Al-non Lela&a .44
DeLeon DeMicoli
When people on their lunch break see a .44 caliber pistol pressed against my head, yelling for Lela to tell me she loves me or else I’m gonna blow two pin size holes through my head. The ordinary business type who’s caught in this predicament freezes in place like deer with headlights shining at them combined with the stupidest and most ugliest face I have ever seen on a human being.
In the past, I’ve heard men before talk about what they’d do in a similar situation and it was nothing to what’s happening right now. I’ve heard macho stories like scenes taking out of a blockbuster action flick. Men speaking with imagination, saying to one another how if they were at the local McDonald’s, and if it got held up, how they would tackle the crazy mad man with the shot gun, and wrestle him to the ground, hoping to get the gun and punch out the psycho before he decided to shoot everyone who considered to super size their meal.
As I look around the five star restaurant seeing everyone in their power suits, seated in their leather chairs with white napkins draped across their lap, I continue to watch and hope someone might pop outta the wood work, or have that macho attitude, and try to stop me from making the drastic decision of putting one right in the temple. But, I don’t see a single soul move. Everyoneâs face looks the way most faces look when either they get constipated or are sitting on the can waiting for the monster log to drop in the bowl. Almost like a movie paused at the moment when the main character is caught with that stupid look on his face, yelling the word NO! I simply ask myself before I continue with my own self-destruction--Is the food really that horrible at a five star restaurant, or is everyone taking a crap in their four hundred dollar suits from fear?
I look over at the dry easer board that’s next to the hostess stand and read in red cursive the special for the day: Deep Fried Salmon with a twist of Lemon, tartar sauce with a pinch of red pepper, and rice pilaf draped in a light curry dressing--$8.95.
Deep fried foods always give me the shits, so I can say that in all honesty it could be the food and not the gun to my head that’s making everyone look the way a child would look if you forced him sit down and eat his green vegetables.
Was I being serious or funny right then? Is this a joking matter?
The only one who isn’t making that face is Lela. She stands next to a table across from me with a pitcher of water in her hand. It looks like she was just about to serve two male customers, and ask them if they were interested in the special for this fine afternoon.
Thank God I came when I did. They might thank me later. Anything fried is bad for you.
The guy to my right and Lela’s left is biting his lower lip. His eyes are droopy. I think he’s at the point of crying. I tell Lela again that I love her and she better tell me the same before I off myself permanently. Then, comes the tears from the poor sap who’s caught in the middle.
The guy sitting next to him is in the same club as all the others with a shitty expression-so to speak, or a constipated expression with shit in his pants.
Again, was I being serious or funny?
I can read these guys like a book. I can feel what they’re thinking and I can sense what’s going through their head right now.
They say its ten times easier to read a man’s facial expression than a woman’s. They say men wear their expressions on their sleeve, women wear it on their blouse. These two guys right now have signs hanging over them in pink and purple neon lights flashing like a singles night club, and you know what it’s saying, “I don’t wanna die. I don’t wanna die.”
I put the palm of my hand on the crying man’s shoulder. He quivers when my flesh makes contact with the fabric on his suit, which makes contact with his skin. The man seated next to him starts getting the same droopy eyes. Right now I’m trying to be compassionate. Right now, I’m being empathetic with the man, and feel his pain. The only problem was I didn’t tell him this when I touched him.
He begins to wet himself. He’s caught in the middle and now he probably thinks I’m gonna shoot him. The man sitting across from him weeps dry tears.
Watching them makes me feel like a big ham. I now wish I would’ve come at a later time.
Their are 44 different muscles, nerves, and blood vessels that are threaded around your head, letting you contort and twist your face into 5,000 different facial expressions. I’ve heard before that you can read a facial expression from as far away as 300 ft. You can feel it at 20.
A facial expression lasts only a couple of seconds before it changes.
Right now are the longest couple of seconds I’ve ever felt because most of the people sitting around the restaurant still have that stupid look on their face. Everyone’s sitting on the can. Everyone’s taking a metaphorical dump.
I always thought fish was good for you.
Stop being funny.
Teeth are clenched together, eyes are as small as almonds. I can sense they are waiting for the loud bang of the gun to go off. Others are holding the side of the tables with white knuckles, probably getting ready to dive underneath as the hole in my brain begins to spit out blood like a broken fountain while pieces of my brain fly across the restaurant like a high school food fight.
