Family Business

FAMILY BUSINESS

A short story by Vyvyan Kinross

Contact: vkinross@bluyonder.co.uk

STEVE'S STARTER FOR TEN

Things are not looking too good, even for an optimist like me. Here I
am sitting on a narrow bed in my cell. It is a ten foot by eight foot
space covered by puke green tiles. A central light in the ceiling,
protected by a wire guard, and a metal door are the only items I would
describe as features. The room gives back a slight echo whenever I
cough or even shift my position. I feel like I've been buried. High up
on the reverse wall to the door, a small window lets in some natural
light around a frame that is designed to look like it isn't bars. But
even I know better than that. From the passage and beyond filter the
sounds of Darien's finest as they go about police business, fighting
crime wherever it threatens to overrun this respectable old New England
town. I'm still in serious pain. My shoulder may be broken from when
Mario hit me with the wrench, but I'm not sure yet. I took a glancing
blow on my temple, too, which feels like it is on fire. Added to that,
my back and legs hurt from the scraping they got on the gravel after I
went down; some skin is missing and the pain comes in regular waves,
like surf against rocks. Not to whinge or anything, but I feel like
shit. They've told me that the doctor is on the way now, so maybe I can
get a painkiller soon. We'll see. The slamming of distant doors and
casual shouted remarks amongst the uniforms are doing nothing to help
my headache. And closing my eyes offers no relief. Do that and I enter
a world of violent, fitful images which sit like ugly and unwelcome
squatters that won't leave. I am replaying the tape all the time, to
try and remember what happened and to get my story straight so that
when they put on the thumbscrews I don't trip myself up and dig a
deeper hole for myself. That would not be smart. How bad can this be?
It think it depends on Dennis and Mario. Between them, they could stiff
me or put me in the clear. One thing is for sure, none of us is walking
away from this just yet.

Let me go back for one minute and tell you how this nightmare came
about. I've been staying with my friend Cameron out on Pear Tree Point
Road, near the Beach Park. He has a small, two-storey timber framed
house, set back from the road there in about half an acre of ground.
The house is only a few miles from Darien Station, where Cameron leaves
his car every week day and commutes into New York city, about forty
minutes away. A very convenient, best of both worlds deal - countryside
and city, two for the price of one. Just what a budding insurance
broker needs to stimulate his brain and give him some quality thinking
time in between talking premium adjustments. I don't have a career, as
such. I am considering my options. That's really why I came to the
States - to travel around, check out the American way at first hand and
see if I can't get a little New World ambition to rub off on me.

When I hooked up with Cameron in New York three months ago, things were
looking somewhat precarious. I was staying in a walk-up apartment in
mid town with two people I didn't really know - I'm sure one of them
actively hated me for my lack of a visible schedule - and my money was
almost gone. I wasn't having a lot of luck on the work front, either.
Without a Green Card, I couldn't seem to get people to take me on, even
on a casual basis. When Cameron suggested I go out and stay with him in
Connecticut, I leaped at the chance. He painted a seductive picture of
a rural idyll, still close enough to the city so that I could get back
to the bright lights, but far enough away to generate a different take
on life. I accepted his offer. Why not? It was easy, after all, and
I'll plead guilty to the charge that I may have been opportunistic at
the time. I was running out of options in New York, in danger of
becoming a freeloader, and doing that a long way from home with few
close friends or money in the bank can be a lonely business.

I quickly got to like Darien, although it has the feel of
self-righteousness about it, a certain satisfaction with itself that is
a little too close to smugness for me. I like my surroundings to have a
bit more edge. Darien was sold by the town real estate brokers as
combining all the cultural and business advantages of a big city with
the natural beauty of small town New England and Long Island Sound.
Crass, but in a way that summed it up quite well. The only problem
about the place is that you have to be rich to appreciate what it has
to offer; it doesn't really make room for the down at heel or the
outsider, for me the main sources of oxygen that bring a place alive.
There is no hidden underbelly in Darien, no social problem that needs
sweeping under the carpet, and therefore no great bite to it. Here, you
either take care of business or you ship out somewhere else. The
inhabitants of the town, mostly well off types who work in the City in
the week , expect something more than unemployment lines or crack dens
for their local taxes, and why shouldn't they after all? If they wanted
to live in a combat zone, they'd have apartments in the Bronx. Actually
Darien didn't officially exist until 1820, but it goes way back before
then. The first planters took title to the land in 1640, when the New
Haven colony bought from the Indians a tract of wilderness where the
Rippowam River met the waters of Long Island Sound. The Indians in the
Stamford area at this time were a tribe of Siwanoys, peaceful types by
all accounts. These 'South People' lived in small villages of bark
covered wigwams and spent their time fishing, hunting and tending their
corn fields. And trying to dodge musket bullets when they disagreed
with social policy decisions is my guess. Guide books never do say just
what happened to the South People. Maybe they headed north, towards
Canada. In any event, I haven't come across any South People during my
stay in Darien.

