“You sure? You’re really positive?”
“Yes. How many times do I have to tell you? His eyes were open when he died.”
“And you closed them, right?”
“What else was I supposed to do? Of course I closed them. Don’t be such a fool. You’re acting like a fool right now. You are.”
They sat in silence as the windshield began to defog.
“Well?”
“Well, what?”
“What was he staring at?”
“When you’re dead, you’re really not staring. Don’t you get it? You’re dead.”
“No, I mean what was the last thing he was staring at before . . . you know. I mean before he left.” His hands had searched for the appropriate word.
“First off, it wasn’t like he’d gone out and left us. Ditched us for good. He died, all right? Just say that. Say he died.”
“He died.”
They paused, and the evergreens surrounding them sighed.
“Oh damn it. You know, you’re being real graceful about all this. About his . . . passing.”
“His death. JUST SAY THE DAMN WORD.” A vein popped in his temple. His hands had shot up into the air.
The windshield was finally clear. They shut it off. Yet they sat there still, clouds still coming from their mouths.
“And for the record, you’re the one asking about his goddamn eyes. HIS GODDAMN DEAD EYES.”
They sat glaring at each other, with the tension between them, thick as the snow outside.
“I don’t get it.”
“What don’t you get?”
“Why you’re acting like this. You need to calm down. No need to be blunt in these kinds of situations. That’s what euphemisms are for. You know what a euphemism is?”
“That’s a stupid question. What you’re saying is stupid.”
“I said do you know what a euphemism is.”
“What do you think?”
“I think you don’t.”
“You think I don’t. Well, surprise-surprise: I do. Of course I know what a fucking euphemism is. Not so sure you do.”
“Hey, what’s that supposed to mean?”
“Are we really having this conversation? Let’s go. Let’s get the hell out of here already. Where’s the keys?”
His friend stared at him hard as his hand made to procure the keys from his jacket pocket. Once he felt them and cupped them in his hand – still in the pocket – he froze. His eyes were still staring hard at his friend.
“Well? Go on. Go start the car.”
“No.”
“No, what?”
“I have to take a piss.”
“Oh God. Are you kidding me?”
“It’ll be just a minute, Mister Graceful.” With the keys slipped back into his pocket, he climbed out of the car to a nearby snow-capped bush.
In the car, the silence was suffocated with rage, much like a canvas sadistically dipped in dark iron-red paint so that every white space was tarred.
Off in the distance a hawk flew from a tree. In fright of a sudden, horrendous scream, emanating from the inside of the car. The mountains sympathized with an echo, as anguished as its source.
When he returned into the car, he saw riverlets of tears lining his friend’s face.
“That was some scream. The hell was it for? What happened?”
After many whimpers, he gave a shudder, covering his head in his hands. Finally, he lifted his head and looked over at his friend. Slowly, he began.
“I didn’t close them.”
“Oh God.”
“I didn’t—”
“No, don’t say it. No. No, no, no, no. NO!”
“--close them. I couldn’t Barton.”
“Tell me you’re only lying Harris. TELL ME YOU’RE LYING.”
Harris sat in silence, staring at Barton, with no answer worth saying.
Barton slammed his hands on the steering wheel, and then the driver’s seat window. “Oh fuck, Harris. I tell you to do one thing, and you couldn’t even do that. Damn it. Damn YOU. Damn!”
In the momentary silence, the engine purred as the windshield started fogging up again.
“I knew you were lying. I fucking knew it.”
Barton opened his door and got out of his seat, leaving Harris alone in the car again. Cold air pierced Barton’s lungs as he stared at the frozen lake they had left behind in silence. He walked to the other side of the car – Harris’s side – and opened his friend’s door. With a forceful tug from his clenched fist, he grabbed Harris out of his seat and slammed him against the car so that his back lay against the cold of the back window.
“HARRIS. WHAT. THE HELL. WERE YOU THINKING.”
Harris only looked up beyond his friend, toward the frozen lake. “No. I couldn’t do it, Barton, I couldn’t. You should have seen him. Barton. His eyes were open. They were fucking open.”
“And there you were, being Mister Graceful. You don’t even know what a euphemism is. I knew something was up.
The frozen lake was behind them, waiting.
“You do realize something, don’t you, Harris?”
* * *
“Turn left.”
“You sure? I thought the lake was to the right.”
“No. Turn left. Now that we’re turning back, we might as well take the evidence with us. It doesn’t look like anyone’s lookin’ for us at the moment anyway.”
