Gents Journey
Helping Men become the Gentleman they deserve to be. This Podcast is part inspiration part motivation. We discuss what it takes to be a Gentleman in the 21st Century. We also talk about how to deal with the internal and external battles that life throws at us. So come be apart of the Gents Journey!
Gents Journey
Death of Peace Of Mind: The One Who Broke the Frame
What happens when the detective becomes the evidence? In this haunting noir episode of Gentleman's Journey, we step into a rain-soaked Chicago where Detective Grayson finds himself at the center of a disturbing case—his own photograph circled in red, hanging pristine above a murder victim in a frame shop where every other frame lies shattered.
As Grayson pursues the killer known as "The Greenbrier," he's forced to confront the versions of himself he abandoned along the way—the rookie with ideals, the lover who couldn't stay, the man who built a life out of cigarette smoke and silence. Mirrors refuse to show his reflection, mysterious music plays at precisely the right moment, and photographs of his past self appear in places they shouldn't be. Is he investigating a murder, or is someone investigating him?
Through this gripping noir narrative, we explore how we all frame ourselves—the social media personas we craft, the stories we tell that make us sound better than we were, the memories we crop until they become fiction. Each frame becomes a cage that traps a moment in time, preventing growth and authenticity. And eventually, something or someone comes to break the glass.
The episode culminates in five powerful reflections to help you identify where you've framed yourself into corners and practical applications to break free. Because peace of mind isn't found in keeping your picture perfect—it's found in shattering the glass, sweeping up the pieces, and stepping out of the frame before someone else decides to do it for you.
Ready to discover which version of yourself you've hung on the wall? Listen now, and remember: you create your reality.
"True mastery is found in the details. The way you handle the little things defines the way you handle everything."
Hello and welcome to the Gentleman's Journey podcast. My name is Anthony, your host, and today we are in episode five. We are halfway through this series already. It's crazy. We're halfway through the death of peace of mind and this episode is the one who broke the frame. So let's go ahead and let's get into the cold opening.
Speaker 1:Chicago, november 1987. Rain has a way of making the city look honest it strips the paint, soaks the alley, smears the neon until nothing's clean. Tonight it falls steady, not a storm, just a curtain thick enough to drown the sidewalks in reflection, thin enough to hear every car tire hissing through puddles. Grayson pulls his colt tighter as he steps out of the car. The collars are already damp. Smoke clings to him even when the cigarette's out the way. Guilt clings to a man who doesn't know if he's a cop or the suspect.
Speaker 1:Ahead, the crime scene glows in sick color A storefront with shattered windows. Once a framing shop, capri frames and portraits. Now just another stage for a message. The neon sign above the awning buzzes blue. Half the letter's dead, so it only reads FRMS.
Speaker 1:Inside, glass crunches underfoot, the body's in the back room, propped in a chair, a woman, this time mid-forties blonde, streaked with gray, dressed, like she left for work an hour ago and never made it home. But it isn't the wound that chills, it's the frames, dozens of them shattered, splintered wood, jaded glass photographs bleeding with blood where they've been scattered across the floor with blood where they've been scattered across the floor, some cracked clean down the middle, splitting faces in two. Some burned along the edges, curling inward like they tried to retreat, and nailed to the far wall, hanging perfect where everything else lies, broken as a single frame. Inside it, a photo of Grayson Younger, hair, darker, smile, sharper. A press photo from the paper, maybe Circled in red ink. Black stands in the middle of it leather jacket, zipped high hair, damp boots, squeaking against the glass. She doesn't look at the body, she looks at him. You're in the picture, gray. He lights a cigarette slow, inhales deep. Picture Gray. He lights a cigarette slow, inhales deep, keeps his eyes on the corpse instead of the wall.
Speaker 1:Old press cut. He mutters. Doesn't matter if it's old, somebody nailed it up like a warning. She steps closer to the wall, runs her gloved hand along the frame. The glass inside isn't cracked, it's clean, untouched. Frame. The glass inside isn't cracked, it's clean, untouched. You ever think you're not chasing this guy, she said quietly. You ever think he's chasing you? Grayson exhales smoke long and slow and says nothing.
