The Breakup

The Breakup

Prelude
JUSTIN

She could have been with me. It could just be my fucking head, but I thought that night had meant something. We still talk every chance we get, and she visits with me and the guys a couple of times a week. Always the same story. That boyfriend did this, this boyfriend did that. She had a new boyfriend just about once a damn week. And then along comes Bill. And she's happy, when he's not high or telling her to shut the hell up. My Jessie....
Now I'm alone in his house with splinters from the broken pool cue I'm holding digging into my palm. Looking for him. Seeing if I can be the first one to give him what he has coming, and has had coming for the five loneliest months of my existence. Maybe I should have been more observant, not where's fucking Waldo observant, but enough to notice Bill's friend and likely drug dealer come out of the bathroom to my right. The weasly little prick sounds an alarm so piercing I have images of Alvin the Chipmunk getting kneed in the balls. The hardass dropouts from McDonald's have on many occasions pushed thier greasy hair aside and told me stories of scuffles they had been in, scuffles they refered to as "whuppins". They say they enter the zone, that they have time to decide if they want to roundhouse kick or backhand the cop, or judge, or teacher, or whomever else they decide to throw into thier world of make believe. When I turn and look into the eyes of the man exiting the bathroom, it only serves as a ruler to judge the thickness of the bullshit they had laid upon me. Everything goes grey, and you become a machine, swinging your arms about with no real plan of action. You do what your inebriated brain tells you. Mine suggests I attempt to break every bone in his body with the club in my hand. I comply.

DAVE

It all started with a scream. We ran to her, all of us in confusion, all wondering what could have happened to prompt such a chilling shriek at two in the morning on a Monday. Justin had been listing in detail what he'd like to do to his new boss at McDonald's who had given him bathroom cleanup now five days in a row. Ben was staring thoughtfully at his rocks glass, which had until recently been brimmed with Caulder's Whiskey. Teague had not time to even drop the bottle, and hurried out to where Jessica now stood, tears streaming down her face and her eyes glazed and framed in black and blue. She wailed and threw herself at him, and four men flinched as the bottle he released shattered and sent wet shards across the floor, piercing my socks and drawing fresh blood. I barely noticed. Two more glasses were sent flying as Ben launched himself over the table to meet them, and within moments we had encircled her, all of us screaming the same question too loudly. What had happened? She could barely stand, yet as the adrenaline coursed through her she nearly tossed me through the T.V. She spoke, and with every sentence, every word, heads began to turn, to look into the knowing eyes of one another. Bill. Fucking Bill. We had tried to respect her choices in men, but we all knew he was not worthy of her. Hell, we knew he was not worthy of a bitch in heat. But we bit our tongues, because Jess was our girl. Who were we, such a ragtag bunch, to tell beautiful Jess who she should and shouldn't be with? She had tried to end her story but choked sobs ended it for her. Silence deafened the whole room, and I gritted my teeth as I heard Justin speak. He was holding a pool cue, one of many that had been forgotten as it was a secondhand table. He apologized even before he smashed the cue into the table itself, sending splintered wood by Teague's head. He held a shattered club over his head and howled for vengeance as if possessed. Our Jessica. I was the last to comply. I had much to say but said nothing as Ben brandished a discarded golf putter and teague pulled his prized sword off the shelf, sending the sheath across the room to lay to rest under the pool table. As my friends waited and Jess called for us to stop, I bent down and grabbed the neck of the bottle of whiskey that once had comforted but now was a deadly weapon. Six eyes turned from me towards the front door and two pleaded to stop. I tried to say something. I couldn't.
I rolled the neck of the bottle around in my hand as we approached sixty down Frontview Avenue. I felt the anger and uncertainty emanating from the frontseat where Teague was explaining the different things he was prepared to do with his sword. I casually wondered if the sword would hold up if actually used in combat and once again asked myself what I was doing here. Can I actually do this? I know I'm supposed to be a man, to be tough, but is this the right way to end this? Ben met my gaze and nodded. A bead of sweat ran down my forehead and hesitated on the tip of my nose. The car swerved, and I subconciously searched for police lights in the distance, secretly hoping to have Justin charged with a DUI as opposed to an assault charge, or even worse, murder. I'm really missing that whiskey at this point. My hand is shaking. Justin pulls to the side of the road two houses down. He turns the car off, and we all sit silently for what seems like an eternity. They discuss our plan. We are to take no longer than two minutes. We make our point, we get into the car, we go home, and we all high five each other for being good men. Ben is swinging the golf club about in his hand. Justin has what looks like foam at the corners of his mouth. He's grinning like a madman. Teague looks at me. I've never seen that look in his eye. He shuts the car off.
We separate. It begins with me and Ben diverging from the group, then with me standing alone and staring at this house. Justin and Teague walk around the right side and Ben is approaching the front door. I must have been asleep when we had planned this tactic. As two disappear behind, Ben seems to take the whole house in. He stands, shoulders broadened, and I can see the moon reflected off of the forgotten putter. He holds his head in his hand as a final prayer, and approaches the door. I'm a part of this, as I well know. Walking closer, I can see slightly through the curtains. Two, maybe three men sit laughing and watching T.V., or maybe playing video games. Where's Teague and Justin? What's Jess thinking? Ben raps on the door with his club, my stomach sinks. Before the door opens, a distant struggle? A thud, a cry? My senses are three shots from perfect, if you would consider my sober senses perfect. The window explodes outward in a shower of glass and fire, some raining down on a cowardly narrator who had collapsed into the snow and covered his face. I find it hard to recall what had happened at that point, though looking up I see Ben with his shoulder as a battering ram enter the house and disappear. Through the vacant window I watch a wounded Teague vomit blood and obscenities into the face of some poor fool who had happened into Bill's house at the wrong time on the wrong night. I test my legs. They work enough to propel me towards the battleground. The door is only five feet ahead. A desperate voice in my head tells me to go home, to just run. Those are my friends in there. I step up to the door.
There's a man in here who wants to kill me. He is lying on the dirty carpet with bruises and bumps on his face, and a loaded pistol pointed at my face. I don't think he can get up. I never thought a pool cue could break both a man's legs. Justin lies screaming with a large hole in his chest, attempting to shove the blood pouring from him back inside. I'm wishing I was still cowering in the snow in the front yard. He screams some unintelligible jargon and fires. After this affair, I'm not embarrassed to say I pissed my pants at that moment. As I soiled my Buddy Lees, I dropped onto my back with my legs bent under my ass. The scent of gunpowder is in the air. All I can see apart from the tile ceiling is small flashes of light blazing above my nose and the sound of fireworks deafening me. I can still hear Teague screaming and I am still wondering if that blade is one piece or if he's stabbing some poor guy with dull metal. Before I can count the number of tiles on the ceiling, the gunslinger pounces on me. His thumbs meet my eyes. All I can do is scream. Pain. Pain. My arms search. My arms flail. Then happen upon a familiar shape. I grasp the whiskey bottle, and swing. He pulls his thumbs from my eyes and moves them to his throat. My hand moves on instinct alone and drives the bottle into his stomach. The look on his face is not unlike mine; pure horror. I bathe in his blood, then watch as Ben and Bill crash through a bedroom door and collapse on the kitchen floor.
They tussle like two stooges, they tumble through the room in a cloud of arms, legs and curses. The putter is gone; this is hands and feet, elbow and knee battle. I've a bloody body on my chest and I can still hear Teague screaming with a fury reserved for Satan himself. Justin spews a few more mangled phrases in his secret dying language then kicks his leg out and comes to rest. His shoe soars across the room. After staring thoughtfully at it for a moment I push the lifeless body from my chest and attempt to get up. I fail, and fall on my face gasping for breath and wiping a dead man's sweat and blood and snot from my face. Dishes are falling and shattering on the floor as the two men continue to writhe across the kitchen floor, smashing cupboards and disappearing from my view behind the sturdy kitchen table which, still miles away from this house and this room, my brain recognizes as covered with tiny baggies filled with white powder. What am I doing here? I stumble to my feet and shuffle across the room towards the ever present sound of a madman with a sword. Teague's inarticulate howling tells me he's still alive, but for how long? A second explosion tears the thought from my mind and the bedroom door from it's hinges. It soars through the air across my view, narrowly missing my face. Before I turn to see the wall crumbling outward, the doorknob greets my forehead and I am the only one to hear the drum solo ricochet inside my skull.

