Entry 87. The third time

“Oh! It’s you.”

If Fred Masterson had pulled the trigger at that moment, those would be remembered as my last words, and the historical conversation would be ablaze with speculation about what I meant. Did I know Fred before that moment? Was I aware that an assassin was afoot? Why didn’t I act more surprised? Conspiracy theorists would seize upon it as evidence I knew all about the plot and perhaps even faked my own death, choosing to live out my remaining days in peaceful obscurity.

But somehow, my lack of surprise and seeming acceptance of the moment made Fred Masterson pause, and those would not prove to be my final words.

If my calm kept me alive for a few seconds, I would strive to stay calm until we could get the barrel of the fun pointing somewhere other than the center of my chest.

“Here’s the thing, sir,” I said as cheerfully as I could – which was more cheery than I ever imagined I could be in those circumstances. “You can’t kill an idea. In fact, if you martyr a man who has an idea, you make the idea stronger. If you kill me here, the nonviolent revolution will continue. The commonwealth will go on.”

The assassin hesitated for only a moment. I saw his eyes glaze over with confusion, but they sharpened again almost at once.

“You may be right,” he said with conviction, “but they’ll have to go on without you.”

I had to admit, he had a point. I prepared to die.

Fortunately, John Hemlock and Buffalo Springsteen realized what his answer would be, and they had already sprung when he fired.

They barreled into his body together just as the weapon went off, knocking his aim aside so that instead of blasting a hole in my heart, he blasted a hole through my left shoulder. John Hemlock had saved my life for the third time, this time with the help of my beloved.

I had barely an instant to stare stupidly at the jumble of bodies in front of me, and then the pain receptors in my shoulder connected with my brain.

I have to say, I do not wish to be shot again. Ever.