Page 59 of Jealous of the Clouds
Shondell: It’s time to tell the truth. It’s time to let you,Karl, and the world know the truth.
(She walked to the window and looked out. Without turning back around, she spoke to the glass or to an audience that was both there and yet only in her head).
Shondell: I did it. I killed my brother.
(Karl and I both gasped).
Shondell: It wasn’t because I didn’t love him. It was because I did. So, so much. But I couldn’t stand his pain anymore.
Bailey: His pain? What do you mean?
Shondell: He was mine, you see. He was always mine. Our bond was one that could never be surpassed. I tried, through a failed marriage, a kid, other means that weren’t so healthy to fill the void. And he tried too, but no one could ever equal the love I showered him with. No one else could ever look up to him as I had.
(Clouds outside darkened; or was it just my imagination? Was the sound of the wind picking up also imagined? The room was filling was dread, like a physical presence, like a balloon expanding with black smoke).
Shondell: And no one ever loved him as I had. It was a mother’s love, a daughter’s love, unique, unconditional. It was God’s love. Never questioning. I had to help him see that. That’s all I ever wanted—for Josh to see how much I loved him.
Bailey: What did youdo, Shondell?
(The question is filled with terror, as though Karl doesn’t really want the answer).
Shondell: Your brother, Reggie, was first. He was ruining life for Josh. And why? Because Josh loved him so much he couldn’t walk away from someone who was obviously a loser, someone who was mired in quicksand. I could see my brother reaching out to help him and, as a reward, he’d only be dragged down into the suffocating muckyourbrother’s life was. I hate to say this to you, Bailey or Karl, or whatever you want to call yourself for this podcast, but your brother was a lost cause, perhaps from the first moment he snorted that first line or took that first hit from a glass pipe. His life went up like the vapor from that pipe, toxic.
(Bailey shuddered).
Shondell: Josh needed rescuing. He was too weak, I knew to get himself out of the mess he’d helped create. He simply loved too much. As a recipient of his love, I knew firsthand how weighty that love could be.
I wanted him to be free.
Bailey: Again, Shondell, what did you do?
Shondell: I came to Chicago. I didn’t tell anyone I was coming. No one needed to know. My mission was selfless and pure. When you see someone in your family suffering and in pain, you do what you need to so you can free them.
Is that so bad?
Reggie was lost. He was already dead.
So it wasn’t hard for me to follow him. And I won’t hurtyouwith the details, but what I saw of his miserable life was enough to convince me that what I was doing was not only a mercy for Josh, but for Reggie as well. Like a diseased dog that has no other purpose than to cause injury and pain, he needed to be put down.
(Shondell shudders and sniffles; her eyes bright now with tears).
I lay in wait for him, in an alley. It was easy to bring him down, almost too easy. He was too high and too shocked to resist.
(Shondell closes her eyes. Is she relishing or recoiling at the memory?).
Bailey: And did you tell Josh?
Shondell: Not right away. Remember, he didn’t know I was in Chicago. No one did. No one ever suspected me, a few hundred miles away, and all sweet and innocent, of the crime. I wanted to keep it that way.
Bailey: So why tell us this now? Why confess to the world, which is, in essence, what you’re doing?
Shondell: Am I? Am I really?
(And it’s at this point that Shondell calmly leans forward, roots around in the large leather bag at her feet and withdraws a large hunting knife. It glints from the illumination of Karl’s desk lamp. We both recoil and gasp, too shocked to scream).
Shondell: Turn off the recording…now.
Chapter 28
