A Sad Title Goes Here

For Squinty-Eyed Gunslingers like Latigo Flint, the latter days of December are reserved for introspection and misery. And occasionally the violent interruption of holiday parties to which they weren't invited.

Thus the night found me standing in shadows just beyond the reach of rented patio lights, close enough to sense warm rhythms of familial joy but far enough to remain unaffected. I stared grimly from beneath a low-tugged hat brim, rolled a cigarette and sneered.

And this should have been enough to declare victory and stagger home--for when the character points are tallied, it is always the man in the dark with a sneer and a broken heart, who comes out on top over sweater-clad husbands who have to shake every hand and pretend floral arrangements are grand.

But I didn't declare victory and stagger home. Partially because I'm the quickest quickdraw the world has ever known and partially because I'd been drinking steadily since a Thursday night (who really knows which one anymore) and couldn't remember where I lived.

I crept to the window with no intention of crashing through, but then I fell in love with half of the women there, and several other figures whose backs were to me, obscuring gender--and before I knew it, I was crouched in the center of the room, shaking glass shards from my hair and bleeding on a rug.

"Season's Greetings!" I bellowed. "I am Latigo Flint, the quickest quickdraw the world has ever known."

I wasn't necessarily expecting roaring applause, but surely scattered claps and murmurs of awe at the very least. Instead I was met with horrified silence and a slow retreat for the doors. I scrambled to my feet.

"No, no! I am Latigo Flint--here, I'll prove it." And then I attacked the couch with a bowie knife. (Hey, it made sense at the time.)

The priorly merry revelers screamed and fled the room. I gutted the couch, and two armchairs, maimed a bookcase, badly wounded a coffee table and let a grandfather clock off with a warning only after it promised never to chime again. I rode a chandelier into the top of the Christmas tree--tried to chat up the angel on the way down and accidentally ate a snow globe.

Then the swat team dropped me with several waves of tear gas and projectile beanbags.

As I lay there in a crumpled heap, counting internal ruptures and drooling on myself, a child's face appeared at the top of the stairs. I managed to smile up at her though the effort cost me the use of a lung.

"Hello child." I whispered.
"Hello cowboy." She replied.
"I'm sorry I wrecked your party."
"That's okay, there'll be another next year."
I could hear the heavy tromp of many boots in the foyer. I sighed and lowered my head.
"I'm the villain tonight, aren't I?"
"Yes." the girl replied, "Yes you are."

She glanced to her left. The light reflected off the visors and shields of the approaching troops and danced across her face. I coughed and felt a rib break the skin. A forest of upraised nightsticks appeared in my peripheral. I ignored them.

"Don't forget me child."
"How could I?" She asked. "I just watched you eat my snow globe."

I smiled a little. "The water is salty you know."

The nightsticks descended. The girl followed their vicious arc with her eyes. "I've always wondered about that."

"We all have." I replied, and then the lights went out.