The eastern boundary of the Rippowam purchase was Pine Brook, or
Goodwives River, as it is known today. Four years after their arrival,
the colonists felt they would need more land for the growing town and
the families bought another tract of land, between Pine Brook and Five
Mile River, from old Piamikin, chief of the Roatons. So the settlers
were on the march again and the native American was stuck with four
coats and a plug of tobacco to mark the passing of this priceless land
from old to new master. These days Darien is still predominantly green
and heavily wooded, with large well constructed homes and carefully
cultivated orchards, fields of corn and lush grazing that stretch down
towards the waters of the Sound. This landscape, with its seductive
beauty, is laid out beneath the majestic sweep of big skies and tended
with due care and attention by the upstanding citizenry. Darien
presents a portrait of affluence and sophistication that you don't find
out west in the same way; maybe it is the prevalence of old money and
professional people that set the tone. The town may look over its
shoulder and acknowledge where it comes from but don't get me wrong, it
doesn't live in the past. It is a busy place. Come off Merrit Parkway
at Exit 37 and you are right near Darien's Town Hall on Renshaw Road.
If you need to do business with the Town Government, here is where you
do it, and do it straight. That's what Dennis tells me, anyway.

I need to explain about Dennis. But first, allow me to go back a bit.
I lived quite happily in Cameron's house spending some lazy days
messing around and getting myself acclimatised to the neighbourhood. I
soon learnt to work the bus system and travelled down to the water, the
shopping malls and into town to check out one or two lively bars and
have a bowl of chowder and a beer. During this time, I carried out a
few jobs for Cameron's friends who lived round and about, house
painting, gardening, that kind of thing. So finally I established a
cash pipeline of sorts, quite precarious, but no questions asked. It
was a very different existence to the City, much quieter, and I started
to be able to listen down into myself again during the empty days and
catch my breath. It was hot too, with the furnace blast of high summer
creating sunbeams to cut through the shade in the pear and apple
orchards, and a gentle wind to sigh and rustle the leaves and shape
tracks in the long grass of the meadows; I revelled in the feel of the
sun on my skin and the sense of freedom and release that always gives
me. Us Anglo Saxons have to take it where we can get it is what I
always say. One early evening, I am lounging on the front porch having
a soda when Cameron's car pulls in and parks up in the yard, leaving a
small cloud of white dust to hang suspended in the drowsy air. He
climbs out, all sweat, loosened tie and crumpled jacket, still
clutching a briefcase and a newspaper. I can sense the turmoil of the
City just by reading his body language.

