The Enigma’s Anomaly

I get a call at about eight in the morning which seems impossible. For as long as I have known Gerard he has never woken up before eleven. It is Gerard though, unless my Caller ID is lying to me. I can’t deal with this right now, so I reject the call. I need some sleep. I have so much soul searching to do in the next few days that I need as much rest as I can possibly get.

I put the phone down to get back to sleep but it goes off again fifteen minutes later. Fucking Gerard. Doesn’t he realize that it’s early? I don’t want to talk with anyone until I have eight hours of sleep at least, but having gone to bed after midnight last night, means that it’s going to take me a while.

I want to just sleep! I turn my phone off, because I’m more likely to say something I’m going to regret if I’m tired. Maybe I’d confess undying love for him or maybe I’d tell him to go fuck himself. I’m very unpredictable when I’m sleepy.

I only manage to squeeze an hour more of sleep until I’m awake. I can’t get back to sleep so I might as well just get up. Being up so early means I am in dire need of caffeine. After a cup of coffee and a stale piece of bread I found in my pantry, I’m awake enough to at least do something.

I don’t know what to do though. I’m not trying to kill anyone at the moment. I could start actually writing that article about Gerard. That sounds like hard work. I’m not really in the mood to do anything that arduous today.

I might as well try to find a new case. Something quick so I can try to get my head back in the game. It feels like forever since I took a case even though I did one not too long ago, because of the one with Gerard taking so long. I’m not sure if I really want to do that either.

Mindlessly I start flipping through the file I have on Gerard. I don’t know why, it just kind of comforts me. I don’t really know what I’m looking for, I just want to see him.

Maybe I should call him back. Maybe I should go see him.

I turn my phone back on while debating this.

No matter how hard I try to console myself it hurts knowing that I’m this person. I’m this person who kills people. I’m this heartless person who’s stared into the scope of a gun and taken away someone’s life. I’m this person who sparing a guy’s life solely because he’s sweet. It occurs to me that the people I’ve killed in the past may have been sweet. They might’ve donated to charity, or saved a kids life once. I could’ve killed the next president and I wouldn’t have even given it a second thought.

Now this stupid guy walks into my life and he makes me realize how callous I’ve been. What if I killed someone who was as amazing as Gerard. I’ve probably killed someone’s fiancée. Someone’s only child. Someone’s best friend, or uncle, or aunt, or cousin. I’ve killed so many people and hurt even more.

Why am I only just realizing this?

I’ve been in this game for almost three years. It should have registered to me that I’m a bad person, but it feels like it’s all coming to me now. How do I even live with myself? How do I keep walking around without a care when I’ve been the reason that so many people have had to plan funerals? People who are closer to the victims than I am to Gerard, and I just took away that life. And for what? Money? Is that all I am?

I just kill people for my own sake, but what makes me worth any more than those people? What gives me the right to live when they don’t? I’m a murderer. The amount of blood on my hands is enough to get me several dozen death sentences.

What am I is the better question. I’m not even sure if someone like me is human. I kill people. That’s wrong. No matter who you ask, or what the circumstances, murder is always wrong.

I try to convince myself I’m not to blame because I’m not the one who wants the victims dead, but at the end of the day, I’m the one who pulls the trigger. At the end of the day it’s my actions that take lives away. I may be the middle man, but I don’t stop it. I never do anything to stop the death from happening.

Gerard doesn’t deserve this baggage. Gerard deserves someone honorable. He deserves a doctor, or a scientist. He deserves someone whose soul is still intact. Someone with morals, or just someone who means good. He shouldn’t have to settle with someone as disgraceful as myself.

That’s why I can’t call Gerard. That’s why I can’t like Gerard. I can’t be there for him with my job. I’d only ever put him in danger and I’d have to lie about who I am. I’d have to pretend I’m someone I’m not if I were to ever try to be with Gerard.

That doesn’t mean I don’t want him. Because I do. God, I do so much. I think I’m starting to realize that I want Gerard more than I want anything else.

I can’t get past how bad I am for him though. No matter how hard I try to be a worthy man, I can never change my past.

I look down at the floor. I blanked out for a few minutes and didn’t realized that the whole file, had dropped to the ground with a heap of papers now scattering my floor. A few pictures of Gerard are right side up and I look down at him.

I can’t even help, but smile when I see his face. He just looks so magical to me. He doesn’t even seem real. How can he be so perfect and yet still so different from me?

