It ends with a T

Briant was an ordinary man. He didn’t stand out in a room of ordinary people. People passed him on the street and gave him no thought, as if they didn’t even see him. The most unusual thing about Briant was his name. His mother had wanted to call him Brian Terrance Glover; a nod to Briant’s paternal Grandfather, the revered Glover ancestor Terrance Reginald Glover, who was a tall, strapping man, and whose response to life’s unforeseen complications was always a somber nod and the utterance of “in God’s wisdom”. But as luck would or would not have it, Briant’s mother married Terrance’s son, Reginald, who imbibed a little too often, which saw him trotting off to the grave at the early age of 52 with sclerosis of the liver.

Reginald, completing the birth registration form through the fog of that mornings refreshments (which were made all the more pleasant by the birth of a son) completed the form as BrianT as he couldn’t quite remember what his father’s name was.

He would later claim to any that would listen, ”How would I know his name? He was always Pa! And anyways, Briant has a good ring to it.”

At 44, lightly balding, a little on the podgy side and standing at just over 5 1/2 feet, Briant was not and never had been anyone’s idea of an Adonis. Briant, never felt the pressure of aspiring to anything other than who he was; and who he was, he was ok with.

It was on an innocuous Sunday morning that Briant met Daniel Parker, aka: The Hunter.

Briant was in his large work shed on his 10 acre property. The workshed’s external façade was an homage to the American barn with the inside neat and organised; everything had a place and everything was in its place, ready for the day’s activities.

The barn overshadowed the small colonial cottage that sat in front of the property and had been Briant’s legacy from his parents, one that he had painstakingly restored over the 10 years since the passing of his mother.

Among his many activities, Briant loved woodwork, and his greatest passion was crafting wooden toys for children’s charities and hand delivering them around the country. He scrutinized the timber so that it was right for the cut and then varnished each piece to highlight the grain. He felt that the look of the grain told you many things about the timber and the tree it was felled from. At times, Briant would be found caressing a piece of timber lost in thought. His appreciation of timber was well known in his small community and the local men’s group would often contact him for advice regarding the current cuts of donated timber.

Building up a little stockpile of toys, Briant would, taking other factors into account, determine the appropriate charity he was to visit next, pile the gifts into his very ordinary white Tarago van and hit the black top. Sometimes he would be gone for weeks.

Parker, ‘The Hunter’, cast a shadow into the entrance of the workshed.

“Hi, can I help you with something?” Briant queried.

With the morning sun behind him, Parker was little more than an imposing silhouette. He was a tall man, a man you would notice. His stance, despite being in shadows, was one of a man ready to pounce. There was an intense energy radiating from him. It was an energy that reminded Briant of an overwound clock ready to uncoil at the slightest nudge; an unleashing of energy Briant was certain most people didn’t want to be around. Yes, Parker was a man you would ‘see’ in the street, and Briant wondered fleetingly if someone in town had noticed him, which was something to think about.

“I am looking for Brian Glover, that you?” His voice was deep and gravely.

“Depends who’s asking”, Briant smiled back.

“Someone with a message”, he replied reaching into the bag he had been holding and withdrawing a hand gun.

“What the hell?” Briant stuttered, his hands shooting up in a protective response, shielding himself.

Briant heard a low grumble emanating from the shadowy figure in the doorway. As the figure moved into the room and the face came into focus, Briant realized the grumble was a laugh. What Briant could now see was a heavy set muscled man with tattoos around his neck and what looked like a little tear drop under his left eye. This last detail almost made Briant emit a nervous laugh, but he stifled it in his throat and it came out as a forced grunt.

“Going to ask only one more time: that you?” Parker said.

“No, I am Briant, Briant! Brian with a T. It…it…ends with a T. No Brian here”

“Well Brian with a T”, Parker’s said his high infliction mimicking Briant’s obvious panic, “you little pissant, all I know is it’s a Brian Glover – can’t be many of them in a shithole like this”. He drew the hammer back on his revolver, priming it.

“The town is full of Glovers”. Briant’s voice was almost a squeak as he moved back towards his long wooden workbench, putting distance between himself and Parker. “I am damn sure there are at least three Brian Glovers in town. It must be one of them you’re after. Dodgy, the lot of them”

Briant was correct: the small town he lived in was full of Glovers, they settled here during the big gold rush. They married, bred and never moved on. Nothing extraordinary, just a town of ordinary people living ordinary lives.

“Well it isn’t your fucking day then, Briant with a T. I have a job to do and I can have no witnesses” Parker said, pulling the hammer of the pistol back, “but I can make what is to come less painful, if you tell me where a certain Brian Glover is”, and tilting his head to one side, raising his eyebrows he finished with a “hmmmm?”

