Three years later, I turned twenty.
The driver of the car got out and opened the back door. The man walking hesitated then entered into the backseat, as if he really didn’t have a choice. The driver shut the door, returned to his seat behind the wheel, and drove away.
I had been sitting at my usual spot on the porch tossing bread chunks to the fat squirrels and just watching life. Little B’s neighborhood was full of it. It was an episode of COPS all day long, in any direction I looked. Nothing like the peaceful country setting I had known all my life.
At first I hated it. I couldn’t sleep at night. It wasn’t just the cop sirens, the people screaming, the gun shots, the car alarms, and the trains. It was all of that. But there was also a nervousness which wouldn’t settle. It was anxiety stirring to life once the sun set. It was the reality that at any moment someone could break in and try to rob or kill us. Little B had told me once that it could be even worse than that. They could take us. We would wish then that dying was an option.
Little B had a small, old two-story, two bedroom house, sitting on a very small chunk of land. Less than ten feet on either side stood another house. Blocks and blocks of the same run-down houses, packed together at the edge of the city like sardines in a can. The environment was in poor condition. Small businesses were vacant and abandoned. There were no legitimate prospects legally. By day the parks were empty, save for garbage blanketing the deep grass. By nightfall they were plagued with prison-bound folks making shady deals. Teens were buying or selling drugs, like an all-night pharmaceutical company. Whatever I could think of, it was there. Anything and everything.
But after thirty months, it all seemed normal.
Which is why it didn’t strike me as odd that maybe I had just witnessed a man being abducted. I watched the car drive to the end of the block, towards the train tracks and abandoned buildings, turn left and disappear, heading into the heart of what we knew as the Red Square. I figured it was a drug deal gone bad. Someone looking to settle a score. Someone out for what they thought was justice. It had no effect on me. It wasn’t my business. And around here you didn’t make any friends by calling the police for anything you witnessed. Best to turn the other way. Best to keep your mouth shut. Best to wake up the next day.
It was hectic, twenty-four seven. It was full of crime and unsolved murders. It was dreary and dirty with an emotional filth that didn’t wash off.
I found an escape by attending church each Saturday with Little B. I had told her about the dream I had where I died. She saw it as more than a dream. She told me it was a sign. My mother didn’t talk religion at all. I couldn’t shut Little B up about it. Not that I had tried. After burying my mother, I was ready to accept some sort of spiritual way of living.
“Rotter.” Little B cursed from the door behind me. “Dirty Rotters. All of them.”
She had witnessed what I had. Being that she had lived there for about seventy years, she had witnessed far more than I cared to dream.
“Good morning, grandma.” It was two o’clock in the afternoon. She just awoke.
“Hah!” She yelled, as if the day was anything but. It was June and already sweltering. It was ninety out with no wind. Suffocating. Trees and grass were brown and dying. I had mistaken gunfire for car tires exploding due to the melting road.
“Want some tea, grandma?” I didn’t call her Little B to her face. Ever. Her real name was Beach. I never called her that either. Sometimes I had to talk loud. I didn’t want her to get the wrong idea of what I was saying.
I turned to face her, staring at her behind the screen in the door. She looked like she just woke. Her short grey hair was standing on ends off the left side of her head. The right side was matted flat against her pale skin, already sweaty. She wore the same nightgown now for the past three years. It was an off-yellow color, with a faded red flower pattern. At one point in the Jurassic Period when she had purchased it, I’m sure it had been vibrant.
“A day like this and you would think all those Rotters would be at home in front of their stolen rotating fans.” She pointed straight across the street to where about five people my age were lounging. She didn’t have an indoor voice. Some were looking back at us. “Like them right there. Don’t they have a back yard for crying out loud?”
I was sitting on the porch step. I did it every day. Never once considered sitting in the back yard. “I tossed out your hamburger. It looked like carpet.”
She laughed. “I was saving it for the squirrels. Hoping to kill some of them off!” She walked out of sight.
