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    Ti t le
    Introduction
    A Lifetime Burning in a Moment
    Contact Rick Mofina
    Other Short Stories
    About the Author
    Also by Rick Mofina
    Praise for Rick Mofina’s Books
     

A LIFETIME
BURNING
IN A MOMENT
    A Short Story
RICK MOFINA

Copyright © 2009 & 2012 by Rick Mofina
    This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the creation of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

A Lifetime Burning
    In A Moment
    Rick Mofina
    Kindle Edition
    Copyright © 2012 Rick Mofina
    Copyright © 20 09 Rick Mofina
    ISBN 978-1-927114- 30 - 8
    e- Formatting provided by Carrick P ublishing
    This e-book is intended for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be sold or given away to other people. If you’re reading this e-book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Amazon.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

INTRODUCTION
    The story, “A Lifetime Burning in a Moment,” was first featured in the anthology Dead in the Water , by Rendezvous Press and later appeared in The Penguin Book of Crime Stories, Volume II , edited and introduced by Peter Robinson. It is included in my e-anthology, Three to the Heart , my second small collection of short stories which is the follow up to my first anthology, Dangerous Women and Desperate Men .
    I regard the stories collected in Three to the Heart to be among the best of my short crime fiction.
    Rick Mofina
    Rmofina @ gmail.com

A LIFETIME BURNING IN A MOMENT
    by Rick Mofina

     
    knew the boys who lived in the clapboard houses by the railroad tracks not only liked beating him up, but needed to beat him up.
    He was the only part of their lives they could defeat because he didn’t dare hit them. Not like their fathers, who were always reeking of beer and cigarettes, or bruised mothers drowning in guilt.
    “We can do whatever we want to you.” The biggest boy with the broken tooth would punch Devlin’s face and stomach, always failing to make him cry. “Nobody’s ever going to stop us.”
    It was understandable then that years later colleagues at his firm would tell you that Dev, the quiet son of a widowed math teacher, listened more than he talked, as if conversation were a form of confrontation, something he had averted since the dark days of his boyhood by the railroad tracks.
    As an actuary, Devlin took comfort in the parameters, calculations and sums of an orderly world where everything added up. But whenever life required him to deal with mundane matters, he felt out of place. Like today, with Blake, his little boy, waiting with him in the checkout line at the auto parts store.
    The air smelled of rubber, echoed with compressors and the clank of steel tools dropped in the repair bays. This was a domain of greased-stained knuckles, rolled shirt sleeves and tattooed arms; of two-day growths, ballcaps and T-shirts emblazoned with skulls, flames and creeds on living, dying.
    Devlin had come to buy a pea-sized bulb for his Ford’s dome light.
    In line ahead of them a boy, a stranger slightly taller than Blake, turned and eyeballed Blake from head to toe. The boy’s face oozed contempt before he drove his fist into Blake’s shoulder. Blake tensed then retaliated with a punch just as the bigger boy’s father turned to see it. The man fired glances at Blake and Devlin then drew himself to his full height. He had a scar on his chin and a toothpick in the corner of his mouth.
    “What the hell’re you doin’?”
    Alarm rang in Devlin’s ears.
    “Nothing,” he said. “I mean, it was a mistake. Blake, apologize.”
    “But Dad?” Blake’s face reddened.
    “We’re sorry. Blake, say you’re sorry.”
    “But he started it.”
    “Did not!” the bigger boy said.
    “Liar!” Blake said.
    “All right. Okay,” Devlin