It Wasn't My Fault

It wasn’t my fault. At least, I suppose it wasn’t my fault. I guess it depends one which side you look at the situation from, which of course is true in any situation a person encounters wading through this muckety-muck life, but looking at this objectively, it wasn’t my fault. At least, that’s what I hope to prove.

I mean, it wasn’t my fault the wind caught the dollar bill just so. It wasn’t my fault she wandered off down the street while I held the cab, and it wasn’t my fault she miraculously separated into five pieces in the three seconds it takes me to walk 20 feet. An ear there, a half a torso in the gutter, an arm that somehow ended up on a rusty stairwell, all not my fault. Well, at least I hope it’s not my fault.

And people ask why I leave bars alone. Because when I actually succeed, they end up in five pieces, strung across an alley that barely fits two dumpsters. Well, at least one out of the three times I’ve been “successful.”

But apologies, where are my manners. For those that find this (hi mom) my names Russell Dawkins and I’m nothing special (unless you’re my mom and reading this). I’m quiet, have a face that everyone says they’ve met before, though they never have, and have the social preference to spend a Friday night with a movie and a whiskey, rather than out with friends and a martini. Sure, I have friends and can survive in social situations, but I believe in time away. Call me old fashioned.

I guess I tell you all this because well, I’m writing this not only for you, but for me. I’ve always wondered how people can know serial killers as “the quiet, keep to themselves kind of guys that you wouldn’t think would hurt a fly,” and then they turn out to be twisted in the head. After last night though, I think it may be possible I’m joining that rank and file. No, I didn’t kill anyone, and this isn’t about to turn into a manifesto about the dark side of the quiet one that results in everyone questioning folks “that prefer to listen rather than speak” sanity. This is an attempt to copy down, that, well, it wasn’t my fault. Not necessarily for your good. But for mine.

So where to start? I mean, I could just stop here and attempt to forget all that occurred in the past 16 hours. Maybe grab a seat at a bar, order a bottle of cheap booze, drink half of it, spill my guts to the bartender, step off the seat at the bar, spill my guts to the dirty toilet, and then spend the rest of the night in the drunk tank. All the while denying I ever met her. That seems to be how most people I’ve seen deal with things they can’t believe. Again, I watch a lot of television. Maybe I’ll do the cowardly thing, turn myself in for a crime I didn’t commit for killing a person I didn’t know, spending my days locked in a jail cell I shouldn’t be in, and hiding from whatever monstrosity created that scene in the alley.

Or maybe I’ll write it all down, and see if I find any takers. And no mom, I don’t even expect you to believe this story.

Ah Friday nights. Work til five, class until 9, takeout for dinner and asleep by 11. Because that’s also my schedule the rest of the week and it tends to wear on me, though Friday nights are extra special because I get to sleep past 7 the next morning. This Friday though, was different. I deviated. Classmate’s birthday party, and the guilt/fear that I’ll be left behind if I don’t spend at least some time with other human beings my age and tax bracket leads me to put on a brave face, and attempt to drink alcohol with other human strangers. And you know what? It goes well. People seem genuinely happy I came out, I drink enough to feel like a normal, extroverted person like those that surround me; while not becoming that problem child that I see being fed into cabs through the window. I’m feeling good. We stay until 1:30 in the morning, when the drunkest of us decides it’s time for a change of scenery. We wander to the next bar and order more drinks. Is this why we work so hard? For unfettered drunkenness around other drunks that also work as hard, if not harder?

It’s not my fault. At least, I don’t think it’s my fault. As soon as I walk in, I feel the stare of someone boring into the back of my head. I shake it off and order a drink. This kind of paranoia is reserved for sober me in a crowded subway train, and not a semi-sober me in a bar full of my peers. But the feeling doesn’t shake. And semi-sober, paranoid me is not my idea of a good night.

After ordering and joining my mostly drunk/almost time to load into a cab to head home friends at a table that was procured, likely through illegal yet allowable means that are allowed to drunks at 1:45 in the morning, I grab a seat only to find a girl sauntering toward me.

Before I continue, allow me to be perfectly clear. This does not happen to me (no mom, this isn’t for your sake, this is just a general admission lest anyone believe me the kind that seeks attention, thus discrediting all I have written.) My stat at the beginning is not an attempt to be funny. It’s as true as what I type into this laptop.

Anyway, only God in His infinite wisdom knows how or why she spotted me that night and zeroed in on my position. My heart leapt for just a second as the tall, brown haired, green eyed beauty from across the bar wanders over to me like a scene from a Leonardo DiCaprio movie where I actually get to play Leo for once instead of Extra #5, guy standing awkwardly to one side. She doesn’t even look drunk! Well, at least not drunk for 1:50am on a Friday night in a crowded bar.

She comes over and starts chatting. And not just, “hey, who’s your friend,” but real, genuine bar chatting that everyone else in the bar seems to be doing. This is where it’s possibly my fault. So help me, I talk back. And not just stammered one word answers and lame attempts at jokes, but genuine quips and comments that only come from the perfect mixture of alcohol and exhaustion and is normally reserved for my half empty whiskey glass and squawking television on Friday nights. We talk. The bar closes, and my friends pull at us, moving the party to that late night pizza place I’ve only heard 23 year olds talk about, and yet we continue to talk. I’m out, I feel good, and I feel normal. What’s the phrase? Strike while the iron’s hot?

