The man looking for someone new in his employ simply went by the name of Mr. G. He was dressed nicely but comfortably as to give the impression that he was here to get business done and that this was his domain and his alone.Tiny was what Mr. G ironically called his number 2 who had scouted for new talent earlier in the week for a particular job that needed doing. Just outside the room where the two men were meeting was a potential new member of the team. They called him Phil.
Phil was dressed in a nice suit with a beautiful tie and leather shoes that shone like glass. But you couldn’t tell that from his posture or the disheveled look on his face. There was nothing in the man’s eyes but emptiness that stared at nothing in particular, but stared into that nothingness with such disdain. A handsome face hid behind 3 days worth of shag that sprouted with no apparent deliberation. His left hand was being cradled in his right. His right thumb and forefinger spun the tarnished gold band on his left ring finger with a begrudgingly slow rhythm as he waited to be called.
“Phil,” Tiny grunted as he opened the door, “Get in here.” Phil leapt to his feet and he eagerly strolled into the room that reeked of tobacco and bourbon. His shoulders slumped away from his head, not in defeat but from resignation of a life that was meant to be. Mr. G and Tiny sat in two folding chairs beneath a flickering, naked light bulb. Mr. G flashed a charming smirk Phil’s way and motioned to the third folding chair set in front of him.
“So, Phil,” Mr. G uttered, “Why don’t you tell me about yourself?” Tiny gave the subtlest of smiles to Phil and nodded approvingly as if reassure him that things were going well. Mr. G showed less emotion than piece of granite, save for the occasional grunt. There was no shadow of an indication that the smirk he flashed earlier had happened at all.
“Well,” Phil answered attempting to find his balance with words, “I grew up in this neighborhood so I have heard of you. Also, I knew Tiny since I was a little kid. I went to school with him.”
“Do you know what we do?” Mr. G inquired.
“I have an idea,” Phil answered.
“What we do,” Tiny interrupted, “is we provide services of a varying nature. Essentially, we like to help out family. And anyone from around this neighborhood is family. If you need money, we lend it to you. If you need protection, we provide it. And so on.”
“Tiny, here, tells me that you’re in need of work.” Mr. G lit a cigarette and sucked the fire into his throat and breathed the smoke out his nostrils.
“I got a new job, but,” Phil hesitated, “But I’m looking to make a little extra on the side.” Phil continued to fondle the band on this finger.
“Well, this is quite a coincidence,” Mr. G chuckled, “I’ve got a job that sorely needs doing. And Tiny here seems to think that you’re best qualified for the job. Do you have any experience with jobs like this?”
“I can’t say that I do,” Phil stuttered as a bead of sweat formed on the back of his neck, “But I assure you that I’m the right man for the job.”
“That’s what Tiny tells me.” Mr. G spots the greenish gold band on Phil’s finger. “Do you have any experience in this line of work?”
“I can’t say that I do. But I heard about this job that needs doing.”
“If I may, Mr. G,” Tiny interjected, “I can vouch for this guy. He is definitely the right guy for the job.”
Mr. G took a long time to respond. His eyes darted between Phil and Tiny and rested on Phil’s unshaven face before squinting hard at him. “All right,” Mr. G finally responded, “tell him what the job is.” All three stood up and an exhausted smile carved itself into Phil’s face.
“There’s this punk named Tanner,” Tiny explained putting his hand on Phil’s shoulder, “He was just a nuisance, but lately he’s been attracting some unwanted attention.”
“Cops?” Phil asked.
“Cops, we can handle,” Mr. G answered, “The boy loves the spotlight, and he keeps bringing the media into the neighborhood. All it takes is for one stupid mistake to make it on T.V. and the politicians in my pocket will turn against our organization.”
“Lately, he’s been hanging out at that diner that you live above,” Tiny added, “But I think you know that already.”
“Have you met him before, Phil?” Mr. G asked.
“Sort of,” Phil answered. The three walked out of the room and Tiny turned the light off and shut the door behind them. They stood in front of the closed door to close the deal.
“It’ll be $50,000 to shut Tanner up… permanently.” Mr. G paused for a moment. “I just remembered that he’s been seen with a new girl lately. If you have to kill her too, then make sure that she’s got no other connections. I don’t want this to be a protracted thing. Seeing as how you’re from around there, you might even know who I’m talking about. Do you know if she’s married?” Phil ripped the gold band from his finger and tossed it into the wastebasket without looking.
“Not anymore, she isn’t,” Phil replied as he walked away.
“I told you he was the right guy for the job,” Tiny smirked at Mr. G who chuckled with approval.
Nestled behind the gentle rolling hills of a remote countryside is a quiet, unassuming town easily ignored by the massively swooping curves of the interstate. Its only direct line to the highway is a single unpaved road whose existence is only acknowledged by those who know to look for it. The town is sprinkled with houses made seemingly out of cardboard boxes. The only brick structures in the vicinity line the town’s oldest road running directly down the middle of the city. No other road so perfectly divided a town into its symmetrical halves. It led straight to the house of the town’s founder where his last descendant, his great grandson now resides.
