Thursday July 21st, 2016

The exercise:

Write about: the snitch.

There were about 20 people in the bakery lineup before opening this morning. Once I let them in it was the longest I've seen the shop stay full for since I started - I kept looking up expecting to see the line dying down and that did not happen for quite some time. I didn't check the time but it felt like close to an hour.

This afternoon we took a family trip to Penticton for an appointment. Did a quick grocery shop while we were there and then got back home to have dinner.

But! Not before Kat's dad came down to finally install the screen door. Max helped some more... actually, I'm pretty sure he did more work on this door than I did.

He thinks so too, as he was insisting at dinner that he and Papa (Kat's dad) did all the work and was wondering why Mommy was also thanking Dada for getting it done.

Sigh.

Mine:

I was standing over an unconscious body in an abandoned warehouse when I made the call. The pool of blood emanating from his head was larger than I'd planned on, but I was pretty sure I hadn't overdone it. Anyway, there were worse problems to have than if I had.

"Hello."

"Oscar? It's Carter."

"Carter? Where the hell you been? Talk was we'd lost you, man."

I'll admit to feeling genuinely touched by his tone. He actually sounded like he meant it. I guess I wasn't expecting that.

"I've been hunting, Oscar. When word got around that we had a snitch I wanted to be the guy to find the little weasel who was talking to the cops, you know?"

"I get that, man. You know I do." Oscar sounded less enthusiastic. "It's just... man, it didn't look good on you."

"What do you mean?" I knew exactly what he meant, but I thought it best to ask anyway.

"You looked like you was the snitch, Carter." Oscar was nearly apologetic. Probably as close to it as he'd ever been.

"Well, you don't need to worry about that any more."

"Who said I was worried? About you? Please." Oscar laughed his deep, belly laugh and the phone practically vibrated in my hand. "Wait, what's going on? Talk to me, man."

"My hunt has completed with resounding success." I looked down and saw that the man's breathing had grown more shallow. Maybe I had hit him a little too hard. "I've got the snitch, Oscar."

"That's my boy! Give me your address and I'll send a car to pick you and your prey up, okay? It'll be good to see you again, Carter."

"You too, Oscar." I gave him the address and hung up. After a final look down, I went over to the door to wait for my ride. Our ride. Me and the snitch. Poor bastard. I leaned my back against the wall and watched him continue to bleed out. I felt like I had to say something, you know?

"Sorry man," I called out, my words echoing around the empty room. "I couldn't let them find me, right? Somebody had to be the guy to take the fall though. Better you than me."