Sundown

It no longer mattered to me, I told myself, Mary could do what ever the fuck she wanted from now on.

In the early pre dawn light I drove to an I-hop restaurant and got myself breakfast.

My heart was heavy, but my mind was clear except for one nagging thought. Why did she go to so much trouble, with all of the acting and trying to fool me, when she could have just left me? Maybe her and Sundown just got off on making a fool out of me, or maybe she didn't want to lose my income. Well the game was over now and after work there'd be some screaming and crying when she realized that I wasn't coming home, but I was sure that after a few days she'd go right on back to Sundown full time and our sham of a marriage could die a quiet death. To make it easier on both of us, I left my cell phone at the house with her. We weren't allowed to have calls at work unless it was a serious emergency, but after work when I didn't come home, if she tried to call me she'd hear the phone ringing in the bedroom, and know the game is over.

I don't know how I made it through the day at work. Everything I saw reminded me of her and what I was losing. Every fucking song on the radio was our song. If I saw one of those hot young women who worked in the office, I didn't think Holy shit what a babe. I thought Mary has better tits, or Mary's ass jiggle like that too. Most of my cop-workers would have had me committed if they knew that I was comparing my 40+ year old soon to be ex wife's attributes to a hot 20 year old, and the 20 year was losing in every category. But that was the way I felt about Mary. I had loved her from the moment I saw her, and I probably wouldn't ever stop. When it was quitting time, I was almost crying, but this was it, and tonight would be the hardest night of all. Tomorrow during the day my lawyer would deliver the divorce papers to Mary and she'd have the details about what was going on. If she fought the divorce, or refused to sign the papers then plan B would go into affect. I really and truly hoped that plan B wouldn't be necessary. If Mary just did her part, I'd move out of town as soon as I could find other work and she and Sundown could do whatever floated their boat. But if she didn't I was prepared to send her a copy of the PI's report as a warning, and then send copies to her parents and everyone she knew. I would also change the reason for the divorce to infidelity and sue Sundown for alienation of affection. And since I would be the injured party, I'd keep the house as well, or maybe the court would force us to sell it and split the proceeds.

The Mustang's aggressive growl calmed my nerves somewhat as I drove around the outskirts of town looking for a cheap motel that wouldn't hurt my wallet too badly. I also didn't want anything where any of our friends might accidentally see me and be able to tell Mary where I was.

I finally checked into one of those mom and pop establishments with the names that sounded good but made little or no sense when you thought about it. This one was called the Highway Motel. I was told they named it that because it was the motel nearest to the highway. Anyway I checked in and immediately went to sleep, or at least I tried to.

I kept seeing Sundown, getting out of my shower, putting on my robe, getting into my bed and just fucking the cowboy shit out of Mary. Then they laughed at me for letting him run me off and taking Mary away from me. What kind of wimp was I?

I could hear Mary defending me somewhat. "Oh he's not a wimp Sundown" Mary would say.

"Please bitch, what kind of man let's somebody fuck his woman for months and then just disappears when he find's out about it? Bitch, I played football in school, what sports did he play?"

"Well he was special forces in the military" she said.

"Bitch that's not a sport, that's just a job"

"Well he did fencing in high school" she said.

I could hear Sundown laughing as he turned to Mary and started rubbing my/her titties again. It didn't register fully in my brain at that time, but I think my sub-conscious knew then how this story would play out.

The next morning as I walked into the I-hop for my breakfast, I ran into Budd McQueen. Oh shit, I thought just what I don't need. Budd hopped down from his stool and waddled over to me.

"John, what the fuck are you doing? You do know that your wife is in the hospital, don't you?"

"Why is she in the hospital?" I asked "Did Sundown hit her or something?"

"I don't know anything about Sundown" he said, but he did set his lips as if it was starting to make sense.

