the terminal list
a novel
by
Curtis Jackson
SMASHWORDS EDITION
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PUBLISHED BY:
Curtis Jackson on Smashwords
The Terminal List
Copyright © 2009 by Curtis Jackson
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
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THE TERMINAL LIST
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Forward
When it comes right down to it, it is really a simple question, who would you kill? Who, and how many?
You have just left the doctor’s office, and you have been given the gift of terminal cancer, the gift of time, time to die. You are not one of the unfortunate ones, the ones who die instantaneously, who never see it coming and have no time to plan; not one of the poor souls who by definition die with regrets, words unspoken, emotions unexpressed and dreams unfulfilled.
You are among the lucky. Death will become whatever you choose to make of it; either fight the good fight or crawl into bed and fade away. The choice is yours.
Among life’s uncertainties, there is one certainty. All who have lived have been wronged. Each individual has been attacked, offended, and left to rot in the defeat of an interaction spawned by those less caring or less scrupulous.
Revenge is always an option, it is a sweet friend, but revenge has consequences. Society dictates what you can and cannot do. But society cannot dictate to the dying, at least not effectively. The basic theory of law is that you can do whatever you want as long as you are willing to accept the consequences.
But what if there were no consequences? People are only civilized though fear of retribution. Without fear, there are no rules, without retribution, revenge is real. Limitations are subject only to the conscience of a killer.
Society establishes the rules of life for all the living. But what happens when you are dying, and your lifespan is measured in days, not years? What controls are left? Society cannot kill the dying, cannot even hasten the event, our legal systems are too slow. In the worst case, you might be imprisoned, but only for a month or two and then you die. From civilization, to cell, to casket, does it really matter?
When society no longer places restrictions, who would you kill? Who has offended your very being to the point that you wanted them dead? Would there be one, or a dozen? Cliff Masterson selected five, targeted five and executed five, with a few more if you counted collateral damage, but Cliff would not be counting.
When the controls of society can no longer restrict, what it left: Fear of God? Perhaps, but what if you do not believe in God, you cannot grasp the concept of heaven and hell? Who would you kill? Who and how many? If there is no God, than there is no punishment in this life and there is no afterlife. You are now free to take from your enemies the opportunity to obtain their final gift, the gift of terminal illness, the gift of time. Those you kill will die instantly, with regrets unfelt, with words unspoken, emotions unexpressed, and dreams unfulfilled. Who would you kill? Cliff Masterson would kill five.
And how would you go about it? Cliff Masterson would create The Terminal List--the list of people that he personally diagnosed as being terminal the same day he was: This list of people that he would kill before dying; this list of people whose death would improve the essence of society. Cliff Masterson would kill five.
Cliff Masterson may have been the first to understand it, but he would not be the last. A diagnosis of death is not a sentence; it is a beautiful path to freedom. It is a last chance for the living to do anything they desire, a chance to settle old scores, to right old wrongs and correct any injustices.
The day Cliff Masterson received his gift of cancer, his gift of time, was the most invigorating and exciting day of his life. Whatever time he had left was his. There would be no loose ends left in his life, he would come full circle, leaving life as he found it, with no enemies and no regrets.
When you come down to it, it is really a simple question, who would you kill? Who, and how many?
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Chapter One: “The Final Target”
When it finally came to him the decision was simple. The last death would be random, a convergence of time and circumstance. The last killing, the fifth killing, would be someone that Cliff had not yet met, a result of an occurrence that had not yet happened. At its core, The Terminal List was all about revenge, about setting wrongs right and about forcing people to understand the potential ramifications of their actions, their rudeness their arrogance and their lack of concern for their fellow man. Cliff was sick and tired of a world of selfishness. He was tired of people’s lack of concern with anyone they did not see in the mirror. Cliff could not change the world, he was not trying. He could alter the path of a few lives, in fact he could and he would end some lives, which on some small scale would make this world a better place. Some people had hurt others enough. There was time to stop some future wrong, perhaps just enough time.
Cliff had spent weeks passing judgment on dozens of people who had wronged him over the years. Most had lived, four had died, and none was ever told that they were on trial. Some would say it was trial of a madman, but Cliff would disagree. Cliff was a complex man, a dispassionate man; but not a madman. A madman would kill for pleasure, without restrictions or limitations. A madman would kill indiscriminately, without a trial, even if the trial was of the homemade variety. Cliff had spent weeks finalizing The Terminal List. Judge, jury, and executer, he was one in the same.
