The Truth Behind a Smile

Stephen stepped closer to him, rotating the pistol so that he was holding the grip now instead of the barrel.

“Please … I’m begging you. I have a wife and kids at home.” The man had trapped himself, with his back against a refrigerator door.

Stephen raised the gun, pointing it at the center of the man’s forehead.

“NO NO NO! WAIT! PLEA—”

Stephen pulled the trigger and fired two shots into the man’s skull, cutting short his cries for mercy. His glare still emotionless, Stephen let his arm fall to his side and slowly turned to the store clerk. She was trembling though perhaps less violently than when she’d been confronted by the inept robber, and it was clear to Stephen that his presence was causing her a great deal of discomfort. He strode out of the store and rushed to his car, gun still in hand.

Finally in his car again, Stephen tossed the gun onto the passenger seat and placed both hands on his steering wheel. His wide-eyed stare acknowledged what he’d just done. Momentarily frozen, he felt a rush of new emotions, and he couldn’t help smiling. It was one of the most genuine smiles Stephen had ever offered the world. The sheer joy of finally feeling useful, as though he’d helped someone in this life, almost brought tears to his eyes.

After appreciating the moment, Stephen realized the police might not look on his deed so favorably. Stephen checked the time once more, 9:55 pm, he started the car and quickly pulled back onto the highway, driving on through the open farmland while he tried to figure out what to do next. It didn’t take long for him to stop, however, since the car was almost out of fuel and had not realized at his prior stop.

He stopped at a gas station not 25 miles down the road to fill his tank. He had no intention of being stranded on the side of the highway with a murder weapon on the front seat.

This station was much larger than the one he’d just put behind him. There looked to be around 16 pumps, and he pulled up to one the farthest from the store.

Tucking the pistol into the back of his waistband and covering it with his sweater so no passing strangers would see it, he got out of the car and placing the credit card in the modernized pump, began to pump his own gas. Feeling the spring Texas heat now, even during the night, Stephen began to sweat. He glanced around and saw three cars at the pumps and a truck parked on the side of the lot. A group of what seemed to be five or six high school boys stood behind a corner of the store, smoking. Stephen planned to pump his gas and get back on the road as quickly as possible, but his plan would soon take an unexpected detour.

A large truck pulled up to the pump right behind Stephen. A large man, maybe six-three or six-four, with a bushy beard and shaved head, sat in the driver’s seat. A small, timid-looking woman, hugging herself as if for warmth or protection, sat in the passenger seat.

Stephen watched as the man began yelling at the woman though he could not hear any of the words. The tirade ended when the man opened the car door and told the woman to “Stay there and be quiet” as he put a hand on the woman’s head and slammed it into the passenger side window. Using the momentum, he created to help himself out of his truck. Stephen’s eyes widened and his body warmed. The behemoth of a man looked over at Stephen as he stepped out of the truck, and Stephen quickly looked away, pretending that he hadn’t been watching.

The man ignored Stephen and grabbed the nozzle from a pump.

Turning his head slowly, Stephen watched as the man pumped his gas and the woman hunched herself into a ball against the truck door. The nozzle in Stephen’s car clicked, notifying him that his tank had been filled. He hung the nozzle back on the pump and walked over to the truck.

Unsure of exactly what he was going to do or even of whether he should be intervening, Stephen was tense. He walked over slowly, careful not to alert the larger man of his presence. Approaching the driver-side window, Stephen looked in and saw the sickening number of bruises that covered the limbs of the poor woman like spots on a leopard. Even if it wasn’t this man, someone had been abusing this woman so much that she didn’t even bother to defend herself anymore. Trembling in a corner, she simply accepted her fate.

Stephen took the pistol gently from his waistband and made his way stealthily over to the man until he was right beside him. The bearded man was too busy watching the price on the pump go higher to notice Stephen sneaking up behind him until the bore of the pistol was only a few inches from the back of his skull.

Finger on the trigger, Stephen let out a quick whistle. The man spun around and found himself staring down the barrel of the gun. Giving his victim no time to react, Stephen pulled the trigger and watched the giant man fall to the ground. He shot him once more in the head then ran back to his car.

The gunshots sent the other gas station customers scurrying for cover. Glancing in his rearview mirror, he caught one looking up as he sped off and pulled back onto the highway. Stephen had taken off so fast he hadn’t taken so much as a second to see how the battered woman in the truck had reacted to the gunshots or to the murder of her abuser. He liked to think that she felt some sense of relief after the initial shock and horror had passed, but he could not know in the moment.

