I'm no Stephen King, more like a cross between him and Chuck P. with a little Poe thrown in, but I am a huge fan of his work. I first read On Writing, a Memoir of the Craft, when it was first released, and after re-reading it a couple years ago, took a stab at the writing exercise in the book. Not my best work, but not total shit either.Stop it Michael, you're making yourself crazy! Mike Jones was indeed making himself crazy, but he had no idea what to do about it. Gina has been in jail over six months now, it's over with. Dr. Trillian said it's time for you to put that whole awful mess behind you. That whole awful mess consisted of a four year marriage that had at first seemed like a match made in heaven. Mike and Gina, anybody who saw the two of them together couldn't deny that here was a couple who was clearly in love. And indeed they had been, Mike had always been shy, so when popular, outgoing Gina had shown interest, he was confused, but Gina was beautiful and Mike was lonely, and four months later they were married at city hall. It was shortly after the marriage that Gina began to change, becoming jealous and paranoid. Mike would walk in the door of their studio apartment after work in the evenings and immediately Gina was on him, accusing him of cheating, of stealing non-existent money from her purse, anything to start a fight it seemed. She became so controlling that Mike was no longer "allowed" to speak to any of the few remaining friends Gina hadn't already scared off. One night, after an especially stressful day at the factory where he worked, Mike broke the rules and not only did he not call Gina to tell her he was on his way home, he went to his favorite bar with a couple of the guys from work and had a much-needed beer. Despite the fact that he hadn't been to his favorite bar a single time since meeting Gina, he only had the one, and then went straight home, but Gina was more furious then he had ever seen her. Mike was a small guy, and by no means a fighter, but even if he had been he was not the type of man to lay a hand on his wife, but Gina had no problem hitting Mike with anything close at hand, including a broomstick, and the large ashtray that sat on their coffee table. Mike was forced to run away from his own house and when his friend Tom from down the block took him to the emergency room his forehead received six stitches, courtesy of that large ashtray which had been a present from Gina's mom. He spent that night on Tom's couch, and in the morning Gina was ringing the doorbell and crying hysterically. After a considerable amount of apologies, promises, and plenty more crying from both sides, Mike went home. A week later, Mike and Gina learned they were pregnant. Pregnancy turned out to agree with Gina, it seemed to Mike that the woman he'd married was back, and that horrible stranger was gone for good. Things only got better when their daughter Emily was born, both of them loved her dearly. Gina was still prone to the occasional bout of jealousy or paranoia, but these instances were few and far between, and although she would scream and yell during one of her "fits" as Mike thought of them, she never became violent or abusive. At least not physically abusive, her tongue was a dagger she wielded like an expert warrior. For the most part though, life was good for the next three years, and Mike was content, if not completely happy. Then one cold November afternoon, he was called into the boss's office at the factory, and asked if he would like to be the new swing shift foreman. It meant a decent raise, but more importantly, health insurance benefits for Emily and Gina. Mike was ecstatic! The boss invited him out for a celebratory drink after work, and Mike felt it would be rude to refuse, so he accepted. He didn't call Gina because he wanted to see her face when he told her the wonderful news. In the three years since Mike's wife put stitches in his head, Mike had come straight home from work every day. This wasn't a conscious decision on his part, but something in the back of his mind caused him to beg off, or give some excuse every time he was invited anywhere after work. Mike really did love Gina a lot, but deep down, he feared her still more. But Mike was on cloud nine that night, and the thought never even crossed his mind that Gina would be angry with him. He had great news! Hell she might even do that special thing for him tonight, that thing she almost never did. So he went out with the boss and they had not one, but several drinks, and he didn't think about the night he made this same mistake years ago. At home, Gina had been growing exponentially angrier, and if she thought of anything besides that night years ago (hadn't he learned his lesson the first time?), it was what she was going to do him once she got her hands on him. Or so Mike imagined, as he sat in his car reminiscing. Only Gina knew what she was really thinking.
His guess couldn't have been too far off the mark, because it was a fact that Gina showed up at the bar with a tire iron. Mike and his boss, Derek, were sitting at the bar. One of the old-timers a few stools down had just told an especially dirty joke, and all the men were laughing uproariously. Witnesses from that night said Mike had been laughing along with the best of them when Gina came up behind him and cracked open the back his skull. She managed to land one more blow across his face, breaking his nose and fracturing his cheekbone before being wrestled to the ground by Barney, the bouncer. "Fought like a wildcat she did!" Barney was fond of telling anyone who would listen. "Stronger'n most men!" Mike himself had been out cold from the first blow, but witnesses reported that Gina began "giggling like a schoolgirl" when the blood began to flow like a river from his head, and then his face and nose. Mike agreed not to press charges as long Gina would give him custody of Emily, and not contest the divorce. Also, he filed a restraining order which made it illegal for Gina to come within 500 feet of him. After much persuasion, Gina's court-appointed attorney got her to take the deal. Derek, perhaps out of guilt, had not only kept Mike's foreman position open during his hospital stay (eleven stitches in his face, and a whopping thirty-three in his scalp, plus a nasty concussion to boot), he'd footed the medical expenses as well. Emily stayed with his parents, until he was released from the hospital two days later, and a week after he'd first been given the promotion, Mike went to work. He resembled something from a horror film, but he was slowly getting better, and he was free from the woman he loved (and feared) who had nearly killed him. Or so he thought.
