Joe's Black T-Shirt

by Joe Schwartz

  “The District Attorney is looking for a good prosecutor. I think I’m the man for the job.”

  “A man who follows his heart can never go wrong,” Father Gabriel said. “Of course, there isn’t much money in that line of work. It’s more a calling than a job, but you know that already, don’t you?”

  “If my father taught me one thing,” Mike said placing his hand over Father Gabriel’s “is that money is the least important thing of all.”

  ###

  Take It Or Leave It

  The alarm clock woke me at one-thirty in the morning. I slammed my hand in the dark trying my damnedest to silence the hellish screech. Unable to put a stop to the annoyance, I became fully awake and turned on the lamp. The red illuminated digits peered at me from the floor. My vision still blurry made it impossible to clearly see the numbers. I deliberately stomped on it, finally shutting it up before stepping into the john to piss. Pee hit the bowl, the seat, and the floor. A motherfucker of a hangover squealed inside my brain, lending me no mercy for my bad habits.

  I brushed my teeth with Listerine, taking the scum off that had built up from cigarettes and beer before passing out. It was the same thing every morning, seven days a week. I spat the brown liquid down the drain followed by a large hunk of lung cheese.

  The man I saw in the mirror hadn’t changed; a scrubby three-day growth of beard, hair short enough that it was unnecessary to comb, and two bloodshot red eyes with black dots that didn’t seem to see anything. I would shower after I got home. My hygiene wasn’t an issue. I worked alone.

  The clothes I wore were simple. Cargo shorts and a t-shirt during the dog days of summer. Blue jeans and thermal shirts in the winter. Regardless the weather, I wore the same twenty-dollar boots everyday for the last three years. I found the ankle high constriction comfortable. In the slam they made you wear these blue canvas loafers with all white rubber soles. Fifteen years of wearing those goddamn things built a great aversion within me for comfortable footwear. Every time I put my boots on the image of those shoes flashed in my mind until I pulled the laces tight.

  It was a cool morning for mid-June but not enough for a jacket. I kept one behind the seat in the van but couldn’t remember the last time I used it. I lit a Marlboro and turned the motor over. The piece of shit had an exhaust leak that made a hell of a racket. I punched the accelerator, deliberately revving the engine loud on the apartment’s parking lot. All fucking day I listened to screaming kids, the boom-boom car systems, and people who seemed never to go have to work in order to pay their rent. It was a childish revenge, and I laughed every time. Maybe it didn’t bother anyone, but then again, maybe it did. I hoped it pissed somebody off.

  I had spent three months living in men’s shelters looking for work after my release. The line on the application where it asked if you had ever been convicted of a felony and if so why was easy to answer. With a bold mark, I checked the yes box, and in the space provided wrote one word: manslaughter. If that didn’t answer the fucking question, I didn’t know what else to say.

  Occasionally, I would get an interview in spite of my honesty. Like some kind of asshole, I would wear a long-sleeved shirt and tie that I had picked out of the donation bins, trying to make a good impression. In an instant, before I had even sat down or shook a hand, they all judged me. My only visible tats were across my knuckles that read survivor when put together and the ones on my cheeks. Those were always the kiss of death. In spite of the fact that I was not a racist, anti-Semite, or atheist, the swastika on my right cheek and the upside-down cross on my left made an impact. It wasn’t like I couldn’t understand. If the roles were reversed, I think I probably would have felt the same way about me. It wasn’t until I bumped into an old cellie at a used bookstore downtown that I heard about this gig.

  ***

  Cave was a cool dude, who did his time without incident. In the three years we bunked together, we never had a problem with each other. I hadn’t thought much about him since he got early parole for a rape he swore he never committed. Even then, I didn’t really give a fuck if he was innocent but got him wise real fast to quit saying that shit. Nothing pissed off locked-down cons than someone screaming injustice at the top of his lungs. Unless he enjoyed getting stabbed with sharpened toothbrushes, I advised him to let it go. If anything, brag about how you did it, and would do it again if they were stupid enough to let you out. He took my advice and suffered a couple of beat downs, which were inevitable once in a while to everybody.