I stopped feeding the squirrels. I gave a friendly wave to the folks across the street and stood. I turned to head up the steps when I saw him. Angelo Garboni. The only Italian around. He was already looking at me, walking the sidewalk two houses down, heading my way like a side-show Santa Claus, with his head turning quickly this way then that, eyes moving sporadically, searching. His left hand clenched tight the black garbage bag dragging behind him that everyone knew held nothing but empty pop cans.
As I walked out to meet him, I felt the sweat beads race down my back. The center of my T-shirt was wet. My plaid shorts looked a lot more comfortable than Angelo’s black sweat pants and shirt. Same outfit every time I saw him. My sandals were open-toed. His black boots had the thick laces dangling untied. His sweats were tucked down into his boots. I fought against the thought of how bad he must have been sweating. Just looking at him made me want to go take a shower.
I met him with a handshake and a smile in front of Little B’s at the sidewalk. His hand was sticky from the pop cans. His face was shiny with sweat. I could smell the bag, the thick scent of old pop. The smell I got when I walked into Meijer. But he was smiling, lopsided and genuine.
Angelo stuck out like a sixth finger. I think he suffered from brain damage. His head was always cocked to the side, and it never stopped moving. He was tall and could use a few pounds. His thick black hair was always wild and unkempt, a frightening contrast against his pale skin. Fine, wispy black hairs lined his upper lip like he just couldn’t manage to grow a real mustache. It was pathetic looking. But he was oblivious to his appearance. All that mattered to him was finding the elusive empty pop can.
Angelo Garboni’s smile never left. There was innocence in his brown eyes. He was genuinely happy. I liked the guy.
“Angelo, let me take that bag off your hands.” I smiled.
“No way, Michael.” His words spit out like rapid gun fire. “Notta chance today. Not today. Hot out, butta good day. Lotta finds. Lotta people too. Real hot though. My brother has a furnace. That’s hot too. Like this. People don’t drink pop on hot days. I do. I would. But people don’t. At baseball games they do. I see them on TV. Tigers are playing. Not too hot for them.” A machine gun at work. Barrel smoking. The enemy gunned down.
“It’s going to rain later. That should cool things off.”
“Rain is worse. Worse is not good. Not good for walking. I gotta lotta walk. Found a Mt. Dew bottle. Big one. Half full. I don’t know why they didn’t drink it all. Maybe they ate the hot dog too fast.” Definitely not bolt action.
I gave him my best ‘disgusted’ look. “You didn’t drink it, right? Don’t ever drink anything you find, Angelo. Remember?”
He laughed and wagged a finger at me like an excited puppy’s tail. “No, no, no. You tell me before not to drink. I know. I know notta drink. It was green. No bubbles. I think it was old. It was hot. Too hotta drink. I dumped it in the trash. Some is on my hand. Some is in my boot.” He put an Uzi to shame.
I could only smile. He’s happy in a way I never would be.
Right before summer of last year, I had saved up bottles for a few months and gave them to him. Three jumbo garbage bags filled. Thirty dollars’ worth, to a normal person. To him, it was priceless. He was a little kid on Christmas. His mouth ran out of ammunition that day.
“Anybody give you trouble today?”
“In the park. There was a car. White car
. Notta truck. Trucks are big. The car was long like a hot dog. Two guys in it called me. Yelled at me.” He looked proud. “But I know what you taught me. I walked fast. They yelled. But I walked faster. I didn’t go to them. You taught me. I listened to you. Me and you are friends, Michael.”
“Not just friends, Angelo. Best friends. Me and you are best friends.” I patted his bony shoulder. It made him happy. “Good job. You did the right thing. Never let someone stop you, right? Keep walking. If they follow you, drop your bag and run. Run all the way home. Lock your door when you get in and don’t answer it if they knock.”
His head nodded. “Yup. You taught me that. Yup you did.”
I looked into his little kid eyes. He was smiling still. Happy. The city was no place for Angelo. The world wasn’t, for that matter. He was special. He saw the world as everyone should. He made it a better place. I was grateful that we had met.
Angelo wiped the sweat off his face with his sweat shirt. He reeked. He had fruit flies swarming.
