Friends and Anger 5.

Posted by Pointman on October 20, 2018 · 8 Comments 

Manannon picked him up off the floor by his hair and the other hand pinching his Adam’s apple to cut off any screeches for help. He rapidly dragged shithead into the sitting room and pulled him up and onto the sofa. Manannon stood over him. Shithead started to say something, so Manannon told him to be quiet and listen or he’d hit him again.

I’ll tell you when you can speak.

We’re going to have a conversation, and at the end of it I’ll either put you into the same intensive care ward where you put her, or I won’t.

Manannon let some of his anger show and shithead positively cringed down like the cur he was. As Manannon expected, she obviously had shared a few stories about him with shithead. Predictability again. Like all big brave men who beat up on small little women, he was essentially a coward.

He said to shithead there’s a saying in Latin – in vino veritas. It means in wine there is truth, so we’re going to have a drink together and you can explain to me what happened and why I shouldn’t snap your spine around the C2 upper vertebrae and turn you into a quadriplegic for the rest of your miserable existence. In case you don’t know what that means, it means no movement below your neck and you get to wear diapers to control involuntary pissing and bowel movements for the rest of your life. Nod if you understand

Shithead nodded for all he was worth.

Manannon took the bottle of whiskey from his jacket pocket, broke the seal on the cap, unscrewed it and took a big swig. From careful rooting through shithead’s glass recycling, he knew it was his favourite brand of whiskey. Recon again. By putting his tongue over the top of the bottle, he didn’t actually drink any. Drink and his work were never mixed. He sat down on a chair opposite shithead and offered him the bottle.

Drink, he ordered.

Shithead took a sip from the proffered bottle. More ordered Manannon, a lot more. Shithead took a bigger swig.

Manannon held his hand out and shit head passed the bottle back to him. He took what looked another big swig, but not a drop went down his throat. He passed the bottle back to shithead – drink.

No words were spoken as the bottle was passed between them except when Manannon was prodding him to drink more. When three-quarters of it was gone Manannon’s attitude to shithead gradually seemed to soften slightly, which gave shithead a glimmer of hope. You don’t share a bottle of whiskey with another man and then beat him up. Manannon announced he wanted a smoke. Shithead, who smoked himself, said he usually smoked outside the flat on the balcony. Again, because of good recon, Manannon had watched him from afar smoking outside on the balcony and the pile of stamped out butts on the balcony floor.

You will be joining me, won’t you? he asked shithead, a certain amount of threat creeping back into his voice. I wouldn’t like to have your front door accidentally slammed and locked behind me. I’d only have to kick it down and then kick the shit out of you.

They both got outside onto the balcony. It was dark outside his apartment because Manannon had replace the bulb outside it with a dud one weeks ago. When he’d lit his cigarette he’d been careful to use one of those electronic lighters like you find in cars that have no flame to illuminate your face. Manannon leant against the balcony with both his elbows on top of it and smoked in silence. Shithead did the same, leant against the balcony with his elbows resting on top of it in the same stance as Manannon. He was sure there was some proper psychological term for it but Manannon called it mirroring.

When someone wants to be friends or curry favour with you, they start to mimic whatever gestures or postures you strike. When you cross your legs, they cross their legs. When you lean back, they lean back. When you lean forward, they lean forward. Shithead was unconsciously mimicking to try to avoid the beating he feared was coming, but he needn’t have worried.

They talked sporadically as they smoked. Manannon distractedly wiggled his cigarette between his index and second finger between puffs. He made the mistake of keeping on wiggling it as he brought it to his lips and it fell to the ground. With a muttered shit, he hunkered down to pick it up.

But instead of picking it up, he moved behind shithead and grasped both his ankles very firmly. As Manannon predicted he would, shithead stiffened like a plank at such a suddenly invasion of his personal space. Manannon stood up holding the ankles high as possible and that with the combination of shithead planking and holding on to the top of the balcony desperately made it easy to rotate him over the balcony to his death. Perfect leverage.

There was the expected brief screech before he hit the concrete, but in that less than salubrious neighbourhood, nobody was going to go out in the middle of the night to do any investigation. He picked up the butt with his DNA on it, popped it into the whiskey bottle and then pocketing the bottle. The bottle,emptied, would end up broken in a glass recycling bank many miles away. The gloves would be burnt.

He made his exit unobserved from the scene using the same stairs he’d entered by.

The police would of course look into it; they always do whether the circumstances are suspicious or not. Given their usual massive caseload, this one looked to be open and shut. It got a barely cursory glance. Boyfriend puts girlfriend into intensive care, facing charges of grievous body harm if not attempted murder, drinks most of a bottle of whiskey and then falls or jumps in remorse to his death from six storeys, and that’s exactly the conclusion both the police and coroner came to.

©Pointman

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