The drabness of the auditorium is one of the most hated things of my job. No matter where I speak, no matter the topic, it is the auditorium that sets the mood in the most depressing sense. I am not sure if the theaters of the past were designed this way, but the average American podium sits in the middle of the most uninspired décor of the world. Perhaps, just maybe, I am only presenting in the most depressing venues, but I could be wrong and these things could have been designed to be boring on purpose. Maybe, the architects didn’t want the audience to focus on the façade but rather the speaker. If that is the case, then I am grateful, but I don’t think it has done much for my subject matter. Either way, for the speech, the layout is a detriment. I cannot remember if I have given a speech here. It is possible to access previous records, financial statements, and various other documents to prove that I have been to this high school before, but from what I look at, it is impossible. It would be nice to start off my talk with something to tell them I have been doing this in their area for some time. A name, I know the name of the high school, but I know that if I say it and haven’t been here, I will be torn to shreds by the person who holds my check in the wing of the stage – she waves at me, a beaming smile and bright eyes; I never have bright eyes when I have to do this because I am not a psychopath. Maybe, just maybe, I am a psychopath because I am profiting from death.
However, the philosophy aside, I am greeted by the same dark blue curtains that always hang in these venues, the blinding lights mute my field of vision, and I only have the first few rows of seating to access my memory and decide if this is a venue I have entered in the past. I am not dimwitted; I would know if I had been here in the last year or two but the memory is silly. Memory is like a delicious soup – it provides nutrients and provides flavor to life. Some would argue our memories are the only thing that differentiate us from the other species that roam this earth; I would agree. Hell, without my memories, I wouldn’t have anything to discuss. Now I do have to remember important aspects of the job set before me – students or officers of the law? My speech will not change in content, but the ending punchline – silly to think of it as a punchline – proverb? Parable? Tale of caution? The word for what I do escapes me; for I am not a public speaker. But, I am a human and that means my story hold merit for all but only few will listen. It is the humanity in my chest that drives me to speak, and since I have lived it, I can do it in my sleep. There it is, today it is officers of the law. The punchline is now destine and I am to enter the field of battle – the battle of biases.
“Please welcome our next speaker, Mr. Robert Blackwell, writer, speaker, and human.” Deep inhale, slow exhale. It is time.
“Thank you having me”—a badge flashes in my eye as I move towards the podium; I was right—“Phoenix PD, I’m glad to be speaking here before you. Now, I have never lived here, and that is a shame… do you guys even have clouds?” My desert joke is predestine, and it hits with enthusiasm. More than likely, they are just chuckling to make me feel comfortable or to seem human. Police are tricky, almost all of them are great people, but I remember my friend who entered the academy joining to kill some, as he put it: niggers; but I have known many people who wanted to kill in my lifetime – I was one of them at a point. Just remembering that tidbit makes me cringe. At this point, I have discussed my credentials and sat on the stool. It is good to be relaxed, I was coached to be relaxed. The topic is not one people enjoy hearing, and as such, I need to use my body language to disarm them. If I don’t, someone will lose their life.
“Now, I’m sure some of ya”—no proper grammar, add in mistakes to make it seem conversational—“know me. Yah, it’s ta be expected. I made my climb to fame on the death of another. But what really happened, is I wrote a story. Some of ya know it, and that’s all good. But, why I’m her’ is to tell ya it is not fiction. So, let’s get inta it.”
Here is why I get the jobs. My dialogue I will open up, my story, a real story, is not a dialogue. It is a trance, a trance that I instigate in a moment. I am not sure how many times I can open this black hole for my emotions, but I know it is limited. More than likely, I will end up taking my life after one of these speeches… which is why I don’t own a gun; I am too big a pussy to kill myself in any other way. Now, at this point, I have no recollection of the words that come out of my mouth until I view the video later. On that stool, my eyes glass over, my tone becomes monotonous and dark, my body barely moves, but I consistently drink the liter of water – Ice Mountain – in my hand. The only other thing, other than me drinking water, that happens is the sweating. Apparently, at a certain point in the story, I will sweat through my shirt like it is constructed of tissue paper and I am a greasy hotdog. I shouldn’t have eaten before this speech – oh well, they’ll have the bucket waiting.
