But this latest incident was a killer, literally. It all began when I met Monalisa and fell in love. We both liked doing stupid stuff together. It was a shared nonsense and funny way to express ourselves. So when I mentioned to her that we should open a YouTube account and become famous, she was all for it. Man, if we could get 300,000 followers I'd throw a party and we both would be rolling in the cash! YouTube makes it possible for anyone to become famous and get rich.
We started off by doing dumb stunts. I'd climb a tree, find a weak limb, crawl out on it and then fall on my ass as Monalisa filmed it. Then we would slice together some scenes from our life together and interweave into these dangerous antics. Fame is only a few months away. That's what we thought. Our YouTube channel was our path to making it to the big time. Others have done it. Why not us?
I told Mona we needed to up the ante. Really do something spectacular. I owned a .50-caliber gold Desert Eagle pistol. What kind of stunt could we pull of with a gun, I thought. Then it hit me. Shoot myself.
I found a really thick book at the library, about an inch and half thick, and decided it could work. I placed the book on a chair in the backyard and shot a bullet into it. Sure enough, the bullet penetrated a few inches but failed to go all the way through it. The size of the hole was huge, some pages torn all to hell, but mostly the bullet just came to rest inside. So my plan was going to work. I told Mona about my idea. She at first thought I was nuts, but when I showed her the book with the bullet hole in it I was able to convince her it would work. Followers on YouTube would go ballistic, I told her. Just think about the views we would get!
Here was my plan. We set up two cameras to record different angles of the stunt. I would hold a book, at least an inch and half thick, up to my chest. Mona would shoot me with my gun, point blank, about a foot away. We record the entire stunt and post it to our YouTube channel. What a laugh we would have. Watch our Follower numbers go through the roof. Man, I am pumped!
So, here I am now, wondering what the hell was I thinking. Everything was working great. The cameras were all set, Mona had the gun. After a couple of false starts (Mona was a little afraid at first), she raised the gun and pointed at me. I tightly held the huge dictionary to my chest, a Merriam-Webster behemoth almost two inches thick. I told Mona, "Do it. It's okay. I've tested it. The bullet will not go through. Trust me." Mona hesitated for moment then smiled. I love her laugh, and knew this was going to be great. I was excited to be sure, but confident. She raised the gun and pointed the barrel at dead center, right at the middle of the thick leather cover of the dictionary. And fired.
They say when you die you don't remember much about the loved ones you leave behind. That would be too sad for dead people. It would be much better if we were immediately transported to some beach, with a beautiful blue sky and bright sun, a real paradise, a place where you were present in the moment, and didn't think about the other place, the place you just left. But I know different. When you die a senseless death, for no reason at all, you are just left alone. Empty. When that bullet hit my chest I knew I was a goner. Now I'm dead and don't know why.
(Pedro Ruiz, 22, died this last Monday evening, when his girlfriend Monalisa Perez, 19, shot him in the chest. The stunt was filmed for their YouTube channel. She was pregnant with their second child.)
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| Pedro Ruiz III, and Monalisa Perez. |
