To Be or Not to Be: A Modern Hamlet Retelling
Copyright 2014 Eric Turner
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To Be or Not to Be: A Modern Hamlet Retelling
The ringing sound of a telephone awoke me from a rare deep sleep. I blindly swung my hand over the end table next to my bed in search of the phone. After being unable to locate it, I opened my eyes and let them adjust for a few moments to the darkness in the room. My bedside alarm clock read 3:42. Way to early to be awake. After what had to be the sixth ring, I found my cell and offered a raspy “Hello?” into the receiver.
“Mr. McKey?” an unfamiliar voice asked on the other end.
“Yes?” I responded. There was a long pause. “Can I help you with something?” I asked, feeling agitated at this reluctant late night caller.
“I have some information that you may be interested in.”
I waited for him to say more but he didn’t. “Can I hear it?” I asked, my voice clearly indicating my annoyance.
“I can’t tell you over the phone. It’s too risky. Meet me in Veteran Park in an hour.”
“Are you kidding me?” I was not in the mood for this. “Do you really expect me to meet up with a complete stranger at four in the morning just because he asks politely?”
“I completely understand, Mr. McKey,” the voice responded calmly, not at all disturbed by my yelling. “But this is something you definitely want to hear.” The softness of his voice sounded sincere and relinquished some of my fury. However, I was still about a half second away from hanging up. “It’s about Mr. Hamilton’s death. The police are wrong. I know the truth about it but I can’t say more unless you meet me.”
That got my attention real quick. He proceeded to give me directions on an exact location to meet him and then we ended the conversation.
I was wide awake now and knew that I had to meet up with him although the whole situation still sounded sketchy. Of course simply by mentioning George Hamilton’s name did not prove that this man knew anything. Everyone in the city knew of George’s untimely death. I could have been arranging myself to meet with a mugger for all I knew. Not that I had much money left to steal - most of it had already been lost following other equally unwise decisions. But the idea that this man claimed to know something that the police didn’t about my former boss’s death intrigued me and I would not have been able to live with myself if I had passed up the opportunity to find out the “truth” that he spoke of. So, perhaps foolishly, I prepared to go meet this stranger, with no form of protection to bring with me.
The eeriness of the park wasn’t helping my feelings at all as I walked toward the meeting point. I had been second guessing my decision throughout my multiple subway rides to the park and at this point had begun to completely regret it.
When I arrived at the designated spot, I saw a pale, wiry man sitting alone on a dimly lit park bench. He looked almost as nervous as I did. He was staring at the ground without moving but as I approached he looked up at me, issued me a greeting, and asked me to sit down. I apprehensively took a seat on the other end of the bench.
“I know this whole situation must be strange to you. I can understand that so I’ll get to the point so you can get out of here as soon as possible. You can choose to believe me or not. That’s entirely up to you. However, I know as a fact, and I would swear it on my grave that Mr. Krause was directly responsible for Mr. Hamilton’s death.”
“What?” I quickly asked, surprised by this sudden accusation. Mr. Krause had one of the highest positions in the company and became the new CEO following George’s death.
“I know this all sounds surprising and out of nowhere, but I’m telling you the truth. I do maintenance work for the property manager of your office building. I was in the parking garage earlier in the night of Mr. Hamilton’s car accident and overheard a conversation between two men. They were discussing how Mr. Krause thought it was unfair that despite all the work he had put into the company in his many years of service, that Mr. Hamilton’s son was next in line to become the CEO. The only way that Mr. Krause would be named CEO was likely if either Mr. Thomson’s son was no longer around, or if his death happened while his son was still too young to take over the company. His son must be in his low 20’s now, right?”
“24 next week,” I answered back. Henry Hamilton was my co-worker but also my best friend. I had been in the same school as him from grade school straight through college. My close relationship with Henry was what had originally got me placed in his family business where he worked along with both of his parents. It had always been assumed that Henry would eventually take the head spot in the company, but since he was still inexperienced it was recently decided that Clyde Krause, a Senior Vice President, would take over instead.
“Yeah, that sounds about right,” the pale, ghostly stranger continued in his emotionless voice. “So these two men were apparently under direct orders to tamper with Mr. Hamilton’s car in such a way that it would spin out of control shortly after he got on the road. As you know he has to take a busy highway on his way from home, which made this all the more dangerous. Neither of the men wanted to do it from what I gathered but they were frightened of what would happen if they didn't go along with the orders.”
I didn’t know what to think of all this. It had come out of nowhere and I didn’t want to believe that George had actually been murdered. At the same time, at terrible as it sounded, it didn’t seem so farfetched. Something about Clyde always seemed sinister. “Why’d you go to me? Why didn’t you go to the police?”
“I called the police and left an anonymous tip as soon as I heard this conversation, but it must have been too late, or they didn’t act on it. And even now, as you can see, I don’t have any actual evidence to show the police. They already deemed that it was just a freak car malfunction and no foul play was involved so I don’t know how much my word against anyone else’s could work. And besides, I don’t wanna mess with these guys. He obviously has no problem killing people and there’s no way I’m getting involved in that.”
I didn’t answer at first. I still didn’t know what to say about this. “Well thank you for letting me know. I don’t have much to offer, but what do you want in return for this information?”