Speaker 1:From the street outside, faint, through the drizzle, drizzle. Car radio drifts in the police, every breath you take. Every breath you take, every move you make. The song floats through the broken windows. This chorus sharp and it's irony. Black hears it too.
Speaker 1:She sees, she glances at grayson. She sees him, somebody. It's got a sick sense of humor. He doesn't argue, he crouches near the body. The victim's hands are folded in her lap, but not naturally placed Between them, clutched tight as a photograph. The edge is torn, corners stained red. The edges torn, corners stained red.
Speaker 1:He eases it out. It's of Murray alive, smiling, her hair pulled back, head tilted toward whoever took the picture, her eyes fixed on the lens, like she believed it could hold someone steady On the back, written in the same red ink that circled his own photo. Don't forget what you framed. The words gnaw at him. He stands, smoke curling from his hand and looks again at the wall, at his own face, circled in red. Every other frame is broken, splintered ash, only his hangs, untouched, perfect, waiting from farther down the block, muffled but clear, a jukebox kicks on in some late night bar. Simple minds. Don't you forget about me. The lyrics bleed through the rain. Don't you forget about me, about me, don't, don't, don't, don't. The chorus repeats, worked by distance but sharp enough to cut. Grayson exhales smoke, eyes narrowing at the photograph of himself. Black's voice breaks the silence. Gray, what exactly did you frame? He doesn't answer Because in the hum of the neon and the hiss of the rain and the chorus of the song that won't die, he swears. The glass and the frames is whispering his name over and over, like the city's, reminding him of something he buried.
Speaker 1:Part one the House of Frames. The precinct feels heavier after nights like this. The rain follows you and clings to your coat, pools on the floor until the janitor mops just pushes it around in gray streaks. The glass from the frame shop crunches faint under Grayson boots as he walks across the bullpen like he carried it back with him, tiny reminders stuck in his soles. The board waits.
Speaker 1:Four bodies before now five Eli Mathers, victor Ramos, mary Blake, Victor Hayes and tonight's victim, sarah Lintholme, owner of Capri Frames. Her photo pinned up, her face staring out hollow in the harsh flash of crime scene photography. Her red thread snakes threw out all of it Matchbooks, ious, ledger pages, photographs and nailed in the center of the grotesque gallery is the picture pulled from the wall at the shop Grayson's face younger, cleaner, circled in red. It burns hotter than the rest. Black shrugs off her jacket, water dripping from the leather. She tosses it over the back of the chair and steps closer to the board. She doesn't look at the victim, she looks at him. You gonna tell me why your picture was hanging above a corpse tonight.
Speaker 1:Grayson lights, a cigarette, the scratch of the mask. Sharp and quiet, he drags deep exhales towards the ceiling. Old press cut. Could have pulled it from a file in newspaper clipping. It means nothing, bullshit. Her voice isn't loud but it cuts. She steps closer, finger-jabbing towards the photo. This isn't random, gray, somebody framed you Literally. You keep brushing it off, but tell me why you, why? Now he stares at the picture, his own eye staring back, younger, sharper. He doesn't recognize the man in the frame, not anymore, I don't know. Maybe it's a message he says finally, no, maybe about it she snaps. Question is what is it telling us, or what is it telling us, or what is it telling you?
Speaker 1:Across the room, a detective's desk radio hums low, the dial isn't turned right, static, cutting in and out. Then the song settles on U2, with or without you, the chorus links into the bullpen. Bitter and soft, with or without you, with or without you, the words cling to the air like smoke, wrapping around the silence. Between them, black eyes, narrow Feels fitting, doesn't it? Grayson doesn't answer, he just drags on a cigarette and lets the lyrics haunt the space. Later, when others clear out, he stays.
Speaker 1:The board looms in the dim light. The glass over the pen photos reflect him, warped, broken by tape and thread. His face stares back from the circle press shot, but in the reflection it isn't still. It shifts. It tilts For a heartbeat. The reflection's mouth moves. He blinks. The glass is still, but the smoke from a cigarette curls across the board in shapes that look like letters Paid. He crushes the cigarette out hard, the ash smearing across the tray. The board stares back, waiting.
