Lest we forget... ![Smile :) :)](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7)
Now... fact... I've never met AD and, despite myself, I like the guy he is much like Mosi in that if a car takes his fancy, he hits it, the Porsche GT3 being a great example of 'Oh fuck it, I want it, it will be mine!"
But...
But...
I have to do this, but I'm not going to go for the jugular as I have done in the past... because of the above.
I'm going to wrap it up in my favourite style... in allegory. But a really obvious one, cos I don't want to tax Mosis brain... ![Smile :) :)](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7)
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Arthur Dent (AD to his friends) was a clever bloke, the clever bloke was previously a smart teenager and bright child... there were, and never had been, any flies on AD.
Early in his life it was recognised that he paid attention to detail, sometimes a little too much attention for his own good but he chose a career path that suited that and he'd done well.
His love of detail and accuracy was a matter of pride.
We have all heard the phrase 'Pride precedes a fall' and so had AD, but because of his wit and overt intelligence he had avoided all calls on his fall, sidestepped them.
Romeo Rodriguez was made from a different cloth, he grew up if the roughest boroughs of New York City and survived by shooting his way into and out of gang dens and leaving with their money and cared not at all if he left a trail of blood and bits behind him.
He too was clever, a fact that had amazed him as much as it delighted and amazed his parents who were very well-to-do, Romeo Rodriguez was not his real name.
One night these two people were destined to meet... but only one would walk away from the encounter with a smile.
New York City is a bright lights city, it hums with noises and snaps to sharp bangs but in any bright lights city any alleyway or obstacle becomes a shadow, a black as the blackest night shadow where anyone can hide and wait.
Romeo Rodriguez would often just stand in the black night city of the alleys and study the darkness.
To many, black is black and shadow just shadow, but Romeo Rodriguez knew better, his understanding of the dark had saved his life more times than wanted to count, he dissolved in it, it swallowed him.
It was in one of the Bright light city's black night alleys that AD met Romeo Rodriguez.
Romeo saw him coming, the second AD took that fateful wrong turn Romeo's eyes held him, as AD picked his way through the shadows not once did Romeos eyes stop seeing everything, every detail, even in the pitch black Romeo saw AD's reflection in the little puddles left by the rain, saw the trace of AD's shadow as it melded with others, all was information.
Romeo knew every essential detail he needed before AD had made a dozen paces into the alley.
Romeo thought about how to do this, the clothes were neat, too neat, the countenance too cleanshaven for this timem of day or night... "a fussy and obsessive man dedicated to accuracy" he thought.
Romeo had always been good at this summing up of any opposition and AD had stepped into the dark, Romeos domain, and that meant he was opposition.
"Don't move a fucking muscle or I'll shoot your fucking face off with my pistol" Romeo was pleased with the words he had chosen , he knew the clean shaven man with the fussy hair style and excessive eau de cologne would not want anything to happen to his face.
Romeo only owned really fucking big hand guns, he found them to be useful in the game of intimidation and the flourish of this one usually scared the shit of most people who saw it.
Romeo even made sure that what little light there was in the cold dark alley caught it clearly and beautifully.
It was really was a big gun, without saying a single word it said
"I'm going to blow fucking great holes in painful parts of your body and not care one fucking bit" and because the gun said it, Romeo had never had to.
The answer he got surprised and delighted Romeo.
"No you won't" said AD.
"No, I really will" said Romeo, wanting this guy to keep up this astonishing bravado despite him patently not having the fire power to match his own.
Romeo sort of willed this idiot on.
The back and forth between them went on for a while, but soon Romeo got bored, turning to his right he shouted to a tramp, he knew was there but AD had no hope of having seen before...
"Hey, bum, show yourself!" Romeo said gruffly...
The tramp moved just enough for AD to see him, AD was amazed that someone could appear out of the dark like that, Romeo knew AD had seen him.
Romeo fired one shot and returned the gun back under ADs chin before AD had even realised it had gone and come back, the tramp was 20 feet away.
The single shot blew the tramps head apart, it exploded and little bits of skull, blood and sinew sparkled as tiny shards of the bright light city's electric candles caught them and set them alight on their rise and fall into darkness.
Romeo smiled...
"are you getting the picture?"
One more word that didn't involve at least some of the words "Take my money, all of it, please"
"You're wrong, you will never shoot me with your pistol" These were ADs last words.
But Romeo didn't want this idiots friends and family to not be given the grace of an open coffin by which to mourn the loss of such a well groomed man.
So in an instant Romeo stepped back 10 feet shot AD in the Liver twice, Romeo knew that his hollow soft points would disintegrate and destroy this man's liver irrevocably and although he'd die more slowly, he'd make a beautiful corpse.
AD slumped to the floor, he wasn't dead, he didn't know what we know.
But as AD slumped down, he said to Romeo...
"I was right" in a triumphant whisper.
"I was right!!!" he said for a second time...
Romeo at hearing the first thought 'What the fuck!'
But in the few seconds that passed between the first and second (which was also, sadly, the last utterance AD ever made) Romeo realised what this idiot had meant and smiled, hugely.
Romeo took from the unfortunate AD all the trinkets that Romeo enjoyed taking, they were the reason he did this sort thing for.
Romeo Rodriguez shrugged his shoulders, ran a comb through his long pony-tail and stubbly beard and walked to within a few feet of the entrance to the alleyway, he was totally invisible in the dark to everyone but him and looked back...
"You WERE right I suppose, it's a Revolver.
Funny really.
But the gun never kills you, the bullets do
..and that's what really matters, the thing that does the damage"
Romeo Rodriguez melted away from the alleyway, found his way quietly and unnoticed to his own alleyway and walked to a door, unlocked it, walked through and locked it behind him.
He took off the dirty clothes and showered, shaved and dressed himself in a spotless suit, complete with pressed shirt and tie and walked up some steps to another door, unlocked that and walked through, locking that one behind him too.
"Where have you been Anthony!, we've all been waiting for you, the exhibition isn't complete without the Artist!" Came a cultured voice from a 70 year old female art critic that looked to all the world like the result of a failed attempt at a sex change.
"Sorry, Helen, but I was in the thrall of my muse and I can't let those moments pass, they are so creative for me, it makes me feel so alive."
"Oh don't worry, you're here now"
Romeo Anthony Rodriguez mingled... all the while wishing that once just once he'd meet some of THESE people in an alleyway one night.
The End
Apologies to:-
Raymond Chandler
Douglas Adams
Lou Reed
All dead, all greatly missed.
(I didn't kill them)