Third Person Thursday - Making The Cut

While he crouched in the closet of the dressing room, Steve began to question if what he was about to do was worth it.

Over the past several months, he had been fueled by rage. He tirelessly researched the methods of the Matis Indians of the Rio Galvez. He fashioned his own blowgun. He experimented on small animals to determine the right amount of toxin to place on the tip of each dart. He needed enough to knock out a human, but not enough to kill or leave any lasting effects. Many a pigeon of the greater Milwaukee area died during Steve’s training.

When he was certain he had the dosage correct, which involved mathematical formulas the likes of which he has not performed since graduating from college, he even tested it upon himself. He still carried with him a small round scab on his neck and the memory of the migraine-level headache he awoke with, but nothing more.

On top of all this preparation, Steve had to practice his aim. It started with a fixed target. this proved difficult at first. He had never considered how the deep breath he needed to take prior to firing would affect his aim. He quickly became frustrated as dart after dart stuck into the drywall on all sides of the paper target in his basement office and rarely on the bull’s eye in its center.

Yet each time he began to lose his resolve, he would open the kitchen cabinet and reach for his favorite coffee mug. On it, the Beatles were featured in a black and white, enlarged newspaper print pattern. And each time, he started to pick it up but placed it back upon the shelf. He didn’t want to hear the comments from his children, so instead, for months, painful, dragging months on end, he drank from inferior mugs that read World’s Greatest Dad, Summer Fest 1998, or Grand Ole Opry.

Eventually, this led to amazing accuracy. Steve soon became able to take out a bird thirty feet away. But this simply provided Steve with the tools to exact his revenge. What would prove more difficult was access.

Steve spent a lot of time reviewing concert venues. He decided immediately that the job would have to be done in Wisconsin. The combination of out of state plates with a man in his early forties attending a teeny-bopper concert would draw far too much attention.

But Steve had to find the right time or all his planning would be for naught. So, the Marcus Amphitheater became the place and Steve began studying its layout. He wanted to know how food came in, how garbage went out, where the tour buses would park and how the lighting would be configured.

When Steve found out a friend of a friend worked for the security firm which handled the Marcus Amphitheater concerts, he considered it a lucky break.

“I just think the security polo shirts are cool,” Steve told Al. “No big deal, but if Joe could get me one, I’d pay him for it.”

Al thought nothing of it and obliged.

It had all come together, faster than Steve had ever hoped. He had created an ID badge, knew where to enter to draw the least amount of attention which route to take through the tunnels and ramps. He would lead himself on a zigzag pattern, but he would avoid crowds and security checkpoints and arrive at a large vent which connected to the dressing room of the night’s top performer.

Steve’s planning had been meticulous and on the fateful night, his execution of the plan had gone flawlessly. He had wound through the Amphitheater, blending into the crowd at times and staying hidden from it at others. Before he knew it, he was dropping silently into the main dressing room form the overhead vent and side stepping into the closet.

So Steve was bothered by the fact that after all this time, he was suddenly filled with doubt. This rage, this thirst for revenge that had occupied his every waking moment was being questioned for what seemed like the first time.

Had he really thought this through?

What if he were caught?

Then Steve heard it. The concert began and over the speakers in the dressing room, he could hear the performance. Thousands of screaming teenagers nearly drowned it out, but Steve could still hear it.

Steve remembered the videos of the screaming teenage girls greeting John, Paul, George and Ringo at the airport. He thought of all the live recordings he had listened to over the years where you could hear that same noise. There was music, but the screaming seemed a necessary part of the melody. I Want To Hold Your Hand didn’t even seem right in Steve’s mind without the sound of screaming women accompanying it.

At the same moment, Steve noticed an odd, not unpleasant smell with him in the dressing room closet. (Sniff, sniff) It seemed familiar (Sniff, sniff) like some kind of food.

With one more long, Ssssnnnniiiiffffffff, Steve placed it. It was strawberries. Not real strawberries, but the fake kind of strawberry scent that his sisters doll had been doused with when she was a girl.

Steve grabbed the nearest shirt sleeve and held it to his face. The scent was on it. He grabbed another item of clothing and another and another, each time not knowing if he was grabbing sleeve, pant leg or scarf, and sniffed. Each time he was overpowered by girly, doll-like strawberries.

“No way,” Steve muttered quietly to himself. “No way are my kids listening to this little punk.”

And so the doubts were gone. He had thought this through. He would not be caught. His kids would respect his taste in music and wouldn't accuse him of drinking from a mug emblazoned with the face of a current teen idol. They would come to know their rock history. Those were the Beatles on that mug and his kids should thank them for being so awesome.

Steve waited. His legs felt fresh again, his eyes focused, his hands steady. He was prepared for his target to enter. He was prepared to do what he knew he must.

The finale was performed. As Steve listened over the speakers, he no longer winced and grimaced at the music. He welcomed the signs that his prey was coming to him.

And so his prey did.

The dressing room door opened and a young man entered, followed by noise, commotion, and an assistant. The woman in her mid-twenties held everyone but the man, or boy, of the hour back and closed the door forcefully with her back to it the way a child who has overstuffed their closet with clothes does.

“Great show, Justin,” she said. “I’ll give you some time alone.” With this, she fought her way back out of the dressing room and closed the door behind her.

The young man made his way to the large, cushioned chair and faced the mirrors. His back was to Steve and when ran his fingers through his mop head of hair, glitter falling from it, it sprang magically right back to where it had been.

There was the head of hair that had driven Steve to this mad quest, and Steve meant to take it.

It was time.

Opening the closet door ever so slightly, Steve let the tip of his blowgun protrude from the gap. A steady deep breath. A quick, forceful exhale.

The dart lodged in the left side of the young man’s neck just as Steve had intended. It seemed he didn’t even notice it. He just slumped in his chair and closed his eyes.

Steve rushed from the closet, made sure the door was locked and felt for a pulse.

“Good,” he whispered and recovered the scissors from his back pocket. “Sorry, kid,” he whispered in the young man’s ear as he knelt behind him, “but that haircut is reserved for the Beatles. I’m drinking out of their damned cup without my kids asking me why I have a Justin Bieber mug.”

Steve proceeded to cut every strand of hair from the young man’s head, leaving an uneven close-cropped mess behind. The he made his way back through the vent he’d entered from, shed his security shirt and walked nonchalantly to his car.

Steve drove home and slept like a baby that night. And the next morning, he drank from his Beatles mug. It was the best coffee he had ever tasted.