Born of Greed

by Baroni, J. T.

  “Yeah, let’s do it.” Trotter nodded in approval, and then counted out the cash.

  Vinnie started again, “Add a pair of glass pack cherry bombs and that Mustang will growl.”

  “Oh no, no.” Trotter pointed his finger at Vinnie. “I want a sleeper; no tell-tale signs of what she’ll do. Understand? A nice quiet purr will be just fine. And keep it looking stock.”

  “Sure, whatever you want, it’s your car; but I’ll have to replace the stock hood with a carbon fiber one. You’ll need a scoop on it, to accommodate the super charger.”

  “Whatever she needs done, do it. Just keep her looking as close to factory as possible. You can even keep all the old parts you replace, which are actually still brand new.” Vinnie shook his head, agreeing.

  Trotter then asked, “You wouldn’t happen to have a rental I could use till my car is done, would you?”

  Vinnie folded the bills and stuck them in his shirt pocket next to his toothpick. Then he opened a desk drawer, grabbed a set of keys, and tossed them to Trotter. Next, he snatched his smokes from atop his toolbox and fired up a Camel non-filter. Trotter winced and fanned the smoke away from him. How can anybody smoke them nasty things?

  “That red Dodge Dart sitting out there should have about three weeks of life left in it; that’s about how long this…uh, metamorphosis, should take on your Stang.” Trotter’s eyebrows rose at the word, ‘Stang,’ he liked that.

  Vinnie didn’t take notice as he further explained, “Just put a quart of tranny fluid in it every hundred miles or so. There’s a half of a case of the cheap shit in the trunk. You’ll be okay.” Then he reached his hand out to Trotter, they shook on a done deal.

  Vinnie was nearly the same size as Rick Newman, possibly even smaller; however, the mechanic had a much firmer handshake, unlike the anesthesiologist. That, like the Willys’s write-up in the Hot Rod magazine, also impressed Trotter.

  * * * *

  Lately, Trotter’s mind has been roaming wildly. Even to the extent that he wondered why, and where in the Hell, all these thoughts and memories that had been bombarding him were coming from.

  Thinking of Newman’s girly handshake brought him back to the present, and Trotter wondered if the kid would deliver, come Saturday.

  Looking in the rearview mirror for any cars in the passing lane, Trotter caught a glimpse of himself. You should be in the movies, you good lookin’ sum bitch.

  The oncoming lane was empty so he passed the slow moving minivan with ease; the soccer mom looked over at him and smiled. He barely touched the accelerator. Da Stang had an attitude, with plenty of muscle. Just like its owner, it definitely was one mean, powerful, and sexy, lean machine.

  I could co-star with Vinn Diesel. He humored himself. He could play the part of my baby brother. But of course we would both fall in love with the same doll, and after a fifteen minute car chase where my Mustang blows off his Charger, I’d naturally have to kick his ass, and ride off with the bitch!

  He laughed so loud he drowned out Hank Junior.

  Trotter wheeled Da Stang into his ‘Reserved for Trotter’ parking spot at the Santa Monica Police Department. He entered the building and noticed his supervisor had yet to arrive; he hurried to his desk and sat down. Behind him on the wall was a calendar with a black line through each day passed. Today he would scratch off Thursday, May 13, 1990.

  Below the calendar, a picture of his Marine platoon on graduation day from MP school. Right next to that was his framed—Honorable—Discharge!

  One of the most prized possessions he owned though sat on his desk, a tattered yellowed photograph of him standing next to his mother. In the background stood a barn, and cornfields stretching to the horizon. Only eight years old at the time, but already he stood a good three inches over his five and a half foot tall mother.

  He dialed the phone, and in a low sexy voice, said, “Good morning, lover, hope I didn’t get you up? No? Good! Hey, I have to work Fontaine’s Farewell concert this Saturday night, but,” he chuckled lightly, “I’m invited to the party afterwards and I’m making it a ‘BYOB affair.’ And my…uh…bottle…is on order, and it’s definitely not Tanqueray. Are you still game? For sure? Excellent! See you Saturday night. Love you too, Baby!”

  Trotter hung up the phone and stared at the eight-year old kid by the barn. Where in the Hell did thirty-seven years go? When did life become so fucking complicated? Christ! It feels like only yesterday I was chasing Duke through that cornfield.

