Chapter 6
As they rode along through city thoroughfares, Sledge asked, "You got any final arrangements you need to make?"
"You're really going to kill me, you useless garbage?"
"You're a waste of human life."
Fenrick studied Sledge for a moment. He wasn't in a mad killer rage. He was stone cold serious, a jury and judge weighing execution. The idiot planned to carry it out. "I inherited a lot of money from my father. If I die, my ex-wife automatically gets it."
"I didn't know you had an ex."
"We separated years ago," Fenrick said callously.
"What happened?"
"We had a disagreement... about everything. It wasn't a marriage, it was one endless war."
"Then there's someone else we got to go see. You got to apologize to her for being an ass."
Aha, an escape might be possible! Fenrick's brain went into scheming overdrive. "I can't go there empty handed. We should, uh... take her Christmas dinner."
"You giving her your money! That's all you good for! Minus whatever your stock lost. How much you lose, anyway?"
"Uh, well, nothing really. I might make money on it."
"But you firing my ass?"
"I just needed a handy excuse."
"You're an exceptional piece of work. The devil must have had a special cloth he make you from."
Back to that. "Christmas dinner for my Ex is next on the agenda," Fenrick reminded him.
Sledge groaned. "Getting you dead ain't as easy as it ought to be. You're a complicated man for such a complete greedy ass."
QQQQQ
Sledge pulled the car into a grocery store lot. It was a small neighborhood store with few cars in the parking lot. "You try to escape or tell anyone, I gonna' take you back to the meat department. Got that?" Fenrick nodded.
Sledge put Fenrick into a cart, then covered him up with his coat, with his head and elf hat sticking out above the coat. Then he wheeled him into the store like some sort of evil gremlin in a grocery basket. Fenrick directed, as they went down the aisles picking out groceries. People stared at them.
One woman paused to look and saw the rope. She rushed off to call the police.
"Hey, don't do that," Sledge called after her. "He's my brother and he escapes from jail every year to have Christmas dinner." The woman turned and looked at Sledge, then at Fenrick, completely taken aback.
"He's adopted," Sledge continued, "I take him back to jail after dinner." She looked very skeptical.
"If you call the police, next year can I come visit you?" Fenrick said.
Still skeptical, but understanding the threat, she said, "Well, it's Christmas," and turned away.
QQQQQ
They arrived with sacks of food at Fenrick's ex's house.
"Look, you can't take me to the door all tied up. If you untie me, I promise I won't try to get away."
Sledge thought about it for a minute and finally decided to untie him. "I don't think you would want your wife to see me kill you."
Sledge picked up a sack in one arm, and then he and Fenrick went to the door, then knocked. Pam opened the door, looked at Sledge with a puzzled expression, then saw a man in a green elf suit. She gasped and stepped back, then tried to close the door. Sledge blocked it with his foot.
"We brought you some good stuff. Is this man, Fenrick, your husband?" Pam nodded. She was speechless.
"Hi," Fenrick said, smiled, and waved at her.
"He insisted on bringing you Christmas dinner. Is that OK with you?"
"No," Pam said firmly. "I don't want him here." She looked at the two of them again, especially Fenrick. "Leave or I'm calling the police."
A little girl peeked from the back of the room. Fenrick saw her.
"We'll just be a second. I'm on a mission here. If anything happens to me, I want you to know that I inherited money, and it will go to you."
The little girl wandered up to get a better look. Pam moved in front of her, trying to block her view. "This is sick. Get out," she bitterly spat at them.
"How old are you?" Fenrick asked the little girl.
"Six. Now go," Pam ordered.
"Please take the groceries," Fenrick pleaded. "I think you like pecan pie. There’s a pecan pie in here. And there is a chocolate pie for… what’s her name?"
Pam grabbed the sack. "Sara. You're not staying for dinner. Leave." She quickly closed the door.
As they walked back to the car, Sledge said, "See, being nice to other people is painless."
"Yeah, if you have nothing left to lose."
"You really are a hard headed ass, aren't you. Not a drop of humanity in you."
They began to drive. Fenrick said, "Sara has her mother's eyes. They melt you from the inside out." They drove a minute longer, then Fenrick said, "Six years old. That has to mean she's my daughter." He spotted the Santa letter on the seat. He opened it and began to read:
Dear Santa,
I'm six. I really, really, really want my Daddy to be happy and get a good job. He's really a good Daddy. I don't really need any more dolls. So please, just give my Daddy some happiness.
Your friend,
Whitley
Fenrick stared at the letter for a long time, trying to make sense of it.
"She didn't ask for anything for herself. She only asked for something for her dad, who really didn't deserve anything in my book."
Sledge said nothing.
"Maybe little girls, like cats and dogs, don't understand that kind of thing."
Sledge just looked at him.
"But what was she going to get out of this? Was it some kind of selfish wish? Make my Dad happy and he will buy me things?"
Sledge shook his head, no.
'That doesn't make sense. She could have just asked Santa for...."
Fenrick had a good think. He could not wrap his head around this mystery. Children were little greedy guts, who only thought about themselves. Their parents gave them everything. But the girl asked for nothing for herself. There was only one inescapable conclusion. "She doesn't want anything for herself. Her dad is the most important thing in her life."
