TheBanyanTree: Nobody Wins

[Sheri Baity]

NOBODY WINS… 

“Dad… I just killed my best friend… I pulled the trigger Dad… I killed him… I’m in jail Dad” came a sobbing, uncontrollable voice on the other end of the phone.
 
At that very split second, two lives will be forever changed. At that instant two Father’s and a Mother’s life will spin out of control like a horrible nightmare, a version of life that they never saw coming.
 
Both boys came from good homes. Promising future for John, 22, that pulled the trigger. Not so promising for Joe, 23.
 
A Friday evening and the boys decided to celebrate John’s soon graduation from college. Joe called up John and their other buddy Ray to his apartment. As they broke open the case of beer Joe began to go over his life and wonder how he was going to tell his parents of the past year. Talking to his buddies he just couldn’t figure a way out of the web he had spun.
 
John kept on trying to tell Joe that he would help in anyway he could. He even offered to go with him when the time came to tell his parents, but the alcohol wasn’t allowing Joe to think clearly, the more bottles he put down.
 
Joe has been living a lie to his parents over the past 9 monthes. Because of his age and the state he lived in, his grades in college were his business and didn’t have to, by law, be shared with his parents. He had flunked out of college and kept it to himself. His parents were sending money every month for his apartment rent and stuff and knew no different. He started drinking his life away, partying every day if his finances held out. Keeping a job was pretty much few and far between. Coming from a wealthy family, it would be unacceptable in his parents eyes. He saw no way of facing the inevitable.
 
Joe got out his gun that night and was showing it to Ray. Ray looked it over both inside and out and saw it was not loaded. Joe got to shouting and got louder and louder and went to the bathroom with the gun. He came back out a few minutes later still shouting crazy things how he couldn’t face his family, his life was over and he just wanted it to end inside his head.
 
He handed John the gun and told him it wasn’t loaded, to pull the trigger and see how sweet it clicks. John said no, but the more he said no, the madder Joe got. Leaning into the gun and shouting, he hollared again saying one more time… “It’s not loaded Dude, feel the sweetness in that trigger!”
 
John then pulled the trigger…
 
Ray hollared out to Joe as he fell to the floor… “Dude… why did you load the gun??!!??”
 
That was the end to Joe’s troubles. That was the end to John’s future.
 
John said nothing to no one, only his attorney and his close family of Joe’s troubles, but made them promise not to let it get to Joe’s parents about Joe’s situation. He was crushed and knew they were crushed and didn’t want to tarnish their memory of their son.
 
John didn’t want Joe’s parents to go through a trial either, so he plead guilty. John with a college degree and a career job he had to leave, sets in prison for 5 years.
 
Where does anyone in this mess find balance, closure, a medium? Two wonderful families… forever changed… Nobody Wins… Everybody Loses…
Sheri L Baity
Crows Nest Calls
www.crowsnestcalls.com

American Predator Federation
"Where Predator Hunters Are Forming A Pack"
http://www.huntapf.org

A woman is like a tea bag, you never know how strong she is until she gets in hot water~~Eleanor Roosevelt