The news papers might have well have been splattered with Chris's blood. Walking down the street, I was faced with the headline:
'D'AMICO HEIR KILLED BY VIGALLANTE'
and
'D'AMICO CRIME FAMILY COMES TO AN END'
and my personal favorite
'RICH KID SNUFFED'
-that was on some celebrity magazine, below the headline was a picture of Chris, his brown hair nicely parted and combed, his half smile, so effortlessly there, and his chocolate brown eyes stared at me until I couldn't stand it anymore. I picked a copy up, and bought it. It was just too funny to me.
Walking in this town was like waling through a graveyard, everyone was like some newborn zombie, living their life, the repetition slowly killing them, making them a lifeless massacre of broken dreams. But Chris, Steven, Carla, Dave and I were something more. We gave ourselves meaning, without mundane tasks. When I stabbed someone in the chest and cut out their heart I felt alive, I could feel my heart pumping shaking my whole body. It was riveting, and I could never live without that feeling.
And I guess Chris had felt the same, but now that he had become so detached from his persona, he told me that his life felt meaningless. As if he was becoming one of those resident zombies. The torn photo in our heads was like this: one side of the tear was our life, going to the grocery store, going out with friends, and drama, oh so much drama. But the other side was a persona, an idea that we willed to live on, we forced it to keep breathing because its all we had left. That persona, that idea was our real life, not the charade of Mindy, or Dave, or Chris.
We were like agents from another world. We looked over this city, scouring every alley, every nook and cranny, and when we heard it scream we dived into the depths of hell to free it from its executioner. In a way we not only gave life to our idea, but to the people of the cold industrial world of Manhattan. It was us that found a cure for the day to day zombie-ism.
My whole life I knew that I had been destined to do good, my father had always told me so. To him the world had been back and white, we were the good guys and they were the bad guys, but as I looked to Chris's face on that gossip magazine, he felt more Grey than anyone I had ever met. There was so much good, but for reasons similar to mine, there was a dark part of him, that part of him that made him kill children, and grandmas. It frightened me to think of, so I just focused on those huge brown eyes...they stared at me, so much different than they were now. In this picture the chocolate was still there, it hadn't melted away, leaving black orbs.
My stomach lurched as I thought of him. I willed myself not to grimace. This was him, my lover. It hurt to say, but I said it proud. I knew that life was to short to say 'what if?' so I decided not to, and hoped to god that I had made the correct decision.
I picked up the phone and dialed.
"Hello?" his voice answered the ringing.
"You look good dead." I said back. For once, pure happiness filled my voice.