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PYRRHIC REVENGE
I had hated Roger Thurman for forty years, ever since he terrorized me through sixth grade and four years of high school. The hatred puddled in a corner of my mind and would not evaporate.
He had been the biggest kid in the sixth grade and he took a special dislike to me. Maybe it was because I was smart or because
I was short and skinny and easily bullied. Maybe it was because my great-grandparents were Mexican and my skin always looked tan.
When we were freshmen, he punched me on the way to school and knocked me into a muddy puddle.
It was on picture day for the yearbook. I had to go back home to change which made me late for school.
He just laughed. “You little cry-baby. Go on home to your mama.”
When I got sick with pneumonia and missed school for a week, he said he missed me. “Where were you, you little runt.
I needed you for the math test. I’m going to beat the shit out of you for that.”
That was when I decided to murder him.
One morning I looked in the mirror and spoke to the fifty-five year old reflection looking back at me.
“Are you out of your mind? You’re as crazy as John Hinkley.”
The next Saturday, just after dark, I stood on the corner half a block from his house in the illumination of a single
street lamp. I fingered the loaded police special in my coat pocket and walked to his house, down the street as I had
done forty years before, wishing he would die. I rang the bell, my right hand on the pistol in my pocket. I planned
to aim the pistol at his chest and tell him who I was and why I was there. The door opened slightly. Roger Thurman
stood in the small space, wearing a tattered bathrobe over printed pajamas. He clutched the robe together with
his left hand, leaned on a cane, and looked up at me.
“Yes? What do you want?”
I looked at him without speaking. He was a man that time had crushed. We were both fifty-five, but I saw
a a frail old man with a fringe of white hair circling his head. I had all mine, thick and black, a genetic
gift from some Hispanic ancestor. I was healthy where he was pale, almost gray, as if he lived on a planet that
lacked a sun. His eyes were caverns sunken into his head. I felt alive with purpose. He had an aura of sickness
and death about him..
“Hello, Roger. Do you remember me? Ken Carstens. Kenny.”
“Kenny? He wrinkled his brow as if searching for a thought that was just beyond his grasp. “Do I know you?”
Is this what I had come back for? We were two men in the flow of time, two beings whose lives had coincided once
and now briefly touched again. That’s all.
Still leaning heavily on his cane, his hollow eyes rose to scrutinize my face. He lifted his left hand to his brow
as if to shade his eyes from some distant bright light, his voice weak and small. “Kenny? Kenny Carstens? Is that you?
After all these years?”
I smiled and turned away. Not wanting him to see my disappointment, I walked down the steps.
“Wait a minute,” he hoarsely shouted after me. “Are you really Kenny Carstens?”
I refused to answer and continued walking.
“Answer me, Kenny.”
As I turned the corner, a fourteen-year-old joined me, walking with his head down as he had forty years ago.
I put my arm around his shoulders and we walked into the light.
Mel Goldberg: After earning an MA in English, Mel Goldberg taught literature and composition in the United States and England.
His poetry has been published in numerous magazines and his short stories have appeared in print and on line.
His book of poetry and photography, The Cyclic Path was published in 1990. His novel, Choices, and his book of previously published short detective stories, A Cold Killing, are now available on Kindle and Amazon. His recent book of haiku, A Few Berries Fallen From the Tree, is available electronically at smashwords.com. He lives in Mexico.
Email: Mel Goldberg
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