We were on I-35 heading north. We hadn’t even made it to Austin yet, so we had a couple of hours of driving before we’d even be close to my home in Rockwall, where Hank’s tricked out Jeep Wrangler was parked in my driveway awaiting his return. I knew he needed to get back to Paris as soon as possible in order to start his call shift, which one of his colleagues was covering in the interim. This is why we had gotten up early to make the drive back home. It was also why if Hank was going to come clean with whatever had transpired, which I suspected was something somewhat shady, we needed to utilize the time we had in the car where we could speak freely and openly.
“Okay then, here goes.”
*****
Hank proceeded to tell me a story about a scrub tech named Nancy who worked with him in the O.R. at the hospital in Paris, where he practiced. The anesthesia providers were pretty tight with the circulating nurses and the surgical techs at his facility. As the Chief of Anesthesiology, Hank had taken on a fatherly, or at least protective older brother role for a lot of the folks in his department. This had helped to create a sense of family among the O.R. staff, which is often beneficial to a department where the staff needs to depend on each other. In this way, the environment that Hank had helped create there was instrumental in allowing the O.R. to run smoothly. However, based on my understanding of Hank and his ego, I knew the main motivation for him to maintain his paternal role was that it allowed him to be the ’big swinging dick’ in the hospital who controlled most aspects of the surgical care provided there. This included the ability to manipulate the surgical department personnel and ensure they would do his bidding. As in every other aspect of his life, Hank did his best to maintain control of those around him. His innate ability to do so was one of the fundamental reasons he enjoyed such success in most, if not all, of his professional endeavors.
He proceeded to tell me the story of how he’d been setting up for an appendectomy about a month earlier when Nancy had arrived in his operative suite. Her eyes were red, and he could see her mascara had been smeared, despite her efforts to conceal the fact that she’d been crying. Nancy was a career scrub tech who he had worked with for several years. He knew that she lived in an old farmhouse, which had been built in the 1940’s on 30-acre plot of land outside of Paris. She had become widowed at the hands of a drunk driver who had stolen her life mate several years previously and had been left to raise her two kids on her own. Prior to his death her husband had planned on raising cattle on the acreage they had purchased, but the car crash that took his life occurred before he had the chance to get his venture off the ground.
Nancy had been left with the house and land that she had no means to utilize agriculturally, as well as a hefty mortgage payment. She had tried to sell, but she found that an outdated house on a medium sized plot of land with no established farm or ranch was not in high demand and she was significantly upside down on the value to debt ratio. Her next-door neighbor, who apparently was well aware of her difficult financial position, had tried to take advantage of her predicament by offering to buy the land at a price much less than she and her husband had paid for it. When she had declined the offer, he had suggested to her she ‘would regret’ the missed opportunity, and he would do whatever it took to make her reconsider. Furthermore, he made it crystal clear the price he was willing to pay for the land would steadily decline over time.
Nancy’s husband had never gotten around to buying life insurance, so, with the loss of his income and no extended family to lean on, she had struggled to make ends meet. Had it not been for a home-based business which was compatible with her being able to work at the hospital and function effectively as a mother and homemaker, she would not have been able to keep her head above water. Shortly before his death, her husband had purchased a show-worthy purebred chocolate labrador retriever, which he intended to train as a hunting dog. Nancy had realized the earning potential the dog, Coco, represented, and she and her husband had decided to breed her with a friend’s AKC certified male. Before long, she had become a successful dog breeder and never had difficulty finding people who would pay good money for one of her puppies. She had been able to produce at least two litters of perfect puppies annually, which generated enough extra money after her husband had died that she was able to just get by financially.
The newest problem that Nancy and her family were experiencing had been deliberately caused by her neighbor, Carl. She described him to Hank as a typical redneck who had looked for every possible reason to be confrontational with her ever since she had refused his buyout offer . She had put up with multiple instances of harassment by him regarding what should have been minor neighborly disputes that did not warrant aggressive responses or reactions. On several occasions, he had yelled across the fence when she had played music too loudly for his taste while she was doing outdoor chores. Another time, he had cussed her out for having a burn pile he felt was too close to the property line, and threatened to sue her if any fire were to spread to his property.
More recently, Carl had appeared at her door one evening and profanely complained that her ten-year-old son and his friends had trespassed on his land. She explained to him the boys were out playing ‘soldier’ and she was sure they had not encroached onto his land in order to engage in any type of malicious activities. She pointed out that the lack of a dividing fence at the rear of the properties made it difficult to tell where the property line actually was. The asshole had replied he didn’t ‘give a shit’ what the boys had actually been up to and went on to explain that if he ever spotted them on his property again, he would grab them up and go to work on them with his cattle prod. He had, furthermore, complained he had seen her dog on his property several times and promised to shoot her with his deer rifle if he saw her wandering on his land again. She had reported the threat to the police, but there was nothing they could do. They just suggested she and her kids give the neighbor a wide berth.
