It’s cold and heavy in my hands. I look down at the monkey wrench. It’s silver and red paint has chipped off over many years of use. I look up and there he is, hunched over on the car hood from the first blow.
“Last warning,” I call, glaring. “You get out now and never come into this town again.”
Aww, shit. Right to the left of my car is my tool cabinet and in an open drawer? A chisel lies calling, ‘Grab me!’. I grip the wrench tight and realize this won’t end well any way I try to play it.
That son of a bitch goes for the chisel just like I thought he would and I raise the wrench high and bring it down on the center of his hunched form. The chisel goes flying away and the curve of his body inverts and he drops to the floor.
The things that weird me out most about having done this two times already is one, he gets out of prison, and two, he keeps coming back. And this keeps happening. The idea that he’s toying with me– with us, that is to say, my wife, flashes through my mind and I decide enough is enough is enough.
He’s been here and watched her two times and every time I’ve caught him in the garage trying to pick the lock on the door. He killed the dog the first time and the second time, the police searched the garage afterwards and found a bomb wired to the engine of our car. Every time, he tries to put up a fight but just can’t hold a front against any of the blunt objects I’ve brought against him- baseball bats, nightsticks and a hockey stick.
I’d love to think I’m in the right with what I’m about to do here this morning but I just can’t shake the feeling that it’s wrong. And that is because it is, I remind myself, grabbing a nailgun and checking it. He stirs and tries to stand. A swift kick to the solar plexus stops this.
But what’s humane? The icy blackness he deserves? Or a life spent in a bed watching Bob Sagat cast lustful glances at girls off the set of America’s Funniest Home Videos? I pause. Unmoving, unspeaking, powerless, a vegetable. A fate worse that death? I decide that will be up to him to decide. The nailgun goes right above the temple and bucks once, twice, three times for good measure.
They always say the third time is the charm.
—
A lot darker than normal, I know, but I can’t make remarkably silly things all the time, now, can I?
That’s a rhetorical question and you know it.
On a not so serious note, on the first read through, I thought “hockey stick” said “honey stick”.
On a more serious note, you’re kinda scary.