A Story of a Friend
He was beaming. His happiness showed in his walk as he came towards me. His face glowed with a smile from ear to ear, as he told me the news. He and his girlfriend of less than a year were going to have a baby. He was happy, and I was happy for my longtime friend. He told me how much having a child meant to him. How he would be the father that he had always wanted, but never had. He explained how his life would be different now, and how this one event would change his life forever.
I saw very little of my friend for the next nine months. He was often busy with taking the girlfriend to the doctor, attending Lamaze classes, shopping for baby furniture, buying baby clothes, and doing a number of baby-related things that must be done prior to the baby’s arrival. I admired his commitment, and it was good to see that his excitement remained through time.
On the day that the baby was born, my friend wept with pride. He litterally got down on his knees and thanked God for the beautiful daughter that he had been given. In the days that followed, he was the proud daddy in every sense of the word, handing out cigars to friends and passing strangers alike, and sharing photographs and stories of his child with anyone that would look and listen. It was as if he wanted the world to know that this wonderful child was his, and that he was her daddy.
As the next few months passed, problems began to arise between he and the girlfriend. My friend was still a little upset with her for naming the baby Kashmir, after the popular Led Zeppelin song, but I tried to reassure him that the name was pretty and unique. As he and I talked, it became apparent that there were bigger issues that he and the girlfriend were having. I did my best to listen, said very little, but did try to convience him that young couples with a child are going to have problems now and then.
Some time had passed and I assumed that the issues between my friend and his girlfiend had worked themselves out. Then one evening after work, he called me on the phone with rage in his voice. Apparently girlfriend had moved away, taking the baby and most of their possesions with her. She left a note explaining that she had moved to the island of Kauai to live with her parents, and that she wanted no further contact with him. I tried to calm him down in every way possible, but there was no calming his anger.
A few days had passed when my friend showed up at my home. He told me that the day following our last conversation, he had caught a plane to Kauai. Once on Kauai, he went to the parent’s home, but no one was there. He then broke into the house, went into the kitchen, took out the butcher knives from the kitchen drawer and hid the knives in select areas of the living room. He then left the home, hiding and waiting for the girlfriend and her family to return. Once they had all come home, he approached the house with violence on his mind. Fortunately, the mother had called 911, and the arrival of the police had prevented any physical harm to anyone. The police talked with him and told him that they would let him go if he returned to Oahu at once. He agreed.
I asked what the hiding of the knives was for, and he explained that he had planned on getting into a fight and using the knives to kill everyone in the house. I thought he was making some kind of sick joke, but he wasn’t. He went on to explain that he could have
succeeded before the police arrived, but the thought of stabbing someone didn’t agree with him. Aside from the anger that remained within him, he said all of this so nonchalantly, as if he were recounting a minor event. I looked at my friend of several years, and for the first time, he frightened me. This whole ordeal now consumed him, and he had obviously lost all rational thought.
The last time I saw him, it was on a Friday. He seemed to be in good spirits despite all of the events that had taken place as well as recently losing his job. Emotionally, he had his good days and his bad, much of which depended on the tone of conversation that he had on the phone with his now ex-girlfriend. He told me that he was planning on getting partial custody of the child, and that he had given all his money to a lawyer. I was just relieved that there wasn’t further talk of knives and killing.
On the following Sunday, his mother called me. She asked if I had heard the news about her son. She told me a tale that left me speechless, explaining that the story was also in the Sunday paper. Apparently that Friday evening he had talked to the ex-girlfriend on the phone and a verbal fight developed. Then Saturday morning he went into a gun shop. He asked the clerk there to see a particular handgun, then he inserted the bullets that he mysteriously had with him. He then pointed the gun at the clerk. He pushed the clerk into a walk-in safe and closed the safe door. Then he opened the cash register, taking just enough money for the cost of a one way plane ticket to Kauai.
How he managed to conceal a gun in his bag and get to Kauai, I still don’t know. He picked up the bag from the luggage carousel and walked through the airport. Fortunately, there are undercover police at the airports. They randomly stop people to check their baggage due to the large quantities of marijuana that pass through the islands. My friend just happened to be one of those randomly stopped; the gun was found and he was arrested. Later, he would be convicted on numerous charges.
In the last conversation that I had with him, he explained from a prison pay-phone that his intention was to kill all of the ex-girlfriend’s family members, including the baby and himself, leaving the girlfriend alive so that she could experience the loss that she had given him. Although he was a friend of many years, I have never sought further contact with him. I don’t know if he remains in prison or if he is still in the islands or not. The entire event shook me up. The thought that he could and would kill those that he loved most left me wondering what chance did I have if one day he were angry at me.