by Ted Clifton
Ted Clifton
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EPUB edition ISBN: 978-1-927967-54-6
Kindle edition ISBN: 978-1-927967-55-3
Copyright 2015 Ted Clifton, all rights reserved.
Cover Page
Title Page
Prolog
Part One: 1987
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Part Two: 1952
Introduction
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Part Three: 1987
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Part Four: 2004
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Epilog
About The Author
Colophon
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, 1952
Deep Deuce was swinging tonight. The Billy Parker Band was hitting every note. The sound was magnetic, attracting dancers young and old. Blacks and whites alike were enjoying great rhythms from one of the best big bands of the time.
John Giovanni didn’t come for the music, though—he’d never been accused of being cultured. He was in town to meet one of his customers. He hated all of his goddamn customers, but what the hell—if he killed them all he wouldn’t have any business. Giovanni was originally from Brooklyn, but he’d moved to Dallas at the urging of his uncle. Uncle Tony had made it clear that Giovanni should move or Tony would cut his throat. The threat was accompanied by an easy-to-understand gesture. Giovanni had slept with Uncle Tony’s ugly daughter, and Uncle Tony was pissed. She was only fourteen.
Giovanni realized his options were limited, so he moved. He started selling illegal liquor to the shitkickers who lived in the backward world of Texas. God did he ever hate Texas.
Tonight Giovanni was in Oklahoma City, another useless shithole. The only people who could tell the difference between Texas and Oklahoma were the assholes who lived there, and to them the distinctions were enormous. To Giovanni the only good thing about this ugly part of the country was they still had prohibition—at least Oklahoma did, and parts of Texas. That’s why Giovanni was here: to feed the beast all the illegal hooch it wanted.
Giovanni had dreamed about being alive in the twenties and thirties, raising hell like Capone. Man, what a wonderful time to have been alive. So when Uncle Tony said to get lost fast before he sliced Giovanni up real bad, Giovanni did a little research and discovered gangster nirvana in the southwest.
Using all of his well-honed skills, which mostly had to do with killing anyone who got in his way, he became the major wholesaler of liquor in the region in just a few years. If Uncle Tony hadn’t hated his guts, he would have been proud.
Why he was meeting this creep in the black section of town, he had no idea. Giovanni wasn’t particularly prejudiced—he just mostly hated everybody who wasn’t Italian, so color didn’t really matter. As a matter of fact, being up to 1950 standards of racial harmony, his favorite whore was black. Her name was Lacy, and Giovanni liked screwing her almost as much as he liked killing fuckin’ Texans. She was with him tonight, along with three bodyguards and his dumber-than-dirt cousin, Marco.
“Marco what the hell kinda music are they playing?”
“That’s jazz Johnny. Really cool jazz.”
“What the fuck do you know about jazz? What the fuck do you know about anything?”
“Hey, why do you talk to me like that? I’m your goddamned cousin—you shouldn’t talk to me like that.”
“How about I just blow your fucking brains out, right here in this stupid jazz hip-hop joint, how would that be, shithead?”
Marco was never sure how far Johnny might go. He had seen him do some pretty horrible things.
“Okay, okay, sorry Johnny. It’s just sometimes you make me feel like I’m stupid or something.”
“Well, yeah. Maybe I’ll be nicer. How’s that? Maybe you should take Lacy out to the car and get a little—how would that be Marco?”
This caused Lacy to give Johnny a never-turn-your-back-on-me-asshole look. One way or another Johnny wasn’t likely to make old age.
“Why are we here Johnny?”
“I’m expanding. Dumb shitkicker who runs the largest Oklahoma bootleg operation is going to retire. We’ve been selling him some of his booze for a while, but now he’s decided to buy from those Mexican fuckheads out of Juarez. Can’t have that, so he’s going bye-bye.”
“You going to kill him?” Marco seemed nervous. You never knew with Johnny. He might do it right here, right now.
“Don’t worry baby Marco, it won’t be tonight. But once everything gets transferred over to me, he’ll be dead. I’ll be the booze king of fuckin’ Oklahoma.”
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma—February 1987
Depression seemed like an old friend. There was comfort in being able to describe, with medical precision, the reason you weren’t successful, weren’t particularly happy, were overweight—you get the picture.
Joe Meadows was a CPA who’d experienced only minor success as an accountant and hated every aspect of his tedious life. His wife Liz was mostly pleasant, although she was preoccupied with her own activities. These centered around their two teen children, who seemed totally absorbed in their own realities, and her church, The Church of Christ. Joe often thought that it was possible that his family wasn’t fully aware of his existence in the sense that he wasn’t a distinct individual to them. He was the family provider, but there was little doubt that they didn’t give a shit about Joe the person.
Joe’s appearance was mostly unremarkable. Some people said he was handsome, with his longish, dark hair. He was just under six foot—never said five eleven. He used to have sparkling eyes that seemed full of mischief, but the years of tedium and boredom—and a little too much drinking—had toned the gleam down some. His best quality still remained: an engaging smile.
