Fred & Mary

by Kipjo Ewers

  “Mr. Fredrick Garrett,” the officer checked his driver’s license within his wallet. “My name is Lieutenant Kirkpatrick. Do you mind telling me what exactly is going on here?”

  “Is she dead?” Fred asked. “Is the bitch dead?”

  Officer Kirkpatrick glanced at his fellow officers whose visages mixed between humor, irritation, and concern.

  “Mr. Garrett, that’s a doll lying ‘dead’ on the floor.”

  “No, that’s my crazy ex,” Fred swallowed. “I tried to tell her it was over, but she wasn’t hearing it. She kept accusing me of fucking around, which technically I wasn’t. I mean being a little gay ain’t cheating, right?”

  “You …were sleeping with a man,” The female officer tried to wrap her brain around his answer, “behind your doll girlfriend’s …?”

  “Ex!” He sternly cut her off. “Bitch was my ex! She was dead to me! And thanks to you all, she’s officially dead!”

  “Okay,” she held a hand up gesturing for him to calm himself. “So, you were sleeping with a man behind your ex-doll girlfriend’s back.”

  “That is correct officer,” Fred nodded.

  “The owner of this house?” she pointed.

  “Uh, yeah,” Fred cleared his throat.

  Fred realized that there was no way out of his current situation. The actual truth was not going to set him free in any scenario no matter how he delivered it. There was only one card that he could play, the only one in his deck.

  Full on crazy.

  “So, she came over here to kill him?” Officer Kirkpatrick narrowed his eyes at Fred. “You …came over here to kill this gentleman.”

  “No …she did,” Fred earnestly shook his head. “See, what had happened was we got into a fight, and I was telling her I was leaving her because when she uses the dildo on me, she doesn’t lube it up. She’s not gentle, not gentle at all! Not even a little bit of spit! She’s so mean to me. So, mean! But during the argument, I slipped and mentioned how my man over there was gentle with me, so gentle, especially the last time we hooked up in the shower stall of the gym we go to. And, she lost her shit and came over here to cut his dick off. I tried to stop her, but she got that Silverback strength you know, and she was going to kill me so no one else could have me, then cut his dick off and stuff it down my throat so that I could choke on it while I bled out on his lawn. Then she was going to slit her own throat. That’s when you guys showed up. Thanks for saving me.”

  He stunned himself by telling his insane story with a straight face, especially when the officers in his company had trouble keeping their professional composure after hearing it.

  “So, you’re saying that she drove over here,” Asked another officer with the name tag McDowell.

  “Uh, no,” Fred shook his head. “She’s doll, and she doesn’t have a driver’s license.”

  “So how did she get here?” The female officer asked.

  “She ran,” Fred cleared his throat, expelling the only truth in his insane lie. “She got some speed on her. I drove over here knowing that this was where she was coming and ran her over before she got to the door.”

  “You ran her over?” Officer Kirkpatrick pointed the finger at him.

  “I knew she’d kill me the second I got out the car,” Fred swallowed. “She left me no choice.”

  “I see. Okay …well …Mr. Garrett, we’re going to have to place you under arrest for your protection.” Officer Kirkpatrick explained while clearing his throat of the laughter within it.

  “I understand officer,” Fred nodded in compliance. “Will you be reading me my Miranda rights now?”

  “Officer Philips will take care of that right now,” Kirkpatrick motioned to the female officer in the group.

  “Thank you, officer, I’m really sorry about this mess, but you know …bitches be crazy sometimes …”

  He caught himself remembering there was a female officer present.

  “I’m sorry Officer Philips …I didn’t mean you …I’m just … You know …Emotional right now. I didn’t think she’d try to kill me …you know. I didn’t think she’d take it there. Especially over some anal …you don’t kill someone over anal.”

  “It’s okay Mr. Garrett,” Officer Philips reassured him while battling to keep her professionalism. “Let me read you your rights, and then we can get you out of here.”

  “Okay,” he nodded. “Is someone going to cover her? You all should at least cover her. Neighbors don’t need to see her like that.”

  “We’ll take care of ‘her,'” Officer Kirkpatrick answered. “Just sit tight while Officer Philips reads you your rights, and I go over here and talk to the home owner.”

  “Thank you, officer,” Fred swallowed. “Let him know I’m sorry for embarrassing him like this, and I understand if he never wants to see me again.”

  “I will,” Officer Kirkpatrick nodded. “Two more questions, what’s his name?”

  “Trevor …his name is Trevor Reynolds.”

  Fred gave him a look as if why wouldn’t he know the homeowner’s name. In actuality, Fred knew his first name due to it being the name Magda Jenkins was carving into his floor. He caught the last name on the license plate of the smashed in Porsche SUV Mary plowed him into after they ran Magda over.

