THE LIST

THE LIST

1. Pick up Instant coffee, bologne, bread
2. Go to Temp Office
3. Pay Cell Phone Bill
4. Drug Store
5. Kill Kenny

I checked my list for the umpteenth time this morning. I probably memorized it by about the fifth time I read it, but yet I found myself rechecking it. It hadn’t changed, the same six items still were on the list that I had written down as I finished off my morning coffee, sitting in my dilapidated old van. I had hesitated over # 6. Not hesitation about completing the task, but I hesitated about actually writing it down in black and white. I mean… what criminal in his right mind, writes down these things? It’s evidence if ever there was some kind of investigation. Yet I found myself somehow compelled to write it down by a force greater than myself. I am somewhat compulsive, I must admit.

I started my morning, as always, by getting out my trusty notebook and compiling a list of tasks that I needed/wanted to accomplish that day or that week while sipping my coffee. As I completed my tasks I would cross them off with my turquoise marker which I had attached to the notebook for just that purpose. If it does not get crossed off that day I will write it down on the next page for the following day's list of tasks. So far today I have completed numbers one through five and have dutifully crossed them off my list. Only # 6 was still outstanding.

I read it again. Kill Kenny. Short, precise, and to the point. I next checked my messenger bag on the seat beside me in the car. I surreptitiously pulled out my revolver and checked to make sure the safety was still on. It was. I put it back on the seat next to my notebook.

 I turned right at the next intersection and then a hard left at the third traffic light. I slowed down and turned into a coffee shop across the street from the bank where Kenneth Hartly worked. I had cased the joint, as the criminal says in the vernacular, many times. Not to commit a robbery, of course, my aim was quite different. I, however, was not a criminal, at least not yet. Not until # 6 was checked off my list. I didn’t actually think that performing # 6 was a criminal activity, I felt it was more an obligation, a justification, a duty, poetic justice, a vendetta. My raison d’etre, my reason for continuing living.

I had never before considered myself a vigilante, capable of conducting a vendetta, but times change. It was something I would have to take up with my shrink someday. But I digress. Kenneth Hartley or as I considered him Kenny Heartless, had ruined my life. It was Kenny who was responsible for my ultimate downfall. My life had turned into a house of cards tossing in the wind. The ripple effect from his actions was catastrophic. When he foreclosed on my house, I lost everything. My house obviously, but my spouse and children as well, my job, my pride, everything was in a downward spiral sending me into the pit of despair. Everything I had was in this old van that I had hastily turned into my new domicile. The back seat served as a replacement for my king-size bed. The dashboard served as my kitchen table and the AC adapter that fit in my cigarette lighter socket served as power for my rice cooker cum soup pot and coffee kettle. The middle seats were filled with cardboard boxes of things I had managed to salvage. The van itself had been turned down by the second-hand car dealer, thus I was fortunate enough to call it home. A little sarcasm warms the heart.

I knew Kenny had to go. Justice must be served. He took my life and now I would take his. People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.

Kenny's Bank is the bottom floor of a gigantic glass office tower in the downtown core. I had started to stalk Kenny weeks ago, shortly after I lost everything. I knew where he worked, of course, I had banked with the bank where he was the loans and mortgage officer for over ten years. I had met with him several times before he foreclosed on my house. Trying desperately to salvage my life, to make it work. I was willing to make a compromise. Kenny was not. I was willing to negotiate. Kenny was not. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

During my days stalking Kenny, I had discovered that he was a creature of habit. Every day he left his office at 12:05, crossed the street to the coffee shop, ate his lunch, and crossed the street back to the bank at precisely 12:55. It was at this point that I would make my stand and Kenny would get what was coming to him. I had planned it all out, the hit, the escape route, the bridge where I would toss the gun. I had all the time in the world to plan the perfect crime, as I no longer had a life.

I checked my watch. I had seen Kenny cross the street and enter the coffee shop. Ten minutes to one I picked up the gun and held it in my sweating hand. At 12:55 Kenny emerged from the shop and held the door open for a lady and her baby. I rolled down the window of my car. I took a deep breath, this was it. Kenny took a step off the curb. I rested the gun on my arm to steady it. I waited till he took a step up onto the sidewalk in front of the bank. I was all set. But the lady with the kid that he had held the door for was right behind him. I couldn't take out Kenny without taking out her and the kid too. Kenny entered the bank and the door closed. I had missed the shot,

I tucked the gun into my bag, picked up my notebook, and turned to the next page, tomorrow's page. I wrote down, just as I had written it down for the past 4 weeks. Kill Kenny.