The Hitwoman's Guide to Reducing Household Debt by Mark Mupotsa-Russell

Author:Mark Mupotsa-Russell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Affirm Press
Published: 2024-07-17T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter fifteen

Sitting two tables away from Derek ‘Rekt’ Higgins and his mother at lunch, I get a snapshot of his entire emotional development. It’s like looking at one of those Evolution of Man images, only instead of moving from crawling ape to walking human, Rekt starts as a baby, screaming for food, and finishes as a bronzed gym junkie, screaming Slut! at his girlfriends.

The pretty waitress brings Rekt’s burger. Mrs Higgins informs her, no, actually, he ordered the bun to come on the side. ‘Don’t be stupid, Mum,’ Rekt says, rolling his eyes for the waitress’s benefit before banishing the carbs to the edge of his plate. Mrs Higgins gives the young woman a cold, Are you happy now? smile.

The rest of the time, Rekt stays on his phone. Standard behaviour for a guy in his early twenties, sure, but Rekt has the added habit of reading texts and tweets aloud as he types. As if by only sharing his brilliance with the internet, he denies those in the immediate vicinity. ‘Go – fuck – yourself – with – your – herpes – you – twat.’ And: ‘Guess – no – one – thinks – cri-ti-call-y – anymore – deadshits.’ Or simply: ‘Pigfucker.’

It’s only when a tweet from a particularly ‘mouthy cunt’ causes Rekt to explode, smacking the table so hard the cutlery bounces, that his mother touches his arm. ‘Please, darling.’

‘Are you fucking serious?’ Rekt says.

Rekt’s father wouldn’t tolerate this kind of behaviour. Doug Higgins doesn’t tolerate much, though. Doug doesn’t so much lose his temper as let it out to breathe. Yesterday alone I watched him yell at his son, his wife, his dog and the man who mows his lawns.

Not everything makes him angry. Doug likes his house, the biggest in the street. He likes his golf, a nine handicap. And he likes flirting with the barely legal checkout chicks at the three IGAs he owns.

Oh, yes. Doug’s wealth comes from supermarkets just like the one Derek robbed. In a high school psychology elective, Rekt would be a gimme. The warm-up case study in which even the dull students could draw the link between patient history and disorder.

Every day, Rekt drives fifty minutes each way to a gym in the Hills for a three-hour session of power grunting and cardio. I sit in my car, eating savoury muffins crumb by crumb, until he staggers out, chugging his bottle of dusty, vomit-coloured creatine. He does look great with his shirt off. A fact you’d think Instagram and TikTok were invented to document. Rekt shirtless at the beach. At the gym. On his deck. Finishing Tough Mudder. Stretched out on his car bonnet. Asleep in the sun (though curiously no shadow of the photographer where one should be). His Facebook security settings only show a profile pic (shirtless at a festival) and the groups he follows. These fall under two banners: CrossFit and Conspiracy Theories.

God help anyone stuck next to Rekt at a party.

Scrolling through his Twitter, I see

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