The Man in the Suit

I've told you twice already.  Why must I say it again?

I had been working the case for weeks.  A random murder in a suburb.  We had made no progress, no murder weapon, no suspect.  Our investigation team had only found the body by chance.  I was on the verge of madness, the district attorney was breathing down my neck.  Apparently the woman's father was a golfing buddy of his and they wanted results.  It should seem obvious the choice I then made.

I made him up.

Honestly I did.  There was no murderer, and there was nearly no evidence.  What was I to do?  

So I invented him.  

A middle aged man, medium build, with grey hair, and wearing a suit.

I typed up a fictitious transcript of an interview with a local drifter who had also been found dead.  I had something to show the DA, and I thought that it would disappear.  

But I was wrong.

The anguished father found out of course, and he plastered wanted posters with the description of my fake suspect for miles around.  A sketch was on a billboard, news anchors were discussing him.  Everyone was talking about the man in the suit.

I had made a living hell for myself.

I was forced to answer questions, and invent more lies.  I gave interview after interview about this man who didn’t exist.

He may have a scar on his left cheek, he could be driving a black sedan, his preferred weapon was a Glock 17 fitted with a suppressor due to the lack of reported gunshots.

I hear you disagreeing, but you must understand that he was never real.

At least that’s what I keep telling myself.

Then the sightings came.

The 22nd of November, six weeks after the murder, he was spotted on a security camera buying gas not two miles from the suspected scene of the crime.

Of course I didn’t follow up the leads, I had invented this man after all.

But the next day there was another sighting.
Then another.

And another.

I finally had to act, and instructed my fellow police officers to be on the lookout and to bring him in if spotted.  

None of them did.

But the reports kept coming in.

Outside the dead womans house, near the church she visited, at the entrance to the city morgue.

It was impossible.  I was receiving reports of the figure across town at exactly the same time.

After a week I was called in to the DAs office.  

He wanted to know why I hadn’t caught this man.  Why he was still out on the streets making a mockery of his town and its police force.

I had no answers for him of course.

Then he told me to go out there personally.  He sat there, in his leather high backed chair and told me that I was forbidden to return to my office until I had apprehended the suspect.  

What was I to do?  How could I handcuff someone who I invented?

I went home and pondered just ending it all with a gun in my mouth.

But then I looked outside, and there he was.  Standing underneath the streetlamp, right next to his black sedan, staring back at me.  

I froze.

It was impossible.  How could he be here, looking back at me with those blue eyes.  Or were they grey?  My fictional account wasn’t sure, and right now I couldn’t be either.  He seemed to be almost a painting, or illustration given manifest form.  

He shimmered, and seemed to constantly change as though out of focus or viewed through frosted glass.

I backed away from the window and put my .38 revolver in my coat pocket, then stepped out the front door.

The closer I approached him, the darker the surrounding lights became, until even the streetlamp seemed to be just a flickering memory.  A greyish haze more than a light.  

He was just as I had described him.  Tall, gaunt, with a scar on his cheek and a slightly unshaven face.  
“Who are you?”

I asked.

He smiled.  

“You know exactly who I am.”

He said.

“You made me.  You gave me life, purpose, and a face.  Faith is a powerful thing detective.  You trumpeted my existence to a town of half a million, and they all wanted to see me.  They all wanted me to appear.  And lo, I did.  Here I am detective.  Am I everything you wanted?”

I was quaking.  Days without sleep had brought about his hallucination, I was certain of it.  But I had one way to prove it.

I plunged my hand into my coat pocket, and fired all six shots into his tall figure.  

The bullets passed through, leaving his clothing unmarked, but they all impacted the brick wall across the street.  

He smiled.

“I’m more than a man now detective.  I am a shared belief.  And those are much, much more difficult to kill.  Not even the truth can bring me down now.”

I watched helplessly as he pulled a suppressed Glock from his coat, and shot me twice in the chest.  As I fell to the pavement he grabbed me by my shirt, and holding me close to him whispered into my ear.

“Thank you.”

He dropped me like a wet sandbag onto the sidewalk, strode to his car, and drove off.


I know you think me mad.  You think all of this stress has gotten to my head, but I tell you it is the truth.  He is not real.  I swear it!  He is not real!

How I Imagine Most American Families

Cliff Anderson stared into the runny mashed potatoes.  The pinch pot containing the instant potato mix had been made by his son in Reform School pottery class, and while functional, was not aesthetically pleasing at all.

