Any content herein resembling the short-short story, The Hit Man, is coincidental. There is no intent here to create fiction. The Hit Man as found here represents my best memory of this singular person.
In my younger years I cleaned commercial carpets for a living. Occasionally I broke with routine and cleaned residential carpets, but usually to catch up on bills or to prepare for holidays and birthdays. It’s hard for me to say which of the two I disliked more. Commercial was steady and dependable. Residential was more profitable in terms of hours.
The problem with residential cleaning goes to the heart of what a man expects of himself, what he expects from others. As often as not, residential jobs required a roll-playing approach in the customer and cleaner’s relationship. I mean, the carpet cleaner often plays out a subservient roll for customers when they become condescending. “It’s time for Sparky,” I used to say to myself as I slipped into my “yes’m” routine. The consequences of anything less often lead to disagreements over what “cleaning” means, what “dirt” and “wear” mean. At risk of losing part or all of my earnings, I played Sparky’s role well by pretending that my customer knew what they were talking about. I honored their theories of cleaning as if they were a Certified Master Cleaner.
Plumbers, electricians, gardeners, and others play out this roll, too.
Many real estate agents and brokers know Sparky all to well. “’Sparky, will you fix the faucet on our rental at xyz street?”’ How about this one: Sparky, please clean the carpets at 321 Zebra Street, and be sure to get the wine and grease stains out this time!
I recall my last commercial job because I cleaned it the night before my brother’s xy birthday. It was about 7:20 p.m. on December 14, 1987. I remember the time because I’d been cleaning a dirty brown, level-loop pile for about 3 hours, 2 hours too long. It was beyond saving and had not been cleaned in years.
I felt a tug on my solution hose. I pulled against the resistance, slipped, and fell face forward into a door jam.
I must have been dreaming. Moist heat entered my nostrils as I fell deeper and deeper into a pitch dark tunnel. Heat increased as I fell. Finally, I began to wake and slowly return to my senses as light returned
I sat up and turned to see a short man kicking my vacuum hose and solution hose.
I figured that this person must have stepped on one or both of my hoses while trying to get through the doorway. He was not angry or annoyed, just trying to dislodge my hoses from the center-path of the doorway. Judging by his height, shorter than most, he had a short fall to the floor if he did step-and-fall from an encounter with these polyurathane hoses.
Why he didn’t step over the solution hose struck me as odd. So I figured, “why not,“ and pressed my wand’s trigger for more solution. As I did, the solution hose raised up from the floor about two inches, just enough for this interloper’s right foot to miss it. He lurched back off balance, then caught himself. He quickly stepped over the hoses and moved swiftly into the center of the room. He would never know that I intended just this outcome.
It was that white pillow case over his head that lead to my spontaneous, playful touch of the wand’s trigger. I figured that this character was out to have some fun with my customer. “So be it I thought,” I meant to join the fun. Humor goes a long way toward easing the pain in my low back as my legs pushed my carpet wand over greasy dinning room carpet.
Looking closer at this character, I could see that he, or someone, had sewn seams along the two eye slits’ margins. Two tiny holes where his nostrils might have ended were likewise neatly sewn. The mouth was no more remarkable than any of the other three holes, if “remarkable” can be used in any meaningful context here. Only his height and sex could be judged by pants because the pillow case skewed any meaningful observation of his true height.
His eyes were not apparent as he stood in the doorway, the sun setting behind him. The sun’s glare created a xyz, disrupting my vision for a moment. But now, standing fully at the center of the living room, I could discern a slight, red glow from behind the pillow’s case’s eye slits. “Odd,” I thought.
My mother instilled in me her intuitive sense of right and wrong and the wrongness of rudeness long before kindergarten training. I quickly left the house and turned my deep drone, Fox Truck Mount down to an idle. Its Nissan engineering quickly responded like a fight jet‘s engine reversing on an aircraft carrier landing. I returned to the home’s doorway just in time to hear my customer shouting at this walking pillow case, “Not me, no not me!”.
Then I heard 3 quick, blunted shots from a small caliber handgun I could not discern. As I peered into the living room, I could see my customer’s head fall back from his neck. His legs were bending at the knees while his torso collapsed almost straight the floor. I had never seen anything like this in my life!
Blood squirted from my customer’s neck in fine streams spouting forth from his jugular vain. The ceiling quickly became a dripping testimony to the jugular’s free-flowing, liberated blood. “My lord!” I shouted with great amazement and shock. Somehow, and only for a moment, I felt a relief pass through my body as I realized I could now stop playing Sparky. I quickly regained my sense of propriety, then whined out loud, “Jesus save us!”.
