#106

To any casual passers by it would have just looked as though I was pruning the leaves on my Hortensia or filling in my baby tomato growth chart. In fact I was eyeing Brian's reflection in the window as he stood at the garden gate with his legs twisted around one another like hangman's rope. Oh, he looked so nancy! I watched as every so often he would twiddle his earlobe in an obvious manner and nudge his head in my direction. At that, John would turn around and screw his eyes up real tight as if putting a hex on me. They made me feel like a big pair of ears.

“So Brian,” I said sarcastically spinning on my heel “has John told you that tomorrows little rendez-vous is off? That while you're posting bad news through people's doors we'll be living it up in Morrisons, trolley dashing around the aisles of their summer clearout sale?”
“Aww Tristy, hee hee, you're so funny. It's like you think the entire world is like you, like everyone is a victim of your passions, your jealousies and complexes. But we're not! We're not all barnacles, ya know, clinging onto things that are drifting in the wrong direction, maybe even into waters that will kill us. Some of us are free and easy and not at all possessive. If John's not here tomorrow, so what? Then he'll be here the next day, and if not the next, the day after the next. Hee hee. It'll just be an even bigger thrill when the pleasure finally arises!”
“Oh, you think so do you? And what if John was never here again? If one day he disappears, without word or trace, um? What'd you do then, Huh?” Now it was my turn to get all camp and poppy. It's some thing I've always done and always detested in myself, but whenever someone gets my goat up I instinctively respond by pulling the old sequined tent out. Maybe it's a hang on from my old Liberace days, I'm not sure???
“Gone for good,” hee hee'd Brian “ya see, there ya go again, pushing your bumberrying fears onto others. It's like I said, you're a human barnacle, hee hee. But be careful, Tristy, not being here on guard duty tomorrow,  I sometimes get a little peckish on my round  an' I just luuv tomatoes!” I followed Brian's eyes as they drifted off across my face, down and onto the fragile little tomato I had so lovingly brought to fruit. He licked his lips like I'd imagine him doing whilst staring at some older guy's cock.

Well, I too could play that game, just as good, maybe even better. With a wicked hint of a smile I pulled my eyes back towards Brian's. For a while I just stared at him, letting the intensity build until our surroundings kinda faded away and it felt as though we were peering at one another through a letterbox. Then I moved my head deliberately to the right and lowered my eyes. Brian followed suit, curiously, until we were both staring down at a single red brick. By now my smile had gone and I felt like I was in some kind of a trance. It was as if someone had put me into neutral.

In my minds eye, I watched as I moved over to Brian and smashed the sharp corner of the brick into his temple. Once, twice, then again and again and again. At first he went all goofy and drunk, then he crumpled to the floor. He looked retarded and shocked. His feet were jerking and he had pissed himself. There was a bit of blood, but  in ratio to damage, not much. Brian was no longer 'The Postboy' or 'Aristotle' or even 'Brian', he was just a guy on the floor with his skull put through and a psycho towering over him with a brick. By the tenth blow his head had flopped heavily to one side. He was all bashed up on the pavement staring vacuously at a car tyre. In the metal hub cap he could probably see himself, only he wasn't capable of seeing anything as his face was all busted in, his retinas ripped loose and his body dead. Poor Brian, I thought, then smiled my wicked smile again.

When I turned back to face Brian, he and John were scrutinizing me in a very bizarre way – like I was a strange insect or something. Certainly they now both thought I'd completely lost it, and Brian had probably even forgot what I had lost it about to begin with. As a little prompt, I once again took out my sequined tent and very flatly and calmly said, “Don't ever fuck with my tomatoes!”