And all I can think about is how hard it is to get blood outta Armani suits.
Lela calls me a moron. Her voice echoes throughout the restaurant.
She says that I’m better off dead than alive. She tells me I have a better chance of getting sympathy from God than receiving it from her.
“It won’t work this time,” she says to me in a tone of confidence like a woman who had time to build up her self esteem at her weekly Al-non meetings.
I cock the hammer back. The little lever above my trigger finger. It allows the bullet in the chamber to be parallel with the barrel. Once the trigger is pulled the lever will slam forward hitting the copper center of the bullet, which will allow air to push the little metal pellet out of its wrapping, through the chamber, and out into the world at speeds that could break the sound barrier.
Think of a baby being born.
“I’m telling you,” she says again as calm as a cheetah lying on a rock in the African sun, “It won’t work this time.”
Calmness comes from experience. It comes with age. After hearing and seeing so many awful things time and time again, nothing becomes dramatic anymore. Life becomes those simple sounds that once made you feel warm and safe inside like the heat kicking on during the night, or the electric fan as it rotates to cool around the room. These sounds, these simple household noises almost become turned up while you go deaf to the rest of the world.
Lela has become accustomed to my rituals of suicide and self destruction after numerous times of seeing me either cut off my pinky finger after trying to leave me once before, or about to sever my penis.
The point of that one was I couldn’t see myself sleeping with another woman for the rest of my life.
She always folded when sharp objects were about to cut through my flesh. But, not anymore.
I was able to get my pinky sewed back on.
I always used some sort of chopping device.
I was hoping the gun would show a new dramatic experience. I was wrong.
Those damn Al-non meetings, I tell myself.
I tell her one more time--Tell me you love me or Iâm gonna kill myself.
“Go ahead,” she says, now slumped over the table as if I’m starting to bore her.
I hear an “Oh my God” from across the restaurant. The people all around are staring at me and waiting for it to happen. The hostess, who was a minute ago, hiding behind the stand, now peers her eyeballs out over the top of the wood consol waiting for it to happen.
I take a deep breath and stare at Lela hoping she smiles or does something cute so I have something to remember her by. I block out the rest of the restaurant like an iris shot. My eyes are strapped to Lela, and the only words that come to mind at this precise moment is fuck it. I say it really loud and close my eyes, pulling the trigger.
People scream in desperation. I can hear utensils fall to the ground and ping against the wood floors. Footsteps are heard pouncing like a packed stadium. If I can hear all of this that means I’m not dead.
I open my eyes and see the restaurant empty except for Lela standing across from me. The place is dead silent.
I take the gun off my temple and look at it, having no idea what went wrong.
“It musta’ miss-fired,” she says taking the gun from outta my hands, inspecting the firearm herself. Then, I hear sniffling. I look at her and see tears form in her eyes, making them glassy before they pour out over her eyelids.
She tells me she can’t believe I was about to kill myself for her. She says, “no one has ever done that for me before.” She tells me how the women at Al-non told her that if a man would go to extremes for her, he was a keeper.
I tell her I love her. That nothing else matters to me except the love I have for her.
She finally tells me she loves me back, and that everyone at Al-non will be thrilled with the drastic step we both have taken in our relationship.
She sets the gun down on the table. The miss-fired bullet goes off and journeys through the restaurant until it shatters the front window.
We both look at the gun, then at each other.
She leans over the tabletop and kisses me on the lips.
Screams are heard on the other side of the broken window.
I tell her I love her again. Then, I get tackled by a cop.
Another one follows him in and yanks Lela outta the restaurant. On the wood floor, I see a pair of feet kicking the pistol away from my hand. I wasn’t even reaching for it.
My arms are pulled behind my back. Handcuffs are place over my wrists. I’m pulled up off the ground and carried outside to the parking lot. The sun is brighter than earlier. It makes my eyes squint, and water up. I don’t see, but hear hands clapping and cheering from all around me.
I tell myself the people that were in the restaurant earlier are happy that Lela and I both got back together. I bet they think what I did back there was heroic and romantic like a movie with Sandra Bullock.
From a distance, as the officer lowers my head into the back of the cop car, I hear a women’s voice yell, “You fuckin’ psycho.”
I sit and smile, knowing whoever said that couldn’t of meant it. If her boyfriend did what I did for Lela, he’d probably be crazy in love too.
