Andre

Sunday, February 10, 2008

Andre
There’s a theory, albeit I’m not sure who or where it came from, that people die in threes. On any given day, there are three people, connected by a common town, age, disease, etc that pass on to the next life. I never believed this theory until a neighbor committed suicide.
I didn’t know him well enough to call a judgment on mental status, but there was a note, scrawled in red marker, wishing us luck on the Super Bowl game against the Patriots, which was a hint.
This theory crossed my mind as it was brought up in a class I took following the death of my neighbor. I began an investigation on the neighbor I never knew, but could think of a connection.
Then came the day when my great aunt died. It was oddly a few days after I introduced her to my girlfriend, Alexis, who commented on the situation, marking it weird that she would die so soon after a simple meeting. As we walked away from the grave, I wondered if there was a connection between her and my suicidal neighbor. I asked her and she laughed out loud.
"Yeah, I met that freak on the streets once. He had the audacity to ask me for change a while back." She smirked. "He had hair then."
I remember the anger I suddenly toward the person I knew so much of already. I was aware of her faults, but had convinced myself I could deal with it. I loved her, didn’t I?
Wrong. The theory of threes was missing a third deceased and I knew exactly who the third to die would be.
First, allow me to make it clear that I am not a serial killer. On that tragic April evening, I meant for one life to cease and I was happily successful in that. Alexis was my only victim, the only person I could name in this world who truly deserved to die.
Beginning the following day, the newspapers displayed the embarrassing failure of the Candlewick police force to capture the villain or villains who ended the life of an "innocent" girl named Alexis Lagans.
The townspeople were angry and ashamed to call Captain Charles Johnson their leader in the tragedy. Johnson, a man whose talent made people forget his obesity and balding scalp, could find no options, nothing that could set him on the right path. This girl had no justice and right now, there was nothing that indicated she would have it.
` So many other cases had resulted in Johnson’s being declared a hero, the Hercules of Candlewick. So many other times he had been sought out specifically to solve the crimes of his town. Now, the one time he could not unravel the mystery, the town had turned their backs on him.
As I set down the fourth paper to discuss the story of twenty-three year old Alexis Lagans, I smirked to myself, having no other company besides my cat to gloat to.
Alexis Lagans had been a well-liked young woman, popular at school, loved by her boyfriend of three years, and compassionate to all who needed it. She was one of the smartest in her grade. She was the president of her sorority, which was created by her and a friend. She was to graduate with a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology within a few months. Who would have the slightest motive to go after her?
Me, that’s who.
I had been her closest companion for nearly five years and in so, had been alert to both her pros and cons. In fact, it was an almost painful alertness of her cons that led to her death, easy to brainstorm and plot and even easier to pull off.
I met Alexis in high school and right away we were smitten with each other. As children, we knew each other, as our families are well known in Candlewick. So, our match was not only a successful one. It was appreciated. I had her parents’ blessing as she easily had mine.
Over the course of a few years, I began to understand Alexis as a person. There were many wonderful qualities I admired about her. She had a sense of what she wanted and she fought for it. She was determined in all she did and she always put her best foot forward. I understood her and I learned that these were not always the most wonderful of traits to possess.
She had a knack for assisting others. However her picky selection of patients turned those who paid attention on to her snobbish lifestyle. Her hazel eyes were often narrowed at others who simply could not live up to her standards.
The brilliance of my plan involved a decoy, thus how Michaela Lynch fell into the picture. A former best friend to Alexis, Michaela was axed after failing to live up to Alexis’s harsh standards.
The bad history between Michaela and Alexis is virtually nonexistent, to them, but to those who knew either one well, it is enough to paint Michaela a perpetrator to you all, but simply a scapegoat to me. Framing her took effort on my part, but I was more than willing to take the risk. Once I had the means, the harmless incident so easily twisted by my own credible words, I put my plan into action, knowing it would be an easy victory.
The incident was no more than a meeting at a local Dunkin Donuts in which I cleverly portrayed Michaela as a hostile and spiteful individual, when in reality, she was simply an awkward acquaintance. A few words exchanged between the three of us were transformed into a quiet but tense feud between ex best friends. The truth behind the axed friendship was that Michaela spent a few weeks sulking, but moved on with her life, uncaring of the past or the drama that led to the ending of a five year friendship. This evidence contradicted the Michaela I painted for the police and so my decoy did not end as planned.
Still, I chuckle to myself as I recall how simple it was to lure Alexis into the alley behind Taco Bell and how invigorating it felt to slowly wrap my bony hands around her soft tender neck. Her eyes lit in alertness as they stretched from their sockets in dying fear. Her lips shivered so sweetly and as I shook her back and forth, they closed quickly as she had learned to accept her fate.
It was I who lured Alexis into the alley, knowing full well that she trusted me enough to venture into such a dark and dirty place. She waltzed in, unknowingly, with a nervous smile plastered on her face. She was afraid, that I could see, but she wasn’t fearful of me, in the least. That was wrong on her part.
The scenery was gloomy and just about perfect. Creatures of the night slithered and sneaked as trash cans banged together in harmonic brilliance, setting the perfect tone to the perfect crime. I stood in the corner, one leg comfortably crossed over the other and I waited in anticipation.
As she approached, my skin began to crawl with delight. I was hungry for her now. I was ready for her. I reached out and put an arm around her, smiled into her sparkling eyes as I whispered, "I loved you once, I wont love you again," as I quickly wrapped my fingers around her neck and watched her writher and struggle. In a matter of minutes, she was dead and I guffawed at the sight of her, lying limp on the cold ground. I walked away, looking back only once to beam at my masterpiece. I had to admit, it was beautifully heart wrenching.
