lieutenantantichrist | [18] [anon text] - "It Doesn't Unbang Your Mom."

Are we assuming the dirtbag wants forgiveness in the first place?

Yeah.

We're assuming that.

Then I guess first I'd probably try to figure out why the dirtbag needs that absolution so bad.

Is he doing it because his conscience won't let him sleep at night? Because he can get something off me for doing it? A lot of dirtbags never look back and never say they're sorry; that's what makes them dirtbags.

Say he knows he did something stupid. It took him a while but he's figured out just how bad he fucked up, and he has to at least try to do something about it.

For the sake of the argument.

...

Something you want to get off your chest, anonymous? 'Cause it sounds to me like you need a confessional more than you need an answer here.

I ain't Catholic.

[Another message follows a moment later.]

Look. You answer my question, I'll answer yours.

The worst thing somebody ever did to me was treat me like I didn't matter. I don't mean hurting my feelings by leaving me out of the dodgeball game. I mean not bothering to notice there was even a difference between me and the dirt that got into the tracks of his shoes.

I've got no reason to forgive somebody like that.

Sounds like a real piece of work.

What if even a son of a bitch like that figured out how bad he'd fucked up? Would it mean anything if he told you?

[There's a break between the messages.]

Well, you held up your end of the bargain. My end, well.

To put it simple, a man who shouldn't be dead is, and it's because of me.

What do I care if he has an epiphany and realizes he fucked up? Saying he's sorry helps him sleep better at night. It's not gonna take my nightmares away.

[Still, this is interesting.]

That happens all the time. Is your conscience getting in the way?

That's about what I figured. So far, everybody's said about the same thing.

[The guy - or girl, who the hell knows - sounds oddly unsurprised.]

All the time? Shit, what kind of neighborhood are you from?

Point is, yeah, it happened. I fucked up bad, and it's not going to go away. The hell am I supposed to do about that?

Look at it from this perspective. Why hand someone else the key to whether or not you can be happy? Whoever it was you hurt by what you did, you've gone and hung a weight around your neck and handed them the key to unlocking it, and now you're on your knees trying to figure out how hard you have to beg to make them give it back to you.

Why let them have that key in the first place? If they're standing there making you grovel telling you nothing's good enough, aren't they just as awful? Good people forgive each other, and it sounds to me like whoever's got you down is enjoying your misery more than they care about holding the moral high ground.

All your suffering isn't gonna make that dead guy any more alive, and if it's making the other guy feel better to watch, well. What the hell does that say about the other guy?

I'm not begging anybody for anything.

[For a second, temptation yanks hard at him. Nothing anybody can do about it now. It's not my problem, it's yours. God, it would be nice to think like that. Write it all off. Shrug it away.

And he has, plenty of times. He's hurt people who've been found innocent. Pulled the trigger too fast. There's always been a reason and somewhere else to put the blame, and he's never had time to regret.

Usually you'd be right. I've done what I had to and I never wasted my time trying to make anybody happy with me.

But this. With this guy.

[This is different.]

It says he's a fucking child.

One whose dad got gunned down.

[Temptation works in wicked and mysterious ways. Come on, Blake, wouldn't it be so easy to just make it all go away?

Not that Schuldig has a lot of sympathy for kids whose dads get gunned down in front of them, anyway. Those little bastards can suck it up; he turned out fine, didn't he?

Ah-ha-ha-hah.]

Of course he's not going to forgive you, then. He's a kid. Kids can't figure out it's their mom leaving quarters under their pillow at night, and not the tooth fairy.

You're the adult here, right? That means you've got to be the reasonable one. Kids don't understand extenuating circumstances like adults do. I bet that's what happened, right? You fucked up, you made a mistake. Kids don't get that. Kids, you have to tell them their puppy dog went off to a nice farm in the country because it's somehow your fault it got off its tether and ended up hit by a passing car.

Things happen. A kid's not going to understand. It'd be nice to have his forgiveness, but you don't really need it.

