M Y S T I C�� T A C O�� S T A N D

Death By Irony ... January 03, 2005

i wrote this short story after reading about a highly suspicious and unusual death on the Darwin Awards site...enjoy

Death by Irony

The nearly headless body of Hank Jameson Jr. tumbles gracelessly past 8 stories of newly installed stone facade and lands in the most ironic of places. The construction workers' safety net which was invisible to him from the roof of his 15 story apartment building sags and lowers his remains gently down to the sidewalk for the passing pedestrians to see. Most of the unfortunate witnesses scream and flee as Hank's blood spatters the path below, but one small girl stands beneath him and stares at the drippy burnt place where his head should have been until her mother snatches her away and pulls her down the street.

The police arrive minutes later to remove the body and apprehend Hank Sr. from his ninth floor apartment. They confiscate his gun, an old, beat up twelve gauge, while his wife Mary screams in paniced histerics in the background. Hank Sr. is visibly shaken, but seems more than shocked when the police lead him out of the building and past his own son's body. The police take statements from the few witnesses who did not manage to dissapear. All testimonies seem to agree on a rather bizarre series of events. The witnesses say that Hank Jr. jumped from the top of the building of his own accord, but before he could complete his apparent attempt at suicide, a gunshot from a ninth story window ended his life. Hank covers his wrinkled face with his handcuffed hands and weeps as the police car hauls him away.

Later, with interrogators leaning over him in a tiny, smoke filled room, Hank Sr. tells them over and over that he has no idea how his son ended up dead on the sidewalk like he did. He cries that he was sure his gun was unloaded, that he was just having an arguement with his wife and, as often happens when he has had a few to many, he was waving the unloaded gun around at her in an intoxicated effort to get her to see his side of things. Somehow, the gun was loaded, and when his finger hit the trigger, the shot, thank the lord, had missed his wife and blew out the window instead. He tries to explain that he hasn't even seen his son in over a week, not since they had a big fight and Hank Jr. stormed out amongst a cloud of vengeful threats. The investigators press him and squeeze him but he can tell them little else.

Hank asks for his lawyer. The dance of justice begins. The investigation ensues. Detectives, assistants, reporters swarm the building and accost residents with armfulls of grocery sacks, trap them in the elevator in order to interview them. People in the apartment building whisper things, aweful things, about the Jamesons while Hank Sr. is away. They look the other way when Mary passes them in the hall.

Mary visits Hank every day until she can come up with bail money. She calls everyone she knows, even the landlord, but hardly anyone is willing to hear her woes, let alone loan her the money she needs. On the fourth day after "the accident", as she calls it, she comes home from another failed attempt at rustling up the bail money only to find an eviction notice taped on her door. Thirty days, it says. With her head lowered in defeat, she makes up her mind. The next morning she dons her most respectible skirt and jacket set, her nicest shoes and her expensive purse and visits the pawn broker and bail-bonder she saw across the street from the police station when she was visiting Hank.

The Jamesons take up temporary residence in a hotel. The reporters find them there and harrass them so brutally that they have to change hotels every two days or so. Hank calls his job and tries to explain why he hasn't been to work in over a week. Mary stands silently in the background as he begs his boss to reconsider. Hank hangs up and curls up in a ball on the shabby hotel bed. Mary eats alone at the rickety table with the television turned up loud enough to cover the sound of Hank Sr.'s sobs. Her tears, the first since the accident, fall silently over her lukewarm room service food.

Everyone asks the same question. "Who can we blame?" they say. No one but Mary seems to believe Hank when he tells them that he was sure the gun was unloaded, so Hank stops talking. Mary goes to her job each day and Hank spends his time hiding from reporters beneath the bleachy smelling covers of sparse hotel beds. He doesn't eat, he doesn't sleep, he doesn't move except when he reaches to answer the phone by the bed or to get up and follow Mary out as they transfer their few remaining possessions to the next hotel. Eventually, public interest dies and the reporters thin out. They settle in at a hotel on the edge of town called "The Starlight". Mary looks for apartments. Hank refuses to help her so she goes alone to see the realtor.

Then one day while Mary is at work, the phone rings.

"Front desk here, a call for Mr. Jameson," a bored voice says in Hank's ear.

"Reporter again?"

"No. He says he's a detective, some guy named Jim Long," the voice sighs.

"Yeah, I know him. Alright. Connect us." Hank lights a cigarette.

A tense man's voice bursts from the earpiece of the phone, "Mr. Jameson, hello?"

"Hello detective."

"I think I have some good news for you, sort of."

"Oh?"

"Yes. Well, first, I want to ask you one or two questions."

"Shoot."

"So you mentioned that you had a habit of waving a gun around when you were argueing with your wife?"

"Sometimes, yeah, but like I keep telling you people, I never loaded the thing. I mean, I know how I sometimes got when I'd been drinking and I didn't want to risk something...happening."

"Tell me, did your son know about your...um...tendency?"

"Oh probably. I'm sure he'd been present for a couple of our little spats, yes, though they usually occured when I'd been drinking so I can't confirm that."

"Well we've got a person here who supposedly witnessed him going into your apartment a few days after that big fight you mentioned."

"So? He had a key, sure. The kid still lived with us even though he was getting on 35. But I didn't notice anything out of place. He was probably just getting some of his things."

"Well, that's not all."

"No?"

"Well see, after the fight his girlfriend took him in."

"I figured that was where he was staying, yeah. He usually stays there when he's pissed at us."

"And his girlfriend informed us that he mentioned he had some kind of plan for revenge against you. She said she didn't remember alot of what he said because she thought he was merely ranting and raving about you two like he had a tendency to do, but she said he may have mentioned something about that gun of yours."

"Strange..."

"No, not really. We think we have a general idea of how that gun might have come to be loaded, though. We think it is highly likely that your own son went into your apartment and secretly loaded the gun so that, when you next argued, you'd shoot your wife."

"Oh...my...god..." The phone slipped from Hank Sr.'s trembling hand and thunked onto the threadbare carpet.

The now distant voice of detective Jim Long squeeked out of the earpiece, "Well, what I was going to tell you is that we are not going to charge you with murder, Mr. Jameson."

Hank fell out of bed as he scrambled to collect the phone.

"Now what?"

"We are calling it a suicide, is what I mean, since it's become apparent that you didn't load the gun."

"Look, I...I..."

"Don't worry Mr. Jameson, you're free, the investigation is over. I'm sorry that this had to happen to you two at all, though."

"Yeah, well, I think I ought to call my wife and tell her."

"Alright. We still need to talk to you one last time. I'll call you tomorrow to make an appointment, okay?"

"Yes detective."

"Bye then."

There is a click and Hank Sr. sets about disentangling himself from the covers and standing up from the place where he had been sprawled upon the floor. He leans on the nightstand and lifts himself into a sitting position on the bed.

"Free...free..." he says, then breaks down in sobs. Later that evening Hank Sr. and his wife enjoy their first meal together in many long weeks. For now he is simply pleased that his wife is alive and he is not going to jail. They eat in silent contemplation, but when Mary looks away, Hank Sr. can't help himself but to smile at how strange a world he lives in. He never tells Mary about the loaded gun.

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