The Miracle Man

I'm a young writer looking to get some feedback on this story.

The Miracle Man

               

 

It was winter, December to be exact, and as most men and women sat by their fires, some in communion with one another while watching TV, a small man named Will Tatherford sat all alone in a motel room that smelled strongly of urine and sweat.  An aromatic and pleasing combination it was, and Will had the distinct pleasure to sit and bask in it.  The motel room’s television was on, but all that would come through were SMPTE Color Bars and a monotone hum.  He turned the television up to its loudest volume just to drown out the screams of cats outside.  He sat there waiting apprehensively for a secret visitor.  A secret visitor unlike those that most meet in sleazy, crumby motels like the one he was in.  W****s could not solve his current problems.  He needed The Miracle Man to heal his pains.  He had his money to pay him, and he had a gun.  He was laying down on the bed gazing at The Color Bars with their hypnotic hum, his attention only diverted to acknowledge the stains on his undershirt and boxers, and the unopened box of chocolates and bouquet of flowers that lay forlornly at his side.  He was practically naked, and yet he was waiting for the presence of a killer.  Well, it’s not like it was his wedding day or anything.

                One solitary knock eerily rang through the room.  Then another, and then another, but he just sat there hypnotized by the color bars.  He could hear the humming and it comforted him.  Huuuuuuuuuuuuuum.  He gave himself to it.  It enveloped him.  The Miracle Man was just outside his door, but the hum of the TV was more interesting than anything your imagination could possibly conjure up or the real world could synthesize.  There was pause in the knocks, but they soon resumed, this time more deliberate.  Huuuuuuuuuuuuuuum.  The knocking continued.   Huuuuuuu (knock) uuuuuuu (knock) uuuuuuuu (knock) uuuuuuu (knock) uuuuum.  Eventually The Miracle Man got tired of standing around knocking, so he took his long, sterile fingernail and picked the lock with ease; it was as if his fingernail was made for that specific purpose. 

                The door opened with a weak creak.  The Miracle Man stood in the doorframe that he just barely fit in, waiting to be acknowledged.  Then the television went out, and so ended The Color Bars and their humming.  With the cease of the humming Wills mental cogs resumed their interlocked turning and he snapped to attention.  He sat up in his bed and regarded the visitor without making eye contact.  He put on his pants, a jacket, and his boots and walked to the door with military stiffness, never taking his eyes from a mustard stain on his shirt.  He lifted his eyes to meet the gaze of The Miracle Man.  The Miracle Man had eyes that bore into him, and as he surveyed Will he was overcome with the sensation or many pupil sized drill bits penetrating his skin, winding their way through his intestines, and rendering him hollow.  Then he invited the man inside.

                “Come in,” Will said nervously.

                The Miracle Man said nothing, but walked inside regardless.  Will turned on the two luxuriously tacky lamps that the room had come furnished with and began nervously straightening his room.  He played with the tilt of a large portrait of a sunset hanging above his bed; he cleared off counters and tables; and then he laid down a rug. 

                “Please, take your shoes off,” Will told him timidly, gesturing towards the rug, “Here right on this rug.  Yeah this is a good place for shoes.  This is a great place for shoes.  Come on!  Don’t be a stranger!  Take them off!” his voice shaking all the while.

                Then The Miracle Man opened up his mouth to speak for the first time.  “Thank you, but no thank you,” he said through a slight Puerto Rican accent, “I quite like my shoes.  I took them from my last job.  It paid rather well.”

                “Ha ha �" ha ha ha ha ha ha,” Will laughed, his laughter hitting a higher note each time.  Now was the first time that Will got a good look at the beast.  The Miracle Man was wearing a humongous fur coat that looked like it had endured countless rainstorms.  He was broad shouldered and lumbering, not fat, but the same body type of that of a lumberjack, or a bear.  Atop his broad shoulders sat a squat neck supporting his head.  In the light from the lamp he could see a rugged, middle aged face like a road map.  It bore many scars: the proof of his work. 

                “So, why, yes, you know what we discussed.  You know why you’re here,” Will stammered, using all his willpower to block out the pain of drill bit pupils penetrating him.