"Duh."
"I have to get a present for my daughter."
"Don't you think it's kinda' late to be important in that girl's life?"
Dejectedly he replied, "Yeah. I guess so."
"She got to you, didn't she?"
Fenrick felt an ache inside. He couldn't ignore that it was there, but he couldn't identify it. "I don't know. Little kids give me strange feelings. I don't like it. But I feel compelled to do something for them."
"One tiny spark of humanity."
They drove on. Fenrick thought about the balance sheet of his life he and Sledge had talked about earlier. The only thing on the good side was money. If money was even good.
Fenrick came to another inescapable conclusion. "I cashed in on everyone’s life, and kept it all for myself." He turned to Sledge. "I really am scum and I should be thrown in the river. If I were the judge and jury at my trial, I would just convict me of being so much human garbage."
Sledge put his arm around Fenrick. "You know throwin' you in the river is littering, right?" Sledge chuckled. "I could get fined for that."
Fenrick laughed. "And it might poison the fish. We're both crap, and we really should exit this world before we do any more damage."
"We gonna' write suicide notes?"
"Does anyone really care?"
"I guess the law will wanna' know. Otherwise they might think somebody killed us, like Jessica."
They spotted a lounge just ahead, and parked a few spaces down the block just after an alley. As they walked past the alley, Sledge noticed someone down the alley searching through a dumpster. The man was wearing a cape. "Hey, you some kinda' superhero?" Sledge shouted at him. The man skittered around the dumpster and disappeared behind it. Intrigued, Sledge walked down the alley toward the man.
Fenrick objected, "He's ho
meless. Leave him alone. They don't like visitors." But Sledge continued on.
The man was hiding in a box full of his possessions, and a shopping cart blocked others from entering. Sledge looked in through the cart. "What you doin' with that cape on?"
"It's mine. I found it outside of a Halloween costume shop," the man replied, defensively, but very possessively. "It's closed now." He hugged the cape tighter around himself.
"No problem. Why aren't you in a homeless shelter, where they will give you a coat? You need it."
"The Feds are there."
"Uh, no, I don't think so."
"You don't get something for nothing. They kidnap people and experiment on them."
Sledge turned to Fenrick. "See, you don't get somethin' for nothin.' that's your attitude. In a few years, this is where you would end up." Sledge removed his coat. "Exchange coats with me. I won't be needing this."
The man looked at him like he was evil. He pulled the cart closer, hanging onto it for dear life.
"Why won't you take it?"
"Nobody gives things away. You're trying to trap me and take me to a homeless shelter."
Sledge sighed. "No. Tell you what. I'll push my coat over the cart, and then you push your cape back out." The man just looked at him like he was a monster.
Sledge pushed his coat over the top of the cart. Hesitantly, the man pulled it over the top while still clinging to the basket. He felt it, checked it, and then pulled off his cape and put the coat on, basket in hand. He smiled and buttoned it up.
"There's fifty in the pocket. You have a nice new coat. Go inside and get yourself something to eat." The man shrank farther back into his box.
"Merry Christmas," Sledge said, and walked away.
Fenrick shook his head and followed. "Wasted lives, wasted gifts."
"Heartless," Sledged replied. "I made his life a little better."
The lounge was small, cozy, and old. It looked like a converted bar. The orange lights were low and warm. Swivel chairs lined a bar. Groupings of 3 lounge chairs and low tables populated the area, with lounge booths to the side. They took a booth, sat down, then ordered three whiskeys each to warm them from the winter chill.
The server looked at their clothing, a caped crusader and an elf, and gave them a very skeptical look. "Are you homeless?" she asked. Fenrick placed a hundred on the table. "Perfect," she replied and went for the drinks.
Sledge took a napkin with the lounge name embossed on it, and began writing his suicide note on it. It took a while for the words to come. "I messed up my life. I never helped no one. So I'm going to kill myself before I hurt someone real bad."
Fenrick grabbed the napkin and looked at it. "Short and sweet. I suppose you think this justifies it in other's eyes? The police are going to look for motivation."
"It's my suicide note!" Sledge said loudly. "I can say whatever I want." The server arrived with the drinks. Sledge handed the note to her. "Do you think this is a good enough suicide note?"
The server put the drinks down, and refused to look at the napkin. Sledge went after her with the napkin. "It's just a simple request. Can you please read my note?" Others in the lounge watched the commotion as the server went behind a counter. Sledge went back to his seat, saying, "A guy is going to kill hisself, and nobody will even read his suicide note."
As Sledge sat down, Fenrick corrected, "Himself, not hisself."
"Now I got the grammar police correcting me! I'm gonna' slash my throat right here."
A couple of men moved closer with their drinks, sitting at the next table so they could watch. Others began to watch the bizarre spectacle. A woman, Teresa, left her seat and walked up to him. "God loves you. You don't have to do this. Just say you're sorry and things will be fine."
"Things ain't never been fine. This is the way it's gotta' go."
The woman smiled at him. "Don't do this. It's just another wrong." She turned and went back to her seat.
