With a smashing crash, he landed on a pile of trash bags filled with bottles. His right leg twisted under him, and he heard the sickening crunch of his ankle breaking against the concrete floor. Pain shot through him, and his stomach twisted, then twisted again at the overpowering smell of stale whiskey rising from the broken bags. He was bleeding from numerous glass cuts on his arms and hands.
“Oh my God,” he moaned. “Shit, shit, shit.”
—
Upstairs, Willard reached into the end table drawer and pulled out a pistol. Hands shaking, he checked to see it was loaded. He rose unsteadily and half staggered to the basement door. He flicked the light switch and, gripping the railing tightly, slowly descended the stairs.
There were at least thirty trash bags of bottles in the basement. Willard had been reluctant to put them in the trash at first, lest the neighbors and the trash collectors see the full extent of his drinking and decide that his wife was right to leave him. He had planned to take them to a recycling center, but over time, as the bags multiplied, he became daunted by the task.
Better to just toss them down and forget them, he thought. He never went into the basement, anyway.
Over by the open outside door, where the biggest pile of bags were, he saw a boy, half on and half under them. Broken glass from the torn bags was strewn all over the floor.
He raised his pistol.
“What the fuck are you doing in my basement?” he said, his voice raspy from whiskey and disuse.
Nolan looked up at Willard and saw an old man, dirty, unshaven, and reeking of alcohol, with red-rimmed eyes and a dark splotch of wet on the front of his pants, aiming a gun at him. His eyes widened and his stomach leapt into his throat. He was dizzy with fear.
“Please don’t shoot! It was an accident! I just fell, that’s all,” he said in a high shaky voice, and then he retched uncontrollably. The stench of hot vomit mixed with the whiskey smell.
I’m going to pass out, Nolan thought. And then I’m going to die.
“Accident, huh,” Willard snorted. “More like breaking and entering. I’m going to call the police.” He turned and attempted to go back up the stairs, but his legs shook violently. He sat down heavily on the basement stairs, keeping his pistol pointed at Nolan.
“Seriously, Mister, it really was an accident. Mr. Worrall sicced his dog on us, and I was looking for a place to hide. Look, Mister, I think I broke my leg and I’m all cut up.”
Willard stared at Nolan. His brain felt like wet cotton, and about as sharp.
Now what do I do? he thought.
“Can you help me up, at least?” Nolan said, pleading. “Get me out of all this glass and stuff?”
“Hell, you should be helping me up,” Willard replied sourly.
“I can’t.”
“Well, then, I think we’re both stuck,” Willard said.
They sat in silence for a few moments as Willard tried to process what Nolan had said.
“So Tom Worrall sicced his dog on you? Why would he do that?”
Nolan grimaced with pain and shifted his weight against the bags. Empty bottles rolled from the broken ones, rattling and clanking on the cold concrete floor.
“Me and my buddies were playing a prank on him. For Mischief Night.”
“Then it serves you right, huh? Maybe this will teach you not to do stupid shit like that.”
Nolan knew the right thing to say was Yes, sir. But his pain and fear turned to anger.
“Maybe. But I don’t think I deserved to end up with a busted leg in a drunk guy’s basement. I think you need help more than me.”
Willard bristled. “I don’t need some punk-assed kid telling me what to do. You broke into my house, and I’d be in my rights to shoot you, right there.”
“Yeah, and then the cops would come, and they’d find you with piss all over yourself and all these fucking bottles, and they’d haul you off to jail.”
“Well, at least I wouldn’t be lying in busted glass in my own puke with a bullet in my head,” Willard retorted.
They glared at each other for a few moments.
“I’m calling the cops right now,” Willard said. “Then we’ll see how much of a punk you are.” He tried to rise to his feet, but his legs shook under him, and he sat back down heavily on the stairs.
Nolan snorted. “Damn, dude. I’ve never seen anyone that wasted.”
