Hindered Souls: Dark Tales for Dark Nights, page 16
“We met at some truck stop diner just outside the city. Long story short, he offered me a year’s worth of wages to have someone terminated. Didn’t care how, just terminated, no tracks. All expenses paid for aside the amount offered to perform the dirty deeds.”
The old man kept talking as the breeze caressed the trees.
“What was I supposed to do, say no? I had no family around. I had no life. Just my tools. And my weapons that I kept polished and slick hidden away as skeletons in the closet. I took the job.
“It was a man down in Florida. The city doesn’t matter anymore. I had tailed him from coastline to mid-peninsula and back. At some beach party, I overheard him luring some woman to his boat. He even pointed it out. That was my cue.
“I hid on the mini trawler houseboat. I hid on the navigation bridge while his midnight rendezvous was carried out in the living quarters below me. Afterwards, he sent the girl away while he stood port and basked in his manliness. I had attained some rope from the navigation bridge. I knocked him on the head with a small scaled anchor he had as some trophy. His body thumped the floor violently. As simple as that, I knotted his feet and hands to seem as a drunken entanglement, then tied it to the boat’s safety railing and tossed him over. I hadn’t waited for his death certificate. Some faint guilty pleasure had risen from this kill.”
“Then what happened?”
“It became a random routine, these offers. People asking to meet with Mr. Waterman. Deaths followed uniformly. A drowning of top shelf vodka passed as liquor poisoning. Bodies found at the edge of a mountain lake, at the bottom of some cliff. So on and so forth. But nothing prepared me for her.”
“For who?” I asked.
His eyes shifted from tree to passing vehicle to tree. Never did he make eye contact with me.
“I always avoided learning if people had families, kids or whatever. Their names were imperative for reconnaissance. But this one, it was the first woman I was contracted for. Her eyes bled my soul instantly. I hadn’t known how to come close to her. I was always a well-kept man. And just by chance, she noticed me. I was doing recon where she had routinely gone for runs. She slowed to a trot, stopping to pet some puppy I had bought to blend in at the park. Not expecting contact with the target, my speech proved me baffled. She took it as ‘cute vulnerability’, as she later said. She invited me to some gala her company was having. I had to accept. Poor decision.”
“Poor decision? Why?” I asked.
He continued to stare off into the woman’s eyes which only he could see.
“People were bound to place my face with her last sighting. But I was dutiful. I had a fancy suite paid for by the time we arrived at the gala. It only took a couple of interactions between us before my sternum was bruised inside from my heart. It only took a couple of drinks to loosen her nerves enough to sneak away to my suite.”
“You fell in love with her?” I asked, but I went unnoticed.
“We immediately bashed faces as we entered. Once she saw the Jacuzzi, she was down to her panties and in the Jacuzzi, taunting me in as she started the jets. I obliged her and joined, except to push the envelope, I entered the hot Jacuzzi in the manner I entered this cold world. We were both aware of our intentions, more or less.
“Our bodies were entangled with prom night desires. Just as we both reached our crowning point, my feet slipped, and I fell forward. She laughed aloud, falling beneath me, in and out of the bubbles. Instinct came in, and she came out from the bubbles less and less. Her body thrashed more and more. Then, as a thunderstorm passing a wheat field, a cold calm settled within her.”
“She died?” My words like summertime bubbles, popped.
“Men tend to involuntarily hurt the ones we love, and yet we expect forgiveness even when we’re not worthy of it.” Old-Timer’s words fought through knots in his throat, tears glossing his eyes. “For that night alone, I exiled myself to the country and retired from the business. The country then grew to a town, then grew to a city. And here you are sitting here with me. And I believe it’s time for you to get a move on, son. You go on now.”
Just like that, I was on my way home. Looking back as I pedaled away, I would’ve never thought that the last time I’d see Old-Timer’s alive.
