“Something”

My friend’s been locked up for a while now. He’s been begging me for ages to share this with people. For the record, I don’t believe any of it. But I promised him I’d write down everything he said verbatim. Take it or leave it as you please.

You’re not gonna believe me. No one ever does. But I’m gonna tell you my story and you’re gonna have to decide if I’m a murdering and lying asshole or not. I’m currently a resident in San Quentin State Prison doing life without the possibility of parole. In other words, I’m fucked. Unless Jesus comes down and saves my ass, I’m gonna die in here.

The first thing you have to know about me is that I’m innocent. Despite what you saw on the news, I didn’t kill my family. Before you stop reading, I know everyone says they’re innocent. Hell, everyone in San Quentin is innocent, right? But I REALLY didn’t do it.

I’m not gonna lie. I’m not gonna try to sell you some bullshit about how I was this perfect citizen and that everything was hunky-dory between me and Tricia. They weren’t. Far from it. But I loved her. We fought about as hard as we fucked. And to be completely honest with you all, I knew she wanted a divorce. I saw the text messages on her phone. And you know what? I don’t blame her. Thinking back now, I was a terrible husband. I probably drank too much.  No, I’ll be honest: I did drink too much. But I never ever ever laid a hand on her or the kids. I don’t have much pride, but I pride myself on not being an abusive asshole like my own dad.

When I heard what happened to Tricia and the kids, I knew I would be the first suspect. It’s always the husband or wife, right? And when the police left me in that room, I thought and thought. Did I do it? Could I have killed my whole family? But no matter how much I racked my brain, I don’t even remember being within a mile of that house. Where was I? I was out at the game and then I went to the bar with Mike.

You would think that you would remember killing your entire family. And if not the actual killing part but SOME part of it. The driving over there, the opening the door, the creak of the goddamn wooden floor outside the master. SOMETHING. But that’s the thing, I don’t remember none of it. Not a single second.

And don’t say I was drunk. I may have had one beer at the game. Two at the most. And a beer or two more at the bar after. But c’mon, we all know no matter how drunk you are, you remember something. I’ve never been so wasted that I remember nothing. And that’s the thing, I remember NOTHING. ZERO. And that’s why I’m innocent.  Because I wasn’t there.

The first time I heard what really happened at the house was in court. Tricia was stabbed 89 times. 89 fucking times! The kids… less. But too much. I don’t want to get into it. Let’s just say there was so much blood everywhere the police thought that a dozen people had been killed in that room. Not just the three bodies that were lying on the bed.

The crime scene photos were hard to look at, but the first time they showed them in court I couldn’t take my eyes off them. Because I had seen them before. But not in real life. In my imagination. I know this sounds horrible, but I’m going to admit something that is gonna make me look bad. In my deepest darkest moments, I had imagined hurting my family. But I would never REALLY considered do it. It was just something that helped me blow off some steam. I assumed it was just some terrible coincidence.

When the neighbors said they saw me go inside the house and then leaving the house, I thought they were fucking liars! I assumed that they just hated me and were making up stories… Because how could they see ME going into the house? And then my so-called friend Mike went up there and said he hadn’t been at the game with me. In fact, he told them he hadn’t seen me in months. That dick! How could he go up there and tell such a bald face lie?

But when they showed the jury the security camera video of me buying the knife at the store, I almost fell out of my chair. Because right there on the screen, it was me. I thought it was some kinda joke, because I’ve never in my whole life been to that store, let alone bought a knife from there. But that guy didn’t just look like me, he WAS me!

I don’t blame the jury. If I were the jury and saw that video and listened to that testimony, I would have done the same thing they did. But I swear, it was someone else. And you gotta believe that even though he looked like me, walked like me, and had the same dumb look as me, that IT WASN’T ME.

Are you still reading this? I wouldn’t blame you if you stopped. I know I sound like a crazy person. But I’m gonna go to my grave telling anyone who’ll listen that it wasn’t me in that video. The first week at San Quentin, I told some of the other guys my story. Some of them looked at me like I was off my rocker. These are pedophiles and murderers telling ME that I was crazy. But a few, they looked at me like I wasn’t totally insane. Those guys I got to know and when I trusted them, I told them everything. And you know what? They believed me. Why? Because they say the same shit happened to them.

You ever wonder why all the neighbors always say: “He seemed like such a nice guy” right after he went on some shooting spree at work? When I heard people say that, I used to laugh at them for being so damn ignorant. Now I see it for what it is. They weren’t being ignorant. It’s because maybe the person who committed crime wasn’t them.

Over the last few years, I’ve had a lot of time to think about things. The best I can figure is that “something” comes into us and takes over our bodies when we’re really angry or stressed. They know what our fantasies are and they do what we couldn’t—or maybe wouldn’t—do ourselves. And we go somewhere else far far away, that’s why we don’t remember anything. It’s sort of like an alien abduction but without the little gray aliens and the anal probes.

When I first discovered all of this, I spent hours looking at myself in the mirror and intentionally trying to get myself worked up about my situation. Most of the time I imagined killing the guards and escaping. I would study my reflection and hope that there would be some sign saying that “something” has come back. Like my eyes would turn black or roll up into my heads. But that’s just in the movies. No matter how hard I tried, I didn’t see any sign of that “something.”

I’m telling you all of this to warn you. Don’t let yourself get too angry. Don’t fantasize about doing anything bad. Or you just might end up like me.

PS: Before you ask, I have no idea what the “something” is. I wish I did. Sometimes I think it’s an alien or a demon. But one thing I’ve come to believe… it’s in all of us.