Mr. Ringer and the Hunt - Aug 19th

“How's your weekend been so far?” My pseudo-co-worker, Mr. Warden, asks me.

I do the weekend shift at the arcade. Thats fourteen hours on Saturday, then twelve more on Sunday...not including opening/closing/cleaning.

But that's not on my mind.

I respond with a question. “Do you know what it's like to be hunted?”

Mr. Warden laughs, saying this is the best response to this question he's ever gotten. But no, I'm not kidding. I have literally become the prey of the illustrious Mr. Ringer.

Mr. Ringer is the genuine extrovert, in all manner and appearance a high-powered gaming frat-boy mutant hybrid of kinds. He was one of the long-time regulars, having been around and on a first-name basis since forever, eventually getting a job at the register before quitting for greener pastures (but still coming in frequently for the employee and ex-employee free time deal). He's flamboyant, easily mistaken as gay at first glance, a pretty-boy and is, of course, great with the ladies. He owns a Chihuahua, wears aviators a lot and used to drive a bright-yellow sports car.

But all this, the outside appearance, the jive and socialite-ism...it's just a cover.

A mask for the raving psychotic just underneath.

I'm one of the few living souls unlucky enough to know it. After all, Mr. Ringer and I, we're usually partners in crime whatever the case may be. As an ex-gun fanatic I am forced to live vicariously through him and giant arsenal of various shotguns and rifles. He tends to make off every few weeks to go to a professional paintball tournament of some kind, where he is both a competitor and frequently the recipient of prizes. He's also the only person I could get to agree to help me by trying out the projectile Taser I planned on buying. On me. I simply must know what it's like.

(The catch was I had to be able to use it on whoever got to use it on me. It has since occurred to me that this particular hypothetical exchange is a glorified version of trading kicks to gonads...only more painful.)

Anyway, one hot summer day some weeks ago this tenuous alliance took a dark turn. Like so many in our age bracket, Mr. Ringer was succumbing to the siren song of the Airsoft line of products. Not being blatantly illegal to wield in public (unlike his paintball guns), the nefarious cogs of his psyche started turning with an inevitable outcome.

The mock-assassination of me. I guess he had decided I was the most open-minded of his friends, the only one that would be willing to be ambushed late at night and perforated with high-speed, gas-propelled pellets when I least expected it.

Lucky me.

Being a good sport, he decided to warn me what he was planning. This was weeks and weeks ago, before I started this little log. My life hasn't been the same since.

The rules of engagement are simple, if somewhat undefined. Any time, any place, so long as nothing super-illegal takes place prior to the event (housebreaking, for instance). If I'm armed (with a weapon of similar make) I'm allowed to return fire of course.

But this is no good...the only Airsoft gun I ever owned (a frighteningly realistic, black-metal-with-no-orange, life-size, full-action Walther PPK) was confiscated from me during my arrest at a military checkpoint in some navy base hellhole in Connecticut. That's another story though. The point is I had been turned off to the whole Airsoft thing since then.

So, back to the hunt. Knowing Mr. Ringer as I did, I laughed and took it in stride...knowing he was absolutely fucking serious about carrying out his plan. I knew also that while he didn't own a pellet-gun yet, he was in the market.

This bought me a little time. I had to start thinking about how someone would go about killing me in a surprising fashion.

As things stand it would be frighteningly easy.

Being the manager of this arcade, I'm here every weekend night past 2 am on a Saturday and past midnight on Sunday. I've kicked everyone out when it's time to close, so I am completely alone. The parking lot out front is guaranteed to be mostly abandoned and also very dark. But the front lot isn't what scares me.

It's out the back. A large metal door opens out the back of our shopping center onto a dismal, bare lot with a lone dumpster. Beyond that is the darkened suburbia, people with a higher-than-normal amount of trash strewn about their yard. The unpainted street between us is devoid of cars at most hours of the day, let alone midnight or two in the am.

If I were gonna' kill me, I'd do it when I took out the trash at night. There every night like clockwork, and guaranteed to be alone. Funny thing is I've actually expected attack during this nightly routine long before I knew I was being actively hunted, sometimes fiddling with my cellphone in one pocket, poised to dial 911.

