Enemy unseen

Wise men, that I have made up, say that you have to keep your friends very close and your enemies in the cross hairs at all time. That way, there will not be problems with friendly fire and all. When you let loose on your magnum, the body count will only have enemy bodies.

Very apt, don’t you think? You would think so too if you were to suddenly realise that there are people out there who know every detail about your life and you have nothing on them. You can’t even run to the coppers to complain that so and so is tailing you. They’d just bundle you into the cell for wasting their time, the cops.

But it’s true, there are guys out there who know you and you don’t know them. It gets scary when you find out about these people very late, at the point when the goon is just about to douse you with gasoline and then in a moment of brilliance, he reveals his motives for burning you; just before he drops the match. You have been running around with a girl who, apparently, has also been promising this gorilla things. And now there is a conflict of interests on her part but jilted lover boy is not listening to this plea.

You get to know about stuff like that in the worst moments of all. You are buttering the bread and warming the milk and she’s on the phone. You try not to listen to what she’s saying but her voice is that kind that cannot be shut out. “I’ve told you, time and time again, that I’ve got a man,” she hisses. The person on the other side has never heard of the word no. “What? Who told you where he works?” She’s clearly alarmed.

Brother, it’s you that should be alarmed. She’s just going to shrug her shoulders and cry a river. He’ll do everything to get a smile out of her. But for you, it’s a whole new ball game. He’s going to do everything to get a yelp out of you. Maybe a wail. From the people who’ll be at your wake in the final analysis.

The problem is that you never know when you are trespassing. Forget that stuff they ask in church if there’s anyone out there who has “anything against these two people getting hitched.” No one ever says anything so you are left in your ignorance, believing that you are the cock of the walk. Meanwhile, lover boy is seething, plotting the Final Solution for you.

So who is to blame? You cannot say that you’ll hold it against the guy. First of all, you got hooked to this bird because you could not resist the way those eyelashes moved. So she got you wrapped around her nasswi and you are so gone. Probably, this is the same thing that she did to jilted lover boy over there and now, he feels that he must get his pound of flesh. Only unfair thing is that instead of making her pay, he’s going to get that meat out of you.