Letter: C
CD Number: 18
Track Number: 4
Song: “If I Could Give All My Love to You—or—Richard Manuel is Dead” by Counting Crows from Hard Candy
(Picture taken from http://www.taryncoxthewife.com/?p=982)
The door jumped open, ignoring the wall bumper. The knob left a divot in the wall, the raised lock sinking deeply into the plaster.
The man, Gerald I would later learn, strode in rolled up newspaper in hand. He hadn’t shaved. Maybe just for a day, but it looked like a month. His eyes bulged slightly, helpfully taking focus from the heavy bags beneath. He wore a suit that was nearly fit, but did not. It hung on his shoulders like a shirt on a hanger when you are too rushed to ensure its shoulders are equally supported. He projected a conflicting aura of crippling fear and boundless rage.
“Did you see this?” he shouted at Brad, my oldest friend, throwing the newspaper on the table.
Brad laconically picked it up and read it. He shrugged back at Gerald projecting an indifference it had taken years to cultivate before gesturing to the TV behind him, “Nah, don’t bother with the paper anymore. They want to be like TV and TV already beat them to it. But yeah, it’s been all over the shows this morning.
“So what do we do?!” Brad’s aura of non-concern seemed to only ratchet up Gerald’s near panic further.
“Nothing yet, far as I know.”
“Nothing?!” Gerald practically barked, his neck craning in a gesture I could only assume was meant to convey disbelief. “You think we should do nothing?!”
Brad stood up and stretched, barely acknowledging Gerald’s question for what felt like 25 minutes. Finally, he shrugged his shrugged and said, “I don’t think. I’ve just been told. We do nothing.”
“This is such bullshit. Absolute bullshit. Richard’s been running interference for us for weeks. He planned the damn job. He dies. And now we do nothing. Nothing?! What the hell is that? Who’s bright idea was it?! How can you agree to it? And who the fuck is that?” he completed his rant by wheeling on his heels and pointing at me.
“Oh, that’s Nick. He’s cool.”
“And what does that mean. ‘He’s cool’?”
Actually, it struck me as a pretty fair question. If I was Gerald, I might too wonder about the person I had never seen before sitting and listening to a discussion of what sounded quite a bit like criminal conspiracy.
“We grew up together,” Brad explained, crouching down to tie his shoes. He offered no further explanation.
Gerald studied me for a few moments, literally looking me up and down as though my current outfit would clarify my character. I attempted to adopt Brad’s “eh, whatever” presentation and when that failed I went with, “wow, this subscription card to a Time Magazine sure is the most fascinating thing I’ve ever seen.” I doubt this proved entirely successful either, but at least it freed me from having to make eye contact with the sweating, pacing, unshaven mess in the foyer.
“Fine, fine,” Gerald announced, apparently satisfied with his visual deciphering of me, “Maybe I should call my childhood friend, too.”
“That might be fun,” Brad offered, noncommittally, “like a reunion.”
Gerald, deflated now, slumped on the couch. He put his head in his hands and rocked a little. The blowhard that had blown through the door moments before shrank before my eyes. He sat up for a moment, looking as though he might rally. It was not to be, however, and his head flopped back over the top of the couch. He closed his eyes and massaged his temples.
“Just wish I could ring up Gloria,” he mumbled to no one in particular, “She’s my tonic, you know, she makes things hurt less. But she’s out the country and I’m stuck in this place with surfer philosophizer and his sidekick Glasses McTuck-In.”
I assumed I was Glass McTuck-In given that I wore glasses and had a dress shirt tucked into my khakis. The accuracy of the nickname did not make it feel any less hurtful, I am sorry to report. I might have spoken up in my defense, but that’s never really been my thing. I prefer the stay quiet and hope people confuse that with stoicism way of life.
“So, seriously,” Gerald started again, “This Richard thing. This is bad news, right? It’s no accident that—”
Gerald never finished his thought. Brad, the man I had grown up with, the man who had been my best man at my first and second weddings (second still going strong by the way), the man who once cried like a baby in front of me after we watched Field of Dreams…that Brad became someone I’d never met before. With a frightening fluidity, he banged up a false panel on the small end table his mail had precariously been piled on. As the cascade of coupons, credit card offers, and charity “opportunities” cascade down, so too did a handgun. I know nothing of guns, but it looked impressive for certain.
Gun caught, he spun while standing up and wrenched a clip out that had been taped underneath the island. I had eaten breakfast at that very island earlier that day and somehow my bowl of Cap’n Crunch had apparently kept me so distracted, I completely overlooked the group of bullets so close by.
Brad completed his rotation and slammed the clip into the firearm with a metallic clunk.
“Sorry,” he whispered, and pulled the trigger twice, ending Gerald’s life with two well placed bullets to the head.
I screeched. I’m not proud of that, but it is what happened. Brad was a classy enough friend to say nothing of it.
Instead he commanded, “Let’s go.”
“Did you just—I mean—what on earth is going on?” I stuttered out.
“Yes, I killed him. I also killed that Richard guy. Would’ve preferred not to kill Gerald, but he’d have figured out what I did soon enough and that was a risk I was not up for taking. We have to leave now so we don’t get dead like Gerald and Richard.”
“You…kill people?” I asked, voice skeptical. Evidently, the murder that I just witnessed was not enough evidence of this.
“Sometimes,” he admitted in the same way one might own up to enjoying a country music radio station or an episode of Jersey Shore.
Actually, no, that’s not accurate. He said it with less shame than people in those other situations display.
He continued, waving his hand in the area as though it was erasing the ugliness I had just seen, “It’s not, like my favorite thing, but it comes up occasionally.”
“And now I should go with you?”
“Yeah, man, definitely. I can’t leave you here, might get you in trouble. Besides, we still haven’t gotten to In ‘n Out Burger. I figured we should get some lunch.”
“But…” I trailed off.
“I get it, Nick,” he empathized, “Seeing a man get shot…that’s no fun. But we’ll get a burger and some fries in you, driver somewhere far away and fun, pick up my other IDs…you’ll be right as rain.”
He tossed me a duffel bag filled with my clothes, toiletries, and a copy of the newest volume of Best American Short Stories and headed out the door. I followed moments later. I can’t say much in my defense to justify that. Following a murder away from the scene of a crime is not the most morally sound choice one could make.
On the other, it had been several hours since I’d last eaten. A burger did sound really good.
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