I don’t know if I’ve ever been so critical of myself in my life. I never look back, but here I am. I can’t help but think about how much pain I’ve caused.

Looking back on my first target it feels unreal. I can’t even remember what kind of person I was before that first hit.

It was the summer after I’d graduated college, and I couldn’t get a job. It was getting desperate so that I couldn’t do anything, and I couldn’t pay for food. It was just looking so grim. I’d have done literally anything to keep myself from thinking that I’d failed. I didn’t want to have failed while only in my twenties. It wasn’t fair that I was so drained without even trying to make a difference. Without even having a good opportunity.

Then there was that first case. It didn’t seem real to me. I’m still not sure where my life would’ve taken me if I hadn’t gone down this path.

It was about noon, and I was walking across the park after another miserable job interview. There was this guy, wearing sunglasses and he had his hood up. I saw him drop a manila envelope under the nook of a garbage can. I was young, so once he was gone I took it. I took that envelope and I ran home with it. I don’t know what I was hoping for. Money maybe? Maybe I was just curious. I wanted to know what that guy was doing that looked so suspicious.

Inside that envelope was a knot of money. About a thousand dollars in cash. There were also instructions. Instructions for a murder. I didn’t know what to do after that. I didn’t have any money, and rent was due. I couldn’t just turn the envelope away to the police, because then I’d have to return the money or something. I didn’t have a choice but to keep quiet and keep the money. The part that drew me in was the fact that the thousand dollars was just a fraction. It was only a tiny portion of the real sum.

It was so much money. I didn’t have close to that much in my bank account. I needed that money, and there was this convenient little option right in front of me. All I had to do was put a bullet in some cheating wife’s head. It seemed so easy. It was so easy.

So I did it. I killed her. I killed that woman without knowing who she was. I just killed her for the cash. It was so much money though. It was a tantalizing field, and it was just sitting there for me to partake in.

The day I got home after killing her I’d puked my guts out. I felt so sick and awful. I couldn’t handle the meaning of what I’d just done. I went to her funeral, and I watched her family crying. I watched that woman’s friends cry over a white coffin. I watched that pain, and I knew it was my fault. I didn’t sleep for a week after that murder. I started losing a grip on who I was, but it was so much money.

A month later I killed someone else. And then another, and it started becoming easier. It became a game almost. I hated the implications of it, but I loved the reward. I still love the reward.

Gerard, though. What made him any different than that woman I killed? Why do I think I have permission to play God like that? It’s not my place to decide who lives and who dies, but I made that choice anyway. I still make that choice daily. For that, I think I’m the closest thing to a monster that you’re ever going to get.

I stand up and walk over to my computer.

I place my fingers on the keyboard, and start on that article.

“It’s such an indecent thing to say of someone that they’re nice. ‘Nice’ seems like such a generic thing. Anyone could be nice, and the dullness of the word makes it feel so impersonal. Nevertheless, some people we meet are just so nice. It’s hard to believe that some people can be so purely good, and it feels impossible to characterize a soul that pure. The thing about humans as a species is that we’re so cynical. We look for the negativity, so we have more words to describe the cruelty of a human then the goodness. We have more words to describe the bad parts of a personality then the good, and this makes descriptions difficult. I don’t have the words to describe Gerard Way. He is nice. The English language has no word to describe the brutal simplicity of how good a person he is. He is kind. He is nice, and I don’t know how else to put it.”

My phone goes off after I write up the first sentences, and I sigh. I look down at the Caller ID even though I already know its Gerard.

To my surprise however it’s not Gerard, but an unknown number. I don’t recognize the digits of the number. I might as well answer, I guess.

“Hello?” I ask into the receiver.

“Frank? It’s Mikey.”

Um, that’s weird. When did he get my number? That’s a stupid question, he’s Gerard’s brother.

“Okay...?”

“Gerard wants to know if you hate him. He didn’t get any sleep, and you weren’t answering your phone.”

“I just need a little time to think things through. I need some space to figure out what I’m doing,” I answer. That’s the most honest I’ve been to anyone, including myself, in a very long while. Other than Gerard of course. I never seem to lie to Gerard. At least not about my feelings.

“Would you mind if I ask what the hell is going on? I’m completely lost,” Mikey asks.

“Just let me think things through and then I’ll have an answer for you,” I reply, and hang up a second later. I have no idea what I’m doing right now, but I know that I don’t need Gerard’s little brother reprimanding me. Whatever is happening with my life right now, I need to figure it out on my own.