Chapter 4 - It's the Small Things That Can Kill You - How Would You Do It?

                               Chapter 4 – How Would You Do It?

“A gun!” I practically screamed. A few people in the diner turned their heads. My father stuck his head out of one of the kitchen windows and frowned at me. For the most part people must have assumed that we were just young people being unruly. They all went back to their food and conversation.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I growled at Fenton.

“What? When should I have told you? In group during the break when I first saw the gun. Should I have screamed ‘gun’ in a panicky voice?”

“Er no.” I said in a smaller voice.

“I’m telling you now, okay?”

“When did you see it. Details! Clara was practically vibrating with excitement.

“When we got up to go on our last break, I saw it underneath his shirt stuffed in the front waist band of his trousers.”

“Who’s trousers?” Clara stood up and reached her hands over the table. She started to grab Fenton as if she was going to shake him. He pulled back and said ‘No” rather emphatically. I motioned for her to sit back down. Fenton had to be prepared for you to touch him. In a way he was like a wild animal that you have fed for years. You could touch him, but you should make any sudden movements while doing so. That spooked him. I’ve literally seen Fenton run off when strangers tried to violate his body space unexpectedly. It was an autistic-flavored part of his anxiety. A part of his symptom cluster, according to Dr. Knivens.

“Fenton. Which one of the guys was it?” I felt like shaking him myself, but I showed restraint.

“Um, I don’t think I should say.” He said, in a voice a bit too calculated for my tastes.

“Hey, I’m in that group with you three days a week. Both of us could be in danger.”

“Neither one of us is in danger. I told Dr. Knivens what I saw, and he said he would remove the guy. He told me that he would see him in individual sessions in his office from now on. He asked me to keep the matter confidential.”

“Fenton, as a friend, I demand that you tell me.”

“I’ve already said too much to you and Clara, who isn’t even part of the group and shouldn’t be listening to any of this.”

I turned to Clara. “He’s right, but I feel like strangling him.”

Clara tried to calm me down a bit. “Look, you should know who it was in a couple of days. It’s going to be the guy that doesn’t show up for your group on Friday.” I nodded. She was right. Why didn’t I think of that?

At that moment Lisa returned with our orders. She set them before us with practiced grace. “Who is Jax going to strangle now?” she said wearily.

“You heard that?” I said with a tinge of guilt.

“You were screaming.” Said Fenton. Clara nodded hastily. “You were!”

Then my attention was redirected (didn’t take much back in those days before Dr. Knivens put me on some prescription meds) to a figure emerging from the kitchen. Several people shouted his name and beckoned him over.  The muscular blonde man in wearing his baseball hat backwards was a local hero. Danny DeWitt.

Danny was one of my dad’s short order cooks. His presence in the diner meant that my father’s shift had ended. Danny was, by reputation, the best fry cook in the entire county. He also had a second claim to fame. Danny was lucky.

In his younger days, when he had played catcher for the Kildeer Warriors the team had risen from being second to the last place in a five-county league to three-year champions. The first year, the only change in personnel was Danny. Danny was an aggressive player who had a mouth on him. He could swear something fierce. The fans loved it when he and coach Benson critiqued the first base umpire’s performance. When Danny got benched for unsportsmanlike language the Warriors performance declined. If allowed to play before the seventh inning we would win the game.

Fans would rush Danny at the end of our games, and he would give them a Warriors hat that he was wearing or once, he gave Sylvia Dillons his mitt. Sylvia’s husband had been in a bad car accident and was hospitalized. After she gave him Danny’s lucky mitt, he pulled through has surgery and healed in record time. The fans loved Danny. Even now, with his local baseball career behind him, people still believed he was lucky.

Danny approached Phil Gering and his wife. He bent over Phil and removed Phil’s hat. Danny gently kissed Phil on the head for everyone to see. The entire diner laughed and cheered. People still believed Danny was lucky. A kiss from Danny meant Phil was golden (for the rest of the day, at least).

I yelled at him over the din of the diner crowd. “Hey Danny.” He looked over at me and pointed. Then he let loose with a famous Danny DeWitt laugh. It was loud and a bit eerie. A lunatics laughter.  But he rumpled my hair anyway.

“Apparently, Jax needs some luck. He was just about to tell us that he was going to strangle someone.” Lisa chuckled.

“Just Fenton.” I moaned.

Danny looked over at Fenton. “Then, I’d say he’s the one that needs some luck.” He looked at Fenton as if requesting permission. Fenton stuck out his hand and Danny briefly touched him.

“Your dad’s about to go home and rest up for the evening shift. We need the ole Danny DeWitt-Jaxon Larue teamwork back in the kitchen, pronto.

It was true, Danny and I were an efficient team. He fried up plates of diner food, and then I washed them when they came back. Dad had a medium-sized dishwasher, but business was so good that I came in for a few hours after my therapy sessions to attack the plate and cutlery overflow situation. Time passed quickly in the kitchen with Danny. He knew a thousand jokes (some of them were even clean). It was as if his hands had a mind of their own. They prepared the food to the customer’s delight while his mouth told me stories of Kildeer’s glorious past.

“See ya’ in a few Jax!” Danny said as he ambled away with an apron over his shoulder.

“Well?” Fenton said to me, as he stared at his fried eggs and neatly separated sausage links. “If you were gong to, you know, murder someone, who would it be and how would you do it?”

“Oh my God! I hope this isn’t what you discuss in therapy.” Lisa’s jaw dropped.

“No, it’s a recent topic we discuss on break now.” Fenton explained.

“Sounds like you both need a few more sessions.” Lisa turned and left.

“Well, I’m not certain about the who but I don’t think I have the upper body strength to pull off strangulation.” I muttered.

“I understand it isn’t so much of a pulling as it is a squeezing type of strength that would be needed.” Fenton said through a mouth full of eggs.

“God, you are both so weird!” Clara lamented.