"She waited for you to come home last night, and when you didn't show up she started calling everyone she knew to see if they'd heard anything. She was worried sick and by about 1a.m. when you still weren't there she just knew something terrible must have happened to you, and she just started turning pale and was having trouble breathing. They took her to the emergency room, and it was a good thing they did, she had had some kind of panic induced mini stroke over you" he said. "Now, what does Sundown have to do with that? he's a lowlife bastard, I'm ashamed to call him family"

"Ask her" I said as I turned on my heel and left the I-hop. I had no desire to eat anymore. I still had about an hour before I had to be at work, so I went in and filled out some online job applications, hoping to find work out of state.

Sundown you'd better take care!

Seemingly everything happened that day while I was at work. My lawyer served the divorce papers to Mary who was back at the house being looked after by several of her friends. I'd told him to be very polite and very discreet when serving her the papers because I wanted everything to be as civil as possible. Even though my heart was breaking, I wanted this to be as painless as possible for Mary. Unfortunately the best laid plans of mice and men.... You know the rest.

Mary got the papers and the shit hit the fan. She totally lost it and had to go to the hospital again. Budd's wife asked Mary about Sundown, telling her that I'd mentioned him to Budd when he saw me. If the divorce papers were a shock to Mary, the fact that I knew about Sundown almost killed her, she went into tachycardia, with her heart beating so fast they had to medicate her to save her life.

Budd in turn tracked down Sundown, who it turns out is Budd's nephew ( I honestly hadn't known that at the time) Sundown didn't react well to Budd's questions, so that led to Sundown waiting by my Mustang when I got off from work that night.

"Why you be throwing my name around in yo conversations?"

"What?" I asked. I was already pissed.

"Don't be mentioning my name when you be talking to people, you be messing up my bidness and I aint gone axe you again, so stay outta my bidness"

"Speak English, so I can understand you" I said. "Sundown, I don't want this to come as a shock to you but you're white"

"Stay outta my fuckin bidness yo"he repeated, tugging on his pants to pull them up.

"If your business is my ex wife to be, she'd all yours, enjoy" I said, smiling.

"Why you be laughing, Ah on't want da bitch like dat, she all ole an wrinkled an shit, a ho only good fuh makin me money an she jus a ho ta me"

"Sundown, you'd better take care"

"I better what?" he sneered looking at me

Then he just laughed and walked off. He was about 4 inches taller than me and outweighed me by at least 50 pounds. Under the over sized football jersey he wore I could see the outline of a holster, but it didn't faze me. Any day now we were expecting that first snowstorm of the winter, but all of a sudden I was warm. No, I was hot.

I still loved Mary and that asshole wasn't getting her. The idea from my sub conscious was beginning to percolate.

I decided to go and see Mary one last time to see if maybe we could talk about this and try to work something out. But realistically even if she believed the way that asshole talked about her, I didn't see myself living with what she'd done to us. there was no way I could ever be with her again.

When I got to the hospital, things were going down hill fast. I was already pissed, but after trying to get into Mary's room I was told that she could only have a certain number of visitors at a time and that I'd have to wait for someone there to come down before I could go to see her. Fuck this shit, I was about to leave but the woman at the desk asked me to wait. She telephoned the nurse lounge on Mary's floor and told me to go on up.

A really nice nurse went into the room to inform them that Mary's husband was there. A couple of people decided to leave so I could go up, but all of the nosiest old bitches stayed in the fucking room. If something was going on they wanted to be there for it. As I walked into the room they looked at me with nothing but accusation and derision in their eyes.

Myra Dennings, the town school teacher and head busy body, stepped right up to me and said "John Matland, you ought to be ashamed of yourself for treating Mary like this"

"Mrs. Dennings, you don't have all of the facts, now if you please I'd like to talk to Mary alone"

"She can't talk to you, they've given her something to make her sleep" said Myra. "And I don't think she'd talk to you any way after you stayed out all night on her, what are you doing, playing around with some floozy?"

Two things happened in rapid succession, the first was that I saw Mary, all wired up and connected to tubes. The second was that I lost my temper.

"Myra you cadaverous old bitch, not that it's any of your fucking business, but yes there was some cheating going on in our marriage"

Myra looked away from me.

"Where are you going?" I screamed "This is what you wanted right? Only it wasn't me, I have never, ever cheated on Mary, I never would have. I loved her with all of my heart so when she wakes up, you can ask her who cheated on who."