Unfortunately, Coco had apparently ventured onto Carl’s land and, true to his word, he had used his deer rifle to enforce his threat. Nancy had let the dog outside the previous evening before taking a quick shower and getting ready for bed. She had told her son, Josh, to make sure to call Coco in after about five minutes in order to make sure she didn’t have time to wander off. As is often the case with ten-year-old boys, however, Josh’s reflexive reply should not have been taken as a valid acknowledgement of her instructions. At the time he was actively engaged in a video game. When she came back into the living room 25 minutes later and inquired regarding Coco’s whereabouts, her less than diligent son had no idea there was an issue.
Nancy had gone to the door and called out for several minutes for her dog to no avail. Darkness had unfortunately fallen in the interim and, from her yard, there was no way to see beyond a 50-foot radius of partially illuminated land immediately surrounding the house, even with all of the exterior lights on. She spent the next hour or so wandering the back of her property with a flashlight in hand while she repeatedly called out to her beloved dog, who never came.
The following morning was the day that Hank would become aware of the human piece of shit named Carl who lived next door to Nancy and her kids and was doing his best to terrorize them. After a sleepless night spent worrying about her dog as well as her family’s finances, Nancy had left her house at first light. She had subsequently combed the property on either side of the fence line for Coco. Within twenty minutes, she had come across the cold and lifeless body of her sweet dog, who was carrying a litter of puppies at the time. There were entrance and exit wounds on either side of her chest, which suggested that she had been killed by a well-placed ‘heart shot’ just behind and below her shoulder. The small amount of blood which had seeped from the wounds gave her, at least, some comfort that the bullet that ripped through Coco’s torso had been immediately lethal and that she would not have suffered.
Obviously, Nancy was heartbroken. Coco had become not only a source of income that was critically important t
o her financial survival, but the sweet dog was also a cherished member of her family. Nancy told Hank that she wasn’t sure she could survive the loss of another loved one. Beyond that, she was terrified that the absence of the secondary source of income provided by her breeding business would ruin her household financially.
As Nancy explained her predicament to Hank that morning, she had to stop speaking several times due to the sobs that kept interrupting her tale.
As Hank relayed her story, the cadence and volume of his voice steadily grew, indicating that he was agitated. The degree of his emotional response started to make me suspicious of his connection to Nancy. I had to ask, “Okay, brother, level with me. Have you been tappin’ that ass?”
“Fuck, no! What’s wrong with you?” he asked me in response.
“I’m sorry, dude. I didn’t mean to question your honor. I figured that you’d draw the line at fucking a young widow with two small kids, not to mention that you work with her,” I said. “I know you’re the big papa bear in the O.R. and you know enough not to shit where you eat, so to speak.”
“What are you talking about?” he replied. “I’ve fucked a bunch of O.R. chicks! I have no fucking qualms about taking advantage of widows and single mothers. Why should I deprive them of an opportunity to be with me? Don’t you get me after all of these years as my best bud?”
“Uhh…” was all I could muster. I wasn’t sure if he was fucking with me or not.
“She’s fat, dude,” he continued.
“What? Who’s fat?” I asked.
“Nancy, dude! Are you even listening to my story? Nancy is a fatso! That’s why I never tried to get in her pants,” he clarified. “Christ on a cracker!”
“Okay. Alright. Okay, then. I just wondered why you were getting so upset about the situation and thought you might have been feeling a bit protective of a piece of ass you were hitting.” Hank had once again shown me that, although he was a loyal friend and a fun guy to hang out with, his moral code was on par with a whole list of questionable humanitarians including Courtney Love and Larry Flint.
*****
“Nope,” Hank said. “I never tapped Nancy’s ass, and I never will. She just doesn’t do it for me, dude! The simple fact is that I was, and am, legitimately pissed off at any motherfucker who thinks that it’s okay to bully a single mother who is doing everything she can to provide for herself and her kids. Besides that, anyone who kills a family dog for no good reason needs to end up with his nuts in a vice.”
“Is that what you did? Are the cops going to find traces of crushed testicles and pubes in your workshop?” I asked, only partially in jest.
“No way,” he answered. “You know I’m much smarter than that. Old Carl is definitely not going to be picking on Nancy’s family anymore, but his unfortunate fate is not going to be traced back to me—or to her.”
This was starting to sound a little familiar and I thought I knew where it was going.
Hank explained to me that he had inquired of Nancy and gotten a few more details about Carl. He made sure to not give the impression that he had more than a sympathetic interest in her sad story. However, he was immediately struck by the feeling that he could somehow intervene on her behalf. Even at the time that she was initially relaying her story to him, he couldn’t help feeling Carl’s crimes should not go unpunished. In the absence of an appropriate intervention, he would continue to fuck with his helpless neighbor and her family until he broke her. According to my altruistic BFF, this was not acceptable, so he started developing a resolution to the conflict in his head—a resolution which would prevent Carl from doing Nancy, or her family, any further harm.
