White letters: little piece out of it

He stood biting his lower lip and gazing across the street into her apartment. His hands nervously fingered his charcoal overcoat. His t-shirt below was stained with sweat rings under the arms and around the neck so that it no longer looked white. His blond hair hung around his shoulders in twine-like strands, greasy from many nights and days of nervous pacing. Deep purple pockets ringed his lusterless chocolate eyes from nights of sleeplessness. Faint stubble of hair surrounded his jaw and neck. A thin trickle of blood zigzagged from his lip through the stubble of golden hair. He brought a lit Camel cigarette up to his mouth and took a long slow drag, never once taking his eyes off the opposite apartment. Bringing his hand away from his mouth he lifted a smear of crimson with the Camel.1

No light shown from her room but he could image what she was doing. He had seen her walk across the room from her bed to the kitchen. She was probably making coffee. He knew she liked coffee. There were lots of things he knew about her. A faint smile played across his thin lips when he thought about all the things he had learned. Yellow stained teeth clinched together.2

Shea was his favorite subject at this juncture in his life. The last one hadn’t taken very long to dispense of and had not been satisfying enough. But this time he would take his time. He knew where she ate, when she went out. When her boyfriend stayed over and when they had fights. A surprising twist of fate had played in his favor. Her boyfriend hadn’t been around for quite awhile. That meant one less thing to take care of.3

A dim light from the back of the apartment shown through the sole window. Many nights he sat in this building watching her room. Standing in the same place watching her windows, waiting for the right time to make his move. The same events had happened four times this week. The time was soon. Cigarette butts littered the floor all around him, like birdseed scattered around a feeder.4

The light was from the bathroom. She spent a lot of time in that room. He thought she was vain. He hated vain women. His mother had been vain and showed him no love. He knew what to do with vain women.5

He could still see his mother laying there on the ruby red couch with the piece of paper in her hands, laughing at his picture. Her beautiful auburn hair was pinned up in a bun out of her heart-shaped face. Her chestnut eyes were cold as she stared at his painting. Lines had formed at the corners of her thin mouth from years of frowning. The emerald green pantsuit she wore hung loosely off her slender body as her shoulders shook from laughter. Her long arms and hands gracefully held the painting like a piece of rotten meat. She held a crystal goblet containing whatever liquor she could find that day, in her other hand.6

He had spent half the day on the picture just for her. He had asked her to hang it up for everyone to see. She had laughed and said it was hideous. He was so proud of it. She had laughed even harder and replied that she would do no such thing. She would never hang something so ugly near her. He had cried and she had only laughed. He never forgave her and he was only seven years old, just as she had never forgiven him for causing his father to leave.7

The front door opened and caught him by surprise. He watched with suspicion as the strange visitor strolled over to the bathroom door like a pro with the lights off. The visitor was a man and he stood outside the door listening. Suddenly he threw open the door. 8

The man standing near the window breath grew rapid and his eyes narrowed. His breath steamed up the window in front of him. He raised his hand to wipe the steam away and realized his cigarette had burned itself out. Reaching into the darkness he fumbled with the pack and lit another. Things were going to get sticky.9

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