I was beginning to feel bad about the nature of my recent conversations with Dave. Opening his door to find me standing there could only mean bad news. I could see it in his face. He knew I was going to say things like, “Virginia’s dead. I’m pretty sure your uncle and his friends killed her because she knew about them,” and, “I hate that it’s this way. I’m sorry about it. But if they find out you know, they’ll probably kill you, too,” and, “I think we have to kill your uncle.”
If I were Dave, I wouldn’t even have opened the door. I’d have said, “Fuck you. Go away, and never talk to me again.”
Either he was stoned, or he never imagined he’d have to hear such things coming from my mouth. Whichever it was, he let me in, and I said all those things to him.
“Call the police, Travis. You can’t kill anyone. Call the police.”
I explained to him all the reasons the police were no good to me. Some of these people were the police. The rest of them were rich enough to do whatever it is rich people do to keep their hands clean.
I did not, however, explain to him that I had no desire to call the police. I did not want justice. I wanted revenge, vengeance, retribution. I wanted a reckoning of Biblical proportions. If I had the power, I’d rain down sulfur, turn them into pillars of salt, cover them with boils before force-feeding them their own first-born.
He’d have thought I’d gone crazy.
And he’d have been right.
“So now you got me involved, too.”
Yeah. Sorry about that.
“And my uncle’s a cannibal. And they’re killing and eating, who? Everyone?”
Certainly seems that way.
This is about the point in the conversation where Dave was supposed to flip out. This is about when I expected to get screamed at, maybe hit with something. This is when I expected to get thrown out of his apartment.
But none of that happened.
He stood up and paced around the living room, smoking, presumably trying to make some kind of sense out of all this nonsense his friend was laying on him.
“You’re sure Virginia’s dead?”
“Yeah. I saw her. She’s dead.”
“And you’re sure they killed her? I mean, her blood alcohol level was really high, right? You sure she just didn’t get blitzed and miss the top step or something?”
“Well, I don’t have proof, but I’m sure it was them. It’s just too coincidental to be a coincidence, you know?” I couldn’t stop rubbing my temples.
Dave couldn’t stop pacing and smoking. “This would be easier if I wasn’t stoned.”
“Not really,” I said. “Listen, Dave. I know how screwed up this is. I mean, I’m sure you hadn’t planned on being involved in murders and conspiracies and everything. And I’ll understand if you’d rather me just leave and not get you any deeper into this.”
He stopped walking. “Yeah. I’d rather not be involved. But if they really killed Adam and Virginia, and if they’re going to kill you, and maybe me, I think I’m already a little too deep to get out, don’t you?” Pothead friends rock.
“I guess you’re right.”
“I don’t think I can kill anyone, though. I mean, I’m a pothead, man. Murder isn’t really my thing.”
I told him I understood. He didn’t have to kill anyone.
“And,” he said, “I’m not so sure you can kill anyone, either.” “If I can eat people, I can kill them.”
To change the story, sometimes you have to change the characters. They have to grow. Sometimes they have to become something totally new. Weak to strong, alive to dead, frightened to courageous.
To change where this story was going, I had to become a killer.
It’s funny how something so big can change so suddenly.
I don’t think he believed me.
“Dude, why don’t we try the police?”
“Dammit, Dave! Listen to me!” I was getting a little heated, but I didn’t think he was listening to me. “If we call the police, these people are going to find out about it. And then, we’ll be dead. They’ll kill us and eat us and get away with it. I’m telling you, the only way to stop them is to kill them.”
He listened that time. “And how many of ‘them’ are there?”
“Somewhere between forty and a thousand.”
That caught him off guard. “A fucking thousand?!”
“Not really a thousand, Dave. That was a joke.”
“Not funny.”
“Sorry. But I don’t think we really have to kill many of them. I think just the head guys. Maybe like seven people.” Seven, even to me, sounded like too many.
“And of those seven people?”
I hated to say it, but, “Yeah, buddy. Your uncle’s one of them.”
Poor Dave. “This is not right.”
“I know.”
“I don’t know if I can do this.”
“They’re going to kill us, Dave. Well, probably me. And maybe you. And maybe Angela.”
“Who the hell is Angela?”
“The head guy’s niece, remember?”
“That girl you fucked?”
“Yep. She’s going to have to kill her uncle, too. You guys should meet. You have a lot in common.”
He laughed a little at that one. “That’s really not funny.”
“Sure it is.”
“How can you make jokes about this?”
“I’m planning on killing a bunch of people, Dave. I have to laugh about it, or I’ll go insane.”
“Yeah. You’re really in your right mind now.” He lit a smoke. “And what if they kill you?”
It was a good point.
“Well, I imagine I get murdered, and they feed me to the fucking pigs.”