Doon Town

Doon Town It was at night that Doon Town really blossomed. It was not safe to be out alone on the streets then. Stabbings were the one constant feature of life. Along the dark alleys leading off the main street, the people plied their trade. On the main street itself, stalls lit flambeaux, yellow flames bending before the wind, lined they pavements, selling oysters with pepper sauce, oranges and black-pudding, their smells mingling with that of the corn being roasted in coal-pots and boiled in oil-tins. Fat, picture-postcard women, wearing panama hats and fanning the flames with bits of rolled-up newspaper, called out their wares and solicited the passers-by. Around the entrances to the town’s two cinemas struggling crowds gathered and from the rum-shops came the incessant, tuneless maundering of the drunks. And the traffic never stopped. Everything seemed to conspire to produce the illusion of frenzy. This alley leading to the main street was the devil’s playground, and it was here that I would do his wickedness. Here, you’re better off locking your door than calling the law. I never knew the lad much, had nothing against him, but surely I would pounce on the opportunity to gain a fully stacked wallet. I liked my whiskey about as much as I liked my jackknife, which was appropriate, because you’d never see me with one and not the other.

I approached him leaving no room for hesitation in my actions. His face frozen, he seemed to mull the words over in his mind. The blade went in and I hear his gasp, as if his soul is escaping in that one, rushed, outward breath. His eyes are fixed on mine, and I can see his pupils dilate in the darkness, strangely, slowly, as his mouth opens and closes like a stunned fish out of water. I watch him as he drops to the ground, his movements sluggish, and his limbs gently folding in on one another as he loses strength. As he goes, the blade slips from him, and I let it dangle in my hand, now