Speaker 1:Part 2. The Versions we Leave Behind. The rain doesn't quit. It's past midnight and the city is soaked to the bone. Steam rising off manholes like the pavement itself is trying to breathe.
Speaker 1:Grayson doesn't go home. He walks instead down alleys slick with oil, past shop fronts shuttered and tagged, past bars leaking music. Until the night. His cigarette burns low smoke curling around his face until his eyes sting. Every puddle he passes throws his reflection back at him, warped, fractured, never the same twice. One reflection looks younger, one older, one stranger. None of them look like the man standing here.
Speaker 1:He steps into a doorway to light another smoke. The match flares, catches the brick and its glow. On the wall above the dumpster is a photograph pinned with a rusty nail. It's him again, different this time. Not the press photo from the board, this one's candid. It's grainy. Him in a bar, half-smile hand on a glass. Someone caught him off guard Across the bottom in red ink. This is the version you killed. His hand tightens around the photo until it creases Back at the precinct. The board looms larger than it should. The faces, pinned up, stare back harder than before.
Speaker 1:Black leans against the desk, hair tied back now, cigarette balance between her fingers. Her eyes are steady, locked on him. You ever think about the versions of yourself you left behind? She asks. Grayson excels smoke, slow and deliberate. Every man does Not like this. She says, nodding towards the board. This isn't memory, this is evidence. Someone's collecting your ghosts. He doesn't answer. His eyes drift back to the wall, to the photo of himself, circled in red Across the room. Another detective curses at his walkman. Smacks until the tape starts spinning again, faint through the static, the sound carries talking heads.
Speaker 1:Once in a lifetime, the chorus drifts in mocking and you may ask yourself well, how did I get here? The lyric hangs in the room like a dare. Black hears it too. She smirks bitter. Good question. Grayson crests his cigarette out, doesn't rise to the bait.
Speaker 1:Hours later he's back in his apartment. The light flickers when he enters, buzzing like incense caught in glass. On his kitchen table sits another frame he didn't bring it here. Inside a photo of Miri, not the only one from before. This time she's blurred, caught mid-turn, eyes shadowed, expressed and unreadable. Across the glass, smeared in ass, are the words you framed her absence. The bulb above him pops, darkness swallows the room and in the dark the record player arm drops. Vinyl crackles from the speakers, faint but clear. Once in a lifetime picks up again. Same as it ever was. Same as it ever was. Grayson stands frozen, cigarette burning down between his fingers because for the first time, he isn't sure if the music is real or if it's coming from the inside of his own head.
Speaker 1:Part three the tape in the machine. The evidence room never sleeps. It just hums in a low fluorescent misery, waiting for someone to open a box and wake up. Whatever is inside? Grayson sits at a long metal table, cigarettes smoldering in the ashtray, the air smells like paper and mildew. The weight of cases stacked higher than the truth ever climbed Tonight. It's a tape, no label, no date, just a strip of masking tape scrolled with two words in red ink. Play me Black lingers by the doors, arms crossed. Expression sharp Could be a trick, could be nothing.
Speaker 1:Grayson slides the cassette into the machine. The plastic clicks, the reels spin Static. First, then a voice. Not Hayes, not Ramos, miri Walter, if you're listening, mouse, mary Walter, if you're listening. His chest locks tight. The words warble, fracture, as if dragged through water. You said you'd come back. You said. You said the job was temporary. The sound cuts static, eats itself halfway through the sentence. Then her voice again, closer this time. But you framed me out of your life, hung me on the wall like a memory you could walk past.
Speaker 1:Grayson's hand hovers over the stop button. He doesn't press it. The tape clicks and skips. A man's voice cuts in his own, younger, stronger. I don't know how to be seen. I only know how to disappear. The words gut him. He remembers saying them once To no one, maybe to her, maybe to himself. Black hears it too. Her head snaps towards him. That's you.
