Why Bother?
By: Ken Wheatcroft-Pardue
Today I’m sitting in a waiting room of another psychologist. I keep being farmed out to different ones because I’m supposedly some kind of fucked-up mess. “He saw his dad’s dead body after he shot himself,” they say, knowingly, I’m sure, all the while nodding sympathetically. As if to say, who wouldn’t be a fucked-up mess after that?
Yeah, yeah, it happened, but it wasn’t exactly what you might think. Yes, I can confirm to the perennially curious that shooting yourself with a Glock 19 9mm is both totally gruesome and bloody, gruesomely bloody, as a matter of fact, but in other ways it really wasn’t so bad. The experience itself was weird. Although, I gather you’re supposed to say surreal now, which, I guess, after looking it up, I can affirm it was that, as well.
You see, it all went down last month. I normally go visit my dad during the day after I wake in the afternoon from my night shift at Nino’s on Kemah’s Boardwalk. I’m a bartender. I used to be a musician, so I’m used to the hours. The people, not so much.
Anyway, I went to his apartment door and knocked. Usually he answered after a few raps, but this time, no. I knocked and knocked some more. It was definitely annoying, so I got on my phone. And wouldn’t you know, immediately it went to his voicemail.
Old man, pick up your damn phone, I remember saying out loud. I was thinking about going to the landlord when I remembered my dad had already given me a key a few weeks before. So out I came with my million and one key ring, and I got “lucky.” I opened the door after only six tries.
“Hey, I’m here, old man,” I called into the apartment. No answer. I looked in the living room – same crappy fifth-hand easy chair spotted with hot sauce and pizza stains, same crappy 30-some odd inch TV on the wall, and same mega-crappy coffee table dusted with pieces of chips and half-eaten peanuts. I went into the kitchen. Nobody.
“Hey, I’m here. Where are you?” I yelled a little louder. Nothing. So I went back to his bedroom.
Then I saw something on the bed, but no, that’s not . . . I turned the light on, and it was – him, my dad, or, more accurately, what was left of him with a good chunk of the front of his head blown off. His Glock now laying on the floor beside the bed. It was funny – not in a comedic way, of course – but the whole scene was not freaking me out one bit.
What can I say? I’ve been my dad’s son my entire life, right? And, honestly, I wasn’t all that surprised. Had my dad ever been happy? Not that I ever remembered. He was always bitching about something – people, relatives, my mom (his second ex-wife), customers, the government, thefuckingliberals (He always said it so fast; it was like one word.).
He was a lifetime member of the NRA and a firm believer in the 2nd Amendment, which he interpreted to mean that we should arm ourselves to stop thefuckingliberals from destroying the country. But instead of turning his 9mm on the nuclear-armed deep state headed by perv snowflakes, he turned it on himself.
Also, and here I’m not being deeply philosophical, just descriptive of how I felt at the time, to me, he was no longer there. It was not him on the bed. It was a piece of bloodied meat, the blood already dried brown on the sheets and wall north of his head. Honestly, it was more like a butcher shop without the scales, parchment paper, freezer, and hungry customers eyeing prices for the best deals.
So I called 9-1-1. “Hello, this is Ca-ca-Cash Ca-ca-Carver. I-I-I have a su-su-suicide to r-report.”
Immediately, the operator was like, “Please stay calm,” as if I was freaking out, which strangely enough I was not. I’ve stuttered since I was 14. Well, the woman’s “solicitousness” did nothing to help. I was like what’s up with your fake concern, lady? You don’t really give a shit about me or my dead dad.
Then I tried to repeat what I said without stuttering, and I swear no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t do it. I kept stuttering and stuttering, worse each time. Then the operator came on the line, telling me again to please stay calm, since that helped so much the first time.
Then I just lost it and started laughing. I couldn’t stop for like five minutes. The whole scene suddenly struck me as a comedy skit. A man’s dad has committed suicide, but the son can’t report it because his stutter is so terrible.
Of course, it was also a little bit creepy. I’m standing there laughing in a room where a tidal wave of blood has dried on the wall, along with chunks of what I guess were splattered brain matter. If I didn’t have such a strong stomach, I’m pretty damn sure I would’ve lost my huevos con chorizo.
Finally, I caught my breath and tried very hard to pretend I was someone else, someone who would call 9-1-1 and talk in the most dispassionate manner possible. So I imagined I was Michael on “Roswell,” a show I watched when I was a punk kid and still watched TV. So as Michael, I told the dispatcher my dad had committed suicide and the address was blah, blah, blah.
After I hung up, there was nothing left to do but wait, so I went to the kitchen and grabbed a beer from the fridge, which was weird because I don’t usually even like beer. I’m actually more of a Remy Martin XO man. But I have to admit, the Bud Lite didn’t taste half bad as I scrolled through my Instagram feed, waiting for the meat cart to arrive.
Now, a little trivia: do you know if ambulances turn on their sirens to pick up a dead man? Spoiler alert: they don’t. Why bother, right?
###
Ken Wheatcroft-Pardue is a short story writer living in Fort Worth, Texas. His stories have appeared in The Texas Observer (on-line only), Verdad, Amarillo Bay, Concho River Review, Literary Yard, Chiron Review, and most recently, Wilderness House Literary Review. Also, you published one of my stories back in 2022.