“Angelo, you need to go home and take a shower.”
“I need a red dog. Like that book you gave me. You know that book. That dog. The red one. Big like a horse. I can ride it. He would let me. He would sweat then. I would stay dry.”
He laughed hard. I did too. His eyes squinted past me then and his smile vanished. He looked scared. “Oh no. I go now. I go straight home.”
I turned to look behind me. I saw it right away. The black car. It came from the Red Square, nice and slow, like a shark at the beach. Others saw it as well, word was spread, and people scattered off the street, out of sight, up into their homes for safe hiding.
I felt as nervous as Angelo looked. The black Rolls-Royce.
“Yeah, Angelo. Go straight home.”
“Bye.” Sniper action.
Angelo turned fast, snatched his bag from the ground, hoisted it up over his left shoulder, and walked back the way he had come, clanking all the way. I did the same, back to the porch, opening the door and stepping in. Once inside, I shut the door and locked it. My heartbeat quickened. I walked around and stood in front of the sofa, and looked through the windows from a safe distance. Within seconds, the neighborhood went silent. It looked empty. A minute later and the black beast was rolling by like a nightmare. Like it was Death itself.
“What’s going on?” Little B entered the room in time to see for herself.
“The black car is coming.”
“King of the Rotters,” Little B cautioned me.
I stepped back, but I kept looking. I felt her press close to me, watching as well. Her breathing was quick. She held a cup of coffee.
It was a long car, wide and tall. All regal and class. Extremely expensive. Tinted windows so black that I could only imagine something evil lurking inside. It strolled by like it had not a care in the world.
Or it was doing a thorough search for someone.
It came out of the Red Square. Twenty square blocks of Russian-owned lifestyle. All of it controlled by a single man. A feared one. One dubbed The Bear. I heard he was over six and a half feet tall and three hundred pounds of solid muscle. He was cold. A psychopath. He had wrestled tigers back in Siberia. He was the King Pin. The Don. Red Square’s Al Capone, with a mess of loyal followers. A lunatic capable of bringing your worst nightmares to life with a mere snap of his fingers. The black car was his. Though I had never seen him in person, he was the scariest son of a bitch I had ever heard of.
And just that fast, the car was gone, down the block, out of sight. The street came back to life a few minutes afterwards, like the woods when a predatory animal leaves and the birds begin chirping again. As if all was safe. I had hoped that Angelo Garboni had made it home.
Little B took a sip of her coffee and whispered, “Rotter.”
She stepped away from me and sat in her grey recliner. The living room was small, an eight by ten with an eight foot high ceiling. Two large windows with white trim faced the street behind the sofa. A long black and yellow knitted blanket lay over the cushions. In between the sofa and the TV stand sat an old end table. It was short with faded polish. The only other piece of furniture was another small chair, a solid wooden piece of which comfort was not found. Little B had her chair facing the television, where she could see into the kitchen, and also out the door when opened.
She grabbed the TV remote and turned on her favorite show, COPS. She sang the intro song to herself. I sat on the couch feeling my blood pressure return to normal and recalled the first telling of The Bear.
I met a thief on the street selling Nike shoes for ten bucks my first weekend with Little B. I didn’t have ten bucks. He said he would take five. I didn’t have five. I didn’t have one. He said he would take any pills Little B might have in the bathroom cabinet. Any watch. Anything of any value. I had nothing. I only came over to him to see what he had because I was sitting on the porch crying when he yelled that he had something to show me. I wasn’t used to the city life just then. I was still wet behind the ears. I still trusted people.
“Whatever you got, kid.”
He made me feel like the trade was going to happen. It was an order. Little B was still asleep, it was only noon then, so I was by myself. I had started to get a bad feeling about the guy. He needed to shave and shower. He was grubby. His look was hard and devious. A city man, I knew. Nothing like me.
“I don’t think so,” I said.
I turned, wanting to run away from him, but I walked. About a foot later I felt the hard, firm grasp around my left bicep and he spun me back towards him. The look in his eyes told me I was dead. I saw the flash of a pistol beneath the waistband of his sagging jeans. My jeans fit.
