The Next Shocking Act

Eddie tended to drift into whatever jobs were available that would pay the rent.

It wasn’t exactly the life he had planned but whose was anyway? Sometimes he got caught up thinking about how this wasn’t what he expected to be doing at the age of 29, but, being the well-rounded thinker he was, always managed to pull himself out of it.

“Who can say he’s doing exactly what he expected?”

Probably nobody. And the exciting stories come after the drab ones, right?

He hoped so.

And so he went on like that. Breaking the stereotype as a male librarian until the library closed, bagging groceries at the Shop & Save until summer started and the store became too flooded with kids trying to make an extra buck that getting enough shifts to make a living was impossible, answering calls to give tech help until the questions started going over his head more often than they didn’t and he just couldn’t keep up anymore. Yes, Eddie drifted from job, to job, to job, scraping by on a spat of minimum wage and a quickly-depleting savings he had had the miraculous prudence to put away when he was in his younger 20s. That was life. And to be honest, it really wasn’t that bad. It was only in the nights when it really crept up on him. When he got up to throw away his lean cuisine tray and went back into the TV room (just the fact that he called it the TV room made him a little sad) to sit down and watch until he fell asleep he got the hallowing feeling that this was all there was. Every now and then he had the fleeting thought that he could use this time to work towards something more, but that was usually followed closely by “today’s not the day”. But why wasn’t today the day? He never knew. And that’s what scared him most.

Stop.

This is pretty cliché so far, right? I know what you’re thinking: “next”. You’re thinking this is just another shallow tale about some average Joe finding his place or maybe not finding his place and following the new trend that seems to be arising where stories don’t end happily and I’m the cool realist writer who tells it like it is. Well, maybe you’re right. I guess you’ll just have to care enough to keep reading. That’s what Eddie did. He wasn’t all that interested. But he cared just enough.

It was one of those lean cuisine nights and he had just turned to go back to the TV room when something repeated in his mind. It had been the headline of a newspaper that had been in the trash as he dumped in the last of his microwaved chicken pot-pie. His eyes had skimmed over it and he had cared just enough to read it but didn’t really process it for a moment. He repeated it and repeated it in his head. Going over it again and again. It seemed important. But he couldn’t quite understand why.

The next couple of days were typical. He had taken up a job washing dogs at the local pet store and the only thing that distinguished this week from the last was the headline repeating again and again.

Pull the dog onto the table. Repeat.

Douse with water. Repeat.

Rub shampoo into fur. Repeat.

Rinse. Repeat.

It wasn’t even that it was that amazing, or profound. It wasn’t even much of anything really. Unless you were Eddie. Unless you knew the subject of the headline. Unless you knew the background of the subject in the headline. Mikey Zarconi. Mike now, at least according to the headline. He had been one of Eddie’s classmates in high school. Mikey was a nice guy, a cool guy, whatever. He was the poster child for Eastern High. He was on every team (it seemed), every council (it seemed) every board (it seemed). He did everything (it seemed) and when he got into the Ivy, no one was surprised.

Eddie wasn’t surprised.

Eddie’s first job was being an after school custodian for Eastern High. Yes, from 3:30 to 7:30 each day, he cleaned the messes of his peers for 3.50 an hour just to have a little money to spend on whatever it is teenage boys like to purchase. He had stayed late one night though, and that’s why Mikey Zarconi meant something different to him than he did to anyone else.

You see, Eddie had been coming around he corner of the last hallway he would be cleaning for the night when he had heard voices. Someone talking harshly and someone else nearly in tears.

“’on’t care what exam you have tomorrow, I need this today.”

The mutters of the other person were un-hearable, even with Eddie straining to listen. But what happened next echoed through the hall.

A strike.

The sound of a hand hitting flesh and the words “finish it” said calmly.

Before he could move, Elsie Ranwike skittered around the corner and fled past him without casting a glance in his direction.

Eddie stood for a moment, then stepped into the hallway.

Mikey stood at the end, about 20 feet away. They looked at each other. Then Mikey cocked his head to the side, smiled sideways, and walked away.

Eddie had never told anybody.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. Just because Mikey was a jerk once doesn’t mean he was a jerk all the time. This one instance is not indicative of his entre life. We can’t assume all his success was based on others’ work. Well, it was. As your omniscient narrator, let me give you a little bit of insight into Mikey’s life. He had never done his own homework. He had never written his own papers. He had never made his own money. And he had never gotten into a single club fairly. He even worked the system to cheat on nearly every test he had ever taken so much so that the only exam he had ever taken on his own (and failed), he was allowed to retake on account of a “sickness” that the teacher actually believed had made him “feel off that day” since his 54% was so different than his normal 97. He was a master operator and while Eddie had no way of knowing this specifically, that look they exchanged had said it all. In that moment, Eddie knew. Mikey’s only true accomplishment was navigating the system.