Cliff killed only under the terms and conditions allowed by The Terminal List. Over the years, The Terminal List had become one of Cliff’s best friends. It was a security blanket that provided his checks and balances for living. Cliff knew that he would die someday, it was preordained like taxes. The final Terminal List was the “Bronzed List” of the five people who would accompany him on his final death journey. It contained the five people who had most wronged him or wronged society. It was the five people he deemed without conscience who would repeat grievances as long as it was convenient or as long they could get away with it. The purpose of The Terminal List was not to change society; society would not change. The Terminal List was a vehicle to stop the offenders in Cliff’s life.
Cliff had often mused about the hidden potential power of The Terminal List. Two and a half million people died in the United States each year with the vast majority having some form of advanced warning: diseases of death or simple old age. Each one has a choice, either die with a whimper or die having exacted terminal revenge on an enemy. Being diagnosed as terminal is akin to a “get out of jail free” card, a formal reprieve from society’s boundaries, and an amnesty from society’s ability to punish. Once one is diagnosed as terminal, laws no longer really apply Nothing changes one’s destiny. Nothing alters one’s death sentence. Should terminal patients choose the path of life’s revenge, and the evening up of old scores, it goes to figure that the world would become a better place. Those killed would be the ones who hurt others, whose offenses were bronzed on somebody’s Terminal List, a formal proclamation that these offenders were of more value dead than alive. Those remaining would be the nice people, the ones who respected the lives, dreams, and boundaries of their fellow man. The world would be a nicer, gentler place.
The Terminal List was unique to Cliff, it went no further. The Terminal List had already directly resulted in four people dead, but there was still one to go. Indirectly, The Terminal List had caused the death of a few others, but not as a direct result of Cliff’s hand. It was collateral damage in military speak, but these casualties were not part of The Terminal List. They were never a part of The Terminal List. Cliff might be a psychopath, but he was a sane one.
One death to go, this was Cliff’s final mission. Number five had to count; there would be no number six. Cliff had no regrets about the first four. They had been given a fair trial, even if it was only in his mind and he was comfortable with the decisions. Four people were dead, be it revenge or murder, it was all in the eye of the beholder, and it was in the past. Number five would be different. Number five would die for an act that had not yet been committed, or an act not discovered. It might be for a personal affront against Cliff or he could choose to respond to a grievance against society. There were no rules, only limits and the limit was five. There would be no retribution, and there would be no punishment for completing the list. Cliff’s final execution could result from any action. That was a thought that excited Cliff. The Terminal List had previously been a rather static list of people whose death had been sealed through Cliff’s illness. It had come down to the simple questions of how, when and where. But Number five turned the list to a dynamic process, it was now a hunt. A new Terminal List must be analyzed and completed for the last kill, the criteria established, the merits evaluated and the time and place calculated. Start to finish, the process must be completed inside of two months, because in two months Cliff would be dead.
Cliff had invented a free pass to kill the most deserving person he could find. This was a responsibility not to be taken lightly; it was a responsibility not to squander. Cliff had about two months to find his last victim. By then his cancer would run its course and he would join those he had taken. He had killed four people already, four people who deserved to die. Four people whose false sense of self-entitlement got them killed, and there would be a fifth.
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Chapter Two: “The Death Sentence”
Cliff was a dead man. His stomach felt like he had been kicked or perhaps it was his groin. He lost his breath. Not only did he have cancer but it was terminal. Three months, maybe six months to live at the outside. It was a lot to digest and a lot to think about.
Cliff could not say he was surprised. Fifty years old and he had lived life the hard way. Too many bars and airplane rides where free drinks obscured the blur of the states below. There were too many bad meals eaten in broken down places. Places he could not remember and where he had never wanted to be. The duties of a career are now the carnage of a career. Cliff knew he made choices, bad choices for years and now the end is right there on the MRI screen. The mass that started in his prostate, had spread to his stomach and now embraced a biology book full of other organs. Cliff did not know what half these organs and functions were, but he did know that when they were broken, life did not work, and clearly his were broken.
Dr. Mason was the cancer specialist. Cliff had been having symptoms for months. At first he was just peeing a little more often. Getting up in the middle of the night--once, twice, and lately lots. He saw all the ads on TV, men fishing and men on bikes stopping and peeing. Cliff was not alone, it happened to everyone, but now Cliff was a dead man.
Shit! This is Stanford Hospital where all the experts are. Dr. Mason is an expert in all the things killing Cliff. The verdict was terminal and there was nothing really to do now but to learn how to die. Cliff still felt dizzy and nauseous. It was a direct hit to the balls. Sure, he will put up the good fight, accept the treatment, take the drugs and endure the sickness, and hope he’d said something magical in church just once in the past. Something uttered, heard and appreciated by a Higher Power, but being honest he could not imagine what that would have been. There would be no divine intervention here, just sickness and death.
