Exhilarated, ecstatic, a bit drunk, and almost to the point of euphoria, Ronald ran up the stairs to his hotel room so fast he nearly ran into another guest on their way down.
“Sorry, sir,” Ronald said. “Completely my fault. Just wasn’t paying attention.”
“It’s all good, friend,” the kind guest said, stopping and turning a bit to look up at Ronald. “Did you win the lottery, or something?”
The man’s query made Ronald turn just before stepping to the top of the flight of stairs. He looked down at the other hotel guest, breathing heavily.
“No, but it feels close to that,” Ronald said in between breaths. “Just had a successful business transaction. My very first.”
“Good for you,” the man said, then turned and continued descending the steps to the parking lot.
Ronald went bursting into his hotel room, immediately locking the door, and securing the latch. Then for a moment he had a bout of paranoia as he looked through the door’s eyehole. Obviously no one was outside. He decided to remove the latch, unlock the door, and open it to reassure himself the DO NOT DISTURB sign was still hanging on the outside knob. When he felt safe he would not be interrupted, he again closed the door, locked it, and secured the latch. He moved over to the windows, and with thumb and forefinger holding one of the two curtains he slightly opened a slit to look outside to view the parking lot with one eye. The only person he saw was the other hotel guest he had almost ran into on the stairs get into his car and start the engine.
Ronald let go of the curtain, allowing it to close completely, and backed away.
“As it is said in those spy movies,” he said aloud, “she didn’t make me, let alone even remember me. I was but inches in front of her face, and she didn’t recognize me.”
He walked over to the foot of the bed, looked at his reflection in the mirror on the wall over the dresser, made his hands into fists, and raised them to make a boxing stance.
“You know what this means, mon âme?” he asked his reflection. “It means the game’s on, mothafucka.”
He then proceeded to punch the air with jabs from each fist, dodged punches from an imaginary opponent, delivered a right hook, left hook, and finished with an uppercut. He raised the fists over his head as if in victory by knocking out the phantom opponent.
“There’s no turning back, because I don’t want to,” he said, commencing to jump up and down. “I couldn’t stop myself even if I had the choice. It’s beyond anyone’s control at this point. It’s been decided already, motherfuckers. It is meant to be. And, damn, if only I had a jump rope to hop up and down so justifiably.”
He ceased the jumping, took off his hoodie sweatshirt, tossed it behind him, then gripped the collar of his t-shirt with both his hands, and ripped the front of it in half from top to bottom. Taking off the torn shirt in a maniacal fashion, he threw it onto the carpet. He made movements in front of the mirror like a boxer sizing himself up before the biggest, grandest match of his career, throwing jabs, right and left hooks toward his reflection. After he felt satisfied, he stretched out both arms to his sides, and breathed in deeply through his nose to make his hairy, somewhat flabby chest look big and broad. He then slammed his right fist into his sternum, attempting to be like a warrior from ancient times, exerting a bellowing roar, but his own punch to the chest made him recoil, and he bent down, keeping himself balanced by holding his knees.
“Fuck,” Ronald yelped. “I’m gonna feel that in the morning.”
A few seconds passed before he could recover and stand up straight. Catching his breath, he continued to look upon his reflection, at the image of his hairy, tubby upper body. He slowly raised his right arm, and pointed at the mirror with a stiff finger.
“You may not be in the best of shape,” Ronald said, “but you have the best sense of confidence one could attain for self-improvement. My dear Ronald Mungus, the mission will be successful, because you have one of the greatest tools to make sure the job will get done.”
He went to his suitcase, opened it, dug out the wrinkled paper lunch bag, and took out the nickel plated forty-five automatic. He moved back in front of the mirror to face his reflection, pointed the barrel of the unloaded handgun directly at his image, aiming right at the head — his own head.
With a serious tone, he said, “Since you don’t remember me now like you said you did a year ago, I’ll just have to remind you by saying these three words —.” He stopped himself when something occurred to him. He looked away from his reflection, the gun dropping to his side.
“Shit,” he said. “What if she remembered me after leaving the bar?” He looked back up at the mirror. “Nah, she wouldn’t. She’s got too much on her mind right now, anyways. Even if she did, it wouldn’t matter in the slightest. I can still continue on with the mission.”
His cellphone began ringing and vibrating in his jeans pocket. He took it out to see who was calling.
“Silence, you fools,” he said, putting the phone’s ringer on silent, and tossing it atop the bed. “I’m fucking busy. Now, back to rehearsal.”
He once again aimed the gun at the mirror.
“I know what you’re thinking,” he said, looking directly at his own eyes in his reflection. “You’re thinking that it’s all my fault, that I am to blame, and nobody else. I mean, you obviously would think that, but I dare to proclaim otherwise. I say it is you who is at fault, due to your own damn stupidity, and complete lack of fortitude that I am here with a gun pointed right at your fucking head, bitch.”
He paused the speech, eyes roaming around the room, the side of the handgun touching his lips as he silently went deep in thought. He began to pace back and forth from one side of the room to the other, at one point walking around the bed.
“Maybe I should write what I’m going to say,” he said when he stopped moving, finding himself before the mirror once again, looking at his reflection, “then I can better memorize it, and practice it over, and over again, so I can get my point across as clearly and concisely as possible.” He leaned close to the mirror. “Then hopefully the great Rolanda Maze will learn something substantial before the big bang.”
Ronald got quiet as he gazed into his own eyes in the mirror, a mischievous grin forming on his face, attempting to appear like a ticking time bomb maniac. Then his train of thought was interrupted by a soft, moaning sound. The expression of a crazed lunatic deflated from his face as he grunted in annoyed frustration.
“People just don’t understand the great work they can never do themselves,” he said to himself in the mirror, shaking his head.
Though he had set the ringer on silent, he did not switch off the vibration on his phone when someone called him. The whole time he was making his spiel to the mirror, the phone lay on the bed, ceaselessly vibrating as the person calling him did not want to stop until he finally answered.
The gun still in his hand, Ronald turned around, loose arms dangling at his sides in exasperation as he moved over to the bed, plopping onto the mattress, making the vibrating cellphone bounce beside him before picking it up, and answering it, not bothering to see who was calling him, for he already knew who it was.
“What is it, tyrant?” he greeted in the rudest tone. “Make it fast, because after that horribly handled transaction with the gun it’d be a better idea to not communicate any further.” A pause as he listened. At one point he held the phone away from his ear, his face cringing as the person on the other line yelled at the top of their lungs. “Calm the fuck down. I didn’t call you that. I referred to your sense of character by using the broader term, not that specific one — the most specific. Anyways, we should just treat the past like a fart in the wind. Nothing got fucked, so the both of us can continue on our own personal journey.” Another pause. He rolled his eyes, looking at his reflection in the mirror. “Look, I’m in the car, circling the track, and you’re the management of the arena making sure the cameramen are getting the shots they desire, and all the people in the stands got their popcorn, hot dogs, and beer. At this point the outcome is beyond the rookers of Bog.”
Ronald raised the handgun, pointing it at the mirror once again, closing one eye to clearly look down it’s sight aimed at the top of his head. The person on the other line said something that made him drop the gun away from it’s aim, his head go back, and moan as if giving up on teaching a small child how to ride a bike.
“It’s from a fucking book,” Ronald said. “Shit, man, don’t you fucking read. It was a movie, you know. A damn good one.”
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