18 and Life

Crime short story fiction based on real time experience and characters encountered while down

EIGHTEEN AND LIFE TO GO

BY JOHN DARLING

 

 

 

     “I dump idiocy and wisdom, t**d by t**d.” A glint of amusement showed in his pale protruding eyes as he spoke. His skin was wrinkled with blood colored splotches; a perma-frown was carefully etched for all time across his sun soaked forehead. His glasses were crooked and missing one of its arms, held together with a white piece of tape at the bridge. A shock of white hair remained stubbornly full above his bushy eyebrows….He was stooped in posture; old beyond his years….He killed eight people.

      For the eight killed he was sorry, for the same number of life sentences he received he claimed not. “You take crap and it becomes your profession,” he mused. “I’ve been taking it since 67’ when that ole b*****d of a judge slammed his big wooden gavel down on my life. Hell I was just eighteen, a punk kid, what did I know from nothing?”

      He paused for a few moments as he shuffled his feet looking down at the ground. He was, or so it seemed, searching his memory for the right words. A glob of tobacco juice left his mouth, finding its mark on top of a very active ant hill. The enraged ants scattered back and forth in search of its source, as he stood admiring his work through a twisted blackened tooth grin. As if on cue, a dark cloud passed overhead, dulling the sun. He glanced up, seemingly irritated at the interruption; then he fixed his pale eyes on me. They seemed to narrow into black peeping slits as he looked my guard uniform up and down, finally coming to rest on my gleaming badge. He glanced around the rec-yard at the other few inmates milling around, almost as if he was embarrassed to be seen talking with one of the prison guards. Then he began to speak.

      “I remember it being so hot that day even the flies took a break. Me and some of the gang had gone out south of town to our favorite swimming hole to beat the heat. We took turns swinging off the big ole rubber tractor tire and diving from the thick tree branches that hung over the hole. After we had done that and splashed each other for a few hours we headed back into town. We stopped at old man Gilly’s filling station for a nice cold bottle of pop, because as I told you it was blazing hot. While we were standing there drinking down the cola, a bright red mustang convertible pulled up to one of the pumps. A slick looking feller with oiled black hair and dark sunglasses was behind the wheel. He was dressed real fancy like, you know, like you see in those gangster picture shows, with the black shinny suits and white silk ties. We hadn’t ever seen a feller in person look like that before, so me and the boy’s were all kind of excited.

      Old man Gilly came out to check the slick fellow’s fluids, wipe his windshield down, and put the gas in. While he was doing all that the fellow looked over in our direction, and then walked over to where we were gawking. He dipped into his suit coat pocket and pulled out a golden cigarette case. Taking out a thin black-looking stick he asked us for a light. I had my brand new Zippo, and whipped it out proudly to light this fellow’s cigarette. He blew a few white circled puffs over our heads then started to walk back to his car. After only a couple of steps he turned around and asked sort of  casual like if there was any of us who would like to make some money. We kind of all stood there with our hands in our pockets not really sure as to how we should respond. Well, me being the bold one and oldest of the group, stepped over to the man and said that I would.

      He took off those dark glasses and looked real long and hard at me. I felt a little scared and almost wished I hadn’t been so hasty, but the whole gang was looking at me so I puffed up my chest and looked him right back. This seemed to satisfy him, as he smiled suddenly and told me to meet him back here at eleven o’clock. I nodded my head as he turned toward his car and flipped old man Gilly a twenty-dollar bill. Then he kicked the mustang and it roared back to life, trailing a great cloud of road dust as it speed off. One thing I will never forget about that fellow, was the sort of pink color half-moon shaped scar that he had right under his left eye.

      “I lay in bed with my eyes on the clock, just waiting for everyone to go to sleep so I could slip out of the house. Just after ten the place was silent, so I quietly opened my window and shimmied down the big oak tree being careful as not to wake anyone. Soon as I was clear of our front gate I lit out down the back road to old man Gilly’s station. I got there a little before eleven, so I kind of hunkered down behind a stack of old tires and waited. It seemed like I was sitting there for a lifetime waiting for that fellow and his red mustang, but there wasn’t any sign of him or his car. Just as I started to get up and leave I heard the low rumbling boom of that powerful engine coming down the road. At last, it was him. He pulled up along side the stack of tires and told me to hop in. The top was down, and as we sped off under a bright yellow moon you could smell the summer air, sweet and full of life. Of course I was wondering just what it was that this here slick- looking fellow wanted me to do, but I didn’t want to be rude so I just shut up and enjoyed the night as we headed towards the outskirts of town on old highway 17.

