WALKABOUT - Taking a Mulligan (36-40)

36

Ty Hamilton

I had to move the guy I’d shot closer to the fire just in case he might still be alive. It felt weird, me being naked, so I grabbed my boxer shorts and slipped them back on. They were still wet, but at least I didn’t feel so creeped out. I put the gun on a rock several feet away, well out of reach. I tried imagining how to move him without aggravating his wounds, causing him more pain. There was no way, so I just bent down and grabbed him, reaching under his armpits, lifted, and drug him over to the fire. He moved, and scared the bejeezus out of me, because even though I was going through the motions of trying to save him, I had written him off for dead.

His breathing was shallow, and he began coughing again. I felt helpless, not knowing what to do to help him. I’d shot him, true, but I didn’t want him to die.

He looked into my eyes, and I could see that he knew he was dying. “You’re one . . . lucky . . .  sonofabitch . . . Hamilton.” And then, that was it. He was gone. No doubt about it this time. His eyes stayed open, with that thousand yard stare you hear about.

I let him slide gently out of my arms and onto the ground. The air that he had inhaled during his last moment now escaped through his open mouth in an eerie groan that sent me scrambling away, slipping and falling backward in the mud. I think I may have even let out a scream not unlike that of a frightened little girl.

Lightning raged and thunder exploded all around us. Around me. I regained my composure, and after perhaps a minute, crawled over to the body and tried with trembling hand to close his eyelids, like they do in the movies and on TV.  They stayed open. I tried again, this time willing my hand to stop shaking and use more pressure against the eyelids. The result was the same as before, except my fingers slid off the eyelids and made contact with the actual eyeballs, causing me to recoil. All the while, his eyes kept looking at me.

I said a brief prayer over the stranger I’d killed, then moved away from the body to take  what little shelter was offered by the low lying branches of a nearby pine tree. It is quite unsettling to have a dead man staring at you in a thunderstorm. You begin to believe his eyes are following you as you move around.

Like most people, I had seen plenty of dead people at funeral homes, but this was the first time I’d actually witnessed the death of a fellow human being, and even though I had not known this man, I don’t mind telling you that it shook me up. I swear to you, the guy had a hard-on. I’d read about that, but didn’t know if it was actually true. And apparently, judging from the smell, when one dies, they empty their bowels.

Horrified by what I had done, combined with what I was now seeing and smelling, I couldn’t take it anymore. I threw the gun into the river and bent over, placed both hands on my knees, and began puking. I couldn’t help it. I puked up everything that was in my stomach. Then I puked a while longer, producing nothing. The dry heaves, they call it. When I was finally done, I stood, wiped my mouth with my hand and said aloud, “How did he know my name?”

37

Ty Hamilton

I’ve never experienced a hurricane firsthand. And I now knew I never wanted to, if what I endured on the island that night was merely the remnants, as the television weather people call it. I did what I could to survive. Kept the fire burning, took shelter under the bough of an evergreen. After a while, exhaustion took over, and I fell asleep.

Sometime around midnight, the rain picked up, even harder than before, and I awoke, shivering. It took a few seconds to get my bearings. The fire! It was nearly burned out, and in this rain . . . I jumped up with the agility of a man half my age, and scrambled for the fire. With bare hands, I grabbed some of the smaller branches that were nearly burned out but still glowing, brought them together in a loosely-formed heap, and on all fours, began breathing life into the embers.

Once I got it going enough that I could leave it for a minute, I busied myself with the task of gathering more firewood in the downpour, stacking it so that it would burn. After a few minutes, I had a roaring fire again, despite Mother Nature’s never-ending attempt to extinguish it.

Throughout the remainder of the night, I sat under the evergreen, tending the fire, fighting off sleep. I kept staring at the dead man. The man I had killed. When the lightning flashed, I could see him, with his purplish skin and pale lips, staring back at me through cold, dead eyes.

‘You’re one lucky son of a bitch, Hamilton,’ he had said. And before that, even though I was trying to save him, he still tried to kill me. Not once, but twice. Why?

His mouth was slightly open, as if he was desperately trying to say something of great importance. Like there was one last thing, perhaps the most profound thought he’d had in his entire life that was on his mind and the tip of his tongue at the moment of death.