  Staring deeply and intensely at the old photo, he once again heard the sound of rustling cornstalks on the windy Great Plains. Fresh country air and the smell of earthy soil once more surrounded him. Up and down row after row, eight-year old Jack Trotter chased that barking beagle while the cornstalks lashed at his face and arms. A ring-necked pheasant trumpeted as it took flight. A ground mole ran over his untied sneaker. He heard his father’s tractor chugging in the North Forty plot, while his mother tossed feed to her chickens, saying, “Here chick, chickie.”

  However, when the aroma of his mother’s apple butter cooking on the woodstove wafting in the warm breeze drifted into the endless cornfields of his mind, his eyes slowly shut and he plummeted thirty-seven years back in time. Back to the days of his youthful innocence. Back to when life was simple.

  Without leaving his desk, Jack Trotter was back in Iowa.

  * * * *

  The Trotter Farm and family beginnings are traceable to 1867. Shortly after the Civil War, the United States Government enacted the Homestead Act. Four Trotter brothers from Virginia brought their families west, settling in the fertile prairie lands of Elderton, Iowa, approximately sixty miles outside of Des Moines. They each farmed one hundred and sixty acres, granted to them by Uncle Sam. Over the ensuing years, however, they and their offspring bought or swindled as much land as they possibly could.

  A dozen or so different Trotter clans owned nearly two thousand acres by the time the Great Dust Bowl of the Thirties swept unmercifully across the Midwest. After six years of the families starving, dying from lung ailments, or joining the Okies heading to California, only three brothers and one father remained. Either old habits are hard to break, or maybe it was just a family tradition, but those three brothers fought like hell amongst themselves to lay claim to their siblings’ deserted, worthless land. All three having the same hopes of the day coming—when the dust that was filling the sky, their lungs, and their homes, would finally settle. They all prayed for that day when their farms would once again be fertile, productive. Every one of them pleaded to their Maker for rain. Some begged; others made promises, knowing their solemn vows would never be kept.

  Ultimately, on another hot and dry afternoon, black, ominous clouds loomed on the western horizon. The incoming front’s cool winds kicked up tiny dirt devils that pranced through the barren fields, frolicked around the out buildings, and whipped across front porches.

  An eternity of moments later, a few large raindrops smacked off the tin roofs making for the most wondrous melody to the remaining Trotter clans. Every one of them raced from their houses to shout joyfully and dance wildly in the dusty fields as the rain intensified and splattered all about; on them, their tin roofs, and the thirsty, scorched, cracked ground. They fell to bent knees, raised their arms and faces to the heavens, giving thanks as the precious rain soaked their dust-ridden hair, and ran from their foreheads, mixing with their tears. With wide opened mouths, they drank in the nectar as though the rain was mother’s milk.

  Months later, upon the arrival of rain, their corn seed sprouted once again, making for lush, green fields. However, the Grim Reaper, armed with Dust Pneumonia, lurked patiently in the shadows, waiting to pluck one more unfortunate soul. Eugene Trotter, the youngest son of the original four brothers from Roanoke. From his dust-encrusted deathbed, which his sons had kindly placed near a window enabling him to comfortably enjoy his final resting days watching the ring-necked pheasants fly and the prairie dogs chase one another and admiring the cornfiel
d that his sons had planted for him.

  “Look boys!” the old farmer wheezed, coughing up hideous phlegm, and gasping for air as he savored the beautiful sunset outside his dusty window. “My corn is knee high…on this…Fourth of July!” An old farmers’ saying that signified their crops are growing according to schedule.

  However, sadly, the eighty-one year old farmer did not live to see the dawn, with the splendid sun’s rays of the morning sparkling through his dewy cornstalks on that fifth day of July 1942. The Grim Reaper’s patience had worn thin during the night’s cover of darkness.

  Eugene had no will, but did own a nice three hundred acre farm with a silo, a barn, a pond, and a few pieces of equipment; Ray, Thomas, and Thad Trotter met at Ray’s farm following Eugene’s funeral, to divvy their dead father’s earthly possessions. Nevertheless, as usual, they ended up fighting like three rabid hyenas over a freshly killed gazelle carcass on the arid Serengeti plains.

  “I want the house,” Thomas, the oldest brother, demanded.

  “No way are you getting the house, Thomas,” Ray, the youngest of the three brothers, said, “You ain’t got no kids. I need a bigger house because of my twins.”