Speaker 1:Grayson drags in a cigarette, keeps his face. Stone Smoke hides. The tremor's hand could be doctored, but he doesn't believe it. The tape warps again. Music bleeds through the static, faint but unmistakable. You too, with or without you. The chorus drifts ghost-like. I can't live with or without you. The lyrics slither into the silence like a knife. Grayson excels smoke through his teeth. The song fades. Her voice returns. You said you'd frame me forever, but forever's just another word for empty. Then silence. The rules spin, but no sound comes. Black finally breaks it. You want to tell me how your voice ended up on a tape marked for you. Grayson doesn't move, doesn't answer. Cigarette burns down to the filter, forgotten. The tape keeps spinning and silent. Then, sudden and sharp, another voice fills a room low, cold, certain. This is the version you can't erase. The wheels snap, the machine dies. Grayson yanks the cassette out, slams it on the table. The label is changed. It doesn't replay me anymore. It reads you're next.
Speaker 1:Part four, a mirror without a face. Grayson's bathroom mirror has always been cracked. A spiderweb in the corner that splits his reflection into fragments. Tonight it feels worse. He leans over the sink, water dripping from his hair, cigarette smoke curling into the glass. His eyes are bloodshot, jaw tight tie still hanging loose from the precinct.
Speaker 1:The apartment hums with the sound of the fridge, the tick of the pipes, the kind of silence that waits to be broken. But it isn't his reflection that unnerves him, it's the absence. The crack has widened. The right side of his face is missing, not shadowed. Missing Like the mirror. Refused to record it. He wipes at the glass, the smear doesn't change.
Speaker 1:Behind him, the record player stirs, the arm drops. The vinyl spins no one touched it From the speaker, faint but sharp. The police wrapped around your finger plays. Suddenly you consider me, the young apprentice. The lyrics twist through the apartment, mocking. He doesn't move, doesn't look back. The reflection still shows nothing where his face should be.
Speaker 1:The flashback hits like static Mary's apartment, her standing in the doorway, arms crossed, eyes narrowed. You hide and play in sight, walter, even when I look at you, I don't see you. You're already gone. He blinks. The memory collapses Back in the bathroom. The mirror's worse. His whole head is gone now, shoulders fading too, just snot lines, smoke filling the hollow. The record skips, the chorus repeats warped, I'll be wrapped around your finger. Wrapped around your finger. The words echo until they don't sound like lyrics anymore. They sound like a warning.
Speaker 1:Grayson grips the sink. The porcelain is cold and yielding. Then, faint, across the fogged glass, letters begin to etch. Framed, the word scratches itself across the mirror, each line sharp, deliberate. His reflection doesn't move, but the letters keep carving no face. The bathroom's light flicker and it goes out. Darkness swallows the room.
Speaker 1:Grayson's monologue, the one who broke the frame. There is a weight that comes with photographs. People think they're memories, but they're not. They're accusations. A photograph doesn't care if you've changed, doesn't care if you're better or worse. It traps you at the moment. The shutter fell and it waits, silent, patient, until someone holds it up and asks is this still you? And you never know how to answer, because the truth is you've killed a hundred versions of yourself since then, and the camera knows it.
Speaker 1:That frame shop wasn't just a crime scene, it was a gallery of ghosts. Every broken picture on the floor was a version someone wanted to forget. Every shard of glass was a reminder that forgetting isn't free. Then there was my photo, circled in red. I've tried not to think about it. Pretend it was just some old clipping pulled from a drawer nailed up as theater. But when I saw it on the wall hanging clean while everything else lay broken, I knew better. But when I saw it on the wall hanging clean while everything else lay broken, I knew better. It wasn't theater, it was a mirror.
Speaker 1:Black keeps asking me what it means. Why me, why my face? She thinks I'm hiding something. She's right, but it isn't evidence. I'm hiding it's absence. It's the space where my face should be. I looked in the mirror tonight and saw nothing staring back, and for a moment I wasn't scared. I was actually relieved, because what terrifies me more than losing my reflection is recognizing it.
