Ferocity

by Michael Callinglast



  FEROCITY

  by

  Michael Callinglast

  CHAPTER ONE

  Chaos begins with love.

  One minute the fabric of your life, your very existence, is uniform, orderly, and the binary ideas of want and need are easily definable. You are not happy in this state, but more importantly, you are not unhappy. You just are, and you take subtle comfort in the unchangeable knowledge that tomorrow will happen exactly as today, and any calamity that strikes, as well as any affluence, will be of your own making. Then, one carefree day you walk into a small Pacific Northwest café for a common Grande two pump vanilla, non-fat, extra hot, latte and there she is; standing right in front of you, dressed like a sexy bad thought. Black hair, eyes as blue as the tropical waters in Maldives, you see her and your complacent life of mediocrity is blown to fucking hell. That’s what love is like. It’s a friggin sledgehammer in a crystal house of perfection.

  Her name is Keira Anastasia Mercile and she is my sledgehammer.

  “What the hell am I doing here?” Max Perry asks. He looks cold and the night wind glides through his hair like a viper.

  “Keira,” I tell him.

  “Keira.” He says her name with an exasperated sigh because we’ve been talking about her for two hours now. “You claim to love her right? There is a strict line between love and obsession, misplaced love, and devotion. Do you know the difference?”

  He’s fifty-two years old, forty pounds over-weight, and has a drinking problem that’s been sagging his skin for ten years now, ever since his wife left him for his business partner. And the irony of it all; he’s a Relationship Therapist. Hah! You probably recognize him from his hit daytime talk show; Sensitive Nation With Dr. Perry.

  “She’s my beloved monster.”

  It is a brisk night. I slip on my gloves and pour a small glass of whiskey, offer it to Max, and sit back. We’re ten miles from Port Orford, on the Pacific Ocean, on this little fishing boat I rented in his name.

  Max isn’t wearing gloves. His hands are trembling and a little of the Jack Daniels sploshes on his pink knuckles. He downs the drink and wipes his thick lips, nourished and close to pleased with the burn in his stomach.

  “Listen,” Max says, shaking his head, “I can’t do this. More importantly, I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to help you because I really, really couldn’t care less.”

  The skies are a dark tangent of storm and star, all fighting for the immediate threshold of our oblivion. The waters are all of brine and stench, dark and tragic. These are Shakespearian waters brimming with six million years worth of dumb, murderous predators and prey.

  “I want to know where my daughter is,” he says. “Are you going to tell me or are we going to talk about your crappy life and a girlfriend who obviously sensed something skewed about your mental state and lack of morals?”

  This is Max Perry’s last night on this planet. He doesn’t know that I am the last person he will ever see. All he knows is this; He’s cold, we’re ten miles from shore, and I coaxed him out here with exclamatory sentence regarding the health of his sixteen year old daughter, Kristen.

  “Relationships have always been a tough venture for me, Max. There’s usually something effed up that goes wrong, typically on her part. Why are you scowling? I’m trying to share something important with you and you’re pissed because you’re cold.”

  “No, I’m pissed because it’s ten o’clock at night and I’m out here under false pretenses. Is my daughter okay?”

  A crappy ruse, I know, and one I’m not too proud of, but nothing inspires unquestionable haphazard action than the idea of progeny in harm’s way.

  “Kristen’s fine.” I light a cigarette and lean against the side of the boat. “It’s my relationship with Keira that I’m concerned about. I’ve seen you on television, Dr. Perry. Did you know that more people are starting to talk about you, read your books, than that Dr. Phil character?”

  Max grimaces. “McGraw’s an egocentric, self-important, egesta, shat out by Oprah.” He finishes his drink of whiskey and holds his glass up for more, beckoning me to hurry with his sturdy finger. “Turn this thing around and head back to port.”

  “Soon. So what do you think of what I’ve said so far?”

  He shrugs. “You’re twenty-seven years old, your girlfriend is nineteen. Clearly there’s an age difference. You’ve been dating her for three months and then one day she quits talking to you, apparently for no reason at all.” He looks at me suspiciously, considers something important, then shakes his head.

