A Frank Disclosure

“I went into his hospital room and he looked at me with his one good eye. The other one was swollen shut. I looked right back, leaned in. and told him that if he didn’t have the money by tomorrow that I would kill him, his family, his brother and his brother’s family.”

“Did you get the money?” I asked.

“Of course,” my father responded, “he knew I’m a man of my word.” 

My father had just been more forthcoming with me than he had in a long time, telling me a story he had kept to himself for nearly two decades. The story began as most stories with my father began, silence. We had been sitting saying nothing to one another as we ate dinner. 

Having finished his meal, my father leaned back in his chair and began to speak, “What I’m about to tell you, you can’t repeat to anyone.”

He explained that a short time after Armenia’s independence, a business acquaintance of his approached him about opening a bank and asked if it would be okay to approach some of my father’s friends as investor’s.

“I said do what you want, just don’t use my name.”

With that, he left for America to spend Christmas with his family. 

A few weeks later, maybe a month, he returned to Yerevan and was approached by his friend Arsen asking if he had any news from the would-be banker. Apparently this acquaintance had approached all of my father’s friends and took their money by claiming my father was his partner. 

“I was very angry,” my father said.

“But, you’re always angry,” I pointed out. 

“This was a different level of anger,” he responded. 

My father tried calling this man up. No answer. So he called his other friend, Michael, to come pick him up. Soon, the three of them were in Michael’s car scouring Yerevan trying to find this man who had stolen their money. 

Eventually they arrived at the Hotel Armenia in the center of Yerevan. My father stepped into the hotel restaurant and immediately spotted his target having dinner with someone. 

My father tapped him on the shoulder and he turned around. Acting like everything was normal, he said hello and asked if they could talk later. 

“No. We need to talk now.”

“But Libo…” before he had a chance to finish, my father grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and dragged him back to Michael’s car. The four of them drove to Michael’s house in complete silence. When they arrived my father directed this man to sit in a chair.

“What did you do with the money?” my father asked.

Before he had a chance to respond my father began to beat him where he sat. Over and over. Blood spilling on the man’s shirt, on the floor, over my father’s hands and clothes. Arsen made a move to leave. 

“But I stopped him. I pointed at him then at the man in the chair,” he went on “This is what you wanted right? You wanted me to take care of it? That means you sit there and watch.”

The beating continued. Arsen and Michael watching from the other end of the room. My father at his most terrifying. 

“His face was so swollen, it was twice its normal size.”

Michael, Arsen and my father proceeded to drag him back into Michael’s car. He complained about blood staining his seats, but my father gave him a look and he dropped it. They drove back to the city center, to the History Museum of Armenia, and drug this man up the steps.

They stripped of his clothes and tied him to one of the columns using an extension cord. Naked and bloody, this man stood in the cold misty morning. 

“Eventually a police officer found him and took him to the hospital before the city woke up. My only regret was they didn’t see the sign.”

Written on his body, using his own blood, was written: This is what happens to thieves.