This column is from the fall 2025 issue of VICE magazine, THE BE QUIET AND DRIVE ISSUE. Subscribe to get 4 print issues of the mag each year here. Read the previous instalment of Diary of a Hitman here.
Despite being good at my job, I’m plagued by a suspicion there’s something the matter with me.
It’s always been like this. Recently, the issue has been with my memory. I keep struggling to recall specific names for things. The other day I had to look up the word “armchair.” I am quite stressed in general, which could account for it, but I can’t help worrying it’s something more tangible. My mind feels full of treacle. As you might imagine this is not ideal for my profession. My world is shadows and lightning, not going “um” or forgetting why I’ve phoned the dentist. I’ve been exploring the possibility of a zinc deficiency. I would like the issue to lie with zinc and the lack of zinc, rather than simply being part of a general decline.
I’ve often wondered why there are so many adverts for vitamins on the tube. I’ve never seen an advert for, I don’t know, a car down there. Or a games console. Maybe because commuters tend to draw themselves inward, especially at rush hour, the thinking is to exploit this. Encourage people to cast a critical eye over their mechanisms as they sit guarding themselves. Make them consider if they need what David Gandy offers. Perhaps they too could be optimized. It could also be that there is no reason why. I say this to comfort myself because I don’t really know.
Over my life, I’ve bought vast quantities of different vitamins and supplements and tubs of strange powder from Holland & Barrett. I don’t believe I was ever inspired to do so by the adverts on the tube, but there’s every chance I was. True marketing is like a liquid sword, after all. It takes your head off and you don’t even realize it.
At the point of purchase I have a real zeal about it but I never manage to last very long on these holistic medicines once I’ve got them home. A week or two at most and then I give up and push the packet to the back of the cupboard along with all the activated charcoal and St John’s wort. It means nothing to me after that. I should throw it all away but the trouble is I don’t want to.
A few weeks ago I had an appointment in Sudbury. The target was a pub landlord. A massive bloke. I was worried in case my gun jammed, because he would have flattened me, but it didn’t. It never has. And that isn’t a boast, mind you, I just firmly believe that most failures like that are down to improper maintenance, cleaning and so on. Gun jams are overrepresented in cinema. I suppose you can understand why, from a dramatic point of view. But I digress.
My instructions were to intercept the landlord after he’d locked up for the night, and, for an extra fee, to say, “This is from Fran” before I, you know, killed him. And it all went according to plan apart from that at the last minute I couldn’t remember what the name was and said, “This is from Amy” by accident. On the way home, I turned over whether I should confess this slip-up, before deciding no, of course I shouldn’t. If anything it might have been a kindness that his last couple of seconds on Earth were spent thinking, ‘Who’s Amy?’ rather than just in abject terror. Unless he knew someone called Amy, of course. Someone who he never thought had a bad word to say about him.
It doesn’t really matter at the end of the day, because he won’t remember. He won’t even remember being a massive bloke.
“Gun jams are overrepresented in cinema”
I’ve been having dreams about Sudbury. And I can’t get the name right in the dreams, same as I didn’t in real life. In some they’re not even names! “This is from Richard.” “This is from Laurel.” “This is from concrete.”
Not that I get much sleep. I’ve heard quality of sleep can have a real impact on your overall cognition. And mine is of a very low quality, let me tell you. A pale imitation of the real thing. But as a paid assassin I think having a hard time sleeping is basically a professional courtesy. What sort of person would I be if I could just shut my eyes and drift off? It doesn’t bear thinking about.
Maybe tomorrow I will go and get myself some zinc. Might as well. It’s got to be worth a try. They don’t sell it for nothing, surely they don’t. They couldn’t. Yes, that’s what I’ll do. Procure some zinc. I’m reassured to have made the decision. In fact, I can see myself now, standing in the aisle, holding the little pill bottle. The very thing I’ve been searching for all this time. Me and zinc, we’re going to make quite a team out there. Out there on the battlefields of life. I always knew there was something missing. And I’m amazed I was able to find it, and within walking distance of my flat. This is it now. This is the scene where it all changes for me. This is the beginning of something incredible.
This column is from the fall 2025 issue of VICE magazine, THE BE QUIET AND DRIVE ISSUE. Subscribe to get 4 print issues of the mag each year here. Read the previous instalment of Diary of a Hitman here.
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