Selfish Love

A week had passed and Lior had not gotten any closer to making up with Keren. Not that he'd tried. The past days he had been too busy looking into bags of Arab customers. Juggling that with hating Keren was a very time-consuming task that got more exhausting each time a friend removed him on Facebook for spamming their profile with his inner thoughts about his ex: Half the people on his contact list were mutual friends of both. Some of them didn't take kindly to Lior insulting their sister or cousin or army comrade, on their own profile.

Drrrrrrrrrriiing...
Clumsily groping for his iPhone, Lior tried to stomach the thought of another long day that had just been announced by the digitalized traditional alarm sound. His hand was slow and uncoordinated as it rose from underneath the blanket to slap thin air and knock a half-empty bottle of beer off of the cardboard box that was his night stand. The sensation of cold liquid splashing onto his wrist finally roused Lior and he poked his head out to locate the phone and turn off the alarm. It was half past six and he peeled himself out of bed, adjusted his boxers and trudged to the bathroom where he responded to the call of nature and then put the lid down to shower sitting on the toilet. That was the bright side of having a bathroom so tiny he could access everything from whatever corner he was in. Although “bright” rapidly faded to “dim” when one had to hang everything out to dry, including the toilet paper, after each shower.

Lior gave himself a quick shave, brushed his teeth and, to a rerun of last night's National Geographic documentary, downed a bowl of cereal. There was a distinct difference between Kellogg's nut cereal and the more affordable knock-off: Kellogg's went through the trouble of crushing and caramelizing their nuts rather than throwing them in whole and raw.

“Let's see,” he murmured to himself as he dusted his uniform pants, “I got my wallet, smokes, lighter...” Blankly, he stared around his studio apartment. “Where's my gun?”
A smirk twitched over his face. He had moved into this tiny apartment two weeks ago and already he was losing things to the empty space. How could he even lose a needle here? Much less a Glock. He dropped to his knees and peered under the bed. Nothing. Maybe on the chair underneath the pile of dirty laundry? No. Kitchen sink? Negative. Where was his gun? He would be in so much trouble if he didn't find it soon. It wasn't his personal possession but a service weapon. One that was usually tucked away in its holster. Which was attached to his pants. When and why had he removed his gun from the holster?

Suddenly Lior froze and raised his head to stare at the wall. Now he remembered. He'd removed the gun to count the bullets in the magazine, whatever his reason for that had been. Seventeen rounds, fully loaded. What was it to him? Being the security guard at a bank sounded exciting when one hadn't first served in the special forces, spied on enemy borders and extracted terrorists for three years. Bank robberies in Israel were a rare thing, probably for the guards. A lose-lose situation really: Bank robbers could not operate because of the guards, and guards did not get any action because they were such a successful deterrent. And that, even though the only thing standing between a robber and his target, was a short young man who was usually busy playing with his iPhone and chatting up female customers rather than actually guarding anything. He was such an easy target.

Now that he more or less remembered what he'd done with it, Lior also remembered where he had left his gun. Too lazy to get up, he crawled across the small room and to the little fridge by the door. In the freezer compartment, he found his Glock. For some reason, having a firearm within reach had scared him last night and he'd put it in a place he would not remember until required. Hissing at the icy metal brushing his side, he holstered it, grabbed his keys and left the apartment.

He was running – running – late this morning and just how late, was reflected in the faces of the customers outside, and the manager inside the bank. Kobi was furious. The sturdy man whose neck had yet to be discovered by National Geographic, bulldozed his way through the crowd to grab Lior by the perfectly folded collar and shake the considerably smaller man.

“Lior, you goofy piece of shit!”

Lior tried to be polite even with the polyester cutting off his oxygen supply. “I'm sorry, Kobi,” he stammered, “I couldn't find my... my...”
Was he really about to tell the branch manager that he'd lost his firearm? That would mark the end of his dead end career.

Kobi dropped Lior before proceeding to bark at him. “Your what? Your head? I can see how that's a problem! Here, let me locate it for you!”
To the amusement of everyone who had, until a moment ago, been complaining, Kobi took out his iPhone and took a picture of Lior's dumbfounded face.

“I love you like a son, Lior, but as long as no guard is posted by the door, I can't open the doors to customers! You may not run this branch, but you decide whether we open or not! You decide when these people can take care of their business! You-”

Kobi's sermon blended into the background noise as Lior processed his words. Could it be? Short, simpleton Lior who'd made it just beyond garbageman – did he really wield the power to freeze traffic to the busiest branch of Bank Leumi in town? To make business men and diplomats, his betters, stand in the rain for however long he pleased? New confidence surged in Lior and declining Kobi's outstretched hand with a polite smile, he scrambled to his feet where he was almost crushed in a fatherly hug from his superior.