This is where it’s probably my fault. I invite her. She says she’d love to, she rounds up her jacket, tells her friends goodnight, (I like to think there’s an ex-boyfriend back there trying to patch things up, only to hear she’s heading off with someone she just met, and then he sees her on the awkward arm of someone 8 years his senior and half of his social acumen/muscle mass) and heads to the cab with the rest of us to grab some 230am Friday night pizza.

I know, I know, get to the five parted body that you’ve so slowly led up to. But for this, I must beg forgiveness. I’m seeking that normal feeling I had in the cab on the way to the pizza place. Besides, would you truly believe me if I just skipped straight to the body? No, it would come off like a bad Stephen King short story, and while I love his books, no one will mistake them for non-fiction. This, most assuredly, is non-fiction.

The 15-minute cab ride is a delight, I finally learn her name (Karen, and please don’t call me Carrie), occupation (teacher, finally with a long weekend off) and personality (straightforward and mature. Very little games in this one, which probably explained why we got along so well). We arrive at our destination and, along with my friends, proceed to crush three large pizzas while engaging in the conversation that young professionals tend to engage in when they finally have a point where they can exhale. Goofy and immature. It’s glorious.

The early morning wears on and people began to trickle out. I check my Iphone. 3am and only getting later. I ask for Karen’s number; she suggests my place. I suggest dinner next week; she suggests my place. I explain my room looks like the no man’s land in the Ardennes Forest during World War 1, she looks at me blankly, and calmly suggests her place. I agree. Hey, a man has limits where being a gentleman just turns into being an idiot.

Despite being 32 years old, traveling across oceans, living in foreign lands, and reading history, it still amazes me that everything can change on a dime. When I step out to hail a cab as she settles the bill, the night is a crisp and lovely winter evening. The smell isn’t of the downtown of a big city, but of winter, that electric crackle with the scent of fresh snow that people only wish could be caught in a scented candle. The wind only adds a harmony to the melody the cold evening creates, fluttering here and there adding that briskness that doesn’t make you uncomfortable, but makes you feel alive.

That cold, cruel wind.

Karen steps out with cash still in hand while I hold the cab door open. And that fluttering harmony catches the money, blowing dollar bills in a small tornado. I stay in front of the pizza place, looking like an uncoordinated clown in one of those prize boxes you attempt to grab the $100,000 bill in, while she wanders down the road, chasing a breeze that while it felt random, seems guided now. She is just turning around a corner when I triumphantly grab the final loose paper on my side of the sidewalk. I see the tail of her coat disappear around the corner. I politely tell the cabbie just one more minute, and hustle off, ready with a quip about her failing to mow her side of the yard before I got mine done. I turn the corner and see nothing.

Nothing.

I call out, believing this to be just another game, and still feeling a bit playful, admiring the big picture and what awaits me just one short cab ride from here.

Nothing.

I call out a bit more forcefully, using more reason than play as I see in my minds eye my chariot that will cement this evening as a pleasant one drive off due to human impatience.

Nothing.

I enter the alley, and everything turns on a dime.

The melodic cold winter evening that was once the source of my late night energy turns into the smell of decaying death. That metallic smell that only comes when you cut a knee or catch an elbow flush in the nose rises up like a ghost from crypt. The harmonic breeze that stimulated my blood now curdles and freezes it, causing me to pull my collar up just a bit closer and press my hands farther into my pocket. I have found Karen, and she’s not hiding somewhere. She’s hiding everywhere. I lose my cab and my pizza.

As I sit here 10 hours removed from that night, it feels like a dream. I think and think the entire ride home, not having the guts to explain that the girl I was holding the door for turned into sides of human beef in the blink of an eye. I think and think as I get home, and just sit on my bed, sleep far away and only a slight feeling of responsibility that I should call the cops. But what do I tell them? Who’s going to believe that she ended up all over the alley without a sound or a warning of any kind. Do I even believe that’s what happened? So I think. I go over every minute, every second, every millisecond from the triumphant finding of the final bill on my side, to the discovery of a head on half a torso, still smiling what now looks like a half-crazed taunt to me. What happened, I ask. What. Happened?

So I write. Well, I guess I’ve written. And now that I’ve ended. I have no answers. I remember no sounds, I remember no other entity, no other person, machine or demon that I was aware of, that could have rendered such destruction on what was once a well-constructed body. I remember nothing. Only the half-crazed smile, that now only mocks my lack of understanding.

There’s my phone. I guess it was only a matter of time before they put two and two together. Guess that solves the problem of if last night was a bad dream. What will I tell them? Do I just hand them this…essay? Do I explain it out? Honesty is the best policy. But then, murder will out. Am I a murderer? Was it my fault? What happens in this instance? I suppose I will inform you of the outcome of that battle once/if I return. Reading this again, I’m not sure if I even believe me, and I was there.

Sirens in the background now. And for the first time since my first glimpse of Half Smile, I’m scared.