Presentation Day (Episode 18): Tony Barz Onbecoming

10:00 pm

“Tony Barz… where is Tony Barz?” a teacher asked “present sir” an eight-year-old boy, very small for his age answered, “anytime I call you, you answer me immediately… do you understand?” the teacher said with what the students called scary eyes. “Yes sir” a timid Tony Barz answered standing on his tiny feet.

At age eight, Tony was his mother’s treasure but in the name of trying to make his son a man; his father always took him hunting to show him how to kill and deal away with fear. But what Mr. Barz didn’t know was that he was traumatizing his son by taking him to go kill those animals.

“Today we will be learning quantitative studies. Tony Barz did I say that you can sit down?” his math teacher enjoyed terrorizing him. The more timid Tony appeared, the more his math teacher picked on him in class.

Because of this, Tony studied math way more than every other subject and became the best in math in the entire school. One might say that it was because of the fear he had for his math teacher that he continued paying attention to math before any other subject and eventually ended up in a career in finance. A career that he was very good at because he was great with numbers.

“When I think about it, there are two people responsible for bringing me to this moment” Tony started. Anderson struggled unsuccessfully to get out of the handcuff while Mr. Henry was on the other side of the office pouring a class of scotch “scotch?” he asked Tony and Tony nodded.

“As I was saying Anderson…” Anderson stopped and paid attention to what Tony was saying. “There are two men responsible for this Tony Barz you are looking at, this Tony Barz with a gun” silence “you didn’t ask me who those men are” Tony asked it the way his math teacher would have.

“Who are the men?” Anderson asked with fear and desperation in his voice and Tony laughed. He laughed because he could see his math teacher in Anderson. He laughed because it was nice to see a man who was used to intimidating the weak be intimidated himself.

“The men are my father and my math teacher. Tony Barz where are you? Tony Barz stand up, Tony Barz answer the question, Tony Barz get on your knees… Tony Barz face the wall… that man never gave me a break but it was for the best because if not for him… I wouldn’t take math as serious as I did and become the best and if I didn’t become the best with numbers…. You people wouldn’t have hired me”

“How does your father come into this story?” Mr. Henry asked placing a glass of scotch on the table beside him. “My father taught me how to shoot perfectly. I can shoot a particular spot without missing, watch this” he said shooting Anderson in the leg while watching Mr. Henry for his expression.

“Don’t worry, I shot flesh… nothing will happen to you, if you don’t bleed to death” he assured Anderson and looked at Mr. Henry who sipped scotch like nothing was happening.

“Wow, I thought you were going to try to stop me from shooting him” Tony said to Mr. Henry “I don’t like snitches, so you can do whatever you want to him”

Tony Barz, walked closer to Anderson and knelt astride in front of him “I can kill you right now and even though I know that I won’t get away with it… I still want to do it, I really want to” it was then Anderson knew that he could lose his life in the following moments, so he begged like he had never begged before.