“HOW THE HELL DID YOU END UP HERE?” I shouted to the dead man. Then, to myself, “And how the hell did I end up here?”

Did I really kill him? Technically, no, in my way of thinking. He was probably going to die anyway from his wound. And how did that even happen? For sure the son of a bitch would have drowned if I hadn’t come along. Two ways for him to have died, neither one involving me. But he forced me to shoot him. And that was when his heart stopped beating, and his breathing stopped. And, he hadn’t blinked. So yeah, his time of death pretty much coincided with the time when the bullets I fired penetrated his torso. So, the question kept running through my mind over and again. Did I really kill him? If he was going to die anyway, did I really kill him?

38

Ty Hamilton

It would be a few more hours before daylight came, and I had nothing else to do, and I was curious. I decided to find out just who this fellow was. And how did he know who I was? I moved toward him, rolled him over. Rigor mortis was setting in, and it made going through his pockets a bit more difficult.

I retrieved a wallet from his right hip pocket. In his front pockets I found a couple of sheets of wet notepaper, a pocket knife, some loose change. And, a cigarette lighter. I could have used that earlier.

In the process of handling the body, I felt the man’s cell phone on a holster clipped to his belt. If it wasn’t destroyed by the water, maybe I could use it to dial 911 to get someone to come rescue me. I could tell them what had happened and provide directions. But then, I thought better of it. How would it look? Me, covered in blood. Him, dead. With gunshot wounds. Would I still have gunpowder residue on my hands, after being so wet for so long? Plus, I’d already tossed the gun into the river. That would raise eyebrows. I could be charged with murder.

I left him there and went back to rest under the evergreen branch, close to the fire. Using the light from the fire, I looked at his wallet. There was a Powerball ticket, a parking stub from the Indianapolis airport, and a little over five hundred dollars. Who walked around with that kind of money?

There were some credit cards—VISA, Master Card, J.C. Penney’s and Home Depot. The driver’s license said that he was Jared Mulligan. I checked the photograph on the driver’s license against the face of the deceased. Kind of hard to tell, given his current state, but yeah, I decided, it was a match.  And then I took another good, long look at the photograph. Damned if he and I didn’t look a hell of a lot alike!

39

Ty Hamilton

Marriage, it has been said, is the institution you enter when you meet that special person you want to irritate for the rest of your life. Chris Rock hit the nail on the head in his comedy routine when he talked about Nelson Mandela. How they kept him in prison for all those years and couldn’t break him. At long last, Mr. Mandela was released. He walked out unphased by the harsh treatment, to go home to his wife. After only a few months, they divorced. “I CAN’T TAKE THIS SHIT NO MORE!” Chris Rock shouts, imitating Mandela. Not a married man alive who can’t identify with that.

Would I have been any happier had I remained a life-long bachelor? Maybe yes, maybe no. I do know that enough is enough. And, I’d had more than enough. I suppose Dianna had, too. Any doubt of that was erased by Dallas Remington.

Dallas never liked me, and I never liked him. Not from the moment we first met. He was a big name in the Quarter Horse industry. Won a few national and world championships over the years. Trained a lot of winners. He knew his business, but he rubbed me the wrong way.

I remember one evening down at the barn, when Dianna and a few of her boarders who also trained with Dallas were standing around, drinking a few beers and talking. I’d just finished feeding the horses and came over to join them. One of the women commented on Dallas’ world champion belt buckle that he always wore.

“I’d sell it to you for a hundred bucks,” he said. I suppose the remark was intended to impress us that he’d won so many of them it wouldn’t bother him to part with one.

I, being an asshole, pulled out my wallet and whipped out a Ben Franklin and said, “Here, Dallas. Take this. You can keep the belt buckle. I didn’t realize you were going through hard times. You should’ve said something.” And the dickhead took the money! Kept the belt buckle, too. He never did thank me.

Dallas’ and my relationship never improved. Dianna was pissed, to say the least. I think it was shortly after that they started cozying up to one another more than before. I pretended not to notice. After a while, I just didn’t care.

I should have filed for a divorce a long time ago. I had for some time now been planning on it, but so far just couldn’t bring myself to do it.  Believe it or not, I didn’t want to hurt Dianna. I’d been no saint, but I had proof that Dallas Remington was more than a horse trainer where Dianna was concerned.

