In my head I hear that Phil Collins song…

In my head I hear that Phil Collins song, the one where he talks about feeling it in the air. That’s exactly what it feels like. Alternating fits of nausea, crying, pure rage and murderous intents. And as I see the guy across the room, smiling, sipping his beer without a worry in the world, the flickering light from a budweiser sign turns his complexion a monsterous yellow, matching the monster he’s buried inside of himself.

I’m clutching the grip of my pistol so tight that I have to stop myself, my hand shaking the barrel, I could accidentally shoot myself – not tonight. Tonight I correct a mistake three decades long.

A flash: me as a kid, hiding behind a bush and a chain-link fence, having run away moments before. Him: with my best friend in a headlock. We’re on the edge of a culvert, swirling with a torrent of rain-water, a gift from god to drown by. He’s shoving, pushing, forcing my friend up to the edge.

The Bully: “Where’s your faggot little buddy now? Ran off and left you didn’t he?”

My Friend: “He’s here, somewhere, waiting for you to fuck up.”

Bully: “I doubt that. Most likely he’s trying to find another cocksucker to replace you.”

Friend: “Yeah. You, maybe. You’d like that wouldn’t you?”

He never knew when to stop, when to let a bad situation be. He couldn’t just let a bully be a bully, he always had to correct them. But this bully, he could not be corrected. My friend goes tumbling backward, a powerful shove to the chest. His head dissapears below the water where it does not re-emerge. The Bully stands at the edge for a few minutes before leaving. I stay until nightfall.

End Flash:

That song is booming in my head, the two and the four are pounding the inside of my skull, threatening to crack the bone and leak my thoughts out. In slow motion I get up from my table and make my way across the dance-floor. The DJ has a techno groove blaring from the house system. My teeth shake with every bass hit. People crowd me. I nudge them aside as I move in a straight line. No-one notices the Sig-Sauer dangling from my left hand. The rainbow of flashing lights obscures my face and my body. I am a walking shadow, stalking prey among a forest of oblivious trees.

I reach the bar and hide my right hand behind my back. An attractive young female is leaning over his shoulder, whispering in his ear. I walk up to his side, staring directly at him. My whole body is shaking, my stomach is trying to both jump out of my mouth and drop out of my ass, my heart is going to explode. He notices me and my less than casual glare.

Bully: “Can I help you?”

Me: “Are you Erich Doneman?”

Bully with an unbelieving look: “How do you that name?”

I don’t give myself time to think. I pull my right arm up level with his face, in less than a few thousandths of a second we’ve gone from conversation to murder. I close my eyes as I squeeze the trigger. Many screams are heard and there is the sound of glass shattering, of people stampeding to safety. An incredible force smashes my right side. A guard has tackled me and pinned me under the bar. All the senses are a blur: taste of blood and sweat, feel of heat and pain, smell of powder and booze, sight of red and black, sound of screams and music. I thrash and scream to get free.

The guard finally pulls his knee off my neck and I see. The Bully is in a daze a few feet away from me. A small lake of blood is pooled around his feet. The young lady that was on his shoulder is on the ground next to him. The left side of her face is completely blown out, her skull mushrooming outwards, brain and bone scattered about her. The bully speaks. I cannot hear him but I can read his lips.

“You.”

I kick out with all my force, trying to break free. The guards weight holds me down.

“I remember you.”

I scream from the stomach, gnashing my teeth.

“You ran.”