The .Plan

“I understand you’ve been having a pretty tough time lately, Mr. Jacobs [*].”

“Look, I’m 22, and my life sucks. My brother just got sent to jail for killing someone. My other older brother got denied parole. My little sister is a prostitute and OD’d and died last week. And my other older brother OD’d on heroin last week and almost died. My little brother–”

He folded his hands behind his head and leaned back in the chair, rolling his eyes towards the ceiling. I could sense restraint.

“–my little brother Jimmy just got diagnosed with diabetes. He’s only 13. And I couldn’t take him to the doctor’s office because I work 19 hours a day. I get up at 6, go to work, move this box, move that heavy thing, boss yelling at me all day long, and I don’t have time to think about sh*t all day long, and then I get home at 8, and then I just try to rest my back for a little bit, but then I have to go to the club. And all night long, it’s just throwin’ guys out of the club all night long. But I gotta do it. Because–”

The 280-pound man’s face crumpled. In an instant, he was blinking furiously through a sheen of salty tears that dribbled down his face, forging their own trails through his clean-shaven goatee. He sniffled and snorted, gulping down air as best he could, in between heaves.

“– mylittlebrotherneedssomeonetoteachhimfootballandbaseballand — andeveryonepickedonmewhenIwasakidbecauseIwaschubbyandthatsnot
f*ckinghappeningtoJimmy — andIneedtobuyhimafootballuniformbecause
ourdadf*ckinleftus –”

I waited.

He took a deep breath.

“My friend had a Glock. And I just asked him if I could see it, you know? Just to hold it, I told him. But he gave it to me without the clip. But I told him I wanted the clip. You know, 14 in the clip and 1 in the chamber, like, right? Just to feel what it was like, I told him. So he gave it to me. And then I pretended I had a cough, like, you know, like I was choking on something, and I told him to get me some water. I just didn’t want him to see me shoot myself. But he wouldn’t do it. He wouldn’t leave me alone with the gun.”

He buried his face in his hands, rubbed his reddened eyes — while the scripted tattoos “PAIN” and “LOVE” on his knuckles stared back at me — and wiped his nose. The tattooed flames on his meaty left forearm burned brightly.

“So I been sending my ex-girlfriend money so she can get by, you know? Yesterday she calls me and she’s like, ‘why you talking to my friend?’, but I was just trying to make sure her friend could find a place to live. I mean, why’s she cussing me out for trying to help her friend? And while we were arguing about that, I started telling her that I was gonna kill myself, that I was gonna go to my mom’s trunk and get her gun and do it right there, that I was sick of everything and that I just couldn’t deal with it anymore. And then she says, ‘hold on a second’ and puts me on hold.”

He looked down at the table.

“And then a couple seconds later she e-mailed me a picture of her doin’ sh*t with another guy in bed. And then she starts f*ckin’ laughing at me.”

I stared at him, sensing my forehead wrinkle ever so slightly as I searched the fog of my brain, trying to mentally replace my outdated Webster’s Dictionary definition of “malice” with what I now understood to be the true meaning of the word.

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[*] All names, dates, and other HIPAA non-compliant details have been confabulated.