Speaker 1:There was a time when I thought framing people was just paperwork. Cases, evidence, reports, put their name in a box, tack their photo to the board, call it an order. But order is just another frame, a way to hang a lie on the wall. So you don't have to look at the truth. And the truth is I don't know which version of me is still alive the rookie who thought leverage meant justice. The lover who promised Mary he'd stay. The detective who thought cigarettes and silence could bury memory, I don't know. Or the man staring at photographs of himself nailed up in crime scenes, circled in red ink, like someone's keeping a scrapbook of every ghost I've ever left behind. Or maybe that's what this whole thing is not a killing spree, not an investigation. A scrapbook, a collection of frames. And I'm not the detective looking at the wall, I'm the exhibit.
Speaker 1:And the worst part is a frame doesn't care if you move. It doesn't care if you regret. It only knows the version of you that stood long enough to be captured. And maybe that's the punishment Not death, not guilty or even guilt, but maybe being forced to look at the picture of yourself you killed years ago and you never buried it right. So here's some questions that keep me awake. How many versions of me are nailed across walls in this city waiting to be found? And when I find the last one, what face will be staring back at me? I am the green briar. I do not take photographs, I erase them. Frames are lies, boxes built to hold versions of you that shouldn't exist anymore. Smiles that were mass Promises that were poisons. Photographs are not memories, they're prisons, and I am the one who breaks the glass.
Speaker 1:Hayes kept ledgers, ramos kept IOUs, mary kept songs. But the woman at the shop, she kept faces trapped. She trapped them, hung them neat, as if freezing time could protect it from the truth. But nothing survives the truth. When I shattered those frames, I wasn't killing her. I was setting her collection free. Every broken photograph was a ghost released. Every splintered edge, a reminder that versions of you hide behind glass will one day cut you open.
Speaker 1:She thought her walls were safe. She thought her frames were strong. She was wrong. The moment she hung a photograph, the debt was sealed and I came to balance it. Understand the code. A frame is not a memory. It's a cage. The version of you inside it will always and I mean always die. If you pretend otherwise, you owe and debts always come due.
Speaker 1:That's why I leave the photographs, not as trophies, as evidence Proof. I see every version of you you tried to keep alive, proof that I'm the only one willing to break the glass. You stare at your reflection, waiting to recognize yourself. You stare at old photos, searching for the man you think you are still, but your reflections are smoke. Your photographs are lies. The only truth is the cut, the moment the glass shatters and the frame collapses. That's when you will finally see. That's when I arrive.
Speaker 1:The detective asks questions, the partner watches, the city hums with music and static, but underneath it all, you will feel me in the rain on the window, in the neon bleeding on the glass, in the way a song plays just when it shouldn't. That's not chance, that's not madness, that is control, my control. I am the Greenbrier and I keep the frames broken. Oh man, you know, I know I say this, but I just have so much fun doing this series. I just, I really do, and I hope you guys are enjoying it.
Speaker 1:So let's get into my reflection here, okay, you know, tonight wasn't just about broken glass and blood on the floor of a frame shop, right. Glass and blood on the floor of a frame shop, right. It wasn't just about photographs nailed to walls either, like evidence in a gallery of ghosts. It was about you, because here's the thing whether you want to admit it or not, you framed yourself before you hung up versions of who you were and told the world hey, this is me. Smiling faces on social media, posted portraits in living rooms, stories you tell about the past that make you sound better or cleaner than you were. But here's the part you might have missed. Frames are cages. Every time you put yourself inside of one, you kill the version outside of it and sooner or later someone or something comes to break the glass.
Speaker 1:Right, the frames weren't about Sarah Lindholm, they were about the lies we preserve. She was just the curator. You know, the real subject was the man circled in red, the detective himself. Right, the message was you can't hide from the versions you've abandoned. You know the music wasn't background. You know, when the police played, every Breath you Take floated. You know, through the rain. It wasn't just irony, it was surveillance. The killer was telling you, I see you. You know the photograph of Mary wasn't just irony, it was surveillance. The killer was telling you, I see you. You know the photograph of Mary wasn't random, it was proof that grief can be framed too, that absence can be hung on a wall until it becomes the only art you own. You know, the mirror without a face wasn't a hallucination, it was a warning.