But then the weeks pass by quietly, and other than one scare where I saw a truck similar to Mr. Ringers parked behind the store before I opened in the morning (closer investigation revealed it was not his), the issue fell off my mind. Mr. Ringer came in as often as usual and never mentioned the hunt.

And then last Saturday rolled around. It's about 130am and Mr. Ringer is trying to convince me to start closing a bit early, saying I should get things done like putting the window-blockers up (we only make the outside world visible when the sun is down) or taking out the trash.

Meh I say. He laughs and decides to take off a little while before I close. 2Am rolls around, I kick everyone out, lock the door and get to my in-store routine when Mr. Ringer calls me.

“What's going on?”

“Oh nothin'...just closing.”

“Cool, cool. You take the trash out yet?”

“N-erhm, Yeah, I took it out early.”

This is a lie. The trash is sitting there, right inside the back door.

“Oh, ok. You take the table out front in yet?”

“I will 'soon as I'm off the phone with ya.” I respond.

“Ok, well I let you go then. Have a good one.”

“You too,” I nod, uselessly.

*click*

That was weird. At this point I hadn't remembered the hunt. I get the rest of my shit done and take out the trash...all is quiet.

I've forgotten by the time I get home, it's 1am and I'm ready for some serious hay-hitting. I start pulling into my driveway, already half asleep when I see it.

Instantly my eyes are open. Cold sweat beads onto my forehead. My heart pumps audibly.

Mr. Ringers truck is parked there, outside my home in the dark patch under the trees.

This is it. The hunt is on.

I live in a dismally dark neighborhood, pretty during the day but sorely lacking in street lamps at night. My driveway is entrenched between identical duplexes, and bushes and trees abound. Sadly, neither myself or any of my neighbors decided to leave their porch light on.

But I'm still sitting there in my idling car, considering my options. Maybe he just decided to come by and visit after work. We are, after all, both night owls. With this in mind I decide to park in my normal spot, from where I can get an view into the cab to see if he's just sitting there waiting...probably texting lady-friends of his or what have you.

I come to a stop and eyeball my surroundings. The cab is dark and empty.

Yep. I'm being hunted.

My options are short. I'm safe in my car for the moment, windows up and doors locked. I consider backing out slowly and parking up some side street to stalk back to my home on foot, in the shadows. But my front door is out in the open, exposed with no real cover leading up to it. Easy to camp.

In my mind, there's really only one risky maneuver that he wouldn't expect. I know he's out there, and he knows I know...but damn if the motherfucker ain't hidden. I kill the engine and elect to sit in the dark for a few minutes, adjusting my keys so that my door key is deathgripped like a switchblade. No movement outside.

My next move is risky because I have no idea if the key I have even works on my back door. I've only lived here for a few months and I've never used it. It opens from my kitchen into the claustrophobic alley between my house and the back doors of the adjacent duplex. Useless to me...until today.

Deciding I've sat still for long enough to make him antsy, and praying he's not hiding in the bush I have to vault in order to even get into my back alley (not to mention the ten-ish yards of space to pass over before that) I spring into action.

I fling my car door open and slam it shut while breaking into the best sprint I can muster wearing flipflops. In a few seconds I've smashed through one side of the bush and go pattering down my back alley...fumbling for a few seconds with the storm door before wrenching it open, slamming the key home and swirling the thing around like a fondue fork. I tackle the thing open with a crash and dive in, slamming it shut behind me. I lock that son of a bitch and take a deep breath.

I survived. I turn on my porch light as a signal of success. A few minutes later I get a knock and I answer the door by opening it the smallest crack. There he is, Mr. Ringer the hunter himself, automatic pistol on his hip. He's laughing and clapping. We laugh about the event and I congratulate myself over my own resolve and trickiness.

I've decided I'm going to make it difficult to kill me. Mr. Ringer claims he already has ideas for the next go at bagging me for the kill. We'll see. In the mean time I've decided to re-arm myself and live every day as if there's someone out to kill me.

Because there is.