TEAGUE

I'm shitfaced! Too drunk to be trying to do this, but I'm here. No turning back now. I pull Justin around to the side of the house and we scale the fence to the backyard. Well, he scales it and I sort of do a Superman dive over onto my face. I barely feel it. After a short talk about our plan and a long talk about how cool I look wielding a sword, we try the doorknob. It turns easily, and we breathe a sigh of relief and terror simultaneously. I lead my way inside, and Justin follows. In a room down the hallway are the voices of two men arguing over a football game. Here is my turn to honor Jess. Rather than say a word, I reach back and give Justin a small push to hold him behind, and sprint down a narrow hallway with the sword held over my head and a nonexistent will to hold back a battle cry. I try to look like a ninja. I identify Bill immediately as the two turn to watch me emerge from darkness and swing the blade. Things don't go as planned from this point, the point where the blade misses both by a good foot and slams into the wall. The replica takes more damage than the wall does and splits in two, and I somehow tangle my legs and collapse onto Bill's friend. We have a problem. A knock at the door. The Friend and I take our struggle to our feet and I am pushed backwards through an open doorway and onto my back amidst awkward looking tables and gas tanks. The sound of my arm striking the flimsy table leg, the sound of glass rattling against glass echoes. I suddenly realize what kind of a lab I am in, and I'm in deep shit as a few beakers drop to the floor. The Friend is bearing down on me as I utter a final short prayer, turn to the table, and give a gentle shove. Friend's eyes widen and he begins to say something that is drowned out by the sound of shattering glass. I curl into a ball, shrouded by the shadow of the table, and a brilliant light followed by a numbing roar sends the table splintering into my stomach and driving me back to the wall.
I did not come here to die, but I should have planned better. I pull a large chunk of card table from my midsection and examine two bloody inches of wood while streams of crimson saturate my shirt and puddle on the floor. The remains of the table are aflame as are the Friends sweatpants, and I can almost laugh as he does a horizontal dance to put out the fire and claws at his own scorched face in an effort to tear away the pain. I'm up, and I'm furious. Ignoring my pushpin torso I haul the Friend to his feet and toss him to another table filled with various chemicals that scatter left and right as his lower back crunches as does a distant front door. I hear Ben holler one four letter word. One name. The name of a man who was responsible for stealing my tonight, and if the bleeding doesn't stop, my tomorrow and every second after. Friend pleads for me to stop as he attempts to riverdance his burning pants off. I draw my elbow to the air and drive it down onto his blistered nose. It pulls to the right and I am amazed at the sense of power that permeates the air. I am not drunk; There is no Jess. There is no Dave, no Justin, no Ben. There is my imminent death and there is the Friend that caused it. Gunfire from the next room as I bring my elbow up and down again and again and the Friend's pleas grow softer and softer. Chemicals spill and lazily sweep across table and floor. I throw the Friend to the ground as my arm arcs across the table. Anything standing is now on a pile on the floor. He shouldn't have fucked with you, Jess. Another brilliant light.