  “Second question, what was that noise after we shot your ex-girlfriend?”

  Fred gave him a look as if he was crazy.

  “What noise?”

  Officer Kirkpatrick tried his weak attempt at the Larry David stare, which Fred quickly deflected. He nodded walking away. Fred knew the second he turned his back to him he was rolling his eyes not believing the fresh hell he stumbled on.

  A mentally, emotionally, and physically exhausted Fred half listened to the reading of his rights as he watched Officer Kirkpatrick explain to Trevor Reynolds who Fred was, and what took place while they were inside asleep.

  What Fred heard next squeezed a smirk from his lips.

  “Muthafucka!”

  Trevor Reynolds’s girlfriend screamed as she slapped him across the face and stormed back into the house. “I knew it!”

  “What the fuck?” Madga’s widower howled from the steps of his home while nursing the left side of his mug. “I don’t know that crazy …!”

  Fred didn’t hear the rest of his furious rant as the arresting officer placed him in the back of the squad car, nor did he care to hear it.

  His only thought, was when he would get his phone back.

  CHAPTER 14

  One month and three weeks later Fred sat across the table from Barney underneath the roof of the Langley Porter Psychiatric Hospital. Because there was only property damage, Fred was allowed to plead guilty due to mental illness after Cynthia supplicated the incident being his first brush with the law which was brought on by the traumatic loss of his wife.

  The judge granted him probation with the stipulation that he checked himself into a mental hospital for observation and treatment for at least sixty days. He would then be obligated to continue outpatient treatment for one full one year.

  He never got the doll back.

  When he finally got a hold of his phone, all of the text communications along with the selfie and other pictures he took with Mary had vanished, save for one message.

  “I am sorry.”

  It disappeared after he read it.

  “Sorry? What the fuck do you mean ‘sorry’? Mary! Mary talk to me! Mary!”

  For almost two weeks, Fred talked, screamed, and cursed to the point that he was sedated twice. After week three when he realized that she was not going to respond, and he was making his situation worse, he gave in and stopped talking.

  He began to go through the motions attending both his personal and group sessions. Day by day as he started to listen to the physiatrists, other people who he told his story to while in the group, and even to himself, he began to wonder if anything that happened the prior months was even real.

  It began to hit him that he had experienced a powe
rful mental break from reality, and he was now in the middle of the aftermath trying to put the pieces back together.

  One of the many jagged cuts he would have to endure was repairing relationships he had also purposely broken due to his episode. He never expected in a million years that he and Barney would be sitting across from one another finding it difficult to speak.

  “I still haven’t received a bill from Cynthia for defending me,” Fred muttered as an attempt to break the silence and tension.

  “She doesn’t accept money from crazy people,” Barney flatly returned.

  Fred looked up to see a simple smirk on his friend’s lips, which forced one onto his face as well.

  “I honestly didn’t think you’d come.”

  “Just because you’re a dry ass snitch, who has no problem breaking the bro code,” Barney cleared his throat. “Doesn’t mean we stopped being boys, not to mention how fun it is for me to sit here and say I told you so. So, how are you?”

  “I’m here,” Fred sighed, “Working through my issues.”

  “I’m sorry for uninviting you to Ethan’s birthday party,” Barney cleared his throat with an apology. “And not just because Cynthia almost tried to stab me when she found out I did it. She was right, the kids would have probably gotten a kick out of the doll.”

  “It’s alright man, you were right,” Fred admitted. “I wouldn’t like them seeing me like that. How did Ethan like the Telsa?”

  “Well it’s no HellCat,” Barney leaned back folding his arms. “But he went ballistic over it, drives it up and down the block almost every day while playing his tunes. How’d you know?”

  “The two days I was there, he kept talking about your neighbor’s Tesla, and how he liked how cool it looked and that it was quiet as opposed to your beast.”

  “Little traitor,” Barney muttered.

  “I got it in red with black rims to match yours,” Fred pointed out.

  “I know, thank you.” Barney grinned. “Two weeks ago, we were both outside washing our rides together.”

  “I wish I could have seen that,” Fred smiled.

  “Me too,” Barney nodded. “I miss you, man.”

  “I miss you too,” Fred said with an apologetic cracked voice.

  “Well you’ll be happy to know your life has become one 1990’s movie cliché,” Barney scoffed. “Your team closed the Shiro account, and your job is waiting for you when you get back.”

  “How did that happen?”

  “You said it yourself,” Barney leaned back in his chair. “You were working your ass off while you were losing your mind. Your team finished what you started, and then they went to bat for you, with my help. Bronson’s not happy with you though.”

  “Oh,” Fred rolled his eyes.

  “Yeah,” Barney said sternly with narrowed eyes. “Especially when you and Mary held him and his family down after they lost Katie.”