With the gas pedal floored, Stephen was flying down the mostly empty highway as fast as his car could go. Passing by peaceful cows, and empty farms that the clear skied moonlight shined upon, his emotions were mixed. He felt a tad guiltier this time around then he had after the first murder, but he took some sort of pride in what he’d just done. He was glad he’d helped yet another woman who was being abused by a man, but he couldn’t help but also be disgusted with himself for feeling such joy after taking yet another man’s life. He also knew that he was looking at jail time now: The first killing might have been justified as self-defense, but he had no excuse whatsoever for the second murder.

With police pursuit in mind, Stephen pulled off the highway the first chance he had and took a smaller route. He drove for a few hours on the smaller route and eventually he found what appeared to be an abandoned building a little bit off the road. Stephen parked behind the empty structure, where he wouldn’t be seen. The building appeared to be a decommissioned pole barn with the roof beginning to sag and a bow forming in the roofline. Once white, it now was tattered with its paint peelings on almost every external plank of the barn. Stephen was unfamiliar with the area and realized that the farmland he had come to held many more trees than those around Beaumont. He stood out the car for a moment to catch some air, it was much more humid than he had been used too. The insects in the area where louder as well, almost drowning out Stephen’s own thoughts.

Jumping back into the car, Stephen grabbed the pistol and pulled out the magazine. Five bullets left, including one in the chamber. He looked at the clock on his dashboard once more, 1:15 am. He didn’t have much time before the police would send out the state troopers if they already hadn’t. They’d be looking for his car and a man fitting his description.

His heart pounded at the thought of being sent to prison, but he couldn’t forget the rush he’d felt when he was helping others however violently.

After a few minutes of deliberation, Stephen decided to take backroads to the closest city, later discovering it to be Texarkana. He’d spend the night looking for men who mistreated women, a vigilante, until he ran out of bullets. He decided that if didn’t find any such men, he’d simply go home and pretend nothing unusual had happened.

The only problem was he didn’t know where to look for abusive men; he’d come across the first two purely by chance. He felt a little lost as he came closer the outskirts of Texarkana, but not for long. Stephen found it almost comical how easy it was for him to find his next victim, whom he came upon just as he entered the border of the city. He could tell that the wealth class of the area was very low, watching the many buildings he passed, shared similar features to the barn he used for cover only a few miles back. With boarded up windows, broken glass on the sidewalk, and graffiti so old on every building, that they appeared as natural to the structures as birthmarks on people. Stephen could sense that his next prey was not too far from him.

As he pulled up to a traffic light, Stephen saw a man and woman talking on the corner. The man wore a black velour shirt with a gold pattern along the collar and sleeve cuffs. His jeans were ripped so badly it looked almost as if he’d been dragged while holding onto the bumper of a car. He had on a black baseball cap with gold lettering, and although it was the middle of the night, he wore large black-and-gold sunglasses. Unlike his pants, the man’s shoes were in spectacular shape as if he’d put them on just to try on at the store and matched the rest of his assemble. The dark colors along with the hat and sunglasses in the middle of the night made it seem as if the man just did not want to be seen. This was contradicted by all the gold in his outfit and exaggerated by the grotesquely thick gold chain and watch he flaunted.

The woman he was speaking with, however, appeared to be wearing hardly any clothes at all. Her hair was a dirty blonde that looked like the result of a botched attempt at highlighting. Similarly, her makeup had been sloppily applied. Unlike the man, she hadn’t bothered to accessorize. She wore only a black-and-red snakeskin tube top paired a patent leather mini skirt. Her shoes had clear; four-inch heals as if to give her feet their own little display cases. The entire outfit appeared to be a cheaply put-together, last-minute affair that was a far cry from the meticulous ensemble the man had put on.

Stephen doubted the man had noticed his car; he appeared absorbed in the conversation he was having with the woman. It seemed he was becoming more and more aggressive, looking down at the woman and raising his open palm sharply as if he was going to hit her. She flinched.

Stephen rolled down his window and whistled.

The conversation stopped instantly, and the woman started toward the car, but the man grabbed her by the arm and yanked her back. He came to the curb instead.

“Listen, my man, this bitch is off the clock right now. We’re having a little … performance review over here, if you catch what I’m sayin’.” A hand on the window frame on the passenger’s side, he took off his glasses. “Listen if you go down one more block and make a right, drive about another quarter mile, you’ll find some of my other girls. They’ll take good care of you.” He winked at Stephen and tapped the door twice.