The following is an original short story by the blarg. Love it, hate it, or be confused, but I think you’ll enjoy it. If you like the first paragraph click down for the rest.
Update: Sorry for the lack of resolution in the first edition. The wife was making me hurry to come downstairs to watch TV.
Rich Nguyen was closing up shop for the night. His parents owned the place, but this "responsibility" as they called it, was usually his. Even at twelve years old, when they’d decided to buy the store, Rich had known that "Good Market" was a stupid name. Like most parents they didn’t listen to him though, and now a sophomore in college, he was stuck with the late shift at Good Market.
While his parents had big dreams and aspirations for the store, Rich knew it was nothing more than a poor excuse to sell booze. Usually it was busy early in the morning and late at night. Rich figured it was because the old people alcoholics that came into the store either woke up very early or very late. The really pathetic cases came daily, as if the liquor store was part of their morning routine right between dressing and brushing their teeth. Rich had smelled their breath though, and he knew most of them didn’t brush their teeth.
It’s not unusual for some hobo or teenager to show up right before closing. You never know when a hobo will get the last nickel he needs or some kid thinks tonight will be "the night." Selling booze and willy protectors wasn’t very fulfilling, but two more years of college and he was a free man.
The front door made a "boo-doo" chime as a customer came in.
The man standing at the door looked neither homeless nor horny. He was wearing a suit, black, and a dull tie. For a moment he thought his original assumption was wrong and the man really was homeless, but as he approached he saw that it was a newer suit. The man’s glasses and raggedy hair had thrown him off.
"You work here?" he asked. He didn’t slur, so even if he was homeless, Rich didn’t think he was the drunk type.
"Unfortunately" Rich told him.
"I need you to do me a favor," and as he said this he reached inside his jacket.
It happened so fast that Rich was still considering the man’s potential for home ownership, or lack thereof, and he didn’t notice the 9mm until it was fully out of the man’s jacket. "Crap" was all his jelly of a brain could muster, followed shortly by "A homeless guy in a crappy tie is about to shoot me for some cash." Or if he had the story wrong "an unattractive horny guy is about to shoot me for some condoms." Rich didn’t like either scenario.
Before Rich could even decide what his next move was, the man in the suit made it for him. Rich realized the man wasn’t holding the gun in "shoot me" mode, because he was handing it to him.
"I need you to shoot me," the suit told him. "I was gonna do it myself, but I couldn’t pull the trigger."
Rich had so many thoughts racing through his head that he might as well have had none.
"Shoot you? Like kill you?"
"Yah, it has to be fatal. I was thinking in the head, or maybe the heart."
"I wasn’t asking you how," Rich told him. "You’re f’ing crazy!"
"No" the man in the suit told him, "I’m weak."
For the next ten minutes, gun in hand, the man in the suit explained to Rich Nguyen why he wanted to die. After months of hardwork, the man in the suit had become an utter failure. In a moment of weakness, probably at a big chain mini-market like 7-Eleven, he had eaten not one, but two twinkies. The man in the suit had broken his Weight Watchers points goal for the day.
In very specific detail the man explained the internal tug of war as he stood outside the rival liquor store for two hours before succumbing to temptation. He recounted the guilt he felt as he bought the devil’s dessert in plain daylight, and the horror he felt as he added up his points on his handy little Weight Watchers counter. The man in the suit didn’t just want to die, but felt he deserved to die.
"I can’t shoot you man, I’d go to jail. I’m not a killer. You’re seriously crazy." Rich was now wishing the man had wanted to rob him.
"I know it sounds crazy, but I’m begging you." The man in the suit was pleading with his life. "I’ll give you fifty bucks."
Rich was a cash strapped college student, but he didn’t like the thought of compromising his morals for a quick buck.
"My accounting books alone this semester were almost $300!" Rich reasoned, "fifty dollars is nothing."
The man in the suit thought long and hard for a solution, and for a moment Rich thought the man would change his mind about the whole thing. But the next time the man in the suit spoke it would be for the last time.
"Where is the nearest ATM?"
That semester Rich Nguyen had a little extra spending money, a new suit, and a secret buried behind Good Market that no homeless man or horny teenager would ever know about.