Dianna and I were done. I don’t know why I had waited until now, but I vowed right then and there, on the island, that I was not going to spend one more day as her husband. It was finished. Ironically, I wondered if Dianna had called the police yet. I’d never been this late getting home from a day of fishing. I tossed another log on the fire.

We’d started our lives together like most young couples, madly in love, blind to one another’s shortcomings. That was thirty-some years ago, when her face was smooth and I had “six-pack” abdominals. My gut looks more like a keg, now.

We made a fine-looking couple, back then. We had a lot of fun, and couldn’t keep our hands off one another. But, like I said, that was more than thirty years ago. I don’t know where the time went. Back then, when we were in our mid-twenties, we didn’t own anything, yet the world was ours for the taking. Time was on our side. I don’t know who said it, but it is true that “Youth is wasted on the young.”

40

Ty Hamilton

I guess I still loved Dianna. Not in the same way that I did in the beginning, but more like you love a life-long friend. At the same time, I resented her. There was this feeling within me that I had given too much of myself, and gotten far too little in return.

Not like I’d been all that much fun. Ever since I retired I’ve been a royal pain in the ass. Long before that, too, if I’m going to be honest. Somewhere along the way I transformed from a fun-loving, easy-going guy to a cynical, grumpy old man.

There was the initial feeling of overwhelming joy in knowing that there was someone who actually found me attractive enough to want to spend the rest of her life with me.  Then, telling our families and friends of our engagement. Picking out rings. Finding a place to live. Planning the future. As if you can. Hell, a few hours ago I couldn’t have imagined that I would be assuming the identity of a stranger. For that matter, a few hours ago, Jared Mulligan probably didn’t expect to be dead so soon, either.

The wedding rehearsal. The bachelor party. The wedding. The honeymoon. Coming home as a Mr. and Mrs. Tyler Curtis Hamilton, confident and eager to start a new life together. Two become one. And then, day by day, month by month, growing more comfortable, more familiar, more compromising, sacrificing, tolerant, annoyed, frustrated, exasperated, resigned, and finally, years later, distant. Bitter.

Having children was a mixed blessing. The precious little bundles you bring home fill you with love, hope, and joy. They renew your bond of love for one another. You learn as you go, caring for them, rocking, feeding, burping, and changing dirty diapers. You watch them grow and develop. You are so proud when they learn to crawl, begin to jabber, cut teeth, stand up, flash you a goofy grin, fall down, get back up and do it all over again. Everything is a photo op. You bore your friends at work with stories about your kids. You wait impatiently, pretending to listen while they tell you about their kids, all the while thinking about what you are going to say next about yours the moment an opportunity comes along to get another word in.

You swell with pride as they take their first steps, when they say “Da-da!” and when they laugh. You play with them, give them rides on your shoulders. Let them sit on your back while you crawl around on all fours, letting them “ride the horsey”. You play hide-and-seek, always letting them win. Never finding them, even though they always go to the same corner of the same room behind the same chair, and giggle loudly while you search in futility. You teach them how to catch and throw a ball, how to say “please” and “thank you”. You act silly and they laugh. You are their best friend. You read to them. You tell them stories about the things you did when you were young. They hang on your every word. They believe you can do anything. You are, at that moment in time, a Superhero!

Did Jared Mulligan have kids? How old would they be? How would they feel about his death?

Little League. Soccer. Girl Scouts. Family vacations. Your kids. The best the world has ever known. Mankind’s hope for the future.

You just know that they are going to make a difference, and the human race will be forever grateful to you for bringing them into the world. Life is good.

Then, without warning, they become teenagers. You are suddenly lame. An embarrassment to them. They hate you. They tell you to go screw yourself. But you still serve a purpose. They still want your money.

Then, finally, at long last they become adults.

And your son becomes a professional student whose only accomplishment in twenty-five years on this earth is knocking up his girlfriend. That, and persuading you to invest a little over a hundred grand in training and computers and everything he could possibly need to market himself as an expert in computer forensics—a business venture that he would soon after walk away from.

And on top of all that, you have no contact with your daughter for three years.