My Time With Terry

A career criminal and his apprentice sort out a terrible accident with grave consequences.

Staring at the cigarette shaking between gloved fingers, I realized I had fucked up.  Really, really fucked up. 

 

"Don't ever go at it alone, kid, not in this business," Terry had warned, "And never, never lose your head doin' somethin'.  You can use that second part for life in general."

 

It felt ironic, this massive, wrinkly hulk kindly giving me life advice as we were driving to dump a man named Cato Kultz' dead body by the dam.  He talked between smoky puffs of his chewed Swisher, taking it out and pointing everytime he directly referred to me.

 

"You lose your head wit' one a these jobs, you gonna lose it in real life.  You lose your head in real life and, well, kinda self explained."

 

Now here I was smoking a cigarette.  Alone.  Enraged.  Defeated.  I'd broken both of Terry's rules in the span of about a minute and a half.  I glanced around the living room, dark and dingy, certainly could use a woman's touch.  The body lay at my feet, his brains and face were in bits all over the couch across from me.  There was enough of his neck to see the Abbadon Angel branded onto it.

 

He was made.  Now he was dead.  I was fucked.

 

I put the Camel out and stood.  I tripped over the dead leg walking to the bathroom.  I needed light, some water, and a damn time machine.

 

Turannos had called me earlier in the evening, "Al, I needs you.  You needs work, friend?"

 

"Of course, you know I do."

 

He gave me the address to this man and told me he owed money.

 

"Don't take none of his bullshit, Al," he said,"This dude's a lotta talk, but I needs that money, man.  Demon ain't free, you know?"

 

"Yeah."

 

When someone says that someone is a lotta talk, I don't expect them to pull a damn machete on me.  As soon as he answered the door, he knew I wasn't there to ask for directions.  He let me in and walked toward the sofa.

 

"I know who sent you," he whispered as he kneeled on the purple (maybe blue, it was dark) cushions and leaned over the back.  He pulled and swung the blade at my head in one swift movement.  I backed, pulling the piece and shooting from just outside arms length.

 

I don't remember even hearing the shots, but I could still smell the gunpowder dancing around in the dank, smoky air. I fired four times. The first one missed, the second and third hit him in the lower stomach.  Number four was an instant kill shot. The bullet blasted through his nose and concaved the rest of his face, shattering the back of his skull into bits of gray, bloody brainspray.

 

In slow motion I watched him fall, that's when I noticed that he was a real deal Abbodonian, putting me in real deal s**t. I turned the light on in the bathroom, shocked at how much blood had made it's way to my face. I looked as if I'd aged ten years that night.  Cold water ran over my fingers and palms and splashed over my eyes and nose.

 

I wasn't made, not even close, truth is I never wanted any part of all of this.  The shake downs, the beatings, the occasional murder.  When you have a father like mine, you have to do things to protect your family, sometimes his debts could only be repayed by hurting someone.  My dad got in deep with Turannos and my mother and brother took the brunt of it.  I dropped out of school and went straight to work to pay off his addictions.

 

"You got more talent than this bullshit," Turannos told me,"You wanna be a pusher all your life?"

 

"Not exactly," I replied.

 

He gave me a slip of paper with an address on it.  I went to the apartment and Terry was there, he took me under his wing.  The first few months were awful, I puked after every job, choking pimps, beating addicts, reinforcing anywhere on behalf of Turannos.  Terry took more than a fair share of shots from some folks because of my dragging feet in those early days.

 

"You got too much heart for this, kid,"  he used to say all the time.  Terry told me that we were muscle, Investment Protectors, and although I hated it, I hated letting Terry down even more.  I got my act together eventually.

 

I looked at the bloody gap where a face used to be.

 

"You damn idiot," I said to the corpse, "What were you thinking?"

 

My phone rang.

 

"How'd it go, Al?" Turannos always spoke in a growl.

 

"Um, it's, it's taken care of."

 

"You sound nervous, you got my money?"

 

"Yeah."  My nerves crept through my throat and tinged my voice.

 

A pause.  I could hear a lighter flicking.

 

"Al, why you sound so shook?"

 

I didn't know how to respond.

 

"He ain't give you the money?!"

 

"No, no, Turan.  I, uh, I broke in.  He wasn't here.  I'm lookin' for it right now, I'm just a little nervous.  He's strapped in a lotta ways.  I'm findin' it, but I gotta go, man."

 

"What the-"  I hung up on him.  I had to call Terry.  I dialed his number and called four times before I got an answer.

 

"Al, what've you done?"  he said, "Turannos is blowin' me up, lookin' for you."

 

"Terry, I messed up.  Bad."

 

"Where're you at?"  he asked grimly.  I directed him to my location and said I would fill him in when he got here.  Terry would help me sort this all out, he'd know what to do. Immediately, I began destroying the living room looking for the cash.  Finding the money could be my saving grace.

 

 

When Terry arrived he knew instantly who the house belonged to. He grimaced when he saw the body, remarking the man was "dead as hell" after pushing on the stomach with his foot. Terry was at least fifteen years older than me and a violent hardened man, but this was a side I'd never seen of him. Inquisitive, almost childlike in his perplexion of this dead person.

 

"Look, so Turan tells me to come-" I started to say.

 

He glared up over his scraggly white goatee as if I'd interrupted something.

 

"You're messin' up my thought process," he said, confirming I had intruded him, "I need to check this out first, you fill me in when I figure what to do."

 

He stared and studied silently for an excruiating ten more minutes, speaking only to ask for a lighter.  I smoked two cigarettes and was starting my third when he finally made his assesment.

 

"He's made.  Well, he was.  He ain't anymore."

