Dying for Redemption
Do or die, choices made in the moment.
I examined her cigarette wrinkled face for any hint of life as we sat across from her. There was very little. Old, tired, and beaten she didn’t look like much but what old woman ever does? Still, there was something about her, something that lie under the old woman's facade. I could see it.
I figured I had been around long enough to know the game and that the most devious ones usually play it off as the most innocent. She reminded me of a couple of my aunts. They were rough and could be devious. Devious is a scary mask to wear, even scarier when you know the person wearing it is the same when they take it off.
This thing was Louis’s job. He got the offer and asked for the rate. He and I were tight, real tight. Like brothers. When he got approached on it, he brought me along because it required two fellas. He knew I could hold my end up, I was reliable, not afraid to mix up, and knew how to keep my mouth shut if things went south and we got pinched. If that happened, it wouldn’t be my first time in cuffs.
I had already built myself a decent arrest resume. I was usually out within a day or two while Louis already had an eight-month stint in the boy’s home under his belt. That kind of thing looks good at our age in our business. When people know you’re not afraid to take a pinch they offer you work.
By age 15 years old I had seen a little something. Louis, a few years older at 17 had seen a little more. Yet, what started out as a simple snatch and grab to throw a guy a beating became a whole other thing. A serious thing. But I didn’t know this that morning when we crossed a few neighborhoods to pay a visit to the little old lady. Neither of us did.
The first thing, the beating, wasn’t so bad we figured. It was the second thing, that thing was the real deal. We didn’t see it coming, but I’m certain the old broad had it planned that way.
We sat in her front room in a couple of beat-up stuffed lounge chairs. We resembled a couple of kids from an old 1940’s ‘Bowery Boys’ episode. Kids who thought we were men, who thought we were in the big leagues. We wore ill-fitting clothes looking like a couple of orphans and smelled of bad cologne. But it was better than the stench that reeked all around us.
The house smelled like stale smoke and booze. The walls had a yellow tinge to them. Tobacco yellow. I could tell the walls were nicotine stained because of a white square left behind from a portrait that had been removed from the wall now propped up in a floor corner. A family portrait. The entire wall around the white square was tobacco yellow, a telltale sign that the yellow stain didn’t just happen. It took a lot of cigarettes and hard living to get that way.
The old woman sat on a lumpy flower print couch not an hour younger than circa 1960's. The kind you see in the old black-and-white reruns. The front room was a very unkempt version of the old ‘Leave It to Beaver’ house, except, not at all nice. Nothing about it was nice or inviting. Even its aura was dark. It was the kind of place you only lived in because you had nowhere else to go. But, when you did find somewhere else, you went, and in a hurry. I spied a fat mouse scurrying along a floorboard.
Everything was dusty and strewn about the room without consideration. The furniture might have once been almost nice but now it was tattered and smelly. But then again, I thought, they were hillbillies after all. Appalachia folk. Deep coal country people turn big city folk. I knew her boys and they were just that. They were why we were here.
The old woman sat on that couch legs crossed tightly smoking cigarettes one after another like she was going to the electric chair while she kicked her crossed-over leg back and forth almost involuntarily. She didn’t even know she was a wreck.
I wasn’t unfamiliar with this. I had seen it before. Every day at home, at least on those days when I did go home. My ma did this kind of thing. She was a certified schizophrenic. Not the worst you ever saw but bad enough as that goes. It didn’t help that she drank and smoked like a dope fiend. Just like the old woman, Ma’s cigarette ashtray would pile up two, or three inches from the tray. A tiny mountain of burnt smoke. Just like Ma, I caught her desperately digging through her ashtray for a butt sizeable enough to light up. A junkie fiending for a fix.
Unlike this woman, Ma wasn’t devious or mean, or sneaky. She wasn’t the vengeful or violent type either. It might have helped her deal with my old man more effectively if she had been. But she wasn’t built like that. She was a punching bag. She didn’t know how to be mean.