He clatters up the wooden step, waves briefly at me and disappears
inside to change. Before long, he too is sitting in a chair on the
porch, transformed by cut off jeans and a sweatshirt, flexing his bare
toes on the handrail to invite the soft breeze to soothe away the
footprint of the city. "By the way, Steve," he says. "At the station
this morning I bumped into Dennis Machin. You know, Dennis who lives
opposite, down the way. The garbage guy." He takes a slug of beer and
belches. "Dennis? The bin man?" I respond. "You mean the dark haired,
wiry dude with the motorbike and the good looking wife?" "Yep. That
Dennis. I asked him if he needed any help, you know, on the round. The
garbage round. I told him about you, how you are looking for cash jobs.
He's interested. Just a thought. You should check him out." "That is
very decent of you, Cameron. You are the kind of agent a man only finds
by good fortune. I don't deserve you, really I don't." We smile at each
other, then burst out laughing. Cameron's shoulders shake so much with
great gusts of mirth that he can only gasp for breath and then cough
violently. "Yeah, well career opportunities in the garbage business
don't just fall off trees. You have to sneak up on them slowly, grab
'em by the balls. Waste management is big these days," he croaks. Then
he collapses into laughter again. "Well, I'll give it a go. You think
I'm up to it, though? It must be hard work, and in this heat." I am
aware of a certain tremulousness in my question. The thing about
Cameron is that you can always share a concern with him. "Yeah, man, of
course you're up to it. Go check him out. Call round tomorrow
lunchtime, when he's home. I think he does the round, then goes off to
another job in the afternoon. He's an eager beaver." I store this
information at the back of my mind as we pass a lazy evening, watching
smoke rise from the barbecue off two tender steaks which Cameron has
rubbed with herbs and garlic, and then chatting and eating some more as
shadows lengthen into dusk and darkness falls behind a big red fireball
in the sky. Then a pale yellow, pumpkin moon rises above the beech and
oak trees that ring the house. At times like these, Darien is a
beautiful place to be, even if it does lack an urban soundtrack. Out on
the Sound, rich new Yorkers would be having cocktails and dinner on
their boats or in their summer houses along the shoreline, in Tokeneke,
at Long Neck Point, or at Noroton. Here, back in the woods, all was
peace beneath the softly waving trees, with only a few bullfrogs in the
long grass to cut through the silence. When we had cleared the plates
away, we said goodnight and went to our beds. I lay on my back and
looked up at the ceiling until the sound of the frogs became a low
whisper and I drifted into a dreamless sleep.

It was at two o'clock the next afternoon that I found myself ringing
Dennis Machin's doorbell. I had crossed the road, walked a hundred
yards or so towards the Turnpike and then hopped over into his front
yard. It was right there, easy as falling off a log. The Machin home is
a roomy, detached colonial style house, with a barn and two garages. It
sits in front of a stand of beech and cedar trees, and grass covered
land behind it slopes down to what looks like a stream or gully that
flows east to west. There are two cars in the driveway, plus a pickup
and a Harley propped up in the shade just inside the garage doors. A
lot of wheels for one house. The bell rings somewhere inside and
shortly the door is opened by a young boy, maybe ten years old, with a
freckled face and inquisitive eyes. "Yeah?" he says. "I've come to see
Dennis. Is he in?" I enquire. "Where are you from mister?" His question
is swept aside by the arrival of an attractive woman, perhaps in her
mid thirties. She has blond hair with highlights, large and beautiful
hazel eyes, and is wearing tight blue pedal pushers topped by a crisp
white blouse which shows off some positively dangerous cleavage. I
recognise this is Mrs Machin and get going with my pitch before she can
throw me out, something I've become much more accomplished at in recent
times. "Are you from England?" she asks. "Dennis was telling me about
you. You're staying with Cameron across the way. You must be Steve. Hi,
I'm Sofia. Pleased to meet you." She extends a manicured hand and we
shake right there in the doorway. Within minutes I am sitting out the
back in a comfy recliner, sipping an iced tea and shooting the breeze
with Dennis, who is indeed between jobs. In fact before long I already
know his entire routine. He starts the round from the old parking lot
at the end of the road at five in the morning, is back home by one
thirty, washes up and has lunch, and is then off again at two thirty to
his second job, installing heating and air conditioning for a firm
based on Prospect. I find that Dennis would welcome help on the round a
couple of days a week; we do a deal on the money, strictly cash, and I
sign up for Wednesday and Friday. That means I have one day's grace
until I start work. I feel tired already just thinking about it. I
finish up the tea, we shake hands and I say goodbye to Sofia and Tommy,
his boy, on the way out. As I walk back across and up the road, I
reflect on what I have learned about Dennis and Sofia. Her family is
Italian, and her brothers each control a garbage route in the Darien
township. In fact, I gather, garbage is a very competitive business.
When a new house goes up, rival garbage men are competing to service
the place even before the roof goes on. A fat contract hangs in the
balance, and everyone wants it. Sofia tells me that when she married
Dennis, some years back, he got a garbage round as a wedding present
from her dad, Bonifacio. Whether he was asked if this was his career
choice at the time, she doesn't say. But he took the offer and kept his
old job as well, on adjusted hours.

So now Dennis is making big money even if he is not around too much,
hence the Harley and the cars, and the big house. Sofia is a
hairdresser, she tells me. Why don't I come by the shop one day when
I'm in town and get my hair cut - she'll do me a deal. A sudden
realisation of my own inadequacy makes me understand how the South
People must have felt, exhausted by too much enterprise, steamrollered
by a surfeit of ambition. I take refuge in a cool beer from the
fridge.

