Punch
He punched me in the face. He stood right there in his Armani suit and all his lawyer glory and threw his fist into my nose.
“Did you kill him?!”
I felt the blood rolling down my face onto the floor where I was currently laid out with his foot on my chest. I touched a finger to my nose just to make sure it was still there.
“…what?” His voice was that of an angry father. Not a yell per se, but forceful and loud just the same.
“Jonathan Turk. Did you or did you not kill him?!” He hunched over me blocking the overhead light, causing his form to become a silhouette and his facial cues unreadable.
“What? What the hell difference does it make? We won the case.” His foot immediately pressed further into my chest, the slight heel digging into my lungs like a knife.
“Did you?!”
The silhouetted voice grew. I would have answered sooner, but it took a while to store up enough air to answer, “Yes.”
Silence. Well, on his part anyway. Mine was more like audible gasps for air until he placed his killer heel back onto the floor and closed the door to my apartment.
I was still, trying to regain normal breath as quickly as possible, as I watched him cross the room and take a seat on one of the boxes. He leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, his hands clasped under his chin and his gaze on the carpet.
A few moments passed in quiet, so I leaned up and wiped my nose again as I pulled myself up onto a stool, “Jesus, Evan. What the hell is up?”
More silence stuffed the air between us. Evan was still studying the carpet several minutes later, though a leg did start to bounce. I wondered if I should be nervous, but I was too pissed off to care.
‘Hello moto……’ My cell phone pulsed near the window. My bruised chest ached a bit as I turned that direction.
“Don’t.”
The sweat beads on his forehead practically shouted the word at me. I eased my body back onto the stool, my legs still placed for a mad dash to the phone. There was only a slight silent pause before the ring started again, “She’s not going to stop.”
“I said don’t!”
Evan’s stare still hadn’t left the carpet in front of him. I studied his face a bit while we were serenaded by Motorola. I had only known Evan for a month or two—since the incident. Up until now, I would have said he was completely harmless. And, even though he just barged into my apartment and broke my nose because he won the case, I still wasn’t sure he was anything but.
I turned my body back to face his direction and leaned forward as well, “Look, if it’s any consolation, I swear it was an accident. We were on the boat, we got in an argument, I threw a punch, he hit his head as he fell backwards over the railing. The only thing I did was drive away.”
Immediately, Evan sat up and narrowed his eyes in my direction. There was something determined, yet disappointed about his expression. With a swift shake of the head, he stood and left the apartment in a blur, slamming the door behind him.
After a short moment, I hopped to my feet and opened to door, sticking my head out to make sure Evan had really gone. All clear. My cell phone was still pushing out its rather unpleasant melody as I scrambled to get it out of my bag, “Sam!”
“Keith! I think Evan’s on his way over! He knows. You should leave.”
I had to smirk to myself just a bit as I reclaimed my spot on the stool, rubbing my chest a bit, “No kidding.”
There was a bit of silence on the other end of the phone as Samantha tried to work that comment into context, “what does that mean?”
“He just left.”
I had only hired Evan on the recommendation of Samantha. This was his first big case—a murder case, nonetheless. I would never have trusted him to get me off. But, with Samantha molding Evan he was bound to be unstoppable so I gave him a chance. Turns out he was good, but maybe a little too good.
Sam let out a long sigh into the receiver, “He’s going to tell, Keith.”
I couldn’t help but turn up the side of my mouth, “So? There is no way they’ll do a retrial. It’s too soon, and he’s got no proof.”
“But it’s only a matter of time. I know him, he’s a determined man. You saw him at the trial.”
Her voice rang worry. I knew that voice well: we had been best friends for nearly ten years and Sam’s worry-voice was more common than any other voice she could be harboring. A beep rang into my ear—call waiting.
“Hey I’ll call you back, another call.”
I pulled the phone off my ear, my eyes bulging at the name I read: Evan. But, at this point I figured it was better (for me, anyway) to hear him out rather than ignore him, “Hello?”
The sounds were rushed, almost as if recorded, “Meet me at McAntly Bridge.”
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I wouldn’t have disputed his request—even if Evan had given me a chance to say something before he hung up. I had learned never to mess with crazy people.
His request was a simple one, short and sweet enough to induce panic in anyone who heard it. But I’d be damned if I let him kill himself without me at least there to witness it—I wasn’t about to be blamed for another murder.
The drive from my apartment to the bridge was not a long one, but it took hours today. McAntly Bridge was a “no stopping anytime” bridge, but I pulled off the road behind Evan’s car anyway. I quickly slid the key out of the ignition but sat in the car for a moment afterwards, eyeing him on the bridge.
Evan was leaned over the edge of the bridge as if watching a fish swim beneath it, his face solemn and calm like it was just another normal day. Between the apartment and the bridge he had shed his suit jacket somewhere and no wore a blue dress shirt in the summer sun, a golden tie blowing in the soft river breeze.
His head turned slowly in my direction like a jarred toy, followed by his body that flipped to lean backwards against the bridge railings. He crossed one leg over the other and intertwined his fingers, calmly waiting for my company.
I couldn’t present myself with the same relaxation Evan seemed to steal somewhere between 5th and McAntly. I stormed out of the car and slammed the door behind me, forcibly making my way to the bridge.
“What the hell are you doing, Evan?”
He didn’t look at me as I stood beside him, his vision was set across the bridge on the setting sun, “You’re a murderer.”
I let out a sigh louder than intended and scratched my head, looking to the ground for support, “Jesus, Evan. It was an accident. Alright? Besides, you did your job and got the credit. And there’s no way they’ll retry it without substantial evidence and you have none. What’s the problem?”
He shook his head a bit, squinting into the horizon, “I can’t let a murderer go free.”
“Killing yourself is not going to solve anything.”
Evan’s mouth curled a bit at the edges as he turned to me—the smile of a man with the answer. It was then, and only then, that I noticed he wasn’t sweating as he placed his hand on my shoulder, “You’re right.”
I guess that’s why he killed me.
Seriously, though, you used it spectacularly and it fit in very well. Nice work.
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