This is just a short story I did for class. It needs a lot of work, but I'm bored of it now. Oddly enough I actually began writing this while on a train.
Derailed
Tom boarded the train for Union Station in typical Southern California fashion: sunglasses, t-shirt, cargo shorts and sandals. The reddish hue of his Irish skin matched his short hair and betrayed the fact that he had not been at home resting this week as his supervisor believed, but had instead frequented the beach. The sun, sand and the bikinis were so much more soothing for Tom's daily dysphoria than dealing with the criminal element.
He adjusted the pistol and badge hidden in the back of his waistband under his shirt, as he eased his healthy frame into a seat near the middle of the car. He winced as his damaged knuckles scraped against the gray plastic armrest, drawing blood through a freshly formed scab. Examining the bruises and cuts on his hands he thought of the figure he left broken and battered on the interrogation floor.
Tom's methods walked a fine line between law enforcement and vigilantism. He needed to rein in the murders and rapists; narcissists lacking social value and empathy for the weak as he saw them. His fists were held back only by basic human decency and a sense of duty. Tom put his knuckle to his mouth and cleaned the blood away. His decency was gone and now he only had a duty.
Each crime he handled had become progressively more vicious, more reluctant to release his humanity without clawing and mauling it first. The crimes competed, slashing and mutilating each other in a morbid race to destroy Tom's soul. A single shot to a clerk's head, passed by the bludgeoned prostitute, overtaken by the eight year old girl, raped and thrown from an overpass to the freeway below, for the win.
The girl had done him in. She took away his ability to remain separate and detached from victims, she was kryptonite. His mind had been without thoughts as he worked through the evidence, the child's body parts and clumps of hair strewn across the blood stained lanes. He only felt the strange familiarity of bagging groceries at the local mart during high school. Milk, eggs, butter,bread, cheese, blood, torn limbs, crushed skull. Paper or plastic.
Tom found the girl's doll on the shoulder of the road. Its torso was torn and its face covered with a child's bloody finger prints. He gritted his teeth and fought to keep his composure. Anguish for the girl infected his body like a pox infested blanket wrapping about his shoulders, diminishing his strength and resolve . He was infected, and as he made his way to his car he could feel the symptoms of empathy and revenge spread through his veins and morality flow from his eyes.
Back at the department Tom listened to the tips that had come in.
"The girl who's picture was on the news," a woman whispered in the recording " I saw her a few days ago in the alley behind Rock Street. A man was pulling her by the arm into the gate of 321. She was crying. I didn't think much about it then, but now..." Tom could hear the regret in the woman's long breaths into the phone, " It's a hard place to miss."
The arresting officers sat the man in a chair behind the table in the center of the dimly lit interrogation room and left him with Tom who stood in the far corner. It didn't take much for the man to confess; just a few comments and questions meant to put him at ease. He was more than happy to tell about how he sexually tortured and experimented on the girl, bragging as though telling a friend about a fish he caught.
Tom crossed the room toward the man and crossed the line. Swinging his arm Tom felt a satisfying crunch under his knuckles as he split the man's nose open. Another blow shattered the mans cheek, forcing fragments of bone through his skin. The man lay on the ground blubbering in pain and fear, his face a swollen mess of of ground meat and Tom drew and cocked his gun. He wanted revenge for the girl. He wanted to watch the man beg for his life and scream and claw at the air for mercy while he lost control of his bladder and bowels. And then he wanted to kill him slowly.
Tom held the the gun up to the man's head, dragging the black steel across his swollen face before slamming the butt into is forehead. The man fell in a heap and Tom walked out.
The air vents above Tom's seat turned on startling him as it blew cool air across his pulsing arteries and sweat laden brow. Anxiously he pulled the orange bottle from his shirts pocket. Sacrificing three of the propranolols between his teeth, Tom prayed that their bitterness would heal his wounds.