Everybody loved Ma and she loved everybody. She never offered up a bad word about another person. She only offered up prayers. A real Roman Catholic girl, always making the sign of the cross. Sincerely religious Ma did her best to live the way the church told her to. Sure, even if she was crazy, she wasn’t nasty. They may have had similar habits, but Ma was nothing like this old broad. Ma had the church. Yeah, I thought to myself, a lot of good it did her.
She would have been heartbroken if she knew where I was sitting at that moment. She went through it her whole life with her own brothers. Rough, violent guys, but they were still her protectors. She would probably have just tried to pray it away like she did with most things. I wasn’t as convinced as she was that prayers worked. I was sure someone was listening; I just wasn’t sure they cared.
The old lady caught my eye as I peeked at the family portrait propped up in the corner. She pulled a heavy drag from her smoke. She spoke slowly in a deep Appalachian drawl.
“That’s Tommy and Jeffrey and me in the good times.”
“Yeah, I can tell it’s them. Nice picture.”
“So, you knew my boys then?”
“Yeah, I do, I mean, I did.”
“We both did. Nice guys.” Louis interjected.
“They were good boys. Give you the shirt off their backs them boys.” She offered.
She obviously didn’t do them too well. The truth was, I knew her boys though I didn’t particularly like them. The younger one Jeffrey was an okay kid. We got along well enough when he wasn’t trying to act like his brother Tommy, a wannabe tough guy. A jagoff. I don’t know about giving you the shirt off his back either. He might try stealing yours if you weren’t looking.
Tommy wasn’t exactly a stand-up kind of guy. I didn’t feel bad thinking that way, it wasn’t my fault he was dead. It crossed my mind; Ma always said don’t think badly of the deceased.
Tommy was hanging out with two street urchin brothers and general dope fiends, the Milke boys Paul and Greg. They were busy getting high in an abandoned garage and probably didn’t realize it when it caught fire. They were probably nodding from the junk they just shot up. That night was frigid below zero night outside, so they had started a bonfire in the middle of the garage to keep warm while getting high.
I mean, who does that, start a fucking bonfire in a garage? You get what you get.
Somehow, the brothers woke up and ran out of the garage leaving Tommy laying there while a neighbor called the fire department. The firemen got there before Tommy was too toasted. In the end, they ruled he had likely died of smoke inhalation and dope before the flames even got to him. At least he didn’t know what happened and probably didn’t feel it.
The brothers claimed they tried to run back in to save him, but they probably didn’t. They were too stoned on junk to help anyone. But the story sounded good, and they were smart enough to save their own skin. I suppose as far as friends go; they were as close as dope fiends can be with anyone. Yeah, it really was a tragedy but like I said, you get what you get when you do what you do.
A few weeks after, Jeffrey overdosed. I doubt he was trying to. Between his legit sorrow, self-guilt, and the dope he didn’t think about what he was doing and took too much. He loaded that rig too heavily. Once it poured into his vein, he probably didn’t feel it either.
So now their mother, the old lady, was left without a husband, who had long before ditched them and her boys, her only kids, both dead. It was a hard spot to be in. Naturally, she was sad, angry, and heartbroken. The Milke brothers had both survived to get high another day. That didn’t sit well with her.
So, there we sat in the filthy front room of her ramshackle bungalow home with the old broad straight out of the hills of Appalachia. I really had to concentrate to understand what the hell she was saying.
She and Louis chopped it up a bit while my mind wandered.
She asked if we had a problem throwing them both a severe beating. We didn’t. But it of course wasn’t a freebie. I mean, this kind of shit doesn’t come cheap. While she and Louis haggled over the fee, I was busy thinking about my next move in life. I was always doing that. Daydreaming. I just never seemed to be able to get out of my own way.
Once a fee was settled, she threw the curve ball at us. She wanted a picture to verify the task had been completed. In good faith of course. Goofy broad, was all I could think to myself. Nothing like a little self-incrimination. In either case, we agreed, but the photo stayed with us after she saw it.
She took a long drag off her umpteenth greasy-lipped cigarette butt. I kept a wary eye on her.