      “At the edge of town we pulled over into the parking lot of a boarded up market, with its door long since closed for business, as it seemed the rest of the town was. The man switched the ignition off, and we sat there in silence, the only sound coming from the ticking engine as it cooled off into the night air. I waited for what seemed like eons, wondering what we were doing in this shut down market’s parking lot. Finally he gestured across the street at Howe’s bowling alley, with its bluish flickering light spelling out H_w_s in broken burnt out letters. The lot was empty as not too many people went bowling these days, making it smart business to close down by nine except on Saturdays when the Everglades Bowling League came to town. He got out of the car and with quick, purposeful strides stopped behind the Mustang’s trunk, motioning for me to do the same. I got out and stood beside him at the rear of the car. When he opened the trunk I immediately saw a couple of five-gallon gas cans and some red looking candle like things. Before I could ask, he answered my question; ‘they’re railroad flares.’ He then spoke quickly and sharp, saying that some business partners of his had decided to foreclose on a loan they made to this Howe man since he wasn’t able to pay them back. He also said that the place didn’t belong to Howe anyway since he had never paid them the money he owed, and now the only solution was to get the insurance money out of the place. It was at that moment when I finally realized how I was expected to earn the money he had promised. I stood there looking back and forth between the bowling alley and trunk. After a minute of this the man opened his suit jacket exposing a chrome covered gun sitting snug in a brown leather holster, hanging just under his arm. ‘Is there a problem kid?’ My knees felt like butter, I wanted to run off into the night, screaming for help, but here I was, alone, with this gun-wielding gangster.

     “Five hundred dollars! I hadn’t ever seen that much money before, at least not in person. He stuffed the five-crisp looking one-hundred dollar bills into my denim overall front pocket. It felt like all the money in the world to me. After he gave me instructions as to how the job was to be done, I crept across the parking lot with the two gas cans and the railroad flares in a burlap sack around my shoulder. The back door was unlocked just as the man said it would be. Setting down the cans and sack of flares, I went quickly to work. By the time I had lit the fifth and last flare the place was already starting to blaze. I ran back to the car as quickly as I could, looking over my shoulder just in time to see flames rocket high into the sky. As we sped off, in the distance, you could still see the bright red glow of the fire as it leaped into the darkness. Approaching old man Gilly’s gas station the man pulled to the side of the road. Once again he pulled back his suit jacket, bathing the shinny chrome in the yellow of the moon. ‘Be a good kid and don’t make me have to come back and use this,’ he said. I nodded my head at this and was running along the dusty road for home before I even heard the crunch of the Mustang’s wheels turn around and head off into the night.

      “That night I had a dream, a dream that I will never forget. There was this moon face werewolf clock beating on the cracked decaying plaster wall; I was swimming in the flesh of a large murky brown catfish in the stenched blackness of the everglades, everything I touched crumbled like a rotting corpse infested with large maggots. I was terrified, and awoke drenched in sweat, my heart beating like a thousand drums. At once I went to the window looking out into the night, for what I didn’t know, but I felt like something had flown out of me, off amongst the clouds to never return.

      “They were all volunteers, all local men, born and raised in the harsh tropical rot of the Florida Everglades. None of them had any special training to be fireman, just an old jalopy donated from some nice folks over in Florida City, and a trip to the State Volunteer Fireman’s convention in Tallahassee once a year. Hell half the time that ole darn truck wouldn’t even start. When the call first went out they were all over at the Blind Pig Saloon getting sloppy on the local moonshine. By the time they made it over to the barn to get the truck, the fire had all but engulfed the entire place, and had even jumped over to the airboat shop to the side of it. They went roaring down there, just to see that it was too late to save anything. But as those everglade swamp folks do, they had to see if there was anything of value worth saving. My best friend Bubba’s dad rushed into the blackened shell of the bowling alley just as a huge piece of roofing came down and buried him in the ashen rubble. The rest of the men came in after him, moonshine soaked brains and all, but couldn’t move the heavy piece of roofing. Before they could figure out that they needed something to wench it away the rest of the burning embers came crashing down upon them and that’s where they all remained. None of them ever made it out of there alive. They said you could hear screams for several minutes after, but nothing could be done to save them.