  “But your god damned twins are only two months old,” Thomas argued.

  “They’ll be grown before you know it. And besides, Thomas, didn’t you say Maggie can’t have youngins,” Ray shot back.

  “She can’t, but talk is that new fuckin’ highway is coming, and it’s going to cut right through my North Forty plot. That’ll be five hundred feet from my front door, for Christ’s sakes.”

  “All I want is the pond and the silo,” Thad said, stressing authority in his voice so the other two wouldn’t dispute him.

  “Fuck you,” Ray and Thomas shouted simultaneously.

  “I want the pond,” hollered Ray.

  “No, screw you too, Ray. I want the pond,” screamed Thomas.

  “You ain’t gettin’ the pond or the fuckin’ silo, Thad. Where’s the sense in me having the fuckin’ house without a fuckin’ silo?” argued Ray.

  “What the fuck did I say, Ray? You ain’t gettin’ the fucking house, period. Case closed. I’m the oldest, God damn it.” Thomas pointed out.

  “Fuck you, Asshole. You want every fuckin’ thing, don’t cha, ya bastard? I took care of Dad. I took him to Doc Wilson’s all the time, not you, you inconsiderate prick,” Ray squawked.

  “Fuck you! I was the only one that worked on his house,” Thomas hollered.

  “Oh! The fuck you were!” Ray screamed.

  “Go to Hell!” Thomas shot back.

  “No, you go to Hell, Asshole!” Ray shouted.

  “Kiss my ass! You dirty little cocksucker,” Thomas countered.

  “Fuck you, too! I’ll knock up your old lady for ya, seeing as where you can’t get it right!” Ray shouted, knowing damn well that his remark would hit a nerve.

  Thomas stuck his fist one inch from Ray’s chin. He clenched his teeth and snarled out, “Both you greedy Motherfuckin’ sons of bitches can go straight the fuck to hell!” With that mouthful being shouted, Thomas then jumped in his pickup, flicked his cigarette butt at his brothers, revved up that Ford flat head till she could rev no more, popped the clutch and made damn sure the rocks, gravel, and dust flew at them two sons of bitches when he tore down the lane. All the while, his left middle finger saluted them as high in the air as he could get it.

  Later on that same evening, Ray and Thad stopped over Thomas’s house with honest intentions of reaching agreeable terms on dividing Eugene’s farm once again. Ray even went as far as to apologize for saying he would impregnate his brother’s wife. His remark was a rather exceptionally ignorant insult, especially since Maggie was in the hospital, again, due to another miscarriage.

  Not surprisingly, though, their second attempt wound up just like that morning’s pissing contest.

  About the only two things Eugene Trotter’s three sons did agree upon after supper, and perhaps one swig of moonshine too many that night; was that they would never talk to one another again as long as they lived, and they would not attend each other’s funerals when they died.

  Then—the three brothers drew straws!

  Shortly after midnight, an intensely bright orange glow lit up the sky, visible from miles away. White smoke billowed from the barn, erupting from the hundreds of burning hay bales stored there, while a black, acrid smelling smoke poured from the equipment’s sizzling rubber tires. Every so often, small explosions echoed from the dozens of paint cans, fertilizers, and insecticide bottles. However, when those flames licked their way to a half-full five hundred gallon gasoline tank, an ear splitting wa-whoosh was not only heard, but also felt, miles away.

  Fire Marshal Maquire visited Eugene Trotter’s farm the next day and scoured the area for signs of arson. The barn had burned to the ground, several hay bales and the thicker beams still smoldered. The house was gone too, except for a small section of one wall that had a window still intact, above the ruins of a burned out bed. A burnt skeleton of a tireless tractor yielded no clues. Heat radiated from the brick silo, the only structure that remained standing. The chicken coop and outhouse both burnt to the ground, reduced to ashes. All the buildings were too far apart for the flames to reach from one to another. The official report was that the fires were deliberately set in each building. But, by who? Moreover, why?

  What Maquire found exceptionally bizarre, having neither rhyme nor reason, was that a fifty-five gallon barrel of diesel fuel floated half submerged in the pond. Furthermore, the barrel had holes punched in it, allowing the fuel to leak out, which caused a rainbow appearance on the pond’s surface and all the blue gills to float belly up, attracting flies, and fouling the air. He determined a pickaxe punctured the barrel, and the holes were freshly made.