Speaker 1:If you keep framing lies, the reflection will vanish, because eventually you won't know which version of yourself is real. So ask yourself this question right, what version of you did you frame and hang up for the world to see, and is it the one who looks successful? Is it the one who looks happy, the one who hides the crack behind a practice? Smile, right, because the problem is that you just didn't build the frame. The problem is what you kill to fit inside of it. So here's the thing you can shatter the glass yourself, admit the frame is a lie, speak the truth. You've been avoiding, right, or wait for someone else to do it. And when that day comes, it's not going to be pretty, it's not going to be nice, it's going to cut, okay. So as you think about that, let's get into our reflections now.
Speaker 1:Reflection one what version of yourself have you trapped in a frame? Think of a photo, the story, the mask you keep alive because you're afraid to let it die. Here's how you can use this in application. Right, this question. Write down the version of yourself you're protecting, you know, with that paper. Shred it, cut it up, ball it up, throw it away, Whatever you need to do, burn it if you need to, and speak aloud and say that this isn't you anymore. And I'm going to tell you, because I've done this plenty of times it's going to suck and it's going to hurt and it's not going to be pretty and you may do the ugly cry, but you need to do it, okay.
Speaker 1:Question two what memory have you polished until it becomes fiction? You know, frames lie, they crop the edges. What memory did you crop to survive? Revisit that memory, write the uncropped section or version, I should say, in brutal detail, then decide to either archive it with honesty or destroy it so it stops owning you. Number three when are you faceless? I should say, where are you faceless in your own life? The mirror showed nothing, because the man staring back had no identity left, right. Where are you hiding so hard that you've erased yourself? This could be at your job, in a relationship, it could be. Maybe you've bathed yourself so much in hobbies because you're hiding from something. Those are great examples.
Speaker 1:Now, number four who do you keep hung on your wall? Whose photograph, literal or mental, still defines you? Whose absence have you framed so tight it became a shrine? Here's the application Take it down, return the object, delete the file, or, if you must stay, or if it must stay, I should say right beneath it. It does not own you anymore. Okay.
Speaker 1:And then, number five what truth do you feel, or shatter of the frame you live inside? You already know it. That sentence you won't say, that secret you won't face. That choice you won't make because you know it will break the glass. Write it once, speak it once, let the fracture, or let it, I should say let it fracture the lie. So here's my closing thought when joy, division, atmosphere plays in the background of your life, you'll know it. Walk in silence, don't walk away in silence, because silence is its own gallery. It frames you without asking. It nails you to the wall and says this is who you are. But you don't have to wait for the green bar to break the frame. You can do it yourself, because peace of mind isn't found in keeping the picture clean and perfect. It's found in shattering the glass, sweeping up the pieces and stepping out of the frame before someone else decides to.
Speaker 1:So you know, guys, I got to share something with you really quick. You know, getting back into this, you know, know, especially after my injury or whatever, has honestly been one of the best things I think ever in my life, and I just want to take a time to shout out to every one of you that emailed me, checked in on me. That messaged me, and I still get messages from you guys checking on me and I just it just means the world to me and I just wanted to shout out to every single person out there. I wanted to say thank you for doing that. So, as we're talking about that, if you want to message me, you want to talk about this episode, this series.
Speaker 1:There's a couple different ways. First way, if you look at the description on the podcast, it'll say let's chat. You click on that. You and I can have a conversation about this episode, this series, the 14 other series that are out there and the 270 plus episodes, right? Second way is going to be through my email. My email is anthonyatjentsjourneycom. And then, last but not least, you can always go to my Instagram. My Instagram is myjentsjourney. Also, too, if you want to support the channel or the show. It's so simple and so easy. This costs you absolutely nothing.
Speaker 1:Review the show, please, and thank you and send this to somebody that you know needs to hear this, right? I mean, yes, this is a very. You know we're doing a lot of stories now on that kind of stuff, but you know, like the last part we go over how this affects you. There always is going to be an educational, self-development part to all my stories, because that's what I love. So give this to somebody, send this to somebody that you care about and let's help them through this, because I know 2025 has not been great for some people and we're all here to help you. Been great for some people and we're all here to help you. Okay, so again, guys, from the bottom of my heart, thank you so much for your support, thank you so much for checking on me and, as I always say as we close off here, remember this you create your reality, take care.