      “The funerals were just about the biggest thing to ever hit town, except of course the big hurricane back in 52’. The Governor even came into town for the funerals and gave a big speech where he handed out medals and flags to the families of what he called ‘our fallen heroes.’ Afterwards there was a huge reception down at the Glade Baptist Church. That’s where I saw Bubba for the first time since that day at old man Gilly’s gas station. I went over to him to say how sorry I was that his daddy was killed in the fire but he just turned away from me and walked off. I could feel a strange twisting sensation all over my body that day, it was almost like the night of my dream, except the feeling of impending doom was so heavy I could feel its weight pushing my body down, back down into the belly of that murky brown catfish.

      “Several weeks went by with everything starting to get back to somewhat normal when the insurance people sent an agent to town to investigate the origin of the fire. He snooped around for almost a week before he finally came across some lady who said she had seen a red mustang parked at the closed down market right about the time the fire had started. The news of the red mustang circulated through town in no time. By the time I head the news my friend Bubba had already gone to the police station and told the chief of our meeting with the man in the black suit that night, and how I was supposed to meet him around eleven o’clock to earn some money.

      “When the police chief came to my house, I knew that they knew. He followed me along with my parents upstairs to my room where I pulled out the old cigar box under my bed and showed him the rolled up hundred-dollar bills. They were all there; still crisp and new as the night they had been stuffed into my pocket. I offered at once to give it to the men’s families but the chief just hand-cuffed me and told my parents they should get a lawyer. I remember my mother standing on the porch staring off into nothing, tears streaming down her weather beaten face, as we pulled down the drive. My father stood by her side holding her hand and shaking his head from side to side. I tried to twist my head around to see her through the back window of the police car, but there was too much dust being kicked up from the tires. That was the last time I ever saw my house.

      “Sunlight filtered in through the tiny dirty window in the corner of my cell. I could plainly see the cracked and decaying paint along the plaster walls. Suddenly I felt it, the feeling of my dream, as it had followed me here into this dank corner of hell, laughing and mocking me in tormented waves of misery. I grasped the paint peeled rusted bars and cried out for mercy, only to hear my own voice echoing back through the concrete chamber, unanswered. The cot was like a rack of bricks and the dusty blanket was moth eaten and smelled of urine. I sat reading the names on the decaying walls around me. There off to one side etched deep into the crumbling plaster someone had written, ‘if you write your name on this wall then you will be destined to return to this very spot.’ I stared at this for hours, days, nights, wondering if it was true, and if so, why would the author condemn himself to such a fate, if in fact he believed his own words to be true.

      “The courtroom had an air of authority, all teak, dark and forbidding. The judge sat high atop the room, majestic and commanding like some sort of king. I was nervous, and rightly so, as everyone in the whole town had turned out to see what was to become of me. My chains dragged across the floor making a clanking sound that reminded me of the flag pole at school on a windy day. There was a hushed loudness in the room that threatened to explode any moment, engulfing me in its clutches. I scanned the faces, most familiar, some sad, some hostile, that’s when I saw him, the pinkish half moon scar barley visible under the pulled down black felt hat. It was him; the man in the red mustang. Our eyes locked for one brief moment, in which he nodded toward my parents with a devilish smile and cut his eyes to his suit jacket, to the place where I knew the piece of chrome death lay in wait.

      “My attorney claimed it was all just an accident, just a stunt by a young kid with no malice in mind. My mother stood on wobbly knees and pleaded with the judge until they dragged her out moaning and crying against her will. After the commotion was over, the judge looked down from his lofty position, and with GOD-like reverence spoke the chilling words that all but ended my life. ‘Son, the only thing that matters here today is that because of your actions and greed, eight lives have been lost, and you are responsible; you should consider yourself lucky that I am not sending you to death row.’ My sentence was life, which isn’t to say being in here should be considered as having a life; it’s more like losing a life and having to watch it erode slowly, piece by piece, day by day until there isn’t anything left in your heart or soul.”

      I thought of a million questions, but asked not a one. We both stood there, the silence was deafening. One of his eyebrows rose as he took aim on the new ant-pile that was starting to form. This time he missed, spraying some on his carefully creased pant leg. He cussed at the stain, and then asked, “so officer, what are we having for supper?” It took me a few moments to shake his story out of my head, finally I answered, “I don’t know for sure, but I think its chicken.” He mumbled something I couldn’t quite hear, and then he looked up into the fine blue sky and laughed out loud. I looked up trying to find the source of his laughter. As his chuckles subsided he turned towards me and said, “After almost forty years the only solution that I can come up with is piss…I should have pissed on the flames before they got going.” I pictured this for a second and it did seem to be sort of a funny if not valid idea. I looked back at him but he was already walking away, still chuckling to himself, “piss on the flames.”