IRRECONCILABLE DIFFERENCES: By Ryan Neil Falcone
Thursday, November 17th, 2011The mugger holds us at gunpoint, issuing a terse ultimatum ripped off from a Jack Benny skit: “Your money or your life.”
My gaze shifts from the foreboding gun barrel pointed at us up to the robber’s face. His pallid forehead is greasy with sweat, his eyes wild with anxiety—he seems just as frightened as we are. I step protectively in front of my wife to shield her from this unexpected threat.
The man’s face hardens—his lips coiling into a menacing sneer as he brandishes the gun in my direction. “Hand over your wallet, or she gets it.”
“Do as he says, Jim,” Laura hisses, her face flushed with irritation. Her tone is perturbed, as if this is somehow my fault. Typical. Several bitter, defensive responses spring to my lips, but I temporarily bite my tongue.
I retrieve the wallet from my pocket, but before I can remove the cash it contains the billfold is deftly snatched from my hands. I take a reactive step forward, but pause when the thief levels the gun at my head, as if daring me to make another move. I pause, taking stock of his shabby appearance and twitchy, erratic behavior, and can’t help but wonder if he’s a drug fiend…or maybe just a misguided victim of circumstance, corrupted by an absentee father who’d bailed, or an abusive mother who didn’t pay enough attention to him. Maybe he has a sick kid at home, forced into a reluctant life of crime only to purchase the medicine his daughter desperately needs.
Of course, these are all just stories I’ve written in my head to fill in the blanks. In actuality, I don’t give a crap about his motivations. I hate him for both this violent intrusion and for disrupting a night that had gone sour long before the robbery.
“Your purse,” he growls, turning his attention to my wife. As she reluctantly hands it over, I see his greedy eyes linger upon her wedding ring. When he licks his lips, ordering her to hand that over as well, my rage boils over.
Our night at the theater had been a last-ditch effort to save a marriage that had drifted off course and was now in imminent danger of running aground. Months of therapy, trail separation and everything in between hadn’t prevented Laura from presenting me with the domino that threatened to topple our fragile nuptials once and for all: divorce papers. Our marriage counselor suggested that we get away for the weekend to explore whether it even made sense for us to mend the tattered fabric of our marriage.
The predictable arguments began over dinner, our conversation devolving into the intractable condemnations that had poisoned our marriage. By the time we’d arrived at the theater, I’d finally accepted that our faltering marriage had irrevocably flat lined. Laura felt similarly disillusioned; in the middle of the play, she announced that she wanted to go back to the hotel. We were making our way back to the parking lot when all hell broke loose.
As I watch the thief eyeball Laura’s ring—the last symbol of a time before our marriage had gone to rot—anger hijacks my judgment. I lunge forward, my hand locking around his wrist as I go for the gun.
I see lightning erupt from the pistol and hear the deafening report of the gunshot echo throughout the alleyway before I feel the exquisite pain. Our panic stricken assailant flees. Laura’s cries for help seem distant, and when I instinctively touch where it hurts, I am startled to discover that my hand is wet with blood.
Later, while the paramedics tend to my injured arm, the police admonish me for trying to be a hero. Laura stands behind them, her face stern with disapproval as she listens to them chastise about how my foolhardy actions nearly cost me my life. I make no reply, recognizing that my previous life has been dead a long time.
Author’s Name: Ryan Neil Falcone
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©2011 Ryan Neil Falcone
Ryan Neil Falcone serves an editor for Dark Moon Books and Dark Moon Digest, and is an active member of Cornell University’s Irving Literary Society. His short stories have been featured in horror-themed markets such as The Absent Willow Review, Macabre Cadaver, Dark Gothic Resurrected Magazine, and Deadman’s Tome, as well as numerous commercially available print anthologies. His platform of work is summarized at: www.ryanneilfalcone.com