Can you imagine doing a garbage round in eighty five degrees of heat?
No, I didn't think so. Let me give you a snapshot. First of all, you
have to stop at every tenth house and stand under a hosepipe, if the
owner will let you, just to stay cool enough to breathe. Then you need
to drink a lot of water so you don't dehydrate on the way to the next
hosepipe. In between pipes, when you are not parched with thirst, you
have to make some room for the physical pain that seems to strike at
every limb. And while your agonised body is lurching along underneath
the weight of a loaded garbage can, you have to stop retching from the
smell of five day old lobster that someone has been considerate enough
to leave unwrapped and cooking slowly in the sun. Then, when the smell
gets too tough to handle, you can let your eyes take the strain by
focusing on a mound of maggots writhing right down there in the
twilight zone next to your foot. If all this is too much for your
delicate and retiring sensibilities, you can take your mind off things
by climbing two steps at the back of the truck time and again and
hurling out the contents of the can without pouring them over yourself.
Oh, I almost forgot. When you think you can't take any more, Dennis
will shout at you to keep up, don't slack off kid, or I'll smoke your
English ass. It's not all bad, though. There are those breezy,
delightful moments of cultural catch-up when you slump in the cab on
the way up to the dump at Ledge Road and rifle through all the crushed
and damp porno mags that Dennis has retrieved from bins belonging to
people whose private lives and personal habits he knows way too well;
or when you beg to stop for something to eat because you are starving,
knowing your entreaties will fall on deaf ears. "You don't make a buck
by sitting on your ass," is one of Dennis' expressions that you learn
to hate. There are others, but they are not all devised for refined
company. Over the weeks, I became acclimatised to the workload. I grew
stronger and more capable, I could pace myself better through the day.
I managed to transcend the pain to realise I was something of a novelty
- an English garbage man, no less. Dennis paraded me around some of his
clients with the pride of ownership. "This is Stephen - he's from
England," he would say, almost as if I enjoyed the status of an
ambassador and was presenting my credentials. I got to know the ins and
outs of the route, the little bends in the road, as it were.

Like the lady who lived with her two small kids down Price Road. She
would make both of us a cup of tea, our first formal stop of the day. I
would drink mine in the cab and catch up on some reading, maybe a
crumpled back issue of Love In Leather, but Dennis would be upstairs
catching up on something else altogether, and it wasn't sleep. Dennis,
who never stopped for anything, often managed to make time for Katie
Halleran on Price Road, even if he sometimes had to rush the
formalities a little. She had a way of making it tough for him to
leave, too. After the run, I would go back to Dennis' house and share
lunch with him and the family. He would hand me my bundle of dollars
with a wink and say: "Money is the root of all consumer spending, kid."
In due course Dennis introduced me to one of his brothers in law,
Mario, who has a run on the other side of town, out towards the Sound.
He is a big, burly man of few words, who has a truck with a macerator
and does the job full time, no 'wimping around' with air conditioning
units. Soon, I am working with Mario another two days a week, listening
to him unveil the infinite mysteries of God and his greater design for
mankind as we cross the highways and byways of Darien. I am in garbage
heaven. And I am becoming part of the family, even if the atmosphere is
a little frosty sometimes. Sofia has cut my hair. I go fishing with
Tommy. I have travelled on the back of Dennis' Harley and I have helped
out at a family barbecue. Really, I am getting quite integrated and
start to feel that I belong in a small way, bolstered up by my
celebrity status.

Which brings me to today, and my problem. Let me share it with you. It
is mid morning. I am driving with Dennis along the top road, near the
Turnpike. Behind us, we have a full load; it is stacked way up to the
line marker, the legal limit for transporting garbage on a public road.
The heat is beginning to bite, the sun rising in another cloudless sky,
with little wind to move the trees or push the sailing boats through
the deep blue water out on the Sound. It is going to be another baking
day. We are headed for the recycling centre and civic dump at Ledge
Road, where the remains of Darien's domestic consumption get offloaded
for the seagulls and the crows to battle over. It is one of my
favourite places; I'm there at least seven or eight time a day and,
despite the smell that lingers over the site, I enjoy the R&;R and
the company. You get to meet and chat with the cream of the garbage
fraternity while you put the truck in line and wait to back up and tip
your load. It is a regular coffee morning up there, very good humoured
with a load of town gossip to earwig over. Anyway, there we are in
line, with Dennis shouting something from the cab window to a friend
passing the other way, when I notice that Mario is directly in front of
us. "Wait up!" I shout; I don't hang about for a reply, but jump from
the cab and jog along the tarmac until I am directly beneath Mario's
cab window. "Hey! Mario! What's happening?" I shout up at him.

