Beyond Reason
Introduction
Who the fuck would do it? I mean, who would actually kill him?
Sure he had some people who weren't what you could call fans, but to slash his throat and then leave him to bleed to death-who the fuck does that?
This wasn't Jason Kemp, this wasn't Dumpster Boy-this was…Oh God.
He fought it, that's what the police said. He fought hard.
Carl told me that he put up a hell of a fight and when I saw what the place looked like-fuck me. Ali and Liston couldn't have done a better job trashing the place. But he would fight it, he wouldn't go down easy. Not him. It must have been…I don't know, it must have been desperate. As soon as he realized that whoever the fuck did it was serious and that it wasn't a joke or just some twisted shit trying to scare him, he would have fought hard, he would have done-anything to win.
After the fucker left him there he tried to get help. He crawled-they could tell by the trail of blood-to the phone. He even made it but by then he had been too weak to push the fucking buttons. It was lying next to him in the blood. His blood.
Jesus. As long as I live I'll see that blood everywhere. On the floor of course, but the bed, the furniture, the walls-it was fucking everywhere. The people in the place below his complained that the blood had leaked through their ceiling and made a mess.
When the cops called me to ID the body-the body, Christ. That makes him sound like a-I don't know what-a dead thing, something that wasn't real or important or something but he wasn't that. It was-shit he was laying in this pool of blood and it was so big, the puddle, that it was hard not to step in it because I had to get close enough to see his face.
Have you ever seen someone who's bled to death? Their skin is really white, deathly white-his was anyway. And it had that texture to it that looked like sort of wax, like it wasn't really skin.
But do you want to know what the worst part was?
His eyes were open.
His eyes were amazing.
It was like he was looking at me and asking me for a favor. He didn't do that often, hardly ever-maybe twice in all the time we knew each other, but that's what he looked like. His mouth was slightly opened and his arm was out like he was reaching or maybe he was trying to ward off whoever was doing this to him.
It doesn't matter now either way.
Later, that night, the next week and ten years later I'd still have nightmares about seeing him like that and in the dream I think I hear him asking me to help him, to find the son of a bitch who did this to him and nail him to the fucking wall.
I read once that a long time ago, like when Jack the Ripper was doing his thing they thought that the last thing the victim looked at before they died was burned into their eyes. They thought there might be some way to get the picture out and then they'd be able to solve murders.
I'd wake up sweating in the middle of the night and I'd remember his eyes, that dead stare and I'd think about that and wish it was that easy.