What day is it? Wednesday, March 14th. Cliff would be dead by the next World Series. Hell, his Giants would not be there anyway. Cliff had never seen them win the series and secretly doubted that his kids would either. What difference did it make? Unbelievably his sixteen year old son, Rusty, was a Dodger fan. How does that happen in the bay area? Was it bad fathering or not being home enough? How did he raise a Dodger fan?
Cliff had now seen his last Super Bowl. It had been one for the ages, a team of destiny beaten by the underdog. Nobody believed it and now Cliff was an underdog. No, Cliff was a dead man; his epitaph was clearly visible in Dr. Mason’s eyes. Cliff had lived a career reading people’s eyes. Ever since he was a kid he could sell the stuff of dreams. He had started his career by selling photocopiers door to door. They called it cold calling at the time, a lifestyle now replaced by the Internet. It had been a bold profession, walking in on a business unannounced and trying to sweet talk the lady on the phones to provide the hidden information, Who? What? When? Where? Why? How do I sell somebody something they do not want to buy? Cliff had learned how to sell by learning how to read the eyes.
There were no more Super Bowls in his diagnosis. Did he really care? The Raiders would probably relocate two or three more times before they got back to the playoffs. He still could not believe it, once dominate in his youth, the Raiders were now the worst team in professional sports. A huge fall from their once proud tradition of conquering all there was to conquer within a hundred yards of green. Now they were shit. The best Cliff could hope for was that their ownership died before him. At least then there would be hope. Maybe now Cliff shared the Raider’s destiny: once proud and successful but now marching toward an endless grave.
Speaking of hope, what should he tell his wife? They were married twenty five years. She had loved him, tolerated him and supported him, but maybe she never really liked him. They had been sweethearts since college, graduate school, and a life in the valley where technology gushes like oil. Technology brings out the greed, it makes the smart ones rich and the rich ones lucky and the lucky ones in the right place at the right time. Once there was an internet rainbow. An idea on a PowerPoint was worth millions, to be bought, sold and stolen. Everyone was invincible, unearned wealth was everyone’s destiny, and then in one minute during one day it was over. Somebody remembered that businesses were supposed to sell real products and make real profits, and the internet bust came crashing down.
All that happened a lifetime ago. A lifetime ago sounds so dramatic, but now Cliff was a dead man so the analogy was earned, Cliff had seen it in the Dr. Mason’s eyes. The eyes are always a window to the mind, the eyes don’t lie. What should Cliff tell his wife Mary and the kids? How important it is to move on, to cherish the memories of the past and live the dreams of the future, with no regrets and no sorrow. Cliff always loved his family, his wife and two kids in high school, the oldest one now driving, or pretending too. Putting one’s first child behind the wheel is not for the faint-of-heart. Cliff had never been so scared in his life. Driving was so easy back in 1974 when he turned sixteen. The toys of choice were muscle cars with nothing but speed. Nobody ever died, nobody ever knew how. Kids just drank and kids just drove, life was a party on fast wheels. Now his oldest, Rusty was driving in the traffic and congestion of the technology valley, where people drove like idiots, including Rusty. Cliff prayed every day that Rusty’s arrogance and cockiness would take a backseat to a long life. But Cliff does not pray. He really was not raised that way.
How Cliff loved those kids: Two great kids with great grades and great futures. He never could figure out what he did right in fatherhood but those kids are more perfect than he ever hoped for, more perfect than he deserved. There were no drugs, they were hard workers who cared about who they were to become. Now Cliff would never see their destination, but he felt a warm and contented comfort in their path. He would like to thank God for their beauty, thank God if only he could, thank God if he only believed.
Cliff did not tell his family about the appointment with Dr. Mason. He did not want to worry them as unfounded hope has a way of rationalizing any thought process. Dying now goes against the grain of conventional wisdom. It is common knowledge, people are born and built for eighty years; Cliff had thirty to go before his last conquests were summarized on the obituary page. He really had no friends, at least no friends that he wanted to call friend. Sure, there were lots of colleagues and people who shared common memories of times and places. Cliff always thought it was odd that a man who made a living through the seduction of salesmanship, just wanted to be left alone on the weekends. Many evenings were wasted on airplane flights, wine to celebrating the fleeting victories and whiskey to drown the defeats of the day, and a nightcap to prepare to fight the good fight the next day. The reflection of each passing year was a blur of products and prospects and problems and solutions, until it became the summation of a lifetime in the rearview mirror.
