Emmetsburg: Seventy-two

John swung the truck around in the street and pulled quickly to a stop in front of the courthouse. He pulled a cap tightly over his eyes against the rain, and stood in the open door contemplating the pistol that lay on the seat before him. Wasn’t so much as a decision, but a reaction that he swept it into his hand.

The wooden stock felt cool and smooth in the palm of his hand. There were no longer opportunities for recriminations or hesitation. He left the truck and strode forcefully up the long walk, the pistol held tight against his right leg. John’s expression was cut from stone, darkened beneath the brim of the cap. Lost in shadow were the unblinking pools of his eyes, their gaze distant.

Fate was as terrible an enemy as he had ever known. John was at war again, climbing from that putrid trench into the face of coughing pot-a-pop pop-pop of German guns. Fear fled from him, replaced by complete emptiness, as though he was merely a passenger in some transient shell. He was no longer a living soul but a whisper that would disintegrate at the moment of death, the billions of particles scattered again to the universe. He wasn’t any longer a future, but a moment, and end to a past. He was blind to the world, distant from its continuance, and yet he saw everything clearly, as if he could see forever for the first time.

A lone deputy stood in the door way, huddling against the rain and cold that came with it. The pudgy-faced kid was puffing on a chesterfield cupped in one hand. He was a doughy kid with dirty yellow hair, combed back tightly and held in place with copious amounts of Palm-aid. John knew him from the drugstore around the corner, slurping root cream sodas and Made-rite sandwiches. He couldn’t recall the kid’s name. It didn’t much matter.

The kid hardly noticed John at first. His attention was lost to the stormy sky through the leaves and branches of an old Maple out front. His view was partly obscured by a cloud of gray-white smoke hanging in the air before him. John was halfway through the door when the kid caught sight of the pistol at John’s side.

The boy had long been the butt of jokes in town. He had been for far so long that it boiled quietly inside of him, waiting to erupt at the proper moment.. That he had been left behind and left out of the happenings outside of town only tore at the young deputy all the more. Worse, that he had not reacted sooner when he spotted the gun in John’s hand would haunt his thoughts forever.