The plan suddenly made sense.

It had hatched in his mind the hour following the headline. “Mike Zarconi named CEO of Minetoft” (imagine the biggest company you can imagine and then make it bigger, you know, make it impressive in your own mind). Eddie wanted that life. He wanted the success and the fame, and the money. But Mikey had it. And Eddie knew Mikey didn’t deserve it. He hadn’t done a fair thing in his life while Eddie had worked, and scrounged, and labored to end up at the bottom with about $2000 to his name and an ever-growing sense that he was running out of time.

It had started as a joke.

Just call me Eddie Zarconi ha ha ha. I’ll be successful too ha ha ha. Wouldn’t be that hard if I did it the Mikey Way ha ha ha.

But then it started to take a more specific form.

I could start giving rent as checks that bounce and just pocket all the money each month. I could say I have a child and just pocket all the government assistance I get. I could set a fire in my apartment and claim the insurance check. I could pretend the bus hits me and settle for a large sum.

With each dog he had heaved onto the table, he had thought of a new way to make a small fortune. A new way to spring-board himself to a better existence.

And with each dog he moved off of the table, he had a new reason why the latest plan wouldn’t work.

The rent checks bouncing would only work for a couple of months and then what? What happens when I can’t prove I actually have a kid? What am I going to do once my apartment is totally burned? I need the stuff I have. How am I going to “pretend” to get hit by a bus? I’d probably end up actually getting struck and end up in the hospital and even deeper in the hole.

He bounced ideas back and forth and up and down and by the end of the day, he had a list of requirements for what he needed for a con.

1. He needed a scapegoat.

He couldn’t be the focus of the scandal, it was too obvious. He needed a different person to discover, or hurt, or expose.

2. He needed someone with a lot of money.

He himself had none, so he needed not only a scapegoat, but a loaded scapegoat.

3. He needed a large scandal.

Politics, murder, promiscuity, (all three?). Eddie needed something big.

4. He needed it now.

The options that wouldn’t work came and went. People he knew popped into and then out of his mind. And then one stuck. A person he vaguely knew but he couldn’t quite figure out why he would be perfect. He mulled him over in his mind, reviewed his credentials and thought about every detail he knew about the man. Then, like fitting the last couple of pieces into a puzzle, everything fell into place.

And the plan suddenly made sense.

Frank Rooney had been the manager of the Shop & Save for thirty-eight years, and he wasn't retiring anytime soon.

He didn’t need to retire. He managed the Shop & Save because he enjoyed it. He had made his money in his thirties when he struck big in the oil business and retired at 40. But by 41 he was bored out of his mind and before he hit 42, manager he was. Manager and health enthusiast, the kind of guy you see out running at 4:30 am. So not only was he working, he was healthy and working. And rich. He was never going to leave.

Every morning he keyed open the door at 7:30 am and swung it open with contained but visible joy. It didn’t matter that he had four other co-managers who he could have scheduled to open. He enjoyed opening. And no one was exactly knocking down the door to be the first one in the store. So, everyday, Frank opened the door, turned on the lights, started up the conveyor belts, did any odd jobs that needed to be completed, and then greeted each of his employees as they strolled in around 8 for opening to the public at 8:30 sharp.

Frank’s mantra was that you should always look for the side of someone his mother loves. In other words, there is something redeemable in everybody. This is what made him such a good target. Eddie knew that nice old Mr. Rooney would never suspect anything from his former employee. Not Eddie. Not mild mannered Eddie!

So Eddie asked for his job back. And Mr. Rooney gave it to him (D’Love to have you back on!). And from day one, Eddie was scheming.

********

By the time he had been working for Mr. Rooney again for about a week, he thought he would be able to pull off his con. He had watched and schemed and considered every day and by then, he was certain he could do it. After that came the hard work. The studying and the planning and the detailing. But that was all complete now. Now he was basically just waiting for the courage.

Eddie had studied another case in which a kind old gentlemanly guy, Elliot Hastings, had been found guilty of conspiracy in his 80s and forced to pay about a billion dollars in damages. And that’s not an exaggeration. All in all, his fine came to a staggering $1,007,453,100. As if that wasn’t bad enough, Elliot was also sentenced to 57 years in federal prison, or in other words, the rest of his life. Now, obviously even a very wealthy business tycoon like Mr. Hastings cannot possibly pay anyone $1,007,453,100. So, therefore, he got to sit out the rest of his days in prison, seeing his children and wife through glass and knowing that he had left them with nothing more than a lifetime of debt and a last memory of him that included an orange jumpsuit and an eternity of professing his innocence while inwardly wondering themselves if maybe, just maybe, he had betrayed his country for profit.

