a twenty seventh new story... 'act of killing'

Corey rolled over on his side, woke and felt the flayed skin on his knuckles.  He lay for a while gazing obliquely, half open eyes, at the flaking, red-brown paint on the bedroom wall. Trudy was mumbling in her sleep, deep, drunken sleep. He hated himself when he got angry, when frustration and aggression came hurtling out of him, and he hated the way he let Trudy’s patronising pleas for him not to get beaten up, not to fight, spark him into action.

He had won alright. But it didn’t feel right, it wasn’t who he was. Corey prided himself on his kindness, and his kindness protected both himself and others from the worst parts of his nature. Whisky, beer, whisky, beer several times over. Now he was left with guilt, and a busted fist. He had heard the man’s jaw crack, and his teeth shatter like brittle ivories, and he had hit the man on the floor and the man’s blood had covered his best, Saturday shirt, speckled his hot, red face. It took three to pull him off, four to kick him out the door, with Trudy, distraught, stumbling behind.

He knew his friends would look at him funny next time. ‘That Corey …’ The boys would forgive him. The girls would question his character, and Trudy for staying with him. And one by one he would apologise to them. ‘I’m a scrapper’, he would say, ‘an’ I never amounted to much besides. I’m sorry’. And he would give them a bear hug as warm as he could. But he would never tell them of his silent fury, always close to blistering up through the freckles on his skin, broiling just under; the everyday struggle to be gentle, the effort it took to be with Trudy, and how down and wounded he got when she was flighty, when she didn’t love him back, when she slept with Chase, how for that reason he knew he could not hurt Chase, and how he was too vulnerable to change anything real for the better, for himself or for Trudy.

It was getting light, and the blue grey dawn was breaking across the low ridge of hills seen from the trailer window. Trudy would not stir for a while, and he left her sleeping, snoring, mumbling, childlike, and laced his boots, pulled on a heavy jumper and stepped out into the yard. From the rusting, corrugated iron outshed he took his rifle, and a box of rounds from the high shelf at the back, put on his cap and headed up the clay track, bordered by young pines, marching down the valley. He was looking for rabbits, or grouse, dim, stupid pheasants, anything as worthless as he felt at that moment; something to shoot, take home to prove he wasn’t just a scrapper; to prove that Chase meant nothing, that Trudy was the world to him, that in the act of killing, she meant life and his undying sacrifice.