The Gruesome Death of John

     This photo was taken 2 hours before Johns death in  June of 2004. John, the shorter one on the right, is interrogating Ralph as to the whereabouts of the “package.” I stealthily took this picture from my phone before I joined in. They would have shot me dead, then and there had they known. These are the sort of people who don’t like having their pictures taken. 

The rain from the previous week has saturated everything as sweat pours down their brow due to the unbearable humidity. The air stinks like shit. The perfect metaphor for our mood.

The package, was not so much a package as it was a person. Someone knew too much. Someone had to be fixed. John, always cautious, took it upon himself to deal with our little situation. This was the something that money couldn’t buy.

Turns out we had the wrong package. Ralph, who was never the brightest, tries to convince John that this is not such a big deal. 

“Just handle it the same way we handle all our problems” he says. “Burry it. Burry it deep.”

I can taste the excitement excreting out of his words. It’s sick the way he talks about it so nonchalantly. To him, people are just insects. If they get in the way, he squishes them, like ants on a sidewalk.

John on the other hand is not as cool and collected. It’s his ass on the line if this becomes out of control and if it does he’ll be spread to all four corners of the country. The sound of muffled screams coming from the parking lot less than 20 meters away is wearing down on his nerves. He is frantically trying to come up an idea as to where the real package could be, cursing Ralph and the job every chance he gets. This is the start of his own demise. 

John orders Ralph and I to start searching for the “real package” while he deals with the one in the trunk. I suggest a wooded area outside of town, that few people know about. The ground is soft. We agree on the plan, and tell John to wait for our call.

John never even made it out of town. He got popped at a stop sign for not wearing a seatbelt.  Cop tried to give him a ticket, just a ticket, but John wouldn’t take that, no not from some lame dick cop. One thing lead to another, the cop found the body in the trunk, a bullet found the cop. By the time it was over, there were five bodies, John, the cop, two others from the standoff, and the package. The wrong package.