Craig Shaw. Drug dealer. It’s been on the news, his face all over Twitter. Those nasty eyes.
The world did this. Not me. I was just there, under that railway bridge. Now I’m part of it.
I remember sensing him on the floor beside me as I drove away. It felt like everything had just clicked into place. I had the whole thing mapped out in my head in a matter of seconds. It was risky taking his car, but there was no choice. Leaving him there wasn’t an option.
I hadn’t been driving his car. I realize that, now. I’d been carried along, shooting forward to a new, simpler place. And I can’t get back. I don’t think I could make any of this go away, not now.
There’s good and there’s bad. It’s that simple. All these years, and it was Craig Shaw who showed me the truth. Good people and bad people. Two columns on a ledger. All you can do is take something away from one of the columns. Add something to the other. Make things right.
On Tuesday I got home, parked the Toyota, sat there. Who was he, this ugly young man who’d shown me the way?
Did it matter?
No. It didn’t matter two days later either, when I torched the car. I know exactly the kind of person he was. And I know that it doesn’t matter. I didn’t mean this to happen. Ha! That’s what they all say, isn’t it? An accident, I never meant to… Well, I’m going make it mean something.
It doesn’t matter who Craig Shaw was. But it matters what he was. He was a gift, a chance to make things better, a chance that came my way. And now I have no choice but to go on. Who else is going to do it?
The next one was easy, once I started to think about it. I know him this time. It was a few years back and he won’t remember me. A lot’s happened to him since then. He’s a rapist, a thief and a drug dealer. How’s that for a CV? And he’s young. So young and so bad! He can’t change that. None of them can. They can’t change who they are.
But I can change something. I can save the world from a great deal of pain.
From Jason Beverage.
You won’t remember me, Jason.
But I remember you.