Matt had seen Jonah like this four times before. Each of those four times he had produced a novel, each novel bringing more and more success and exposure to Jonah. This was the fifth time it had happened, and it was a good thing too, Jonah had just signed a huge contract with promises of a massive promotional campaign to go along with the big dollars.
Whenever Jonah started writing his novels it was a brutal process that more closely resembled Sherman’s march to sea than was any artistic endeavor that Matt had ever seen or heard described. Jonah sat in front of his PC typing with a cadence more suitable to an early 20th century industrial machine of some sort than a person, and he did this for up to 20 hours a day. By the time he finished a novel he’d lose close to 20 lbs, because he’d forget to feed himself, and he smelled as bad as anyone who had a roof over his head could smell.
When Matt asked Jonah about the time spent creating the stories he wrote Jonah couldn’t provide much of an explanation. It always involved the phrase “the razor” but beyond that it was a mixed up jumble of crazy metaphors and seemingly made-up words. For example, one time Matt had asked Jonah why he stopped drinking while he was writing. It was a reasonable question. After all Jonah was a social drinker who always seemed to find himself in social situations night after night, and let’s face it, without substance abuse the world of art would be very empty indeed. All Jonah had said was, “it dulls the razor”. Matt could tell he wasn’t trying to be the mysterious artiste whose ways were ineffable to all those around him, he was actually at a loss for words, as if you were trying to describe colors to a man born blind.
For the first two novels Matt had written it off as artistic quirk, perhaps the 3% of Jonah that was madness that drove his talent. The third novel changed Matt’s judgment. The third novel was about a gay man who was killed by a couple of rednecks, and while the various culture warriors struggled over how to manipulate the story to sway public sentiment the family is trampled underfoot like the grass of a battlefield. Jonah completed the manuscript on October 1st, 1998, 11 days later on October 12th Matthew Shepherd was killed in Laramie Montana, on October 13th Jonah’s editor changed the name of the dead gay character, and changed his hometown. The editor had written it off as a huge cosmic coincidence, like the publishing of the novel “Futility” which told the story of a ship named the Titan which was similar in size to the Titanic, sank in the same general vicinity of the Titanic, and even sank from an iceberg piercing the starboard side, like the titanic. And it was published 14 years before the Titanic sailed.
The fourth novel should have tipped off even the least superstitious person in the history of universes. It was a story of political corruption, a story of a New York Attorney General named Eliot Spitzer who gained fame by prosecuting prostitution rings and eventually becomes governor, only to be discovered to be a huge fan of whores, and not in the “get them out of the business” sense of concern. Much like his fourth novel this novel dealt more with the individuals involved and how they were being used like pawns by newspapers, political players, other family members and generally anyone who could profit from the situation in any way. As a result his editor again changed the details, the name, the crimes, the city and ran with it. Jonah’s editor was either the least imaginative man in the history of the world or he all he could see was the dollar signs that an up and coming author meant for him, because he never said a word to Jonah about it, there weren’t even the usual whispers in the usual places, which in publishing circles was unprecedented because it meant no tongues were wagging at all.
Now, Jonah was sleeping for a few hours, as eventually his body forced him to do while he was writing and Matt decided to take a peek at the manuscript that Jonah had left up on the PC, after all, maybe Jonah had revealed the lotto numbers, or the winner of the Super Bowl, and Matt could make some money off of “the razor”, whatever it might be. Matt quickly hit the “home” key causing the curser to jump to the beginning of the story, and his name was drawn to the name of the protagonist: Matthew P. Mendenhall. It was his own name. And Matthew P. Mendenhall, the character as well as the person both went to and graduated from the same high school, both failed out of a state college, both were a little overweight, and both were provided for by their successful childhood friend who made it big as an author who was named Jonah.
Matt scanned the first few paged before hitting the “end” key and returning the curser to where it had been before. He dropped into the chair in front of the TV with a *whump* sound and his thoughts swirled around. This wasn’t good. This wasn’t good at all. Jonah didn’t write happy endings. If you were a major character in one of Jonah’s books you ended up dead, disgraced, living in quiet desperation, or just plain unhappy for a lifetime. This was not good.
After a few hours Jonah came in and sat back down and began his brutal creation process again. Matt sat there for a few minutes, contemplating his next move.
“I read the first few pages of your manuscript,” said Matt.
The typing stops. Jonah continues to stare straight ahead as if waking up and the words are taking a few minutes to penetrate.
“Please tell me I live happily ever after.”
Jonah turns slowly and says, “I don’t think that’s where this is headed.”
“What the hell,” said Matt, “I’ve been nothing but your friend since we were little, I stuck with you no matter what, I’d have given you anything you asked for, and this is how you repay me? You’re going to kill me, maim me, or psychologically damage me beyond repair with your voodoo novel writing skills?!?!? And for what? For the money? Is it the huge payday you’ve been guaranteed? Or is it the fame? Don’t tell me it’s something as douchey as for the sake of art. If you kill me for the sake of art I swear to Romero I will come back as a zombie and eat your fucking brains! ”
“It’s not like that,” said Jonah. “It’s the razor. I’m not doing this alone, and it is the art. Something wants people to know the things I write about. I’m not even sure I could stop if I wanted to.”
This just infuriated Matt even more, that Jonah would betray him like this and then deny any culpability. Instead of screaming Matt just said in a cold, hard voice, “I loved you I’d have done anything for you, and you stab me in the back, maybe literally, for a book contract. At least Lennon had Yoko Ono.”