  “So what do you think?” This is his specialty. If anyone knows why she’s not talking to me, what went wrong, it’s him.

  “It doesn’t sound good,” he says. “Is that why you abducted me? Why you brought me way out here? For free therapy? And just who in the hell are you anyway? I don’t even know your name.”

  “Why isn’t she talking to me anymore? What wrong turn did I take in this hellish labyrinthine thing called love?”

  He sips his drink and shrugs. “Love isn’t just a fad you can wrap around your wrist. For any lasting relationship there has to be a strong foundation of trust. Do you trust her?”

  “No. And do you know why? What kind of girl professes love one day and completely disappears off the face of the planet the next? She’s not answering my texts, phone calls, emails, nothing. What kind of girl can do that heartless shit?”

  “She either can’t talk to you or doesn’t want to. My money’s on the latter.”

  I kneel down next to him, reach into my jacket, and pull out her photo. This is something that I usually don’t do, share personal shreds of my soul with total strangers.

  Max Perry leans forward as I tenderly put the small photo in front of him. To give him credit he is impressed. I see this in his eyes, the way his posture changes.

  “Oh my. She’s way too good looking for you,” he tells me.

  I’m going to ignore this observation because it’s true. She is way, way too gorgeous for me. She’s too smart, too intelligent, too witty. I’m basically outclassed in every way except for humor. Keira’s not that funny.

  “The picture’s three weeks old,” I tell him, looking down at the two-dimensional version of her. In the picture she’s standing at Tully’s Coffee in her barista uniform, looking downwards from behind a sparkling array of espresso machines and glass bottles of multi-colored syrups. I, not being the greatest picture-taker, had her a little out of focus, but the added haze created a heavenly quality about her. It captures her essence. Her simple innocence and stunning magnificence. “Three weeks ago and look at the way she’s smiling at me. Look into those blue eyes of hers and you’d swear there’s nothing but honest, balls out love there. And three weeks later she’s treating me like a leper.”

  Max Perry clears his throat, deciding what to make of my turmoil. “What is your definition of love?”

  “To love another person is to see the face of God.”

  “So you can quote Les Miserables. Bravo,” he says. I’m discovering that the Dr. Perry on television is a much different person than the Dr. Perry in this fishing boat. This one’s a bit of a douche. “Listen. Take me back and I’ll give you my card. Tomorrow you call Gwendolyn and she’ll schedule you an appointment where we can hash this out in comfort and-”

  “No. Impossible. I have to catch a plane tonight back to Seattle. You think I want to spend another night in Oregon? Christ, how can you live here? Everyone dresses like lumberjacks.”

  “Seattle? You mean you flew all the way here to… what? Shanghai me? Haul me out here miles from shore? You know this sort of desperation speaks volumes about your apparent many psychological malfunctions. You need help.”

  “That’s why we’re here, Dr. Perry, and yo
u might want to be careful what you lean up against. That’s a nice coat you’re about to ruin.” I nod to the large anchor that’s lying precariously on the deck, right behind Max.

  He turns and lifts his elbow, realizing that rust has smudged his camel hair jacket.

  “Well shit,” he says, wiping off the rust. “Goddamn it! You’re paying for this if it’s ruined! Jesus. Just turn us back to shore.” He picks up the anchor’s heavy chain and drops it away from him. “And what kind of boat is this? The anchor’s not even attached to the rig.”

  He’s disgusted with the way his perfect night has turned out. And he’s also getting drunk.

  “Take me back to shore you psychotic abductor,” he says, his words beginning to slur. “Or give me another drink.”

  I pour him another drink of whiskey and he sips it, his reddish gaze fixed upon me judiciously, with small waves of loathing. He downs his drink, wipes his lips on his sleeve, and stands up.

  I lean forward and capture his attention with my posture and eyes.

  “Sit down.”

  “No,” he says, reaching for the motor. “Enough of this shit. I’m not going to sit here a second longer and listen to your inconsequential tale of unimportant woe. I’ve heard it all before. You’re no different from anyone.”

