Killing Someone

My family, and others, generally try to keep children out of their business. Try to keep, not keep.

“You’re a child.”

I stood respectively on the woman’s porch.

“They sent a child.”

“I’m a bit older than a child.”

The woman scoffed and gently shook her head, “No you’re not.”

I elected to move past that exchange.

“May I come in?”

“Do I have a choice?”

“Not one you’d like.”

“Then come in,” she smiled.

I did so.

“Hey, Anthony?” my dad popped his head in my room.

“Hm?” I pasued my work at my computer and swiveled in my chair to face him.

“Are you doing anything?”

“Writing emails.”

“Do you wanna do something else?”

“Sure.”

“Be in the garage in five minutes. Bring your gun.”

And he was gone. I instantly regretted saying “Sure.”

I finished up the paragraph I was on, then locked my computer. I ran around my room grabbing a few things I would need.

My gun was in a safe hidden in the wall trim. I pushed against the portion of the trim opposite my bed. I kneeled down in front of it, and pushed in on it. It takes about twenty pounds of force to give way at all—it’s a feature designed to make it as hidden as possible. The panel pushed in a couple inches before popping out and swining open. This was a digital safe, there was no dial. I entered a ten digit code, and the safe popped open just like the cover did. I grabbed my 9mm, and a single clip. It felt full. I slid it into the grip and it locked in place.

Finally, I had to put on my concealed carry strap. I grabbed that from the safe as well and put both it and my gun on my bed. I closed the safe and the panel. I pulled my shirt up and held it there by squeezing my arms into my body. I put the strap around my belly and latched it, then checked the gun’s safety was on. I holstered it, then let my shirt down.

I ran down to the garage. My dad was waiting in his 1985 Ford Mustang GT. It was painted black with tasteful orange stripes on the bottom sides of the car. Its engine rumbled all parts of the garage. I grabbed my shoes. I was already wearing socks.

“That was six minutes,” he commented after I sat in the passenger seat. I laced up my shoes.

He never told me where we were going. He knew every turn of where he was going. We didn’t have anything on the stereo. It was a long, silent ride. I zoned out for most of it, thinking of Tyler, and the fact that I’m gay, and school, and the emails I was sending, and sometimes I got interrupted by the reminder that my dad told me to grab my gun and now were going god knows where for some ever-increasing amount of time.

But we ended up stopping at a San Marino residential area over forty-five minutes later. Not that San Marino is a good thing, necessarily. My dad left the car idling.

“You ready?”

“For what?”

He gave me a long, worrying look, “There’s a woman in the house across the street. It’s light gray-green…”

“No shoes in the house.” she said as soon as I stepped in. She made that sentence as heavy as possible. That was not a suggestion, that was a rule, which I absolutely respected. I kicked off my shoes.

“Can I offer you a tea, lemonade, water?”

“No, thank you.” I made sure to keep being respectful. Her house entered directly to the living room. She stood on the other side of it.

“shall we sit?”

“Yes, let’s.”

“So,” she said once we both sat down, “what can I help you with?”

“You have something that I want.”

“I do? What’s that.”

Remember to be respectful.

“A hard drive. It’s quite small, you might have missed it but I’m told you know about it.”

“You’re told that?”

“Yes.” I responded as if she didn’t ask it in a condescending way.

“Must be an important hard drive. What’s on it?”

“That’s private information.”

She wouldn’t say if she had looked at it or not. I wasn’t going to get anywhere by doing this. The next tactic is to distract.

“How was your day?”

“How was my day? You’re asking me ‘how was my day?’”

“Just trying to make conversation.”

“No you’re not.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I know every single part of your script. I actually helped write it, you know. The next step after distraction is to make the subject feel defeated, so you can skip that one too.”

Well, fuck.

“Mrs. Bine, I’m not leaving without that hard drive. It’s very important.”

“I see you didn’t heed my advice,” she looked almost disappointed in me, “They oughta teach you better. The script only goes so far.”

I wanted to run. I wanted to leave. My dad sure wouldn’t let me in the car without the drive, and fucking San Marino is in the middle of nowhere. Lucky me I was also trained for this. The tactic is to just not move your legs. Not kidding. Just, don’t move your legs and you won’t run away from a situation you shouldn’t.

“Well, that we can agree on.”

“Who’s doing it now? Is it still Mr. Pearson?”

