By Jon Moray
This story was first appeared in an online magazine called CafeLit in December 2024 and is about a bankrupt man trying to settle a bet by staying alive long enough to ring in the new year. Enjoy!
Lee Collins bobbed his way through the sea of humanity at Times Square on New Year’s Eve minutes before the close of 2022. He made it, he thought, free and clear, as he snickered at his apparent elusiveness. Earlier in the year he borrowed ten grand from Louie, the life ending loan shark that had a knack for fowl play and a peculiar way of making debtors disappear. A bad investment insured Lee would have no way of making good on the loan, as he pleaded his excuse to the perturbed mobster. However, Louie loved a good game and struck a deal with Lee the last day of November that if Lee made it through the rest of the year alive he would be absolved of his debt. The only stipulation to the deal was he had to go outdoors on New Years Eve.
Lee spent the month with his head on a swivel, avoided being alone and stayed at his aunt’s home until his abrasive behavior wore out his welcome in her cozy apartment. It didn’t help that she caught him with his stubby hands in her pocketbook while he thought she was using the bathroom. He thought he had a few close calls when his panicked paranoia twisted his mind into believing he was being followed several times by character bankrupt individuals.
And now, on New Years Eve, he escaped his tenement through a fire escape, hustled through the snow kissed streets and jumped on a crowded subway downtown to the starlit festivities.
Luck seemed to shadow him as he shared a car with a transit patrolman all the way to his stop. He struck up a conversation with the uniformed officer about how lousy the local football teams were doing. With a handshake, they wished each other a Happy New Year and parted ways. Lee quickly exited the subway car and took steps two-by-two to the street among the partygoers. Sweat beaded his forehead, even in the frost-like winter chill. His breath looked like he was smoking a cigarette through the air and his nervous twitch on the back of his neck made him look like a Pez dispenser rapidly spitting out candy. He would not feel safe until he was among the police monitored celebration.
He pushed through people from all over the world and emphasized his anxiousness with cuss words that would make a construction worker wince. He dodged tourists and settled in like a pig in a blanket enveloped by people there to ring in the new year.
The countdown from one minute began as Lee’s eyes glowed among the warmth of the unassuming crowd insulating him from his doom. As the numbers grew smaller, his heart began to race as if he were just one number away from hitting the lottery.
Twenty seconds, his breathing mimicked someone in need of an asthma pump, as he mouthed the numbers synched to the countdown.
TEN…NINE…EIGHT…I am gonna make it.
SEVEN…SIX…FIVE…Stupid loan shark, what a sucker.
FOUR…THREE…TWO…ONE…Lee dropped to his knees and collapsed, dead.
The uniformed officer whipped out his cell and called Louie.
“Yeah, Boss. Mission accomplished. He fell for the officer outfit. I shook his hand on the subway ride over and pricked his palm with the poison. He dropped at the stroke of midnight just like the ball. Happy New Year.”
Moray Writes 