For a few long minutes, she sat there sucking on her smoke while she squinted and leered at me. It was eerie. I did a quick scan around the room to be sure she didn’t have any weapons like a gun or a knife lying around. I knew these kinds of situations could go south quickly. In her grief, she could decide to take us both out.
Then the conversation got dark.
“If I paid you boys more, could I get more?”
Louis and I shared a quick look.
“Meaning?” I asked.
“I mean if I’m willing to pay more could you make sure they hurt more?”
Louis’ face screwed up, “Like broken bones? Legs? Missing teeth? Missing digits you mean?”
Her face went ashen, and her eyes glazed over when she stared at us almost as if she was quietly possessed.
“Can you boys make sure they got the same what happened to my boys? My beautiful baby boys.”
Louis and I exchanged looks. Louis's head jutted out toward her, while the upraised palm of his hand and arm extended with a ‘say what you mean’ gesture.
“I want them boys dead. I want their folks to feel the pain I feel.” She spewed in her deep Appalachian drawl.
Somewhere within a matter of moments her mind went all the way to the dark side and decided that the brothers should pay the ultimate price for her loss. Not just for Tommy but for Jeffrey as well. Somewhere in a span of minutes, we went from leg breakers for hire to potential hitters.
You never really think these things are going to happen to you. You kind of know it is a possibility, but you don’t really think about it. It just happens that way. That quick.
I had heard stories my uncles told around the family table about how this stuff happens and how quickly things can go from bad to worse. Cryptic conversations were not meant for those of us around the kiddie table to understand, but some of us did. Kids are smarter than adults like to think. I had never been in that chair myself. Until that now that is.
The room grew eerily quiet. A surreal feeling set upon me to find myself in this situation. While we were known for the ability to cause mayhem, even at my age I knew this was a whole different level shit. I figured it could go a few ways. We either got away with it or we didn’t. Fortunately, neither of us was the bragging type and we were smart enough to know the severity of the act and the potential repercussions.
It made me think about the direction the road I was on was taking me. I was no dummy and I didn’t lie to myself. I knew what I was at least thought I knew. But at 15 what do you really know? We were just looking to get from A to B in one piece. We were just looking for something to look forward to in life. It wasn’t exactly staring us in the face.
Louis didn’t miss a beat. I calmly told her that, if that were a possibility, the fee would change considerably, as would the rules and terms. Especially the photo proof of life or death.
She took a long drag off her cigarette butt. She squinted and leered at us.
We told her to reach out to us after she thought about it. We told her to consider if it was worth it if they deserved that. We asked her to consider if she could afford it. Upfront.
We stood up dusted ourselves off and offered our parting pleasantries. I crossed the room toward the door, opened it, and walked out. Louis stayed behind for a few moments then came out.
We calmly and leisurely walked down the street; we were aware someone could be watching us, so we didn’t want to seem rushed. Crossing behind a warehouse we strolled along the train tracks back through a few neighborhoods.
We smoked and walked in silence for a few blocks. We didn’t talk about what just happened. We didn’t have to. We were both there. Those were the rules, you talk as little as necessary about a score or situation.
We figured she would reach out to us after some consideration, or she would not. If she did, we would cross that bridge when we had to. If not, go on with our lives.
The old lady never reached out. Nor did we. Someone mentioned in passing that Tommy and Jeffrey's mother moved away back down into the hills of Appalachia. Others said she died in that house not too long after. Who knows.
It wasn’t the first situation in my life, nor would it be the last job we had. There were other scores and offers. Some we took, some we passed on.
It was only a few more years before we would all go away for a while. Some came home and walked a straight line on a straight road while others didn’t. Some never came home at all.
My own road, I took the wrong fork in the road for a while. It was a crooked road for sure for quite some time before I finally got it straightened out. Somewhere, somehow, I found my way back from wherever it was I ended up. I’m not even sure how I did it even though I remember it all. But I did it.
Our life lessons were never like a lot of the other kids. We didn’t have it that way, but we worked with what we did have. But, we had each other some of us, at least for a while. Even now I wouldn’t change a thing about those years and those hard lessons.
