Highway by Nick Di Carlo

     I got a tip. When you’re connected, you hear things. So, before dawn, I showered, shaved, dressed—suit and tie—and stood on my front porch waiting as the caravan of patrol cars and police vans barreled into the cul-de-sac to my front door. I raised my hands and called out for the guy in charge.
     A detective stepped out of the lead car as guys in combat gear piled out of the vans and trotted toward me, rifles raised.
     “I’m not going to resist,” I said, “but I want a negotiator. When he gets here, I’ll let him in.”
     “No can do.”
     “Your way or the highway?”
     “That’s it.”
     “I don’t think so.” I backed into the house and shut the door. 
     A half hour later, I opened the door for the negotiator. I stepped aside, out of the line of fire.
     “Slow and easy,” I said. “Hands on head.” I shut and locked the door and showed him my Colt 1911. “Face the wall.” I kicked the inside of his ankles, forcing his legs wide and frisked him. He was clean.
     “Let’s discuss this like gentlemen,” I said motioning toward two chairs in a windowless corner of my living room, against a solid wall. We faced each other, a small round table between us. I removed the magazine from my piece and ejected the bullet I had chambered. Setting the piece on the table I said, “I’ve made coffee.” I stood, walked to the kitchen, and came back with the French press, sugar, cream and cups. I poured coffee for us both. I drank first.
     “What can you do for me?” I asked.
     “I can help you end this so we both walk out of here healthy.”
     “After that?”
     “You know the score,” he said. 
     I shrugged.
     He nodded.
     “When I was a kid,” I started, “my old man would look down on me and say, ‘It’s my way or the highway. You don’t like things here you can hit the road.’ At eight or nine, living upstate New York barely outside Canada, the highway led nowhere. So, it was his way until my eighteenth birthday when I pushed the old man down our well. My mother gave me half the old man’s accident insurance. Next day I joined the Army where they told me, ‘It’s our way or the highway—and that road could take you to Leavenworth.’”
     “Where’s this going?”
     “Eventually—here. Now. You see, the Army’s way became my way. Could’ve had any job. But they taught me to fight. I liked it—using weapons—of all kinds. I became a weapon. A killer. A good one. Got medals, praise. So, when I got out, my only marketable skill was killing.”
     “As a civilian, it’s called murder.”
     “Potato? Tomato? As a civilian, it’s a road less taken, a road with consequences, but a road to travel, nonetheless. I started slow—called it practice, learning not to get caught. I made connections and that’s when it paid off. Paid well.”
     “Where’d it get you?”
     “I had an eighteen-year run. Lived low-key but comfortable. Look around.”
     “Nice house. But—”
     “No buts. No regrets—well, hardly. Just this last job. Still figuring out how I slipped up.”
     “They’ve been building a case against you for a long time.”
     “Building shit. Bastards couldn’t prove anything. Never knew my name.”
     “They know it now. So, what’re we gonna do?”
     “You’re saying it’s your way or the highway?”
     “You’ve got two roads—one long—if we both walk out. The other short….”
   “I’d like to walk out. I’ll need a minute, though—maybe ten. Go—let ‘em know.”
     “Don’t mess with them.”
     “A sign of good faith…” I picked up the .45, clip and bullet and handed them to the negotiator.
     He walked out. 
     I washed the coffee pot and cups. I laughed. Arsenic—colorless, odorless, and tasteless. We’d both drunk. Another ten minutes or so….
     I tucked another Colt into my waistband. Opening the door a crack I called out, “I’m coming out, okay?” On my porch, I reached to my waistband and told myself— “My highway. My way….”

About the author:

Nick Di Carlo has taught writing and literature in such non-traditional settings as maximum-security correctional facilities. Lawrence R. Reis, author of Wolf Masks: Violence in Contemporary Poetry has written: “The men in Di Carlo's classes recognized many similarities between their experiences and his. Those experiences, often dark and sometimes violent, inform and power Di Carlo’s own writing.”