“What? You mean to tell me you left the sledge-hammer there?” Barton turned his neck to check the back. There he noticed a missing sledge-hammer next to the duffel bag stuffed with money. “God damn it, Harris. First, the eyes. Now the fucking sledge-hammer. What accomplices I’ve chosen. Jesus.”
“Shut your pie hole, Barton and make the left. It’s right over there.”
Barton turned the car to the left, toward an obvious trail of blood leading to the sledge-hammer: a wooden, half frozen stick with a black, rubber cylinder attached. Harris stepped out of the car.
“Oh, and Harris.” Barton had called from his window.
“What now?”
“Don’t forget to clean up that bit of blood over there. You got that, Mister Graceful? Jesus, you’re such a pig on the job, I mean it.”
“Yeah, yeah. Why don’t you sit tight and keep your trap shut, will ya?”
“Fucking coward.”
Barton looked at his rear-view mirror, watching Harris busily and clumsily cover the trail of blood with clean, unadulterated white snow. He mumbled to himself in mockery, “. . . Didn’t even close his god damn eyes. Oh, excuse me, Harris: his god damn ‘dead’ eyes.”
“After he was finished cleaning the mess, Harris walked up to Barton’s window and knocked on it.
Barton rolled down the window. “What do you want?”
With a quick and sturdy swing, Harris aimed the sledge-hammer straight for Barton’s head. A pool of blood seeped out of his skull and onto the car seat, staining it. He was dead.
After seeing his art work, indulging in self-appreciation, he stared into the mountains and took in a deep breath. He was never the athletic type; couldn’t handle taking orders from coaches.
One more deep breath and Harris lunged himself over Barton’s dead body to unbuckle Barton’s seat belt. He then aimed the steering wheel toward a nearby tree, and placed the sledge hammer on the accelerator. On the count of three, he switched the shift stick from park onto drive, and watched as Barton’s body and the car smashed into the tree, causing the snow on its branches to fall onto the car, crushing it even more.
“Oopsy-daisy.”
After walking to the car, Harris pried open, with all his might, the back door. “Mustn’t forget this.” He reached for the duffel bag.
“And for the finishing touches . . .” Grabbing the sledge-hammer from the bottom of the car, Harris wiped it on his jacket, then got Barton’s hand and played puppet: with his friend’s finger prints on the sledge-hammer, no one could ever think he used it for anything. Harris placed the sledge-hammer on the broken dashboard, next to Barton’s hole on his head.
* * *
The walk to the lake took twenty minutes of wheezing. He looked back to where he left Barton and the car: a cloud of smoke indicated its location. Harris pretended it was Barton’s dirty soul, leaving the peaceful wintery bit of mother nature, straight into the coal mines of hell, filled with soot and snobbery.
When he reached the lake, he put down the duffel bag. Like a child spying on Santa, he tip-toed carefully on the ice until he reached the opening.
There lay, floating dead and purple, was Leonhard. His eyes were indeed open. His body was stiff as a firm mattress.
“Alrighty, buddy. Come. Come here.” Harris grabbed Leonhard by the neck and finally closed his eyes.
“Excuse me, sir.”
Harris quickly turned his head toward the voice. “Oh. Oh, officer, thank God. Thank the Lord Almighty. You wouldn’t believe what had happened. But first, please help. Help me. My friend . . . .”
The officer tip-toed carefully over the ice to where Harris was; he was still holding Leonhard by the neck.
“Officer . . . my friend . . . there was a man . . . a very bad and terrible man . . . Oh, oh Leonhard!” Both the officer and Harris managed to pull Leonhard out of the ice cold lake.
“Sir, if you could just calm down. I have tissues in my car. Please stop crying, ad tell me what happened to your friend.”
* * *
“So, you see officer, my friend, Leonhard, and I . . . well, we were hiking out, over here. We wanted to see the beauties of nature. When suddenly, this guy comes driving, quite recklessly, mind you, alongside us. My friend Leonhard – Oh Leonhard, his eyes were still open! – he gave this guy a real weird look. Like he knew something was up with that guy.”
“Oh yeah? And?”
“And so the guy goes on and gets out of his car, and he and Leonhard get into a fight. Listen officer. I swear to God’s good graces—” Harris placed both hands on his heart, and then toward the sky. “—I have no idea whether or not these two men knew each other, only that I have a feeling like they do.”
“So, what happened . . . Oh, your name is?”
“My name’s Joel.”
“So, what happened next, Joel?”