The dialogue, my speech, is spitting from my lips like always. It begins with my setting. The area wasn’t bad by any means but sometimes people of low income would move into my building. Often, these people were located in various different apartments and it rarely impacted me. Once, prior to these new neighbors, I had called the police on a domestic disturbance. I had laughed, as I listened, until it grew in intensity and I heard someone crash through a window. They all look on in silence, I pause as I drink, at least I think I drink. Who knows, it could have been a knot in my throat that stopped my story. Eventually, I continue again and explain that I was scared. From that moment, I grew scared of the noises of people and couples spatting in various units. That fear stayed with me for years, and then I relived that night over and over again as the people above me became the type that enjoyed a rumpus battle of the voices.
The first couple of times, I called the police. Each time, the police came to my door and I let them inside. I had to, and we walked passed the beer cans, bottles, and dog turds to the kitchen. For the kitchen was under my other neighbor’s apartment, and that meant, I could avoid being called the “snitch” – not the thing that would win a game of quidditch, but the thing that got you shot. After explaining what I heard, they would listen to the ongoing disturbance above my office – it was a glorified desk and heaps of papers in my living room – and then approach the perpetrators. When they left, I would plead them to come to the back door so the neighbors wouldn’t hear them knock on my door – they never listened.
After the seventh time, I grew annoyed; I wasn’t upset with the police or the woman above who always cleared her man’s name but the fact that they interrupted my work. Day in and day out, I would try and get some work done on my paintings. In order to do this, I required music and very few outside distractions. Moreover, I liked to work on my work when the mood hit me – roughly after nine at night. Now, this was great if my neighbors had chosen to have spats in the early morning but their average time for a battle of the wills was roughly around ten. At this point, I would expect it and modify my schedule, but I still found myself at that easel with a fervor to paint around nine. I tried multiple things: headphones, giant speakers, all types of music, and screaming myself (I never won that battle).
In the end, I became accustomed to their noise and would work through it with curses sitting on my tongue. I blamed her. She didn’t live there. She could leave. Why would she continue to be with him? Why would she pay his rent? If she stopped paying his rent, then both of them would be gone. I would day dream of her killing him over something meaningless. I begged for their mutual deaths, and what is scary, I learned that many of my friends also begged for the deaths of their neighbors. Perhaps, as a social creature, we aren’t really social at all. Perhaps it is selfishness, I do not know; I am not a psychologist. Either way, this went on for a long time and it was no longer a detriment to my life. Like a white noise machine, I grew to sleep to the firebrand of their love.
Then that day struck, and I – deep in my own subconscious – knew something wasn’t right. It wasn’t louder, it wasn’t more aggressive, but I still tore my headphones away and listened. At one point, I had snickered. What is odd, and I noticed this later, was the sound of a gun cocking isn’t very loud. In the movies, the hero (I am no hero) always seems to notice the sound of a gun cocking and can make a split second decision to run up the stairs, kick in the door, and tackle the perpetrator before the gun can go off. The victim screams in joy and hugs the hero or heroine. They both gallivant into the sunset, their feet kicking high and happiness exuding from every pore as the evil villain gets what is coming to them. That never happened, before I could even deduce what my subconscious knew, the sound of a pistol firing went off, then it went off again, and finally it hit the floor – I only know now that the pistol hit the floor; at that moment, my subconscious registered it by my active mind was unable to deduce what had truly happened.
That noise, there is no way to really describe a difference in that noise. I had heard all sorts of objects hit the ground in their apartment – one of the two fighting being knocked out even was included in that data set. Yet, all the sounds had the same distinctive markings – minus the sound of a bag of flesh coming to rest. The gun hit the floor, it sounded the same as a pan, bowl, or even an extremely large loaf of bread – I don’t know; I didn’t have a excel spread sheet of noises and what actually caused the sound. The only reason I knew the difference between a body and object was the lack of fighting that followed. But, I did know a gun shot and the sound of nothingness. Now, you would think there would be tons of noises after a gunshot, a woman wailing, a fan turning on as the computer over heated, or the click of pipes – but that isn’t true. There was nothing, the movies lied.
As the gun hit the ground, I began calling the police and running towards my front door. I could hear the perpetrator fleeing from the apartment above. Their steps matched mine, but I was slow and the chain on the door proved too difficult for my clumsy hands. By the time the door was open, all I saw was the back of a hooded figure in a gray hoodie. My body wouldn’t pursue that individual, but it would let me go up the stairs. Unlike the rest of my trance, I remember that exchange on the phone with an eidetic memory.