                “Yes, I know why I am here,” The Miracle Man said in a calm, business like tone, “There is the issue of payment,” he added after a pause.

                “Yes - yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes,” Will said, “Yes, the payment!  How much do you charge?

“How much do you have?” The Miracle Man asked gruffly.

“Two thousand, eight hundred dollars,” he replied.

“That will do.”

 “Yes, it’s right here.  It’s all right here!  The money!  Yes!” he almost screamed

He reached into his pocket, brushing against the small pistol at his hips, and produced a large wad of cash.  He handed them to The Miracle Man and he counted them, making sure they were all one-hundred dollar bills as was discussed.  The life of another sure is expensive. 

                “Yes, you know what to do, you know the target,” Will explained through clenched teeth and sweaty palms, “Yes, you know her: you will find them at this address.”  Will wrote down the address on a scrap piece of paper.  He had it memorized to such a degree that the address was almost a part of him.

                The Miracle Man then rose from his seat and walked out the door, ensuring not to leave a single trace of his presence in the room.

                “That gun that you have will not be necessary, Mr. Tatherford,” he said as he was exiting through the motel room door, “Unless you were planning on using it on yourself, that is,” he added.

                The Miracle Man knew, but how?  Lucky guess maybe?  Will chalked it up to a lucky guess, and with the creak of the door closing he was once again alone in the silence.  Then he began to think.  He did not want to think.  He turned on the radio and attempted to tune it to one of his favorite stations, but all that came through was static.  He then turned the radio to its highest volume, and gave into the hissing of it much in the same way that he gave into the humming of the SMPTE Color Bars.  Hiiiiiiiiisssssssssss . . . .

. . . . .

                Will Tatherford gazed into the eyes of his lovely new bride, Marsha Gathersby, who in just a moment was to become the lovely Mrs. Marsha Tatherford.  He looked at her in the sunlight, thinking how much in that very moment she looked like an angel.  Her hips curved inward in the most perfect way, her wavy hair dangled down below her shoulders framing her silk clad breasts, and all Will could think at that very moment was, God, I love her.  I love her, I love her, I love, love, love her, and she loves me back.  If it was the Grammy’s of happiness, then he would have been the one artist to receive more awards than anyone else.  He looked at her, and she looked at him, both with tears in their eyes.

                “Do you, William Tatherford, take Marsha Gathersby, to be you lawfully wedded wife?”

                “I do,” he said with tears in his eyes.

                “Do you, Marsha Gathersby, take William Tatherford, to be your lawfully wedded husband?”

                “I do,” she said with tears in her eyes.

                “By the power invested in me by the state of New York, I now pronounce you man and wife.  You may kiss the bride.”

                Will, blind with love, grabbed her and kissed her passionately.  With his arms wrapped around her he felt her back, and thought of how wonderful the silk felt; the skin underneath the silk was the only thing that overshadowed its pleasing texture. 

                After collecting their gifts, making and listening to speeches, and dancing together at the reception, they went to their home on 258 Baroque Drive and fell asleep in each other’s arms.

                The next day, Will rose from his bed, showered, shaved, got dressed, ate breakfast, brushed his teeth, gave his new wife a kiss on her forehead, and went off to work.  Will worked days from nine in the morning to eight at night; he needed to support his new wife and their house.  He had a very menial job in a very boring office building.  The job demanded nothing off him; it was mind numbing busy work, and he was satisfied with it as long as his paycheck came in at the end of the week. 

He thought, Maybe I’ll get a bonus if I work extra time. 

                He put in the extra hours, pushing it further each night.  He began working until eight thirty, then nine, then nine thirty, and so on.  He continued pushing and pushing, and in a matter of weeks he was coming home at eleven every night.  He didn’t necessarily enjoy it, but he enjoyed food and he enjoyed a house, so he continued on with it.  Then he took up working on Saturdays too.  After about two weeks of Will’s practical absence from the home it was a Sunday, his day off, and he was at home with his wife.

                Marsha was reading a book, Will was watching TV.  Marsha lifted her eyes from her book and looked at Will jealously.  “Will, why do you work so much?”

