Dodger

by Dan Gallagher

15

  VIOLENT TENDENCIES DON'T RUN IN my family. The closest my dad ever got to violence was verbal abuse and my mom couldn't even kill a spider without feeling remorse. I've never hit a chick or even thought about it and aside from kicking my own ass, I've never really enjoyed punching anything other than walls and vending machines. And the very thought of a human life ending by my hands leaves me sick, disgusted, and twisted up inside.

  But Paiger... God, how could she do this to me?

  I mix up an old classic, vodka Gatorade, and smoke into the night. Thinking. Trapped in time. I wish I could remember more of what I told Paiger all those drunken nights. Maybe I could write my own novel and prove that hers is a fraudulent portrayal and a hideous representation of the actual truth. Our books will go toe to toe in sales and all the talk shows will have us on to argue our sides of the story. Since only Paiger and I know what actually occurred it'll be a grand debate, scandalous and dramatic and bombarded with media exposure. People will eat it up with a spoon.

  We'll go on opposing book tours and things will really heat up when the world finds out we're lovers, which we just say we are for the scandal. Little white lie. We'll be all over People and Time and Life and Highlights For Children and we'll get our own reality show called The Dodger Debate and secretly promise to each other never to reveal the truth to the public. We'll make tons of money and after the fame goes away, we'll go our separate ways. I'll pine for Kara and eventually wind up blowing my own head off in a villa in Seattle wearing a tee shirt that says Dodge This. Paiger will then write a book about that and become a celebrity all over again.

  Jesus. Now I'm thinking like her.

  Drink.

  I've been betrayed.

  I've been betrayed before, but never like this.

  My life force has been stolen from me.

  The feeling of being beaten to the punch on writing my own story sucks. It's not only a reminder of how stupid I am, but also how lazy. And how distracted I've become.

  Kara.

  I chose love over life.

  Not that love isn't a great part of life, but shit on a shingle, it's a distraction.

  I was so focused on making things work with Kara that I forgot what my true calling was, to write, to actually be depressed and miserable on purpose so I could tap into true, raw emotion and write from a bloody, wounded, dripping pus heart. No one wants to read a book by someone who's had a great life. Happy people make shitty writers.

  And I went and got happy.

  Drink.

  And got back into acting. What the hell was I thinking? I loathe acting. But Kara was writing this play and I loved the part and I loved her and motivated her to finish it so I was really almost responsible for its completion, so how could I not be in it? It was the lead, for Christ's sake.

  But a terrible move.

  In the process of making that transformation back to actor, I got lost. Who I actually am fell by the wayside. I began to recognize myself less and less but that was good because things around me were going great and I had the girl and the health and the productivity going, so I rode it as far as I could and began to see light at the end of the tunnel, a means to an end and a beginning. That was it for me. I was done, no more drinking, no more smoking, no more feeling guilty and horrible about a life just wasted, no more wanting a gruesome, bitter end to the story of Jim Bailey, once and forever known as the Dodger. I pulled myself from the depths of hell and came out on the other side, feeling like a newborn, a man with a second chance, the recipient of a new heart and a new way of life. Things were perfect.

  I knew it wouldn't last.

  That light at the end of the tunnel was bullshit. My car got splattered all over the walls Final Destination style. I'm a smear of blood and bones and metal on metal. Lights out, sucker.

  Fuck.

  I drink more. Now I'm buzzing, here we go. I throw on some Elliot Smith and really start to get emotional, yeah here we go, finally some tears, some crying's what I need, I felt like I haven't felt in years and I've forgotten how to release, how to let go, how to blow my nose after that first wave of intense weeping nearly blows my mucous membranes to smithereens. I breathe heavily through my mouth, gasping, grasping for life, this is what I missed this is what I need this is what I crave. I am not a happy person so why did I decide to change? I've let myself down. I chose a forbidden path and left the person I've been living with for years in a trail of dust behind me, the little boy I was, the teenager I hated, the self loathing self harmer, the drunk, the pothead, the passionate musician, the hilarious outgoing life of the party, the glue of many groups of friends, the charming disarming ladies' man, the effortlessly excellent writer, the heart on his sleeve feeling bearer, the drunk, the suicidal lonely heart, the Dodger, the drunk.

  With all of that shed I was free to resurrect. So I did.

  But it was all based on a lie.

  I faked it.

  Drink.

  Through a straw.

  I recover from the crying fit and bask in its afterglow. Nothing like a good tear session. I teeter and sway on the couch as I sip a fresh V/G, glad to be back in good company. Drunk, welcome back, you've been missed, a search party was almost sent out several times until I thought about Kara and decided your presence wasn't necessary. But now it is. I'm glad we've found each other once again, my tulip, my angel, my soul savior. Let's take the trip down the rabbit hole together and ruin this life of mine once and for all.