“Well, the guy who was driving in the car, he got out of his car, took out his sledge hammer, and slammed it into Leonhard’s head like it was nobody’s business.”
“And where were you during all this, Joel?”
“Me? Oh, I was scared as hell, officer. I had run off into the woods. I’m more of a pacifist, to be honest. And anyway, there was no use in helping my friend when his life was already snuffed out, you know what I mean? The guy gone and slammed Leonhard into the ice until it broke. And just to make sure, he drowned my friend – Oh Leonhard, your eyes were open! – in the water. Then he took off. Just like that officer. When he left, I ran toward Leonhard. That’s when I heard a crash, and saw the smoke coming out over there.”
Harris pointed toward the general direction where he left Barton.
“Yeah, Joel, I just come from there. I seen the sledge-hammer you were talking about. I’m going to investigate some more about all this. Find out who the killer is. May I have your number, Joel?”
Harris panicked a little. “What for?”
“Well, just in case I have more questions for you.”
“Oh, right, right.” Harris supplied a fake number.
“All right. Thank you, Joel. I’ll give you a call if I need you for any more information. You can leave your friend . . . .”
“Leonhard.”
“Leonhard . . ?"
"Oaks. Leonhard Oaks. That's O-A-K-S."
"You can leave your friend, Leonhard Oaks, here. I’ll have more cops pull up. You sure you’re going to be all right, Joel? You seem traumatized. Maybe you should go to a hospital or something.”
“Thank you for the concern, officer, but I think I’ll make my way there myself. I need to be alone for a little bit.”
“All right, then. And is that your bag over there?” The officer innocently pointed at the duffel bag, stuffed with money.
“Yes, officer. That’s my hiking bag.”
“Ok, well, you be careful now. I’ll take it from here.”
“Ok, thank you again officer.”
“No, thank you, Joel.”
Harris began making his way with his duffel bag. Off into the woods, when the officer called him one last time.
“Oh, Joel!”
“Yes, officer?”
“I’m sorry for your loss.”
“No, it’s ok, thank you. You’re very kind. Oh, Leonhard! His eyes were open when he died, don’t you know!”
“It happens. And when it does, you just have to close them and move on.”
They parted ways. Then Harris, with a last glance, looked toward Leonhard. He wanted to make sure his friend’s eyes were closed. They were.
“Yes. How many times do I have to tell you? His eyes were open when he died.”
“And you closed them, right?”
“What else was I supposed to do? Of course I closed them. Don’t be such a fool. You’re acting like a fool right now. You are.”
They sat in silence as the windshield began to defog.
“Well?”
“Well, what?”
“What was he staring at?”
“When you’re dead, you’re really not staring. Don’t you get it? You’re dead.”
“No, I mean what was the last thing he was staring at before . . . you know. I mean before he left.” His hands had searched for the appropriate word.
“First off, it wasn’t like he’d gone out and left us. Ditched us for good. He died, all right? Just say that. Say he died.”
“He died.”
They paused, and the evergreens surrounding them sighed.
“Oh damn it. You know, you’re being real graceful about all this. About his . . . passing.”
“His death. JUST SAY THE DAMN WORD.” A vein popped in his temple. His hands had shot up into the air.
The windshield was finally clear. They shut it off. Yet they sat there still, clouds still coming from their mouths.
“And for the record, you’re the one asking about his goddamn eyes. HIS GODDAMN DEAD EYES.”
They sat glaring at each other, with the tension between them, thick as the snow outside.
“I don’t get it.”
“What don’t you get?”
“Why you’re acting like this. You need to calm down. No need to be blunt in these kinds of situations. That’s what euphemisms are for. You know what a euphemism is?”
“That’s a stupid question. What you’re saying is stupid.”
“I said do you know what a euphemism is.”
“What do you think?”
“I think you don’t.”
“You think I don’t. Well, surprise-surprise: I do. Of course I know what a fucking euphemism is. Not so sure you do.”
“Hey, what’s that supposed to mean?”
“Are we really having this conversation? Let’s go. Let’s get the hell out of here already. Where’s the keys?”
His friend stared at him hard as his hand made to procure the keys from his jacket pocket. Once he felt them and cupped them in his hand – still in the pocket – he froze. His eyes were still staring hard at his friend.
“Well? Go on. Go start the car.”
“No.”
“No, what?”
“I have to take a piss.”
“Oh God. Are you kidding me?”
“It’ll be just a minute, Mister Graceful.” With the keys slipped back into his pocket, he climbed out of the car to a nearby snow-capped bush.
