The Twenty Ninth of December
A short story by Taylor DuBose
Intro (January 17, 2004)
"There has never really been an easy way to talk about this. I always forget details, not necessarily real important ones, but details none the less."
"Well David," the woman starts saying, "How bout you tell us your name, where you're from, and why you are here. Just the simple stuff to start okay?" In case you're wondering, this woman is someone from court, a lawyer, who somehow is supposed to help me through all of this. Her name is Sandra.
"Well," I say after she hits record on her little brass colored tape recorder, "My name is David Beckham from San Francisco, originally from New York city. I don't really know why I'm here, but I guess its probably because of what happened in the last month."
"And what was it that happened a few weeks ago on… the twenty ninth of December? Yes the twenty ninth, what happened?"
"Oh! Well, I killed someone."
"Who, David?" the woman says.
"Her name is... was, Julie De Marcos, the love of my life."
Part One (Lemme start from the beginning)
November 7th, 2003 It's around 10:30. I'm at school during break. "Dude!" a voice from behind me calls out. That voice belongs to a kid named pete. He's probably one of my best friends and is somehow my only friend. I know tons of people in and out of school, but this guy is cool, He's a pretty popular guy, a jock, and has amazing grades. "Hey Mister Soccer Star how's Vicky??"
See, my names David Beckham and if you don't know, it's exactly the same name as the British soccer star who is married to Victoria Beckham, aka Posh Spice. So as you can guess, almost everyone cracks a joke towards me every once and a while.
"Look Pete, I love you man, but you know I hate soccer, and I don't like England so hot, and although Victoria is pretty cute, I don't really have any interest in her. So could ya please just quit it with the David Beckham jokes? And make sure you tell everyone else the same. Got that?"
"Sure, Sure" he says, "I don't THINK I make fun of you as much as I used to so you should THANK your buddy for that. But can I ask you something?" "I guess man. What?" "Just one thing… why the hell are ya hangin' out by the trash can?"
"oh," I say "jus' waitin' for you to come back to your home"
"HA ha" Pete sarcastically jokes, "No seriously man, what ARE ya lookin' at?"
"Just my future wife." "Dude! You mean Julie? Man no way does she even know you EXIST, let alone know that you stalk her... EVERY DAY!"
"Yeah yeah man, it isn't stalking okay." I say, "She's out there, and I'm just lookin' at her. There's nothin' wrong with that man. Anyway, waddaya want?"
Pete basically told me that he was gonna go to some party that night, then come back to my place after to crash. "is that okay dude? I mean, not a problem right?"
I didn't think it would be, but little did I know what was to happen later that night.
Part Two ("the after party")
So I was sitting at home watchin' some shows when I heard the sound of a cars tires screeching right outside my house. I didn't really think anything of it until there was a loud "BUMP" noise outside and my house shook a little. I got right up to check outside what had happened. Turned out it was Pete. I could tell he was completely stoned, and he had some girl in the passenger side of his car. As I looked closer, I realized who it was. "Julie!!" I started to cry out, but then I covered my mouth back up. "Good thing my parents aren't home man." I said "You don't know how stupid you look right now. You just- "
"Shhh" he says "I don't care what you say man, alls I know is that your gonna love me for this." "For what?!" I yelled. "For crashin' into my house, or destroyin' my mom's flower bed?!" "No no, sshhh..." he started again, " look what I brought'cha"
"Hi- ya!" Julie chirps. She is obviously drunk. "Look man" I say, I need you to go now, I cant have you guys here-" "Oh, how come?" Julie whines " We jus' wan-ned to go ta schleep! An' Pete said that you said that it was okay."
"I'm beggin' ya. Look, I'm on my knees here!" "Jeez, okay okay" I say "just get up off your stupid knees and rearrange your car somehow so that it looks as if you tried parkin' it and come on inside?" A long way from being sober, Julie yells out a big "Woo hoo!".
As I get everyone inside, the phone starts to ring. I practically drop Julie who I was helping walk up the stairs, and run to the phone (I knew that it would probably be my parents calling). As I went to go pick up the phone, Julie kind of followed me singing "When a body see a body comin' thro the rye…". When I picked up the phone I asked her if she could please hush for a sec and I pressed the "talk" button. It was my mom who was on the phone and luckily breaking up very badly on the other end so I just turned the phone off and threw it on the kitchen counter.
The newly arrived guests just went over to the living room and plopped themselves down on a sofa. Pete was just giggling at almost everything and it looked as if Julie's brain was in another place entirely.
I still haven't gotten past the fact that the girl who I have the biggest crush is not only at my house, but sitting on my sofa. "Hey man" Pete said, you got anything to eat like some Bugles or some of those uhh… onion funs umm... Funyuns? I'm hella hungry!" "Yeah yeah" I said "I uh… have some crisps in the cupboard. Go help yourself I guess."
Part three (the mistake)
The whole night went on without a hitch. I mean, it went really really well. I think I like Julie better like this when she is drunk. She seems a bit nicer, she knows who I am. If I was a stupid guy, you know very sleazy, I might be taking advantage of her. But, I love her too much and I don't want her getting hurt by anyone including me.
So we had something to drink, hung out and had a good time. Everything felt like it was going in fast motion and this was the first time I've actually had any fun with Julie.