  He laughed when I told him how fucked up things had been going. I laughed too. Seriously, what should I have expected? That’s when he hipped me to this paper route gig. He explained to me that it was good bread and steady as the sun coming up in the East. The big bonus though was no one gave a shit what you looked like as long as you did your job.

  Cave vouched for me to his boss Balentine that night and to my surprise he called me in for an interview. I could tell from the jump that he was not to be fucked with. “Cave says you’re a good man. Personally, I don’t give a shit what you did. The bottom line is I got enough problems to fill fucking Busch stadium, and I don’t need another. This is simple work, but it ain’t easy. I expect you to throw papers sick, tired, high, or drunk. They print the paper every day, including Christmas. You miss a day of work, you don’t get paid. You miss two in a row and you’re fired. I pay every week in cash. It ain’t a hell of a lot, but it’ll keep you from starving and going homeless. I’ll give you a van to use. If you wreck it, I’ll shitcan you even if it’s not your fault. Steal it, I’ll hunt you down like a dog and make you regret the day you were born. I’ve had guys delivering the paper with IQs lower than a dog's, and they did okay. If all that don’t bother you then you can start tonight.”

  Balentine was right. The job was simple. It only took me a couple of nights to catch on to the routine. A three-ring binder with laminated pages listed the streets, the order in which to drive them, and who got the paper. Balentine changed my route every six months, each one better and usually bigger than the last. I had started in the worst neighborhoods that North St. Louis had to offer. My van had been shot at twice, but it didn’t disrupt me from my appointed duties.

  That first year, I don’t think anything short of the Second Coming of Christ would have stopped me. I liked what I was doing and the punk-ass hoods trying to look all bad weren’t shit to the real criminals I had spent almost half my life with in bullpen showers.

  The guys who delivered turned over somewhat regular. Cave, a handful of others, and myself were the exception to that rule. Most drivers couldn’t make three months in a row. Consequently good drivers were rewarded with the premium routes. Places we couldn’t walk through in the light of day we drove through in the bleakest hours. It was my good fortune to have recently been given the Webster run. It was an increase by seventy bucks a week with fourteen hundred papers to throw. I felt like I had won the lottery.

  I pulled into the hardware store’s parking lot, two vans behind Cave and seventh in the serpentine line. It was a quarter after two and if we were lucky the delivery truck would come before three. No matter what time the asshole driver arrived from the depot, Balentine wanted the papers delivered by no later than six. I never had a problem with that.

  The vans were a mix-mosh of pathetic beaters and extravagant custom jobs. Likewise, there were two kinds of carriers. Guys like me who did all the shit work for hard asses like Balentine and the independents. I envied the indies with all the enthusiasm homely girls looked at models in magazines. Those guys owned their routes. It shocked me that anybody could pony up the average hundred grand it took to get one. More so was that they cleared upwards of twelve G’s a month. The idea of getting one of those fat deals myself was more improbable than impossible. Unless I had a rich uncle that I was unaware of, there wasn’t a bank on earth willing to front money like that to an ex-con. I tried not to let it bother me, to be content in what I had, but wondered what life could have been if I hadn’t ta
ken a pipe wrench to my stepfather’s skull. A futile game I played to pass the time.

  I was able to smoke a joint before the delivery truck arrived. Mellow and ready for work, I waited my turn.

  “Carrier number?” The driver called out as I pulled next to the open swing door.

  “Two-fifty-one,” I said.

  “No shit,” he said surprised. “Balantine’s got old man Derbie’s route. I’ll be a son-of-a-bitch!”

  I didn’t know what to say, so I agreed with him as if anybody ever told me shit.