“Yes.”

“Can you pass on word that he’s doing a shit job?”

“I’ll see what I can-” oh shit she’s distracting me, “do.”

“How long have you spent with him?”

I needed to retake control. I wasn’t certain if she knew that I knew she was trying to distract me. I played along: “Over a hundred hours.”

“Already? That’s a lot for your age.”

“It’s stolen a lot of my weekends.”

“That must be frustrating.”

“I wouldn’t say ‘frustrating.’”

Then what would you call it?

“Putting in the hours.”

She nodded and re-evaluated.

“Mr. Bayer, what exactly is your interest in this hard drive.”

“What’s yours?”

She paused.

“You can call me old if you want, many people have, but this new stuff that your family is doing it’s… I’m not even going to touch ‘unethical.’ None of the stuff you guys do live in that realm anyway. It’s obscene.”

“Why.”

“People may be data points within some context, but they’re not assets. They’re not to be sold, and they’re absolutely not to be sold to the people you’re selling them to.”

“We’re doing good. Real, tangible good.”

“Are you sure about that? Because drug overdoses haven’t reduced. Violence isn’t down.”

“These things take time.”

“Is that what your models say?”

“That’s what the science says.”

“So we agree.”

I didn’t answer.

At this point, there was no reason for me to continue this conversation. It’s purpose had run its course.

Everyone from Mr. Pearson to my dad to my sister to my uncle to my grandmother to everyone who would have an opinion on this except for one person has told me that what I was about to do was the worst decision you could possibly make.

I pulled my gun out. And the biggest mistake one can make after pulling a gun on someone is to leave the safety on, so I turned it off.

“Are you going to use that?”

I had made the correct decision. No training would ever prepare me for this. I may be a professional, but this woman was a goddamn elder.

“Only if I have to.”

That response would make most people panic. For her, it was purely an assertion of intent.

“I’m not giving you the hard drive.” That was a very careful choice of words on her part. It didn’t tell me if the hard drive was here. It was here, of course.

I really did not wanna have to do this. I opted for a different kind of violence.

I stood up, rushed over to her side, and grabbed her blouse. She was no more than 120 pounds. I threw her about ten feet somewhere. She didn’t cower.

“Are you scared?” she asked.

I stood over her, my gun pointed at her chest. I made sure to stay standing a minimum of five feet away. I didn’t answer.

“I know I’m not living through this. I knew that as soon as I opened the door.”

Okay, now I was actually scared. She could absolutely sense that. Fuck.

Neither of us spoke for what felt like a whole minute.

“Does it get easier?”

“Does what get easier?”

“Killing someone, I’ve never done it before.”

“No,” I answered, “It only gets harder.”

I’ll save you the suspense: the hard drive was on her desk. I didn’t even need to put on the gloves my dad gave me.

The car was still idling when I went back outside. I handed the hard drive to my dad as soon as I got in.

“That took a while.”

I checked my watch. “It was no more than fifteen minutes.”

“Every second counts in situations like these.”

“I’ll try to keep that in mind.

The ride home felt longer than the ride there. I distracted myself a bit with the sunset.

“So what happens to her?”

“Someone will be there soon to clean up.”

I looked at the sunset again. It wasn’t much of a distraction. I didn’t like that. At all. My dad should have never put me in that situation. I get it—these things are unpredictable, but he had to have known who she was, and how that would be for me. There’s no possibly way he didn’t. None.

I handled it well; better than most people. But just… I should not have been put in that situation. She absolutely would have been able to pull a gun on me faster than I could pull mine. I wasn’t even watching her for that the whole time. Fuck.

I don’t even know why I went in the first place. It’s not like he gave me a choice, or even said that it was required. I guess it was implied. Next time I’ll ask about it and/or say no. I get that I’m expected to do my part but this was… I don’t know what the fuck this was. A test? There was no reason that he could not have come with me. It’s not like he was a getaway driver or something. It’s a fucked up—and dangerous—test. It was fucking psychological warfare.

I kept going through all the ways that could have gone wrong. I could have failed to flip my safety. Pulling the gun could have been the wrong decision. I could have had a breakdown. There are so many.

“Hey dad?”

“Yes?”

“I’m gay.”

“Oh uh. Okay.”

Well, fuck. I guess that’ll distract me.