Dr. Mason did not say so, but he did not have to. Cliff had always been a drinker, more beer than hard liquor or wine, but the experts fail to recognize the difference. Was he an alcoholic? He probably was, in somebody’s definition. A functioning Alcoholic perhaps, Cliff never drank during the day, never missed a day of work, never passed out. Each day ended with a relaxing beer or three, or more after a hard day’s work, in an airport, on an airplane, at a restaurant, or in a hotel. Life is a blur and nothing blurs life like a bottle. His grandfather was three hundred pounds, had lived eighty years drinking whiskey and smoking three packs a day, and then died of a broken heart when Cliff’s grandmother died. Cliff was not overweight and did not smoke, he figured eighty years was his destiny, but clearly he did not have his grandfather’s constitution.
Today was not Cliff’s day to die. He had not prepared his family. Cliff had woken up to just another day, taken the kids to school, finished phone calls and emails, and then driven off to Stanford expecting to hear the Dr. say everything is okay. He would need to live healthier but Cliff knew that but thirty years is still a lot of future. Those thirty years disappeared in a single sentence, in a string of stinging words from Dr. Mason.
What had it been? Ten minutes, Maybe fifteen, Since the death sentence. Cliff’s mind was still racing as he emerged into the bright California sun. It was a beautiful day, it should have just been a bad dream, but Cliff knew that he had heard what he heard and there was no changing his new destiny through denial. He had some real problems that were there to stay, at least for a few quick weeks. Fifty years of life’s experience does not prepare one for telling loved ones that your future is your past. When and how do you break the news? Should he tell them the truth or should he leave hope? Cliff first decided to tell Mary and then the kid’s one at a time. Tell Mary what and how. Spin a story for the boy’s that makes everything okay. Cliff could always spin and find the bright end to any problem. This was just another problem, bigger than most, but Mary and the boys still had their lives ahead of them. Just stay on the right track and learn from Cliff’s mistakes, just be all that they can be. The spin is there, now it was just a question of putting it into words that work.
Cliff thought about his funeral, it would be simple with family only. Family was all he had, but family was all he cared about. Others might show up because they feel obligated, no real sorrow but a chance to take stock in their own lives. “Simple Man” by Lynyrd Skynyrd would be the only funeral song, a message for Cliff’s sons to live life happier, to enjoy life’s little pleasures, and to stop and smell the roses. These were lessons Cliff had always spoken of, always dreamed about but never really learned or understood. There was always another dream to chase, another dollar to capture, a life’s work to justify through a commission check.
Sometime’s life moves slowly when life moves fast. They say that the fastest car accident happens in slow motion. Cliff had not yet reached his car in the hospital parking lot and yet he and already relived a lifetime in reflection. He did not know if he had accepted his fate yet, but he did know that his fate had accepted him.
As Cliff drove away from the hospital he remembered the eyes, the eyes do not lie. He had made another appointment with Dr. Mason. The start of the obligatory fight for life Chemo would start on Monday, chemo and radiation. Cliff would have a few days to internalize the gravity of his situation, a few days to start getting eternal affairs in order and then the fight for life or death would begin. There was no real hope for success but one must do what is expected. Cliff knew he was still a role model to the kids he cherishes and the wife he loves. He’d ever give up and he’d never say die. Cliff thought of the irony as he already knew the outcome of the fight, only the day and hour of surrender is in question.
Cliff smiled at the thought of losing his hair. That’s what happens isn’t it? The doctors would poison him and he would go bald. He lost some of his hairline in college; he had thought he would be bald by twenty-one and then for whatever reason it stayed. Fifty years now and it was still dark black. No chemicals, no formulas, just a single lucky string of genetic DNA. His father was bald, Cliff always thought that baldness was his destiny and now in the changes of a single day it was. He was destined to be bald as a baby’s behind. Funny what one thinks about when the death sentence is pronounced?
Without noticing, Cliff merged on the freeway toward home, to Saratoga, California, a small haven at the edge of the valley, just away from the madness of ambition. Cliff thought about his destination, the place where he raised his family and the place where he called home. It saddened him to know that his kids could never afford to raise their families there, the valley brought people willing to pay ridiculous housing prices to live next to people like themselves. Three bedroom tear downs started at one and one-half million dollars. No kid can afford that. Some may try but none can afford. Towns like Saratoga were breeding grounds for sub-prime and interest only loans, impossible balloon payments and other creative ways to fake living the American dream. Every day more young lovers mortgaged their future to rent a zip code and a school district. Young professionals move in, men and woman toiling under the pressures of the fastest industry in history, where markets are born, bred and reach obsolescence in just a few years. The stress of the valley takes its toll, leaving few unscathed. Daily commutes felt close to impossible commutes. People were living life paycheck to paycheck, always hoping to stay one step ahead of the ever present layoffs which have become the hallmark of a non-caring industry. Outsourcing jobs under the guise of creating a global economy was simply a new way to increase profit possibilities at the direct expense of friends, neighbors and colleagues. Cliff knew this for a fact, he had been in the executive staff meetings and board rooms as the decisions that set good people backwards and ruined lives were made before the mornings coffee got cold.
