Don't tell me Paul Clifford has got no heart when I can hear it beat out loud...

Mama, take this badge off of me, I can't use it anymore. It's gettin' dark, too dark for me to see. I feel like I'm knockin' on heaven's door....

Ring. Ring.
“Hello...yes mummy.....ok I’ll take care of it...yes yes don’t worry, it will be done....yes they are coming this weekend....I told you things are looking up for me....I’m fine, I’m doin ok....no no thank you, I don’t need money....yes I love you too....bye now.

Click.

The curtain closes slowly.....

Mama, put my guns in the ground, I can't shoot them anymore. That long black cloud is comin' down, I feel like I'm knockin' on heaven's door. Knock, knock, knockin' on heaven's door....

When the curtain closes completely a shotgun blast is heard from offstage followed by a loud thud on the floor....

When I was nineteen years old I worked as a greeter at a quick lube oil change place. One of my co-workers was an awkward immense man named Paul Clifford. He wore the same red sweatshirt everyday, he put cotton in his ears, and he couldn’t say the word synthetic. The boss used to make fun of him and purposely put him in situations where he would have to use that word. I got my lumps from the boss as well (one day he called me a big fuckin ape because I was always in the way)....but what I feel guilty about is that I would be nice to Paul when me and him were alone and then turn on him and join in on the torment when we were around people. And when he was gone for the day I would make fun of him to my co- workers, but what I failed to notice is that the co-workers and boss didn’t care about him when he wasn’t around....only I did, I wanted to keep the attention off me and my insecurities. And it was just so easy to torment him, he would talk about how he hated the mother of his child or how his mother was a bitch, the more funnier incidents included him taking the air hose and then taking the nozzle and putting it up to his head saying he wanted to kill himself with it....
About four years later I saw him. He was legless and in a wheelchair. He was working as a usher in the movie theater. Myself, Wifey and my son were going to see the new Winnie the Pooh movie. I talked to him for a few and found out that his legs got severed at the knee when he was helping a man change a flat tire and he had his legs out in the middle of the highway. He said we should get together, I said that was a good idea...I haven't talked to him since.