Borderlands 5 by Unknown

James. “And finagling the price of the entire box down to five dollars. The Davis alone I sold for a hundred dollars,” he said proudly.
    “I couldn’t rip someone off like that,” James said. “It goes against everything I taught my students over the years.”
    “I didn’t put a gun to the dude’s head,” his friend had said, sounding irritated. Then he shook his head. “You’re missing my point, James. What I’m trying to say is I have something to do that’s satisfying. Each yard or estate sale is an adventure. And it’s lucrative. Forget about what I do. You must have some interests you’d like to explore. Why not start your own business? It beats sitting around the house waiting to die.”
    James had shrugged. His friend meant well. But James hadn’t left one job to start another. He certainly didn’t need the money. Once he’d become a teacher his life had revolved around the profession. He went to the track occasionally with a friend, but he had no great interest in horse racing. And he certainly had nothing in common with the regulars he spotted each time he visited the track. He sometimes wondered if some of them slept at the track. Not only were they always there, but they seemed to be wearing the same clothes.
    But his friend had said something that resonated with James, at least as a fantasy. I didn’t put a gun to the dude’s head . There had been times when James had thought that he wanted to put a gun to someone’s head. A negligent parent. A teacher who berated her kids. And most assuredly his principal. Yes, there were times when putting a gun to Scalia’s head, seeing him pee in his pants as he awaited his demise, made James smile contentedly as he sat as his desk. Maybe he would buy a gun and take some lessons at a shooting range. But why? He thought. He’d never do the deed so it would be a waste of time.
    One of his children proposed an athletic pursuit. Nothing too strenuous. Maybe tennis. James had been physically active through his forties. He’d played basketball twice a week. The contact, verbal jousting and arguments that almost led to fist fights had been a great outlet for his pent up frustrations. But his knees had begun giving him problems. He’d torn a ligament in his knee when he was forty-five and after a grueling rehab was advised to find a less arduous outlet.
    But what was there besides basketball? He detested golf. It was like a walk in the park, literally , made even worse by the fact some he knew were so lazy they drove golf carts. He’d tried swimming, but that, too, bored him. His knees wouldn’t allow jogging, even if he had the urge. Tennis meant having a partner so he tossed the idea aside.
    Even if he had found a suitable activity, his early months of retirement saw his body fail him for the first time. He felt like a car whose warranty had just expired. He began falling apart, or so it seemed. Odd, he thought. He’d missed no more than a dozen days in all his years of teaching. He’d taught when he had bronchitis. He hadn’t missed a day of work when he’d injured his knee. A few cases of the flu. Only in his final two years did he take “mental health” days off. Sometimes he just didn’t want to face the children. But he’d never been seriously ill.
    Suddenly he was beset with any number of ailments. A fall in the snow necessitated a hip replacement. He’d had a scare when he discovered blood in his stool. He feared the worst. He’d heard of colleagues who had retired with great plans only to drop dead or be felled by the “Big C” after six months. A battery of tests gave him a clean bill of health. “You have hemorrhoids,” his doctor told him. He hated to admit it but his sudden physical limitations had shaken him to the core. He was reminded of the commercial for some product that eluded him. An elderly woman is sprawled on the floor, conscious but unable to move. “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up,” she cried out. There had