Those destroyed were good people, honest, loyal and hard working folks trying to scratch out a living for their families in a business that did not care. Being a sales executive, Cliff knew that yesterday never mattered. Planning for tomorrow at the expense of today’s profits and bigger bonuses for those that already have, was a thought left behind in the business textbooks. Too many times, Cliff had participated in the stripping down of people’s dreams, in the layoffs and terminations due to bad planning and worse execution. He’d seen the debts of failure paid for by the rank and file, not by the leaders who keep profiting from the same mistakes and a convenient lack of community conscience.
These reflections on the valley and the misery it rained down on so many were a nice break from internalizing his own date with death. Now stuck in traffic five miles from home, Cliff knew the next hour would be brake lights and anger management. It was start, stop and repeat. Cliff envied those people who had the “green” cars. Some people commuted with neighbors, opening access to the commuter lane, which cut the trip home to a fraction of those more isolated by either where they lived or where they worked. For Cliff it never really mattered, he could never be a commuter, a case of the wrong temperament. He was not sure whether he valued his privacy that much or he really did not like anybody enough to spend every day either gossiping or inventing small talk. He thought the smart ones where the folks that bought hybrids. Clearly the planet is melting and all grandchildren or great grandchildren will be in boats, but that is a problem for others and another day. The hybrid lets people drive in the commute lane without the inconvenience of pretending that they like their ride buddy. A perfect solution, at least for a little while until the commuter lane gets clogged with cheap “green” cars. He watched one after another go by, interrupted only by mothers driving their children home from day-care. A frustrating loophole in the law, carpool lane companions do not have to be licensed drivers to qualify, simply breathing. People have tried to qualify with dead bodies in the car, but the judges didn’t buy it. Brand new babies qualify so the diamond lane is full of mothers with a sense of entitlement.
Cliff inched toward home with all the burdens in the world on his back, or perhaps all the burdens lifted; he really was not sure. What was clear was that it was one hell of a day, he’d been pronounced dead in advance, and he still had a family to tell. As he got closer to home, all the emotions of a lifetime of frustrations and of dreams unfulfilled begin to bubble to the surface. His reflection on life, on all the sins of the valley, and the incompetence’s and indiscretions of those people charged with proper steerage of so many brought up, in Cliff, that familiar feeling of anger and bitterness. For the first time as a dead man he thought about The Terminal List.
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Chapter Three: “The Terminal List”
Cliff did not remember exactly when he created The Terminal List; only that it had been decades ago. Perhaps it started out as a joke, but he had always felt a strong attachment to it. One thing was certain, it grew out of a hidden anger, an anger he never really understood, an anger born out of years of unresolved frustration.
The Terminal List was the death scroll of companions, the list of those he would kill, those whom he would take with him should he ever be diagnosed as a man about to die. For whatever reason, perhaps a thread of conscience or some disguised mercy; he had always limited The Terminal List to five: Five people, male or female, who he would kill prior to his own demise. Somehow in his Terminal List fantasies, six deaths were too many and four, somehow, not enough. Cliff was not a bad man. Clearly, it would take a bad man to kill six people, so six was not an option. Cliff had met a lot of people, people who were stupid, insensitive, or simply at odds with his immediate goals and desires. So many people, idiots and assholes, that four was not enough. Five was the number, the number for appropriate revenge, but not the number of a serial killer. Hitler had killed millions, Manson close to a dozen. They were bad men and mad men. Cliff was neither. He was a sick man, a dying man harboring fantasies of The Terminal List for too many years to dismiss. He halfheartedly tried to get the thought out of his mind, but sitting in the daily traffic he started to mentally update the list. The list was his personal legacy, a legacy he that refused to let go.
It was a strange moment, one fifty years in the making. He had just been diagnosed as a dead man, less than an hour ago. He waited for the wall of depression and despair to envelope him. He knew he should be crying, regretting all the things he would never do and all the sights he would never see. Despite his efforts to behave as society would have expected a different emotion was taking control.