  Drink.

  I sit back and think about the last nine months, all the progress I've made, all the wonderful, beautiful times that I've shared with Kara and how I would do anything to hold onto that, to make a life with her and settle down and actually, finally be normal. Get married. Raise a family. Save money. Buy a car. All that shit.

  Ah, who am I kidding?

  This experiment was doomed from the get go. I can't change who I am. I have moments of strength that can apparently last up to nine months, but in the end, I'll always be me.

  Stonedrunktired, tired of life. Tired of living.

  I'd really just like to get it over with.

  So there we go. I'll off Paiger, then off myself. With both of us dead the only two people who know the truth will be eliminated and the only truth Kara will ever know is what's in the book, which will never be confirmed nor denied. I can spare her at least a little pain, avoid my own pain by being dead, and avoid going to prison for murder and getting ass raped. It's brilliant.

  But can I do it?

  The drunk writer in me comes back into my head and talks the talk, you know you can do it, Paiger stabbed you in the back, and if the current course of events is allowed to continue you'll wind up even more miserable than you are now. Kara will hate you. Paiger will be famous. You'll have to leave the country because the very mention of either of their names will make you vomit, and you'll wind up sucking on a car muffler for breakfast one Wednesday morning in Panama City.

  Once and forever, the Dodger.

  Let's get it over with.

  Paiger texts me that she'll be over around ten. Kara went home after work to walk her dog so I text her I'm going out and that I'll see her tomorrow. Big fat lie, the last lie I'll ever tell her, the last lie I'll ever tell anyone. She texts me I Heart You with an emoticon. I cry for another ten minutes, then shift back into murder mode.

  So how do I do it?

  The less blood, the better. I hate blood. But in a makeshift situation such as this, blood may have to be involved. I put some newspapers down on the kitchen floor, just in case it's via knife. Actually, maybe a frying pan. I can bash her skull in until it's flat as a pancake, then make pancakes to celebrate. Oh wait, I'll be dead.

  But there's always time for pancakes.

  I consider more options. Drown her in the bathtub? That might make a lot of noise. Hmm, maybe not if I knock her out first. I could push her down the stairs, if I had stairs in my apartment. Where can I find stairs this time of night? I could knock her out and drive to th
e lake and toss her in. Wait, my license is expired. Fuck. Burn her alive in the backyard? Drop her off in a bad neighborhood? Maybe just a simple pillow over the face?

  Man, this is hard.

  Drink.

  For something as dramatic as a murder/suicide, a note should definitely be left. I put the method of murder debate on hold and grab a pencil and paper. My legibility is for shit and I'm almost seeing double as I scribble:

  Dearest Kara.

  I first want to start off by saying I'm really sorry. For reasons I won't go into this needed to happen, I needed to end my life, it's not worth going into, it's nothing that really matters. What matters is you. For the last nine months I've been the happiest I've ever been, and all the intimate moments we've shared, all the laughing and fun and love, it's been incredible. I can't imagine my life without you. I can't imagine living without you. To hear your voice and see your eyes and taste your lips is the reason I get out of bed in the morning, the only reason I do anything, you're the apple of my eye, the saving grace of my existence, the love of my life. You are everything to me and without you I would've been dead a long time ago. My clock was ticking and you stopped it. I breathe now only for you, which is why I have to leave you.

  I'm sorry. Someday you'll understand.

  Yours always, Jim.

  I read it aloud and smile. Better than the first letter I wrote her, much more cliché and a lot less vaginal. Hell, maybe this whole thing will result in Kara becoming more famous than Paiger or I could've ever dreamed. The sole survivor of the whole Dodger saga, the one, the only, Kara Miller. An actress. A playwright. A director.

  My God, she could have it all.

  I figure I'll hide the money somewhere safe and leave a note in one of my plaid sportscoats or a pair of khakis, somewhere she won't have to look until deciding which pieces of my wardrobe are worth keeping and which pieces deserve front rack exposure at the Salvation Army. She'll use the cash and her newfound fame to renovate a theater, name it Jim Bailey Theater and start a theater company, and they'll put on successful play upon play, catapulting Kara to instant stardom. She'll eventually be tapped to write and direct movies, and when she wins an Oscar for Best Picture Ever, all she can do is thank me me me during her heartfelt, emotional speech. I made it all possible, my death made it happen. From the grave, it's Jim Bailey, making a difference one life at a time. Bwahaha.

  The whole thing will be a smashing success and I'll live on through Kara, she'll be a constant reminder that I had an intense effect on the world and still do, even in death.

  I can live with that.