After we had our fun, both Pete and Julie left. Pete took his car to drive against my wishes, and he took Julie home, which was even harder for me to bear. After they left, I basically just fell asleep on a bed.
I woke up watching the clock at 3:45 am. The reason for this rude awakening was that there was a terrible pounding at my front door. I looked around a bit and then realized that I had fallen asleep in my parents' room. The pounding got louder and louder. I got scared so I got up and started groping around the darkness of my dad's closet to find his pistol. I found a shoebox, opened it, and found… shoes. So that definitely wasn't the right box. So I looked some more, found another box, and opened it. Finally I found it. As I went downstairs, I heard a man talking outside. I didn't recognize the voice so I raised the gun and started unlocking the door. Right before I switched the last lock, I hear Julie's voice! I put the gun into the back of my pants, and hurriedly did the last lock. And as I opened the door, Julie basically fell right on top of me crying. The man with her was a police officer.
I asked what was going on; what had happened. As the man started to talk, Julie just sort of cried out: "there was an accident!"
The cop said that he found her walking around the street clearly intoxicated and when he approached her, he saw that she had blood on her face. As I was listening to him, I pulled Julie up and looked at her forehead. What I hadn't notice from a few seconds ago was that she had a crude bandage on her temple that was taped on. "I found her about a block from your house son, and she said before I take her to the hospital, she had to go to you. I had no idea though that this was from a car accident!" the whole time, surprisingly, Julie was just holding on to me tighter and tighter. "I was just thinking" the policeman said, "If you know this girl, which indeed it looks like you do, if she could stay here while we look for the actual car that was wrecked." "Of course," I said, "Definitely. No problem at all. Just as long as you contact us as soon as you can find it okay?"
I wrote my name and number on a piece of mail, which was sitting near the door. "Will do!" the officer said as he was leaving. I just shut the door behind him. "Now, let's talk about what has happened." I said to Julie as I was bringing her over to the couch. "Well I don't know. All I remember was that we were in the car driving. You know, laughing it up-." "Wait, we? Who was with you?" I asked "No no no, was Pete with you? Pete was with you? What the hell happened to Pete?"
"He's okay, he walked away from it just as I did and he started towards his house. We went opposite ways okay?"
"That son of a bitch! I can't believe this! I just cant think of him just leaving you like that." I said. She reassured me though that it was partly her idea too. "So don't worry
alright?!"
She talked some more, revealing that there was a dog crossing the street and they had swerved, the dog is okay but they weren't feeling so hot as you can probably guess. With my mind on the accident and everything that had happened that night, I had no idea that she was going to say what she admitted next. "Davey," hah, that killed me, not David or Dave, but 'Davey'. "Well, you know how this is really the first time we've met right? Or at least the first time we've really spent time together?" "Yeah," I said. "Well, the truth is, I've always had somewhat of a crush on you. Dammit, this isn't just somewhat of a crush, I think… I think I love you." Did I hear this all correctly? Did the love of my life, who 'doesn't even know I exist'; just say that she loves me? This is impossible! "Are you serious?" I said, "Because I've been kind of stalking you for a while. This is insane! You're not just joshin' me are you? You're serious?" "No! I mean, yes! I mean, yes I'm serious and no I'm not just joking around with you. I love you David. That's okay isn't it?"
"No way! This is magnificent! I can't even-". Just then, before I could finish, she leaned over, grabbed my face and kissed me. This wasn't real was it? As I leaned back a little more I felt a pain in my back. I kind of yelped and then I realized that I still had the gun behind me. As I pulled it out, I put the safety on and set it on the couch. "What are you doin' with a gun?!" Julie cried out. "Nothing," I said "Nothing, just when I heard the policeman at the door, I didn't know who he was. I got scared and brought down the pistol just in case. You know, for protection?" she laughed a little and picked it up off the couch. "Just don't point it at me." She said "okay hon.?" And handed it back to me handle first. "Of course not." I said. And as I pulled the gun out of her hand, a bright flash and loud noise rang out. Julie screamed! When smoke started rising from my hand, I then realized it was the gun. I just stared at Julie, shocked. She raised her hands up covered in red. "No!" I screamed, "I put the safety on, I know I did!" "Shh…" she said crying a little, "I'm okay, see? Look, I'm not dead." "I'm so sorry, no no, this isn't happening. I put the safety on!!!"
But I hadn't. When I 'turned the safety on' I had actually turned it off. Ready to fire. Stupid me thought that when the button was pushed out and red, it meant that the safety was on. In the shoebox, my father had the safety on the whole time.
She died right there in my arms two minutes later. The bullet went right into her stomach and she bled to death. Right there. Right next to me.
Part four (stop)
This is why I am her now Sandra. Although it was a complete accident, I still killed her. It's my fault, and now I'm paying for it
"And what happened to Pete, David?"
]"You have it written right there don't you? In that manila folder of yours?"
"Yes" she says, "but for the record, we need you to say it yourself, for the record."
"Turns out, he walked a few blocks towards his house and collapsed from internal bleeding. He died only fifteen feet from his home." "And how do you feel about all this; looking back on it all?" I just look up at her and stare. She quietly nods her head and whispers "Okay."
She gets out of her chair, hits stop on her tape recorder and walks out of the room.
END