It takes a few seconds, but then his face appears, sweat streaked
channels cutting through the grime on his cheeks and forehead. He looks
grim, very unlike himself, he doesn't even smile at me. "Get out of the
road, kid. You'll get hurt," he warns. I drop back, away from the cab,
and stand and watch while he takes the truck in a loop and backs up to
the dump. I hear the lift engage the tipper, the clashing gears and the
familiar grinding of metal on metal. He looks at me and this time he
shouts: "Stand back kid, I mean it. You'll get hurt." I move back a
little further. Now the lift is fully engaged, the garbage is starting
to move down to the back of the truck and the tailgate tips open as the
first of the load starts to fall onto the pile behind. I turn to walk
back to Dennis' truck and, as I swivel on my heel, my eye is drawn to
something in the load that catches the sun and reflects back to me. I
squint in the strong sunlight and look a little more closely. There! It
is unmistakable, a gold watch, attached to what must be an arm. A voice
in my head tells me I have made a mistake but, nonetheless, I start
shouting at Mario, and waving my arms, telling him to cut the power to
the tipper. At the same time, I run towards the pile, where I think I
remember the watch, and the arm, going in. I don't think Mario has
heard me, because the load keeps tipping off the flat bed, adding more
garbage to the pile, until the flat bed is nearly at right angles to
the road and the last of the garbage slips into the stew. By then, I am
up on the pile, kicking away with my boots, digging a small hole around
what I remember as the entry point. Then I grab an old washing line
pole and start using it as part lever, part shovel, to clear away more
garbage from around my feet. By now, Mario is out of the cab, so is
Dennis and one or two of the plant workers are sauntering over to see
what the fuss is about. I am working up a real sweat now, it is pouring
off me as I widen the hole and dig downwards into the pile, like a
demented mole. I am about to give up and walk away when I see the
watch, clear as day. It is a ladies' gold wrist watch on an ornate,
curved bracelet and it is attached to an arm, which looks like it has
been severed at the elbow. I've never seen anything like this before,
so I am finding it hard to trust myself, my judgement. "Hey, give me
some help up here, I think I found something. It's an arm!" I shout,
mainly to try and get someone to see what I am seeing, a reality check
if you will. Then Mario is on the pile. I turn towards him in time to
see him raise a big, grease covered wrench from his side. He swings it
at my head and, as I turn away, catches me a glancing blow on my
temple, which makes me stagger backwards. I trip, fall in the garbage,
and get up to jacknife off the pile onto the tarmac. He swings at me
again, grunting with the effort, and catches me hard on the shoulder as
I go down. I scream with the pain, which is fierce and burns white hot.
Scraping myself on the gravel, I try and wriggle away from him on my
back, my hands raised to shield my face.

Just as he swings again, I see Dennis catch his arm, stopping the
wrench from falling on my head. They struggle with each other, locked
like two stags, until a couple of the plant workers separate them. Soon
the manager is there, and then a squad car. There isn't too much
fighting in Darien, it's not the done thing, and what fighting there is
the law likes to know about sooner rather than later.

