by Laurèn Lee
“I have a friend coming over. I want everything to be spotless!”
“A friend? Who?” I asked more accusatory than I’d planned.
“What? You think your mother can’t have friends? You think you’re the only person I talk to?”
I shook my head. “That’s not what I said. I’m just asking who is coming over is all.”
“His name is Jerry,” she mumbled.
“Jerry? Who’s that? I’ve never heard you mention anyone by that name?” I asked as I narrowed my eyes.
“He’s a salesman,” Ma said as she continued dusting around the floorboards on her hands and knees. She’d put on a raggedy t-shirt and old jeans she’d bought from the Salvation Army years ago.
I felt heat rise to my cheeks as my body involuntarily clenched my fists. “What is he trying to sell you, Ma? What kind of scam is this?” I couldn’t hide my distaste. She couldn’t clean the apartment before, but now she’d suffer through it for some random guy?
“Scam? You’ve got some imagination, Serenity! He’s not trying to sell me anything.”
“You just said—”
“Okay, well it started off as a sales call, but we’re friends now.”
I secretly wondered if Ma had gotten into my stash of drugs and taken far too much. I knew she’d been prescribed pain pills for her hip, maybe she took too many? She couldn’t be this thick, right?
“When did you meet this, uh, Jerry?” I asked delicately.
“Yesterday,” she said.
I wanted to scold her. I wanted to yell at her. But, mostly I wanted to ask this Jerry what the fuck he was thinking coming calling on an older single woman without a lot of money.
“What kind of salesman is he?”
“He sells insurance.”
“Insurance, huh? And how did you meet him?”
“He knocked on the door, that’s how. He said he could find a better plan for me. He said he’d save us a lot of money on medical fees. Now, stop asking questions and start helping your poor mother.”
“Ma, please stop for a second and talk to me, huh?”
She huffed and puffed and threw down her rag. “What else do you need to know?”
“Just back track for a minute, please? So, he came to our door and what, asked if you wanted to buy insurance? What kind of insurance?”
“Jesus Christ, Serenity. He said he talked to some doctors in the area and asked if they knew of any patients who could benefit from a new plan. My GP gave him my information. Can’t I have a friend who wants to help, huh?”
“Not if he’s going to use you and steal your money! Plus, there’s no way your doctor would give up your information. That’s against the law!” I roared, losing my cool.
I’d done it now. Ma’s face turned a bright shade of puce and her lips quivered as she yelled back to me. “This is not like before. I learned my lesson!”
“Yeah, how? You’re inviting a stranger into our apartment, our home! And, for what? Some company? You don’t even know him. Go to the damn salon if you want some conversation, Ma!”
“You’re a rotten little brat, you know that?” she seethed.
“Listen, the last time you met some random guy and invited him over, he ended up stealing enough money from us to pay for my first year of college! I don’t want that to happen again. I work my ass off to support us!”
Ma started chuckling now. Something I’d said had been quite funny. “You’re afraid someone is going to steal your dirty drug money? And enough with the college bullshit. We both know you couldn’t get into no school unless you paid off the admissions office.”
My jaw dropped and, a vast pit formed in my stomach. Had she just said that?
After a few moments, I noticed regret glittering in her eyes, but it was too late; the damage had been done.
“Serenity, I didn’t mean it. I’m sorry!”
“Screw you,” I spat, as I grabbed my leather jacket and slammed the front door behind me. “I hope you have a great time with your new friend.”
25
Wayne
“Yeah?”
“Highway 31. Trailer in the far east corner. It’s the only brown one. Tonight. Nine o’clock.” Click.
“New job?” Sammy asked noticing the frown on my face as I held a new burner.
I sighed. “Yeah.”
“When?”
“Tonight,” I responded somberly.
“It’s my Open House tonight, remember? You’re supposed to come and meet all my teachers.”
I put my head in my hands and squeezed my eyes tightly shut. The guilt suffocated me.
“I know. I’m sorry, kid.”
“You know, my friends think I live alone. Or, that someone abandoned me. And, my guidance counselor is worried my parents abandoned me.”
I looked up to Sammy inquisitively.
“My friends have never met you or even seen you. They don’t believe I have a big brother. My teachers will be suspicious,” he said.
I couldn’t look him in the eyes. I knew I’d let him down, again. Even though my jobs paid for this apartment and would pay for Sammy’s entire college education, I was beginning to wonder if it was worth it. I was missing out on so many crucial events in Sammy’s life. Would he want me around in a few years? Would he grow to resent me and my broken promises and ubiquitous absences?
“Do I still have to go?”
“Do you need to be there?” I asked.
“Well, uh, I mean, if you’re not going it’s not like I need to meet my teachers all over again,” he said.
“Right. No, you don’t have to go,.”
“Can I come with you?”
“Come with me where?” I narrowed my eyes.
“To your job.”
“No.”
“C’mon! What if I want to go into the family business?”
“Sammy, stop. Please. I’m sorry I can’t come tonight. You know I hate missing shit like this, but that doesn’t mean you can come with me on my job.”
“Don’t you need someone to drive the getaway car?”