 

"It took you that long to say that?!"  I yelled, I'd never yelled at him before, but then again, I'd never signed my own death warrant before,"I know he's f****n' made!  That's why I'm sweatin' my damn body weight and smokin' cigarettes like Humphrey f****n' Bogart!  Who is this dead guy?  How fucked am I?  What should I do?!  That's what I called you over here for, Terry, for your advice!  Not another set of eyes."

 

"Hmmm. . ." he thought,"you shouldn't have been here alone."

 

I started to yell again, but he shot a finger up into the air between us, silencing me.

 

"You shouldn't have shot the fourth time, probably not even the third, but you lost control."  He continued sounding oddly fatherly scolding me as if I'd been out after curfew.

 

"I don't need a dad, Terry."  He jabbed the finger toward me to shut me up.

 

"Find the money and we'll take the body.  I know someone who would do this,"  he said, "I know somebody that would do this to him."

 

 

We finally found the money hidden in a gutted computer tower. Terry and I drug the corpse to the kitchen and heaved it onto the table. The stink replaced the sulfur as the overpowering odor in the house. I slammed through cabinets and drawers looking for garbage bags, Terry began chopping the Abbadonian up so that he could be carried out easier.

 

Terry had killed a lot of men. Some that deserved it, some that probably did not. He shot most, strangled a couple, pushed one man off of a bridge. Terry told me about disposing dozens of bodies. None of that bothered him anymore, he said, he fell asleep quickly most nights and slept soundly, but I'd never seen his wrinkled face wrinkle quite this way.

 

He looked unnerved and kept glancing around to find me. He shook. Terry was made of steel, the people we'd work with called him a robot, no feeling, no emotion, just the job. But here he was, with tears in his eyes shaking and his cuts erratic.

 

"Hey," Terry shouted,"Quit thinkin' so damn much. Start baggin' this stuff up."

 

The stuff he was waving me toward were hacked limbs. I shoved the pieces into doubled bags and tied them shut with rubber bands, stacking them by the door until we were ready. Terry was a back alley butcher disassembling my victim as if he were taking apart a puzzle. It took three trips to load Terry's van with body parts, one more for me to get the money.

 

"Uh uh, put that with me," he said as I came out with the cash.

 

"What? Why?"

 

"Turan is pissed, he's lookin' for you. He ain't givin' you a chance if he sees you anywhere. Gotta get this body gone first."

 

"Wait. Wait," I said, "Where exactly are we goin'? What're we doin'?"

 

"You gotta get out of here. Out of town. You're as good as dead, Al."

 

I thought for a second. I walked over to Terry's open driver's window.

 

"You're going to take the blame," I said without trying,"They're gonna kill you."

 

He stayed silent. His eyes shifted from mine to the road ahead of him and then back to me.

 

"I. . .," he choked,"I'm stuck in this. I'll never not have to do this. You're young, you could, you SHOULD do more. I'm not tryin' to be noble, but I realized a long time ago that I want out. This ain't no way to live, but it's all I can ever do until I die. I know too much, I seen too much they'd never let me out."

 

"You can't do that, I can't let you." I grabbed the door handle, but he slammed it shut. "What're you gonna tell him?"

 

"Get out of here, Al.  Just get out of here."

 

He slammed the gear into drive and sped off. I stood helpless watching his van dart into the horizon. The air tasted sweeter. My head slunk trotting to my car and I happened to catch my reflection in the mirror. I sat and stared into my own eyes. The eyes of a free man. The eyes of a younger man.

 

Thank you, Terry.

 

Reviews

[Cheshire]

Interesting story, but it could use a few things. One, a good proofread, if this isn't a rough draft. If it is, ignore what I said, you knew that already :P You are missing a few words here and there. Second, embellish some of your situations. The story flows extremely quickly, going from one scene to another at a blinding rate. Don't be scared to add in some detail about the environment, subtle changes in mood, and various other details. Imagine that this story is a movie, and you are watching it unfold in front of you. You can focus on just the characters and the dialogue, and still get the meaning of the movie, but what really draws you in is the ambiance surrounding the characters. Finally, a bit of character building would be great in the beginning for the MC. What does he look like, etc.. All of these things together would do very well in allowing your readers to become much more attached to your writing.

All in all, good short story though, it feels like something along the lines of Goodfellas :P One of my fav movies.

[Randy Scott II]

Thanks for the review! It is a rough draft, I sat down and wrote it all out and hit publish lol. I have a system where I just grind as much out as once and then wait at least a week before I look back at it and proofread. It's taxing, but it saves me from destroying stories before I even give anyone a chance to take a look like I used to. Again thank you for the pointers and I hope you'll check back in the next week after I've tightened it up.

[astronaut]

i enjoy this. nice.

[Jack Cassidy]

All in all, it's a good story. I enjoyed the fact that you get to see inside his head a bit at a time and it doesn't seem so rushed. In a way, a part of me is rooting for the main character of the story and that is important. I believe a few of your lines are somewhat incomplete and you might could be more in depth. I really liked the fact that the story was very active... lots of energy. But yeah, it is a rough draft and I am sure you know what needs attention already. Can't wait to see what you do with this. Nice work.

[Aaron Browder]

Really fun story. Your language is clever and natural, and I found that its rhythm was almost unbroken through the whole story. Kudos on that.
I thought the pace was good; I didn't find it rushed. I agree with Cheshire that the MC could have used more description. A backstory would be good if this was going to be longer, but as it turns out we learn quite a bit about him just from his words and actions here.
I thought that Terry was a particularly compelling character. He's interesting, a badass, AND a good guy.

"You lose your head in real life and, well, kinda self explained." -- only line that irked me. Not sure I understand what he's getting at.

"I needed light, some water, and a damn time machine." -- favorite line.

Good work, keep it up.