Myra just stood there looking stunned as I continued to yell.

"Is this what you do, for a living?" I shouted."Since no one wants you and you have no life, just go around sticking your long assed nose in other people's lives?"

With that said I turned to leave the room just as my loud words woke Mary. From what everyone has told me, the drugs they used on her should have prevented her from waking up at all. Apparently our emotional connection, for her at least, hadn't been severed because when she heard my voice upset and obviously in a lot of pain she woke up despite all of the drugs in her system, but I was already gone.

I sometimes had to open packages for work and I carried a pocket knife for that purpose. It was actually a little longer than it should be, and it had a Japanese Tanto styled blade. It wasn't, as I've heard said, a switchblade. It was more of a military styled tactical knife. You know, the ones that have a stud for your thumb on the blade so you can open them pretty quickly if necessary.

I walked into that same bar as the night before, only this time I was angry. The bar was also not deserted tonight. I saw Budd again, he was playing cards with 3 other guys that I didn't recognize, but they weren't the reason I was there. I was there because I'd been on my way back to my motel to think, and I saw Him go in there. But when I got inside Sundown was no where to be seen. The bartender said something to me that just didn't register, because as he started talking Sundown emerged from the bathroom door about five feet to my left. My anger at Myra, at Mary, at Sundown, and at the whole situation was written all over my face. My intention had been to tell Sundown to stay the fuck away from Mary, but he misread it and went for his gun. In my dream last night Mary had told Sundown that I competed in Fencing. She hadn't lied, I'd been very good at it, and some things you never forget. Coupled with my military training it gave me the attitude I needed to do what I had to do. As soon as Sundown reached for his gun, I did one of the most basic fencing footwork combinations, Advance-lunge. All designed to quickly cover ground between the fencer and opponent and get into striking range with the weapon. In this case it was my knife. Sundown met his twilight as my blade slammed home up to it's hilt in his chest, just before he got a good grip on his pistol. I was still in shock as he hit the floor. I turned and saw Budd McQueen and the other guys in the bar. Their mouths were open in surprise. The bartender yelled "call an ambulance" as I ran out of the door. "Where are you going?" I heard Budd's voice screaming at me.

I jumped into the Mustang and drove it home quickly. There was no reason for my car to suffer, and it was time to put it up for the winter anyway. I probably wouldn't see it for a long time, if ever again.

Then I went to the police station and turned myself in. I told the officer behind the desk that I'd just committed a crime and wanted to see someone. He looked really busy and told me to wait for a detective. I'd been waiting for about a half an hour when a tired looking guy came over to me.

"I have a real case to investigate, a stabbing" He said, looking iritated.

"Well I can save you some time" I said.

"How?" he asked.

"I did it. I killed Sundown" I said.

"You're shitting me" he said. "It was Sundown that got stabbed. Well that will save the state a hell of a lot of money, where'd you hear this?" he asked

"I didn't hear it anywhere" I said" I did it"

He called for a uniformed officer and had him read me my rights, and put me in a holding cell. I still don't think he believed me but he had to cover all of his bases.

After a couple of hours in the cell, I fell asleep. They didn't do any of the things you see on TV. They didn't take my belt or my shoelaces, and there was no one in the cell with me. I guess it was one of the benefits of being in a smaller city. First thing in the morning the detective came back, and brought me some coffee that was really good, and a couple of doughnuts, that weren't.

He was looking at me kind of funny. "I didn't think you were the type" he said

"Anyone can kill somebody if they have the right motivation" I said.

"OK Nut-bird" he replied. "But I was talking about the type of guy that goes around filing false police reports"

"But I did kill Sundown" I said.

"You have a visitor, says her name is Mary" he said, ignoring my statement.

"I don't want to see her, that's over" I answered.

"Well regardless, you should be out of here in a few hours" he continued. "The only reason I'm not throwing your ass out of here now is because even with the multiple eye witnesses, some of whom are beyond reproach, this is still an ongoing investigation" and with that he walked away muttering about crazy people wasting the taxpayers dollars.

