“Moment of Truth” by Frank Possemato

Mondays Are Murder features brand-new noir fiction modeled after our award-winning Noir Series. Each story is an original one, and each takes place in a distinct location. Our web model for the series has one more restraint: a 750-word limit. Sound like murder? It is. But so are Mondays.

This week, get inside Frank Possemato’s head in Boston, Massachusetts.

Moment of Truth
by Frank Possemato
South Boston, Boston, Massachusetts

The blood’s flowing so loud through my temples I’m worried they can hear it on the other side of the door. He’s in there. Remember the picture. The Polack. Fucking Polack bastard, like the bastards who used to give me shit at the Gavin—he’s probably the uncle of one of them. Maybe he’s the father. Don’t look at him, don’t think about it. He deserves it. Just pop two in him and get out, like we practiced on sandbags down in Stremme’s basement. When this is done I’m gonna start going back to Mass. Go to confession. Maybe I’ll stay with Nana. How long has it been? Upstairs on the second floor, with that tray of stale candies and that weird wooden bread box that looks like something from the ’50s, there’s always a folded Enquirer that she’d read with a magnifying glass. And that hard ugly couch that I could just fall asleep on. Pitrof gives me the Iggy. The safety’s off. He shoulders the door in. They knew we were coming. Which one’s mine? I remember every word of the Pledge of Allegiance. The tall one puts a bullet through eternity, and time comes out my back. And the room is nothing but white.

***

FRANK POSSEMATO was born in Boston and currently teaches at the Los Angeles community colleges. His writing has appeared in Underground Voices, 3:AM Magazine, and other publications. Frank is cocreator with his brother Joey of the talk show Weymouth After Dark.

***

Would you like to submit a story to the Mondays Are Murder series? Here are the guidelines:

—Your story should be set in a distinct location of any neighborhood in any city, anywhere in the world, but it should be a story that could only be set in the neighborhood you chose.
—Include the neighborhood, city, state, and country next to your byline.
—Your story should be Noir. What is Noir? We’ll know it when we see it.
—Your story should not exceed 750 words.
—E-mail your submission to info@akashicbooks.com. Please paste the story into the body of the email, and also attach it as a PDF file.

Posted: Mar 2, 2015

Category: Original Fiction, Mondays Are Murder | Tags: Boston, flash fiction, Frank Possemato, Massachusetts, Moment of Truth, Mondays Are Murder, Noir, short fiction, South Boston