tired and clueless

I don’t know if I should be writing this down. It makes it feel so much more real. I don’t want to think about it any longer than I have to but at the same time…it’s this sick, sacred thing I’m just going to have to live with from now on. A turning point. It’s already real. It’s not like I’m ever going to forget and it deserves to be remembered. He deserves to be remembered.

That man I ended.

The first time I’ve taken a life. (“Taking” implies I wanted it, like I had some use for it or something. What do I do with this now?) The first to my knowledge, at least. For all I know there could be collateral deaths I’ve been responsible for without actually seeing them happen. Somebody having complications from my gas bombs or getting caught up in an explosion in our wake…I shouldn’t be surprised by that possibility…Even so, I hope not.

But…this was my first up close, at the end of my bō. My hand.

We all knew it would happen someday. Master Splinter warned us it could when he first gave us our real weapons. We’re ninjas. We live dangerous lives, meet dangerous people. We’ve known all along it could come to this. I was just hoping I could last a little longer without resorting to it. I was the last one here without lifeblood on my hands. I was relieved. I was proud of that, until tonight.

Not that I judged my brothers for doing what they had to do at the time. We all did our best to avoid it (even Raph, despite all the big, brash talk, all the anger. He may get so mad he wants to hurt people sometimes but that’s all it ever is: hurt them, as bad as they hurt him or any of us.)

Funnily enough, when the time came for my brothers, after seeing Sensei, they each came to me afterward. I don’t think any of them know the others did that too. But they each wanted to go over it with me, every detail from every angle. I guess they wanted me to talk some sense into them—logistics and plans B, C and D that wouldn’t have worked out, to convince them or maybe just reassure them that there really wasn’t any other way. That’s me, the cool head, the voice of reason.

This shouldn’t feel so senseless to me. I understand how and why it happened Too passive. I understand how and why I did it.

But now there’s no one set apart for me to go to, someone with some kind of distance and detachment from it. We’re all marked now and we tell ourselves it’s justified because it has to be. Or how else are we supposed to live with ourselves?

Raph did his best though. As soon as he saw the body, he made a point to turn me all the way around so I wouldn’t have to keep looking at him. (It felt like I was standing there over him for hours. Looking back at our timetable now, it could only have been a couple of minutes. Time is an illusion.) He spun me around and dragged me a few yards away and hugged me so tight, I couldn’t breathe. But I don’t think I had breathed once since he stopped breathing anyway.

It’s like he was trying to crush or crowd out everything else in the world. Like maybe if he squeezed me tightly enough, he could…I don’t know. Mold me back into the person I was a few minutes before. Or maybe he was just trying to prove he still loved the person he found waiting for him.

“You did what ya had to do, Donnie,” he said over and over, because that’s what he needed to hear from me when it was his turn.

And he’s right. I picked over our every step, my every step with a fine-toothed comb just like I did for each of my brothers. I’ve mapped the whole night out in bullet points. How it came to this. By my calculations there wasn’t any other more effective way to stop it.

But I can’t help thinking maybe if I had thrust my bō at just a slightly different angle or speed, if my leading hand wasn’t turned that way, if I had just a few more seconds to think or a few millimeters to spare, I might have—

My calculations are concrete. Clean, concise, clinical. Numbers don't lie. Mass and motion are irrefutable. So was my motive. 

There wasn’t any other way.

I wish having that in writing made it feel more real. My head can keep saying it. Meanwhile my heart keeps believing I should just camp out in the bathroom and throw up until I’m actually as empty as I feel.

I haven’t eaten anything since. I don’t know why. It’s not like that does anyone any good so neither would throwing up. I’m already empty.

As empty as his eyes.

I don’t know what his name was. It’s not like the Purple Dragons go out of their way to carry ID—not authentic ones anyway. I didn’t even have time to check whatever his fake one said before we were hauling shell out of there. I’m almost glad. Rifling through his pockets for his wallet right after I…

It would have felt like robbery. Desecration.

You’re not supposed to move someone with a broken neck.

I did what I had to do. I know that! And it’s not like he was an upstanding citizen!

But he was a person.

A bad person.

But a person regardless.

A person who could have other persons somewhere out there who’ll miss him.

Like Mikey would if it had been him. The man I ended tonight was going to bash Mikey’s head in with a crowbar. Can’t forget that little detail either, can I? I may not be able to say it was self-defense but doesn’t fraternal defense count for anything?

It does in Raph’s book. He was the first of us to end someone. Stop downplaying it with softer words, say what you mean. Sit with it.

He was the first one to kill. For us. 

And it counts in Mikey’s book, obviously, or he wouldn’t still be here. Leo’s too. None of them looked like they were judging me. Who would they be to judge? We’re all in the same boat now.

Our little lifeboat…bought with others’ blood, floating along on others’ blood. Didn’t need that mental image.