Blood splattering onto my freshly cleaned, white carpet juxtaposed against the blue splattered walls and ceiling. Simon‘s legs, now supine, jerked while his arms twitched. His head connected to his torso between his shoulders, connected by what appeared to be soggy strips of beef jerky. His had turned around on his shoulders as he slumped down to the floor, knees buckling below his waist. I could hardly believe my eyes. Simon’s head turned 180 degrees around.
The pillow cased character had placed 3 38 rounds into Simon’s neck, the first liberating his jugular vain from transportation duty. The second two rounds crashed through Simon’s 2nd and 3rd spinal bones. In an instant, 3 small pieces of lead crashed through Simon’s neck. Now flesh, no bone held Simon’s body and head together.
I was too shocked, too surprised to fear for my own safety. This veiled assassin turned my World of simple cleaning and small business struggles into a Universe of limitless nightmares; Edgar Allen Poe missed out on the real possibilities of terror stricken story telling, I could see. Simon’s fate had not come to mind, only his horrifying condition. Humanity could not appear so, could it?
Ideas seemed to pass through my mind as if pulsating, as if Simon’s squirting blood set a rhythm for my mind to follow. I had forgotten about the bagged assassin. “Gaa, gaa,” I caught my breath and turned to see this hooded demon looking at my vacuum and solution hoses winding serpentine like into the dining room. Then he turned his head toward me, eyes glaring a deep, dark red. They were like embers burning in a Sierra fire pit in mid-December, burning in deep contrast to a cold night’s air.
I didn’t move, couldn’t move. I think that I must have urinated upon myself, but I was to full of sweat from working to know, to see, to care. It didn’t matter, I could sense. I will soon join Simon, neckless.
The hooded raider then raised his left foot from the floow, about 2 feet, I believe, pulled up his tan trouser leg, and quickly placed the 38 into a tan holster strapped to his leg.
Next, he pointed toward Simon, and said, at least I think that he said, “Clean up this mess.” He quickly walked around me, stepped over my hoses, and onto the concrete surface of the front porch and began walking slowly along the sidewalk toward the street. He turned around, stood for a moment, and waved at me. He waved to bid a farewell, nothing more, nothing less.
A large, circular pool of blood now grew below Simon’s head and shoulders. “Should I go to the telephone and dial 911, or should I wait for this killer to get farther away so as not to suspect me of betraying his anonymity?”, I wondered. Mixed feelings, crazing scenarios, and crazier outcomes raced through my mind.
Finally, I went to the telephone, dialed, and tried to call my brother. I needed help. I didn’t know where else to turn, and I was to tired, too shocked, and too puzzled to make my next move without Freddie’s help. “Darn,” “Good Gravy!” I thought out loud. “What’s his number?” I whined to myself, again eyeing the growing pool of blood, noting the white carpet growing speckled from dripping blood.
“878-7do-marble” I remembered. Freddy loved his telephone number. You could see it on his van a mile off. If Freddy knew anything, he knew how to market and how to use the Internet. But was he going to talk to me after all these months of ignoring him? He’d have to give in. I mean, after all, we were brothers. Sure we were nearly killed because of my stupidity, but he went along to the end on that Mausoleum cleanup.
I heard Freddie’s voice at the other end. “Freddie’s stone works,” he answered crisply, confidently. Like most big brothers, Freddie loved to tease his siblings. Like most big brothers, he could do everything so much better than his siblings. But with Freddy, he really could go the max and well beyond his competition. Stone work, sure. Freddy’s handiwork and polishing skills were legend. His floors reflected the brightest, finest shines in Los Angeles. When the Hollywood well deep pockets partied and talked floors, Freddy came up.
Freddy’s fame stood him well in the floor world. He could take a 1922 concrete floor and give it a mirror-like finish. “Polish to 3500 grit,” Freddy grinned when talking about concrete floor polishing. He loved to polish.
Few remember that Freddy once cleaned filthy houses solo. Turn him loose in a pack-rat dwelling and Freddy cleaned tirelessly, 18, 20 hours straight.
My mind stopped pulsating just long enough to gasp, “Help, help me Freddy.”
“What, what are you saying?”
“Look Freddy,” I’m in trouble, at least I don’t know if I’m in trouble or what. I related my story and let Freddy make up his own mind.
“All right, all right. I’ll be there in the morning, first flight out of LAX. Now call the cops and get your Fox out of there case this bag man comes back. For all that you know, he’ll change his mind.”