A wave of alcoholic self-pity flooded over Willard. “A couple years ago, I could have kicked your ass. I had a wife and a family and a career. And that’s all gone. Now I’m stuck in my own basement with a snotty little asshole who thinks he’s hot stuff.” Tears of frustration rolled down his cheeks.
“Whose fault is that? Nobody made you drink all this,” said Nolan, gesturing at the bags.
Willard began to sob. Nolan had never seen any man over fifteen cry like that. In a way, it was more unnerving than the angry yelling and pistol-brandishing.
He’s pitiful, even if he is an old drunk jerk, Nolan thought.
“Look, Mister. Put the gun down and just get me out of here. Maybe my folks can help you, take you to a hospital or something. Call your family for you.”
“They won’t come. I’m a failure. I just want to die.” Willard wailed like a child.
Taking advantage of Willard’s distraction, Nolan decided to see if he could crawl out of the pile of bags. He rolled and wiggled, trying to find traction for his hands and knees. The rattling noise brought Willard back to reality. He pointed the pistol at Nolan’s face.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
Nolan blanched.
“I’m gonna try and help you,” he said.
Willard’s face contorted. “No, you’re not. You’re going to get out and leave me here. Not till I call the cops. You just stay right where you are or I’ll shoot your brains out.”
Nolan realized that Willard was not only drunk, he was probably insane as well. Fear bit into him again, and he began to shake. I’m never getting out of here. We’ll probably both die here.
“Everybody leaves me all alone. You’re not leaving till I say so,” Willard said childishly, moaning.
Nolan’s ankle throbbed with pain. In despair, he covered his face with his bleeding hands for a few moments, and then lifted his eyes to meet Willard’s. “My leg is broken. I need a doctor,” he said quietly.
The tone of Nolan’s voice sparked a wisp of sanity in Willard’s sodden brain. He met Nolan’s eyes and saw a frightened, hurt young boy. Just like I used to be, he thought.
Compassion filled him for the first time in a long, long time. His mind cleared, and he knew what he needed to do.
“You got it wrong back there. I think you need help more than I do,” he said, and tried again to rise to his feet.
Nolan began to reply, No shit, Sherlock, but he realized that Willard was somehow different now. He kept quiet and still, waiting.
Willard straightened his legs, which finally steadied a little under him. He took a step down.
Nolan suddenly had a bad feeling about Willard coming down the stairs.
“Mister, maybe you should go upstairs first and call nine-one-one. The ambulance guys can get me.”
“No, no, I’ll get you out of here,” Willard said. He took another step, and his toe caught on a bag of bottles that he had left on the steps. He teetered, arms pinwheeling, and the pistol fired with a sharp, echoing crack. The bullet ricocheted off a support post and creased Nolan’s scalp.
“Nooooo!” Nolan cried. Blood poured over his forehead and into his eyes.
Willard pitched headfirst onto the concrete basement floor, and his neck snapped like a dead twig. Silence hung heavily for a few moments.
“Mister? Mister? Hey, dude, wake up!” Nolan yelled. “I’ve been shot! Help me!”
Willard did not reply.
With effort born of panic, Nolan pulled himself out of the pile of bags and crawled to where Willard lay motionless, dragging his useless foot behind him. He g
rabbed his bony shoulder and began shaking him. Willard’s head lolled crazily on his neck, and Nolan’s empty stomach lurched again.
“Wake up, man! Wake up! Get me out of here!” Nolan began screaming incoherently, wiping the blood out of his eyes with the back of his hand.
Suddenly he heard the chuffing of a large dog. He froze.
A flashlight beam shone down into the basement.
“What’s going on down there?”
Nolan recognized Mr. Worrall’s voice.
“Please, please get me out of here! The old man’s dead!”
“Hold on, son.” Nolan heard footsteps coming down into the basement and mutters of shock and disgust at the bags of bottles and the blood and the vomit. Relief washed over him like a warm spring rain, and he began to cry.
“I’m sorry. Mr. Worrall, sir, I’m so sorry.” He grabbed Mr. Worrall’s hand as the man reached him.
