FINAL THOUGHTS
Ellis Stoppard signed his note, “I know this can’t adequately explain why I did this, but this will have to do. Ellis.” He set the pen down upon the desk, his hand quivering. He reread the note again, making sure it was all there. He wasn’t sure exactly what he was looking it over for. It wasn’t like the spelling had to be perfect or he was being graded on punctuation. Content? While he thought about this plenty since the layoffs, there’s no proper etiquette on what or what not to say in one of these notes. In his state of mind, it’s hard to sound collected. While it seemed a jumbled read, he felt everything he wanted to say was there. Still he looked it over once again for anything out of place.
Satisfied, he slouched in the motel room chair. The only comfort he took in the dim room was that it was affordable. A coworker once pointed this place out to him as where the local street girls would go to for their tricks. Anonymous, semi-comfortable, it served his purpose. He couldn’t do this at home. He would never want Abbey or Melissa—especially Melissa—to find his body at home. This would protect them from that trauma. He felt he already tortured them enough with the slow creep towards bankruptcy and eviction. Abbey should just be at the house from taking Melissa to school to get the call from the sheriff. It would be best this way.
Ellis plopped himself on the bed and opened his duffel bag. He gathered the bottle of his wife’s sleeping pills—even the additional refill was on him—and a fifth of rum and placed both on the small nightstand, knocking the alarm clock on the floor. He laughed at the upside down appliance, kicking it slightly for good measure. It lurched forward before violently being jerked back by its plug. He almost took the plug out of the wall, but figured it wouldn’t matter come the morning, no matter when the alarm was set for. Five sleepless nights on top of two months of mounting stress was finally getting to him. A painless sleep is what he wanted. Sleep without nightmares, without the constant waking fear of more things going wrong, more hospital bills, more credit agencies coming out of the woodwork, more people wanting pieces of him ‘til there’s nothing left. His life was already slipping away from him. This way he could finally take back some control. With this act, he could give his family a fighting chance. He already felt he was going down for good, but this would be his way of taking a final, parting sucker punch.
Though as he put the handful of pills on the nightstand, he had those pangs of something being out of place. The pills and rum would do the job on him but that was it. Ellis got up and reread the note. Finishing it again, something finally struck him. He listed the whys but not the whos. He knew he had culpability in this mess that was his life as of late, but he was not the only one. With all the stuff going on, there were more people involved in levels he had no say in whatsoever. How could he let them escape their accountability? That’s completely unfair, he thought. He started the note over again. He copied much from the old note, but this time he needed to name names, point out to the world who was responsible for the destruction of his family and finances. He new it meant more time and ruining a lot of work already done, but it was absolutely necessary. To him it would be justice.
The first person that came to Ellis’ mind was the emergency desk nurse who saw him when Melissa’s fever hit 105. Desperate at the time, she was of no help; only looking for proof of insurance, she offered no comfort, only stress. She would come to haunt him later when Abbey found that lump.
The HMO lady was next. Because of the timing of cessation of COBRA insurance with his wife’s cancer scare, all the tests and procedures to discover and remove the fibrous mass weren’t completely covered. As she explained every bureaucratic reason why they were on their own, he swore he could hear the woman’s smile over the phone.
The people association continued. The plant manager. He had to go before he ruined anymore lives. A lot of what happened at the plant could have been avoided with a better business plan, better accounting skills, a better level of strategic thinking. If anyone could have single handedly ruined 1,867 lives, he did.
Now Ellis began to wonder if the pills were the way to go. The added names quickly became a hit list. He thought about what this would mean. He’d already spend money on the pills, but now he’d have to buy some sort of gun or something. Swinging that right now would put Abbey even more in hock. Right now he was worth more dead than alive, but not if he had to purchase firepower.
Most of upper management was insulated from the layoffs. Cutting his job saved them close to $30,000 a year and a pension 30 or so years down the line, but it meant a livelihood to him and a lot of other workers now. They’d never know it either unless they were taught.
Ellis thought maybe could borrow a gun. He thought Jeremy might have one he could borrow. Ellis never wanted a gun in the house with Melissa there. Now he wondered how much the pawn shop would have given him for one. It would help a bit at least.
The bank loan officer, probably the least understanding person in town if not the planet. He went to plead his case after the layoffs, which fell on deaf ears. They wanted their payments no matter what. How could he without a job? No caring, just greed. This got them in deeper.
The creditors. These guys were relentless. Phone calls at breakfast, lunch and dinner, tons of notice letters, and at least two knocks on the door causing Abbey had to hide in the bathroom for three hours. Coming home to see her shivering in fear by the toilet was the beginning of the end for him.
Now this list was requiring an automatic rifle, but that would cost way too much. Ellis thought that bags of fertilizer, gasoline and his car might work. But how to get them all in one place would be tough.
The names were coming faster and equally furious. The cashier who had to cut up his credit card. The shop steward. The bank president. The company CEO. The migrant workers out in the fields. The unemployment office clerk. The Social Services clerk. Melissa…
Ellis dropped his pen, covering his mouth with his hand. Disbelieving the last name, he dove into his pocket for his wallet. Rifling through a couple of old receipts and penciled in phone numbers, he found the photo. Ellis holding a then three year old Melissa in his lap. They were in a booth at the local diner when Abbey snapped a shot. It was not Ellis’ best looking picture, but it was his favorite of Melissa. Ellis held it, hands shaking, waiting for the rage to pass. Melissa always knew to smile big at the camera, even when seated awkwardly. Even then her long red curls were eye catching. She was so young then. No worries, just happy that daddy and mommy were around and going out to eat. Crying, he traced the outline of her hair, eyes and face with his finger. It was amazing to him that she could be so happy eating grits with him in a roadside diner. Even then, he couldn’t offer her anything more than that, but she was content.
Ellis walked
back to nightstand and swept all the pills back into the bottle, resealing the
top. After putting the pill bottle and liquor back into his duffel bag, he
plopped down on the bed. Drained and depleted, he yawned, squinting as the
sweat burned his teary eyes. He searched the floor around the room looking for
the alarm clock back. Still plugged in the wall, it never went far. He set the
alarm for