I tried to repress a smile. “I’m good. I appreciate the offer, though.”
“Fine,” he huffed. “Maybe I’ll hang out with Serenity.”
He was testing me; he wanted to see if I’d react to the sound of her name. I wouldn’t take the bait. “Sure, I bet she’d love to hang out.”
“Maybe you could buy us some beer?”
I nearly choked on my breakfast blend. “Excuse me?”
“You know, beer? I think I like craft beer,” he mentioned nonchalantly.
“It’s a Monday night,” I reminded him.
“So, you’d buy me beer on a different day of the week?”
“Sammy?”
“Yeah?”
“Go to school.”
He frowned, but grabbed his backpack, waved a weak goodbye, and left the apartment.
I leaned back in my chair at the kitchen table and wondered what I’d do until tonight. I should go into the garage and do some work. You know, make an appearance.
“Hey, Ronnie. It’s Wayne. Mind if I come in for a few hours today? Okay, great. I’ll be there in twenty.”
Ronnie and I had gone to high school together. We’d also gotten into a heaping ton of trouble together, too. Lucky for him, though, he’d cleaned up his act after graduation and opened the shop. He’d married Penny, his high school sweetheart, and they had three beautiful kids. When Sammy was younger, he’d call Ronnie, ‘Uncle Ronnie,’ and I felt relieved to have another parental figure in Sammy’s life.
Ronnie knew bits and pieces of what my job entailed and even though he didn’t approve, he still let me work part-time in the shop as long as I never brought my second job back with me to my first job. However, he always seemed awfully curious about my other work. Sometimes, he’d try to weasel details out of me like where I’d been, who’d I managed to take out, even who I reported to.
He only knows about the hitman gig because I acciden
tally let slip about a job one night when we were at Mickey’s together. I’d have about five too many and bragged about my expert aim. I instantly regretted the confession and ever since, Ronnie had shown a high level of interest.
He claimed he was just trying to live vicariously through me because his life didn’t have much going on, but I sensed he had something else up his sleeve.
I drove over to the garage sporting my work jeans which looked and smelled like I’d bathed in oil and grease. I had one white wife-beater left in my drawer so, I’d put that on, too.
“Nice of you to join us,” Ronnie chided.
“Yeah, yeah. I’m here. What do you need me to work on?”
“Well, we have two oil changes in the queue and my aunt’s brakes are goin’. If you could check ‘em out and see if anything needs to be replaced, I’d really appreciate it.
I saluted Ronnie and got to work.
Around noon, or so, I wanted to take my lunch break, and also have some relief from the sounds of the garage. I’d pulled my brown paper bag out of the fridge and headed to the back of the building to the worn-out picnic table for my break.
I opened my lunch bag and pulled out a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, a bag of potato chips and a mini-shot of Jack Daniels; the lunch of champions.
“Ain’t it a little early to be dippin’ into the sauce?” Ronnie asked as he joined me at the table overlooking a pond.
“Just need a little something.” Truth be told, the guilt in my gut grew exponentially larger as the day wore on. I wish I could tell my boss, my other boss, I couldn’t make the job tonight. I could only imagine his expression though, when I told him it was because I had to go to my kid brother’s Open House.
“How’s life, Wayne? Haven’t seen you in a few weeks.”
I’d been working fewer hours than I should have been, and Ronnie had been off the days I did manage to come in.
“Same old, same old.” I chewed my sandwich, which needed more jam.
“How’s uh, the other job working out for ya?”
“Oh, it’s fine.”
“I heard about that pervert who was found shot dead a week or two ago. Police said it looked like a hit. You know anything about that?”
“Nope,” I said quickly while I chewed my sandwich.
Ronnie eyed me suspiciously. “I also heard about Jacobsen. That you?”
“What is this a police interrogation?” I smiled trying to lighten the mood.
“No, of course not, buddy. Just interested is all,” Ronnie said. “Is your other boss as cool as me?” He popped his polo collar.
“You gotta get a life,” I chided.
“You know, I have room for a full-time mechanic here,” Ronnie offered. “It wouldn’t pay as much as your other job, I presume, but you wouldn’t get yourself into any trouble.” He winked.
“I appreciate it, brother.”
“You just let me know if you ever change your mind, all right? And, if you ever get yourself into some trouble with that other gig, you give me a call.”
“Yeah, all right.”
I forced a grin and a thumbs up as Ronnie stood and trotted back into the garage. I’d tipped back the Jack and wished I’d brought more with me today. Giving a much-needed distraction, I turned around to see a flock of geese swimming around the small pond. Surrounding the pond, was a quaint forest of tall, gorgeous pine trees. The geese honked and flapped their dirty wings and I wondered if one day, I’d ever be as free as them.
26
Serenity
I could feel it; the déjà vu nearly slapped me across the cheek. It was going to happen all over again. Ma would be seduced by a sleaze ball, give away what little money we had, and I’d be stuck cleaning up her mess and trying to find a safer hiding spot for the cash.
I needed a drink and I needed one now. Since Mickey’s was the only place who didn’t hassle me about being underage, I decided a liquid lunch was in order.