“You misunderstood me, kid.” His hand was reaching for his gun.
A black car pulled up behind him then. It stopped. We both looked. The back door opened. He let go of my arm right then. My look became his. He stuttered a bundle of words. An explanation of some sort. A plead. A lie.
The man exiting the black car looked calm and unfazed. He looked like a million dollars. He was clean and well taken care of. With a Russian accent, he simply said, “Get in.”
“Now?” Panic. “Tell The Bear I didn’t know!”
The other said nothing. He motioned towards the car.
“It was an accident!” He was frantic. “Tell him I’m sorry, alright!”
The other gave a sympathetic look.
I saw the thief swallow hard. He took a step backwards but then thought better of it. He looked over to me. He was terrified. He tossed me the shoes. He looked defeated. He walked to the car slowly. He tried to apologize again, but the guy holding the door open simply waved him in. He didn’t care. A punishment was coming. Nothing was going to stop it.
The thief entered. Before the man shut the door, I heard the thief’s pleads turn into screams. The Russian looked at me for a second, then walked around to the passenger front door and entered. I could still hear the screams from within; the car began to rock slightly. I set the shoes carefully down onto the cement.
I stood there and watched it all unfold. In seconds, the car was slowly driving away. I watched it go. I did nothing.
Girl scouts found his body the next day. A piece here. A piece there.
I told Little B right away. She shrugged her indifference. “The dead can bury the dead.”
I didn’t sleep that night. Or the next ten.
When COPS was over, another episode came on. We watched four altogether, then the news. I made spaghetti and we ate while watching a game show. The sky grew dark and it thundered. It shook the house and rattled the windows. Lead paint chips flaked from the trim. The air cooled a bit, but not enough. The humidity was thick as pea soup.
Up to then, we had been silent.
“Every one of those Rotters has made a choice,” she stated flatly, “to do wrong over right. Every one of them will pay the price.”
She was nearly emotionless. Rocking in her chair, spilling facts that absorbed the sile
nce. I knew from experience that after an hour or two of being quiet she would open up and speak about God. She was a die-hard Catholic. Pictures of Jesus were everywhere, including those from magazines and church fliers. She had pendants and necklaces all bearing a cross. And I knew without asking that the jars of water under her bed had been Holy Water.
I turned, looking at her. She looked lost in thought. Small in the chair, with a knitted colorful blanket across her lap. She rocked gently. Her hands rested on the arms, her legs were crossed at the ankles, just above her filthy slippers. I stood, opened the door all the way to let in some fresh air. Rain was on the way. I could smell it.
“You ever get scared living here?” I said.
“Nothing to it. Just mind your own business.”
She said it as if she could do it. Truth was though, her favorite thing to do was to sit on the porch and watch everybody.
“Why do you call everyone a Dirty Rotter?” I asked.
“They’re dirty and rotten.” She said as a matter-of-fact.
“I’m sure there’s some good people left out there. They can’t all be bad.”
“There’s all sorts of Rotters out there. Some are wicked since birth, I believe. Some started out good, but then something happened that took them away from God. Rotters have just given up on hope and are living on their own will. Some never bothered to find God’s will.” She paused, considering. “Some never knew they had a choice.”
I looked back to her, listening. She was looking right at me. All business. I went back to the couch and sat down.
“The world can be a hard place. Cold and lonely. Life doesn’t always turn out the way you think. Some people out there have had to make some tough decisions. Regrettable even. They end up having to choose between two bad decisions.”
“Everyone has tough decisions. But not everyone is bad.”
“The difference between you and a Rotter is what?”
I wasn’t sure. I waited for her to continue.
“It’s in your heart, Michael. The voice of God. The voice of reason. A living conscious. Do you know how?”
Again, I waited.
“You were baptized. I know your mother was not very big on going to church, but it’s in you. I see it in your eyes. You’re a good man. You’ve had some challenges in life, but that didn’t steer you off in the wrong direction. And life is good at that. Life can take everything from you, all your hopes and dreams, everyone and everything that you love, and ask you to respond, see what you’re made of. Do you run around screaming that the world owes you? Do you use it all as an excuse to behave unrighteous?”
