by Amos Gunner
CHAPTER 47: SAMPSON
The last music: my thumb on the steering wheel. A jerky rhythm.
My other thumb rubbed my eye. I wanted to yank it out. My thumb or my eye. Didn’t matter. Hurt myself. My self. Marcus’ lackey. Nothing more. Nothing any more. Nothing to begin with. Nothing even to hate. To my left, the apartment building. Under my seat, the Beretta. Ahead, nothing. I’m Marcus’ lackey. I could’ve run. No. They’d ask who I was. “No one.” I’d be no one. Marcus’ lackey or no one. A choice without a choice. An option of one.
I reached under my seat. I attached the silencer.
Marcus sold me the Beretta. Cheap. Called it a present. It’s what the boys in the desert use. He was playing general. Patton of the scum. Soap scum. Never think about him again.
Tucked it into my coat. My heart beat against the grip.
All wrong. Should’ve shot my heart. Found it then shot it.
I looked at the rearview mirror.
Mirror.
“Be a man. You bitch. Be a man. Be John Gotti. Be John Wayne. John Wayne Gacy. Grow a pair and make the world polish them.” I looked in my eyes.
Ugly. Unlovable. Unloved.
Doesn’t matter. Loved or unloved. Doesn’t matter.
Rich and poor. Saint and heathen. Soldier and general.
All down the drain. Drip drip. Down the drain.
Doesn’t matter.
Ever.
Nothing.
Never.