The two men sat comfortably on opposite sides of the table. Both were smoking cigars. Both were leaning back in their chairs, their feet resting up by their glasses of scotch. The room was dark, lit by a small chandelier that hung directly above them. Everything was quiet.
“So?” asked the larger man.
“Yeah? What is it?” said the other, taking the cigar out of his mouth. The men moved slowly, as though weighed down by the smoke and the tension.
“What are you going to tell him?”
“Tell who?”
The larger man took a sip of his scotch, leaning back further in his chair. “What are you going to tell the boss?”
“What am I going to tell him about what?”
“What are you going to tell him about the little girl?”
“I’m going to tell him she’s dead.”
The larger man smiled. He found the nerve. “Yeah, but you don’t know she’s dead.”
“What?”
“You don’t know she’s dead.”
“What do you mean I don’t know she’s dead? The whole fucking house blew up,” said the other.
“You don’t know if she was in the house.”
“Yeah I do.”
“You didn’t find her.”
“So what?”
“So you don’t know she was in the house,” said the larger man.
“I saw her go in, I didn’t see her come out. She was in the house. Just because she wasn’t in her room doesn’t mean she wasn’t there. She was probably in the bathroom or sleeping in another room or something, but she was there.” He was growing tense.
“The fact is that you don’t know whether or not she was in the house. Admit it. Now if you go in and tell Paulie you killed her when you didn’t, he’s going to find out, and when he does, you’re going to be a dead man.”
“It was one little fucking girl. What difference does it make?”
“He wanted her dead. It makes a difference.” The two stared cooly at each other. “You’re losing your touch,” said the larger man.
The other lost it at this accusation. He stood up and glared across the table. “Killing kids isn’t my fucking job, man. It shouldn’t fucking matter whether she’s dead or not; what’s she going to do?”
The larger man remained calm. He took a puff of his cigar, leaned under the light, and dropped his gun onto the table. The other stiffened instantly. Smoke twirled its way around the standing man’s arms, pulling him back into the seat.
The larger man smiled, settling into the silence he had caused. “Then why’d you tell him you’d do it?” he asked.
“Why did I tell him I’d do what?” said the other, speaking quietly.
“Why’d you tell him you’d kill the little girl.”
“I didn’t. He told me.”
“Well why’d you say you’d do it?” asked the larger man.
“What am I supposed to say? You can’t give a job like that to anyone. He trusts me.”
“You’re right. He does.”
“See what I mean?”
“Maybe a little too much.”
“What?” asked the other, rattled.
“If you said no, he would’ve been glad to give it to someone else. If you felt so fucking uncomfortable, you could’ve passed it all together, but you didn’t.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Sensibility,” said the larger man. The other didn’t answer. Both were gaining steam, their stares cutting at each other through the smoke. “A sensible man lives reasonably, and between logic and emotion, reasonably is somewhere in between.” He stopped for a moment and began playing with his gun, organizing his thoughts. “For the longest time, I always considered you to be a reasonable man,” he said to the other, “and I like to still think that you are a reasonable man, but tonight, I saw something that threw some doubts on your character.”
“I am a reasonable fucking man.”
“But that’s not all I’m talking about,” he said. “I’m also talking about integrity. Sensibility is about knowing what is honest and what is dishonest, and I don’t just mean your everyday Who stole the cookies bullshit. You have to be honest with yourself, you know what I mean?” The other remained quiet. All he could do was look down the barrel. “That’s what sensibility is. It’s about being honest and it’s about being reasonable. I’ve had the privilege to meet a fair amount of sensible men in my lifetime, and those that weren’t sensible were either honest or reasonable and I respect them all the same. You, I always thought to be a sensible guy. Not necessarily the smartest guy, but you were sensible. But tonight, you were reeling like a pinwheel. This is the first job I’ve ever seen you like this before.”
“Well it was a pretty big fucking job, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah it was. And that’s what I’m thinking about. Paulie’s the most sensible guy I know, and it doesn’t make sense for him to throw a couple of guys like us into something like this alone. I’m thinking about this, and I’ve come up with two conclusions; either Paulie was being unreasonable, or you were being dishonest.”
The other man huffed in a fit of frustration. “Unbe-fucking-lievable,” he said, rising from his chair. The larger man clicked back the gun’s hammer.
“Here’s what I think,” the larger man continued. “I think Paulie did want more guys to come. I think he knew damn well how important that family was. Either you lied to him and told him you’d do it as he asked, or you convinced him you could do it alone. I don’t know how the fuck you dragged me into this, but that’s not important anymore. You never shake before a hit, and the more I think about it, the more it burns me up. I knew something was wrong, but I ignored it. But I know now that you’re fucked up. That’s what’s important. You are fucked up.”
The larger man downed the rest of his scotch. He slammed his glass down onto the table and watched the other, who remained motionless. The both of them sat in silence for a minute, hatred, smoke, and a loaded barrel standing between them. The larger man took a long drag from his cigar before continuing on with his speech.
“Tonight, we blew up a house. We killed two people, and possibly a small child. To do something like that together requires a lot of trust. Do you trust me?”
The other man nodded.
The larger man smirked. “Don’t fucking lie to me. Just because I have a gun doesn’t mean you have to lie to me.” The other kept silent. “Alright. Maybe you do trust me. I know I trust you. Trusted you. If I didn’t trust you, we wouldn’t be sitting here together right now. But there’s more to it then trust, and if I trusted you blindly we wouldn’t be sitting here together right now, either. You had my respect and you had my honor, and those are two big fucking things to get out of me. But you lost that. If you still had it, you wouldn’t have a fucking gun to your head. You were a good man and you were a skilled man, and it is for all these reasons that we got to where we are right now, but I am doing what I am doing for another reason. Do you know what I’m talking about?”
“Sensibility.”
The larger man smiled. “That’s right,” he said, and he pulled the trigger. |
Submission Name: Sensibility
