Writings » What is murder?

What is murder?

By Lash Leroux at 2007-10-30 | Ridiculous!, Action | Printable version

The Tremendous Twelve.  Perkin's contribution to western civilization.  Four pancakes, three eggs (cooked to order), four links of slightly frozen sausage, and hash browns.  I pushed back a plate that looked like it just came out of the dishwasher.  Expressionless, I slapped two fives down right in a puddle of syrup.  They were the old fives, where Lincoln looked mid-shart.  I stood up deliberately, adjusted my tie, and walked into the too-cold November night.

My mind was empty.  It should have been racing, but I had too much to think about to know where to start.  Besides, I recognized the telltale hum of a stomach infected with food poisoning.  It would set in too late to stop me, though.  Tonight was the night.  Tonight, I was going to punch a man to death.

I knew exactly where my victim would be.  Every Thanksgiving is Amateur Night at the Velvet Pouch.  After the show my victim thought he would exit out the back into a waiting car.  He wasn't going to make it to that car tonight.

It was a short walk from Perkin's to the Pouch.  At exactly 1:15 a.m., the back door swung open.  One of the most revolting sights to ever grace the continental United States stepped into the dim, bile-colored light of the alley.  He shivered in his strapless gown.  He looked exactly like Vanna White.

"You're a sick bastard, Sajak."  I meant ever word of it.  I had hated Pat Sajak for, what, twenty-five years?  I had dreamt of this night down to the last detail: the way my intestines angrily pulsated, the gentle sheen of the dress as it curved ever so slightly over Pat Sajak's hairless bosom.

I slipped the gnarliest pair of brass knuckles onto my right hand.  There was nothing else to say.  I approached my perfume-scented victim.  "You want to do this now?" asked Sajak, belligerently.  "Let's go.  I'm ready."

He really didn't look ready, but that was all the encouragement that was needed.  I took three more steps forward and punched Pat Sajak right in his jugular.  As his upper body whipped backward, I thought this was easier than I had expected.  I stopped thinking that when the pointiest shoe I have ever seen fired directly into the center of my left ball.  I immediately vomited blood.  Sajak took advantage of the situation.  He took a step forward and then launched into a perfectly executed Liu Kang bicycle kick.  I landed in three-day old hobo feces.  The asphalt would have been softer.

Had I underestimated this freak?  No.  I knew what I was up against.  That's why I trained for the past year, slapping my n-sac every morning at the sound of my alarm.  I was preparing for this exact moment.

By the time I got up, Sajak was holding an Arabian cutlass.  I had expected that, too.  That's why when he launched a baseball swing at the side of my brain, I easily blocked it with the genuine Batman wrist-spikes I was wearing beneath my suit.  Then it was my turn.  I punched him three times in the face.  I was hitting him hard.  He pulled back the sword and thrust it deep into my chest.  My pacemaker deflected it safely aside.  Now I had him where I wanted him.

I punched him three more times in the face, but I could tell I wasn't doing the damage I thought I would.  I kept punching, but the full force wasn't transferring to his brain, where I wanted it to go.  Just then, as I glared at his twisted grin, a grin that robbed a generation of pedophiles of their creepiness, I realized my problem.  The years of botox had turned his horrid face into an inch of slippery latex smirk.

I had hoped to break my fist that night, but I could see it would be to no avail.  Instead, I reached into my jacket and pulled out a knife.  It was a pretty decent infomercial carving knife, but it looked like an Irishman next to Sajak's African hog of a sword.  It would have to do.  I launched myself into a frontflip to close some ground and then went to work on his face with twelve inches of blade that an Irishman could only dream of.

I stabbed and swiped at the face-of-Satan again and again, but I was running into the same problem as before.  Thinking quickly, I took a wide swipe directly across his retinas.  No dice.  Was this guy human?  He mumbled a half-laugh and then parried my next stab hard to the right.  I was almost knocked off balance, but I barely managed to block the next strike.  This guy was going for decapitation or bust.  I would have to turn it up a notch.

I flipped the knife around so the blade was pointing toward my elbow and got into a boxing stance.  I thought I would look cooler that way.  He swung the sword behind his head and then took a step forward.  I was totally caught off guard, though, when he threw the sword at my face.  Gravity wouldn't let me duck fast enough, so my only option was to jump straight up and take the swirling blade to the lung like a man.  As it plunged five inches into my chest, it made the same sound a double-fudge brownie makes when you shit it out at 3 a.m.

The impact threw me onto my brain stem.  I had to reach almost to arm's length to pull the curved blade from my gushing thorax.  I dropped it on the ground next to my knife and rose to full height.  I had to kill this guy before I bled out.  I had to kill Pat Sajak now.

I dashed forward at full speed.  He was waiting with a perfectly timed straight right to the base of my nose, but my momentum took us both into the brick wall.  I grabbed his head with two hands and smashed his face across three bricks lengthwise.  I was going for a second hat-trick when I felt the gorilla grip on my scrote, the fear of which made teenage boys cry before gym class.  At least it made me cry before gym until I finally graduated high school.

Dude, my nuts were smashed.  I screamed and screamed but nothing came out.  It was time for a head butt.  I turned his head into a brick-wall-and-other-guy's-head sandwich for what felt like five minutes but was really ten.

I was finally sure that he was falling unconscious.  I thought I sensed it after the first head butt, but now I felt safer letting his lifeless body drop to the ground.  Although he lay motionless, the feeling of desperation did not subside.  In fact it surged.  I needed to end this.  That's when I saw that one corner of the dumpster next to Sajak's corpse was carelessly placed on an empty crate that said "TNT" on the side (I swear I've never been inside the Velvet Pouch, so I can't say what goes on there).  I saw my opportunity.

I sprinted the three steps to the dumpster and launched into a drop kick to its side.  As I landed flat on my back, I felt the ground shake from the dumpster shifting off the crate and smashing Pat Sajak's skull open against the ground.  I looked over to see his brain actually pouring out onto my pants.  I violently twisted sideways and puked for Twelve Tremendous seconds from two inches above the pavement.

I dusted myself off as best I could and, for the second time that night, adjusted my tie.  For the first time in a quarter century, I could honestly say I was happy.  I would be happier to stop the massive bleeding, but it could wait.  I slipped my knucks back into my pocket and proceeded out of the alley.  I was nothing but smiles.

Suddenly, I saw a young child emerge from the 7-11 next door.  What was this kid doing out this late?  My heart filled the void in my empty scrotum when he turned my direction.  The last thing I needed was a witness.

The kid's face lit up when he saw me approaching.  His mind was spinning its wheels, trying to remember where he'd seen me before.  I knew it was inevitable when he gasped with recognition.  "Hey, you're the... aren't you the Jeopardy guy?" the kid asked.

"That's right, son.  And from now on I'm the only real man you'll see on ABC during the seven o'clock hour..."