What I Would Gladly do for Free

He arrived at the cherry- wood door, knocked twice, and heard a calming voice of, “Yes, Ned, come in.” Taking a deep breath he turned the cold handle and was greeted by the low constant hum of the central air moving through the room. Doctor Freitag stood up and pointed him to the dull- colored couch awaiting him.

This was Ned’s second visit in the last three weeks to the psychiatrist. Ned sat down in the comfy couch and waited until it was done engulfing his lower body before saying, “Good morning.”

“Good morning, Ned. So let’s get down to business. How’s the job treating you?”

“Fine.”

“Enjoying your work?”

“Yes, very much so.”

“Tell me about what you did last night.”

Ned tilted his head to the right and let his eyes wander to the left side of his brain, reminiscing of last night’s events. He gently clasped his hands together, which were previously at his side and placed them on his lap. “Well, the night started with waiting in my car for Mr. Rosenberg to finish his meal, so as not to be rude,” Ned began in a dull, casual tone. “Promptly after I rang his doorbell, Mr. Rosenberg opened the door and I let myself into his house. I pulled out my gun and quickly pistol- whipped him in the head, so he wouldn’t make a ruckus. He did make quite a thump on the floor though.” Ned smiled a bit at this.

“He was quite fat,” Ned added. “Then after assessing his house and how ‘OCD’ his wife described him, I concluded how I would kill him. He fell halfway onto a rug fortunately, so I dedicated the first part of my evening to rolling the rest of him onto the long welcoming carpet and dragging him down the hall to the bathroom. The minute I turned on the light I thought I might go blind it was so white. Bleach white.”

Ned unclasped his hand and began tracing his jaw line with his finger. He stared at the good doctor and then his eyes refocused, as if he was looking through him. “At seeing the room I reassessed how I was going to kill him. Originally, I was going to undress him, prepare his bath, and take one of his shaving razors to his wrists. Cut a quick line halfway up the inside of his arm, then do the second arm at a slower pace, and only a quarter of the way up. It would have been a slow death for him, but a believable suicide for the experts. He would become quite tired after doing the first line and in most cases there is usually a cut tendon, so finger movement goes out the window.” Ned trailed off a little, but soon resumed, “However, the white wall of that bathroom was so damn clean.”

Ned refocused his attention on the good doctor and rhetorically asked him, “If you were an artist, would you pass up a white canvas?”

“Do you work with art?” Doctor Freitag asked with increasing interest.

“Well, I’m not artist, but I believe in accidental beauty. I’m the one who ended up shooting him, I used the gun as a tool, but I am not the artist. I know where his blood will go, but I can only guess what the blood spatter will look like.

“Anyway,” he said abruptly, “I got to practice one of my monologues.” Ned had repositioned his hands to reside comfortably on his legs.

“Oh, can I hear it?”

Ned thought for a moment, sure. He had recited one in their last session and felt that the good doctor could give him honest critiques about his work. However, as comfortable as he was with the good doctor, Ned still had a fear of facing his audience, so he turned around.

“Love is like having to go to the bathroom on a road trip. You can’t just stop at the side of the road, open yourself up and go right there. You need your private place to do what is necessary; to be comfortable. And of course you begin the journey feeling quite normal, until it starts to grow within you. You start to think about it, and the intensity grows, until you know you can’t hold it in any longer. In the moment when you finally let it all out you feel relief and continue your journey.”

“So,” Ned finished taking a deep breath and turned to face the good doctor, clapping his hands together, “what do you think?”

“I think it’s quite good. I enjoyed your comparisons of simple, silly things to serious issues. It gives a light- hearted laugh to life as a whole. With a little bit of editing I think it could turn out quite nicely.”

“I’m glad you think so,” Ned said, having a seat again, “I rarely get an honest opinion from the people I kill, which I suppose is understandable. This guy was a talker though, reminded me of my mother... In the talking sense and in the Jewish sense, very stereotypical, no wonder my father took a power drill to his left temple.

“Anyway, this was all after I stripped him of his pants, placed him on his toilet, and tied him to the seat. It only took him a half hour to come to. Then after my monologue there was the usual lying, which never helps. I truly don’t understand why you would lie to someone who is going to kill you anyway; I would see it as a given opportunity to be honest. Then again, I don’t know what’s going through their heads, so I decided to forward his wife’s message that he was a, quote, ‘lying son of a bitch’ end quote.

“Mr. Rosenberg then realized his wife hired me and we went through the usual, ‘I’ll double the price’ etcetera, etcetera. I told him no, of course, because it’s against company policy.”

