I’m confessing to a murder.
It will hit the news here soon and I’d like my fans to hear my side.
My best friend and I were part of an underground rap duo. I’ll not get into the specifics but I will say that face paint was heavily involved in our act. Over time we grew to something akin to stardom. We’d never be in the Super Bowl half time show, yet no one could ever say we were failures. As our success grew, my friend and our partnership turned the worse. Production disagreements, workload disputes of who did what. If you could think of a reason to fight we’d have had it at least twice. I’m sure I was partially to blame. I could list a million of his shortcomings but perhaps his criticisms held weight as well. That was no excuse for what he did. And for those crimes he’d suffer dearly.
Our last show backstage I took a cigarette break. I needed my voice at a lower octave and smokes were a great way to do it, even if it would cost me cancer in my fifties. Besides, compared to all the other stuff performers got up to, a pack a day wasn’t so bad. Roadies and stagehands worked to assemble everything I designed. I wrote our songs, designed and drew the cover art. He snorted coke in the back of our tour bus and cheated on his girlfriend.
The production stand was where I found my companion kissing up to a producer who ran one of our openers. I’d have thought nothing of it as he was always the social butterfly. Were it not of course for the email he left open on his computer. A message full of my work sent as samples he passed off as his own. Stealing my art with a request to go alone with another company. The emphasis he’d made on cash advances told me everything. That rat spent all his money, with no qualms now of burying me for more. Anything to get another bump.
As I approached, he turned to play innocent, smiling to introduce me to that snake he plotted with. Even Judas would have been impressed. I choked my frustration down like broken glass. All to keep my mouth shut, letting him believe I was too stupid to smell his treachery.
That pig in his cheap suit shook my hand and covered for him. “Pleasure to meet you, your friends been telling me all about you. Both of you really grew up in a trailer park together?” With that same fake grin, I played along.
“Yup. Been doing this for 15 years.”
“Is that right.” The bag of slime flashed a grin at my betrayer, thinking I had missed it. “Well I’d better be going. Business in Atlanta, maybe I’ll see you down there.”
As he made his exit, I swallowed my frustration. Not a word before the trap was sprung. At that moment my partner acted all the more friendly.
“The place looks great, you really outdid yourself this time.”
I nodded, pointing at the movable altar. “Thank you, I’ve been planning this for months but if it pays off, it will be worth every second. What about you, how have you been keeping busy?”
“I’m clean if that’s what you’re asking.” He glared at me, that car salesman act peeling off him like a cheap veneer.
I knew he was lying. The baggies he’d been flushing down our studio’s bathroom had clogged the pipes. Another bill I had to pay. The tip of his iceberg of lies wasn’t worth going down however, especially now. I lifted my hands in defense. “Not an accusation, just making conversation. You have your lines down?”
He relented, unsure if I bought his ruse or not. Truth was at this point I didn’t care. He pulled the folded script I’d given him from his back pocket. “Yup, lines down. Costume ready. Fingers crossed this will be our best show yet.”
He stuck his hand out to dap me up in friendship. A small gesture from our days past. I responded in kind, slapping his hand and ending with my fist dapped in his. “We’ll never have one better.”
The show started around nine. The audience piled in wearing T-shirts from various groups within our genre. Mega fans wore our face paint, spraying one another with pints of cheap soda. The smell of weed was thick as joint smoke billowed from cars outside. One group even got kicked out by security for swinging around a bottle of Rum. Say what you will about our fans, they all knew how to party.
By the time our openers began the crowd was packed. Beautiful women scantily clad held prop knives covered in fake blood. Men in hockey masks and jerseys played for blood in the mosh pits. It was as though we’d made horror a spectator sport, and the World Cup was theirs.
I peeked at them all between the curtains. A metal band blared on drop tuned guitars. UV paint glowed from the drummer’s instruments as he slammed into the skins. Soon after came a trio of rappers dressed like goblins. They sang of slaughter and the crowd danced in a frenzy, copying the slashing motions from the chorus. Watching them I remembered why I did this. My love for the music, the fans, the family. It flowed from my heart as I remembered just how happy I was when I could be one inside that crowd.
Looking over I saw my partner arrive, rubbing his nose, eyeing everyone with suspicion. The powder may as well have been hanging from his nostrils. As long as he played his part it wouldn’t matter long. I asked him, “You ready Danny, were next?”
“Of course I am,” he spat his response and glared. When high the stuff made him mean, eager for a fight.
I looked behind him, seeing a distinct lack of his girlfriend backstage. Knowing the answer, I asked him all the same. “Where’s Anna, everything alright?”
“Don’t worry about it,” he snarled, daring me with his eyes to press it further. I already knew the story. He likely said something cruel and sent her off. Picking a fight so he could rile himself up into an excuse to cheat on her again. One time among a thousand. Truth was I pitied the poor girl. Still, things were much easier without her around. No one left to notice when I struck.
