The final bell rang and I left to go meet my best friend Keith. Keith and I were in high school together, I was a junior, and everyday we went to the gym together after school. Today we were going to the new gym down the street that just opened, Lifestyles Family Fitness. We both had free week passes at the gym that had a name on the back, Wes. We walked in and gave our passes to the lady at the front desk, she introduced us to a salesman, it was Wes. Wes was a thin, blonde haired, friendly looking guy, probably about 30 years old. He introduced himself to us and took us over to his desk. As we talked to Wes, I could tell that he was very talkative, a good salesman, but he also seemed pretty interested in us to. Maybe this was just him being a good salesman, or maybe he was just a nice guy, it was too early to tell. After Wes talked to us about pricing for the gym, he gave us a tour and showed us all the gym amenities. He talked to us some more, and then we began our workout. After Keith and I finished our workout, we stopped by Wes’s desk on our way out, very exited to sign up in the future for a membership at Lifestyles.
The rest of this week, we used our free membership at the gym, and each day, Wes was there. We talked to him everyday as we came in, and it wasn’t just nagging us about signing up, it was just friendly conversation. As our free membership trial came to an end, Keith and I talked to our parents about buying us memberships. My parents wouldn’t buy it for me yet, until my report card came out. They would then buy me a membership as a reward for my good grades. The last day of our free membership, Keith brought his mom in and signed up for a membership. Now that Keith was signed up, Wes wanted to sign me up; he knew we worked out together everyday. I told Wes about my situation with my parents, that I would sign up for sure, but not for about 7 weeks. This is when I discovered how nice a guy Wes really was. He knew me well enough, and could tell by my physique at a young age, how important working out was to me. So in response to my desperate situation, and knowing how much we enjoyed working out together, he set up a plan for me. Wes told his superiors that I had a box at my work, to get people to sign up for membership trials. Since I was promoting for them, I got a free membership for a month, though I was not actually promoting for them, nor did I have a sign up box. Now I could continue to go to the gym with my best friend everyday. After the month was up, he gave me another month for free, and as promised, after the seven weeks, I finally came in with my mom and bought a membership from Wes. For months Keith and I went everyday to Lifestyles and we talked to Wes almost everyday. He always came up to us while we were working out in his free time to say hi. He was very social and was always in a good mood.
One day I was hanging out with Keith in his driveway around dinnertime, and his phone started ringing. He answered it and I could hear a woman’s voice come through the phone. I recognized the voice, it was Keith’s mom. I could hear her ask him if we had heard about Wes. This was a random, strange thing to ask, so immediately I was very attentive. “No what happened?” Keith replied. “He was murdered,” I heard her say through the phone. Wow, it was like someone just punched me in the chest. I never had someone I knew die before. At that moment I realized that people I know and see everyday can die, that sounds like an obvious thing since everyone dies, but it never hit me until now. After Keith was off the phone with his mom, he told me Wes had been murdered, but I already heard that. I don’t know if he said it to inform me, or if he could tell I already heard, and just couldn’t help but repeat it out loud, as the fact sunk in. We both stood in silence for a minute, and then discussed it in disbelief. I went home after that, and looked it up online on the news website.
I found the case online, as I read up on multiple websites, I learned that Wes, being the nice guy he was, had indeed died out of generosity. There was a man that came to lifestyles looking for a place to stay the night. Wes was kind enough to tell him he could stay the night. The man slept there for 2 nights, and then stabbed Wes 18 times, slit his throat, and covered his body with a comforter. He then stole his car, and ran to Texas. He was soon found in Boerne, Texas in Wes’s stolen car.
That is the story of my friend Wes, one of the nicest guys I’ve ever met, put his job on the line giving me 2 months of free memberships so I could continue doing what I love and working out with my best friend. He let a man looking for a place to stay, stay with him for a couple days, and then was killed for it.
After this had all happened, this experience educated me, and exposed me to a few new things. First off I had never had someone I knew die. This is part of growing up, and part of life. It happens, not usually in such a brutal way but you must learn to get over peoples deaths, and don’t forget them, but be stable and recognize them but learn to live without them. This event also taught me as a younger kid that you can’t trust everyone, not all people are good people. Some people you can trust, but you can’t let your generosity lead you in the wrong path. I also learned that bad things can happen to good people. You have to be careful in life and take care of yourself, because even if you’re a good person, you can’t think that things like this wont happen to you or someone you know. You can’t think that oh that only happens on TV, or that it wont happen to you, because you don’t know, it could happen to anyone.
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