  He handed over a plain manila envelope with my carrier number written in permanent marker. This was the mail. Postcard sized carbon copies written by hand on pink or green paper. A pink slip was an address that requested service stopped or postponed, green was a new start or return to service.

  After I loaded my bundles, combined the sections, and stuffed the rolled papers into protective plastic sleeves, I would quickly examine the mail to make the necessary adjustments in my route book. It was a uniquely perfect system used since men did this work from horse-drawn carts.

  Webster was considered an affluent area. Living here said you had something more than a good income, that you were a respectable member of society. These were the people who voted with deep concern for who might become president, attended rallies to save whales or ban nuclear power, and leased their vehicles due to tax ramifications. The bulk of my delivery was to modest ranch and barn style homes built sometime in the post-war boom. Nice, but nothing to write home to Mom about.

  Then there were the mansions. Ostentatious shrines to wealth that an idiot couldn’t deny. I drove deliberately slower in these areas, fantasizing what they looked like inside. I particularly liked the ones that modeled themselves after castles, with towers reminiscent of chess rooks. To heat and cool the gigantic beasts had to cost a fortune. The lawns were big enough to play fifty-yard football games and every driveway disappeared presumably into a hidden garage behind each of the magnum opuses.

  In the mail tonight, I had a stop for number seventeen Maid Marion Lane. All the streets where the big houses sat had names taken from the fabled Robin Hood. It was senseless to me, but I guess in the big picture that it made sense. How the fuck could you flaunt Elm Street or Oak Court with any dignity? Sherwood Forrest Avenue and Devonshire Park were names that commanded recognition.

  I made the notation in my book using an erasable red grease pencil. The pink slip said to withhold service until July the seventh. Christ, I thought to myself, what kind of wheelbarrow of money did you have to have for a month long vacation? I took one long look at the place. It was a bit larger than the others on the block and probably one of the older ones judging by its slate roof and stained glass windows. Even in the darkness, I could envision the sun’s majesty as it filtered through the multi-colored glass.

  ***

  Over the next two weeks, I received a heap more pink slips. It was a mass exodus the closer July came. I hadn’t taken off one day since I started with Balentine. My health, despite my regular drinking and cigarette consumption, was outstanding. I didn’t have any family who relished the thought of a visit from me or would welcome me if I did show up. The idea of long distance travel made me paranoid and there was no place that interested me enough to overcome my fear.

  It fascinated me though how these people lived. Every holiday they left and I couldn’t help but wonder where they were going that was better than this? I had found more useful shit in their trash that now furnished my apartment than at the thrift stores. It simply amazed me on Sunday mornings how they threw away couches, chairs, vacuum cleaners, clothes, kitchen tables, televisions, air-conditioners, microwave ovens, washer and dryer sets, stoves, and bicycles like they were obsolete. I had gotten in the habit of grabbing whatever I could after my deliveries. It was practically a second income selling it to the junk shops on Broadway.

  One time, a cop pulled up behind me as I was loading a discarded dishwasher. He took my license and ran me through the system. After becoming disappointed I had no warrants, the asshole lectured me for half an hour on the merits of private property. Told me he would be keeping his eye out for me. I still took the dishwasher because I knew how full of shit he was.

  One of the few things prison did for me was give me access to any legal book you can imagine. I had earned a paralegal’s certificate through a correspondence course and was quaintly referred to as a jailhouse lawyer. None of the guys I ever helped got clemency, but a few got some time reduced on technicalities their pussy court appointed counsels failed to raise. I wanted so badly to tell that Johnny Law to suck it but knew the First Amendment wouldn’t protect me from him beating the living shit out of me. The law, however, was clear. Once something was thrown in the trash, possession to it was rescinded. It was why the Feds could dig through your garbage without a warrant.

  The Fourth of July was less than a week away when the idea grabbed me. It wasn’t like me to become obsessed, especially with anything that could land me back inside a prison laundry room, yet this seemed possible.