                “I’m making good money at the moment.  The more we have the better.”

                “Yes, but you’re never here.  We are never together.  I want to be with you, Will, but it’s almost impossible.  By the time you get home I’m asleep, and when you leave I’m asleep, this is the only day we have together and look at what we’re doing: I’m reading a book and you’re watching TV.”

                “Well, what should I do, just stop working?  I’m the one that pays the bills and I couldn’t do that without the extra hours I’ve been putting in.  And besides, you want to have a kid, and on average that comes out to about fifty-thousand dollars a year, so the more time I work now the better.”

                “Yes, but you need to make time for other things,” she pleaded, “You need to make time for me.  You work all week, and then when you’re at home you’re tired.  I read and you watch TV.  This isn’t how I want to live out my marriage.”

                “I’m sorry,” he said scornfully, “I’ll try to make the time for you.”

                “Good.”

                But he didn’t.  He kept working until his eyes grew heavy from the weight of time.  He grew wearier with each passing day, until Will decided that for just one night, two months after he had made and broken his promise, he would go home early and prove to her that he could still be her loving husband.   He would go home at seven o’clock, pick up a bouquet of flowers, a box of chocolates, and play Phil Collins on his stereo system when he returned home.  Women love that crap, he thought.

                He drove home, flowers and chocolate in hand, preparing to sweep his beautiful wife off of her feet.  He loved her in spite of the tension, and he wanted to repent for putting work before her.  He pulled into the driveway, unlocked the door, and walked into the living room. 

                “I’m home!” he called out to his wife, but there was no response.

She must have gone out, Will thought to himself.  Then he had an idea: he would surprise her!  He went into the kitchen, retrieved some scented candles, many of which they had received as wedding gifts, and lit them.  He then began to sort through the fridge in search of something decadently romantic to prepare for the love of his life.  He sorted through cabbages, pears, this type of cheese, that type of cheese, yogurt, and dip before he finally settled on the Walmart steaks that they had purchased exclusively for when guests are over.  Will walked over to the cupboard in which they kept their pots and pans and bent down to pull open the small door, when in his stupor his eyes aligned perfectly with a small, black, leather wallet sitting dejectedly on the counter.  His curiosity piqued, he once again rendered himself erect and picked up the wallet.  He fingered the wallet’s smooth texture and turned it over in his hands, taking note of the intricate stitching that bordered it.  Whoever this wallet belongs to, he thought, He clearly makes more money than I do.  Will opened the wallet and confirmed his own suspicions: the wallet contained three brightly colored credit cards and three hundred dollars in cash.  One of the first immediately noticeable items in the contents of the wallet was a New York State driver’s license.  The license contained the basic components of this mystery person’s personal information.  From it, Will obtained that it belonged to a physically fit, twenty-three year old, white male with a face whose most prominent feature was its cheekbones.  His name was Jackson Garet.  Will thought, He must be one of Marsha’s friends. 

Then Will, wallet in hand, began to search the house for her, eager to tell her that one of her friends had left the wallet behind.  He looked in the living room once again to see if she had appeared, but she had not.  He then moved on to the other two rooms of the house: the bathroom and the bedroom.  First he checked the bathroom, but the door was open and the toilet was vacant.  Then he moved onto the bedroom.  When he reached the bedroom the door was closed, and when he attempted to turn the knob he found that it had been locked.  His first instinct was that the door being locked was a strange happening; they were married and they had nothing to hide from each other, so why would she feel the need to lock the door?  He thought about this for approximately a fifth of a second but then he decided to attribute the locked door to a habit she had developed.  Then he put his ear to the door and heard nothing.  He decided to go back to the kitchen to retrieve his own wallet, which had a master key for the house attached to it.  He then retrieved the flowers and chocolates he had bought for her.  He went back and lovingly inserted the key into the lock, and opened the door with an extreme degree of delicacy. 

He was astounded by what he saw.

