hadn’t been much fight left in the man.              Three more paint abusers had made it had too easy.  It was time to ramp it up a notch. But how?   The hyped up meth head had put up enough of a fight to chase him off.  He wouldn’t make that mistake again.  He should probably stay away from Memphis for a while longer.  After the failed attempt on the tweaker, he knew he didn’t have the balls to get in close with a PCP duster.  Rationally, he knew the stories he had heard had been mostly stories, mostly.   A mean, angry drunk?  Too public.  A whore from the street?  Not enough justification.   Absently, he swirled his glass, the three perfect ice cubes and the vodka danced.   Paint abusers and serious potheads were too easy, and the meth addicts scared him.  Maybe he needed to be scared?  He packed the bowl of the little one-hit pipe and took a deep drag from his cigarette.  Maybe it was time to refocus his attention.  Maybe, just maybe it was time to put up or shut up.  Why should he pursue the addicts, the serious addicts had already set their course.  Why should he risk everything on them?  In the long run they were just weak willed sheep.  Their fate already determined.  He lit the little pipe and inhaled deeply.  Weak willed sheep, pathetically following the herd.  Too fucking stupid to realize what they were doing to themselves.  The vodka and the weed had worked their combined magic and had begun to blur the edges.               He sat in the darkness and an idea began to form.  He’d need a weapon.  He didn’t think of it as a gun, he’d seen too many movies; “This is my rifle, this is my gun.  This is for killing this is for fun.”   Of course, it couldn’t be a rifle.  Though the thought appealed to him, he had neither the skill nor the time required to become a proficient sniper.  True enough rifles could reach out and touch someone, but rifles were hard to conceal, and there were too many variables in their use.  Wind, distance, humidity, elevation, temperature.  How exciting would it be to set the crosshairs on a target that never knew that his life was over.  A gentle squeeze of the trigger and a second later his life gone.  One second alive, the next dead.  He’d heard it said that you never hear the shot that kills you.   He took a sip of vodka.   Shotgun?  Effective yes, but again hard to hide.  Assault rifle, he could probably find an AK easily enough.  Not the right tool for the job.  Tech 9?  Bullshit, he wasn’t a gang-banger wanna be.  That left a handgun.  It would have to be concealable with enough energy to penetrate and inflect a traumatic wound channel.   The weapon and the ammunition needed to be common.  Nine or ten millimeter, say .357 to .45 calibers.  Concealable and controllable, that leaves the forty-four magnum out of the equation.  It would definitely do the job, but if a large caliber weapon is concealable it won’t be very controllable, and if it’s controllable it won’t be very concealable.  A Colt 45ACP would be nice, replacement barrels are easy enough to get and dispose of.  No internal ballistics to link the weapon and a shooting together would make his life easier. Except, he needs to select a revolver.  A revolver he won’t leave any spent shell casings lying around to tie his weapon to the crime scene.  A revolver would prevent his using a silencer.   A silencer equipped revolver in a movie or on television.  What a crock of shit.   The simple physics of the weapon made it laughable.  He took another hit from his little pipe and drained the last of the Svedka in a final sip, and sat there in the dark, listening to the rain and Beethoven, he recognized Ludwig’s work.  Shortly, his breathing deepened and the crystal tumbler slipped from his hand, the thick carpeting cushioned its fall.               He slept a little later than he had intended to.  He should be at the gym.  He was getting a little soft.  The path he seemed to be going down would require a higher level of fitness than he currently had.  It was okay, and easy enough to accomplish.  He would just call Marjorie and have her reschedule his morning appointments.  None of his clients had any hearings scheduled, and weren’t likely to go anywhere.  If they did manage get out they would be too busy trying to avoid the cops to come looking for him.  He didn’t care, fuck em, he already had their money. See you Monday...