Nine Eleven (#Wattys2015)

Chapter 11

Die Undecimo

The morning of September 11, 2001

He drops the third bullet into the cylinder. It clanks loudly against the walls of the metal gun. The revolver cold and lifeless in his hands. He stands inside his closet in front of rows of his neatly hanging clothes. Professor Peretz loads the fourth bullet, the shiny brass glimmers in bright ecstasy at its hopeful firing. He loads the fifth bullet. It runs smoothly in. 

His dark closet. The lonely apartment. The early morning thought. The cold temper. And the smell of young coffee spreading its back across the cracks around the room. 

Hardly dressed, the old man loads the sixth bullet. Without caution, without thought. He breathes a quick sigh and whips the loaded cylinder into the gun, and with a loaded snap the gun is ready to fire. 

The professor held is newly loaded gun inside his lightless closet. The early morning commute waits him down the road as he prepares for the start of his patient day. He aims the gun at the blank dark corner of the quiet closet, where he keeps his jackets, imagining the face of the boy who preached to him yesterday. He widens his stance for better balance. He extends his arms for stiff immobility. Then closes his left eye as he stares down the iron sights of the black revolver. 

His waits patiently as he shuffles his pointing finger on the trigger. Aiming

practice—even in the darkness of his closet. Remeasuring the weight, re-feeling the proportions of the gun, aiming at the imaginary man. 

"Bang!"he says. He jerks the gun bang with a violent force. He liked the feeling. The thought. 

He does it again.

"Bang!"

Then again.

"Bang!"

He grins. 

"Bang! Bang! Bang!"

Before another pseudo-firing of his loaded .357, he pulls the gun close for inspection. He looks down it's side, at it's handle, at its'label, at it's serial number. He squints hard.

Noticing that he's been in the closet for a while, he puts the gun down on his messy bed besides the open closet door. A lonely bed. He finishing getting dressed. His slacks, his shirt, his suit coat. Then starts to leave the room, forgetting the gun.

It was new to him, the whole thought of having a firearm. He shouldn't have a gun. Or even be carrying it. Nor should be even thinking about taking it with him to work. Especially because he works at a university. And lives in New York City. And bought it illegally. But he does have it, and he will carry it.

He returns for the gun and grabs it from the bed; he opens the drawer by the bed; pulls out a holster; and slips the black gun inside. He then he pulls up his grey suit pant leg, and straps the holster with the gun to his right calf. He puts the pant leg over it. 

He walks up to the long mirror he kept inside his bedroom to see if the gun is noticeable. It is. But because of his old age, and his propriety, he assumes that no one will be concerned with the huge bulge on right calf. Assumptions.

He walked into the light. The kitchen. His dilapidated coffee pot sweating on the antique stove. 

He opened the cabinet to grab a coffee cup. He stares at the cups lined perfectly together. Each clean. Each bright. Each ceramic. Naked. It was bright in the kitchen. And he stood there, ready to leave for work, staring patiently at the rows of coffee cups, all different shapes, all different sizes—all facing towards him.

It reminded him of his students. Of his classes. The rows, the blank faces. And his uncanny ability to recognize—and not recognize—the faces of each and every student he's taught. To teach. It was his job to teach Literature to students who strived to learn it and it's timeless ways. He taught all upper-level classes at NYU. So the students that he had were "striving"—which is the only term that may be able to define it. He specified in Dickens. He taught Dickens to young people. To people who stared at him in interchangeable ways. The confused way, the listener, the passive, the laugher, and the never failing eyes shutting, long-blinking, bored, and unconcerned face who sits back in the class.

Each shiny blank faced cup stared at him in vulnerability. Naked of hope. Barren of faith. He could smash their grim-faced ceramic against the floor—or the wall—or the fan—or the board—or to other students. Smashing cups together.

Or to shoot them down.

To punch tiny vibrating holes, unrelenting, surging, forcing, bursting, running violent through their ceramic frames. 

To shoot them down. 

He imagined shooting them down. His first class of the day. Opening fire at his students. Opening fire on the entire class as he'd stand before them.

As he stood staring strangely at each of his fragile cups in his kitchen cabinet he let it unwind:

"I'd shut the door. Yes, it would be strange, but not altogether foreign—I've shut the door in class before. And I would walk back behind the podium. It would have to be a classroom type of class, not and auditorium. Or—now thinking about it—I can make it work in an auditorium. I'd work quick, without thought. I would get behind the podium, and bend down and pull out the gun. It would have to be in one quick motion. Quick. I mean quick! Like they shouldn't be able to know what I was doing. Not even see me; that's how fast! They can't be giving time to think neither. Because if they did, it would be ruined. So, they'd see me move real fast, wait with weak curiosity, and then hear—or feel—every smoking fat faced bullet clap loudly into their heaving chest. Like, it would be hard enough when they start hearing rounds going off, the panic, the frenzy; so, I'd have to make it as quick as possible in order to give me time to shoot as many as I can. I'd start with the front row. I'd shoot one, then started walked towards the others. Bang! the bullets will jump from the gun. My power. Then I'd continue walking around really—or you know what?—I shouldn't walk around too much, or like, get to close—they might get crazy and try to take away my gun. I'd have to have more than one gun. Yeah. A rifle too. But I'd go, and shoot them anywhere I can hit them. They'd run—girls with their frivolous hair tossing violently into the air in the communal chaos. I'd have to shoot them in the back. And the faces of young men, hopeless, crying—desperate—staring at the blunt face of my snub nose gun like staring at the garrulous face of death himself. Death, who would then spit his brass venom into their face, and rock their torrent heart into an unformidable world discovered—I should put this in a book. A professor that guns down his students. Gosh, that'd be crazy. Ha—"

The sound of the his neighbors slamming their door wakes him from his daydream. He remembered that he had to leave. The gun. His coffee. With a tint of new reflection, he felt both the image of guilt in the procurement of a massacre, and the image of pleasure, power and strength all built into one. To kill. The satisfaction. The pride. It burnt bold in his chest with thoughts of love and hate. He made his way to work. Would he ever kill? Would he every do what he imagined? The unrestrained sense of pleasure made him wonder if could. Could he be a murderer?

Thanks for reading! Please vote and follow me on twitter @jonasaperez11..Chapter 12 is coming soon!