“Nothing. I just overheard it and I couldn’t go without saying something to someone. Maybe I shouldn’t have but hopefully you can do something useful with it. I don’t know. I think I just needed to get it off my chest.” The sun was beginning to show signs of rising above the horizon, and there was an orange tint to the park. The man looked at his watch then rose to his feet. “I need to go now. You’ll need to decide for yourself what to do with what I’ve told you.” With that, the man walked away and disappeared in the distance.
I really didn’t know what to do with this information. By gut instinct told me that this stranger was telling me the truth. So like I always do, I brought what was on my mind to Henry. I didn’t wait long. I gave him a call as I walked out of the park and then headed directly to his apartment. This probably wasn’t the first thing Henry wanted to hear in the morning but it was already weighing on my conscious.
“Hey, what’s up Steve?” Henry asked as I walked into his apartment, a residence that was ten times as nice as m
ine. Unsurprisingly, he looked like he had just woken up. His face was unshaved and his eyes were cloudy. “What brings you here this early in the morning?”
I told him he better sit down and that I didn’t know how to tell him something like this. I wasn’t even sure if I should tell him. But I slowly recounted the story of my early morning encounter with the stranger and all that he told me. I watched Henry’s face closely as I spoke. It noticeably got more and more angry.
“I’m gonna kill that son of a . . .” Henry exclaimed, pounding his fists together.
“Easy there,” I said quickly, trying to calm him down. “There’s nothing to say this is true. This is a total stranger speaking without any real facts. I never shoulda mentioned it. I’m sorry about this.” This was making me feel terrible. I really should have thought before I came over here and told him a story like this.
“No, no. This actually makes sense. You don’t know Clyde like I do. I’ve known him for years. There was always something about him. A lot of hate. He’s as power hungry as they come.”
As he was sitting there fuming my eyes wandered around the room. Suddenly I caught a glimpse of something in a partially open drawer that surprised me. “Since when do you have a gun?”
“What?” Henry asked, a little puzzled. “Oh, that. I’ve always had that since I moved to the city. I’m pretty sure you already knew that.”
“Yeah, I guess that sounds right,” I replied, suddenly remembering when he first got it. It had just never been an issue before. Seeing the weapon in the room of the normally peaceful Henry, a moment after he made a comment about wanting to kill Clyde was unsettling. “Just don’t get any ideas. Alright, man? Let’s not jump to conclusions about this whole thing. I probably shouldn’t have said anything because it is probably not even true.”
“A bet it is though. And I’m gonna prove it today. I’ll just go up to him and start talking about it with him. I think his reaction will show if he’s responsible or not.”
“You’re going to base this all on a reaction?” I asked.
“No, I’m basing it on a believable story you told me about Clyde, who I’ve known for many years. He has always been extremely jealous of me and my dad. I’m going to get a reaction out of him to prove it to you.”
I definitely shouldn’t have told him about this now. In light of all that he’s been going through he’s probably looking for answers no matter where they come from. Of course he could be right, but I didn’t like how quickly he was ready to accept it as fact.
“Perry, is Clyde around?” Henry asked Perry, Clyde’s personal assistant later that day when we got to the office.
“Yeah, he’s around. But he’s probably busy. Don’t you think you should be too?” It was a patented answer from Perry. I never liked him much. He was always trying too hard to do whatever Clyde wanted. He seemed similar enough to Clyde in his conniving ways. He also came across as very fake in that he acted different when he thought Clyde was around and when he knew he wasn’t. With that, Clyde walked in. He was a tall, dark haired man who commanded respect by his appearance and swagger alone. For the first time I felt nervous just being in his presence.
“How’s it going, Clyde?” Henry asked.
“What did I tell you about that?” Clyde responded coldly. “You are to refer to me as Mr. Krause from now on.”
“You were serious about that? You’re not going to let your sudden and totally unexpected rise to power go to your head already, are you?” Henry asked in a joking manner, but I knew better what he was really trying to do.
“Yes, I was serious about that. It’s time you start showing me the respect that I deserve in this position. I am the head guy here, and it’s time you accept that and act accordingly.”
“Yeah. Well, speaking of tampering with cars. . .” I nearly spit my coffee across the room when I heard that. “I’ve heard that two guys tampering with a car can do a lot of damage. And I’ve also heard that if it’s the right two guys they can make it look like there was no tampering done with the car and then those two guys will think they got away with it when they really didn’t.” Oh god, I thought he was going to be subtle. Henry paused and simply stared at Clyde in a way that said that he knew everything. That’s when I saw it. Clyde, a man who never shows the slightest sign of weakness, noticeably became nervous and flustered by what was just said. A bead of sweat was forming on his brow and he looked unsure what to say. Henry’s stare was intimidating enough that Clyde had to look away briefly.
“I’m not sure what you are babbling about,” Clyde said after a brief silence, regaining his composure. He once again looked like a fearless corporate leader. “But if your mind isn’t all here and you aren’t capable of working, feel free to take the rest of the day off.”
“No, I’m doing just fine. In fact talking to you has made me feel much better,” Henry said with a smile, glancing briefly at me. He had seen Clyde’s reaction and he knew that I had too. It probably would have been undetectable to anyone who wasn’t looking for it. But I was looking for it, and I instantly knew the stranger’s story had been true.