He looks over and burps. "I'm not payin'."
"Come on, you look to be in a pretty bad way there--I'll give you a free one." At that, he smiles and spits, then comes around to the passenger side. When he gets in, he begins to explain his address. "Don't worry," I say. "I know where you live." There's something around me, numbing me. Without it, I could never go on. I remember Angelina and the way her mother fell to pieces in the supermarket. I have to do this. You have to, Ed. I nod in agreement.
I pull the vodka out of my pocket and offer it to him. He grabs it without a second thought.
I knew it, I congratulate myself. A man like this takes everything he wants without even thinking about it. A man like me thinks too much.
"Don't mind if I do," he says, and he takes a good hard swig.
"Keep it," I say. "It's yours."
He says nothing but keeps drinking as I drive past Edgar Street and head west, circling to the back end of town. There's a place out there on a dirt track called the Cathedral. It's the rocky summit of a mountain that looks over miles and miles of bushland. We're not even out of town when he falls asleep. The vodka flask drops and pours itself onto him as I drive on.
I drive for over half an hour, hit the dirt road, then go for another half hour. We get there just after one o'clock, and when I cut the engine, we're alone, in silence.
Time to get fierce, or at least as fierce as I get.
I get out of the car and go to the passenger side. I open the door. I beat him in the face with the gun.
Nothing.
I hit him again.
After five attempts, he's momentarily startled, tasting his own blood from his nose and mouth.
"Wake up," I order him.
He stutters a moment, not knowing where he is and what's happening.
"Get out."
I have the gun pointed exactly between his eyes.
"If you're wondering if this is loaded, it might be the last thought you ever have."
He's still groggy, but his eyes grow wide. He thinks about a sudden movement but understands very quickly that he can barely pull himself out of the car. Eventually he makes it out, and I walk him up the track with the gun grinding into his back.
"This'll go straight through your spine," I say, "and then I'll leave you here. I'll call your wife and kid and they can come out and look at you. They can dance around you. Would you like that? Or should I put this through your skull and let you die fast? Your choice." He falls down, but I follow him hard with my knees. I cripple him with my boyish boniness and have the gun pointed at the back of his neck. "You feel like dying?" My voice shivers but remains hard. "You deserve it, I can tell you that much." I jump off him and bark, "Now get up and keep walking or you die now."
There's a sound.
It rises from the ground.
I realize it's the sound of a man sobbing. Tonight, however, I don't care. I have to kill him because slowly, almost effortlessly and with complete contempt, this man kills his wife and child every night. And it's me alone, Ed Kennedy, a less than ordinary suburbanite, who has the chance to end it.
"Get up!" I get stuck into him again, and we press on to the top, to the Cathedral.
When we reach the summit, I make him stand there, about five meters from the edge.
The gun's pointed at the back of his head. I'm about three meters behind him. Nothing can go wrong.
Except.
I begin to shiver.
I begin to shake.
I begin to lurch and quake at the thought of killing another human. The aura that surrounded me earlier is gone. The air of invincibility has deserted me, and I'm suddenly aware that I have to do this surrounded by nothing but my own human frailty. I breathe. I almost break.