And with that Matt was out the door. It was not a decision he thought through. He didn’t have any place to go, no car to head out anywhere, and just barely enough money to get a couple of meals at best. So Matt went to the bar they drank at almost every night. Jonah had an open tab here, and Matt was allowed to charge to it. So he started drinking, but instead of the beer he normally drank he started lining up shot after shot of whiskey, getting drunker and more desperate with each shot. Matt knew he was totally and inevitably screwed. Whatever Jonah wrote would come true, and Jonah wouldn’t stop writing no matter what. If Matt threw the PC out the window he’d go get another one and start over, hell, Jonah would write it on toilet paper with a pen stolen from a bank if he had to. As Matt’s mind plotted each new idea to save himself and stop the story and then discarded it the same thought kept coming to mind: “I would have done anything for him, and this is how he treats me”. Finally, Matt’s well lubricated brain came up with an idea that horrified him at first, but that phrase “I would have done anything for him, and this is how he treats me” had wormed its way into Matt’s brain and heart and made him bitter and hateful towards Jonah and eventually the idea wasn’t just no longer horrific, it seemed downright reasonable, maybe even noble.
So Matt got up from the bar, and started back towards their apartment. On the way there he used the keyless entry pad on Jonah’s car, opened the door and got out one of the aluminum softball bats and continued to their apartment. When he peeked around the corner he expected to see Jonah furiously typing away, but he wasn’t there, which was strange since it had only been four hours since Matt had left the apartment and usually Jonah would go for twelve hours at least. He started to go check Jonah’s bedroom, and on the way he smelled something vaguely peppermint as he passed the kitchen, but he was a man on a mission and didn’t bother checking it out. When he slowly opened the door to Jonah’s bedroom he could see Jonah sleeping, hear him snoring and see the slow rise and fall of his chest as he slept. Matt didn’t hesitate for a moment, anymore than a man who was defending himself from a deadly attacker would. He raised the bat and delivered a homerun swing to Jonah’s head. The bat shivered with the impact and Matt raised it again and again delivering shot after shot to Jonah’s head with major league power. By the time he was finished Jonah’s head was a pulpy, splintery mess of brain, blood and bone. The light from the streets illuminated the room just enough that Matt could see blood spatter on the wall behind the bed formed a crescent moon shape, which seemed strange to him. Shrugging it off he dropped the bat and said, “let’s see you finish that novel now you loyaless fuck.”
Matt then started towards Jonah’s PC to erase what he had already written but stopped at the kitchen as the peppermint smell hit him again. He turned into the kitchen and saw two empty bottles of peppermint Schnapps and a bottle of rum. They had all been partially consumed from their last party but Matt knew there had been enough there to get Jonah all sloppy.
“Good,” said Matt to no one in particular, “I hope his conscience did bother him.” The hard, bitter feeling he had cultivated towards Jonah felt good, almost holy to him right now.
Matt continued on to Jonah’s work room, sits down at the PC and begins to read to see if Jonah had already signed his death warrant by writing him out of the novel. He scrolled up several pages and began reading towards the end. What he read crushed his mind. The novel ends exactly as the nights events had unfolded. Matt the character had killed Jonah the character with a bat, it even included the crescent shaped blood stain on the wall.
Matt’s head spun, and it wasn’t just because of the whiskey shots from earlier in the night. This made no sense at all. Matt may not have been a literature professor but he knew enough to see the foreshadowing that Jonah had spun through the story, and he knew the Matt character was going to die, or at least end up a vegetable. This ending didn’t make any sense at all. It was like some shitty horror movie that tries to make up for its sheer awfulness by tacking on a contrived twist ending that just pisses the audience off because it makes no sense.
Then Matt remembered what Jonah had said about drinking while creating. “It dulls the razor”. And it all came together. The ending didn’t make sense because that wasn’t supposed to be the ending. Jonah had gotten bombed out of his skull on year old Peppermint Schnapps and rum that had been left over from their Halloween party last year to “dull the razor” and had written an ending the razor had never meant to be there. And it was the only ending that insured Matt’s survival, by ending Jonah’s life.
Matt put his head in his hands and began mentally kicking himself. How could he have been so stupid? Jonah had been nothing but the most loyal, best friend anyone could ask for. Jonah had carried him for years, long after everyone, even his family had given up on him. He had supported him financially, but also had never made him feel like a failure leeching off his successful friend. Everyone else but Jonah had gone out of their way to do exactly that. And now, even after Matt’s harsh, untrue words Jonah had demonstrated that he was the best friend possible by giving up his own life for his loser friend.
Three times Matt picked up the phone, once he even dialed 9-1 before slamming it back down. Turning himself in for murder wasn’t why Jonah had written that ending. He had written that ending to save Matt’s life, and if he was going to prison for murder 1 he might as well be dead. So Matt saved the manuscript, sent it off to Jonah’s editor with a typically Jonah-esque snarky comment, closed the laptop up and packed it up. He also grabbed Jonah’s cell phone and stuffed it in his pocket, grabbed the keys to the car and came up with a plan. If he could get rid of the body he could stall any investigation long enough the evidence might not be enough to convict him. The rough idea in Matt’s head was that if he got rid of the body and the evidence he could correspond with everyone who contacted Jonah regularly via email, because Jonah had worked hard to isolate himself from everyone who wanted a piece of him, and email was the least time consuming and most impersonal. His bills were all automatic withdrawals from the checking account, likewise payments from his publisher were handled the same way. That meant with no effort on his part no one would come poking around because everyone was getting paid.
Matt decided to take a chance and sneak the body out whole, he didn’t think he could take dismembering his friends’ body, so he wrapped the body in the bedsheets, shoved it into a couple of garbage bags and prayed that the halls of their apartment building would be empty between here and the service elevator. They were. Matt shoved his friend’s body into the car, drove off, stopping only to dump the body in one of the rivers that fed into the bay. And then he was gone, starting his new life given to him by Jonah.