It was February, 1987. Joe lived in Oklahoma City with a bunch of cowboy rednecks who enjoyed beer, big-breasted women, guns, and pickups—not necessarily in that order. Everything about Joe’s life felt foreign to him, like he was visiting from another planet. Where he was supposed to be in this world, he didn’t know, but it sure wasn’t where he was right now.
By the standards of the American dream, Joe was doing just fine. He had a nice looking wife and two beautiful kids, he was a professional with his own business, and he had a house, two cars, and probably a dog somewhere—what the hell was the matter with him? He wasn’t sure. It just seemed like there should be something more to life. What that something was, he didn’t know. Nor was he making any effort to find out. He showed up for his life each day and clocked in, and he anticipated that nothing would change.
Monday morning, and Joe was headed to a client’s office to discuss the company’s financial condition. The client was Mike Allen, owner of Allen’s Hardware. Mike’s business had lost a bundle the previous year and he wanted Joe to tell him why. Joe knew why: Mike was an idiot—or at least acted like an idiot.
Mike was either drunk, or getting ready to get drunk, and
almost certainly chasing a woman who wasn’t his wife, leaving very little time to focus on the hardware business. And he’d been Joe’s best friend since grade school.
They’d become best friends in Mrs. Smith’s second grade class at East Side Elementary. They had formed a bond on the playground to improve their defenses against the girls—especially one girl. A second grade boy’s worst nightmare is the inevitable bully girl on the playground. It’s one thing to be beat up by some boy—but by a girl? That’s just terrible. Jane Waters was their nemesis. She was meaner and tougher than most of the boys in the school. Rumor had it that she’d been held back in second grade—twice.
Jane had been tormenting the boys for months. Recess had become hell. Much of it consisted of threats, but the boys had seen her in action. She had pummeled Ray M so bad he had to go to the nurse’s office. He was out of school for three days. Jane was gone for a few days, too—to everyone’s relief.
The only way to improve their position was to form an alliance. Once the boys made their bond, cementing the deal with a ritual handshake and spit, they stood up to her in a frightening display of little boy courage. She left them alone from that day on, and Mike and Joe had been best friends ever since.
Joe parked in front of the hardware store and sat in the car for a while, not wanting to tell Mike how bad things really were. The store had belonged to Mike’s father for more than twenty years and something of a town institution. The original owner, before Mike’s dad bought it, opened in the current location sometime in the 1930s. But times change, and a new Walmart down the street had cut the store’s business in half overnight. Mike’s dad had died about ten years ago, so at least he hadn’t had to see what had happened to the “best little hardware store in OKC.” As the store declined, Mike’s drinking increased. There was probably little Mike could do to help his business, but what he was doing was the opposite of helping.
Joe entered the store and was once again struck by the feeling it had to be hundreds of years old. Everything about the place seemed to be from another era. Even the old cash register was more antique than functional. The store was crammed full of a variety of merchandise, some of which hadn’t been moved in years. On the other hand, if you needed a part for a thirty-year-old washing machine they just might have it. There was comfort in being inside the store—like it was a wonderful part of your past you had forgotten.
“Joe, come on back and give me the good news.” Mike was standing in the doorway of his small office and didn’t look so good. His eyes were bloodshot, and he hadn’t shaved. He had a strange look about him these days, like he wasn’t quite real. There were times it seemed like Mike was an actor in a movie, playing himself. Never a real sharp dresser, now he looked like he should be sitting on the sidewalk outside the store with a bottle in a paper bag rather than occupying the owner’s office.
Mike had inherited a strong physique. Standing at least six foot two, he was often mistaken for an ex-football player, though he’d never been good at sports. Wearing his hair cut short gave a no-nonsense quality to his demeanor. Developing a small stomach was about the only change to Mike’s physique since high school.
Joe went into the office and took a chair at Mike’s desk. He began, “The loss last year was a lot more than you can stand. You have no cash, you’re past due with your suppliers, you owe back payroll taxes to the IRS, and the bank note is four months past due. Mike, you’re broke. I’d be surprised if the bank doesn’t call your loan and put you out of business.” So much for small talk.
Mike just stared off into space. After a short while he turned to Joe, “What can I do?”
“You’re going to need to get some cash—I would say somewhere around $25,000—in order to keep things from imploding. You don’t have much time. The most important thing is to stop the losses—you can’t keep digging a hole and filling it with borrowed money.”
Mike looked dejected. He was quiet. It was evident that this was hard for him to take. His expression reflected something worse than just disappointment.
“My gut tells me you need to shut the business down. Use the $25,000 to buy some time to get a plan in place. I don’t think you can sell the store. So, more than likely, your only option will be bankruptcy and liquidation.” Joe was Mr. Doomsayer today.
Mike erupted “What kind of fuckin’ friend are you? Is that the best you can do?”