  I take out my gun, a Glock 17 with a six inch suppressor. Max sees the gun and suddenly it’s all he can look at.

  “Now what I wanted to say-”

  “Are you insane?” Max shouts. “Do you realize how many laws you’re breaking, right now? Felonies! Oooh, you are in so much trouble, Bub! When we get back to land the first thing-”

  I point the gun at his face.

  “Take a deep breath,” Dr. Perry says. “You’re making some pretty bad decisions right now.”

  “Not yet.”

  Dr. Perry closes his mouth. He can’t tell if I’m serious or not. It’s the seven shots of whiskey that he’s had, blurring his already crappy judgment. He still thinks he’s the star of some show, infallible with his opinions.

  “I just find it difficult to believe that I’ve done something so wrong to deserve this… denunciation. I’m in college, Max. I have a future. A future that she and I could build upon. Maybe she’s in a coma? Like in the hospital?”

  “Who in the hell are you?” Max Perry says. He stands up and thrusts a finger at me. “Who in the hell are you? I want to know your name because when I get back to my studio I want to get the loser fuck’s name right who dog-napped me at… gunpoint?? Oh you are wasted my friend! On the fast track to prison garb!”

  “Shush!”

  I reach down and take a pair of handcuffs out from the cooler I’d brought, then toss them to him. Max catches the handcuffs out of pure reflex than actual want.

  “Cuff an ankle of yours to that chain there,” I tell him, motioning to the anchor.

  “You’ve lost your goddamn mind.” Max Perry quietly locks his left ankle to the thick, rusty chain that is bolted to the anchor. The entire time his eyes are on the gun in my hand.

  “Now sit the fuck down.”

  He sits.

  “Here,” I pour him another drink of whiskey and he takes it, gulps down the first swallow.

  “Now then,” I say, “I want you to answer one question for me, Dr. Perry, and then our session here is over, okay?”

  He nods.

  “I want you to tell me what love is?”

  “Listen,” he says, “you may as well just shoot me then because that’s a question that sixty, seventy, eighty thousand years of human history has not been able to answer.”

  “I want your professional opinion as to why I can’t sleep at night, why this bothers me, why she’s not answering my fucking phone calls, why this love thing affects me like this. I think about her and I get sick.”

  I’ve been in relationships before but something always failed in each and every one of them. Some sort of indiscernible gaffe, or an absent sustainable chord of conviction on her part, or my part… something that stopped whatever we had built from being the highest mountain in the world. A missing stone. But with Keira… we had that stone. We had a fucking boatload and it wasn’t just a mountain we’d built, but fucking Babel.

  He’s shaking his head.

  I stand up and thrust the gun at his chin.

  “I’ve studied love, Dr. Perry, as have you and -”

  “You can’t study love,” Dr. Perry says with a laugh, “Really. You can study the effects of love, the physiological responses… but love in actuality is a mystery. Why does it physically hurt? Why do we feel that deep seeded threshing, crushing pain in our lungs, in our heart, our stomach, when we think about the one we lost, or crave, or desire, the one who hurts us, or the one we think we need? Why does it affect our sleep? Every aspect of our physical selves is affected when love, this ridiculous emotion, is involved. Why?”

  “I’M ASKING YOU!”

  What a waste. I should just kill him now.

  “There’s a Persian saying,” Dr. Perry says. He closes his eyes and recites. “Even after all this time the Sun never says to the Earth, You Owe Me. Look what happens with a love like that? It lights up the whole sky.” He says this and ends with a flourished sigh.

  I’m staring at him and in the moonlight he resembles Glenn Beck in a better suit and tie.

  Dr. Perry looks at the gun and then at me. “Love isn’t scientific, it’s divine, and the people who try to make it human, screw it up.”

  I raise the gun and point it at him.

  “You’re going to shoot me,” he says.

  “I’ve never really felt this before,” I tell him. “At least not this strong. I’ve read about love and seen it in the movies, and I once thought there were a few girls that I loved, but now I see myself as the fool; a trained chimp imitating his master for a treat. This sucks. This is the kind of love best described by Beatles songs.”