The kids called the man Old-Timer’s. I knew what they meant. They’d say his mind was gone. I knew his mind was gone. My mother knew the old man was gone. I called him the same. Nobody wants to be the kid who shows sympathy for the teased.
My mother and I attended the funeral, we paid our respects. My father wanted nothing to do with it.
Old-Timer’s had given me an interesting end to my summer weeks. Every Sunday he would sit out on his porch, wheezing away at his cigar. Old-Timer’s was known for his stories. I couldn’t remember ever talking to him myself. My mother swore he was a decent man before. Even now, as we passed by his house during our routes in my mother’s toy looking truck, he would lift his hand in a waving gesture- without the waving, though.
My high school freshman year had come and passed as easily as a recluse could have it. Time creeps by quickly for the invisible. I had gone to the local tribune to see about summer employment. Seems that I was just shy of legal working age, and even so, paper routes are done by vehicle anymore. The classic American adolescence killed off before our eyes, one technological advancement at a time.
My mother decided she’d help me learn some responsibility. She went to the tribune and picked up the only available route there was: the Sunday paper subscribers. Sundays were her days off from work- less busy days, actually- so she sacrificed her chance at sleeping in an extra hour to wake up and drive me around an hour earlier.
The first few Sundays were rough. I’d wake up earlier than I could remember waking for school, nonetheless Saturday morning ‘toons. I’d band the newspapers and commence delivery as the roosters cawed. As we finished the route, we would leave the last neighborhood on route for the closest breakfast café for pancakes and omelets. Old-Timer’s house was on the way out of the neighborhood.
Then one Sunday morning, we had an extra address added to our route. I came to learn that house was Old-Timer’s. It officially became the last delivery on route to pancakes.
The first couple deliveries, Old-Timer’s was routine with his hand gesture. Mother said to take it as some form of accomplishment. My mother would later explain she had paid for Old-Timer’s subscription as a way for us to get closer.
Old-Timer’s got closer every weekend. First he would stand at the edge of his porch. Then the landing followed. Then we’d pass by and he’d be standing halfway down his driveway. Then the day came that he was next to his newspaper box, his hand stuck in midair as a school crosswalk guard.
My mother pulled up next to the old man slowly. I sat in the bed of the truck as usual.
“Howdy,” said Old-Timer’s.
“Good morning,” my mother and I said in unison, hesitantly.
Old-Timer’s looked over at me. “Why don’t you give your mother some rest and deliver on your bike? You have a bike, don’t you?”
“Yes, sir, I do. Just that all of our deliveries are so spread out, and I’m not yet legal working age.”
“Boy, I’ll tell you. Times are changing faster than any other era in history.” The old man placed his hands on the bed of the truck, peering into the bed. His face crunched with sour curiosity. “Where’s the rest of your papers, son?”
“Your house is the last delivery on our route, sir.”
“Tell you what, next Sunday, bring your bike with you. Your mother can drop you off here and you and I can converse a little while. I’ll have my wife get some hot cocoa ready for you. An old man gets lonely from time to time.”
I glanced at my mother through the rear window, noticing her grin and nod her approval.
“Yessir, that sounds fine by me. Here’s your Sunday paper.”
The man grinned as the paper wrinkled punishingly within his grip. Mother grinded us into gear, and sped away. The old man watched us, his paper held high in a waving manner, but not waving at all.
I was nervous all week. Nervous about what to say, what not to say. What to ask, what not to ask. My mother kept me calm, reassuring me that there really was no need to say anything. Just let the old man speak. Just enjoy whatever he makes of the conversation. And don’t mention it to my father.
I was restless, having slept in flinching spurts the night before. Blinking recklessly, I banded the coupon thickened Sunday papers. The dawn’s cool air breezing by my face, keeping me alert. The route passed as the sun ambushed the horizon. The warm rays creeped through the summer trees, keeping my eyes busy, focusing and squinting erratically. My bike screeched in every direction in the bed as my mother turned in and out from streets, stopping and going from newspaper box to newspaper box. Being sleepless helped the end of the route approach without thought.
