Saint Oswald by Jay Bonansinga (motivational novels .txt) 📕

the life he will leave in tatters. He feels the shame and the despair, and he tells himself, It won’t be long now, relief is coming, soon, soon...

He sees a space about fifty feet away—the nadir of the giant cable as it loops down from the far tower—and he heads toward it. There is a steel gate affixed to the bottom edge of the cable, padlocked and congealed with moss, apparently providing, at one time, a service portal to the joists and beams along the bottom to the bridge.

The closer he gets, the heavier the anguish. He finds his mind casting back on his three earlier attempts.

If the one in the garage was mere prelude, the second one, in his wife’s bathroom, with the Seconals, while she was in Connecticut, was a full-blown stunt. He had no intention of offing himself at that point, he simply wanted drama. The most recent attempt, of course, with the .38 Special he bought from the sporting goods store in Rockford, was stillborn. He didn’t want to leave a mess.

He wants to go out cleanly this time, decisively, dramatically, his body washing away on the currents like a myth, all the evidence left behind perfectly calibrated to elicit maximum sorrow, the maximum number of down-turned heads and guilt-ridden bewilderment. This is important to Kornblum. If only we had done more, talked to him, helped him, loved him, understood him.

He reaches the gate and climbs over the threshold of sun-baked iron.

There is a precipice there, an eight-inch ledge of wind-swept timber overhanging the bridge. He stands on it stoically, holding onto the cable for purchase, the river breeze nudging him left and right, flapping the legs of his freshly pressed Dockers.

He looks down and blinks back a wave of vertigo. This is it.

Somewhere in the back of his mind he hears an incongruous noise behind him: heavy footsteps, coming toward him, fast and loud. Kornblum instantly passes the footsteps off as his adrenaline-charged imagination playing tricks on him again, and he proceeds toward his final plunge.

Closing his eyes, coiling his legs for the big leap, he hears the sound of a nearby voice blurting out—“NOT SO FAST, ASSHOLE!”—which is accompanied by a tremendous and sudden pressure around Kornblum’s neck.

11.

By this point Oswald is so wired and hyped up with anger and aggravation that he nearly tears the Izod shirt off Kornblum’s back as he yanks the butthole back over the threshold and onto the bridge.

Kornblum lands hard on the small of his back, expelling a mucousy gasp, stunned and pop-eyed, like a freshly caught fish flopping on a boat deck. “Wha—? Whahhh—?”

“Shut the fuck up!” Oswald reaches down and grabs a handful of Kornblum’s collar. Exhausted and winded, his big chambray denim shirt soaked under the armpits, Oswald kneels down in the man’s face. “I’m gonna need you to shut up and listen.”

“I don’t—” The asshole wriggles in Oswald’s grasp. “I don’t—”

“SHUT UP AND LISTEN!”

Oswald slams the back of Kornblum’s skull against the boardwalk, and Kornblum stiffens and lets out another breathless gasp.

The fishy wind tosses Oswald’s greasy black locks into his eyes as he digs in his pocket for the speech. He’s got a Bluetooth in his ear, crackling with static. “Hold on a second, hold on—”

“I don’t—”

“Shut your fucking piehole and listen to me.” Oswald pulls the wrinkled notebook page from his back pocket with one hand, clutching the moron’s shirt with the other. “Gonna need you to hear something.”

“I don’t—”

“I’m here to save your life, Mister, um…” Oswald looks at his notes. “Kornbluth. Mister Kornbluth.”

The asshole stares up at him, shaking, licking his dry lips. “It’s—it’s um—it’s Kornblum.”

Oswald blinks. “What?”

“Kornblum with an ‘m.’”

“Sorry... sorry... must have... it’s a typo.” Oswald wipes sweat from his brow and looks at his notes. The distant sound of tires squealing off to the east nags at him. “You live at 2345 Waring Place in Dekalb, right? Got two daughters? Is that correct?” Oswald tightens his grip, shakes Kornblum a little. “IS THAT CORRECT?!”

Kornblum swallows hard. “My... my address?”

“NO, YOU IDIOT!!—YOUR DAUGHTERS!! YOUR TWO LITTLE GIRLS!!”

“Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes—I have two daughters—that’s correct!”

Oswald looks at the imbecile. “You want them to die, too?! You want a little piece of your children to die with you?!”

This is the only part of the speech Oswald has memorized, but now he’s starting to think that maybe he should have memorized all of it. Lord knows, he had enough time to memorize it.

Getting the list out of the suicide specialist at Humana Health Care had taken forever. Shrinks are notoriously tight-lipped, and Oswald had ultimately been forced to stick a gun barrel in the ear of the stubborn psychiatric worker to get the names and addresses out of him. But the waiting was the worst part. Oswald had waited around for almost two weeks for one of these high-risk clowns to make an attempt. Twelve days and three separate PIs tailing these pussies had burned through most of Oswald’s mad money.

“ANSWER THE QUESTION!” Oswald shoves the bonehead to the deck, then reaches around to the back of his belt, where the Bulldog is holstered in a quick-draw sheathe. He pulls the .44 out and presses the barrel against the cowering Kornblum’s damp forehead. “ANSWER ME!”

“No, absolutely not, no, I don’t want them to die, I don’t want my daughters to die.” Kornblum trembles and whimpers as he slams his eyes closed. The crotch of his Dockers is soaked through with his piss, the pungent aroma mingling with the river breezes.

“That’s good, because that’s how we’re gonna save your life,” Oswald tells him, keeping the muzzle against the man’s forehead. “It has to do with your little girls... um.” Oswald glances back at his notes. “... Courtney and Tiffany? And your lovely ex-wife... um.” Another glance at the notes. “... Jane. Jane and Courtney and Tiffany. These are your victims. These are the casualties of your selfish—”

Oswald stops, lets out an irritated sigh,