“Now Shane, I want you to look at me”.
Those words.
I hear those words in Carmen’s voice and I turn towards him, like somebody slapped me in the face.
“Don’t throw it all away”, he begs me.
“He needs to be punished!” I growl.
Oh fuck.
Oh shit.
How tired I am.
Let’s put an end to it.
“Shane… look at him” Dante whispers. “He’s dying… And, frankly, that would be the easiest way to escape. But if you give me that gun, if you just turn around, step away and let me and Marshall take care of him, he’ll spend many years in jail”.
His Italian accent is much more marked now, because of the tension.
And suddenly, all of this seems so absurd.
So unreal.
“How did I end up here?”, I sob.
Dante’s face looks touched now, as he moves another step towards me.
Closer.
“You are scared, you’re angry, you don’t know what to do to fix what’s gone wrong… That’s the reason why you’re doing this…” he says, firmly.
“I don’t know what to do. I don’t even know what I think anymore…”, I mutter, feeling the unbearable heaviness of the gun in my hand.
“You don’t need to do this, Shane. You really don’t need to waste your life, to waste your time with this scumbag…”.
“Am I loosing my mind?” I ask, trying hard to figure out if this foreign guy has an answer for me.
And he looks at me like he’s thinking that I’ve been going through a lot of shit lately, and that I just can’t handle it anymore.
So simple.
So simple in his eyes.
“He doesn’t even look me in the fucking eyes” I say, shaking my head and staring at that motherfucker at my feet.
“He can’t. He’s unconscious. You know that”.
“But this fucking son of a bitch chose to lose consciousness! My wife didn’t. And he stole her memories, our baby, our life!”.
Dante takes his chances and places his left hand on my shoulder, brushing slowly.
And it’s so comforting.
So brotherly.
“He will be punished, I promise”, he says, stroking my back.
“You don’t need to be punished at his place. You don’t need to be at the same level with him”.
I don’t know what to say.
He lends his right hand towards the gun and a voice inside of me says.
Oh yes.
Please Dante take it away from me.
Please, don’t make me turn into somebody I am not.
I am so tired.
So I don’t move.
“Give me the gun”, he repeats, slowly – gently – closing his fingers around the barrel.
“Give me that gun and go back to Carmen”.