I looked at him, “That’s it? ‘Okay?’”

He glanced back at me, “Do you want me to say something else?”

“No!, It’s just. That’s just… Did you hear what I said?”

“Yeah, you’re gay.” He said without much tone.

I shrugged.

“What, do you want me to say ‘I’m suprised’ or something?”

“Are you?”

“Well, I’m not not surprised. I wasn’t ‘suspecting’ anything if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Huh.”

“Not what you were expecting?”

“No.”

“Well, sorry to disappoint.”

“No it’s not that.”

“Then what is it?”

I could detect when I wasn’t forming my words properly. It’s harder than you think. I see it clearly now that I’m writing everything in words but it’s hard when in conversation. I took a moment to collect myself.

“You shouldn’t have done that.” I said.

He glanced at me, “Why not?”

“Because I might not have been able to handle it.”

“…Seems you handled it well.”

“No I didn’t.”

“The job is done right?”

“Yes, but, dad, you weren’t there. Talking to this lady was… beyond the hardest thing I’ve done. It will probably be the hardest thing I will do.”

“No it won’t,” he laughed. “Look, Anthony, what you’re feeling now is adrenaline. A fuck ton of it. And you’re right—she was a professional, and a good one. I certainly won’t miss what she did, but I’ll miss her. And whatever happened, you handled it well enough.”

“I know what the fuck adrenaline is.”

I was furious at him. Rationally or irationally—it didn’t matter.

“Anthony,” he said, “please just, give it a bit. Wait until the debrief is over to talk about this stuff.”

“Why? Why should I. I wanna talk about it now!”

“Because you’re a child, Anthony, and you need a psychologist to help you understand what happened. I’m not the best to explain-”

“Stop calling me a child!”

He took a deep breath, “Okay. I’ll stop.”

“Thank you.”

We didn’t talk for the rest of the ride.

The debrief took two whole hours. Two whole hours about something that lasted fifteen minutes. That was the second longest debrief I’ve had ever. My dad was at least partially right, I did need that for some reason.

It was past 9 when the psychologist was satisfied with his report and he left. I didn’t want to stay here tonight, I would go to my apartment downtown. I grabbed my backpack. Downtown was a 30 minute drive away and I was exhaused, so I would need to go to sleep as soon as I got there.

I messaged my dad:

Anthony Bayer ([email protected]): I’m going to stay at my apartment tonight.

Johnathan Bayer ([email protected]): Okay. Let me know if you need anything.

The drive took 35 minutes, including parking. I threw on some pajamas, brushed my teeth, and went to bed.

I stayed at my apartment for the weekend. I didn’t check in with anyone in my family. I just needed some time alone. I ate out for every meal excluding an ordered-in pizza and some ravioli I had in the fridge. I played video games, watched a lot of movies, and downed a total of one and a half bottles of wine and three old fashioned cocktails. Nobody came over (nor did I ask them to). My computer was at home but I could still access it to play games and watch movies, and to the very occasional work. I forgot about those emails until late Saturday night. I was glad I remembered.

I got a message from my dad Sunday evening. I was at a burger joint I liked. The notification didn’t have the message content in it, so I finished up my bite and opened my phone.

Johnathan Bayer ([email protected]): Just checking in, are you doing okay?

That was about what I expected.

Anthony Bayer ([email protected]): Yeah I’m fine. I’m getting a burger.

Hm. I want a burger now

So go get one.

I closed my phone and continued eating my burger. It was such a good burger. Two patties, two slices of American cheese. Grilled onions, tomato, pickles, and ketchup. Best burger I ever had.

Another notification popped up.

Johnathan Bayer ([email protected]): Do you know when you’ll be back?

Anthony Bayer ([email protected]): No, why?

I have something I want to tell you.

This chat is end to end encrypted, just tell me.

I want to tell you in person

Okay.

He took a while to send his next message:

Johnathan How are you feeling about Friday?

Anthony: Which part?

Either. Both.

I Might as well be honest.

Anthony: I’m still pissed at you for putting me in that situation.

John: I thought so. I am sorry.

John: I won’t do it again. Seriously. I’m sorry. I read the debrief in full on Saturday. You did a really good job.

Thank you.

And how are you feeling about the other thing.

You’re the second person I’ve told.

Thank you for telling me.

I’m feeling fine about it. Just pissed about the first thing.