Gone (Ianthony)

One Month, Three Weeks, Two Days, and Twenty-Two Hours Before

Anthony:    

I thought and thought and thought for two whole days, and I came up with - wait for it - nothing. Literally nothing. And don't even tell me I used the wrong form of literally, because I didn't. No matter how many lists I made of every movie we could have watched on June 29th, 2003, no matter how hard I thought, literally nothing stuck out.

And I continued thinking until there was another official-sounding knock on my door, and I contemplated hiding or pretending to be asleep or shooting myself in the foot. But no matter what I did, the throat-swelling, mind-haunting truth was that the FBI was at my house again and I couldn't avoid it.

So, this time I made sure to run my fingers through my hair a few times, pop in a TicTac, and slip on a decent pair of jeans before they opened the door on their own.

Sure enough, it was the exact same agents as before - I had forgotten both of their names. They were still in their black suits and back ties, but it still angered me how they were missing black sunglasses.

"Good morning, Mr. Padilla."

They pronounced it right this time.

I stepped aside and gestured for them to come in. Neither moved.

"We're actually gonna need you to come down to the station today."

The bald guy must have realized the look of evident nervousy on my face, because he cleared his throat and spoke in a less-firm tone that was still far too intimidating for me to handle.

"Don't worry, we just have a few questions and then we'll leave you alone for a while." He tried to smile, but he looked like the kind of guy who rarely smiled. "Hopefully."

I realized after a second of breathlessness that he was trying to make a joke, so I tried to smile myself. But, I lately had also been the kind of guy who rarely smiled.

||

They had some sort of ancient-looking camera pointed at me, recording my every breath, every motion, every move I made.

I had no idea the FBI actually used those stereotypical dark rooms with a single table and single flourescent light; I thought it was just what the DEA agents in Breaking Bad used. But, over the past few weeks I had learned a lot of things I didn't necessarily want to know.

I felt like I should have been a little more scared, but honestly, I wasn't. I really was telling nothing but the truth and they seemed to be believing it. I just listened to their questions and answered with the first thing that came to my mind - which still happened to be way more focused on what movie Ian was referring to.

"Where were you on the night Mr. Hecox disappeared?"

"At home. Sleeping."

"And you were the one who found Mr. Hecox gone, correct?"

"Yeah. He left a note, but it didn't say much." Okay, that was the only little lie I told. But I couldn't let the FBI know my best friend could possibly be alive and I could possibly be on the trail to finding him. "Also, can you not call him that? Ian hated his last name."

"Alright, Ian, then. Was Ian acting strange before he disappeared?"

"He was oddly happy. Energetic. But no, nothing super out-of-the-ordinary."

"And you and Ian were very close, correct?"

"Yeah. If this is about the whole murder trial, can I just go now? No offense, but I don't think the FBI's really needed to figure out that I didn't kill my best friend. Considering I worked so hard to always make sure he was okay and took his medicine and really acted like a parent the few months before he disappeared, it really wouldn't make sense for me to kill him. I don't know how to make you believe me, but I didn't kill him. I could never kill anybody, let alone hurt anybody, especially arguably the person who meant the most to me. I really hope he is just missing and you agents can get down to actually finding him instead of accusing me of murder, but if he is dead, I'm going to miss him for the rest of my life. Can I go now?    

And it worked.

The bald guy actually laughed. "Well, pack your bags fellas. War's over. Amen."    

I smiled. And then I froze.

"Wait, say that again."

The bald guy furrowed his eyebrows. "What? 'Well, pack your bags fells. War's over. Amen?'"   

I blinked.

"Yes. That exactly."     

And right there, in that stereotypical FBI room with those two creepy agents, I had never been more grateful to recognize a crappy movie quote.

Because on June 29th, 2003, Ian and I watched Saving Private Ryan. And I remember that because I fell asleep halfway through and he woke me up at one point and said something like "dude, listen to this quote, this is great."

The quote was "Pack your bags fellas. War's over. Amen."