Hellbox

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They shouldn’t of kept making fun of him like that. Not like that.

It was all Ned Verriker’s fault. Bastard shouldn’t of hung that label around his neck like a goddamn dead bird. That was what took it right over the line.

Bad enough, all the crap Balfour’d had to take most of his life about the way he looked. Man couldn’t help the face he was born with, could he? But he’d got so he could stand the ragging pretty well, even joke about it himself when he’d had a few. Like the night at the Miners Club when he was half in the bag and he come out and said he hadn’t had a woman in so long he’d started carrying a picture of his right hand around in his wallet. Everybody got a good laugh out of that. Hell, he’d joined right in that night, and again the time somebody asked him if he was still dating old Five Fingers.

But after a while, when he was alone at night in his house, he didn’t think that was funny, neither. Plain damn truth. Only woman he’d ever laid that he hadn’t had to pay for was Charlotte, his ex-wife, and she’d been lousy in bed. Weighed more than he did, too, and had a face like a foot. Plus a mouth that never stayed shut. Nag, nag, nag the whole eighteen months they were married. Banner day when she walked out on him after the last of their fights, wearing a black eye and a smashed nose. He hadn’t missed her one minute since.

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