In the car, the silence was suffocated with rage, much like a canvas sadistically dipped in dark iron-red paint so that every white space was tarred.
Off in the distance a hawk flew from a tree. In fright of a sudden, horrendous scream, emanating from the inside of the car. The mountains sympathized with an echo, as anguished as its source.
When he returned into the car, he saw riverlets of tears lining his friend’s face.
“That was some scream. The hell was it for? What happened?”
After many whimpers, he gave a shudder, covering his head in his hands. Finally, he lifted his head and looked over at his friend. Slowly, he began.
“I didn’t close them.”
“Oh God.”
“I didn’t—”
“No, don’t say it. No. No, no, no, no. NO!”
“--close them. I couldn’t Barton.”
“Tell me you’re only lying Harris. TELL ME YOU’RE LYING.”
Harris sat in silence, staring at Barton, with no answer worth saying.
Barton slammed his hands on the steering wheel, and then the driver’s seat window. “Oh fuck, Harris. I tell you to do one thing, and you couldn’t even do that. Damn it. Damn YOU. Damn!”
In the momentary silence, the engine purred as the windshield started fogging up again.
“I knew you were lying. I fucking knew it.”
Barton opened his door and got out of his seat, leaving Harris alone in the car again. Cold air pierced Barton’s lungs as he stared at the frozen lake they had left behind in silence. He walked to the other side of the car – Harris’s side – and opened his friend’s door. With a forceful tug from his clenched fist, he grabbed Harris out of his seat and slammed him against the car so that his back lay against the cold of the back window.
“HARRIS. WHAT. THE HELL. WERE YOU THINKING.”
Harris only looked up beyond his friend, toward the frozen lake. “No. I couldn’t do it, Barton, I couldn’t. You should have seen him. Barton. His eyes were open. They were fucking open.”
“And there you were, being Mister Graceful. You don’t even know what a euphemism is. I knew something was up.
The frozen lake was behind them, waiting.
“You do realize something, don’t you, Harris?”
* * *
“Turn left.”
“You sure? I thought the lake was to the right.”
“No. Turn left. Now that we’re turning back, we might as well take the evidence with us. It doesn’t look like anyone’s lookin’ for us at the moment anyway.”
“What? You mean to tell me you left the sledge-hammer there?” Barton turned his neck to check the back. There he noticed a missing sledge-hammer next to the duffel bag stuffed with money. “God damn it, Harris. First, the eyes. Now the fucking sledge-hammer. What accomplices I’ve chosen. Jesus.”
“Shut your pie hole, Barton and make the left. It’s right over there.”
Barton turned the car to the left, toward an obvious trail of blood leading to the sledge-hammer: a wooden, half frozen stick with a black, rubber cylinder attached. Harris stepped out of the car.
“Oh, and Harris.” Barton had called from his window.
“What now?”
“Don’t forget to clean up that bit of blood over there. You got that, Mister Graceful? Jesus, you’re such a pig on the job, I mean it.”
“Yeah, yeah. Why don’t you sit tight and keep your trap shut, will ya?”
“Fucking coward.”
Barton looked at his rear-view mirror, watching Harris busily and clumsily cover the trail of blood with clean, unadulterated white snow. He mumbled to himself in mockery, “. . . Didn’t even close his god damn eyes. Oh, excuse me, Harris: his god damn ‘dead’ eyes.”
“After he was finished cleaning the mess, Harris walked up to Barton’s window and knocked on it.
Barton rolled down the window. “What do you want?”
With a quick and sturdy swing, Harris aimed the sledge-hammer straight for Barton’s head. A pool of blood seeped out of his skull and onto the car seat, staining it. He was dead.
After seeing his art work, indulging in self-appreciation, he stared into the mountains and took in a deep breath. He was never the athletic type; couldn’t handle taking orders from coaches.
One more deep breath and Harris lunged himself over Barton’s dead body to unbuckle Barton’s seat belt. He then aimed the steering wheel toward a nearby tree, and placed the sledge hammer on the accelerator. On the count of three, he switched the shift stick from park onto drive, and watched as Barton’s body and the car smashed into the tree, causing the snow on its branches to fall onto the car, crushing it even more.
“Oopsy-daisy.”
After walking to the car, Harris pried open, with all his might, the back door. “Mustn’t forget this.” He reached for the duffel bag.
