Photo Finish
(based on a scene from Stephen King's "The Dead Zone")
I'm thirty one. Been thirty one for a week. Had one heck of a birthday party. My pals from high school and college were there. All three of them. My ex-wife even stopped by with a "Happy birthday. Alimony check, please." I felt magnanimous enough to give her an extra fiver with a promise that if she pissed me off I'd dock it from next month's check.
It's been about twenty-eight years since that day when I made headlines.
You claim you don't remember. But you do. You remember because you were there. I don't. I only know what my mom told me.
She'd been on the campaign trail with dad at the time. Stiltson or Stillson was the man's name I think. I never can quite recall. I could look it up, but I'm too lazy to bother. And he's not worth remembering properly anyhow. Not after what he did to me.
No, he wasn't a molester or some kind of pervert. Not in that sense anyhow. This Still-whatever guy actually did something worse.
He used me as a human shield.
That's right. This guy shows up at the campaign. A really freaky guy that mom said was having some weird psycho or psychic stuff going on. Shows up with a rifle or some kind of gun. Maybe a Thompson. The details aren't clear. Some people say he burst through the wall in a mini-tank.
Anyhow, I'm getting off track. This guy shows up and is about to shoot ol' Still-monster and Mister Man-of-the-People just grabs me right out of mom's arms and holds me up in front of him.
Fucking coward!
Eventually, they got me away from that S.O.B.
The press had a field day with the photos some lucky freelancer took. I got famous and old Still-jerk ate crow for dinner that night.
I hear he ate a bullet for dessert.