Noir

/nwar/

French-adj. [ Short for film noir + Sense 2, short for French Roman noir, black novel.]

1. Of or relating to a genre of crime literature with with cynical characters and bleak settings.
2. Suggestive of danger or violence.
3. Black
What is it? What do we think we are doing?

We know.

Don't we?

Really, truly, deep down in the deepest, darkest, most private part of our twisted, black little hearts?

Of course we do.

The twisted flip-side of Walter Mitty that hides in the shadows cast by what we are always told we are supposed to be. The dimly-lit corners of the the cathedral of righteousness that we all are forced to inhabit by our mediocre neighbors and alcoholic grade school teachers. Teachers who drink to drown the fact that they are afraid to write that book, or come out of the closet, or whatever it is that weak, mediocre people fear. And despite all of the goodness that surrounds us and permeates us we still, regularly, walk to the edge, look down, and hang one foot over...grinning to ourselves...

Sit on the edge of the bed, in the dead of night, reveling in the feel of pistol in hand, the weight, the ruthless beauty.

The power.

Not a fantasy.

Not trying to feel cool.

Just knowing the outcome if the shit hits the fan.

You'll be the last one standing.

Halfway between a grin and a grimace, you make sure a round is chambered, safety on, and you put her back in her holster, back under the pillow.

Do you have cash on hand? A bag packed? A plan, and a backup plan, and a backup plan?

Of course you do. Maybe it's not written down, but it's always in your head.

Can't get the drop on me Daddy-O.

Not me, because I've got hell in my heart. You push the right buttons and you'll see snakes' eyes, baby.

And you let the girl at the ice cream counter know you noticed her sweet little tits because she "forgot" to snap the top button on that cheap uniform she wears. Got you free ice cream too.

She doesn't flirt with the guys her own age.

Her eyes give that telltale twinkle, the one that lets you know that she wouldn't mind the sensation of the roughness of the bricks in the back-alley against her naked, grinding ass as you bury yourself inside her. Her soft and delicate features slick with sweat and plastered hair breathing hard into your neck, and then, hands on your face kissing you like the end of the world...

You smile at her just long enough for her to read your thoughts, then you part ways, walking in opposite directions, smiling to yourselves, while your mutual red tails twitch beneath your clothing, and the squares go obliviously about their business, never knowing the barely-legal sexual apocalypse that just occurred in the ether all around them.

And somewhere in a leafless, grey skied, brown-lawned, snowless winter suburb, a seemingly average guy sees his wife and kids off and goes back to bed with a "cold".

The sick day.

By 10:45 he's half a bottle of Nyquil, a vicadin, and a joint into an online gambling session with a credit card obtained under an alias.

Boys will be boys, and his frat brother he just found on Facebook after 12 years knows the tricks.

One more guy with a hidden duffle bag containing a big-ass wad of cash, a new name or two and an American made .40cal Berretta with enough loaded magazines to cause serious problems for anyone thinking a suburban shmo is an easy target.

He has five escape plans committed to memory.

He's the one they never catch up to. Then the case goes cold and no one really gives a crap, 'cause, why should the cops care if some bored suburban white guy ditches his wife and kid? I mean, one fake credit card, or stolen identity, while being a crime, doesn't warrant the resources that could be put to better use on violence and burglary. You don't think this guy is dumb enough to settle down somewhere where he is going to be the worst criminal in town do you?

If they only knew what he was thinking about doing to the UPS lady.

He never did it though, he just knew he could.

The librarian who cuts herself because she likes the smell of blood and has needle marks between her toes...

She's not a junkie. Never will be. She just likes to get stoned sometimes at work on rainy days and listen to the water, and imagine all of the misdeeds she is going to do on her vacation to Spain in June.

Naked sun bathing -not because she in uninhibited, but because she is secretly an extremely perverted girl, and a voyeur. And it gets her so wound up that it makes her legs quiver, lying there in the hot sand, sweating, watching the undressed men and women. Letting her mind wander. Then she jumps in the ocean and calms herself down and goes back and does it again. Over and over and over again.

And the only one who sees through her is the thug watching through binoculars, and he smiles to himself, knowing the sorts of nastiness girls like that carry in their purses. They buy them from vendors, and at street fairs, from men and women who understand a girl traveling alone can always be forgiven by the authorities if they happen to use a switchblade stiletto on a would be attacker...just as long as the wounds aren't too precise...or numerous.

He smiles again, knowing they are stored, like trophies. Probably in a box, on a shelf, in the same closet with many mens' undershirts-of varying makes and sizes-like their original owners. Shirts sealed tightly in bags for weeks to permanently imprint the mingled scents on the fibers. To be withdrawn at will on random lonely nights, to jog the memory, and sate, among other things, her ego...

He turns his attention closer up the beach to the two English girls he met last night at the cafe. "Poor little things," he thinks to himself, "they suspect nothing", which would be really funny to anyone who had seen them in bed with the librarian last night, or overheard their conversation about him, and how he was just an ignorant thug-and what the librarian's experiences with anatomy, knives, and the police were.

No, you ain't gettin' the drop on me Daddy-O.

That's why when you caught me in the corner of your eye at the bar last night you stayed away. Cause you can spot it in an instant can't you? And you just weren't in the mood for a trainwreck just then were you...?