[It would be so easy to believe. Everything the guy says is so damn reasonable.]

I thought that way for a long time. I thought it didn't have anything to do with me. He was a kid, he didn't understand, it wasn't really me anyway.

Hell, I still don't really understand that part.

But I always knew. It wasn't me who pulled the trigger, but it was my fault. There's no point in being the kind of pussy who runs away from the facts.

[Not that he's been doing that for a year or anything.]

You're saying I should just forget this kid and go along my merry fucking way?

[After a moment of looking down at the phone, he adds,]

And that crap about saying the dog went to a farm is bullshit. If the dog's dead, you say it's dead.

If you didn't pull the trigger, how can it be your fault?

[Another thing he's said to himself, over and over, trying to make it matter.]

You wouldn't believe me if I told you.

Does that matter? I don't know who you are, and you don't know who I am. Is it really going to bother you that much if some faceless person somewhere out in the void doesn't believe something you said once?

All right, fine. If you're that damn curious, then it's one of those pieces of parallel universe bullshit.

There was a guy at gunpoint. In my world I said stand down. In the other, I gave the order to fire.

Don't know why.

Oh, and let me guess. The kid's certain he heard you say fire, and you're sure you didn't. Instant dilemma, now you're saddled with the consequences of something you didn't do whether you like it or not.

You wouldn't give an order to shoot unless you had good reason, though, right?

[God damn it, he'd thought he was done with this. He'd accepted it. It's his fault, just deal with it.

Right?]

He heard it, and he's lived with his dad being dead for months. There's not a whole lot of doubt left.

Shit, I thought he was the killer. After that investigation, after all those days trying to track the bastard down, I would have shot him if he twitched.

So how is that unreasonable? Anyone else in your position would've done the same thing with the same information, right?

Now, I know you're thinking to yourself, "That's right, but that doesn't bring the kid's dad back." That's true, it doesn't. But there's a difference between being responsible for something and being guilty of it.

Besides, think about it this way: even if in some universe you did give the order, why do you get saddled with the blame from one universe, but no credit for your restraint in another? You can't live like that. There's some parallel universe out there where every time you safely drove a car, another you mowed down someone's grandmother; are you responsible for all of those, too?

The only reason you feel bad about this one is because you've actually met the kid who remembers something different and can scream in your face about it. That doesn't make you any more guilty than you are of the thousand grandmothers.

Not everybody.

[Blake thinks of Nathaniel at gunpoint. Turning him around, the sudden grab for something out of his coat, the flash when he knew that within the next millisecond one of them had to be dead.

But neither of them was. Jayden hadn't flinched.

Son of a bitch doesn't even have to be here to show him up.

He keeps thinking of the kid's face when he saw him the first time. Terror and hatred on the face of a child you were trying to save has a way of sticking in the memory.] I don't know if it's even a decision I made. He came out holding the kid and with the lady. Calling the shot could've hit them.

There's a lot of fucking might haves out there, but this I know for sure. I owe that kid.

Fuck, all this philosophical sci fi shit makes my head hurt.

Hey. Whoever you are. Maybe you have a point in there.

[A part of him is hungry to believe it, the part that goes straight for the easy answers.]

Maybe I should get some credit.

[It's a big part.]

So owe the kid.

Just don't let him rule your life.

That'll be easy. The kid wants nothing to do with me.

[Maybe this guy'll believe him when he says this:] I was trying to do the right thing. I was supposed to save him, goddammit.

[Oh, now this is delicious.]

Look, stranger. I believe you. It's obvious you know how the world works, and that includes the reality that you just can't win them all.

Maybe some people will say you don't get a gold star just for good intentions and trying hard, but you know what? Those same people would be the ones begging for it if they were the ones who'd had to make the call instead of you.

Don't let it get you down.

anon text forever;

lieutenantantichrist - 2014-08-21 10:19 (UTC) - Expand