The cops came. The cops locked me up. Freddy got me out on bail.
The cops would not, could not believe my story. I gave them my best description of the masked man. So now they think that I’m playing games. What else can I say and do?
Freddy, true to form, laughed it off, and like a true entrepreneur, recommended that we do as the masked man said, “cleanup” the mess.
We were just in time to catch Simon’s ex-wife as she exited the soiled home. “Yes,” she cried, “Please help me get this house back together so that I can sell it and get on with my life.”
I could see that Freddy’s interests now included Simon’s ex-wife as well as cleaning.
“Leave it to us; we’re willing to help you in any way that we can.” he said in his smoothest tone. Freddy knew his way around women as well as anyone. With four marriages behind him, he had enough experience.
Not long afterward Freddy moved to Orlando, Florida. Orlando offered Freddy plenty of fun in the Sun, and most importantly, plenty of stone floors. Orlando’s many hotels offered beauty and entertainment to their guests. Their guests were first introduced to beautiful stone floors throughout their lobbies and often in their guests’ restrooms. Freddy was out to stay busy and have fun doing it.
Freddy disappeared in his own world for some time before I was to hear from him again.
Regressing to the Hit Man’s appearance in our lives, I have wondered how he came to be such a wonder. Is he a creature of his environment, or perhaps genetic mutation of some sort? Are we to believe that the 20th century produced social environments capable of producing this monster? Are we to believe that somehow, some place, a genetic strain somehow led to this monster? Perhaps the two working in concert led to this monster’s emergence as a one-time creation? I cannot say with any authority.
Let’s pretend that somehow a genetic mutation occurred that gave the Hit Man a propensity for his weird behavior. Let’s also pretend that at one time his social milieu led the Hit Man to his unique costume and his murderous occupation.
One, how do we understand his genetic propensity toward psychopathic murder? Science has not uncovered one gene pointing directly to social outcomes, but for infantile patterns in nursing behavior. Granted, the Genome Project has shown about a 10 percent influence from evolution over the past 100,000 years (Discovery ddddd). Other than this general finding, how might evolution have created a genetic predisposition toward homicide? It would not, could not exist for long in any speicies unless such behavior somehow lead to greater reproductive success.
Now if this strictly strong, materialist approach to explaining the Hit Man’s place among us somehow lacks, then we can look for something else.
If one takes a biblical view of this whole matter, neither environment nor genetics plays a role in the Hit Man’s emergence. His part in the world is pre-ordained. He has somehow chosen a path of assassination from a Manachean field of choices. Even here we run into the same explanations problems as our materialist understanding. We just do not have enough evidence one way or another to explain his place, his existence in our world.
Much has been said about the Hit Man’s mother. Who was she? How old was she at his birth? Did she breast feed him, and so on. We have nothing to go on at this point, other than our first reports of his existence show that his father raised him with a pillow case over his head. No one knows for sure what he looks like, outside of his father.
We do know that the Hit Man’s teen years were punctuated by interactions with a Miss Sonia Webster. The two were almost “inseperable” throughout their junior high school years. Even in their high school years they remained close. In fact, an unsolved homicide occurred their sophomore year in the boy’s shower room. The victim, police records show, died of suffocation. A wash cloth stuffed in the victim’s throat. One would have believed at that time that our pillow case villian would have made it to a police line up, at least, but not so. Records show that the victim weighed twice as much and stood 18 inches above our masked villian.
So the Hit Man brushed close to a high school homicide while remaining close to Miss Sonia Webster. The two slowly led their lives into different directions. He, into a life of homicide; she into a life of religious commitment. Her life soon ended in the tropical forests of Maylasia while caring for leapers.
But for Miss Webster, the Hit Man’s life has carried on in a fully serial relationship manner. He has four wives, as of last count. He spends numerous hours sleeping with the four of them simultaneously.
And “what of their husbands?” you might wonder. It seems that of the first three, only the second remarried. Her husband, as fate would have it turned up floating in the Potomac River, just south of xxxxxxxxxxxx Maryland. We wonder what lead the second wife to suppose that it was safe to marry again after a marriage to the Hit Man. Was she so naïve, or did she misunderstand his generosity? Did he great the new husband with glee, planning an execution of the unsuspecting dolt, or did he slink off into the background to wait until the newly weds forgot his presence?
His history and the many homicides directly and indirectly relating to him are too numerous to recount here.
Just the same, let me recount one homicide of particular note.
