78. Murder or Not, Here I Come-Eric




• "This story is just light comedic exercise I did when I get bored. Hope you enjoy.
  
  Well, what I'd like to do is stick a chain saw so far up that cock sucker's ass he could mow grass with his teeth," said Brandon, sipping his coffee.
  
  The large mug looked so tiny in his gargantuan hands. Brandon looks as rugged as the pine trees he logs all day.
  
  "It's not like you to be polite and coy, Brandon. Why don't you tell us what you really want to do with him?" Little Tim said sarcastically.
  
  Any passerby could mistake them for a comedy sketch-short twig-thin Tim sitting next to a giant.
  
  "What do you think, Chipen Dale?" Brandon says.
  
  His name was actually Dale, but they often referred to him as Chip, or Chipen Dale. He earned the moniker by being the group's computer geek. Chip was the only one in the group savvy and sly enough to put a hidden miniature camera and recorder in his wife's purse before her appointment with Craig Rake, a licensed psychologist. Thanks to Chip (whose idea it was for their wives to visit Craig in the first place) they discovered he wasn't your garden variety psychologist.
  
  The three of them couldn't help but to notice how their wives shined throughout the week after their appointments with him. They also noticed, and overheard telephone conversations between their respective wives. And how they would run off to a back room to talk when discussing Craig Lake. It wasn't long before they made a few slips here and there and that's when Chip decided to take matters in his own hands.
  
  Chip waived cigarette smoke out of his face that drifted over from the booth behind them and said, "What do I think? I think we're looking at this all wrong. You guys know how when you were a kid, well not even a kid. Tim, remember when your coworker, that dipshit what's-his-fuck, got that supervisor position before you did? You didn't even want it, you said you didn't like doing customer retention. You never in a million years would have taken that job, but it doesn't matter, he had something that you didn't that you thought you deserved and you despised him for it."
  
  Brandon eyed his half-eaten stringy omelet with disgust and looked back to Chip.
  
  "What's your point, Chip?" Brandon asked.
  
  "My point is, it's just like when you're a kid, and another kid takes a toy you haven't even played with in five years. You might even despise the damned toy. But you get mad anyway because that's just human nature. You have some kind of ego stake in it."
  
  Tim drained that last bit of coffee out of the chipped mug and said, "So what you're saying is, even though this guy bagged not one, but all three of our wives when they were supposed to be getting therapy, we should let it go on the pretense, this twisted notion that we should forgive him because we've evolved and put away our boyish pride and selfishness?"
  
  "No, what I'm saying is, maybe this guy is just doing us a favor, a bigger favor than we realize. You guys haven't been laid since your Honeymoon, you both probably couldn't get laid if you were in prison. Anyway, you don't care about your wives, you don't concern yourselves with them. So I say let this bloke do it for us," Chip said.
  
  Brandon waived away the waitress in her short skirt carrying a coffee pot, and sneered at Chip. He said, "First of all you're crazy if you think I'm going to let that bastard get away with this. And you're even crazier if you think I'm going to pay him to do it."
  
  Brandon stood up, like a towering wall that no arrow of reason or suggestion could penetrate, except for Little Tim. Brandon pointed to his side, a spot in his shirt bulged slightly. He lifted it, revealing a black holster and strap.
  "I should go over there right now!" Brandon yells.
  
  The other patrons turned and stared at him. Their waitress leaned over and whisper something into the ear of the manager.
  
  Tim grabs his shirt collar and slowly tugs him down.
  
  Tim looked to Brandon nervously and said, "I'm all for hurting this guy, but I ain't gonna commit murder and neither are you."
  
  Sometimes Little Tim, although physically puny, had a commanding and soothing air about his voice. Things made sense when Little Tim said them, just because he was Little Tim.
  
  But Chip was the real brains, the logistics expert, the planner.
  
  "Look guys," Chip said, "How many times have you cheated on your wives?"
  
  They both lowered their heads, staring at their empty coffee mugs.
  
  "My point exactly. What I think we need to do is shake this guy up a bit," Chip said.
  
  He lowered his head and voice and continued, "But no guns, not even weapons. We can all be waiting for him in his living room when he comes home-"
  
  The waitress placed the check on the table and glowered at Chip for a moment before leaving.
  
  Chip continued, "I'll find out what time he gets home and the details-"
  
  Brandon interrupts him with his gruff tone, "What about alarms?"
  
  Chip grins like a wolf and says, "I'll take care of it. And we better get out of here before they throw us out."
  
  The waitress and manager were looking at their table, arms crossed.
  
