David Ellis - Eye of the Beholder

Camera cuts to the reporter, Pendry. A thoughtful expression on her face.

“You’d say He’s crazy.” Burgos keeps rocking.

“Did Tyler Skye tell you to kill those women?”

Burgos brings up his knees, puts his feet up on the chair. Arms around his knees, a round ball, rocking back and forth.

“Did-”

“God did.” He nods his head emphatically.

“Tyler Skye’s song didn’t tell you to kill those women?”

“Tyler was a messenger. So am I.”

“Mr. Burgos, according to that song, weren’t you supposed to kill yourself last? Wasn’t that what Tyler Skye had meant with the last line?”

Burgos takes a breath. Blinks his eyes slowly. Keeps rocking back and forth.

“Why didn’t you kill yourself, Mr. Burgos? Why did you kill Cassie Bentley instead?”

Like he’s in a fog. He doesn’t respond.

“You said Cassie ‘saved’ you, Mr. Burgos. What did-”

“Cassie saved me. God told me I wasn’t done. He gave me Cassie instead.”

He begins to hum to himself. Looks up at the ceiling.

“Mr. Burgos, did you think your attorney was wrong to call you insane?”

“Insane. Insane, insane.” Burgos begins to laugh, a giggle.

“Mister-”

“What’s that? Insane.” He frowns suddenly, staring off, concentrating. “What’s that?”

“Insane,” the reporter says calmly, “means you can’t control what’s inside your brain.”

“That’s everybody.”

“It means you can’t tell right from wrong.”

“That’s everybody.”

“Mr. Burgos, would you kill those girls again if you had the chance?”

“Kill those girls again.” He stops moving. His eyes are open in slants, staring into space, his shoulders gathered about him. The camera zooms in on his expression.

“I’m gonna sleep now.”

“You don’t want to answer my questions?”

Burgos doesn’t answer, his foggy stare frozen on the screen.

The screen shrinks and moves to the corner of the television picture. Anchorwoman Carolyn Pendry, today, looks into the camera with a crisp, professional manner.

“Fifteen years ago today, Terrance Demetrius Burgos was sentenced to death. The jury rejected his lawyer’s claim of insanity and imposed five counts of capital punishment. My brief interview with Mr. Burgos, eight years ago, was the last, and only, time he granted an interview.”

The camera angle adjusts. Carolyn Pendry turns. “Did Terry Burgos really view the violent lyrics of Tyler Skye’s music as a call from God? Did he deserve death for his actions? The debate rages on even today.

“But in this reporter’s opinion, the verdict is in. Anyone who would take sophomoric, abusive lyrics and read them as signs from an almighty being is not someone who lives in our world. Terry Burgos wanted to kill, to lash out at an indifferent society, and his brain was searching for an excuse.”

A dramatic pause. Camera angle adjusts again. “Terry Burgos did not fit the legal definition of insanity because he knew that what he was doing was against the law. But that doesn’t mean he was sane. Terry Burgos suffered from severe paranoid schizophrenia and killed because of it. The fact that he may have been aware that a criminal law existed, that forbade him from doing what he did, does not change that fact.

“Terry Burgos deserved to be locked up and treated. He did not deserve death.” She nods her head. “For Sunday Night Spotlight, I’m Carolyn-”

In the dark room, nestled in the corner, beyond the view of the sole window, Leo puts down the remote control, stares at the television screen, dissolving to a dot and flickering with static. Dissolve and flicker, flicker and dissolve. He brings his knees to his chest and holds his breath, squeezes his eyes shut, listening for the faintest sound, listen, listen.

The house buzzes from the utter silence.

I’m not like him.

He jumps at the ring of the phone. His eyes cast about the room as the rings echo. The answering machine kicks on. Leo hears his own monotone request that the caller leave a message, followed by a long, tortured beep.

“Leo, this is Dr. Pollard. You’ve missed two sessions, Leo, and you’ve not returned our calls. Are you taking your meds? We’ve talked about the importance of doing that.”

I don’t believe you. I don’t believe you anymore.

“I’m going to give you my home phone number, Leo. It’s important you call me.”

Leo buries his head in his lap. He waits for the doctor to complete his message, the machine to click off. With the room once more silent, he raises his head again.

I’m not like him.

He takes a breath. Thinks about it.

I’m better.

Sunday

June 19, 2005

LEO CRAWLS up the dark staircase, his body spread over four carpeted stairs, his limbs splayed about like a spider. The body weight is transferred evenly. Stairs don’t groan from the burden. No chance of slipping or stumbling. No groan, no slip, no stumble.

You can’t hear me coming.

At the top of the staircase, he can see into the bedroom. The darkness is thinned by the light through the window, from a street-lamp below. The room is quiet save for the contorted snores of Fred Ciancio, like his nose is battling his throat.

Leo rises slowly. One of his knees cracks and he holds absolutely still. Fred Ciancio doesn’t move. Loud, uneven, wet snores, his head cocked to the right on the pillow.

Weapons. Look for weapons. Eyes adjusting now.

No weapons. Nothing.

He wasn’t expecting Leo.

He slips it out of the back of his pants. Holds it in his right hand.

Ciancio stirs. Unconscious response to Leo’s body heat, to the adjustment in the room temperature.

But Leo is not hot.

“What-?” Ciancio’s head pops up.

Two long strides and he’s at the bed. He lands on his chest, presses Ciancio’s head down to the pillow with his left hand, his palm over Ciancio’s mouth.

He shows it to him, the tip of the weapon between Ciancio’s eyes. His face moves in toward Ciancio‘s, so the old guy can make him out. The sharp weapon moves from the bridge of Ciancio’s nose. He runs it along Fred’s pajama top, down his chest, feeling for the rib cage. He finds a seam between the ribs.

You shouldn’t have called, Fred.

He doesn’t die quickly.

Monday

June 20, 2005

CHIN UP, HECTOR,” I remind him, as the elevator door opens. The reporters are waiting in the lobby of the federal building, perking up as I emerge from the elevator bank with State Senator Hector Almundo, who has just pleaded not guilty to eleven counts of fraud, extortion, bribery, and theft. The senator, smartly dressed in a gray suit and black tie, heeds my advice, moving stoically past the reporters as they shout questions at him. It’s like taking a punch to the groin. There’s no easy way to do it.

We stop short of the revolving doors. The reporters close in and push their microphones in front of the senator’s face, until they realize that it will be me doing the talking. I say the usual, about the charges being false and how much we look forward to the opportunity to vindicate ourselves at trial. I leave out the part about Senator Almundo sobbing in my office an hour earlier, asking me how many people he’d have to flip on to avoid jail time.

After this needless exercise, we head outside, where I put Hector in a waiting car. As he drives off with his wife and brother, I wave off a handful of reporters. Dutch Reynolds and Andy Karras want to talk on background, but I’m not in the mood. “Thanks, everyone, that’s all,” I say with finality.