Raph put up that strong, self-assured front like I said. Trying to get me on solid ground and away from the carnage as fast as possible. Come to think of it…I don’t know if I can even call it “carnage”. Blunt force trauma. I didn’t spill much blood but metaphorically it’s still on my hands. When we got home, the second I stepped out of the truck, Raph practically ordered me to hit the shower first. I didn’t see how it would help when there really wasn’t much to clean up.

Somehow I still stayed in there so long, I ran us out of hot water. Sorry, guys. None of them are going to complain because they feel obligated to walk on eggshells around me for a little while (Ask me how I know; that’s how I felt when it was them in this position) but I’m sure their showers were pretty miserable.

Master Splinter sat with me longer than he should have had to. I should have been saying all of this to him, to get it all out. Maybe he’d be a voice of reason I could believe, if I can’t believe myself. But I couldn’t find the words or maybe I just didn’t want to say all of this to his face and risk seeing him ashamed of me.

Rationally I know better, I know he knows I wouldn’t have done it if it wasn’t necessary. He might even be grateful, right? That I was protecting our family? Or maybe I was just scared to see him feel pity for me like the others do when I may not deserve it. I don’t know. But he wasn’t going to force me to speak if I didn’t want to so we just sat there in silence while he held my hand. He was so warm.

We just left the body on the ground in an alleyway. Has he gone cold yet? 

Leo’s been really quiet. But it’s not the judgmental or accusing quiet, more…unsure. Worried. No surprise there. I think he’s wondering how I’ll cope with it. This journal entry is how, Leo, if you’re reading this—which you shouldn’t be because this is private, thank you very much. But if you are prying, at least you know I’m not bottling it all up. And I hope you also know I will come to you if I need to, just like you came to me when it was yours. You don’t have to offer out loud for me to know your door’s open. You had your hand on my shell the whole drive home, that was the classic Leo “I’m here” gesture worth a thousand words. Thank you. Master Splinter made the same offer right before I left.

I might just take one of you up on it if I don’t start feeling better soon.

I say that as if I’m sick, like this is just a bug I’ll get over by the end of the week.

Master Splinter would/will probably say it’s a sickness of the soul. Our souls probably aren’t meant to carry stuff like this. “Stuff” being…other souls gone sooner than they expected, thanks to us. Me. It’d probably be more worrying if I didn’t feel this way.

I still wish I didn’t have to feel it.

I wish Mikey didn’t either. I wish it didn’t have to be done. More than anything I wish he didn’t have to watch. The way he looked up at me…

When Raph pulled me away, even when he was talking right next to my ear, telling me I did the right thing, I heard Mikey still on the ground behind me, crying.

I made him watch. I made him cry. I saved his life, made a split second exchange for someone else’s without another thought, and he cried about it. 

Honestly that was almost worse than him judging me. I don’t know if he was crying for me or for that man who died or both…Maybe it was just the shock of it all. His first kill was a complete accident, after all. Still a kill but it probably felt different than this. He’s probably blaming himself for the fact that I had to go that far for him. He shouldn’t. It’s not like he asked for someone to go swinging a crowbar at his head and he didn’t have to ask for someone to save him. He’ll never have to ask.

The thing is, no matter how hazy and cold and horrible I feel now, I still know I’d do it again. For him, for any of them. So fraternal defense counts for something in my book too. Red in my ledger. A promise, a warning. In a few more immortal words from Raph: You mess with my brother, you mess with me. I wish none of us had to make good on that promise but that’s just the life we lead.

Maybe if that man had led a better life of his own, it wouldn’t have ended so fast. Maybe I wouldn’t have been forced to end it but from my point of view, Mikey only had a matter of seconds. Even my brain doesn’t move that fast; I just had to react. Your action, my equal, opposite reaction. You swing at him, I swing at you. You put us both in an impossible position, man. Thanks a lot.

I shouldn’t say that. That’s victim blaming, isn’t it?

But if he really had gotten that swing in on Mikey, he’d probably be laughing it up with his Dragon friends about it right now. (If Leo and Raph let him get that far. If I hadn’t done it one of them either of both of them would have…) If he’d gotten away with it, he’d be hailed as a hero. Hun would give him a nice pat on the back, maybe even a raise on their next job. I wouldn’t put it past any of them to throw an end of life party. Crack open some cheap beers and toast to the grisly, bitter demise of Michelangelo Splinterson. I bet there are plenty of Dragons who don’t even know his name. Any of our names. They only know us as the enemy.

He was the enemy. The enemy who was going to split my brother’s head open! Happily. He was smiling right before I struck him. He died happy. Does that matter at all?

A stupid, sick and twisted, smiley no-name goon. That’s how he deserves to be remembered. I hope it was just the shock that made Mikey cry. A man like that didn’t deserve any of his tears after what he could have done to him!

He doesn’t deserve mine!