Cathy's purple three-wolves shirt slid up exposing her pregnant stomach as she shrugged the straps of her pink backpack and duffel bag higher on to either shoulder. Spying an empty seat near the back of the train, she sighed heavily and squeezed herself into the narrow aisle, careful not to bump her precious cargo. She navigated the cramped walkway and gave a red haired man a nervous smile as she passed. Dually aware of the rows of averted eyes glancing at her naked belly just long enough to judge her and allude disapproval without showing any genuine interest in her situation.
"Slut! Whore! Get out of my sight!", Cathy heard her father's voice in their shunning gazes, and was glad no one could see her red eyes through the dark lenses of the sunglasses. Exertion and frustration misted Cathy's teenage face as she moved down the aisle, wrestling with the bags each time they caught the edge of a seat. She had seen complete strangers rush to carry bags for pregnant women before, but no one rose to help her. She understood that she was not a pregnant woman, she was a stupid pregnant child and people, she thought, must be punishing her for her senselessness. To Cathy this punishment was more disheartening than her father's.
Her Father had at least known and loved her at one time and had the right to be disappointed in her. She was the reason her parents left Turkey. She was to be the first in the family to finish school, attend college. And then she met a boy in class. He told her he loved her. She told him she was pregnant. He found a gun and put it to his head. A bloody note blamed her for what he had done. No one turned to help her. No one helped carry her load.
Easing herself into the seat she tugged her shirt back over her stomach and took the In Case Of Emergency placard from its pocket to fan the flush from her face. The cartoon people blurred to motion, calmly demonstrating how to exit the train in an orderly fashion. Cathy pictured herself trying to cram through the porthole windows and becoming stuck like Winnie the Pooh.
"Cute." She thought, until she realized no one would help her. The passengers would stand around the outside of the train chastising her for her carelessness. Cheering in anticipation of the fire dealing final retribution for her stupidity.
She pulled a soda from her backpack and cracked it open. Drinking the tingly sweetness and resting it on the protruding faces of wolves.
"At least," she thought, "I won't be stoned".
Richard stepped into the car just as the train lurched forward, causing him to stumble into the wall. He recovered, straightened his leather jacket and Hawaiian shirt and patted down his brown hair and stubborn white streaks that refused to be disguised. He found a seat a few rows back from the front and removed his wallet from the back pocket of his Costco jeans as he sat down. He had been grasping for youth the last ten of his sixty-three years, while his body was pulling towards earth, longing to be covered by it. He often thought it would not be too bad in the earth; back with his departed wife.
His wife's cancer had ingested everything, her body, her spirit, their money. Their time together consumed by its parasitical appetite for destruction, leaving him nothing of value in its pungent excrement of agony and grief. He had nothing left but grainy photos and memories of better times past.
Looking out the window and running his hand over the metallic weight in his inside pocket he felt it strange and perfectly sensible that his loss would put him on this train. It was reassuring to know that no matter what happened, the train was always on a known path. No matter if he succeeded or not, no sharp turns, no forks in the track, could force him to choose between keeping his house or paying for his wife's treatment.
No where left to go, no one left to help, Richard was desperate. Though, he was not entirly sure what he was desperate for. He felt compelled to draw attention to his story, to the misfortune that fell upon him and his wife. Of their ill treatment by the insurance companies, the hospitals, the doctors, the ones that are supposed to be there in times of need. He needed people to know, to be aware. It was too late for him, but everyone else still had a chance... if only they knew.
"I will help them." Richard mumbled aloud under his breath, "I will help them so that they can help themselves."
Clicking down the tracks, the train sang a lullaby to its passengers with the clack of its wheels, gently swaying them to sleep as a mother rocks her child. Richard slowly reached his hand into his jacket and stood up. Anxiously he cleared his throat.
"Excuse me!" he called out pulling the revolver from his jacket, "Excuse me!"
He looked at the people around him and he saw unintended fear in their faces.
"Relax," he said in a calming voice, "this is not a train robbery."