When Hank had inquired about how Carl earned a living, Nancy explained that he had been medically discharged from the Army after Desert Storm due to a diagnosis of PTSD. According to the verbal history she had provided regarding his post-war activities, Carl had come to live on the family property, where he provided a debatable amount of assistance to his aging father in order to ensure that the family homestead would remain functional. When his father had passed away about ten years back, Carl had inherited the land and a 20-year-old double wide trailer, which sat on the twenty-five-acre plot directly adjacent to Nancy’s property. He drove a rusted out 1970’s-era Chevy step side pickup truck. He appeared to live like a hermit, so his expenses seemed to be minimal. She guessed that the bulk of his disposable income was spent on Jack Daniel’s Whiskey and cigarettes.
As it turned out, the most useful information that she had provided was that Carl was a hard-drinking man. In fact, had it not been for the liquid courage he consumed on a continuous basis, she was fairly sure that he lacked the balls to bully a girl scout selling thin mints, let alone a helpless widow such as her. She couldn’t remember a single interaction when he hadn’t reeked of booze and cigarette smoke.
Hank told me that he felt like he was the only chance that Nancy and Coco had to achieve justice and the only means by which her family would be safe from harassment by Carl. He said that he tried to put it out of his head for over a week, but just couldn’t shake the idea that he was meant to act as protector and punisher. He eventually gave in to the idea and began considering his options regarding how best to intervene.
He knew that, just as before with Brandon, he had to remain anonymous. He couldn’t let Nancy know that he intended to go after Carl in any way. Even if she was initially in favor of a hero acting on her behalf, there was no way to anticipate how her conscience would work on her over time. She might initially be out for blood and go right along with the most violent of plans, only to find Jesus years later and become convinced that her salvation would be at risk without the spiritual cleansing that comes only through confession.
Furthermore, he knew he could not make his identity known to Carl and leave him living. If Hank were to, for instance, merely cause pain and injury to Carl, along with a message that further harassment of his neighbors would result in the forfeiture of his life, there was no way to guarantee Carl would not go to the cops. Even if Hank were able to remain anonymous to Carl, which could be difficult due to his position in the community, there would be no way to prevent some type of sting operation that the police could, and probably would, put together to bust him for his vigilante activities.
Hank decided that it came down to a choice regarding whether Carl’s crimes, as well as the almost certainty that he would continue to make Nancy’s life a living hell, justified mortal punishment. In the end, he had determined the only way to definitively deal with Nancy’s problem was to eliminate the problem altogether. He explained to me that as he considered whether or not he would engage in another murderous mission, he searched his feelings regarding what we had done to Brandon. He didn’t want to, someday, look back on his life and regret the unnecessary taking of lives. Having abandoned his faith, he no longer feared damnation or even sought eternal salvation. He figured, as I did, that if we were all eventually going to have our actions judged by a higher power, the overall effect of our actions would be what we’d likely be judged on. Neither of us believed, as most ‘people of faith’ do, that there was a set of absolute ‘rules’ that must be obeyed in order to be considered righteous and worthy of some type of eternal reward for our activities here on Earth. Both of us had come to believe that morality was more of an idea that asked the following question, ‘Did your actions result in an overall positive or negative effect on the planet and its inhabitants?’
Hank and I had conversed extensively about this in the past. Although neither of us was inclined to publicly declare we had achieved a greater understanding of morality and righteousness than 99% of the planet’s human population had ever achieved, we felt very comfortable with the idea that if our existence resulted in a net positive effect on the universe, our lives would be well-lived.
Chapter 43
As Hank weighed Nancy’s situation in his mind using our definition of morality, there was only one conclusion he could come to. If Nancy�
�s and Carl’s lives were part of a play, then Carl was the villain and Nancy was a poor, helpless damsel in distress. Without a hero, the conclusion of the play would always be the same. The forces of evil would prevail, and the forces of innocence would bite the big one.
Of course, the problem with this line of thinking is, ‘Where does it end?’ We all know that the world is full of victims, as well as perpetrators of evil. If our definition of morality was entirely correct, then every person who wanted achieve righteousness would have to look for opportunities to vanquish evil-doers and provide assistance to those in need. On one hand, such a model makes perfect sense, but on the other hand, such a system would be incompatible with maintenance of social order. Police would be obsolete, as all members of society would be morally compelled to protect and serve the population. In reality, the maintenance of order was incompatible with vigilantism on a large scale, regardless of what Batman, Spiderman and other superhero stories would suggest.
As we drove down the highway and Hank explained the history behind his involvement with Nancy and Carl, as well as his compulsion to intervene, I tried to keep my mouth shut and just listen to what he was saying. I was, however, unable to resist my own compulsion to point out the folly of his decision to involve himself in Nancy’s drama.
“You realize, I hope,” I interrupted him, “that this is different than the situation between Ryan and Brandon.”
“How, exactly?” he challenged me.
“I’m her father, dude!” I exclaimed. “As her father, I have both the right and the duty to intervene if she is threatened, and even more so if she is harmed.”
“I agree with that, but where does our so-called duty end when we know that an innocent person is being victimized?” Hank asked. “Besides, Nancy doesn’t have a father. He died when she was a teenager.”
Fatal Flaws Page 27