Frank Rooney and Elliot Hastings had both made their money in the oil business. And, conveniently, both had an innate desire to trust people. Never checking behind their backs, never assuming the worst, and never, ever, suspecting that anyone would be waiting to be their downfalls.

Stop again.

I know what you’re thinking. “This is a little far-fetched”. Right? I mean, how could Eddie, mild mannered Eddie, turn so evil in like a day? But it wasn’t a day, reader, it was years. Years of disappointment in himself and an urgency to do something that was overwhelmed by a fatigue-fueled apathy. Haven’t you ever watched one of those crime shows where the little wife lives a normal life from day to day for a decade, never causing a stir, never saying anything about the little things that quietly bother her until one day she slaughters her husband in what the detective typically describes as “one of the worst cases I’d ever seen”? Or maybe time wasn’t a factor, maybe you’ve seen the one where the child is the murderer, so young and yet so capable of such malice? Or the serial killer who shows no remorse? Or the killer who did it because he just wanted to know “what it felt like”? Now, before I get ahead of myself, Eddie was not planning on killing Mr. Rooney. No no no, he had a mean plan but he wasn’t evil. My point is that we have an interesting way of being shocked at the actions of our fellow humans, and yet, really understand ourselves very poorly. I’m not trying to get too transcendental here but think about it. Why are we shocked when someone commits a heinous crime? It seems it happens all the time. We have psychology and neurology and therapists and psychiatrists, and counselors all trying to explain who we are and why we do the things we do and yet, not once in all these years, have we come a single step closer to identifying what it is that just makes us freak out. Sure there are theories, but each time a new shocking act is committed we just write a new one. Each case brings a new theory so unique that it can only be applied to that one, not extrapolated to others. We can’t take them and use them to explain any one else because, reader, people are unexplainable. We are strange, fickle beings that shift and skitter at every waking moment. When we want something, we are capable of far more than we think and when we engage the latent power we all have and yet rarely use, the headlines of the next day are made. Humans all have this curious muscle inside, capable of good, yes, but also bad. Even you. Sitting there, right now, reading. Today you know who you are and what you believe but tomorrow? Tomorrow you just may be Eddie, running blindly into the next shocking act.

And so Eddie had meticulously prepared. He had forged documents, he had made up stories, he had concocted air-tight proofs that Frank Rooney had sold government information in the 70s in order to secure a more favorable financial situation for his petroleum company. Eddie had “evidence” that Frank had access to government information, he had “proof” that Frank had been in contact with specific foreign officials (that information was actually true, Frank, being the CEO of a major oil company had been in contact with foreign officials, Eddie had just needed to track down the data), he even had documentation to suggest that another had once tried to bring this revelation to light and had disappeared under some pretty strange circumstances… Eddie was pretty proud of himself. He had become quite the sleuth. Yeah it had taken a month but he was confident that he had put together an A-class con, something movie-worthy. His only regret was that he couldn’t really brag about it.

The day had come.

Eddie had officially initiated the plan about a week earlier when he had dropped the story about Elliot on Mr. Rooney one day at work. Frank had never heard about him before but, being the genuinely-interested-in-his-employees man he was, had conversed with Eddie for nearly 30 minutes about it.

“That’s a real shame. He had told him. “Sad thing is, I can see it too. You know my history a little bit, I was in that business. Believe it or not, you actually do get approached with offers like that. Craziest thing… You’d think that kind of thing only happens in the movies but you know the truth is stranger than fiction. The truth is straaaaanger than fiction.”

But then, always committed to see that darn good side:

“We all mess up is the thing, and hear me now we do have to be held accountable, I just wish it wasn’t so bad for him. He’s just like the rest of us.”

There was a slight twitch in Eddie’s chest but he drowned it with the 25 million he had learned Frank Rooney was worth (more sleuthing) and that little twitch went away.

With phase one complete it was time for phase two. Eddie offered to work the closing shift and now that summer was over and all shift-thirsty kids had gone back to school, this was a one-man job. One worker and Frank, who always stayed to help with close. Eddie’s heart was jumping. You just have to start. And so he did.

“I’ve been thinking a lot about Elliot Hastings lately, Mr. Rooney.”

“Oh yeah?” Frank answered from a couple of aisles over where he was cleaning up some spilled raisins from a burst container. “Funny thing there, I have been too. Such a shame.”

The actual sadness in his voice was apparent.

Eddie hesitated but then: “He uh- he was actually quite a bit like you.”

“I know he was. I think that’s why I like him so darn much. Why I feel for him.”

Frank was on the move. The meat freezer in aisle 7 had a light out.

Eddie: “You know, it would be a real shame if something like that were to happen. Um, like, uh-… to you.”