I looked away, down to the floor between us. I thought of my mother right then. I missed her hard. Painfully. She didn’t get the time to say goodbye. Time to wish me luck. Time to prepare. Death comes like a thief in the night, Little B once told me. You have to live every second as if it were your last, she expressed.
“No. You get up every day and live. Live with the pain. Live through the pain. Keep your faith in God. He can do a great deal more than any of us realize.”
I said nothing. I thought of my mother. I kept my tears in check.
“If they only knew how much God loved them…” she paused and sighed. “It’s Satan’s world anyway, I guess.”
She rose from her chair and walked to the door. She stood staring out into the city for a few minutes. We were both quiet. We heard cop sirens further away. Passing cars. Arguments. Screen doors slamming. Dogs barking.
I thought of my mother and thought of what Little B had said and thought that maybe there wasn’t really that much difference between myself and anyone else out there. I was angry. I was scared. I didn’t care for living how and where I was. It’s not what we had planned. We were to live with Little B for only a short while. We were going to move on. We were going to have a home of our own again. Someplace nice. Quiet and peaceful again. She wasn’t supposed to die and leave me with her mother. None of it made sense and I didn’t care to think of it any more. I gave it enough tears for the first year. I buried my feelings, locked them away tight.
Life was never fair.
“I lived in the country like you when I was your age. Did you know that? Way back when life was simple. Your grandfather and I had a farm. Cows and pigs and chickens. It feels like a lifetime ago.” She spoke with such frailty as though her words might crack and break and be lost forever. “I miss him. Every day I talk to him. Someday…”
She had been alone for some time now. Grandpa died when I was young. My mother was her only child, and she seldom visited. Little B knew what hardships were. She knew the depth of loneliness. I didn’t realize any of it until that moment. I felt so guilty that I was never around to keep her company.
“I didn’t know that grandma. I’m sorry.”
She nodded slightly. She had figured as much I guessed. “I like you going to church with me. Not enough young people do that anymore. They’re all too busy. None of them think they need it. But they do, alright. They do. And they will realize it too before it’s all said and done. That’s for sure.” Her voice like a whisper. “Like a thief in the night…”
She moved away from the door, staring back at the news on the TV. “Well, just listen to your conscious and you’ll be fine. God will lead you. Don’t be a stranger. Even when you think he’s not listening. Gold is tested in fire. Remember that.”
I nodded. I thought I understood.
“Rain’s coming.”
The rain came then. Sudden and fierce. Large drops pounded against the house with the authority to knock it down. We both looked outside. The rain was relentless and commanding. Minutes later I looked to Little B and she was gone into the kitchen, making lemonade.
I sensed that she was struggling with something. She seemed sad, as if she had been fighting for so long and she was ready to call it quits.
I stared out at the rain for a few minutes more. The dark sky was filled with wispy pale stretches of wool clouds and the cool breeze swept through the house. I walked to the door and stepped out onto the porch. Visibility was poor. The rain soaked everything in a matter of seconds. The streets looked empty. It was the only time I liked the city.
“Jesus loves you, Michael.” Little B said behind me, startling me so that I jumped. “Don’t ever feel alone.”
“I know.”
“Well, just don’t ever forget it. No reason to ever feel abandoned or forgotten.” She almost smiled. “Got some lemonade out there. Ice cubes are in it melting like we are.”
“Thanks, grandma.”
She walked away from the door. She looked older somehow. Smaller. Frail. I pondered everything we had talked about. I watched the rain fall in a steady downpour. The relentless pattering against the cement, the shingles, the aluminum siding, and trees, was loud. A car passed by with its brights shining and its wipers moving as fast as they would go. I watched it go by and thought about my mother. I thought about the last time I saw her. Driving. Leaving what we knew behind.
Leaving me behind.
Leaving for good.
I wanted that day back.
I began to hate life right then.
Chapter 4
The Hitman: Dirty Rotters Page 3