As I walked into the bar, I’d been greeted, as always, with the stale, musty scent of older men sweatin’ out last night’s binge. I figured some of the guys sitting at the bar were truckers; they had a certain look about ‘em that made it easy to pick them out of a crowd.
I sat on the end of the horseshoe-shaped bar top and tapped my fingers against the ledge. I’d always admired Janie’s decor and wondered how many of the blacked-out patrons had tried to peel the glass off the bar top to try to steal the pennies underneath. The entire bar top had been lined with rusted, copper pennies. It gave the place a more industrial feel when added to the high ceilings and concrete floors.
The walls had been lined with photographs of Janie, one of the owners, with many different patrons who’d come and gone throughout the years. Some of the people I recognized, and others I’d only heard stories about told after midnight with a few shots of Jameson in their systems.
“You’re here early,” Janie noticed.
“It’s five o’clock somewhere, right?”
“What can I get for ya?”
“Two shots of vodka, please.”
“That kinda day?”
I nodded.
I’d downed the shots before the bartender even had a chance to collect the crinkled bills I left beside my empty glasses.
“Want something else?” She smirked.
I held up two fingers as though I was telling her “peace,” but instead I’d hoped the upcoming shots would provide me with a little peace.
After I slung those back, too, I started to feel the wonderful wooziness take hold of me.
Much better.
One of the truckers scooched down closer to me; I could see him squinting to see the grainy twelve o’clock news on the TV.
“What’s your name?” he asked with several missing teeth during a commercial.
So much for that.
I ignored him, hoping he’d take the hit and bounce.
“You hear me, girly?”
“What?” I asked hoping my scathing glance would scare him away.
“I said, what’s your name?”
“I’m not interested,” I said flatly.
“Well, ain’t you a right piece of work,” He moved his chair back to his original spot.
“Kay. Bye.”
I heard him begin to mumble to his buddies about the bitch down the bar and I smiled to myself gleefully. It was better to be the bitch in the bar than to be the girl getting accosted by drunk hillbillies.
Another group of older men stumbled in and sat at the high-top behind me. They waved over the bartender and asked for a few pitchers of the cheapest beer.
“So, you think there’s going to be a party tonight?” One of the men asked the group in a hushed voice.
“I’m sure of it,” another answered.
“How many?”
“At least a dozen of us not including whoever else decides to show up last minute,” the first one said.
Carefully, I turned around so I could see the table in my peripherals and made sure to glance at the door a few times to make it seem as though I’d been waiting for someone to meet me.
“There ‘gun be drugs?”
The first man, who I could now see wore a red and black cut-off shirt, slapped the one who’d just spoken. “Dude, shut the fuck up!”
“What?” he said, rubbing his arm. “No one can hear me!”
“Anyways, there’s going to be a good group of us and yes, Will, there will be plenty of drugs.”
My ears had perked up at the “d” word and I made sure to listen even more intently.
“We are gun to get so fucked up!” Another exclaimed quietly.
Hmmm.
I wondered where this party would be. I’m sure it’d be a great opportunity for me to push the rest of the coke I had on hand. And, it didn’t seem like it was a set guest list. I could walk right into the party with anyone giving me a second glance.
“What’s the address again?”
I nearly fell off my stool trying to eave
sdrop.
“Highway 31. There’s a trailer park there. It’s my buddy’s place.”
I smirked, pulled out my phone and punched in the details into a new note. Looks like I’d have some new business tonight.
27
Wayne
After my shift, I went home to prepare for the job. Managed my usual routine in about an hour or so. My boss hadn’t indicated my target would be alone, which meant bad news for whoever resided at that trailer. When no single target was identified to me, that’d meant whoever happened to be on site would be my target, or rather, targets. It could be two guys, it could be ten. In the case of more targets, it just meant I’d have to get a lot craftier and more creative than usual.
I was one of the only guys in the operation to be trusted with more than one target at a time; most couldn’t handle it. I, on the other hand, preferred multiple targets. Well, sometimes. I hoped tonight I could get back on the horse and redeem myself after what I’d done during my last job. I needed to prove to myself I was still the same Wayne and that I hadn’t softened up.
Before the end of my shift, I’d asked Ronnie if he had an extra car on the lot to spare. He knew why I was asking and his initial answer was a hard “no.” But, once I told him I’d switch the plates and offered to take the heat if anything were to happen, he eventually obliged.
“Don’t make me regret this, Wayne. I love you with all my gut, but if something comes back to me I won’t even think twice about rattin’ you out.”
I chose a 2001 Chevy. It had about one hundred thousand miles on it, but it’d still been in decent shape. Obviously, I couldn’t drive my own car to the trailer park and I’d bet this ride would fit right in.
I packed my bag with three pieces this time, with one safely in the back of my dark jeans. You never know when you might need more pieces and more ammo. Looking in the mirror one last time, I made sure I had no loose hair on my shirt or neck and that my beard had been perfectly trimmed. I couldn’t imagine the cops would give two shits about a bunch of low lives appearing to have killed each other in a trailer park, but you never know.