Adept

        Ethan snatches the clipboard and a black velvet bag and jumps out of the Jeep in what seems to be one fluid movement.  I disembark less elegantly while fumbling with my cardboard box.  I hurry to catch up, his strides propelling him up the gravel drive with a speed disproportionate to his effort.  Almost absentmindedly he grabs the sack by the bottom and lets the heavy contents slide its length and hit the clipboard with a hollow thump.  He pinches the two together as magician might hide a card or a spongy ball.  At this point I’ve fallen impossibly behind.  I break into a light jog to cover the distance and meet him on the front porch just as his finger stabs the doorbell.  He holds the clipboard in front of his chest, left hand hidden from view behind it.  Muffled footfalls sound from behind the door, increasing in volume until the knob jiggles and a chain can be heard falling against the jam.  The door swings to reveal a good-looking young guy in khakis and an orange T-shirt.  Maybe 20 years old with sleep still in his eyes and a sparse three days growth on his cheeks.  He looks us over quizzically.  First at Ethan, then his clip board, then me, and finally at my box.  We don’t say shit.  He caves first, “Can I help you?"

        Ethan flashes his million-dollar smile.   “Davy-boy, you can’t even help yourself.”  The kid has the opportunity to wear his confused expression for perhaps half a second before the clipboard disappears and Ethan sends the butt of the Berretta streaking towards his face.  The speed of this motion is unreal.  Half a blink and you’d miss it.  I wince involuntarily as the matte-black steel slams into the kid’s nose.  A sickening squish-n-crackle as the delicate bones and cartilage are thrust into his sinus cavity.  He crumples to the floor like heavy winter coat falling off a hanger, coming to rest on his back.  Blood is everywhere, staining the beige carpet a dark, coffee-brown.  The kid’s eyes stare off randomly with their lids half drawn.  His face shows zero sign of life.  Only the slight, methodical rise and fall of his chest betrays this impression.  Ethan steps across the threshold and into the cramped entryway.  “Get to work,” he utters off-handedly over David’s limp form and heads down...presumably in search of the kitchen. 

        Obediently, I fall to my knees with my cardboard box and start carefully arranging the contents on the carpet.  My hands are trembling as I work.  I never would have thought myself capable of these actions, this involvement with such a daunting personality, but alas here we find ourselves.  So absorbed am I with my preparations I somehow fail to hear the slurping sounds coming from my right.  Ethan comes sprinting back into the room.  He does a little half skip as he approaches sputtering mess and slips his boot under its shoulder.  He flips his foot up as one might do in trying to retrieve an errant shovel lying on the ground and rolls the kid over onto his side.  The blood that had been drowning him, pooling in his throat and lungs pours out of his mouth like a river.  I stumble forward with the ether-soaked rag outstretched as he starts to cough and sputter.  Ethan impatiently snatches it from my hand and thrusts it over the remnants of the chump’s mutilated nose.  His spasms quickly subside.  Ethan stands up and looks disapprovingly, first at the blood stain on his pants from where he’d been kneeling and then at me.  “Do you think if I go finish my burrito you can manage not to kill him?"