  "I'm staying right here until I figure out what kind of food they slopped on my plate," Brandon said.
  
  Tim eyed the omelet, which was now dry. The chess smeared and stuck dry on the rest of the plate. Chip opened his wallet and through a few bills on the table and stood up.
  
  "Suit yourselves," he says, and walks out of the smoky diner.
  
  A minute after he leaves, Brandon turns to Tim and shakes his head.
  
  Brandon lifts his shirt and says, "I don't care what Chip says, I'm going to kill that bastard psychologist, just you watch."
  
  Tim flushes white and places a hand on Brandon's shoulder.
  
  "Brandon, Brandon," he says, "Let's think about this, okay?"
  
  Brandon shakes his head and stands up. He walks out of the diner. As he leaves, the bell over the door jingles and the waitress and manager's shoulders seem to sink down in relief.
  
  ***
  
  A few days later, Chip drives down the interstate in his old green Camry. He flips open his cell phone and presses a button. The evening sun sinks behind a purple mountain as he continues cruising down the interstate.
  
  Chip's face contorts in a mixture somewhere between fear and anger.
  
  "We were supposed to go there together, what the hell are you guys doing there? Hello? Hello?"
  
  Chip flips the phone shut and throws it at the passenger side window.
  
  "Just great, just fucking great," he mutters, and floors his little sedan as fast as it will go.
  
  Some twenty minutes later he arrives, traveling so fast he skids onto the yard from the driveway. The tires dig deep muddy trenches into the grass. Chip opens the door and launches out of the car. He runs to the large colonial house. There are no lights on. Two stone lions guard the door. He rushes to the porch and runs into the house. The first thing he hears is a muffled scream in the back of the house and then glass shattering.
  
  Chip walks slowly through the house, like a cat prowling through a dark house at night. It smells like a museum. He scans the room and notices a fireplace. Paintings he doesn't recognize line the wall, and the long dark hallway. The floor creaks beneath his feet as he passes what seems like an infinite row of oak doors on either side of the hallway.
  
  Eventually he hears a muffled scream through a door on his left. He opens it to find one Craig Rake bound and gagged on a stool in a large study. Dusty books line the wall. A piece of unknown varnished furniture is nestled in the open space where the window used to be. Craig's back is arched uncomfortably to a sloop and he is red as a strawberry; dried blood cakes his face like mud.
  
  Behind him, and holding a .45 to Craig's head is Brandon. He is red-faced and the veins on his neck could burst at any moment. Chip looks to Tim, hoping to gauge what is happening. All Tim does is roll his eyes and raise his arms in a don't-ask-me gesture. Chip knows that Craig doesn't have much longer left to live if Brandon has anything to say about, and he knows he will be culpable as well, an accessory to murder.
  
  He scours his mind for something, for anything that might help Brandon land back on Terra firma.
  
  "Come on," Chip says softly, "we can talk this out. There's no need for murder."
  
  Brandon chuckles, an almost happy chuckle and says, "Glad you could make it. You ready?"
  
  Craig squirms. They can't see it but even his horseshoe-patterned hairs on his head stand on end. His little blue eyes are wet like glossed marbles. He screams as Brandon shoves his head so far forward with the gun it looks like the plastic ties around his chest will snap at any moment. Craige screams and pleads for his life, although no one can decipher his words through the muffle.
  
  Brandon finally squeezes the trigger as Tim looks away in fright and Chip closes his eyes, bracing for the skull fragments and brain matter that will splatter his face.
  
  Click.
  
  "Oh Jesus, thank God," everyone mutters simultaneously.
  
  "I'm just screwing with yah. You know, Craig, you're a lucky man. If it weren't for Little Tim you would be Monday's obituary. Messing with wives is a no-no, even our wives. But I want to thank you," Brandon says, almost giddy.
  
  Brandon slowly unties him and rips out the rag from his throat.
  
  Brandon continues, "You did me a favor. Now I can get a divorce. Believe it or not, I wanted things to work out with my wife. But Chip's right for once, we're no good for any of our wives. None of us. We cheat on them, and they cheat on us apparently. And it took us this dufus to refer us to you to figure it out. But hey, we're all happy right?"
  
  Craig is silent, he continues to weep, hunched over holding his hands over his face.
  
  "Don't think about calling the cops. First of all you're gonna lose your license. Second of all we happen to know several wives of cops you've slept with but didn't know about it," Brandon says, winking at Chip and Tim.
  
  "That's right buddy," Chip says, "don't even think about it. We'll go our separate ways and pretend this never happened right?"
  
  Craig nods.