  The irritation left Fred as quickly as it came as he remembered the state his boss Bronson was in as his younger daughter Katie passed away three years ago due to stage four leukemia. Fred stepped up with Barney to take over accounts and company responsibilities so that he could spend more time with her, and Bronson never forgot how Mary brought books, spent time, talked, and read to her until her passing.

  “You really hurt his feelings,” Barney shook his head. “Thinking he wouldn’t understand.”

  “You didn’t understand,” Fred lifted his eyes to meet his.

  “Bro, you didn’t try to make me understand. One minute it’s a sleep aid, the next minute it’s your girlfriend, then the next minute you’re on someone’s lawn trying to kill it with a big ass knife. You’re lucky you got some sane cops with all the crazy shit that’s been going on.”

  “Actually …it was trying to kill me,” Fred corrected him.

  Barney gave him an “are you serious” look, while Fred meekly shrugged his shoulders.

  “I already lost one good friend,” Barney’s voice began to crack. “My heart can’t take losing another.”

  Fred remorsefully lowered his head finally getting it. He was not the only person in pain, his heart was not the only one broken, he was not the only one who lost someone on that day, and he wasn’t alone in his grief.

  “So, are you going to level with me finally?” Barney leaned forward resting his forearms on the table.

  “About what?”

  “The doll, it was Mary. Or supposed to represent Mary, right?”

  Giving in to his friend, Fred nodded.

  “Yeah.”

  “Finally,” Barney threw up his arms. “Was that so hard? Now had you been real with me from the jump, it would have saved you a trip to the loony bin.”

  “Why are you acting like you would have been cool with this?” Fred sneered at him.

  “Dude, we got Trump as the Republican candidate for President, talking about grabbing women by the pussy, and people still voting for him. The world has already gone crazy. Channeling Mary through a doll I can work with; we could have done some ‘Lars meets a Real Girl’ 2.0 type shit, did some double dating. But if it’s just some random chick you’re hooking up with, I ain’t got any time for that. I’m a happily married man.”

  Fred grunted out a laugh which became infectious between the two and caused some heads to turn in their direction. In the middle of their hilarity, Barney got choked up, and emotional which both caught Fred off guard and unnerved him.

  “You’re the reason I graduated from high school and college man,” Barney looked down. “Why I’m in a job that I love to do when no one believed in me …You were there, you didn’t see some dumb, slow oaf from some hick town. You took me to my first comic con …”

  “You got suspended for knocking out Scott Farkus after he sucker punched me in the cafeteria,” Fred smiled. “You also taught me how to dribble and hit a decent jump shot.”

  “I would have understood,” Barney lifted his glassy eyes. “No matter how crazy it seemed to me …I would have fought to figure out ...for you.”

  Fred reached over to place his hand on top of Barney’s hand hammering and re-forging the iron back in their friendship.

  ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜

  Fred’s second most uncomfortable visit came from his father, which was a far bigger blow up than with Barney. He also did not expect to see him at all while he was staying at the facility.

  The silence between them was longer than when Barney visited.

  “So how are you doing?” Mr. Garrett broke the ice first while avoiding eye contact with his son.

  “Food sucks and I miss my bed,” Fred shrugged. “Counselors said I am progressing well with my sessions. I didn’t expect you to come here.”

  “Why do you think I wouldn’t come to visit my son?” Mr. Garrett finally turned making eye contact with Fred.

  “You and mom said if V and I ever got locked up for anything other than self-defense, you’d leave us to rot in jail.”

  “Ginger Ferdinand, you took her home with your mother’s car without her permission. After you had dropped her off, you got stopped by the police because you ran a stop sign, and arrested because you were operating with a learner's permit after 7 P.M.” His father reminded him.

  “I called home, you reamed me out, and then you and mom came a got me within an hour,” Fred bowed his head remembering the incident. “And when she got home, she reamed me out worse than you did.”

  “Well, it was her car that got impounded.” Mr. Garrett chuckled. “Whatever happened between you and Ginger Ferdinand?”

  “Never made it past the friend zone with her,” Fred shrugged.

  “After our last conversation, I went to see your sister.”

  Fred sat silently knowing there was more to his topic changer.

  “I told her about our lunch, and I let her unload on me. I can say she was more brutal than you were. Boy, did she let me have it. And then when she allowed me to sp
eak, I pathetically attempted to let her know my side of the story …and then she really went off and told me …”

  A cold chill washed over Fred as he watched his father’s eyes become glossy with tears as he muffled the whimper that tried to come out.

  “She told me what happened to your mom.”

  “What?” Fred swallowed. “What happened to mom?”

  Fred’s insides went dry as he saw the horror on his father’s face realizing that he had no idea what he was speaking of.