  Nine thirty. Half an hour. I drink up, method of murder decided: stranglehold, while Stranglehold plays in the background. Ted Nugent, The Nuge, providing the score for my ultimate payback with one of the greatest rock songs of all time.

  It's poetic.

  The weird thing is that part of me really wants Paiger to know she's going to die, to realize she's going to have a last breath, to have the last thought on her mind be I Am Going To Die By The Hands Of Jim Bailey. I want the last thing she sees to be me, arms outstretched around that pretty little neck, me, the final person she gets to fuck over, me, choking the ever loving life from her itty bitty body. She stole my reason to live so I'm going to steal her life. It's a pretty fair trade overall.

  This feeling I have is weird. This feeling that all I want to do is end another human being's existence, that nothing in the world can repair the damage done by this person, that the only way to right what's been wronged is the old time act of murder, plain simple murder. Is this what a natural predator feels like when it stalks its prey? Is this what all those crazy fucks who kill at will surrender to? Hunter, gatherer, Dodger, murderer. I'm taking it all in stride.

  Prey, indeed. Prey for a quick death.

  Prey, Paiger.

  I realize now that I was never really here, this life, this existence, that I always had one foot in the pool and the other in the casket. I knew my time would be short, which is why I lived in the moment and to the point.

  I was an only child, and a child of divorce. I was never left wanting. I never got hit or spanked and was mercilessly spoiled every birthday and Christmas. I got everything I wanted and more than I deserved, so of course I threw it all away.

  Up until their deaths I still felt like my parents' kid, always trying to make them laugh and always willing to listen to their problems because I knew they had no one else. Neither of them remarried after they divorced. Neither of them even had long term relationships. For the most part, they flew solo the last twenty years of their lives.

  When I was younger, it always boggled my mind.

  Why would anyone just give up looking for love midlife? It was total surrender, the admittance of bitter defeat, the acceptance of the inevitable, which was isolation, loneliness, and sitting in front of the TV all the way to the grave. An existence expired, no more making a difference, no more having a place in the world. I vowed not to let that happen to me.

  So all through my twenties I completely smothered the girls I wanted to be with. Great plan. It only took getting my heart ripped in half a few times before I put up my defenses for good. One night stands became the way to go, just get my rocks off and never see them again, even the ones I actually kind of liked because I knew they'd be the ones to hurt me the most. Booze and drugs became my best friends and I couldn't make the leap into adulthood to save my life. I didn't want to. If being alone was good enough for my parents, why wasn't it good enough for me?

  This went on for years.

  Until Kara.

  I knew she was my one true chance at happiness the minute I saw her. And I had her. Three times.

  But I screwed it up. Three times.

  I am my parents' son.

  But my life's been pretty awesome.

  I've been in a band, know how to ride a skateboard, been in a helicopter, won a spelling bee, survived a car accident, ran the bases at Wrigley, kissed the Stanley Cup, threw a cup of piss at a bus driver, seen Mount Rushmore, tasted some great beer, driven halfway across the country, lived in Seattle for seven days, smoked some hellacious herb, never had a bad trip on mushrooms, fucked some sexy ass women, been to five Lollapaloozas in a row, been to Vegas, saw Michael Jordan play live, been the star of several viral videos, dodged a bullet, was the lead in a play, touched some amazing people's lives with great advice and emotional moments, and finally, had my one great love. I did it. It happened. I wish my parents had been alive to see that, but I guess I'll see them soon enough. They'll be so proud.

  I'm happy to be going out on my own terms. Like a pimp. Most people fight death kicking and screaming, but I'm really, truly looking forward to it.

  Change is good.

  I crack open an ice cold Stella. Last beer for awhile, and I wouldn't dream of drinking anything else.

  One thought races through the buzzway of my brain and that's that I may be overlooking how this whole thing is going to effect Kara. We've had a great run, she does love me, and aside from the one big lie, we've always been honest with each other.

  But after she gets the news that I drove Paiger's car into oncoming traffic on Lake Shore Drive, she'll know the truth. Well, not the whole truth, but she'll know at least one thing.

  She never should've trusted me.

  I told everything. The book is tell all, tell all see all hear all, all because I was hammered, hammered and duped. For the rest of her life Kara will carry the burden of never knowing exactly what happened between the Dodger and the Paiger, whether any of the story was true or if it was all a fabrication, or even fiction. It's better she doesn't know because she wasn't meant to find out, especially not like this, through a book written by some goddamn big mouthed reporter. If anyone should tell her it's me, because it's my story to tell.

  But fuck it.

  This story is much better, much more truthful, with no chance of some stupid happy ending.

  This story is real.

  And it'll h
ave a real ending.