My goal had been accomplished and I walked away from her, leaving her to rot and setting my next phase in motion, disposing of the evidence.
You may be curious as to my motive of this horrible crime. Why kill such a sweet and innocent human being like Alexis?
Over the course of a few years, I began to understand Alexis as a person. There were many wonderful qualities I admired about her. She had a sense of what she wanted and she fought for it. She was determined in all she did and she always put her best foot forward. I understood her and I learned that these were not always the most wonderful of traits to possess.
She had a knack for assisting others. However her picky selection of patients turned those who paid attention on to her snobbish lifestyle. Her hazel eyes were often narrowed at others who simply could not live up to her standards. Unfortunately for Michaela Lynch, she could not survive in Alexis’s world.
Overall, Alexis was well liked by those who knew her. I suppose these blind individuals will miss her, these family members and friends who refused or simply were not able to recognize her for who she truly was. Her teachers could only know her only as an intelligent girl. Her family only thought to see the good in her, a logical fact seeing as how they were attached through genes and blood. I suppose these individuals along with friends canopied to her demented and harmful insights to the world would consider her death a life altering tragedy, like September Eleventh or the Holocaust, where countless innocents died for reasons beyond their control.
I suppose there are indeed people like this. In fact, I don’t doubt it. On the other hand, I am sure there are people who eyes are wide open to her character. There are others, like me, who remained constantly alert of her ways. I like to believe these others will bubble at the surface, revealing themselves and her for the hideous beast she was in life. I like to believe they will all pray for to be properly placed in the appropriate circle of Hell, where her afterlife will be as painful as mine, and others who dealt with her, was. I believed family and friends would eventually dig deeper than the acne scarred face, always in the upward position, and bright style that showed off her money. I wish to God that someone other than me, anyone, would see her soul, filled with spider webs and gunk, having never been referred to or confided in.
Her funeral was unbearable for me. All throughout the prayers to save her soul, as it was presented to the rulers of the after life, I felt a agonizing urge to scream out that I was the one who needed to be thanked. It was I who had put her out of our misery. Because of me, we could live again.
I was relieved when everyone was gone, off to grieve in the privacy of their own million dollar mansions and sulk in caviar and Merlot. I stood stone faced until I was sure I was alone and then I laughed at the top of my lungs as I looked down at her, lying cold in the ground. I smiled as I thought about her present situation, her soul belonging to the great lord below, desperate to reunite her with her family as they would eventually fall there.
I studied the stones about me, noting their perfectly carved calligraphy. I growled at how perfect the scratching on hers was, how much money must have been spent on it. What a waste for her. Her family must be positive of her deserving of peace in the afterlife. The rest must be surviving lavishly and resting undisturbed by the world above with its chaos and drama.
As I walked away from her extravagant grave, the inscription barely visible over the array of cartoon colored flowers, freshly painted by the rain, I relished the fact that everyone dwelled below the surface in the eyes of the constant visitors. Although she was both loved and loathed in her life, this life would leave her equal to the rest. Her body would become a feast to those who wanted it, regardless of her upper class stature.
I exited the cemetery and glanced up at the morning sky. The sun was reaching its peak and the clouds were surrounding it and I could see birds zipping in and out of the marshmallow fluffs. I would not go back for several years as I had little incentive to visit the creature who I had put out of our misery.
When I finally did, I noticed the bareness of the site. Others had a bouquet or letter placed tenderly at the head of the grave, but this stone displayed nothing but a single bouquet, leading me to believe that nobody visited this master anymore. The gifts left lay dead and unkept, as the beast to which they honored.
A gentle breeze nestled against my cheek and I knew she had learned to accept her fate. I knew she was somehow comfortable with the maggots among the cool layers of dirt. I knew that despite all efforts to make her suffer, she was smiling sweetly, slyly, up at the world, torturing those in her assigned circle of Hell, and Satan had given up on her. I had rid our world of her, true, but I had sent her to a place where she was surviving happily, a place where she belonged, home.
I was eventually caught and arrested. I cooperated with the police and was finally able to speak the truth. My trial was the biggest event of the year in Candlewick, where nothing happened, and I became a celebrity.
I had the pleasure of being present when Michaela gave her testimony and I was surprised more than anybody at her naïve responses.
"So how well did you know the defendant?"
This was not a question she was expecting, so she thought over her words carefully.
"I don’t know this defendant in the least," she began. "I knew Andre when he was a sweet, compassionate individual. He doesn’t belong here, in his courtroom, on his way to life in prison." She pointed a thin finger at the boy who sat before her. "But you, the kid who murdered someone who was not perfect, but still had the right to live. You belong in Hell."
She was asked no more questions, for there was little to add to her comments. She walked out with her head held high, ready to face the world and move on with her life. She had done what she could to give Alexis justice and now, it was time to deal with her own life.
The cameras flashed and she shook her head at them.
"Don’t you understand any of this?" There are families and friends of both parties in there. There are parents who want justice for their kids. There are siblings and friends who can’t comprehend what the hell is going on. And there are friends who wish to God that it would all go away, that it had never been and everything was just fine and dandy."
So, it was done. I am now in prison, having nothing to but reflect on my past. I have no visitors, much like Alexis. My family made appearances, but has forgotten, quite willingly I’m positive, about me. When I lie awake at night, I think of this theory of threes that led to the death of someone I was finally able to see for her true self.
I am allowed to watch the television for an hour each day and I choose to watch "Xena Warrior Princess," not to see her but to look for her arch nemesis, Callisto.
This courageous woman knew what had to be done after her family dissolved at the hands of Xena, the great warrior, and stopped at nothing to seek vengeance. I fell asleep grinning ear to ear as I dreamt of slashing open Alexis and watching her guts trickle through her open wound, much like Callisto did as she claimed another victim.