In his bed lay two young, naked bodies locked in each other’s embrace.  They held each other lovingly, eyes closed in deep sleep, both of them tired from their recent activities.  He looked at his loving wife, Marsha, her beautiful breasts sagging lazily at her side, and her lustrous wavy hair languidly obscuring the view.  Then he looked to the man right of her, who one muscular arm draped over Marsha and another hanging to the side.  His most noticeable facial feature was his prominent cheekbones.  Jackson Garet lay there in his bed.  The bed that he bought �" the bed that he worked for.  And now right before his eyes he saw it being desecrated.  He could not believe it, but there was the proof. 

He stood there in shock, not knowing how to react.  He was still clutching the wallet, Jackson Garet’s wallet, and decided that he would keep it.  He destroyed his family that had just barely started; at the very least he could provide some reparation for it.  Pocketing the wallet he frantically ran back out to the living room, donned his coat, took his gun from a place only he knew of, and left.

He seated himself behind the wheel of his car and drove like a maniac, flinging the flowers and chocolate onto the passenger’s seat.  Tears started to well in his eyes, blurring his vision, and then his breath began to come in shivering gasps.  He moaned with sadness and then he screamed with anger.  He was drowning in his own fluids.

“What do I do?” he screamed, paying no attention to the cars adjacent to him.  Millions of thoughts entered his mind at once.  Do I talk to her?  Do I plead with her?  Do I ask her if there are others?  Do I promise to her my undivided attention?  What do I do?  What do I do?

Then it hit him.

“She needs to die!”  he roared.

He drove faster than he had ever driven to his life and went to the bank.  He had a savings account there that amounted to approximately two thousand, five hundred dollars: on hand and in cash.  He withdrew all his funds and the cashier handed him a ludicrous amount of money.  It was more money than he had ever held in his life.  Altogether he now had two thousand, five hundred dollars on his person.  For the first time he was a rich man.

He knew how he would do it: for years he had heard of a hit man only referred to as The Miracle Man.  He had always written it off as local legend, but in back alleys and the place referred to as the “bad part of town” his name and number was scrawled on every blank space and bathroom stall available.  The strange thing about it was that every time the graffiti would be washed away by the “Keep New York Beautiful Brigade” the number was changed.  It was probably a way for The Miracle Man to avoid being traced, and it was intelligent to do that.

Will sped towards the “bad part of town,” paying close attention to the graffiti and making the effort to recognize the number that seemed to be everywhere.  He came to a motel and bought a room, and noticing how inhumanly hot he felt at that very moment: took of his coat, button down shirt, and pants.  Then he laid down on the bed, cast the flowers and chocolate to the side, and gave himself to the hum of The Color Bars.

. . . . .

                Hiiiiiiiiiiisss, went the static of the radio, as Will lay in his bed pondering what he had done.  He had murdered indirectly.  He did not commit the act, but instead hired a man whose profession consisted only of that.  His heart felt sick, and he felt he could not breathe.  Good, he thought, I no longer wish to breathe. 

                He sat up and picked up the box of chocolates and bouquet of flowers.  He set the flowers down, and opened up the chocolates.  If this is going to be my last moment on Earth, he thought, I certainly don’t want to spend it in air that smells of piss.  He carefully selected a single, mud colored piece of chocolate.  Dark chocolate with a peppermint filling, he thought, Marsha’s favorite.

                “I’m sorry,” he whispered as he savored the single piece of chocolate.

                He set the box of chocolates down and picked up the bouquet of flowers.  He looked down at vibrant yellows, angelic whites, deep, velvety purples, and crimson reds.  Then he buried his face in it.  He let the smells become the room.  Looking around he saw walls with color more beautiful than anything yet perceived by the human eye.  He saw lilacs and daisies, and then as his thoughts turned dark he saw the thorny roses encasing him like a coffin.  The flowers will be my final resting place, he thought.

                Then he reached down without lifting his head from the flowers, and produced the gun from his hip.  He held it to his head.

                “You will find them at 258 Baroque Drive . . . I’m sorry,” he whispered.

                Then he pulled the trigger.

 

Author's Note

Any advice and constructive criticism is welcome. If there are any grammatical errors or areas that you feel need to be improved upon let me know. All feedback is appreciated.