One Last Performance

I reminded Shelly that I was Scrooge and that she was Jacob Marley in the play we'd performed. Shelly was fucking drunk and teetering, able to stay standing by grabbing the light pole every few seconds or so. Her hair was greasy from the cigarette smoke (she smoked like a Frenchman) and she rambled a lot. But in her rambling I could still hear our performance from a couple nights before, still feel the effects of the crowd's applause. More of our troop were passed out drunk in the Jeep, still running in the cold weather. For whatever reason I still had a weird amount of energy.

Suddenly Franco got out of the Jeep. I want to go home, he said. That was good news. This was his apartment complex that we were parked outside of. I told Shelly to get in the car, that I'd see her in a minute. She gave me her Jeep keys, I snagged Franco's apartment keys, I grabbed Franco's arm, and I led him to his apartment. Thank god it was on the first floor because he kept swaying and threatening to revisit dinner the whole way. 

After I dropped him off I walked around the complex, contemplating nothing. And I ran into someone sitting on a bench reading Game of Thrones. It was 1 A.M.. I didn't ask him why he was awake reading a book at this hour, but we did talk about how Season 8 sucked. Predictable. Boring but oddly sustained my energy. 

I walked back to the Jeep to drive the rest of the gang to my place. Fuck. There were three cops standing beside the Jeep and they were staring at it. 

I approached them and one of them (he was a mid-sized guy in jet black hair) said: It's not too bad. What's not too bad? I asked. He laughed smugly, like cops do in movies, and looked at the tall cop next to him who had dirty blonde hair parted on the side. That tall cop laughed and said, We'll be asking the questions here. Can I just get in my car and go then? I asked. It's late. It's late alright, said the third cop. He also had jet black hair and was extremely short. Like 5'5" tops. So I approached the cops, a sudden wave of anger hitting me: What did we do? I'm sober, my friends are drunk, I'd like to take them home. Oh wow, said the tall cop, a bit of an attitude huh. Yeah, said the shorter-but-not-extremely-short cop. Look buddy, that's not how we handle things in the State of Oklahoma. He didn't lay hands on me, but he approached me in a way that had me back up until I hit the fence line. And I hugged it watching them goof off and talk about nothing. Another sudden wave of anger took over me, and I opened the mid-sized cop's holster and armed myself and pointed the gun at him. What the fuck! he said. I'd like the three of you to put your hands up on the fence, I said. My hands were shaking but they hurried to obey me. They blushed and chewed out the mid-sized cop for letting me get so close. They whispered and thought I couldn't hear them. Idiots. 

I REALLY don't know what came over me then but I turned off the safety, cocked, the gun and kind of just started open firing on them. It had no knowledge of where to hit a body to kill instantly, so it was a long process. But I can say that none of them had the chance to whisper stupid shit anymore or, more importantly, time to unholster their weapons and return fire. Afterwards, I remember just standing there for a minute, for thirty minutes, before the rest of the cops showed up. I stared at the moon while they handcuffed me, wondering what the fuck had just happened, thinking about how maybe A Christmas Carol was my last performance. No wait. Killing these stupid cops was my last performance. I smiled, seeing the sad looks from the rest of my troop in the Jeep. They waved at me as the cops told me my rights. Even the Game of Thrones dude waved from a distance. Then the cops kindly put their hands on top of my head so I wouldn't hurt myself getting into their car.