Plan of Action (222 hits)
Category: UberMadness! EntryRating: 2 on 2 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Shaun_Rocks (View user info) at 2006-11-21 03:14:09 EST
This post was an official UberMadness! entry. Click here to view the original matchup.
Death is swift. One moment you're here, and the next you're gone. The exact moment it happens is near impossible to find.
I've been married for a little over six years. We live in a nice neighborhood outside a big city. Good neighbors, great location, beautiful weather - there's nothing else I could want. My wife, Kate, grew up around here and she knew this is where she wanted to live the rest of her life. Her parents moved to Florida a while back, Kate tells me we live four doors away from her old house. So add "no in-laws" to good neighbors and great location.
Kate is a grade school teacher and I work at an office in the city. We see each other every morning, and we both have Saturdays off. We spend as much time together as we can on those days. Starting off with a walk in the mornings, then lunch at Lou's Café, and at night we take in a movie or go out to dinner in the city, or we just spend the night at home. I think I like those the best. We put our pajamas on while it's still light out, cuddle up on the couch and watch TV or listen to a favorite album.
I never thought we would end up in the newspaper on Sunday morning.
The house next to ours had been on sale for about as long as we lived next to it. A pair of newlyweds finally bought the place a couple of weeks ago. We would say hi when we saw each other and aside from his bluntness; we didn't know a whole lot about them. There were some days that we got back from Lou's kind of late and I would see my neighbor getting out of his car wearing a policeman's uniform. And once in a while, I would see the wife playing in the yard with a small boy. Three or Four I would guess. Their only child as far as I knew.
Then one Saturday, she just up and left. We were coming back from our walk and watched her pull out of the driveway with a car full of stuff. Kate went to their house and checked the door. It was unlocked and she told me to follow. I didn't know how it would look, to be trespassing into a cop's house but Kate urged me on. She thought she heard the little boy crying.
We found him sitting in a high chair in the kitchen, crying his little lungs out with a mess of Cheerio's in front of him. Kate quickly picked him up; my thoughts went to the snot and saliva mix that was seeping into her sleeve. She cooed him and started to slightly bob up and down. I guess babies like that because he seemed to calm down. I found a pacifier on a nearby counter and gave it to Kate. The baby had stopped crying already and she told me to rinse it off under warm water. I went to the sink and wondered when she got so good at being a mom. We heard a key go into the lock on the front door and I asked if we should go but Kate said that we were just helping out and he would be grateful. The neighbor heard us talking and came quickly into the room with his gun drawn and screamed something about hands.
I flinched terribly and lost sight of Kate for a moment. When I looked at her, I couldn't help but be amazed. She managed to stay calm and then turned so our neighbor could see his son's face. He seemed to relax and there was a bit of an awkward moment before he asked for his son. Kate obliged with a smile and put him into the officer's hands. I could hear sirens off in the distance. He shifted himself to hold the child more comfortably and then asked where his wife was. I told him about the car full of stuff that she drove off in. He didn't take it too well. Before I knew it, he was pointing the gun at Kate. I jumped again and Kate, her blue eyes wide, reached out for my hand. The sirens were getting louder. The hair on the back of my neck stood up. I tried to step between them but he moved the gun so it was right in my face and motioned for me to move back over. He pointed the gun back at Kate. She squeezed my hand. The sirens kept getting louder and a bead of sweat rolled down my neighbor's forehead.
After another awkward moment I asked him why he was threatening Kate. He looked at me with a raised eyebrow. I pointed to my wife. He started to ramble something about his plan to ditch the cops and go to Mexico with his family. The sirens got even louder now and I looked out the side window and saw flashing lights at the same time I heard someone speak through a megaphone. I'm not sure about the others, but I couldn't understand what he said over the sirens. They must have realized the same because the siren quickly shut off and the megaphone told "Anthony Capelli" to come out peacefully so that no one else needed to get hurt. My neighbor shouted something back about hostages and I realized he was talking about us. Tears were streaming from Kate's eyes.
The megaphone asked Anthony what his plan was. He repeated what he said about Mexico but not loud enough for anyone but Kate and me to hear. They told him that he had already killed or wounded twenty-four people today and that this was it. The house was surrounded and he should give up. I agreed with the megaphone but Anthony said that things would be fine in Mexico. He had started to lose it.
There was shouting coming from outside. The real cops argued over what to do next. One of them shouted about his partner being one of the twenty-four. Someone else's brother was too. The shouting stopped suddenly and there were a series of footsteps on the pavement outside. They were quick and coordinated and then the door flew open and a group of men in riot gear rushed into the house. They screamed at Anthony who was taken completely by surprise. He accidentally squeezed the trigger. I felt Kate's grip on my hand loosen at once and she fell backwards. I quickly turned and saw a small hole in her forehead with a puddle of blood and other things behind it. It was just one unintentional shot. A shot that took all the color of the world with it.
I was kneeling in the blood next to Kate, still holding her hand. By the time I looked up again, my neighbor was in handcuffs and being pulled out the door. The policemen just stood behind me, none of them said anything, they just stood there.