  Slowly, he walked around the pond, several times. On his third trip around the one-acre pond, he spotted something strange. The tall and thin Fire Marshall stopped, bent down, and picked up three burnt wooden matches that were floating on top of the lily pads, all in a four-foot diameter. “What the hell?” He pondered aloud, as he took off his hat and scratched his baldhead, “Did some psycho try to set the pond on fire, too?”

  After two days of investigation, Maquire closed the case and arrested no arsonists due to a lack of evidence and no eyewitnesses. The three Trotter sons told the Fire Marshall, “It’s a shame somebody would do such a thing to their Daddy’s farm. We had plans for the place. Why would anybody spoil the pond? It doesn’t make a bit of sense. Hope you catch that sick bastard.”

  * * * *

  Eugene Trotter’s ears of corn were picture perfect that year. Sadly, however, the crops remained unharvested in the fields, proffering itself a feast for wild animals.

  Over the ensuing years, weeds eventually took over, and the silo ultimately came crashing down since the intense heat had weakened the mortar.

  What was once a beautiful, sprawling three hundred acre productive farm, which heard laughter, entertained family reunions, hosted weddings, survived both The Great Depression of the Twenties, and The Great Dust Bowl of the Thirties, could not survive The Great Greed among Siblings.

  Indeed! Many secrets do—go untold to the grave.

  Now, left in its place, is a beautiful, sprawling three hundred acre natural haven for God’s wildlife. Furthermore, drifting in its wake is town folklore proclaiming that on every Fourth of July, if you drive by the Old Man Trotter’s Place as the cornfields devour the last of the sun’s rays, you will see that old man sitting on the burnt remains of his bed.

  Furthering the legend, Eugene Trotter will be peering from his dusty window, merrily watching the ring-necked pheasants fly, as the prairie dogs chase one another.

  Chapter Three

  “Can’t catch me, ‘cause the rabbit done died.”

  Steven Tyler/Aerosmith

  Jack Trotter entered the world on April 30, 1945 to Thomas and Margaret Trotter. Ironically, over the years, doctors had informed Ma
rgaret, better known as Maggie, that she would never bear children. The doctors told this soon to be proven wrong diagnosis to Maggie after she suffered her sixth miscarriage; consequently, she just accepted the sullen fact she would never experience the joys of motherhood.

  As fate would have it though, a mere two years after that dismal determination and the fire of ’42, once again she was excited to be with child.

  Entering her fifth month of pregnancy, Maggie held extremely high hopes for this baby and she prayed constantly to the Good Lord in Heaven, begging him to allow her to deliver this baby. Not a single one of her other pregnancies ever reached two months.

  Nearing the end of month six, she was as huge as if she was full term. Bedridden with severe cramps, the small-boned, petite woman suffered relentless pain; but she became overly excited each and every time she felt the tiny life inside her move.

  “Thomas, come feel the baby kicking!” she would excitedly call to her husband.

  He felt the first couple of kicks, but after that, he simply yawned and hollered up the stairs, “Woman. I’m too damned tired to get up. I’m working my ass off trying to keep this farm running, you know, and being your wet nurse, too.” In every one of his sarcastic replies, he always had to mention either how hard he worked or his having to run for her. The penny-pinching bastard just wanted to roll tomorrow’s supply of cigarettes and down a few longnecks, read the weather forecast, and go to bed. Thank God, her sister would come over nearly every day to comfort her, cook their meals, and do laundry.

  On the last day of April, around one in the morning, Maggie shouted, “Thomas, the baby is kicking!” The baby wasn’t due for two more months yet.

  “Go back to sleep, you crazy woman. I don’t want to feel the baby kicking, again. I’m trying to get some God damned sleep.”

  “Thomas! The baby is kicking…really hard!” She screamed out in pain, “I think the baby is…aaahhh…coming out!” Thomas ran to her bed and pulled back the covers to have a look. Maggie was lying on her back with her legs spread wide apart; this position felt the most natural and somewhat eased the pain. She had been lying this way for the past two weeks solid now. There was no way she could lay on her stomach or her side; her abdomen was as enormous as a ripe watermelon. In addition, her tightly drawn skin prevented her from wearing under garments because they cut into her. She simply kept her bottom covered with a nightgown. He looked under it.