BEN

I don't even know why Justin's here. So she had a fling with him. We spent nearly two years together, two amazing years. Did he know that kiwi was her favorite fruit? Did he know that she was only ticklish on the backs of her thighs? I'll bet he didn't even know her birthday. Yet he goes storming off with a stomach full of whiskey to assault a man he hasn't even seen before. Teague's drunk enough to raid a 7-11, if we agreed it was a good idea. Dave cares for her, but he doesn't have the connection we have. He looks nervous. He should be. Bill was released from the pen only two months ago and I'm sure he's already up to his old bullshit. Meth, breaking and entering, probably even rape. I should lead the way in. I have no choice, as Dave stands, hands shaking, at the foot of the driveway. Best to be a gentleman. At least until things get rough. Knock knock, and through the sturdy door I hear muffled shouts and a crash. I take two steps back, then throw myself at the door. Nothing. Two more steps, and the window to my left shatters. This is it. All of my energy poured into my shoulder and I crash through the door to come to rest on a filthy carpet and looking up at a man who looks more confused than I do. Bill. Our eyes meet. He runs. Filthy coward.
Bill exits stage right as a ratty looking kid enters the scene. He has blood streaming from a gash centered on his forehead and hobbles towards me with a pronounced limp. I golf every chance I get. My putter becomes a driver and I swing. I guess you'd call it a hole in one. He drops. Bill disappears through a bedroom door and I prepare for another. Choke up. No time for practice. I almost giggle as I began to call out "fore!" when Justin stalks into the room, a bloody cue swinging dangerously about in his hand. The Weasel reaches for his belt, and pulls out a revolver. He points it at my face. Fore. The putter crushes his wrist and the gun whirls about the room, sight landing on Justin's chest just before the trigger is pulled. It hits hard. Hole in one.
Sirens begin to blare in the distance. This needs to end, and I need to leave. The putter is dropped on a dazed Weasel and I push through the door to see Bill waiting, pistol in hand, eyes glazed. We stand and stare. He says he knows me. He tells me not to trust that stupid bitch, that she's a lying whore. My Jess. I've had enough, and I hurtle myself towards him as a shot is fired. It barely slows me down and I dive through him, through the desk he stands before, and we crumble to the ground, both of us gripping the gun as my wounded arm cries in agony. Two more bullets kiss the ceiling as we roll across the floor towards the door. All six foot four inches of Bill lift me onto my feet and toss me into the wall. I lower my head to avoid a punch which buckles the plaster and showers me with debris. The second punch lands true and I am hurtled through the bedroom door and see stars as my head rebounds off the tile kitchen floor. Sirens, and Dave screaming. Gunfire to my left as Bill grabs my throat and squeezes. We roll across the floor, dishes fall from above, some shattering on our heads and drawing fresh blood. I reach out for a shard of a dinner plate and Bill's hand meets mine. Blood seeps through my closed palm and I turn it towards Bill. Goodnight, Bill. A deafening explosion rocks the house. I turn quickly enough to see Dave's face decimated by shrapnel. The wall blows up like a balloon, then collapses along with half the roof. Dust fills the room and all is grey. We grit our teeth, taste asbestos and plaster, a large object hits my face and I feel most of my front teeth collapse. I swing the remainder of the dinner plate in a high arc, and grin a bloody toothless grin. Bill and Jess have officially broken up.

JESSICA

I'm done with him. I pace across the floor towards the mirror. He's nothing. He's a douchebag. I've already put all his shit in the trash, but I need to make sure he doesn't come back around. He has bad habits. I kneel down before bed, say my prayers. Love and health to my parents, my grandparents. World peace, sure. I turn towards the door, and swing it towards my face. The knob crashes into my eye and I utter a slight moan as I feel it begin to swell. I smile. I'm going to have quite a shiner in the morning.