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| Of Love and Guns: A Story in Four Parts (2) | Started by: KeatsValjean on Jun 18, '08 20:46 |
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Her eyes were green and shining and her face looked like it was chiseled out of marble thousands of years ago by a Greek on whatever version of LSD they had back then. And her smile- some people just smile with their mouth while their eyes just stare out at you like a fish, but she smiled with her whole face, if you get what I mean. I like to think I only stood there with my mouth open for a split second, but who knows. I eventually collected myself and checked her out. Because I was trying to figure out who she was, you know. I snapped my eyes away from her body as I heard her laughter die down. She had the gun, so you would think she'd be the one to ask questions. Couldn't help myself, though. "What's your name? And who's this Johnny?" Abruptly I saw her cut off her laugh and look seriously back at me. Finally lowering her gun, she started walking back out toward the street and talking. I quickly followed her. "My name is Luciana. Johnny is someone I don't want to talk about. What's your name?" "My name is Keats." "That's a funny sounding name", she said with a smirk. "It suits you." We walked together for awhile, with a comfortable silence stretched between us. I kept looking at her out of the corner of my eye and seeing her smile. Then I'd catch her looking at me and I'd smile. After a few minutes of walking I stopped in front of a little Italian place and addressed her with what I still like to believe was a wry, engaging smile. "If we're going to smile at each other, we might as well do it over a good meal. I'm starving." "You're the one smiling at me- I'm still laughing about your poem." She pushed by me into the eatery, and even though the smile stayed on her face, I could see her eyes coldly sweep over the patrons of the restaurant as her hand slid down to her leg and inch towards her gun, which was in a small holster at the small of her back. After we were seated I brought it up. "You know, I've never seen someone wear their gun on their back like that. How'd you come up with it?" "Just seems handy. I run the holster through my belt and angle it so it doesn't bother me when I'm sitting down. I tried wearing it under my shoulder once, but it's a lot less noticeable for a woman to make a move for her gun if it's away from her chest. Men always seem to stare, as you know." I snapped my eyes back up to make eye contact with her and gave a condescending shake of my head for my weak-minded gender. I kept up with the questions to hide the fact I was blushing, even though her smile seemed to signal I wasn't in trouble with her at all. "Why do you need a gun for anyways, Luciana? You almost put a bullet in me earlier, and when you walked into this place you looked like you were scouting out a warzone. What gives?" Her smile broke on her face, and my heart burst as I regretted asking the question, seeing the look of sadness that crawled over her face. "It's fine- I wanted to tell you, anyways." She took a deep breath, as our meals arrived, and began to speak as we intermittently picked at our food. "Well Keats, it's a long story. Hope you've got time...my father got mixed up in the mafia. My mother and my sister- we were hungry. There was no work for him. So he started doing jobs for this man Johnny Friendly. Johnny's a capo for the Don- a real asshole. Johnny, not the Don. He must have been bullied when he was younger, since he just throws his power around to seem like a big man. My father wasn't anyone important, not even a wise guy. But he was on a job with Johnny's cousin about a week ago, and Johnny's cousin wound up getting killed. I was visiting a friend across town... Johnny and his thugs came to my house. They set it on fire and the neighbors could hear Johnny shouting at my father, yelling about his cousin. My father ran out of the house, yelling that his wife and daughter were inside, and they shot him. Shot my mother and sister when they ran out after my father. When I got home later that night, the only thing left were ashes and the metal box that was under my father's bed. The neighbors told me what happened, so I went to the box and took out my father's gun. I... I'm sorry, I need to take a walk." She got up quickly and walked towards the door. I tossed a few bills on the table and ran after her. It had started raining, and I could see the rain pounding on the street when I made it outside. Luciana was leaning against the restaurant window to my left, and when she saw me she gave me a small smile, and kept walking to her right, following the rain-battered sidewalk. It was darker now, with the streetlights almost coming on with the onset of twilight. Luciana had left her hat in the restaurant, but didn't seem to care. Her hair was quickly drenched, and I saw drops of water glide down her cheeks. She'd been crying, but wasn't trying to hide it from me. Walking to her left, I reached out my right hand. She seemed surprised as I wrapped my hand around hers, and I was ready to let go and apologize, but she put her head down as she was walking and grasped my hand tightly for a moment before relaxing her grip. We walked like this for a while, holding hands with our heads down, trying to keep the rain out of our eyes, and she started speaking again. "I took my father's gun, threw it in my purse, and went to a bar I knew Johnny's crew was usually at. I walked in, threw back a few quick shots for courage, and asked the bartender to let me back into the private room. He checked me out, smiled, and unlocked the door. It was dark in there and there were a bunch of people, but I saw the man that all the other ones deferred to. I thought it was Johnny. I sat next to him, drinking with him and his cronies. I rubbed his leg, whispered in his ear. Felt like I was going to throw up. Eventually, he took me out to the alley and started ripping at my clothes. I told him to turn around and face the wall for a minute and I'd show him a nice surprise. He was drunk- stood there for 2 minutes while I tried to figure out how to take the gun's safety off. I was only standing a few feet away but it still took me six shots to kill him. I ran away before the rest of the bar showed up. It's a good thing I held onto the gun, not that I could hit anything. He wasn't Johnny, just Johnny's RHM. Now there's a big price on my head and every goomba in the whole goddamn city is trying to kill me. I don't what to do. I've been trying to lay low for a week. Today is the first time I've been outside. I was coming from the train station when you saw me- I saw so many people standing around who looked suspicious, I just turned around without getting a ticket. Then I met you." She stopped short, realizing how long she'd been speaking without a response from me. I pulled her to a stop and looked down through the rain at her green eyes. She forced a smile up at me, but I could see the tears on her face mixing with the rain. I didn't know what to say, and her face seemed so close to mine. I slowly leaned down and kissed her. As our lips softly met, I could feel her freeze and tense up for a moment, and then lean forward into the kiss. Our arms reached out around each other, and I don't know how long we stood there in the rain. |
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| The titantic of mafia, awesome additon cant wait for the rest | |
| Reply by: Jonnie_Reese at Jun 18, '08 20:50 | |
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