In Houston, Texas police records show a homicide occurred in a local barber shot, Clem‘s custom and traditional hair cuts. The victim’s barber shop also served as his residence. Early one Saturday morning witnesses said that they heard what sounded like 3 gunshots from the barbershop, although they could not be certain of the gunshot sounds because their report was quite muffled. They also claimed too have seen a small man exiting the back of the shop, the residential side. All agreed that this man wore a white mask of some sort.
We have many stories like this one. They come, and then our witnesses begin to disappear. Sometimes they are found dead. Their demise is often questioned and found to be a homicide.
If you see where my narrative leads, then you too will suspect that this small fellow is a murderous creature with blood on his hands from many places and many times. He is a monster, and not the creation of an evolutionary twitch in the human genetic code or the creation of a Welfare State’s misplaced social creations.
The Hit Man is his own creation! He stands ready to strike out at the innocent at any moment. It happens that he prefers to “hit” the criminal community first or most often, but do not be mislead. He strikes at the most ciil members of our christian communities.
Let me take a break from this description of the Hit Man’s past and the homicides relating to his work.
I mentioned a Miss Sonoma Webster as the Hit Man’s earliest friend, perhaps his only friend. Now I msst bring up another relationship, a business relationship of a weird sort.
It turns out that once the Hit Man does his deed, he cannot tolerate a soiled dwelling as a result of his work. He blows his victim’s head off, splaters the entire dwelling with brains, blood, and cerebral fluid, and then has it cleaned professionally nonce the coroner recovers the victims. It seems that one crime scene cleaner in particular receives the Hit Man’s blessings, and you guessed it - - The Crime Scene Cleaner
Make no mistake about it; these two are in league. Sure, the csc may not perpetrate these homicides, he may have no notice of their occurrence, but he knows all too well when they occuur. We think that there must be, somehow, a way to indict this cleaner on conspiracy charges. We intend to do so, and shortly.
Now, remember the astronaut female arrested on attempted burglary, attempted murder, and battery charges? She meant to zap a woman involved with the same space program male. It turns out that her defense attorney learned that this Nowak woman had earlier dated the Hit Man. As a high achiever she had something for men wearing white hoods, however it works. It did work for her.
It also turns out that the Hit Man offered to “off” her competitor, but for a price. The price? One date with the csc. That’s it.
She refused after meeting the csc. “He’s too quite, too soft-like” she complained.
Now under close security, she may turn state’s witness to begin proceedings against both of these characters. It turns out that the csc has violated a parole limit a number of times. He was paroled from xxxxx for a hit-and-run while driving without his perscription glasses. If we can bring him in, then we can get to this “Hit Man,” hit back, and bring this monster down.
Inspector Forks slowly raised himself from his chair, slowly executing a short blast of flatulence as he stood straight, holding his empty coffee cup, smelling the odor of burnt coffee before he placed the empty cup on the cluttered table. Pictures of the hooded beast pushed and pulled too and fro during his oration testified to the tenacity of the department’s final goal for the masked demon, a place in the sun in front of a judge and jury; the sooner the better.
From the Hit Man’s pillow case looking out, we can only guess what he thought of the humanity he destroyed. We can only guess at what he thougth of the csc. We do know that the two shared some similarities as well as start differences.
The Hit Man’s personality seemed a bit on the eccentric side. He seem extroverted to those he chose to allow into his life. Definitely a thinking man, judging by his ability to even find probable cause to hold him after the.
We know too that he tends toward a materialist explanation of the Universe, which is something not to elaborate on just now. And we know that he is judgmental, believe it or not! The Hit Man has an ethics and morality of his own, and he sticks to them. We have many eye witnesses willing to testify that he insists upon paying for food, clothing, medicine, whatever, whenever he needs them. This is saying something when he can take just about whatever it is that he desires.
One have one eye witness account of a dispute between the Hit Man and csc. It seems that the cleaner refused payment from the Hit Man for cleaning a rather botched up job. We are told that the Hit Man said something to the effect, “It could have happened to just about anyone” in all sincerity.
We learn here that once the Hit Man makes an offer, that it must be accepted. The csc quickly learned this lesson when the Hit Man removed his 38 and shot the csc’s left ear-lobe. A small, bloody stump remained where his ear lob once fastened to his face.
The csc’s personality tends toward more process oriented in this regard. He expected to clean a botched crime scene by cleaning for free. In doing so, he was showing weakness where accepting payment reflected strength. Strength the Hit Man respects, weakness he fears, interestingly enough.
Our department psychologists suggests that the Hit Man has some sort of Sparky complex. We do not know. One day hope to know because once we establish a Sparky complex, more information will unfold.
