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The Unnoticeable Demise of James Gorsky
James Gorsky was his name, and he was pretty fucked up. No one really knew for sure what his beef was. He was always mumbling, talking to himself. He was twitchy. He moved his hands a lot, like they would freeze up if he didn't move his fingers, or
something like that. And he always had to be chewing on something.
Gum,
wads of paper,
handfuls of grass. Sometimes he would just tear off a piece of his shirt and shove it in his mouth. There was really something wrong with him. It probably had something to do with that he had been
dropping acid practically every day since he was 14. It must have fried his brain. And when he laughed, he made this cackle like
a swine in a blender. It was the most awful sound in the world. It sent chills down your spine.
Our next job: rescue
Roland Moufang. He was the only one who had access to the lockup, and no lockup meant no guns, no money, no nothing. He was kidnapped by another member of our club,
Desmond Siel. He was greedy, and he met another gang across town that could give him better jobs, apparently. Also, the money in our stash by way of
Moufang was a bonus.
We were all in the meeting room, and
Grove was briefing us on the job.
Get in,
don't get seen,
get the money,
kill whoever we see. That was the plan: we were to break into this abandoned building on
Manchon Street across town. That was their base of operations, or at least we were pretty sure.
We had little idea of what we were doing. We had never broken into another gang's base of operations before. Most of us would go the the place. That was
me,
Espen Grove,
Jasper Doepfer,
Martin Korg,
Karl Fairlight, and
James Gorsky. The other one,
Frederick Peavey, was to stay put and keep our location under watch. Basic stuff for him. No biggie.
But it was a little biggie to
Gorsky, though. He made looks at the wall, as if there was something that didn't quite settle with him. When
Grove was done with the briefing,
Gorsky questioned him,
"What about this guy over here? He needs something to do." Grove followed the path
Gorsky's finger made to the wall, and there was no one there.
"Who?" Grove said.
Gorsky staggered up to his feet and said,
"Who should he go with?" His voice was starting
to sound of swine again.
Grove just made a little glance to the wall again, then stared back at
Gorsky like he was a
madman. Not that he wasn't. He was.
"What are you talking about?" Grove said, sounding pretty fucking confused.
Gorsky started walking over to the wall, the empty part he was pointing at before, and he said,
"What are YOU talking about, man? This guy needs something to fucking do. He can't just pussyfoot it and stay here. He needs something to do!" Peavey gave him a mean look, the kind of "what the fuck" look. Even if there was someone there, he could stay there with
Peavey. It was rude.
Grove was losing what little temper he had.
"There is NObody there, James! You are fucking psycho!"
And
Gorsky as well was losing his temper, obvious by the fact that
his eye started twitching.
"What are you talking about?" he said. He put his arm up as he walked, as if he was going to pat the invisible man on his back.
"Don't you remember this guy? (heh...ah...) Hartnoll I think his name was...wa..wa..." He waved his arm around in the air, staring wide-eyed at where his arm swayed around. The back he was going to pat was not there, and he couldn't speak any more than one syllable.
"...wa...wa...wa.." He kept going on like a
broken record. All the rest of us just stared at each other. We exchanged looks of "eeks" and "wow" and all like that.
Looking at him you could just tell his mind was having a meltdown. He looked around. Stared at
Grove for a long time not moving a muscle. This was for like two minutes. Not a muscle. Eventually
Grove had to move on. Sure we were all a little freaked out, but it seemed like
Gorsky was calmed down. That, or he was just trying to contemplate what happened.
Poor fucker.
Grove continued with our briefing on the job.
"So, people, we are going to have to be very careful. Without Roland, we can't get into the lockup, and without access to the lockup we have no weapons. So we are all going to have to rely on our sidearms, and anything else we can find inside. So conserve your ammo until you get another weapon. Karl, Martin, and Jasper, you all ride with me. James, you're riding with him." He pointed at me.
James Gorsky didn't move. Not a muscle.
Me and
Gorsky were going to follow them in my car. It was a
Ford Taurus from its glory days, the kind that had a trunk you could fit a dozen bodies in.
As the rest of us started to leave to rescue our friend,
Gorsky wouldn't budge. He just stood there. Not moving a muscle.
Grove went up to him and asked him if he was alright. Not a muscle. So
Grove yelled over to me and told me i'd better get over there and talk to him.
