Lone River

“Just shoot the god-damn Asian already.”

“Yeah yeah, just shut the hell up Mark. I’ll shoot him when I shoot him.”

I press the tip of my gun up against the back of the man’s head. It’s dark, and cold, and wet, and the rain has turned the river embankment to mud. The river itself runs black in the night, its loud rapids filling my ears. Among the roarings of the rapids is the moaning and crying of the man that I’m pointing my gun at. The sounds would compare, I believe, to those of someone with a fork up their ass. Although really, he would actually be better off so: for the pain from such a situation wouldn’t compare with the terror of having the cold barrel of a gun pressed against your skull.

Mark is noticing my delay, as suggest by his sudden take to leaning against the large oak tree to my right. As cold and wet as it is, he’s still not wearing above the waist other than his black tattoo sleeves. The ink expresses the terror he lives his life in. I look down at my own hand, still skin clean, and watch it shake. Covering up my hesitance, I shove the man before me down on his knees, into the mud.

“Step one: pull the trigger,” says Mark, in a sarcastic tone, “Step two: bullet enters man’s brain, exits through forehead, man falls in river, is never seen again, and world is rid of one more shitty driver.” Then just like all of his jokes, he breaks out into a high, obnoxious laughter. I keep quite as I rotate the gun in my hand, pressing the barrel harder against the man’s head. The weight of the weapon grows heavier.

Then the man the man before me gives a loud moan, like cow turned inside out. “ME HAVE FAMILY!” he says.

Mark breaks out laughing. “Hey, so if an Asian screams for help in the middle of nowhere and nobody cares, does he make a sound?” He laughs again at this, and I don’t; but this time he takes notice. He grows all serious: I know a talk’s coming. “This is your time, man. You’ve been waiting for a chance to prove yourself. Now a deep breath, and pull the trigger. You don’t give a shit about this poor bastard: to you he’s just some poor convenience store worker. I can wait here all night; but you’re gonna show some balls now.

Mark’s speech has got me going over the edge. I’m shaking bad, and can barely still keep the gun pointed at the man’s head. Ah man, If I really had balls I wouldn’t have this much trouble. Maybe I am just another poor bastard, stuck in some life until one day I’m on my knees like the poor man in front of me. I almost mean to take the gun away, but I don’t. Am I puss? Or am I a man? My mind is wheeling over itself, and my gun hand is disconnected from my thoughts. It floats in front of me, uncontrolled, my fingers fidgeting and my palm sweating. What type of man-puss am I?

BAM! A gun goes off.

Oh shit, it’s my gun. Ah hell-shit—I just killed a man.

“Yes! That’s my boy!” exclaims my accomplish.

BAM! His body drops as well. His look of enthusiasm disappears into a mess of red shit, and he falls into the river after the first man. I toss the gun in after him.

“Damn racist,” I declare, turning to leave.

Then, facing away from the river, I take a slow deep breath of the calm night air.