When someone asks you to help dispose of
a body, you’re supposed to ask questions.
This is why I’m a little worried about
my son, James.
As a kid, he hung on me like a barnacle.
If I was doing yard work, he was doing yard work. If I had a quarrel with his
mother and went down to the pub for a burger and beer to cool off, James would
meet me there on his bike.
We fished, we rode bikes, we nearly lost
our hearing at monster truck rallies. We watched old episodes of “Dukes of
Hazzard” and “Walker, Texas Ranger.” (When you name a kid Jim Bob, he’s gonna
grow up liking that sort of thing.)
Until he was 13, he was my shadow and I
missed him when he reached that age (as most boys do), where I was no longer
cool enough to hang with. I knew the honeymoon was over the day I overheard him
refer to me to a friend as “The Dark One.”
James was my third ride on the parental
merry-go-round, though, so I knew enough to not be offended. Like my older son,
Jordan, before him, Jim-Bob eventually grew out of that phase and we were
friends again.
These days we get together once a week
for Bad Movie Night. We still go fishing, bike riding, all that stuff. My point
is, after 30 years, we know each other well. Or I thought we did.
Maybe that’s why James had no questions
when I told him I needed help disposing of a body.
The texted conversation went like this.
ME: Hey kiddo! Whazzup? You free
tomorrow afternoon?
JAMES: Yup. Gotta work until 5, but free
after that.
ME: Can you help me get rid of a dead
body?
Now see, this is the point at which a
normal person might say, “What the hell? A what!?” But not James.
He texted back: “I’ll bring a Sawzall
with a good metal blade. Should be alright for body dismemberment.”
ME: I don’t think we’ll need that. But
you will want some heavy gloves, a small tarp and maybe some rope.
JAMES: OK, no problem. I’m down.
This response worries me. Despite the
fact I used to live in Detroit, I’m not mobbed up; I’m not a “made man.” When I
“hit” someone, it’s usually a slap on the back to help dislodge a piece of
partially-chewed steak. The only “capo” I understand is the kind that attaches to
the neck of a guitar to raise the pitch. I’ve never even seen all the
“Godfather” movies, so not only am I not a hit man, I’m barely a man at all.
So why was James all “no problem” about
taking on a job that’s generally considered a major felony? I mean, he’s my son
and I love him, but it’s not like he owes me a 20-to-life stretch in Shawshank.
Why was he so willing to become an accessory after the fact? (I’ve never seen “The
Godfather” but I’ve seen every “Law & Order” ever made; can you tell?)
I wondered, has he done this sort of
thing before? Does he think I have? And if I had, hasn’t he ever wondered why I
never did it to him, back when he was 14 and going through those difficult teen
years? If ever I was going to kill someone, it would have been James at 14.
I ended our text with, “OK, then, I’ll
see you tomorrow after work. Don’t forget to bring gloves; maybe even one of
those face mask things. The smell’s pretty strong.”
And now, I thought, the questions will
come: Who did you kill? Were there witnesses? It wasn’t Mom, was it?
But nope. Not one question.
Now, I
knew “the body” in question belonged to a deer that had died next to the house
sometime this past winter. James did not. So how could there be no questions?
He showed up the next evening with his
big pickup truck and a pair of heavy gloves. When I showed him the carcass he
said, “Oh, it’s a deer.”
He sounded neither disappointed nor
relieved
And I’m
supposed to be The Dark One?
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