“It’s okay, son. It’s all okay now.”
Mr. Worrall knelt on the floor and wrapped his arms around Nolan as the boy sobbed uncontrollably in his pain and grief.
—
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Nolan’s father asked as they parked in front of the funeral home.
“Yeah, Dad. I am,” Nolan replied.
“Want me to come with you?”
“No, I’m good.”
Nolan’s father opened the car door for him and helped him out. Nolan used one of his crutches to push open the door of the funeral home and hobbled inside. He saw a throng of middle-aged men and women in somber suits and tasteful jewelry, broken off into little conversational groups. At the back of the room was an open casket. He made his way to the casket, knowing that his crutches, cast, and bandages, not to mention his baggy shorts and Metallica T-shirt, made him conspicuous. The knots of people fell silent as he passed by.
He looked down into the casket. Willard’s body and head had been realigned, and he was dressed in a suit and tie. Nolan checked the front of his pants, and they were dry. The yellow had been powdered out of Willard’s face, and he was clean-shaven.
He looks like all the other suits in the room. Not like the crazy, dirty, drunken asshole in the basement, Nolan thought. He looks normal.
A hand touched his shoulder, and he turned his head. A pretty young woman dressed in black smiled at him.
“Are you the boy they found with him?” she asked.
“Yeah,” said Nolan. “It was an accident. I was only trying to hide.” He stopped for a moment, and added awkwardly, “I’m sorry for your loss, ma’am.”
“I lost my dad a couple years ago, when the alcohol took over.” She gestured at Willard and sighed. Nolan thought he heard relief in her sigh, along with sorrow. “You know, I wouldn’t see him or speak to him anymore because of his drinking. So I never got to say goodbye.”
“Oh, wow, that sucks,” Nolan replied. He looked down at the cast on his ankle, and a shudder went through him.
“I’m sorry for what happened to you that night,” she said. “It was nice of you to come.”
“I sort of felt like I had to. I mean, if I hadn’t been there, he might not have died. And I feel kind of bad about that.” Nolan looked down at the floor, his shoulders hunching with guilt.
“No. He would have been dead in a week or two, anyway, the doctors said. Your being there or not wouldn’t have changed anything. And in a funny way, I’m glad he didn’t die alone. He wasn’t a bad man, you know. Not really.”
Nolan thought for a few moments. “I know,” he said.
The Ghost Maker
Del James
It always gets a little weird around All Hallows’ Eve. Something happens at the end of October that puts me on edge. I can’t help it. I’m not just talking about the creepy movies or carved jack-o’-lanterns with those glowing eyes or monstrous children whose identities are hidden by costumes demanding treats. I’m referring to a certain atmospheric change that occurs from remembering the dead.
You see, death is something I’m quite familiar with.
How did this happen? For starters, I grew up with some pretty shady characters. Teenage misadventures led to our first few illegal ventures, which opened up a whole world of opportunity, depending on how far one was willing to go. As time passed, these same shady homeboys either found legitimate ways of putting food on the table or became full-fledged criminals.
I took to crime like a whore takes to dick.
When I was thirteen years old, a group of us broke into a Catholic school. It wasn’t any sort of hate crime. Hell, most of us were Catholics. It was more about opportunity and having fun than anything else. Preparing to break in and enter, I didn’t really think it through and figured, fuck it, hanging out with the older kids while doing something daring was pretty damn exciting.
Being the youngest and the skinniest, my job was to go in through a window and then open the door for the others. Step by anxious step, I’ll never forget that sheer adrenaline rush of being alone in the dark, not just trespassing, but trespassing on God.
Moving quietly, sneakers barely touching the floor, I gained strength with each passing step, as well as more street cred with my pals. By the time I finally made it out of that classroom and down a dimly lit hall to let my friends in, I was no longer a kid.
Once inside, a stocky kid named Tommy D’Angelo, who two years later would go on to play defensive tackle for a local community college, started giving us orders. If it was up to me, I probably would have just run around a little and pulled a fire alarm, but Tommy had a plan.
