by S.C. Barrus
***
It was a night, could have been years ago, and the boy had been out of a job, penniless, hungry, but somehow providence had placed a gun in the holster of a passed-out drunk man on the dark city streets. Feet light to the step like a rat, he scuttled to the drunk, picked his near empty pockets, then spied the gun, the ticket to his salvation. He took it, walked to the other side of town, miles he walked, to where theatre’s held the wealthy by the scores as they listened to horribly violent operas. When a show let out, he picked a couple out of the crowd for their solitude and her jewelry, then followed them until they were alone in the dark off a side street, the closest lamp two blocks ahead of them. The boy, aching, approached them, nervously shaking, hardly able to carry the gun steady. His stomach let out a loud gurgle, and the couple turned. Here they saw him, the boy clasping his stomach in one hand, holding a massive revolver in the other, shivering, the weight of the gun pulling his hand down.
“Excuse m-m-me,” he stuttered. He walked closer, his shiver out of control, “G-g-g-g-give me—“and his shivering finger pulled the trigger. With a click, the hammer was released where it smacked down on the bullet’s casing, gun powder lit up in a blaze, lead shot whistling through the air, through a silk dress, soft skin, the belly of a woman. The dark street echoed, and she looked down on him, on his wide-struck eyes. Oh God! What have I done? She let out a whimper, and fearing for his life, he fired the gun again, and again, and again, and again, and again, click, click, click, click.
The pretty woman in the long dress fell to the street as did the man by her side. The boy rushed to her, stripped her of her jewelry, his mind turning silent, his body acting on impulses impossible to judge. Scuttling like a rat in a wall, afraid the cat will come at any second clawing curiously, ready to pounce—he drug the woman’s body to a nearby ditch. When he returned for the body of the man, it had disappeared. Shouts of agony came from the distance, in the dark, out of sight, echoed off the quiet shops, and heart-aching wails drew the sound of a small crowd. So the boy scuttled off, and hid in a nearby crawlspace where he slept for days, clinging to the jewelry, until the crime scene had settled.