Half crouching from the pain, I direct the search until one plant
worker emerges with the watch, and the arm. Everyone stops and looks at
it, transfixed. It is a smooth arm; for all I know it could be a
prosthesis, or part of a mannequin. I can't even see any blood. But
then the same worker, who is still scanning the pile, spots something
else. He shouts to the manager: "This is real creepy, Max. I think
there's more. We have a situation here." The three of us, Mario, Dennis
and I are led away from the dump until we are all standing next to the
squad car. I notice that Dennis is very pale, like he has seen a ghost.
The colour seems to have drained clean out of him. Mario is glowering
at me from under thunderous brows, his lips curling in a sneer of
contempt and disgust. He stabs a finger at me: "You shoulda kept your
nose out, kid. I warned you," he shouts. Suddenly, he lunges at me
again, but is held back by two patrolmen. I am bundled into the squad
car with Dennis, but I lose sight of Mario, I can't locate him. On the
drive to the station, we are all silent, except for my muttering and
groaning with the pain from where I have been hit and scraped along the
ground. I steal a glance at Dennis, who looks straight ahead and says
nothing. He doesn't acknowledge me; it's as if he has retreated into
himself, to some far off place that I can't reach. I have the strong
feeling that something is wrong, but honestly I can't put my finger on
what it is. All I know is that I seem to be in the shit. That's what
you get these days for trying to be a model citizen. And me a
foreigner, too. Why do I bother? My heart sinks.

GETTING IT FROM DENNIS DIRECT

This is one hell of a mess, let me tell you. The way it seems to me,
everyone stands to lose. I just can't work out right now who stands to
lose the most. Why does everything have to be so damn complicated all
the time? Come to think about it, I wish the hell I knew just what has
happened here. I have an idea, a damn good idea, but I need to talk to
Mario to check it out. I think he knows more than he's letting on.
Jesus, in all the years, I don't suppose I've seen Mario that mad. He's
a laid back guy, doesn't say too much and there isn't a whole lot that
will rile him up. I should know, I'm his brother in law; I've been
married to his sister for twelve years, for Christ's sake.

And can I forget it? Nothing is good enough for that bitch. Every time
I think I have done enough, got enough dough to make her happy, she
gets right back on my case. It's like she's a hole that I can't ever
fill up; however much dirt I shovel in, the damn hole just gets deeper.
I have two jobs, I work my ass off hauling the town's trash around the
place six days a week. This is hard work, not some desk job for fruits
with a nice suit and tie and a few numbers to make every month. I'm
talking about real humping, man. You need to be strong to do this job,
believe me. After the trash, I hump more - air con and central heating
units. No wonder I'm always exhausted. Did you ever hump an air con
unit up three flights of stairs? I tell you, I am a blue collar working
stiff, with a white collar ball breaking wife. That's God's honest
truth. The moment I got introduced to her dad, I knew I was gonna pay
for getting inside her pants the rest of my life. He is one mean son of
a bitch, that Bonifacio. The big house, the pool, a lifetime in the
garbage business that he built from nothing in Darien - kickbacks, pay
offs from contractors, councillors, the man's a walking invitation to
an IR investigation. But, hey, what do I know, right? He's a pillar of
society in Darien, wife, two sons, three daughters, a regular donor to
good causes, a pillar of this Godforsaken community. I am just the jerk
who does one of his garbage runs, a little man who is one of his
regular earners. I kick something back upstairs every week, never miss
a payment. What a schmuck. He takes something off the front end, and
then Sofia takes the rest off the back end. And what am I left with
except empty pockets and a hard-on waving in the breeze? It's not like
she even wants me around any more. I know she's getting it on with that
fag Gary who manages the hair joint; I've known about their little
party games for the last six months. I'm an embarrassment to her; she
just wants a full checking account and for me to be somewhere else. The
house, Tommy and the cash, that little combo suits her just fine. I do
not feature in her Norman Rockwell, apple pie and ice cream paradise.
But she's got one problem. You want know what it is? She's Italian. In
these Italian families, see, divorce is not an option let me tell you.
If he knew, Bonifacio would give her a smack and tell her to get back
home and be a good wife and mother. He wouldn't be interested in a
divorce, no way, the shame would be too much. Sofia knows that, she
knows she doesn't have too many choices, so she rides me harder, she
hopes I'll just get up and leave, take the next train to Wyoming and
become a saddle bum. Then she can look good, play the abandoned little
woman. Well, no way is that gonna happen. I'm not going to give her the
satisfaction.