Briant held one hand out in front of him. “I…I know everyone in town, I’m sure I would know him. Please…, just don’t hurt me.”

Parker dropped the bag on the ground beside him and, with his free hand, reached into the pocket of his jacket. He moved toward Briant, smiling as Briant shrank backward.

Parker would have taken bets that ordinary old Briant was ready to piss himself. A lot of them do he thought, they go out begging, praying and pissing, not necessarily in that order.

Parker drew a little black leather book from his jacket. Holding it up, as a preacher would hold up a bible on the pulpit during Sunday’s sermon, he nodded at Briant, “All I know is what is written in my little black book.”

It’s a book you don’t want to be in, he thought, but, buddy, you pathetic fuck, you have ended up in there by accident. He threw it down on the top of the bag at his feet.

He looked again at Briant, at his shaking hands now flapping around in front of him, his eyes fixed on the gun in Parker’s hand. Glancing sideways Parker saw a sledgehammer resting against the wall beside him. Let’s have some fun, he thought; he decocked the gun and put the gun into his jacket pocket. This will clear some of the cobwebs, Parker thought, picking the sledgehammer up in his hands. It has been a while since he has got his hands dirty, it is usually get in, do the deed with a bullet and get out. This brings back fond memories from my early days of breaking bones over unpaid debts, he thought as he bounced the tool in his hands as if getting the feel of it.

Parker had been in the game for over 20 of his 42 years, he had the demeanor one would expect a professional in his line of work to have. Cold, cruel and totally without remorse. What’s more, he enjoyed it. As hired killers go, Parker, The Hunter, ticked all the boxes.

Parker once again turned his attention to Briant, he saw a whimpering figure across the room, and moving forward relished the expected fearful reaction every step closer was having on Briant. Stopping just a few feet from Briant, his heavy boots playing havoc with the plastic tarp that Briant had placed on the floor of the workshop to catch the shavings from his handiwork, Parker leaned forward.

“Start talking. Every time you give me an answer I don’t like, I break something you’re personally attached to.” He raised the sledgehammer to demonstrate the threat.

What Parker saw before him was a scared ordinary man; what Parker did not see was the petite ball pein hammer that flicked from Briant’s right hand. It caught Parker on his cheek, making him stumble in sudden pain. Nor did he see the screwdriver in Briant’s left hand which Briant swung in an arc, lodging it in The Hunter’s throat.

Parker went down, blood splashing onto the tarp. He roared like a bear and clutched at his throat in a vain attempt to stem the tide flowing from his neck.

Briant came into his view and bent to pick up the sledgehammer which had fallen to the floor.

As Parker’s eyes began to cloud over, he realized he didn’t recognize this man; what had happened to the simpering pissant? Parker held up a timid hand; he tried to beg, to pray; but all he could muster was a gurgle. Briant looked down at him, shushing him gently.

In those last few moments as he watched the sledgehammer arc up above him and begin its downward trajectory, he grasped his last truth, he had had the right man after all.

Briant put the bloodied sledgehammer on his workbench, carefully cleaning off the gore before he did so, and bent over to lift one corner of the tarp to cover Parker’s body.

He walked over to the bag at the doorway, picked up the book Parker had dropped and ran his palm across it. He noted its every line, the feel of the leather and the depth of the colour. He even observed a small indent where it had been constantly held, imbuing the object with a memory of its previous owner; just the way knots in a tree reveal its own character and story.

He opened the book and noted its pages were marked with food grease from dirty hands, the writing untidy and smudged. He chuckled at the name ‘The Hunter’ written on the front page. Flicking through he found the last page with writing and found his own name scrawled in the final row, a large sum next to it. Jammed in the corner of the page was a phone number; not his, but perhaps the client. Sloppy. He didn’t recognize it, but that was no bother; a few calls of his own and he’d find out; then it would be time for another delivery of toys.

Inside the bag he saw four bundles of $100 dollar bills, the bank band around them noted they were $5,000 bundles. Not a bad unexpected little windfall he mused. This will buy some great wood for the next round of toys.

Throwing the little book into the bag, he reached into his pocket and pulled out his own little black book; this one had a gold elastic fastener with a matching gold ribbon page marker. Inside the pages were clean, ruled and organized. Moving his finger down the marked page and coming to the first available line he wrote with a small gold pen, in his tight even script, ‘whoever hired ‘The Hunter’: pro bono’.

Looking down at the covered body, he sighed, ‘the toys will have to wait’. He headed out the back of the workshop to a small shed in which stood a very clean wood chipper. He reached in and flicked the switch.