There was a silence.

“Mr. Rooney?”

Stop. Again. Last time I promise. Eddie had been clever. He had done his sleuthing and done his research and let me just tell you that his proofs really were airtight. Don’t let Eddie’s lack of success so far in life fool you. Come on, you read the beginning of the story. He’s not behind because he’s stupid. He’s behind because of circumstance. No, Eddie was never stupid. He had been a straight A student in high school, and even more impressively, a straight A student in college. He had never taken an IQ test but if he had, he would have scored high enough to make a Mensa member do a double take. Eddie was smart but Eddie was human. Just as flipsy as the rest of us. So, as he had researched, and studied, and uncovered, and faked, he had made a mistake. One vital mistake. You see, Eddie was pretty poor. He didn’t have his own computer so he did most of his research at the public computers at the library. However, one day on his lunch break, he had gotten antsy and typed “Frank Rooney foreign leaders” into the search bar. It was innocent enough (he thought) and he honestly figured that Frank was too old to know how to use a computer like this anyway. But if you haven’t figured it out by now, people surprise you.

“Mr. Rooney?” Eddie walked around the end-cap to aisle seven and found himself nose to muzzle with a gun.

“Do you think I’m stupid?”

Eddie stumbled backwards.

“Do you think I didn’t notice how you’re always watching me? Or how you told me the sob-story about Elliot Hastings about a week after you were in here snooping around on company property trying to figure out who I’ve talked to in the past?”

Eddie was speechless.

“Do you think I didn’t realize that you started asking me a lot more questions? Or that you had a sudden keen desire to close every day? I realized, Eddie, I realized enough to start following you. Library computers can’t clear search history, Eddie, it’s against state law. The button does nothing. It’s all saved in the cache.”

Eddie’s brain was working overtime. Frank had him cornered now. Gun 18 inches from his nose. Think think think think think think think.

Frank adjusted the gun in his hand.

“Wait!”

Eddie’s chest was heaving.

“Wait, wait, wait, I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry, Mr. Rooney, but listen, I was never going to frame you. I was just going to black mail you, I just need some money. Just a little bit, to get out of my rut. I can’t stand it anymore. I hate it. I hate it so so much but I was never going to try to take you away from your family. I promise you. I promise.”

The words were coming faster than he could say them, now mixing with tears and chokes.

“I- I just need some money.”

“You were going to make me the next Elliot Hastings. You were going to take me from my wife, my girls, my son. You were going to ruin my name and leave me to drool in jail.”

“No! No I promise you Mr. Rooney. Think about it, how would that make me any money? I was going to ask for money in exchange for not exposing you. Really, please, think about it.”

“You’re lying.”

“No! No, I’m not, really, please, please Mr. Rooney, think about it.”

Then Eddie thought of something. He took a calming breath. He almost smiled.

“Mr. Rooney, try to see the side of me my mother loves.”

"I'm tired of trying to see the good in people."

And just like that, the headlines of the next day were made.

ELDERLY STORE MANAGER STOPS ROBBERY ATTEMPT

Last night, the relative quiet of the Shop & Save on King Avenue was shattered by two gunshots. A disgruntled employee of the store reportedly brought a gun to work that day and attempted to rob the store as he and Frank Rooney, the store manager, were closing for the night.

“We were just about to close for the evening when I turned around and he had the thing pointed right at me.” Rooney reported. “Told me I could let him take the cash in the drawer or get shot. I took a step and I guess he thought I had picked the second option because that’s exactly what he did.”

However, in a heroic turn of events, 80-year-old Rooney, with a bullet in his arm, wrestled the weapon away from the assailant.

“I didn’t mean to shoot him.” The elderly man said with what looked like a tear in his eye. “I was just in a situation of ‘if I don’t get the gun he’ll kill me’ and it went off into him.”

The employee had worked for Mr. Rooney for several months before a brief hiatus and had only been working at the Shop & Save for about a month before this incident. He had never displayed any prior hostile behavior and was generally a good employee. Manager Rooney described him as a young man “just trying to get by in the world”, waiting for his big break. “Eddie tended to drift into whatever jobs were available that would pay the rent.” He told us. “I really enjoyed talking to him, he stayed late to close quite often and I felt I really got to know him. Things ending like this they ah… it really breaks my heart”.

The investigation is ongoing as attempts to verify the details have been complicated by a malfunction of the surveillance cameras. Rooney, eager to present authorities with everything they needed to close the case, had directed them to the desktop computer in the back room of the store. However, the video files for the month had been corrupted. “I’m so sorry”. Mr. Rooney said as he clumsily struggled to move the mouse with his arthritic hand, I’m just no good with these computers.”

Any information regarding the case can be directed to local authorities.