Kate's eyes were still open. I moved a hand to cover them, like they do in the movies. I pulled my hand away but they were still open. Someone touched my shoulder and told me I should get some rest. It was the middle of the day but I agreed and walked back to my house where I headed straight to bed.
I slept straight through the afternoon and woke up the next morning. I reached to put my arm around Kate and everything from the day before came back to me. The phone rang - it was a police officer. He asked if he could come over to give me an update about my neighbor. I asked if he could do it over the phone. He sounded a bit dejected but then told me all about "Anthony Capelli's plan of action" as he called it. I wondered how much time they spent coming up with that title.
He told me my neighbor was a cop, but he was also working with the mafia. An anonymous tip, who they suspected to from a rival group, told them all about Anthony earlier that day but he was gone when they went to arrest him. I started to fade in and out, I just wanted to put this all behind me and let everyone else make a big deal out of it. I knew I was going to miss my wife every day and I wouldn't need anyone's help. The officer on the phone said something about Anthony shooting random people he passed by on his way home to distract the police. How that was supposed to work wasn't clear to me at first, but I guess if a person was shot and someone nearby heard sirens, they might run after the cop for help. Then he told me that he risked coming home so he could get his family and head for Mexico. I cut him off to ask if there was anything else. He sounded offended and didn't answer. He called me ungrateful and hung up.
I opened the newspaper and found the headline screaming Anthony's name. According to the article, he held two people hostage in his neighborhood home before shooting it out with the police. It ended by saying a court date had been set for the end of the month.
Life moved kind of quickly after that. Anthony pled guilty to all charges, making it easy to feel relieved that the trial wouldn't drag on and on. He was sentenced to death by lethal injection and I finally felt I was able to move on with my life.
Someone let my name and story out and after three weeks, I saw myself on the news. Then they told the world that Kate was "brutally murdered" and things suddenly weren't so behind me. The same friends and family I called to tell about Kate started calling me. They all expressed their joy that, "the sick bastard" as one of my cousins called him, was getting what he deserved. It was only after they expressed that joy that they tried to offer me whatever condolences they could muster. And in just about every case, it wasn't much.
I was just about ready to unplug my phone when I got one call from a state number. It was the prison where my neighbor was set to be executed. A young woman invited me to come to the prison and watch the execution on the twenty-fifth. I told her I didn't want to go but she said that wasn't up to her, as far as she could tell, I didn't have a choice. I've never been interested in arguing with someone who wasn't going to change their opinion so I agreed to go.
Kate always did all the grocery shopping and by this point, there was virtually nothing left in the house. I went to Lou's because I knew I could get something good there. While I was waiting in line, the tall man in front of me recognized my face from the news. Not the same report I had seen, but one that had released the names of the people who "get" to go to the execution. He offered me $500 for my seat. I asked him if he knew anyone that was killed and he said no. I asked him not to speak to me. I ordered a ham sandwich from Lou and walked back home.
The light on my answering machine was blinking to tell me that there were twenty messages waiting for a reply. I unplugged the machine, left my sandwich on the table and went into the bed room. It was Saturday. I put my pajamas on, grabbed my sandwich, and went into the living room to watch TV.
The days until the twenty-fifth went by quickly. Suddenly it was the morning of the execution and I was trying to figure out what to wear. I wanted to wear casual clothes so it wouldn't look like I was going to a formal event but all I had in my closet was a pair of khakis and a polo. I threw them on when I realized I was running late. I hurried out to my car and left. I wasn't sure why I was going; I didn't want to see anymore death. When I saw my neighbor's face after he pulled the trigger, I could see the regret in his eyes. He may have shot those other people on purpose, but not Kate. Police reports on the news said his wife had gone to Mexico. And I found out later that their son was going to be put in an orphanage in the city. I'm sure I felt as bad as he did that his plan didn't go the way he wanted.
I pulled into the prison's parking lot and was directed to a spot near the door. I stepped out of the car and stood next to it for a moment. A cool breeze hit me and for a moment I felt like I was on one of my walks with Kate. When I opened my eyes, I saw the prison. I had already watched Kate die, was I really going to do that again here?
One of the guards recognized me and walked out to the car. He told me I could come inside and take my seat.
The room he directed me to was arranged like a mini auditorium. There were five rows of five chairs, each row a small step up from the one in front of it. On the wall the chairs faced was a large window that led into another small room. In it was only one chair that sat on a platform about a foot off the ground.
I was the last person to arrive. I looked around at the faces around me. My guess was they had also lost someone in my neighbor's shooting. Then they brought Anthony into the room in front of us and strapped him into the chair. He kept his head down. I didn't know if I was going to stay but I thought I would have more time to think it over. There wasn't even an announcement. Almost too suddenly, someone was in the room with my neighbor and chemicals were being injected into his body.
I watched his face as the minutes rolled by.
A quarter of an hour passed. None of us moved. He had to be dead by now. I didn't notice it when Kate died because she was here and gone in the matter of a second. But my neighbor didn't go so suddenly. It took time and I still didn't know the exact moment he was gone.
Anthony Capelli, my neighbor, and my wife's killer, was dead. It would be a lie to say it brought me any relief. I knew it wouldn't. Loss doesn't die.
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