The Monster Still Gets You In The End

Man in Reno

"You know how to use a gun? I wouldn't have even figured you even been hunting let alone know how to use a gun."

"Yep. I do. Shot a man in Reno."

"Bullshit."

I took a sip of my coffee before replying. "Yep, ain't nothin to brag about. Was a kid really. An mostly luck, as most of these things are."

"Bullshit. No fucking way."

"He shows up a half hour earlier, and he gets me. A half hour later and I get him. Don't really ever know what the ifs could ever have turned out like could we?"

"No fucking way, no fucking way, I ain't even buying this."

"Nope, it's true. He comes through the back door all snake-like, and I just come in through the front door soon as he showed up. I had a hunting trip next morning in Abilene with my dad and brother. I'd set all my stuff all out that morning so I could take off right after work and be there at the hotel by that night. Cops said a witness saw him sitting outside my house for a whole hour before getting the nerve up and breaking in."

"Come on, knock it off."

"If I had known all he had was a crow-bar, I wouldn't have shot. But I was quick, impulsive really, come pretty natural with ADD....or, so the doctors always told me."

...

"Hell, I like to think if he had asked me straight up that I woulda given him the money. But I know I wouldn't have...He needed a lot of money."

...

"what he need the money for?"

I frown a bit, shaking my head. "Grew up on the bad side of town, real poor. Like to say I wouldn't have ended up doing what he did. But I can't."

"What he need the money for."

"Don't know. Like to think his sister needed an operation. Maybe...I don't know honestly. Maybe he just needed the money. Man's gotta live, and I can't say I woulda chosen McDonald's over criminalities."

"Who was he?"

"No one really, like most of us. He didn't have anyone. Grew up bouncing around foster cares is what the police said if I remember right."

"His sister?"

"I don't know. Just something I like to think of him. Came up with a whole life story for the fella cuz there ain't nothing there for me to know...only to imagine."

"Shit."

"Like to think I woulda ended up the same as him sometimes and others I like to think I woulda been different, maybe better, maybe worse. Mostly, though..."

"Mostly what?"

"I don't know."

"Come on, go on..."

"Jus..."

...

"Fuck."

....

"Mostly jus...jus sit there and think...

"About him?"

"Yeah."

"The ifs?"

"Yeah, the ifs."