Eugene Gray

Part I of a little something I've been working on

Eugene Gray, An Infinitely Better Man

 

Part I

 

            Just a few short weeks ago, on a hazy and dreary evening in early September, a young man by the name of Eugene Gray was found dead four blocks away from his apartment in a grimy alley behind a locally owned seafood market. The police maintain it was a gang related crime but have yet to provide sufficient physical evidence to support the argument. A more reliable source in his mother insists that her Eugene was always a good boy who never “ran with those types.” His good friend Frank Barrett told the detectives in charge of the case that Eugene had been evasive for weeks, and that he hadn’t picked up any of his numerous phone calls recently, but that it wasn’t out of the ordinary for Eugene to “fall off” for a time without telling anybody why. The proprietress of the market, a young Egyptian-American woman who had recently started developing crippling anxiety problems, claims she heard nothing out of the ordinary that evening but that it was one of her own employees who first found the body slumped up against a dumpster out back"the boy was horrified by what he saw. Crime scene investigators found Mr. Gray with both eyes half open and bloodshot; three gunshot wounds in the middle of his belly. His finger nails were gnawed and filthy. There lingered a putrid stench of sea water and excrement. The features etched upon his face were haggard and beaten-- the skin exposed on his cheeks and on his hands was sallow and cut up, his lips cracked and gray like the sole of a quarryman’s work boot. The man endured a long, torturous stretch of loutish hell before pining for his death in the end.    

Co-workers of his speculate that he owed a lot of people a lot of money, that he was always begging the boss for overtime, and closing the door to his office for strange amounts of time when making outgoing calls of a personal nature"a guy that “kept to himself,” but in the most worrisome of ways. In fact, it seems that even those who knew Eugene best had conflicting assessments of his character"after all a man cannot be described as fragile and meek by one and arrogantly snide by another without suspicions of instability being aroused. Everybody said something about him changed drastically about a year ago, but nobody had any idea as to why. A next door neighbor of his recounted the half a dozen or so times he saw Eugene working on his SUV at odd times of the night, always puffing away at a hand rolled cigarette. A hefty, auburn calf-skin duffel bag was always packed tight a few feet from him, the neighbor explained, “It made it seem like he was always ready to go somewhere at a moment’s notice.” But strangely enough he never did. And those who saw him regularly during the day said they never once saw him smoking any kind of anything. I have been watching the news closely these past three weeks and there are certainly a number of peculiarities about this death and about Eugene which will undoubtedly necessitate further and much more stringent investigation. Until then, however, there is one thing about this bizarre situation that is absolutely certain; Mr. Gray is dead, and so far it appears that I am the only one still alive to know exactly how, and why, it all happened.  

 Living a life in which one’s conscience relentlessly grapples with the way one makes a living wears a man down to the core. In the grand scheme of things I would have changed many things about my past in hopes of averting the stress I’ve come to know. At some point as a younger man I became someone that I never thought I’d become. I transformed into a monster without ever intending to. Spending time with the wrong people led to falling into the wrong habits, gradually culminating in the terrifying introduction to a world of underground crime and danger. When once I spent my days imagining the perfect life with a house in the woods surrounded by a sprawling orchard of sour cherry trees and towering pines, with a beautiful wife by my side and children running through the yard, I now relish the time I spend beating the cold life out of an enemy or cutting out the traitorous tongues of men who crossed me. I am contented by things that corrode the soul and leave my conscience sputtering for even the faintest whiff of untainted air. The opportunities to seize any hopes or dreams I may have held dear some time ago have long since been decimated by a life obscured by grueling violence and deeds too horrible to detail.

Some people trade in the stock markets for a living, some study hard in school and sacrifice years of their lives to become doctors or engineers. Others fix televisions or computers so that people can continue living their lives at a convenient pace. I make my money by ensuring certain things are where they are supposed to be at a specific time and place, and I facilitate the success of these transactions by any means necessary. But there is nothing noble or laud worthy about the work that I do, I assure you. 

Mr. Gray, on the other hand, worked in a beautiful 3 story mansion on Delaware Avenue designing all kinds of chairs and couches and cabinets for a custom furniture manufacturer. He had had that job for about four years. And up until one year ago, he was living an honest life"a comfortable and largely worry-free life, unperturbed by people like me. Oh how I envied him"he was an intelligent, good natured, confident boy. Not once, from the moment that I was introduced to him until those final days leading up to his death, did I sense any trepidation he may have felt. He was cast viciously into the criminal jungle; he had no choice, and in his stalwartness, in the sedate manner in which he conversed with my friends, I perceived the disgust he harbored for our way of life until the very last seconds of his young life. I wish he was never exposed to any of it.

            Before I go any further allow me, please, to introduce myself. My name is Damian Krol. I was born here in the United States in 1965 to a Polish father and a French-Canadian mother in the East Side of Buffalo, New York. My father emigrated to this country in 1955 with two of his older brothers. In Poland he was a bricklayer and helped build housing projects commissioned by the Soviet authorities in Warsaw during the years following the Second World War. Here in Buffalo he started off doing odd jobs for neighbors and friends to make a little bit of money. Eventually he started a successful contracting business. An ambitious and perseverant man, my father never accepted a lot in life unless he knew that he did absolutely everything in his power to achieve it. In his simple, broken English he would always tell me as a young boy, “Damian, in the world, no one is caring if you are making something of your life. You must always make things for yourself….Education is important, you can go nowhere without education, you know. You have so much opportunity here.” He was a great man. Sometimes when I think about what he would think of me now, how disappointed he would undoubtedly be, it spikes my blood with inconsolable sadness. I must force myself to confront my remorse dismissively, however. It’s far too late to change anything.

He and my mother were very happily married until the day they both died in a plane crash five days after my seventeenth birthday, and just one month before their twentieth wedding anniversary. I was going to graduate high school the next year but after their deaths I was paralyzed from grief and a sense of unjust abandonment. Almost all of my family still remained in Poland and the family that I did have here lived in Chicago. In my impenetrable bubble of rage and confusion I foolhardily dropped out of high school, and got a job working at Magda’s Diner in Black Rock. I lived with my friend Gregory and his parents. At the time, I couldn’t have asked for more. They treated me very well; his mother was especially kind to me. But I never wanted to end up being a man who gravitated towards mediocrity, and that was the path on which I had regrettably found myself.

Author's Note

remember, just an intro. to the story...be real, be honest, thank you

Reviews

[roarke]

Lots of stuff in this one. but for an into, it kind of spools out, I'm not sure where it's going or what next it's leading up to. When writing long pieces, it really helps to have some kind of outline to work from. Great descriptions, pounds of story, just hold on to the reins as you first put it down, you can always go back and flesh it out all you want later.

[Marie]

This is good enough to make the reader anxious for more. I don't ordnarily read book posted here, mainly because of the lack of spellng, punctuation, bad grammar and just plain bad style. But your work is so polished and professional it's easy to read and understand.