"Since you are the one in Gorsky's group, you are his keeper. You need to watch him, make sure he stays under control. If he makes any noise that might give us away, then we'll all be as good as dead. And if you need to, kill him."
Good advice to live by.
So we went to help
Gorsky out to the car. As soon as we touched him, he exploded. He
completely freaked out. He started yelling
"NO NO!!! LET GO OF ME!!!!! LET GO!! NO! AH!! NO! LET GO OF ME!!!" On and on with
no mercy to our ears. Of course, the rest of the guys started yelling at us.
"What the fuck is wrong with him?"
"Get him out of here!" and on like that.
As if he thought we couldn't hear the rest of the yells,
Peavey walked up and said to us,
"I can't take care of him here. Get him the fuck out of here. I don't care whether he goes or wanders around or just dies, but he sure as the sky is blue can't stay here."
Grove and I led him out by the arms as he was squirming trying to release our grip. He was still screaming. We brought him to the
Ford Taurus.
Grove opened the passenger door, and I told him,
no, the back door. So he opened the back passenger door and I shoved
Gorsky in. As I went to slam the door shit, he was trying to get out, and the window cracked on his forehead. I'm sure it didn't make much difference to him. But my window was cracked, dammit. The front door was still open, so I pressed down the button to lock the doors. In his fit of insanity, he wouldn't be able to get the door open. He started to calm down a little, and was now just writhing in pain over his bleeding forehead.
Grove talked to me.
"Remember, he is dangerous to our entire operation, so for the love of fuck, shut him up. And of course, remember: kill him if you have to." With these words he gave me a real angry look right from his eyes to mine.
Affirmative, Captain.
So I got in the diver's seat and started up the car.
Gorsky in the backseat jumped to attention. He seemed to completely forget about his headwound. I started driving, out of the lot and stopped on the deserted road. Out here everything was
blue and
grey. It was pretty much overcast as the sun was setting, and it looked as though rain was coming. The only sound other than my engine was the wind blowing through the concrete jungle. Darkness would be here within a half-hour.
Gorsky looked around, like he had no idea where he was. After a few minutes, with us just sitting there, me admiring the blue concrete and him trying to figure out his own perception, the other group of four pulled out onto the road in a
big black SUV.
There we go. I followed them away into
the city.
Away from the slum we called our home. Lead the way, Captain.
"Where are you taking me?" came the cracking voice from the back seat. The tone in his voice sounded like a five-year-old kid wondering why
Fido isn't moving anymore.
"other side of town" I said.
"we've got a job to do." No tone in my voice. I was just tired. Tired of having to deal with him.
"Are you going to kill me?" he said.
Paranoid, alright.
"no. not unless you try to kill me. heh." A little humor? Maybe. I've never been accused of being a
comedian.
Of course it rarely works on the psychotic.
"You're going to kill me?" he said it again. Voice shaking.
Mental tremors. His meltdown is not over yet. Only in a lull.
I started feeling nervous.
"if i have to, yes." I wasn't going to lie to him.
I wasn't afraid of him. I was never good with psychos anyway.
"You are going to kill me?" once again. He sounded like a child.
I wasn't afraid of him. I had a gun. He didn't. I glanced at him in the
rearview mirror, and I started yelling.
"yes. yes i am. so what?" He looked sad, like he was going to cry. Like a child.
"Why?" he said it softly at first.
"well..." I only had time for one word.
He began into an
explosion of insanity again.
"Why? why! why why WHY WHY WHY!!!! WHYYY!!!??"
God fuck it. I knew it was going to have to come to this. I can't have him like this. I pulled out my gun and shoved it in his face in the back seat. He stopped, stared down the barrel. He recoiled, curled up in the corner of the seat, trying to get away from the gun. He was screaming
"No! Don't shoot me!!" He was crying.
Bawling.
I didn't care. He had to go. I fired the first shot, aimed for the heart. Painful, I know. It will be over very soon. I fired the second shot, forehead. Aimed
between the eyes. He squirmed for another second. Then stopped. Dead. Good riddance. All while keeping the vehicle on the road.
No one knew, except my cronies in the
SUV. This place was practically unpopulated, aside from
factories and warehouses. And no one could hear, or see, and no one would care.
Gorsky's blood didn't make much difference on the car. It had a dark interior, and there was effectively no splatter on the windows.
Unnoticeable.