“You think you know everything, don’t you?” Johnny scowls at his long time friend, and accents his point by spitting towards the floor.
“Not everything,” Sal smirks. “I can’t cook to save my life. I wouldn’t pretend to know a thing about it.”
Johnny stares at his friend, anger burning slowly rising flames in his eyes. He grinds his teeth to try to suppress the urge to scream. “I bet you think you’re funny too huh?”
Sal smiles, but only on the left side of his mouth. Johnny has always hated that smile. He knows the attitude behind it. Sal is his friend, and has been for years, but the man is so smug that it’s nauseating. “Don’t look at me like that,” he tells his friend.
“Oh please,” Sal says, obviously struggling to fight off laughter. “I don’t think I’m funny. I think you’re bitter. Considering your track record at betting with me, you shouldn’t use those words in a sentence.”
“You know what?” Johnny snaps. His hands shake with the rising adrenaline. “I’m right this time Sal. I know I am.”
Sal lets the laughter flow from deep inside of him. It’s a hoarse deep sound that sounds like it echoes off the walls of a cavern. “You don’t know anything,” he says.
Johnny jabs a rigid index finger towards his friend’s face. “How can you be so sure? Huh? Why are you so confident? I did it right this time man. I know I did.”
With a sigh, Sal buries the laughter back down in his gut. He regains his composure, and his face grows serious once more. “Ask yourself the same question buddy. How can you be so sure?” He shakes his head in irritation. “Don’t ever point at me like that again either.”
“I’m not afraid of you,” Johnny snaps, followed by another spitting session.
“Will you just finish this so you can go buy me my beer already? I’m getting thirsty.” Sal turns his back on his friend, and starts to pace.
“There’s nothing to finish. I’m telling you. Hey! Stop pacing and look at me okay? You’ve got no respect for anybody.”
Sal stops in his tracks, and turns around slowly, grinding dirt and dust with his heel. He sighs, and rolls his eyes. “Don’t you ever get tired of fighting the same losing battle all the time Johnny?”
With one large thick fingered hand, Johnny tries to wipe some of the tension from his forehead. Sweat drips down his brow. He is tired of being wrong, but he can’t be wrong all the time. Just going by the law of averages, he’s bound to eventually win this bet. They’ve been through it a thousand times, and no matter what he says, Sal says the opposite. His choice is always the one that proves true. Nobody can understand the level of frustration that can cause after several years. Johnny refuses to give up though. Massaging the back of his neck, he says, “It’s not the same battle Sal. It’s the same war, but it’s always a different battle, and one of these days a battle is going to go in my favor. I really think today’s my day.”
“Go ahead and think it,” Sal says, too annoyed to smile anymore. “I don’t care what you think. I care what I know. Once again, you’re wrong, and you owe me a beer.”
The anger inside Johnny overwhelms him. He slams his fist into the wall, causing dust and plaster to burst out in a cloud of white smoke. Pain shoots through his fist and he knows he broke his knuckle. He doesn’t even care. He’s so sick of this. If it wasn’t the wall, it would be Sal, and that would bring him nothing but trouble. His friend probably doesn’t realize how many times Johnny’s fought the urge to hit him square in the jaw.
“Please. I need help,” a voice says, followed by a cough. The voice comes from near the ground. They both know who it belongs to.
Sal finds it in him to smile again. Raising his arms, he says to his friend, “You happy now? I told you. I knew he was still alive. Right again...as always.”
Johnny looks down to the man on the ground before him. The man clutches tightly to a bullet wound in his abdomen. His face is white. He sure looks dead, but then, the dead don’t talk, and ask for help, now, do they? He sighs, and raises his arm. In his hand is a nine millimeter pistol. He points it down at the man, and pulls the trigger. The man is moaning in pain and mumbling something unintelligible. The gunshot causes him to fall silent. Johnny sighs with disgrace, and shakes his head.
“Can we go now?” Sal asks.
Johnny doesn’t answer with words. Instead, he steps over the man that he now knows is dead, and heads for the warehouse doorway. With a glance back at the dead man, Sal follows behind him. He smiles victoriously, another bet won.
“One day, I’ll get it right, and I’ll win,” Johnny says, pouting like a child.
With a small conceded chuckle, Sal tells him, “My liver will fail before then.”