After work that first day back on the job, Mike was walking to his truck, wishing he'd brought more pain pills from home, and wondering whether Mrs. Jenkins from next door had fed Emily or should he pick something up on his way home. When he got to his truck, he found Gina waiting for him. With a .38 special. That might have been the end of Mike, in fact it's almost a certainty, but Gina had never fired a gun in her life, and had idea how to work the gun's safety, or even what that was. Mike had been begun screaming hysterically at the sight of the gun, and his screams attracted the attention of two guys in the aisle behind Gina, and she was still fiddling with the gun and trying without success to pull the trigger when she was tackled from behind by one of the guys, while the other one snatched the gun out of her hands. It took both of them to hold her down until the police got there and she was struggling the whole time, right up until the cuffs were on her and she was stuffed into the back of a police cruiser. Mike was no help, he sat in the truck and watched the whole scene unfold through eyes that seemed lifeless. He was terrified, and confused, and hurt in a way he'd never dreamed was possible. And he was so very tired.
He was still tired. This had been over six months ago now. Gina was in jail pending trial for attempted murder, and Mike was still working at the factory. Six weeks earlier, his aunt Evelyn had passed away, and left him her small two bedroom house outside of town. It wasn't much bigger than the old studio apartment, but it was paid for, and Emily had her own room, which she liked. Thinking of Emily made him cry a little as he sat there in his truck. She didn't understand any of this, and god willing she never would. Still, besides the fact that his wife was in jail for trying (twice) to kill him, his life wasn't so bad. Dr. Trillian, the psychiatrist he'd been seeing twice a week since the incident with the gun, said he was making a lot of progress, though there was still a lot of ground to cover. Feeling slightly ashamed of himself, he wiped his eyes and started the truck. No time for crying, Emily had a birthday party to go to. She'd been looking forward to it all week, and he'd even punched out early so he could go and pick her up from daycare. Yet all day he'd had this funny feeling that something just wasn't right. That something was in fact horribly wrong, or soon would be. Just quit it Mike, he told himself for the thousandth time that day. It's just your nerves, you been through a lot, you're still a little shaken up. But the feeling that something bad was about to happen lingered as he drove across town to the KIddy Kingdom Daycare. As he usually did when he picked Emily up, Mike found her drawing pictures at one of the tables, sitting alone with a stack of construction paper and box of crayons. Her pictures lately were all the same. Crudely drawn stick figures standing next to crudely drawn house. There were always three stick figures, one smaller than the other two. Mike didn't have to ask who she was drawing, he knew, and it broke his heart every time. She rarely played with the other kids, and the only child she appeared to care for was her friend Amy and it was Amy's birthday party she was going to.
He felt a little better after dropping Emily off, she had actually smiled when she saw the decorations and the huge rainbow piñata hanging in the back yard. Mike thought he would straighten up around the house and then take a nap until Amy's parents showed up with Emily tomorrow. He still had a funny feeling in his gut, but he ignored it. Back at the house (Mike still couldn't think of it as HIS house), Mike started a pot of coffee, and went into the living room to watch the news while it brewed. The coffee would give him a much-needed energy boost for cleaning up the house. The lead story on the five o'clock news was that three inmates had escaped from the county jail while on a work detail. A guard had been killed during the escape, and two of the three had been re-captured almost immediately. The third was still at large. The inmates weren't named, at least not in this newscast, but Mike knew immediately. She was out. But that wasn't all he knew. She wasn't just out, she was here. He realized he'd been smelling Gina's special leave in conditioner since he'd first walked in the door. Leave it to Gina to find a way to get her hair tonic, jail or no jail. Mike sat there, wanting desperately to run, but paralyzed with fear, and as he heard Gina's footfalls coming down the stairs, he began to tremble helplessly.
She was almost at the foot of the stairs before his paralysis released it's hold on him. It was the thought of Emily growing up an orphan that finally did it. He tried to force himself to run, out the door and to the nearest phone to call the police, but she was too close, he knew he’d never make it. In desperation he ran into the kitchen and grabbed the pot of coffee. It had just finished brewing and was scalding hot. He turned around, ready to burn the bitch’s face off, and the last thing he saw was the barrel of the shotgun.
The End?
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