TAKE OFFENSE
by David McDonald
There he was. Dangling off a cliff as he desperately clutched the front bumper of his beaten-up Corvette that, like him, had seen better days. Shane Sullivan had made some mistakes in his life. This was one of them.
Two hours earlier, Shane had been in a card game, when he noticed a beautiful girl walk into the room. He had stared at her as if he had just been given a pair of aces…drunkenly, happily.
“Who’s that?” Shane asked Doyle.
“That’s his daughter,” Doyle replied.
The “his” in the equation was The Pock, Vincente Galari. He was called The Pock because of the pockmarks that were scattered over his face. The Pock didn’t mind the nick-name, in fact he actually liked it. He felt it made people uneasy…and that was his job…as the Boss of his crime organization.
“So? That means I can’t go out with her?” Shane asked with a distinctive slur in his speech.
“That’s exactly what it means,” said Doyle.
The girl’s name was Rosario. And she was a stunner. She made eyes with Shane, who was sinking deeper and deeper into debt because he played poker too often and too drunk. He decided to walk over to her, see if she wanted to go for a ride.
“You want to get outta here?” he asked.
“Do you know who my father is?” Rosario inquired.
“Yeah, he’s that ugly guy.”
Rosario giggled, grabbed Shane’s hand…and the two were in the car, driving on a snake-curved road…the kind of road that one thinks only exists in the movies.
As they were speeding around the corners, Rosario leaned in for what Shane was thinking at worst was a kiss, and at-best a driver’s seat blowjob.
“You know, Shane,” she said, “I take offense that you think my father is ugly. I also take offense that you are driving while under the influence. I furthermore take offense that you owe my father $30,000 and it looks as if you have no way of paying the money.”
“Jesus, you are one sensitive, bitch.” Shane said dryly.
“I also take offense that you would A.) call me sensitive and B.) would refer to me as a ‘bitch.’”
“Fuck, lady,” Shane said.
“I also take offense to the fact that people don’t think wizards are real. And I take offense that animals don’t speak English. I take offense at being tickled underwater…” Rosario declared.
“Maybe we should go home,” nervously said Shane.
“…I take offense that midgets take offense at being called midgets. I take offense that we can’t drink paint without getting sick, even though it looks so good. I take offense that I have never seen a proper goblin…”
“Jesus Christ.”
“I take offense that mud and poo are the same color. I take offense that doctors don’t like to be stalked apparently. And I really take offense that you, as the driver, would not wear your seat-belt.”
Rosario leaned over to the driver’s side and slammed the brake with her left foot. Shane went flying wildly threw the windshield as the car barely came to a screeching halt before it rocketed off the cliff. Shane grabbed the front bumper. It was the only thing that separated him from the rocky ground that awaited 300 feet below.
Rosario got out of the car, and slowly walked over to Shane, still grabbing the bumper.
“And mostly, I take offense that you would drive me around in a shitty, broken-down Corvette. I’m a Ferrari-kind of girl,” she said.
Rosario kicked at Shane’s hands. One of them came off the bumper. He clung with one hand to his car, the bumper about to give way. Shane then reached into his jacket with his free hand and pulled out a gun.
“I take offense that you are an elitist bitch…Corvettes rule.” Shane said, before shooting Rosario in the head. She fell back, as the bumper on his car finally separated from the vehicle.
Shane plummeted to the ground, the phrase “Take offense to THAT, bitch“…the last words to ever be in his mind.
The End
