Authors: Matthew Crow
“Well I’ll be!” he yelled as the waitress placed the drinks on the table. “You’re part of local folklore. I been in this town nearly three weeks and it’s all
anyone seems to want to talk about. They say that money’s ill-gotten gains. Though we’d hardly be in a position to judge now would we buddy?”
Michael slapped Ed on the back to little avail.
“Don’t ask don’t tell. I do an honest day’s work and to my mind I get paid an honest day’s wage. Whatever goes on behind the scenes don’t matter to me.
It’s as if it doesn’t exist.”
“Well that is one mighty philosophy you got there my friend. So, how much you earn?”
“Enough to get by.”
“Putting some money away?”
“A little.”
This is a lie. Having survived for so long on next to nothing I am now perturbed as to what exactly I am supposed to do with excess income, and as such the majority of my salary now goes into a
savings jar which I store beneath the loosest floorboard in my bedroom.
“So you’re no good for a loan, huh?”
“Not unless it’s for a down payment on a coffee. Even then I’d be needing interest.”
At this Ed made a brief exhalation, which I took to be an embryonic laugh.
“How many people working on that site there Jonah?”
“Nearing sixty.”
“And they pay you cash?”
“So far.”
“Well that’s a lot of dirty money passing hands,” said Michael. “A lot of dirty money.”
“You working?”
“Not as yet. We have ourselves one or two avenues we’re looking to explore though.”
“Where you based?”
“Wherever I lay my hat as the saying goes. This is a nice town Jonah, plenty of opportunities it would appear.”
“Don’t be fooled. Took me best part of a year to find a job and even then I’m being paid to move dirt onto more dirt. And believe me when I say I use the term
‘paid’ loosely.”
“Now now, you’re too modest. Besides, I’m sure that between us we’d be able to enterprise, as the saying goes. What do you think?”
“Too busy with what I got, but thanks all the same.”
I left little more than half an hour later. Michael’s voice rose higher and higher with each passing inch of his glass. He tipped that beer down like it was water until
his roving eye became a glass marble in a pop bottle, spinning and twirling in the scorched socket of his face.
“... and then this one time Jonah and I, phewey I don’t even like to say it as much what with ladies in earshot and all, we found us some women - well, I say women... ”
As he continued with his stories I made an elaborate show of securing my wallet in the vain hope it would indicate my imminent departure, though experience had told me that such subtleties were
wasted on Michael.
“Oh now don’t be getting all coy Jonah,” said Michael, feigning concern. “Ed here’s in no position to judge. I’m just messing with you. It’s sure nice
to have someone to waltz through the past with; especially given every other face must be near enough dust by this point. Say did you ever find out where they buried the boys?”
“Can’t say it was a subject I researched. Best leave them in peace. We were different people back then.”
“You can say that again.”
I made to leave but Michael’s hand shot forward and grabbed hold of my arm. Ed inched forward gently and I felt the echoing barrel of a handgun press into the base of my kneecap.
“Just hold your horses there friend,” Michael hissed. “You took half my face and all my best years, now you’ll show us some civility or things are going to get real ugly
in here, you understand? I decide what goes and what doesn’t. Way I see it I got a royal flush and you’re not even in the game. I’m playing win-win, if you catch my drift, so sit
the fuck down.”
I did as instructed and Michael removed his arm from mine. The gun remained in place.
“Now why you got to go and upset everyone like that Jonah? We were having us a nice evening. Good company, good conversation. All we wanted to do was chat.”
“And we did.”
“Nah, we didn’t chat. We skimmed the surface. We touched base, if you will. I was hoping we could talk the way we used to.”
“Those times are gone.”
“Not entirely. God damn Jonah this isn’t you. Digging for a living. You got class boy, you got brains. And I... I got balls. Together we could have anything we wanted.”
“Didn’t work out so well the last time.”
“We were boys. The benefit of maturity and so on and so forth. We made mistakes and boy did we learn from them. I bet there isn’t one night you don’t wake up in cold sweats
remembering what you done? Remembering that feeling in your stomach when you got up to see just what a little finger action can do to a room... to a face.”
