“Ya, tell Helen she’ll get her money. Are we through here?” “Well, not quite Mr. McCoy.” James pressed the end button on his phone and slammed it down on the table before the caller could respond. The thought of paying Helen that kind of money for no good reason was absolutely criminal on all accounts. She didn’t deserve his money, especially after all the sacrifices he made for her. The idea of Helen and her new boyfriend living in the house that his hands built absolutely infuriated James. He would rather burn it to the ground than pay their mortgage. In one swift motion, James scooped up the cell phone and hurled it across the room. The phone exploded against the opposing brick wall as pieces shattered in every direction. James looked at the multiple pieces of broken plastic and realized how that annoying cell phone mimicked his broken life. Determined, James immediately clothed himself and headed out the door with his check list in hand. After running his errands James made his way home. As he pulled into the parking lot of his new apartment complex, he could not help to noticed how deprived the community was. A complete lack of care for their surroundings accompanied by no sense of nationalism or community was more than present. The furrowed eyebrows on the young boy’s faces that stood on the corner day after day and night after night said everything to James. In his flannel shirt and Wrangler jeans James stood out in this part of town. However, James never ran into any kind of trouble, due to that fact that he weighed well over two hundred pounds and towered over most. Upon entering his musky smelling studio James set the two plastic bags on the lone kitchen table that made up the bulk of his home furnishing. He pulled out two boxes of 12 gauge Federal Premium shotgun shells and emptied the contents into a large zip-lock bag. Next, James opened a plain cardboard box, no bigger than a shoe box. Inside sat a 15mm CO2 hypodermic tranquilizer pistol. He pulled off the plastic wrapping and studied the gun. He held the pistol in his hand to get a feel of the size and weight of the weapon. The pistol only fired one dart at a time. After a dart was fired the breach needed to be opened before another dart was chambered into the weapon. The slow fire rate of the gun worried James; this was not at all efficient. When the time came, he knew he would have to be calm and precise. Flashes of Vietnam suddenly overwhelmed his mind: the training on hill 55, the endless hours of patiently waiting before a target was eliminated, drinking beers and playing cards with the guys, vicious screams of women, the beautiful sunsets over the rice fields, the sharp elephant grass, the eyes of the enemy fading into a distant gaze and then there was Stone, all James saw was Stone. His lifeless body still sitting down just the way he had fallen asleep. The dark blood that made its way down his chest from the wound on his neck. “Stone...” James said quietly, softly. His thick lips quivered for a split second before coming together. 1st Lieutenant Glen McMullen was James’s sniping spotter and after two tours in Vietnam, his best friend. He received the name “Stone” on theMeadow 61
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