Now, like I was saying, I'm not sure who is in worse trouble, Mario or
the kid. The kid hasn't got a work permit or the right stamp in his
passport. It ran out. I was trying to persuade him to get his ass up to
Canada and get it renewed a couple of weeks ago. So he's is totally
illegal right now; maybe they'll bang him up in Riker's Island and let
the freaks walk all over him.
He must be shitting himself. And Mario? Who can tell what that big
dummy ever feels about anything? Except faith in the Almighty. He sure
is a Jesus freak. But, boy, he was angry. It just depends whether the
kid wants to press charges for assault, because if he does, he'll win
hands down. Everybody saw it, me and everyone else, plain as daylight,
right there in front of your eyes. Even Johnny Cochran would struggle
to swing with that one. If I hadn't pulled him off, he would have put
the kid's lights out, I'm telling you. So the main thing is that nobody
killed anyone else, leastwise not out at Ledge Road. Maybe Mario could
get off with a warning. The old man could square it away with the
authorities up at the Town Hall and the Sheriff's office. He could make
a donation to the policeman's federation or the union, or some shit
like that. He's good at that stuff. Christ knows, he's had the
practice. Now, obviously, I have to answer some questions myself. I
can't pretend I'm an angel, even if I wanted to. For one thing, I'm
pretty sure I recognised the watch in the garbage. I'd swear it's
Katie's. How do I know? Because I gave her the damn thing. Bought it
myself and strapped it on her wrist, too. It's a pretty watch, and it
set me back a few bucks. I'd know that watch anywhere, it's one of a
kind, that was the point of it. Now, this is a big shock to me, you can
imagine. But the question I have to ask myself is, whose is the arm? To
be honest I didn't get too close a look at the arm, but it was a
woman's, even I could tell that. There wasn't enough muscle or hair to
be a man's. And besides, what would a man be doing wearing a woman's
watch? No, I don't think so. Maybe someone took the watch off Katie,
that's a possibility I guess. Someone stole the watch and gave it to
his girlfriend. But it's my bet that something more has happened to
Katie and, if that's true, her kids will be running around like
chickens out of the coop. Maybe the neighbours will realise something
is wrong and go and check the house out. You know what the missing
piece of the puzzle is for me, the question I keep coming back to? If
I'm right, just what in hell was Mario doing riding around in broad
daylight with Katie Halleran's arm in his truck? Did she fall in? Did
someone throw her in and grind her up? Maybe Mario killed her, but I
can't think of one damn reason why. He never knew about me and Katie
because I never told him, never told any of the family. You think I'm
crazy? They'd cut my balls off and hang them up to dry in the wind. No,
I never told a soul. No one knew. First thing I'm going to do when the
damn uniforms get in here is get myself a lawyer and make sure a call
gets put through to Katie's house, find out what the hell has happened.
Sofia can wait until I'm good and ready.

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MARIO

I can still remember it now, the day the kid told me that Dennis was
making it with Katie Halleran. He thought it was funny, a man to man
thing, something us dudes could have a little laugh about up in the cab
between stops. He told me how Dennis calls in and parks up outside the
house. How he leaves Steve in the cab while he goes inside to cool off
and grab himself a piece of action. He thought that was funny, that it
would amuse me to know my brother-in law was cheating on my sister.
Yeah, well fuck him. It ain't funny. Do you hear me laughing? No, I
didn't think so. You know why it ain't funny? Because she should have
been mine, not that smooth talking, lying, cheating prick's. I had
feelings for that woman, even though I never made them public or
nothing like that. After we first had sexual relations, I was like a
man baptised. I could see a future opening up for us, for Katie and her
kids, with me. The sweet Jesus showed me a vision of the land of
plenty, of milk and honey flowing in the valley. I know that I ain't
anything special, just a damn garbage man. It's not like I'm the head
of General Motors or anything like that, not a big shot. I don't kid
myself, I know I'm not rich either, not by Hollywood standards. But I
have enough stashed, I've worked hard humping trash all my life, don't
you worry about me. She could have had other men, sure, but no one who
would take such good care of her and her family. I told her that, I
opened up to her, told her about my trouble with women, how shy I am
and how I don't have too much experience or confidence for a man at my
time of life. We talked about that and I told her I wanted her to be
part of my future. She said she didn't love me, not like she loved
Rick, her old man. She was hanging on the past, because Rick's been
dead for three years now. So I told her she has to move on, make a new
life, new relationships. I told her to look to God, and his only son
sweet Jesus Christ our Lord, who came down to this earth to help us
wipe away our own sins and the sins of our brothers. God is the way,
God is the one Truth, I tried to show her that. After we had sexual
relations that first time, I made her kneel down with me and say the
Lord's Prayer, to thank Him for the gift of love he had given us, for
the taste of paradise that lingered so sweet on our lips. So we prayed
together that one time in her room. We only went together twice after
that, then she wasn't having any more of me. She sent me away when I
came round to the house, wouldn't even let me through the door. Said
she didn't want to go with me anymore. What was I supposed to do, a
grown man like me? Here I am, the oldest son in the family, and I don't
have a wife or kids. People think I'm slow, I'm stupid, just because I
take my feelings seriously and I don't joke around too much. And I fear
God and live right. Well, she found out just how serious I am. I mean
business.