I didn’t respond.
“A town like this is just crying out for villains Jonah, and we’re the best of the bunch, don’t you forget it. No leopard ever changed its spots the way I see you making out
like you’re some God damn reformed character. We watched you, all sad eyed and slumped shoulders like the wronged gentle giant of the lowlands. It as good as doubled me over laughing Jonah,
really it did.”
“People change.”
“Not for long. The past stays with you whether you like it or not,” he pushed himself further across the table, his face protruding like a Bloody Mary emerging from a mirror.
“I could remind you the way you did me, if you think it’d make any difference?” At this, with a rested elbow on the table, he lowered his hand towards my face, pointing the tip of
a switchblade towards the corner of my eye.
I shook my head and stood up. Ed returned to a more upright position within his seat and looked at Michael as though awaiting instruction. Michael appeared strangely calm, though I could tell
that his skin was only just containing the rage that rolled like lava beneath his strange, unreadable surface.
“I’m real sorry for the way things turned out Michael. But you’re part of me that doesn’t exist anymore, like it or not. I wish you all the best, and I wish things could
have been different. But they’re not. You see I’ve nothing of interest to you. Least you can do is leave on good terms.”
“Well,” he said as I walked towards the bar, my back to him the whole time. “I can’t say I’m not let down Jonah. I saw big plans for you and me. Big plans. Still, I
might remain within earshot for the time being, in the hope you do change your mind about reinstating our alliance. Opportunities are abundant for two boys like us out there. And if there’s
one thing I had plenty of practice of it’s waiting. It’s an art you and I are both black belts in, huh buddy?”
“Goodbye Michael.”
“Until next time, friend,” he said as I mounted the stairs and left.
I walked home in the dark along with a bottle of scotch that I had purchased at the 24/7 liquor store whose main custom came from swatted barflies still thirsty after closing
time. I no longer feared the worst. I knew it was to come. Michael’s warning was characteristic and prophetic. I never saw a boy so concentrated on revenge as Michael when he set his mind to
it. Soon after we became acquainted he was short-changed in the sort of bar where customer service was not considered paramount. After a brief exchange of short words and minor blows we were
expelled from the premises on the end of the owner’s foot. Three weeks later Michael noticed said barman queuing at the bank. When they found him his jaw had been ripped so far down he is
still, to my knowledge, being fed through a tube. And though never so much as encroached as a subject, the fact remains too that the twin daughters of Michael’s second foster family went
missing shortly after his seventeenth birthday. Had they ever been found they would be celebrating their thirtieth birthday this year.
I sat and sipped whisky by the side of the road. Main Street was a glowing hum to my left; the suburbs closed and dark behind me. As I drained the life from the bottle two police cars trailed
indigo smudges straight past me into the heart of the town centre.
I stood up and made my way home.
With all the love of a heavy heart,
Jonah
Dear Jonah,
Sometimes I forget to wake up at all these days. I always was a heavy sleeper, whereas Eve slept the way stupid people read; skimming the surface, barely touching the bare
essentials before declaring herself done and moving onto another, more worthy task. As if by being observed going through the motions she might somehow absorb at least a fraction of its intended
purpose. “But, Verity don’t you get bored?” she’d say to me, fussing and clanking about the trailer as I pressed my face back into the pillows.
“Don’t you ever get tired?” I’d usually try, in an attempt to initiate one of her monologues during which I hoped to nod back off.
“Hell no! Life’s too short for rest. There’s a whole world out there needs discovering. Besides, I couldn’t even if I wanted to. Princess and the pea, that’s me.
The slightest thing just knocks me for six.”
In truth until I had Eve in my life the majority of the time I slept because it seemed to be the only time anything happened of any interest. My imagination would take hold as
I sunk into oblivion, and away I’d go. It was my waking hours that appeared lacklustre. I’d attend work, I’d pay my bills, and then nine times out of ten I’d cocoon myself
deep within the down and cotton, the springs worrying beneath me as I drifted into the unknown. For the seasoned napper - or the outright narcoleptic, which I sometimes feared I was becoming - to
sleep during daylight hours was the greatest luxury of all. Nothing thrilled me more than the artificial chill of a darkened room, and the way that sunlight would peer slyly beneath the black
square of closed curtains as if spying on some godless act.