“Would you take more money if he offered more?” Freitag asked.

“Of course not, the firm sent me to kill this person and I have to honor that with loyalty, and it’s my job,” Ned explained quite frankly.

“But Mr. Rosenberg did seem quite upset at his wife’s betrayal, so I decided to offer him a choice in his death. Pills or gun to the head, but deep down I was hoping he would give me grief so I could just shoot him.”

Ned’s finger was back, stroking his jaw line, and his eyes became glazed. “And he did protest, so I shot him in the upper right temple, being sure to angle the gun slightly to assure an absolutely messy suicide look- alike. The perfectly planned part of it all was Mr. Rosenberg would not defecate in his pants; he would relieve himself in the toilet,” Ned turned his eyes to the doctor, “as all civilized men do.

“I almost regretted killing him by way of gun, because it doesn’t seem his style, but after thinking about the statistics, more men than women would usually do a shot to the head. Women, on the other hand, like to keep it more dramatic, but less messy, by way of pills or slashing wrists in the bathtub, because it’s easier to clean, supposedly,” Ned paused for a moment.

“Only a moment after his tissue spattered the walls quite artfully the toilet seat echoed the noises of free- flowing waste spattering, most likely filling to the brim. I did let him have his last meal before hand and it was quite a feast from the looks of it,” Ned commented.

“After a quick hold back of the gag reflex from the spurts and smell, I composed myself, and set my mind and sights on something far more serene; the inside of Mr. Rosenberg’s head. Some of the contents were hanging by threads, and I marveled for a moment at the strength of human tissue.

“I then took out my camera to take pictures of the blood spatter.”

Ned enjoyed looking at the optical illusion blood created for him, if he gazed at it long enough he could see something else inside it all. The bigger picture, it added, what he liked to call, “A moment of zen” to his life. He enjoyed taking the pictures of the art made on the bathroom wall to remind him, if there was blood involved in his work that night. Often if he had a bad day, looking at the photos would calm his nerves. Ned liked to think of it as art therapy, since his job did require a certain amount of mental strength, at least that’s what the boss said.

“I remember you told me about the pictures in the last session,” Dr. Freitag began, “do you find your work becoming stressful?”

“Only when I have to do paper work,” Ned answered with a light grin. The doctor laughed at this.

“Understandable,” the good doctor responded.

“One other thing that mildly frustrates me is after my job is done I usually try to get back to my apartment at a reasonable hour, so I don’t arouse suspicion amongst the neighbors in the apartment complex. Especially Mrs. Nightingale, she’s an older woman who lives across the hall from me. She’s very gifted in the art of busybody; always knowing or wanting to know something about everyone in the complex. I don’t blame her; she lives alone, and has nothing better to do, but still she is a sharp one. She always tries to guess my occupation, but has yet to figure it out, so a simple task has become an epic adventure of survival. Something I would rather avoid, due to policy of secrecy to the firm.

“‘I know it! I know what it is now,’ Mrs. Nightingale shouts, shuffling out of her apartment waving her arms, her walker being pushed forward in her excitement, ‘you are a Salesman, for a Radio Shack!’ She waits in anticipation for my reply, only to be disappointed by my usual response of ‘You are absolutely wrong, Mrs. Nightingale.’ On occasion her lust for personal knowledge dies down, but then the next day or so she’ll be back again trying to guess.

“I can recall a moment when Mrs. Nightingale was shuffling off in disappointment after another failed attempt at trying to read me, she said, quote, ‘This guessing will be the end of me, you are going to kill me with all these games, Ned,’ end quote.

“The only salvation I have is she doesn’t know how smart she actually is.

“But fortunately she wasn’t there last night, I’m afraid I might have snapped at her. I was quite tired from all the heavy-lifting last night.”

“Well, it sounds like she’s giving you some trouble,” Dr. Freitag said with a look of concern, “but if she gives you too much trouble you make sure you call me. Alright?”

“Sounds good.”

“Well that’s our time,” Dr. Freitag said.

“So what do you think? Am I turning into a crazy psychopath, yet?” Ned said with a light sarcastic undertone and a small grin. He slowly pushed himself up from the comfy couch, his butt appearing and his hands now sinking into its cushions.

“Well Ned, it sounds like you’re in a good place right now. What more can you ask for than a good job where the work is merely what you’d gladly do for free, eh?”

“True, I am very happy with my work, thank you.” Ned opened the door and waved to the good doctor.

“See you next week, Ned.”

“Bye.”