The first opportunity I get, I'm going to take out that kid if I can
get him alone in this shit hole. He's dead meat. I hope he is making a
Will right now and squaring things with his maker. If he hadn't been so
damn nosy up at Ledge Road, I would have got away clean, no trace back
to me and no reason to think I was involved. The whole damn thing was
so easy too. I called round first thing this morning when the school
bus had left with the kids, caught Katie making herself a cup of coffee
before she started in on the house work. She was surprised to see me,
wouldn't let me in at first, but I had a plan. Told her I wanted to
give her some cash to help her get by, to spend on clothes and stuff
for the kids. That's always the way to a woman's heart, see, through
her kids. I know that and it works every time, the offer of some bucks
to help out with some of the extras she can't afford, a woman on her
own picking up welfare. So she let me in, made me a cup of coffee and
we sat down round her kitchen table and had a talk. I asked her if
there was another chance for us, told her that I thought of her a lot,
that I still hurt when I think of us together. I told her that she
could move in with me, there's plenty of space in my house, it's too
empty anyway. You know the whore laughed at me. She told me I was way
too far out for her, said she didn't want to spend the rest of her life
reading the bible and praying for the soul of mankind with some Jesus
freak, said she wanted to find a man who didn't stink of trash all the
time. Then she told me about Dennis, with a little smile on her face,
joked that she was working her way round the family, said he knew how
to make a woman feel good. I felt the blood boiling in my veins and the
craziness creeping up on me. I knew then that vengeance was sweet, that
I was carrying out the work of the Lord in striking the whore down so
that she could not keep sinning against me and my family. I got up and
took a shovel from beside the kitchen door and hit her over the head.
I'm not sure how many times I hit her with the shovel, but she put up a
struggle before she laid down and didn't move no more. I took a peek
through the curtains and then I carried her out to the truck and put
her, nice and easy in the back, with the trash where she belonged. I
got up in the cab and turned on the grinder to mulch her down into the
garbage, so there wouldn't be no trace, nothing sticking up for anyone
to see. It was real sweet, no one even passed by to see what I was
doing. I guess the whole thing took me about fifteen minutes and then I
was out of there, back on the road and taking care of my own business.
Far as I know, not even one car came down Price Road while I was there,
and the house is set back from the street there in the trees, so even
the neighbours would have to call round to find out if anything was
happening. And believe me, unless you are in the business, one garbage
truck looks just like another. With the Lord's help and guidance I did
a pretty damn good job. It was a sweet one, yes indeed.

But now I have to take care of my little temporary affliction here. I
shouldn't have lost my temper up at Ledge Road, I gave too much away
after the kid spotted the damn leg The cops will be all over the dump
like a swarm of locusts now. Pretty soon they'll have the parts and be
putting them together like a jigsaw puzzle. I plan to put the blame
fair and square on Dennis. I'll tell them he was having relations with
the Halleran whore and he was scared his wife would find out, so he
decided to kill her. I'll tell them that the kid was an accomplice to
the killing, that Dennis paid him to help stash the body in my truck
this morning before I hit the road. Yeah, that should stick. One thing
is for sure, I am going to bury my lowlife brother in law. The family
will know he's cheating and they won't take kindly to it. Dad will make
sure he gets what is coming, you'll see. He won't allow Sofia to live
in shame. No way. Now I am proposing to kneel down in this here cell
and pray. The Lord will find those who seek him. He will answer those
who believe in his grace and majesty. He will heal the sick and hold up
the weak. He will recognise a shepherd leading his flock off the
mountain and down into the sweet valley below. He will welcome the
shepherd home. Brothers, kneel down here with me and let us pray
together.

London
March 2003

Contact:
Vyvyan Kinross
10 Thorney Hedge Road
Chiswick
London
W4 5SD

Tel: 0208 994 2939
Email: vkinross@blueyonder.co.uk

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