From the next room I could hear Mary crying; he'd probably told her that I wouldn't see her. I could hear someone else saying "Mary you've got to give him some time to get over this"

The detective, after making me promise to return first thing in the morning to take care of all of the details of the case, let me out through the back door where I could avoid seeing anyone. I still didn't understand why they let me out, or how Mary had found out that I was in jail or if she even knew why. I mean I'd been honest with them, I had clearly killed Sundown in front of witnesses and even if he was a scumbag, it was still murder.

I went back to my motel room called, my lawyer and asked him if Mary's attorney had contacted him or if she'd signed the papers yet. He told me Mary didn't have a lawyer, wasn't getting a lawyer, would not sign any papers at all concerning a divorce and had told him that she would fight any attempted divorce with everything she had for as long as it took to get me to come to my senses.

I told him to go ahead and warn her about plan B, but to be as gentle about it as possible and maybe wait a couple of days to allow her to get her condition stabilized. I didn't want her to have a heart attack when she found out just how much I knew about what she'd been doing. He gave me the standard talk about going to counseling to try and work out our issues and save our marriage since I obviously still loved her and she even more clearly loved me. It might take a while he said but he was sure that with that kind of love we could someday put this all behind us. I laughed and gave him the number for my new cell phone and told him we should stay in contact, at least until the papers were signed.

I went out to get something to eat, I was starving, I didn't really want to go to that little bar, so I went to I-hop, as there really weren't many places I go get to on foot and with snow looming, the Mustang was put up for the winter. A couple of people I knew or that knew me were there, so I gave them a wide berth. I didn't want to hear about what an ass hole I was being to Mary. I wondered again why every time a marriage broke up it was instantly assumed that the man had done something wrong.

The next day I showed up at the police station and they had me talk to a man who was clearly some kind of psychologist. They obviously thought that I was crazy for some reason.

"What are you current plans" the same rumpled detective asked me.

"I'm planning on leaving town as soon as you clear me" I said.

"What about your wife?" he asked.

"I don't have a wife anymore" I said

"Shit you don't have a wife any less" he replied "She's been here for four fucking hours waiting for you, every man should have a 'not wife' like yours.

"Any way why are you not locking me up and throwing away the key?" I asked.

"Look you're crazy but you're not a murderer so drop the act. We've spoken to the bartender and the four men who were there, 2 of whom were off duty police officers, and another who was the victim's blood uncle. We interviewed all 5 men separately, and their stories all matched. Basically they told us that scumbag Sundown had been messing around with your wife, he's been busted for carrying weapons several times, before this and implicated in the divorces of lots of people among other things so when he saw you come into that bar, where you'd been seen drinking just the night before, he freaked out and attacked you whipping out a knife, and as he jumped at you he tripped over the leg of the table and he fell on his own knife, and you ran out of the bar screaming like a little bitch" he said in exasperation.

At the look on my face he said "Sorry that was their words not mine. Our psychologist thinks that as a reaction to Sundown trying to kill you and your perfectly healthy fear, coupled with your emasculation at finding out that scumbag was playing around with your lady, led you to concoct this wild story about killing him, as a way of getting your balls back. Kind of crazy but I've seen worse, and since he also says that you're not a danger to anyone, if you're dead set on leaving town I'll drive you to the fucking bus station myself. But buddy do us both a favor and at least be man enough to talk to the lady before you go. The type of emotions you're dealing with here can turn real ugly if they're left to fester"

With that he got up and left, turning as he got to the door to tell me "you're free to go unless you want to confess to some other crime you didn't commit and it's up to you how you go out but you were willing to go to jail and do hard time for a chance to get your balls back and If you've still got em, the front door and your not-wife are through there" he pointed at a door to the right.

"Or, the back door, and the easy way out, are that way" he pointed to another door.

"It's up to you"

I stood there for a few minutes and walked through the door on the right.

As if on cue Mary stood up and ran over to me. She looked paler than normal, and older, as if she had aged over night. She smiled when she saw me and started talking a mile a minute as she reached out to hug me.