So, I’d met my ex-wife’s new squeeze and got her thinking I was suicidal, been beaten up and thrown out of a club I was casing to explore the possibility of murdering a man after an anonymous patron, who’d sprung me from jail, offered to pay me.
This all felt pretty normal to me, because my life had become a shit show of hard luck and random happenings.
You might be sitting there in your warm bath, toasty bed, on the train to your square job where you get to be a fully paid-up, productive member of society, and you might be wondering why someone might accept the word of a total stranger. An anonymous promise isn’t worth the words used to make it, right? Not to me. At this point, the word of a stranger was the only hope I had.
I walked home from Toni’s place, planning what I was going to do. Disused, almost forgotten regions of my brain flickered to life as I recalled my old methods of preparing for a military operation. Past me had been an obsessive, it was part and parcel of being an engineer, and whether our challenge was to build a bridge, secure a base, or repair a highway, I liked to rehearse everything over and over in my mind, until I’d pictured every possibility and prepared myself mentally for each outcome.
Failure here would involve being arrested. Success meant another man’s death.
I wasn’t a frontline soldier, but I’d been deployed in Afghanistan and knew plenty of guys who’d experienced the fire and brimstone of war. They killed men with families, fathers, grandfathers, and sons. And when they’d come back from the slaughter, some polished brass whose glory days were faded black-and-white memories would pin shining medals to their chests.
People die every single day. Tens of thousands of them all over the world. The removal of one nasty gangster should make no difference to the tally. At least that’s what I told myself when I felt my queasy misgivings rise.
By the time I arrived home, I’d rehearsed Walter Glaze’s death every which way. It wasn’t a murder. It was a sanctioned killing, but instead of my authority deriving from the state, it came from my patron, and the application of my own judgment that this here was a bad man who’d served more than his fair share of time on earth.
I showered and changed into black jeans and a black T-shirt. I put on a black hoodie with a large front pocket, into which I shoved the pistol and twelve rounds. As an afterthought I also pocketed the pills Attica had given me. The military history module I’d taken during basic training had taught me even the most hardened soldiers need mind-altering substances to cope with the business of killing and its aftermath.
I pulled my old dress uniform from a suitcase under my bed and laid it on the frayed divan, a reminder of better times. If anything went wrong, I wanted people who came here to know I’d once been an honorable man.
I kept being unsettled by waves of sickness, so I went into the kitchen for a glass of water. After I’d finished it, I found a working pen and sat down at the small table with a piece of paper. It was a warning letter from the power company that it was going to cut me off for arrears, but the back was blank and clear. The uniform wouldn’t be enough for Skye, so I started writing.
My dearest Skye,
When you were two, I’d take you swimming every Sunday morning when I wasn’t on deployment. You’d stand at the side of the baby pool, your chubby little arms stuffed inside your water wings, and you’d smile and giggle before jumping in. You were so brave, but every time your head went under the water, my heart stopped. Even though I knew I was there to catch you, to bring you up, I couldn’t help but go to those dark places and imagine the pain of something bad happening. I’m sorry I haven’t been there for you these past few years, I really am, but I’m here now and I’m doing right by you, because you are the light that brightens my world.
If you are reading this, things have gone wrong, and people will be saying terrible things about me. I want you to know that I was trying to give you a better life. I don’t want you to face the struggles that have made my life a mess. You deserve better because you’re a beautiful spirit, a wonderful soul. If we never see each other again, I want you to remember me at my best—a good man trying to provide for his daughter in a difficult world. Know that I love you and always will,
Peyton (Dad)
I left the note beside my uniform. Family and honor, testaments to the man I’d once been.
Maybe after today, I could become that man again.