“Look, if it was up to me I’d wave a magic goddamned wand and make everything perfect—but I don’t have a wand and, if I did, I’d use it on my own fucked up life.” Joe and Mike shared some stress issues.
“Mike, you can just walk away and lose everything, or you can try to get some cash and have an orderly closing—maybe save your house and some of your other assets. But I think the store is gone. The climate for your type of business has just changed too much. There are plans for a Home Depot only ten minutes from here—what would that do to your business? You need to try and protect as much of what you have as you can and then get on with something else.”
“Something else? Listen to you—you know there’s nothing else for me. I’ve worked in this stupid business since I busted out of college. I don’t know anything else. Maybe I could get a job at Walmart and slowly starve to death. Samantha—I’m sure she’ll understand. We’ll just have to downsize and learn to like living in a mobile home. None of her snotty friends will even notice we’re suddenly white trash.”
Samantha Allen, Mike’s wife, had been his high school sweetheart. She was the prom queen, football queen, home coming queen—pretty much queen of everything. And she was gorgeous. Mike had always felt lucky that she was his wife, but he was also intimidated by her beauty. He’d developed serious insecurities about himself because he hadn’t lived up to her standards.
The room was quiet. Joe felt bad for his friend and at the same time thought he had done very little to prevent the mess he was in. Mike had always lived way beyond his means. If he had a good year and made $50,000, he would spend $70,000—mostly on things and people he could live without. Mike’s wife seemed to think that they actually had money, and she lived just that way.
“Mike, I can loan you maybe $5,000 or so. I’m only going to do that if you can come up with more, so you can have a chance to work out a plan that will let you get out of this business without a complete collapse.”
“I don’t want you loaning me money. Why make you more miserable just to give me a few more hours before I go down the tubes? I need a way to make some big bucks, and fast—not just keep borrowing and struggling from one month to the next. I need a plan.”
Joe agreed: Mike needed a plan. They made a plan to meet for a drink around four that afternoon at Triples, a local bar and restaurant down the street from the hardware store. That wasn’t really a plan at all—it was more like an old bad habit that should be broken—but it was the best they had right now.
Driving back to his office, Joe began to think about how Mike could make some quick money. They were both forty-four—the perfect age for nothing. If you were going to be one of the successful people you read about, it would have already happened. Now there wasn’t much to do except wait for some sort of miracle or death. Joe knew his fate. Working late, drinking too much, and wondering what might have been. The problem Joe had was that even if he was able to start over, he wasn’t sure what he would do differently. He had no vision of what an ideal life would look like, although he was pretty sure lots of money would help. He just wasn’t very interested in much of anything.
Joe knew that Mike thought he’d hit his peak when he married Samantha. She was the most beautiful girl in their senior high school class—Mike had hit the jackpot. But it seemed to Joe that Mike had never really been happy after they were married. He’d won the prize, now what did he do? After all, there was something very contradictory about the fact that he worked in his father’s hardware store and was married to the most beautiful woman in the world. It felt unreal, and Mike seemed almost to be waiting for her t
o leave him—or maybe his behavior was a way to get her to leave. The pressure of his marriage seemed to be all in his head, but it was as real as could be to Mike.
Although they lived beyond their means, Mike and Sam still lived a modest lifestyle. They didn’t have a mansion or drive fancy cars. They lived a few blocks from the hardware store, on Hudson just off Eighth. Their house was older, in a nice neighborhood. Mike had always planned on fixing it up more than he had. Someday he’d get around to that—well, maybe. Their whole life had a demoralized quality to it that made itself felt in every one of their interactions. Everything was stretched very thin. They were waiting on something, but they didn’t know what.
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
At 4:15, Joe walked into the darkened confines of Triples looking for Mike. He was over in a corner booth, obviously already headed toward drunk, sipping his usual scotch and water. Joe slid in and waved a finger at the bartender, who immediately begin fixing a gin and tonic—his usual.
“How long have you been here?” Joe wasn’t sure he would stay if Mike was already beyond discussing anything.
“Just a little while. I have had only a couple of drinks—so don’t get all high and mighty on me!” Mike made an ugly face as he said his piece. Under more normal circumstances, Joe would have left to avoid the conflict headed his way. He’d seen Mike like this before. But today he felt he needed to help Mike the best he could.
The bartender brought his drink, and Joe sat back and sipped without comment. In a little while the tension seemed to let up some. Mike was still sulking, but he was doing it with a more pleasant expression on his face.
Joe had given thought to Mike’s financial problems. Without some surprise he didn’t think there was much hope. Mike was like a lot of people, including Joe—he had borrowed as much as he could in order to live the life he wanted to live, right now—to hell with the future. Credit cards had been a way to live beyond their means and enjoy the good life. Everyone did it—why not him?
Joe had counseled Mike several times about the debt and the declining revenues of his business—even when he felt like a hypocrite doing it. Mike would just shrug his shoulders and say, “Everything’ll be better next month.” It never was.