Best Australian Yarn: That Was That by Matilda Doney

Matilda DoneyThe West Australian
Camera IconBest Australian Yarn, Top 25 Youth 12-14, That Was That. Credit: Supplied.

If he were to pull the trigger, what kind of man would he be? If he were to keep the man down here in the chilling, dark, windowless basement any longer, what kind of man would he become? If he killed the man in-front of him, what kind of man would he turn into?

A murderer was the only answer. An aggressive, cold-blooded murderer whose heart was cold, whose eyes were emotionless. But mostly, if he did kill the man in-front of him, he would lose himself. The man who had the warmness of the sun, who cared too much, loved too much. The man who wore clean suits, who gelled his hair, who shaved his face every day because the feeling of everyone looking at the tiniest follicle of stubble made him uncomfortable. That man would be gone. He would turn into the person who sat before him. Bushy brows. Stains down his shirt. An ignorant, stubborn drunk. So, if Michael were to pull the trigger, letting the bullet fly from the gun that was held firmly in his grasp, he would be no better than this man sitting before him. Or would he?In his eyes, this was merely just revenge. This was just avenging his fallen brother, his demised comrade. It was only fair. The man in-front of Michael had killed Sonny and now, it was Michael’s turn to kill the man. It’s what Sonny would have wanted.

But as Michael stared at the figure, who was panting underneath the sack that was placed over his head, who was sweating vigorously, he was reminded of that night. It had been winter and after work, not even a week ago. Chills were dancing their way down both of their spines and the wind blew towards them, cutting their cheeks red like little daggers, daggers that were replicas to the ones the gang members’ children always fiddled with on the street. It had been Sonny’s idea to head to the bar.

“It’ll warm us up,” he had stated as he rubbed his cloth-covered hands together. “We’ll have a beer or two and then walk home to our girls, aye?”

“I have work I need to finish, Sonny,” Michael had said curtly. He didn’t have time to mess around at the bar with Sonny because he knew one beer would turn into two, two into three, three to four and on, and on, and on. He didn’t need that distraction.

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“Then just finish it tomorrow.” Sonny rolled his eyes. He needed to do work as well, but the smell of beer intoxicated his mind as they stood in-front of the bar. “Just one, c’mon.”

Michael contemplated it. He supposed he could have one, just one beer and then walk his way home. His girl would be expecting him. She always did. The table would be laid out with the cutlery that his mother-in-law insisted they had. It was heirlooms and it meant the entire world to his wife.

“Just one.” Michael sighed as he bit his lip. Just one, he reminded himself. “Just one then I’ll have to be on my way home. I really do have work to do, Sonny.”

“Atta boy.” Sonny smirked as he clapped a hand on Michael’s shoulder, leading him into the bar.

The bar itself was packed with people, but Michael didn’t mind. Work was always filled with businessmen, all running up and down the stairs because they were late for meetings. But this wasn’t like work. Instead of men dressed in clean suits with shaven faces and gelled hair, the bar was littered with low-lives, low-lives who took a thrill in fighting, who didn’t have a care in the world for the stains slopped down their shirts. These were people Michael did not want to mingle with. But Sonny didn’t care. He would talk to anyone, even if they were inferior.

“I’ll take two Schlitzs.” Sonny nodded to the barman and the young man nodded his head quickly, cheeks red from the anxiety that filled him up considering the amount of people that were packed in the room. “You know what they say, Mike. When you’re out of Schlitz, you’re out of beer.”

“I will never understand that advertisement.”

Sonny waved him away like he was a mere cloud of mist in the air, and it wasn’t long until the young barman came up to them with their drinks. And slowly but surely, they both took long sips of their beers. And Sonny was right because the minute Michael felt that broth touch his lips, the minute the warm liquid went trickling down into his throat, his entire insides became radiated with heat. And oh, it was like heaven, and it momentarily distracted the man from the pile of work sitting at home.

That was until one of the drunkards began yelling, causing both to whip their heads around. Of course, it was a low-life. Bushy brows. Stains down his shirt. A rough, arrogant voice echoing around. Michael didn’t understand what he was yelling about with all his slurred words, but he was a smart enough man to realise that it was a situation he didn’t want to get involved in.

But the minute, the second, the moment that bushy-browed, stained, ignorant man tried to swing at a random bloke beside him, Sonny went leaping towards them. And it was that one thing Michael hated most about his colleague, his friend. He always had to do something. He always had to help.

So, as Sonny leaped forwards, Michael jumped back. But maybe he should have stepped forwards, grabbed Sonny’s jacket, and yanked him back because Michael knew better to not get involved with other peoples’ fights. But Sonny didn’t.

“Oi!” Sonny had yelled as he sauntered over, making sure the victim was all right. “Calm down, why don’t ya?”

But Sonny didn’t get to speak the rest of his sentence. He didn’t even get a chance to speak because the minute Sonny entered that feud, the bushy-eyed man swore vigorously before swinging harshly at Sonny, hitting his temple. But instead of stumbling back, instead of bending down a bit from the pain, Sonny dropped. He dropped immediately. There was no stumble. No groan. No sound. And Michael had enough decency to forget his beer and check up on his friend, only to find no pulse. No Sonny. No soul.

And maybe, that should have filled Michael with despair, with some sort of sadness that there was no possibility of clawing himself out. But it didn’t. Instead, as he held his friend’s limp body, as he stood at his funeral (which everyone seemed to forget that Sonny died a pathetic death, not as a hero), and now as he stood in the dark, chilly basement of his house, his wife upstairs making stew, unknowing of her husband’s intentions, all Michael felt was cold rage. Anger. Revenge.