This morning I was woken from such a slumber by a gentle knock at the door to my room. I went to answer and was faced with Rosalita - one of the child maids - holding out a package.
“Someone leave this reception, miss. For you.” She walked away without further elaboration. I watched her disappear along the corridor and down the old wooden staircase leading to the
vending machines and the reception area. I went to open the box that had clearly been tampered with. I suspect many packages don’t reach their intended recipients at this particular hotel, so
for all I know you could have joined the FBI by now Jonah and I’d be non the wiser. Either way this little gift seemed to have survived the hazing process intact, so I carried it inside.
I placed the box on my bed. Excited, I have to say, that it may have been a keepsake from your good self. Another carving, perhaps, or something equally thoughtful.
Alas, it was not meant to be. On opening the box I was elated. The posies were a dusted pink and the roses not much darker. A tad old fashioned for my liking, but the sentiment
remained the same. And their perfume! It shot up and darted about the room like a new kitten. Amidst the damp of the room that fragrance, those colours... it was my first taste of life in
weeks.
Only it wasn’t life Jonah. Quite the opposite in fact.
I suppose that’s always been my trouble. I zoom in, closer and closer, until I like what I see. And at first I did like it. But context maketh the gesture, and I suppose even flowers need
context. It was only after a moment of bliss that I realised what exactly I had been sent.
It was a wreath, Jonah. No two ways about it.
I managed to make it to the bathroom before I threw up. Then, true to form, I dug deep within my blankets and went back to sleep.
Back at the cafe J became a more regular fixture. Hovering over uneaten mounds of food until it was just he and I, alone at last. “They work you too hard in here,”
he’d say as I turned the sign on the door to ‘closed’ whilst allowing him to sit for as long as he liked.
“Only as hard as I deserve. Besides, I don’t mind so much.”
“In it for the love of the game, huh?”
“In it for the diversion. Besides, we got one or two regulars who make it all worthwhile.”
“Well aren’t you on the charm offensive tonight?” he said as I poured him a complimentary coffee and refilled my cup.
“So, what’s your story then?” he asked one evening.
On nights like these, when my services were not required at the club, I’d let him sit for hours and hours. He had a sense of loneliness about him. Beneath the staunch veneer which could,
by a more callous soul, have been read as ignorant, I thought I sensed a man just crying out for company. And so I’d let him sit and talk. J was a natural talker. Selective, always. But a
talker nonetheless. Though I would hate to make these nights sound in any way selfless. I was more than happy to sit there opposite him, taking in that handsome face of his, drinking his
half-truths like a hungry dog.
“You know mine by now,” he said. “Hell I done nothing but bend your ear since I met you.”
“I don’t mind. I like it. I know my story, anyway, yours is a lot more interesting.”
“Not to me. Truth be told there’s not much more I’d like than to get to know you more.”
I felt my stomach flutter but forced myself to maintain the icy indifference I had adopted since meeting J. All that hard work was certainly not going to be sacrificed at the altar of one smooth
line, that was for sure. “Well I’m an ongoing project.”
“Aren’t we all?”
“Why don’t you help me out with some headers, and I’ll see if I can’t fill in the blanks?”
J smiled and shifted in his seat as though about to take aim. “Alright. Where did you grow up?”
“Here and there.”
“The game only works if you play properly.”
“Forces baby. I never lasted more than eighteen months in any one town.”
“You ever make it abroad, you know, growing up?”
“No siree, I’m the product of these fair soils.”
“Alright. College?”
“See name-badge and swollen ankles,” I said drolly.
“Good point.”
“Live?”
“Nearby.”
“Favourite food?”
“Cigarettes.”
“Earliest memory?”
“My father.”
“Doing what?”
“The bare minimum.”
“Favourite colour?”
“Blue.”
“Drink?”