Sledge downed the three whiskeys. Fenrick's were already gone.
Fenrick pushed his note over to Sledge. "To whom it may concern. Having made a complete evaluation of my life, I came to the inescapable conclusion that I fail at being a human being. To avoid hurting anyone else, I have decided to take my own life."
"You're full of yourself! It's all about you. That's all you ever think about, your pain and your gain." Sledge handed the note off to the other table. "What do you think? Can he do better than this?"
The server was making rounds again, and Sledge summoned for three more drinks. Reluctantly she went after them. He noted the homeless guy cautiously enter then sit in a seat. He waved to him and gave him a big smile, but they guy shrank into a corner and pulled his ball cap bill farther down over his face.
One of the women at a table farther away started recording on her cell phone. She crept closer as the scene unfolded.
The two at the next table read Fenrick's note, shrugged, then handed it back.
"He's a pompous ass, isn't he," Sledge asked. They shrugged again.
"Well, your confession didn't seem heartfelt," Fenrick replied. "It was just so many words."
Sledge took another napkin and wrote again. "Being of sound mind and corrupt morals, I've decided the world would be a better place without me. So I'm going to throw myself off a bridge." He handed the note to the next table.
They read it and shrugged again. A middle aged man and his wife, Steve and Debra, walked up then looked over their shoulder and read it. Debra said, "I just don't see it. Where's the pain, the months of desperation?"
Fenrick said, "It's like a trial. It's an intellectual decision based on an evaluation of what we have done with our lives."
Debra said, "That's not what suicide is about. It comes from the heart. You have to try harder."
The server dropped off the whiskeys. "More napkins. We need more napkins to write on. We gotta' get this right." Sledge requested. She took some from her pocket then put the stack on the table and quickly walked away.
"What is it you regret that you can't forgive yourself for?" Debra asked.
Sledge wrote on his napkin, "I done a lot of bad things, and got charged for some of them. Once I got a friend locked up for shoplifting that I did. And I threatened to kill Fenrick, here."
"'I did,' not 'I done'" Fenrick corrected. "Use better English."
"Enough with the English lesson! People understand perfectly!" He handed it off to the next table. "Is it a good suicide note?
Fenrick continued, "Threatening to kill someone isn't a crime, unless it's intimidation. I don't think the note meets legal requirements."
Several people had gathered and were looking over Sledge's note. "What do you think?" Sledge asked. "Is threatening to kill Fenrick here, a bad thing? He needs it badly." The reactions were mixed.
"You could always make it up to the guy you got locked up," One of the men offered.
"I don't see any tears. I just don't believe either of you are really going to do this," Debrea said.
"We'll sign a contract. Sledge, you draw it up." Sledge began writing.
Fenrick handed them his note. "I abandoned my wife and child. I basically stole money from my company. I fired employees on Christmas Eve."
The group looked it over and shook their head. One of the men said, "Oh, you gotta' die man. Nobody abandons his family." Others murmured. The homeless man joined them and shook his head.
"But I didn't even know I had a kid. And I didn't know she was doing so poorly."
"So you're telling us abandonment is justified?" another man asked incredulously.
"No, no. It's never justified. I just.... Oh, never mind, I deserve to die!"
Teresa touched him on the shoulder. "Nobody deserves to die. You can be forgiven."
"But it's who I am! I'm a damned entitled prick who turns a blind eye to everyone, sends undeserving people to jail for his own gain, and doesn't care enough to even check to see if his abandoned wife is OK."
>
"Where are the tears?!" Debra shouted. "There's no remorse without tears."
"OK, I'll define my words in the heading so they identify emotion. Then put down the points. Is that good enough?"
Fenrick starts to write again. "Remorse: Tearfully sorry for things I have done - "
"No, no, no, no, no, no. Tell me where your heartache is." Debra grabbed the napkin from him and wadded it up, then took the pen and a fresh napkin.
Fenrick thought for a minute, and then looked down and a tear came to his eye. "I failed my wife and daughter."
"OK, that's more like it. Now go on. Let's list your 'legal points,'" she said sarcastically.
"Wow, I didn't know you had it in you," Sledge exclaimed. The crowd clapped.
Sledge tossed his car keys to the homeless man.
When Fenrick finished listing his points, Sledge handed him the contract. Fenrick signed it.
"When are you going to do the deed?" asked the woman with the cell phone recording.
Fenrick looked at Sledge. "How about 8 o'clock tonight. At the bridge."
As the two exit the lounge to go see Jessica, the homeless man stepped in front of the cell phone camera. "He's a nice man. He gave me his coat and a car." He holds up the keys.
Sledge hurriedly came back in and grabbed the keys from the guy's hand. "I need those. We got to go see Jessica to stop her from killing herself." He starts to exit, then turns and says, "I forgot, it's a rental anyway." The crowd shakes their heads and mumble about ridiculous people and it takes all kinds.
When they were out the door, the server called the police. "There were two men in here who were making a suicide pact. They were drunk. They agreed to jump off the bridge tonight at 8."
"Was one wearing an elf costume?"
"Yes, and the other is wearing a cape."
The officer groaned.