“Actually, not my head,” Lior whispered, “More like, my gun.”

Kobi laughed thunder as he slapped Lior on the back. “You screwy little shit you!”

The sun that had felt so cold these past few days, now warmed his face as Lior bravely faced it with huge black sunglasses. What a beautiful day. He could accomplish anything if he put his mind to it. If he could keep a bank closed for losing his gun, he could mess up much, much worse. And all he needed, was his Glock.

“Mom!” he heard the little girl's voice from inside the apartment. “Moooom, can I take Crixus for a walk?”

“Whatever,” another voice replied. “I just walked him an hour ago!”

“Bye, mom!”

Behind the yellow stone wall, a brown head with French braids came in sight and Orli left the property, dragged by the young but large dog. This was his chance. Lior stepped out from behind the van that was parked on the other side of the road, and, his hand on the holstered gun, crossed the street and sat down on a bench between two huge green garbage containers in front of the building. He was completely invisible to anyone inside the building. Now all he had to do was wait for Orli to return.

Barely half an hour had passed when he heard the claws of a big, energetic dog scrape over the asphalt. Crixus, hot on Lior's scent trail, was dragging a squealing Orli right toward him and he had no time to dive behind one of the containers for cover. He had to move now. Waving a gun around in front of a little girl was not going to cover much distance in his quest to win back Keren – when had he even gone on such a quest? - but she would give him back his dog without much ado if the alternative was getting shot.

“Lior!”

He stood up, acutely aware of his hand on the gun. Orli's braids were perfect to grab her by, and Crixus would not turn on his old master. That was when the door opened and Keren came outside. She raised her eyes with mild – or suppressed? - surprise when she saw Lior.

“Hi, Lior...”

Grab the kid. Put the gun to her head and demand the dog as ransom. Do it, you twat! “Hi Keren, did I forget a pair of gray socks here?”

“No.”

“Okay.”

Some power that gun gave him. He could not even point it at the bus driver to score a free ticket without ruining his life. Pointing useless things at people, now that was something one could get away with. Fingers, pens, laser pointers, when pointed at people's faces did not accomplish anything, yet it was done every day, everywhere. But try and change lives by pointing a gun at people. Best case scenario, it ends in the psych ward because some merciful hassidic lawyer pleaded insanity and rough childhood.

The sun was setting over the gentle waves of the Mediterranean. It didn't look as pictoresque from here as it did close-up, at the Bat Galim beach where waves crashed onto rocks, glittering golden in the evening glow. A few faint rays made it all the way to Lior's window where he was resting his head against the quivering glass. An elderly woman in front of him snuck him compassionate glances. Was his grief showing on his features? Using the cover of his sunglasses, he ran his gaze down himself and found his shirt untucked and crumpled in the fold of his slouching torso. He looked like he'd been in a fight, and he had, just not the kind of fight that excused his uniform being in a mess. The people he'd arrested or shot during his time with the army would call it “Internal Jihad”, a struggle within oneself.

Lior straightened up, a tired sigh escaping him as he relaxed again. Something told him that he was slouching again, but he didn't want to shift and flail about and give this lady more to pity him for, maybe even share her own stories of sore bones. The last thing he wanted to hear about now, was the body of some old woman. Which brought him right back to Keren. This was bad. He felt his chest tighten. He could not allow himself to burst into tears now, not when there was a typical Jewish grandmother sitting across from him ready to pounce and hug his last scrap of masculine dignity out of him. Feeling guilty but a little less heartbroken already, he pictured Keren's head on the woman's naked body. The age was about right, give or take thirty years. Was he really going to cry over this sack of saggy skin and drooping eyes? She could straddle him with her back straight and he would still be able to suck at her nipples. Wait, was that a bad thing? At least the huge, dangling breasts would spare him the gaze upon the face of evil.

And again, unpleasant feelings washed over Lior like the waves in the distance. He was canceling out one pain by inflicting another. Instead of hurt and anger and longing for Keren, he was now feeling guilt and disgust for his imagined abuse of this old woman who was probably a very lovable, caring person. And his angry, dirty mind had just defiled her. The tight feeling in his chest returned, amplified by this additional faux pas. Fortunately for Lior, he could blame it all on Keren for having broken him in the first place. Snapped him right in half.

Now the memory of why he had hidden his gun last night finally caught up with him.