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Meeting

Doug Hawley

    I’m so happy that the three of you could join me today. The paid plane tickets and goody bag filled with expensive gifts may have been the inducement, or maybe it was a chance to reconnect after all these years that got you here. Either way, I’m pleased at the 100% turnout.
    I see that you finished your meals and wine, so it is time for me to talk to you, the point of this meeting.
    Clearly, we had some problems in the past, but it is time for forgiveness. Please hold your comments until I finish my prepared speech. It is important to me that I get this out.
    Joe, you bullied me in high school. Remember calling me “dickless nerd”? I was always puzzled about how you would know anything about my dick, which I certainly had. Did you peek while we were in the locker room? The names were far from the worst. Do you remember breaking my arm during wrestling class? You used an illegal hold just to hurt me and then bragged to your friends what a wuss I was. You didn’t suffer any consequences because you hid behind your rich lawyer dad. It wasn’t all bad for me. The broken arm kept me out of school, and I hated school. I got to start writing which has been a lot of fun for me, a hobby which ended up making me a lot of money. Lucky for me that you broke my non-dominant arm. Your bullying had a good long term effect because I started weight lifting and got good at martial arts. I don’t think that you could mess with me now. You however, started taking steroids and didn’t end up too well. Anyhow, blood under the bridge, huh?
    Janey, you broke my heart. I know that I didn’t have many social skills then, and I could have done better by you, but just kissing me off after a minor disagreement was really cold. Who cares who the greatest Mouseketeer was? You just cut me out of your life. I don’t know if you were already cheating on me, but getting married a month later made me wonder. To be blunt, I did a lot better after you left me. Sally was way out of my league – a talented painter and athlete; she somehow saw something valuable in me that you missed. It could have been my intelligence and humor, things that you didn’t value. She died way too early, but she left me enough funds to do what I wanted – travel, meet other successful people, particularly some fine women disinterested in commitment, and write successful plays. You may have heard of the blockbuster film “Marvel Life” which was adapted from my play. You’ve been divorced three times and make minimum wage. It may be cruel to say, but it looks like you haven’t watched your diet either. So I suppose I can say “No harm, no foul”.
    Henry, you stole from me. As my editor, you had access to my outlines and early drafts. How could I not notice that you published things under your name that were only slightly revised from what I was writing? That certainly caught up with you. After I called you out, we found that you had been doing that with other clients that either hadn’t noticed or didn’t want to be bothered. No writer will touch you now. Gotten deep into the bottle, have you? That’s probably enough revenge, so we can just forget about the whole debacle now.
    That’s the end of my remarks. Any responses? Oh that’s right, you’re all dead. The poisoned food worked as advertised. I’m sure if you could still talk, you’d say you loved the whole meal, particularly the Baked Alaska. To die for, right?
    Now I have to decide whether to take the poison myself, or use this list of countries which like rich immigrants and have no extradition.

Appears in Terror House

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