“Nine-one-one, what is your emergency.” The movies got that part of the experience correct.
“I heard gun shots, I am at my apartment. I. I. I.”
“Sir, do you know what the person who did it looks like?”
“No. No. Yes”—and without realizing it, I riddled off what I had been told through countless media sources—“He”—that part was correct—“was wearing a gray hoodie”—it was dark blue—“and he is black.” Nope, that was very wrong.
“Is he armed?”
“Yes.” Again, wrong. And then a truth, “He only shot twice.”
“I’m going up. I’m. Going up to check.”
“Sir, do not put yourself in danger.”
“He left. He left. I saw him leave.”
“Sir, don’t—” I hung up at that point, because I was in the apartment.
It was a desolate apartment, completely disgusting. Three garbage bags were by the oven, beer bottles – way more than my place – were filling the sink, a necrotic funk came from the living room, and then the scent of a fresh uncooked steak was in the air. I looked down, and there she was, the woman who I had heard scream so much. She had a hand outstretched, and I grabbed it. It was clean, her other hand was holding in the blood that, like a river, always found the path of least resistance. It didn’t gush, but rather, it flowed. She was mouthing “save me” as I entered that wasteland. At one point, I remember be concerned that the blood would ruin my painting – I am only human. I pulled her up into my lap and held her head as she began to expire.
Then, I said the most racist thing I would ever say in my life, “They will catch the black bastard.”
“He… isn’t… black.” And she was gone.
There is no way for someone who has never experienced the moment of expiration to describe the destruction it places on their soul. Who knows how long it takes for an ambulance to respond in my neighborhood. What I do know, is it wasn’t five seconds. In the time of her death, and the hand of a paramedic on my shoulder, I had revaluated my entire life. I decided to go back to school, to get a business degree, to move out of the slums and into the whitest of all of the neighborhoods. I would place rivers, forests, and mountains between me and the poor. This was all a snap decision and I never followed through with it, but I did think it. When I was jarred from the dream of a garden, a husband who took care of the kids, and falling asleep at ten on a Saturday, I realized what I needed to do.
I screamed, “Tell the police…”A black man and woman were staring at me, but I still finished, “He isn’t black.” Both cocked a head, and I had to further explain, “I told them he was black, the perpetrator. He isn’t, I don’t know what he is, but he isn’t black!” They called it in and then ushered me back to my apartment. They told me to wait for the police to give my statement – my chest and white pajama pants were soaked in blood. They told me to strip and get tested the next day for blood borne pathogens – there were none, luckily. I took a shower and watched as her blood, like oil, stayed separate from the water but still disappeared down the sink like the dirt from my body.
Outside of the shower, I forgot to use the towel and just put on a fresh pair of clothes. The tiny garbage in my bathroom was stuffed with the stained garments. I still felt the stickiness of the blood on my skin but a knock was heard and distracted me. I opened to see two police officers. Without any understanding of why or how, I was able to relive the experience without any negative rammifications. They were business.
At one point, one of them pulled his back and looked at me from the bottom of his eyes and asked, “Why are you living in these building?”
I answered politely even though I now feel it was rude, “Cheap rent sir.”
The other officer asked the final deciding question, the question that has me in this auditorium sweating profusely, “Why did you say he was black?”
“His voice sounded… black.” That was the true reason, I had never seen the man in my life.
“Thank ya’, we will contact you if we have any other questions.”
With that they were gone, but that isn’t the important part. What was important was the punchline that I was about to pass to the officers in the crowd. The water was gone now and I dropped the bottle. Who knows if the noise of the bottle falling to the ground would sound like a gun, I don’t have an excel spread sheet for objects and the noise they make as they hit the ground, I delivered the horrendous joke, “That day, two people lost their lives. One was a black male in a gray hoodie listening to loud music and fumbling in his pocket for his cell phone to stop the music, and the second one was the woman I held in my arms. They found the man, the real killer, five minutes after they killed the fake one. He was easy to spot, his entire body was covered in blood spatter. But that day, I used my words to take a life.” No thank you, I am done. And with that, I run off the stage, and place the hotdog I ate before the speech into the metal bucket they have waiting for me in the wings. The organizer is smiling with a thumbs up and a smile. Perhaps she thinks the vomit is part of my “ambiance” – it isn’t. It is another piece of my soul leaving me as I move closer to suicide.