  The night of the holiday, Webster would be thick with people shooting fireworks and getting loaded. I would have to be on the lookout even at four in the morning for stray partygoers. Cave told me once about an indie carrier who threw a paper smacking some super attorney’s drunken wife in the face. That son-of-a-bitch made it his mission in life to ruin the poor guy. He not only lost his route, but he wound up filing bankruptcy because of some mega-jackpot judgment a sympathetic jury slammed down to teach people like him a lesson. “The poor bastard eventually wound up killing himself,” Cave told me with unusual sympathy. I guess he must have liked the man.

  On the fifth of July, though, the streets would be deserted. The great thing about a community like this was the no bullshit policy enforced with notable encouragement by its residents. By God there was a time and place for such things and when it was over, there would no more open debauchery until Labor Day.

  If I was going to do it, that would be the perfect time. The pink slips were clear that the adjoining number fifteen and nineteen Maid Marion Lane had requested delivery be held until the sixth. The idea excited me and made me nauseous all at once.

  ***

  Things couldn’t have been more ideal on July the third if I wanted them to be. The delivery was early so I was able to get a head start on the route. By the time I came to Maid Marion Lane it was straight up three in the morning. There wasn’t a lit house on the block. I knew the pathetic overnight cop would be catching his predictable nap for at least another hour.

  I turned off my headlights after I threw my last paper to number eleven. A cold sweat broke out across my chest. The homes were all pitch black, yet I closely scrutinized each one for the faintest movement. If I caught sight of so much as a stray cat, I would forget the whole stupid thing.

  The van motored up seventeen’s driveway as if I lived there all my life. A straight shot, it led me to an open area in the rear big enough to house a sailboat and an RV with room to spare. I wanted to turn off the engine, but knew it would draw a hell of a lot more attention to turn it back over than leave it running.

  I had brought a flashlight and used it to examine the backdoor. It didn’t take a seasoned cat burglar to recognize the ten-digit security pad on the kitchen wall. There was no fucking way I could disarm it. Even if I could somehow cut the power, it was certain some sort of silent signal would go to the monitoring service. How long would it take some sleepy college student to realize the anomaly and call local police? The little action they saw around here would bring them faster than flies to a fresh pile of shit.

  Disheartened, I turned around ready to leave, already chastising myself for such a stupid idea in the first place. That’s when I noticed the garage. An exact replica of the house, but not quite large enough for three cars. Oh, what the hell, I thought as went over to it. The side door was windowless and I didn’t dare touch the handle. A simple jimmy could set off an alarm. I moved to
the garage door that had rectangular traverse style windows at its top. To see inside, I carefully placed a metal lawn chair next to the garage door.

  The flashlight shone through the windows thoroughly lighting the interior. There was something underneath a tarp I presumed to be a sports car, six different kinds of exercise equipment, and a model airplane half assembled. The thing that caught my attention was the home office tucked away in the far corner. Three monitors, an enormous hard drive, and a small floor safe in plain sight. It was more than I could have hoped to find. I passed the light to the door, the roof, looking for anything remotely alarm-like. My guess was whoever had set up out here either didn’t feel this stuff was worth guarding or simply hadn’t gotten around to doing it.

  I got back in my van and coasted in reverse backwards to the street. It had taken me twelve minutes to complete my reconnaissance. I shifted the van back into drive, but didn’t turn my lights back on until I made a left onto Nottingham Estates. It was going to take all the will power I had to stay sober for the next thirty-six hours. I had to be at the top of my game if this was going to work.

  ***

  Most of the holiday excitement had wound down by the time I started my deliveries. Still, I was cautious. In part to Cave’s strong warning and in part to my determination not to do anything that could fuck up tomorrow night’s plan.

  I hadn’t felt this edgy since my first week in the joint. My self-imposed abstinence from pot and alcohol was not helping matters. Every hour that vanished was a victory. The secret to doing time of any kind is to focus on time done, not to go. In spite of that knowledge, I could not help myself.