Our first destination was the custodian’s office. Once we had the custodian’s keys to all of the classrooms, we were golden.
Breaking into a joint is like a scavenger hunt with time working against you. The longer you’re in, the higher the risk, but the guy with his head in the game has purpose. He wants to snatch something valuable like those balance weighing scales in the science classes that you can sell to drug dealers. The guy with no focus wants to take sports equipment, which is pretty stupid, because all the basketballs have the school’s name written on them in thick Magic Marker.
I was just happy to be there…until the cops showed up.
We heard the police car, its brakes screeching to a halt as it pulled into the parking lot. Because of where the car was, going out the way we came in was no longer an option.
Time to make a run for it.
Sneakers hauling ass, we raced toward an exit at the far end of the school. As freedom approached, I saw the first police officer nab Tommy. Our unofficial leader was in the process of being handcuffed…but when the cop saw an even larger teen, he let go of Tommy and pounced on this other kid named Bobby.
This all happened right in front of me; I was wide eyed and trying my best not to freak out. I was in way over my head. This was major league, and I probably would have run into the Tommy/police officer/Bobby pile-up if a kid named Anthony had not grabbed me by the collar.
You know how some kids just ain’t right in the head? If Anthony Marcantonio, aka Tony Mark, was a dog, you would put him down. Even before crossing the line into some rather nefarious activities, his dark eyes had no soul. I have no idea what it was like in his household, but whatever happened behind those closed doors that made him this way, I don’t want to know.
As far back as his sophomore year, Tony Mark had a plan. The teenage delinquent was going to enlist in the Marine Corps after high school (assuming he graduated) so he could learn about weapons and communication devices and killing people. After serving his country, he intended to become a full-fledged mobster and run a crew.
Back in the dark hallway, I’m trying my best not to scream or piss myself when Tony Mark grabs me. And he didn’t just grab me, he saved me from the super-aggressive cop doing karate moves on Bobby, who was now facedown in handcuffs.
“Follow me!”
Tony didn’t have to tell me twice. Full speed, we ran past the arresting officer and down the hall to another exit. I was ready
to sprint back to the safety of our neighborhood when Tony Mark had something else to say.
“Say a prayer.”
I couldn’t believe my ears. I mean, I may have been only thirteen, with peach fuzz on my balls, but I understood irony—this nutjob who just finished robbing a Catholic school was now asking God for protection from the law.
We bowed our heads and asked the patron Saint of fuck-if-I-know to look over us—then ran as fast as we could.
When I reached my apartment, I locked myself in my bedroom and nervously looked out the window, waiting for the inevitable. Sure enough, about two hours later several police cars pulled in front of our buildings and, one by one, the kids who had been inside the school emerged in handcuffs.
When the police knocked on my door, I had to quickly explain to my suspicious father what was happening.
THWAPP!
I’d been spanked before but never punched in the face by my father.
That was the last time I ever got arrested.
Far from Scared Straight, I just became more proficient in antisocial behavior. The fact that crime is “bad” is never lost on the criminal. You either get good at it or you go to prison. It’s pretty much a personal choice and, yes, environment has a lot do with it. If I had grown up in a neighborhood where most of the kids went on to college, who knows what I may have applied my smarts toward.
What it boils down to in life is a hustle. Whether it’s a legitimate hustle or a street hustle, everyone is hustling. If the economy is hurting, those hustles tend to be more out in the open because people are more desperate and hungry. For me, I tried several different hustles with various degrees of success before I finally found my calling.
Because of ethnicity, I was never going to be offered the same opportunities as some of my childhood buddies. It was nothing to be resentful over, but the Italians had their thing and they kept it for themselves. That didn’t mean they didn’t want to do business with me, especially since I’d proven myself over the years. It just meant there was a ceiling as to how high I could climb, and for the rest of my life I would always be taking orders from the likes of Tony Mark.
Halloween Carnival Volume 2 Page 8