  “What the fuck is this about?” he demands, his voice losing a little of the fear. “Who are you?”

  “You tell me what’s going on in the female mind, Dr. Perry. Here, this is for you.” I toss him the key to the handcuffs.

  He catches the silver key and looks at it in his wavering palm. Sweat has collected on his brow despite the chill. His eyes are bloodshot and his fingers tremble.

  “I think you know why she’s not talking to you, you little shit,” he says, his voice coming out forced. “You are a young man of questionable morals. Immoral, I think. Or amoral. I think you have no idea what she thinks, nor anyone for that matter, and I’d say you are dangerously close to being diagnosed as sociopathic. And she, if she’s as smart as you say she is-”

  “She is. I know all about you, Dr. Perry,” I tell him, walking towards the bow of the boat. “I’ve studied you, researched you, memorized your habits. All man is a creature of habit and sometimes, as in your case, it dooms him.”

  “Dooms,” he says, his voice a slur of scoff.

  “You don’t think I plucked you off the continent on a whim, do you? I sought you. I flew from Seattle with your name on my lips, with this night in my mind.” I rested one foot on the anchor. “I’m here to kill you.”

  “You’ve seen one too many movies or played one too many video games,” he says, turning away, smiling. “You think this is how real life is? You think this is any way to get anything accomplished? You think you fucking scare me? Your life is flushed! Flushed!”

  “Max,” I tap his head with the gun, “Max, I am here to kill you. Someone wants you dead.”

  Slowly the orbit of his attention turns to me. He stands up. He’s forgotten about the key in his fat hand. Dr. Max Perry’s eyes are on the gun, on my eyes, on my now very dark shape.

  “Who?”

  “Who do you think?” I motion to the shore, to the lights of Port Orford. “You think the kid’s not gonna say anything? You think your celebrity status is going to do anything? Your hush money?”

  “Who are you?” He woke up to this mornin
g to a world completely under his control. “Who are-”

  “Wrath am I.”

  “It’s a whore’s lie,” he says. He steps towards me but is hindered by his cuffed ankle. “And those trailer trash pieces of shit got a lot of money from me, which is exactly what that un-educated, greasy haired cunt of a mother-”

  “I’m Jack,” I tell him, “Jack Tide.”

  “What?”

  I kick the anchor off the side of the boat.

  CHAPTER TWO

  I’m not a bad guy. I mean Dr. Max Perry, there’s a bastard.

  After he sunk about a half a mile down into the black, cold depths of the Pacific, I waited to see if he’d make use of the key I gave him. He never did, and if he would’ve escaped the crushing depths and surfaced, I would’ve shot him in the face. That’s what I do. I waited fifteen minutes, headed back to shore, then caught a flight back to Seattle.

  Now it’s Monday and I’m on my way to class.

  My phone rings to the tune of the Beatles’ Happiness is a Warm Gun. This means it’s Victoria Pride, my agent.

  “Vic!”

  “Jack,” she says. She sounds a bit grizzled, as though I’d been on vacation for the last six months and left her with the responsibility of a diabetic cat. “Tell me you’re back in town.”

  “It’s Monday, Vic, of course I am. I have class today. In fact I’m on my way to American History right now. Why?”

  “Tell me what I want to know.”

  “It’s all taken care of.”

  She’s been on a bit of a row lately regarding the Dr. Max Perry job, believing the gig should’ve taken a day to complete. What she doesn’t take into consideration is the attempt to quantify all the random factors that could invariably lead to a botched hit, and in order to do that with any modicum of accuracy, you have to study the mark for at least three weeks. With Vic it’s all; take aim, pull the trigger, blow his brains out, end of story. Subtleties escape her.

  “Good,” she says. Her voice has lost its edge now and I hear a smile. “So how are you? How’d it go?”

  “Therapeutic.”

  Victoria Pride. She’s the one who sets up these gigs for me, filtering out the bad hits and federal stings, but she does require a fifteen percent fee. The Max Perry job garnered me eight large. Her cut’s a greasy twelve-hundred. Not bad.