“Dad.  Gimme the potatoes.”

Inside Cliffs mind, a little voice suggested picking up the bowl and throwing it at his fourteen year old daughter.  

It wouldn't take much, just grab and throw.

Just grab, and throw.

A small smirk flicked across the left corner of Cliffs mouth as he reached over and lifted the bowl, before setting it down within reach of his daughter.

Daisy, was about as far from her namesake as it was possible for a fourteen year old to achieve.  She had pierced her lip, nose and left eyebrow.  She had also tattooed the international sign for recycle across on her right cheek the size of a coaster.  

All her face tackle had been acquisitions she had made while running away from home for the third time.

At the other end of the table sat Cliffs wife Tammy.  Cliff found himself attempting to remember back before their children had intruded so pointedly into their lives.  

Cliff and Tammy had met at a state fair, she was selling the deep fried HoHos and Cliff was on leave from the Army.  He had first seen his wife of twenty three years while watching his close friend vomit up his lunch from the tilt a whirl.  The putrescent stream had jetted out from the spinning contraption and hit one of Tammy's customers full in the face.

The young boy had commenced to cry as the bile worked its way down the front of his overalls while his mother stepped back in unbelieving horror.  

Cliff had run on up to assist, only to be beaten to it by Tammy.  She wiped the boy and awarded the rotund youth a fresh piece of fried food for his trouble.  

Cliff had never been a romantic man, but his luck in finding possibly the most promiscuous woman in the carnival awarded him a quick turn with Tammy.  She had run off with him back to Fort Hood and the two had somehow managed to survive.

Three children later the pair were starving their way through their two mortgages for a single floor three bedroom house.  Their oldest son, Reggie, was in jail following a failed robbery of an adult bookstore, and their two hundred fifty pound, self loathing daughter seemed determined to follow.

Cliffs mind was wrenched away from thoughts about the hopelessness he felt about his sons and daughters prospects by the sudden thud that marked the near daily demise of James Franklin Anderson.

The two year old had put both feet out from his high chair and kicked for all he was worth, catapulting himself and his chair backward in an arc cackling with mad delight.  The high chair slammed into the ground bouncing the young childs now unconscious form completely free of the wreckage.

The unexpected lurch of the table caused Daisy to spill her milk all down the front of her t shirt.  

She immediately began to cry.

“It’s not fair.”

She said, sobbing into her sausage like fingers.

“It’s just not fair.  I didn't ask for any of this to happen!  Why won’t this family just leave me alone”

Tammy was on the floor checking on James Franklin while scolding him simultaneously.  The young boy had a look of dumb incomprehension on his face, as though his sudden arrival to the floor was entirely a surprise to him.

Daisy continued to sob and berate everything that had happened in her life since she was old enough to understand object permanence.

Cliff simply stood up and took his dinner to the bed room with him, and switched on the television.  

“Tonight at 11,”

said a broad mouthed smiling female anchor

“more and more families are eating dinner separately.  We ask our resident experts what this means for the stability of the American family.”

Cliff laughed, spearing a head of broccoli viciously on his fork and worked the vegetable around in the instant gravy.

From outside the door he heard his wife disciplining the two year old, while the slamming of the screen door announced his daughters fourth bid at freedom.

Cliff saluted the slamming door with the impaled gravy soaked vegetable.

“Maybe this time she’ll run off and join the carnies.”

He said, before popping the miniature green tree into his waiting mouth.

Be like Barney

I'm going to break from my traditional writing to give you a piece of advice.

Be more like Barney Fife.

Seriously.

Take a moment to look at the sad existence that is the life of deputy Barney Fife.  The poor bastard is well aware of the fact that he is not the best law enforcement official in Mayberry.  He also knows that he will never be the best law enforcement official in Mayberry.  He will forever be in Sheriff Griffith's shadow.  But Barney has a quality that far surpasses that of his boss Andy.

Determination.

Every day, deputy Fife has to get up and put on his uniform, and sling his proven impotent holster around his waist, then walk down to the station.  He does so with a smile.  Because this is what he wants to do in life.  Barney Fife is a man humble enough to recognize his limitations, but never, ever stops trying to be something better.  No matter how often life takes the opportunity to show him how terrible at his job he really is.

Each day Barney walks back into the sisyphistic office of the Mayberry police station, with the firmly held dedication to serve and protect.

So go out into the world, and no matter how hard life gets, just remember that Deputy Fife got up every morning.

And he did it with a smile on his face.