The old man stood in front of his lawn chair on his porch, hand out as if shielding the sun from his eyes.
I leaped off out from the truck’s bed, leaning into the passenger window. “Bye, mom. Love you.”
“Bye son. Enjoy it for what it is. I’ll have lunch ready for you. Love you.”
My bike banged the bed before bouncing onto the sidewalk. With the final delivery tucked between my armpit, I walked the bike up the driveway and stood it on its kickstand.
“Good morning there, son.” The old man was smiling as I made my way over next to him slowly.
“Good morning, sir.” My words came out exhausted, nervous.
The man reached out for a handshake, I obliged. He sat on his patio chair, motioning for me to take the seat opposite him.
“How are you, son?”
“Just fine, sir. How are you?”
“Getting older and weaker by the day. You look like a healthy kid. You stay active?” His voice was gently hoarse.
“Um, yessir.” Words will not be my friends today, I see.
“Yessir. Not great, but I do all my homework and am passing all my classes.”
The house door opened, and his wife stepped out with a platter: coffee for the man, and hot cocoa for me, and a plate of cookies. She set them down on the porch table and grinned.
“It’s so nice to see you, sweetheart.” She gave my cheeks a pinch. “You fellas let me know if I can do anything else for you.” Then she went back inside.
“She’s a good woman, there, son. Always has been. She’s the only one who truly knows my life, and what I’d done with it. But a man should stay strong. Strong physically, and strong at heart. Everything we do prepares us for death. That’s what I’m afraid of: meeting my death.”
This was the start to our meetings. Every time was as if it were our first. No introductions, only cookies, coffee and cocoa. But every time, the stories were different. His story of who he was, and what he did, different every time. Stories that he spoke as true and genuine. There was an underlying urgency to his stories.
As my mother and I drove away from the cemetery, I thought of the first story he told me.
He had a dark career that nobody thought as dangerous at the time: he was an advertising executive at a tobacco company. The bona fide Cowboy Killers, he called them. The thing was, he had never smoked in his life, never had the temptation to. In those years, there was nothing horrible about smoking, whether one did or didn’t smoke, it just was. But, he ran studies and learned how to market them. He targeted the social classes that carry a bit more stress on their shoulders. He targeted those just on either side of the poverty line, as well as countrymen. Karma is a spiteful dame. Old-Timer’s had grown old, retiring from the company just in time to be diagnosed with lung cancer.
“Are we going to their house?” I asked my mother.
She shook her head, No. Grieving and mourning takes time. His widow would call when she was ready.
All the way home, it didn’t feel right. His death, his widow alone. After changing into comfortable clothes, I hopped on my bike and pedaled.
The block was forsaken, his porch lonely and sad. I dropped my bike to the concrete, stepped onto the porch and pressed the doorbell. The blinds quivered, the door eased open. Her eyes were mapped red and glossy. She led me quietly to the kitchen as if Old-Timer’s was amidst an afternoon nap.
I sat at the table, patiently waiting as she made cocoa for the both of us. No coffee today. She sat and sighed.
“I was surprised when he’d asked to speak with you, sweetheart. It had been so long since he reached out for anyone. He hadn’t seen you since you were in diapers, didn’t really know himself why he felt obliged to reach out to you. But you triggered something within him. It gave me hope.”
“Did he even remember me?”
“It’s not that he didn’t remember you. It’s that his mind didn’t use the same gears as it had years ago. But you made some of those gears feel familiar.”
“Is that why he had different lives after we began talking? The contract killer. The story of the mental hospital and his experiments? The man destroying time?” I sipped my cocoa, conjuring up more of his stories.
“All fiction.” Her words stern, her expression dry, she stared through me. Behind me was the window which gave way to the front porch. His territory. Her way of keeping an eye on him.
“The lung cancer, was that real?” I asked.
“Also fiction, sweetheart. You know he was a great writer when his mind was with him. Those were all stories of his he had written.”