“And for the finishing touches . . .” Grabbing the sledge-hammer from the bottom of the car, Harris wiped it on his jacket, then got Barton’s hand and played puppet: with his friend’s finger prints on the sledge-hammer, no one could ever think he used it for anything. Harris placed the sledge-hammer on the broken dashboard, next to Barton’s hole on his head.
* * *
The walk to the lake took twenty minutes of wheezing. He looked back to where he left Barton and the car: a cloud of smoke indicated its location. Harris pretended it was Barton’s dirty soul, leaving the peaceful wintery bit of mother nature, straight into the coal mines of hell, filled with soot and snobbery.
When he reached the lake, he put down the duffel bag. Like a child spying on Santa, he tip-toed carefully on the ice until he reached the opening.
There lay, floating dead and purple, was Leonhard. His eyes were indeed open. His body was stiff as a firm mattress.
“Alrighty, buddy. Come. Come here.” Harris grabbed Leonhard by the neck and finally closed his eyes.
“Excuse me, sir.”
Harris quickly turned his head toward the voice. “Oh. Oh, officer, thank God. Thank the Lord Almighty. You wouldn’t believe what had happened. But first, please help. Help me. My friend . . . .”
The officer tip-toed carefully over the ice to where Harris was; he was still holding Leonhard by the neck.
“Officer . . . my friend . . . there was a man . . . a very bad and terrible man . . . Oh, oh Leonhard!” Both the officer and Harris managed to pull Leonhard out of the ice cold lake.
“Sir, if you could just calm down. I have tissues in my car. Please stop crying, ad tell me what happened to your friend.”
* * *
“So, you see officer, my friend, Leonhard, and I . . . well, we were hiking out, over here. We wanted to see the beauties of nature. When suddenly, this guy comes driving, quite recklessly, mind you, alongside us. My friend Leonhard – Oh Leonhard, his eyes were still open! – he gave this guy a real weird look. Like he knew something was up with that guy.”
“Oh yeah? And?”
“And so the guy goes on and gets out of his car, and he and Leonhard get into a fight. Listen officer. I swear to God’s good graces—” Harris placed both hands on his heart, and then toward the sky. “—I have no idea whether or not these two men knew each other, only that I have a feeling like they do.”
“So, what happened . . . Oh, your name is?”
“My name’s Joel.”
“So, what happened next, Joel?”
“Well, the guy who was driving in the car, he got out of his car, took out his sledge hammer, and slammed it into Leonhard’s head like it was nobody’s business.”
“And where were you during all this, Joel?”
“Me? Oh, I was scared as hell, officer. I had run off into the woods. I’m more of a pacifist, to be honest. And anyway, there was no use in helping my friend when his life was already snuffed out, you know what I mean? The guy gone and slammed Leonhard into the ice until it broke. And just to make sure, he drowned my friend – Oh Leonhard, your eyes were open! – in the water. Then he took off. Just like that officer. When he left, I ran toward Leonhard. That’s when I heard a crash, and saw the smoke coming out over there.”
Harris pointed toward the general direction where he left Barton.
“Yeah, Joel, I just come from there. I seen the sledge-hammer you were talking about. I’m going to investigate some more about all this. Find out who the killer is. May I have your number, Joel?”
Harris panicked a little. “What for?”
“Well, just in case I have more questions for you.”
“Oh, right, right.” Harris supplied a fake number.
“All right. Thank you, Joel. I’ll give you a call if I need you for any more information. You can leave your friend . . . .”
“Leonhard.”
“Leonhard . . ?"
"Oaks. Leonhard Oaks. That's O-A-K-S."
"You can leave your friend, Leonhard Oaks, here. I’ll have more cops pull up. You sure you’re going to be all right, Joel? You seem traumatized. Maybe you should go to a hospital or something.”
“Thank you for the concern, officer, but I think I’ll make my way there myself. I need to be alone for a little bit.”
“All right, then. And is that your bag over there?” The officer innocently pointed at the duffel bag, stuffed with money.
“Yes, officer. That’s my hiking bag.”
“Ok, well, you be careful now. I’ll take it from here.”
“Ok, thank you again officer.”
“No, thank you, Joel.”
Harris began making his way with his duffel bag. Off into the woods, when the officer called him one last time.
“Oh, Joel!”
“Yes, officer?”
“I’m sorry for your loss.”
“No, it’s ok, thank you. You’re very kind. Oh, Leonhard! His eyes were open when he died, don’t you know!”
“It happens. And when it does, you just have to close them and move on.”
They parted ways. Then Harris, with a last glance, looked toward Leonhard. He wanted to make sure his friend’s eyes were closed. They were.
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