First Day On Parole

Sometimes a person can go too far, Mickey said, two stools over downing another beer, his first day on parole. Someone like that cops can find dead, he said, after newspapers start littering the lawn. A bullet in the temple that no one hears because of a silencer, he pointed out, is sometimes the culprit. Such a good person, the neighbors say about the deceased, and that may be true, Mickey admitted, but sometimes a person, even a nice person, can go too far, say the wrong thing to the wrong person at the wrong time and take a bullet in the temple, Mickey said, because it's hard to put a cobra under a bed. Donal Mahoney