“Well, then why’d he do it?” I asked. “Why’d the Old-Ti—I’m sorry. I just—“
“It’s okay sweetheart. Go on.”
I took a deep breath, steadying myself and my words for brutal honesty. Honesty to myself and her. “Why did Grandpa shoot himself?”
“Well, maybe honesty will help us all pass the mourning stage.” She sipped her cocoa, sounding as if she was hissing at her thoughts. I sat patiently.
“I hate to say it, but I killed him.”
I sat there, paralyzed. Breathing, muscles, all of it like still waters. Her words rippled only across my erratic heartbeat.
“I’m sorry sweetheart, that’s not exactly what I meant. That came out completely wrong.”
My movements restored, I shot my cocoa as adults do whiskey.
“I didn’t kill him. Not literally. What I mean is, this is difficult for me to say. Your grandfather was a great writer. His writing had stopped a couple of years before being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. His recollection and realization of reality slowly dissipated.”
She rose, setting some more cocoa on the stove.
“He believed that in modern society, everything that’s been thought of or written down has been thought or written by someone else. A strange paranoia. He believed that every generation is plagiaristic. Everything influenced by others; distorted carbon copies. He wanted to be original in this mad world. His own influence. As great as a writer he was, he was also a great drinker. Drugs, as well, influenced him time and again. I’m sure your parents never told you this, but he was very abusive. To me. To your father.”
“Is that why Daddy never came by? Didn’t go to the funeral?”
“Your grandfather had calmed his drinking and drug habits before your parents married. But the night of their wedding, he picked up where he had left off. He and your father traded fists and then disowned each other. Your mother would bring you by periodically. It all stopped as your grandfather’s Alzheimer’s worsened. He thought she was the nurse, and groped her.”
“Well, that doesn’t matter anymore, Grandma. He’s gone.” I teared up just as she was topping off my hot cocoa.
“There, sweetheart, don’t let this get to you. Maybe you should come back another day.”
“No, I would like to know why he’s gone.”
“Well, we’re all sinners in one way or another. I am no different. I am guilty of having a spiteful heart.” She sighed as she took her place at the table once again, both of our cocoa topped off. “I had started to read to your grandfather in hopes that it would stimulate his mind. Nothing really caught his mind, that is, until I read him one of his own short stories.”
“Which story, Grandma?”
“It’s hard to say, he had so many stories, sweetheart. But after every reading, he spent the day on the porch, plagued with guilt. He latched onto these stories, assuming responsibility for the characters he created, and believed them to be his past. Well, the grudge I held against him from all his abuse and neglect years ago, the reason I didn’t have you and your parents in my life. It gave me some sort of perverse pleasure to see him suffer. From then on, I read a short story of his to him every Sunday. It was my own sunny end to the week. To sit here and watch his fictional guilt eat away at him on the porch.”
“So his stories, he believed them?”
“He did. Absolutely. But all that guilt, it was snowballing and I never realized it. I just sat here and gloated in it. I regret it now. Especially the last Sunday you were here, the last story he told you. He sat out there, even after sending you on your way, he remained fixed out there. Not thinking of you, your father, nor myself. He was distraught over killing the fictional woman he was fictionally in love with. All it took was the time I ran my bath for him to go to the rifle rack in the garage, load it, and end his life. All because of my sadistic pleasure.” Her words began travelling a potholed path. “I was never a vindictive person.”
“I’m sorry, Grandma.”
“You have no reason to be sorry, sweetheart. Like your grandfather would say, I now fear my own death in fear of his vengeance in the afterlife.”
“Everything is forgiven in death, grandma. I read that somewhere. I’m sure he’s watching over you now. Clear minded and sober.”
“Maybe, sweetheart. Maybe.” She sniffled. Tears streaked her cheeks ruefully. “Well, now, I hope I didn’t depress you. I just felt that you asked from your heart so you deserved the truth. I believe it’s time that you make your way home now, sweetheart. You go on now.”