He swore at me telling me to mind my own business, storming off to don his paint. Fortunately, the set before us had quite the line up, leaving us at least half an hour to prepare. I checked my phone, confirming the pieces were set in place, then watched my audience a final time.
The crowd roared as the show’s announcer introduced us. The curtains opened to the slow rhythmic beat, a remix of a carnival waltz. The crowd already knew in the first three seconds what song it was, cheering all the more in their approval. Pyrotechnics ablaze, a flash of light blinding in the darkness. That’s when we arrived. Danny stormed before them, throwing his flow on the mic like magic. The reenactment of his costume was from a movie. The likeness was uncanny. For all the hate in my heart, I respected his skill.
I followed after, dancing in the likeness of an evil wizard, spikes stuck through my head and all. The eviscerated trench coat shimmered in the smoke as we stepped through. I repeated the ending of each of his lines, the crowd bobbing with the beat. Standing upon that stage is difficult to describe. There were times when you couldn’t tell if you influenced the crowd, or the crowd was pulling you. In truth it didn’t matter, every second was pure ecstasy.
Our first act was flawless. The second even better. One of our assistants played a Djenting rhythm on a drop tuned guitar. A thrumming on the muted strings to be distorted, adding that guttural rage on a song of indignation. We threw our verses upon it. Crying for the poor, the broken, the abandoned left behind. The music was a voice to those unheard. A family to them without. And we to be their father.
On the third act my preparations had arrived. The stage hands danced as I raised my arm, conducting them through my chanting chorus.
“Murder let him die”
“Murder Let him die”
“Ima chop his nugget and I’ll toss it in the sky.” Danny threw up the hand sign of our craft. The pitchfork turned upon its side. For that’s what we were. A rallying force for chaos. The cry for the torch and pitchfork. The public rage within us all, bound to set alight. I stood with our symbols across my chest like a pharaoh in his tomb. The chanting from our audience grew louder as the procession lay the altar before me.
Men in robes of black pulled torches away from the altar as my partner climbed upon it. In our story he had died in a gunfight and by use of an ancient dagger I brought him from the dead. The plunging of the weapon in his heart removing from him his soul, to resurrect in other bodies. The stage performance was to be the same. A dagger just like in our tale, revealed itself from my robes. An angled blade on either side of bronze, handle of ivory and blue, a purple gem glowing clear in light. Hieroglyphs carved along its blade I held it high as the chanting of our audience continued.
“Murder let him die”
“Murder let him die”
I raised my free hand with the blade still high above me. In the hours cacophony of sound the only thing more terrible was the immediate silence on my command. Danny lay with eyes closed as instructed, everyone waiting for what we‘d done so many times before. A prop blade would collapse against him, Id pull it back, and the dancers would carry him away through the crowd. In that palpable silence I spoke the magic words.
“Nemo me impune… lacessit!”
I drove the weapon down. Danny’s eyes opened in shock to the sound of a wet pop from skin and rib undone. The vacuum in his chest had opened, the dagger now driven through his heart. What no one knew in that moment except for him and I, was that my blade was real.
The crowd screamed in their approval, unaware of the murder being done. The music dropped with a crash to cover for me, returning its haunting beat and tune.
As he lay dying, that slimy rat used all he had left to whisper his last words as I leaned above to listen. “I thought… you were my brother.”
My smile was as genuine as it was evil as I replied. “And I thought you were mine.” With those words I jerked it down, ripping his heart in two around the dagger. I placed my hand above the wound leaving the weapon in to do its work. The music continued as I finally let my emotions rise, cackling in laughter above my prey. I pulled the blade from his chest, wiping the blood from it with my hand in one fluid motion. The stage hands danced as the song continued, lifting the altar of my betrayer on their shoulders as pallbearers. They carried him through the crowd, reaching with their hands grasped for the dying icon. He left this life the way he’d always wanted, in undying adoration.
The performance was set for him to rise when out of sight. An intermission would occur, both of us returning for our final song. Yet there would be no music. I walked backwards, bowing to my audience, the curtains dropping to buy me time. I crept through the back door, dagger in my coat to step into my car, heading towards the airport. A small turboprop airplane waited with a hired pilot. While my partner blew his money on booze and drugs, I saved mine to spend it thus. A one way ticket to Morocco, a small manor, and money left over in accounts to keep me comfortable. There I’d drink mint tea, make love to beautiful women, and retire in my revenge.
Yet that is not my greatest act. For as I sat in the back of my plane, I pulled the dagger out. Looking there inside its pommel I saw it gleamed no more. A cloudy smoke had swirled inside the gem. The haze ebbed and flowed yet if you looked closely, you could make out what I saw. A face with mouth agape, moaning in despair. That’s right my friends. Danny would not burn in hell. Instead, he will sit upon my shelf, watching as I reveled in my success. Drinking deep what he’ll never taste again. Never to touch a woman as I buried myself in their desire. And when I’m old and lain to rest, my will can have me buried with dagger in my hand.
Danny will sit inside my tomb, alone in the dark forever.