And the man with the sack over his head, the stains down his shirt, sensed this. He could tell that his kidnapper had dark intentions and so, he started to whimper. He started to cry. He started to sob. Was this how God was to repay him? He had taken an innocent man’s life because of a drunken fit, an accident, but he was to be punished for that? He was to be killed, not in a martyr way, but as a contribution to a sin. He was going to die because of his addiction to alcohol.

But this was not how Michael saw it. In his eyes, as he stared at the drunkard, this man before him was the devil, a sinner himself. How dare he take Sonny’s life? Yes, he shouldn’t have been so pathetically heroic to run forward, but this thug shouldn’t have swung right into his temple, making him drop dead without a single groan. This man had killed Michael’s best friend, brother, respected peer and now, it was only right to murder him for his sins.

Murder him for his sins. Michael was going to murder someone. Michael, the man who was top of his class in school, who had managed to gain the most beautiful woman, who was next-in-line for a promotion, was going to commit murder. Was this the right thing to do? He was not God. He was not the almighty. He had no control over who died and who didn’t.

“God is the one that controls us, Mike,” Sonny had always said when Michael ever had annoyance slip into his tone. “He decides when we’re made, when we’re born, and when we die. Us, as humans, have no control over that.”

“Scientifically speaking, our bodies make those choices.”

But now, there was no scientifically speaking. Michael had no right to kill this man. God was the one who killed Sonny, he had decided that Sonny was to be killed that night. And, if anything, Michael should have been storming up to Heaven to kill the great bastard that murdered Sonny.

As this plagued Michael’s thoughts, he tried to shake it out of his head, storming around the basement in attempts to distract himself. Was Sonny killed by this man or God? Was Sonny’s death controlled or an accident? Was Michael about to commit murder?

“Look, your friend? That’s what this is all about, right?” The man in the chair spoke, his voice muffled by the sack, but Michael could still hear the pure terror that infected his tone. “He shouldn’t have gotten involved, okay? You don’t need to do anything about it! Look… I’m sorry about what happened—”

“Shut up!” Michael screamed, but he immediately lowered his voice in fear that his wife could hear him. In her mind, he was merely fixing a leaking pipe in the basement, not about to commit murder. “Just shut up.”

“Please…” the man begged. “Please… I’ll do anything—”

“You’ve done enough.”

The man with the sack over his head whimpered once more as Michael continued to walk around the basement. Sonny. Sonny. Sonny. That was all that was on his mind. An accident or controlled? God or the drunkard?

No. No, it couldn’t possibly be God. In Michael’s mind, God was fictitious, a character made up by those centuries before to calm others, to make them believe in some superior sage. But God was not real. Sonny was real. The man in-front of Michael was real. And the drunkard had killed Sonny, not God. It was his fist that connected with the flesh of Sonny’s temple, not God’s. Yes. Yes, it was the drunkard that had killed Sonny.

But as Michael continued to stalk around the basement, his steps slowing from the realisation, the man with the sack over his head had, also, realised something. He couldn’t see Michael calming down, but he could still hear his groans, his sighs, his hesitance. And it clicked in his mind that no, the man who had kidnapped him wouldn’t kill him. He didn’t have the guts to do it. He was a mere businessman. He wasn’t a gang member.

“You can’t do it, can you?” The man laughed. Sweat seeped into the fabric of the sack. “You ain’t no killer. You work at a desk. You probably don’t even know how to pull the trigger—”

But as the man said this, as the words left his mouth, Michael immediately walked up to him, holding the end of the gun right into the man’s forehead. But instead of cowering, the drunkard smirked underneath the sack. He thought the safety was still on. There was no way this man could kill him.

Michael could do this. There was remorse in his actions, no regret. It’s what Sonny would have wanted. Yes, Sonny would have wanted this. But would he? No. Wait. Yes. Yes, Sonny wanted this. He needed this. He couldn’t die because of some coward’s punch. But he was already dead. There was no point in this. Sonny. Sonny. Sonny. He needed this; Michael needed this. They both needed this.

“Ha! You can’t do it!” The man laughed. “You’re just some coward. You ain’t no man.”

Michael faltered at this. No man? No, Michael was a man. He was someone who was holding a gun and wearing his suit. This declared him a man. It was only logic. He was a man. He had to be a man.

“This isn’t what your friend would want… he wouldn’t want you to kill me, not like you can do it anyway.”

“Sonny would want this.”

“Would he? Or is it something you want?”

Of course, it was. Of course, it was something Michael wanted. He could feel it coursing through his veins… but is it something Sonny wanted? No. No, it wouldn’t be… it had been something only Michael wanted. Sonny would never have wanted this. He believed in peace, equality, and prosperity. Sonny would never—

“Look, your friend was an idiot! He shouldn’t have gotten involved. If his just stayed in that damn seat, he wouldn’t be—”

The explosion that echoed around the eery basement made Michael flinch as the bullet went right into the forehead of the man, causing his head to loll backwards. A deep crimson liquid began to seep through the sack, spreading like a contagious virus. Bits of brain and skin dropped to the floor, escaping the boundaries of the fabric and as Michael composed himself, merely tugging his jacket tight, he briskly walked out of the basement without a word, the sounds of blood dripping onto the floor from the corpse echoing around, the gun still firm in his grasp.

Call him crazy if you wanted, but he realised grief could do wonders on a person’s brain, therefore, revenge may not have been what Sonny wanted… but Michael did and so, that was that.

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