This house was the only structure in the entire town that seemed to have carved itself into the subtle landscape. Any passersby on the interstate may miss the cardboard box houses or the masonry edifices along the town’s centerline but cannot, unless a fair amount of effort was exerted, deny the presence of the house at the end of it. The roof tiles drooped and clung in desperation to keep from slipping off particularly at the corners where the slopes of each side like shoulders struggling against gravity. The windows looked sad and seemed to cry in the presence of rainfall.
And for the past eight years, it had rained. Pillow clouds of gray and black had loomed over the sleepy town for nearly a decade with no explanation to be found in science, conspiracy theories, or biblical omens of any proportions. On a good day, droplets would dance in the cold air with no sense of direction lest it finds itself landing on someone’s face as a frigid little pinprick. Bad days brought about downpour that would leave anyone question what this town had done to offend whatever deity was responsible. But it was not the town’s fault. The reason for the rain is simple, and he resides in the home at the end of the road, climbing to the top of a distant hill.
Eight years ago, she left him. The reason for her leaving was unclear as was who, if anybody, was at fault. But why she left is of no matter. Without her, the founder’s descendant was despondent and unresponsive to the outreaching of the community that his great grandfather had built. Little is known about the woman who had brought about such grief to this little town.
The citizens had seen her, and she was the loveliest being to have ever set foot in the town. She was a petite woman whose name had never been revealed save for a rumor or two. Her hair was golden and shimmering and fell just short of her elegant shoulders. Local folklore would even attest that her hair alone stole the sunshine from the town. Her eyes were beautiful and round, shimmering like two blue pools in an oasis in the middle of the Sahara. She had lips that were full and pink leaving one to wonder how breathtaking an impression they left on the founder’s descendant when they curled into a smile.
There was no warning of her exit from the town, no indication that there had been some argument or trouble in her relationship with him. All the locals knew was that she had left him. No one knew, nor would they ever know, the motive for such an act. Whether it was malicious intent or cruel fate, nobody blamed the girl nor could they find any fault in the boy. Sometimes these things happen. Eight years of cold and rain had not encouraged the town to retract its outstretched arms to the house on the hill, but still the rain came.
But one day, as the rain pit patted on the roofs and windows and heads of the townspeople, a quiet came over everyone and everything. Water still dripped from above in a steady rhythm and every eye that was available was drawn to the founder’s house. Music, initially soft and somber, emanated from the dilapidated structure and built into a furious rhythm that caused the town to dance. It was a singular guitar, only six strings, but it may as well have been an orchestra bursting through the highest window of the house.
The townspeople, confused at first, began to smile in realization that the founder’s great grandson had been playing music of great elation. Just as quickly as it crawled across the sky, eight years before, the clouds melted into the bluest blue the town had ever seen. The warmth of the sun tickled and bathed the faces of the people as they ran out to witness the event. There had been no indication that the beautiful, young woman had returned. There was no evidence of any letter or phone call from her arriving to the house on the hill. But nobody cared. The rain was gone and the music was here to stay. And for the first time in eight years, the people enjoyed the sunshine as it streamed across the contours of this once quiet and unassuming town.
“I’ve got to get back to my wife,” he whispered into the air not sure who the audience was supposed to be. “She’ll begin to wonder where I am.” He paused and a chuckle struggled to find its way from the depths of his chest.
The blood was a sticky brown mess; a thin, brown amoebas spread out over the back of his hands and up his arms. It caked into a burgundy paste in the creases of his palms, which he rubbed together creating a pile of dried blood flakes on the carpet. Just an hour prior and it was a thick, hot, black mess spewing from the wounds of the victim whose once handsome visage is now unrecognizable.The victim’s hair was black and looked like onyx with the congealed blood hardening it into a sickening shine.
“What do I do with the body, now?” the living one asked. He paused, hoping there would be an answer. Instead he ran to the kitchen and opened the cabinet beneath the sink and pulled out all the cleaning products. He fumbled his arms about in the darkness and found a box of black, plastic garbage bags. With short grunts he hopped over to the body, black bags in hand.
He lifted the legs and carefully inserted them into the bags and repeated with the other half of the corpse. Searching through the house, he found some duct tape and managed to wrap the body in an airtight seal. Odd, he thought, this is easier than I thought it would be. He shoved the bag of lifeless flesh to one side of the room and began to douse the walls and carpet with the cleaning products.
It must have been a good hour or two before he had scrubbed all the blood from the premises. The living one dedicated another 45 minutes to the act for the sake of thoroughness. His body nearly buckled at the weight of the body he was carrying to the field. How fortunate for him that this back yard was not fenced in but allowed the wilderness to creep in.
There was a shovel in his car that was used for an earlier, forgotten job and had not found its way back into the garage. He held it in his hand and used it as support as he trudged several yards into the woods before stopping from mere exhaustion. This is the spot, he exclaimed to the corpse, this is where it ends. He speared the earth with the shovel and worked as quickly as his aching body would allow.
His strength was surprisingly plentiful given the ordeal of the murder, which one might guess would be a physically draining task not to mention the cleaning of the scene of the crime. He had dug a large hole in the cold, moist ground waist deep. It would surely fit the corpse. He climbed out of the grave and threw in the airtight wrapped corpse. The mound of dirt beside the hole was shoved back into it and compacted with the backside of the shovel.
“So far, so good.” He was so pleased with the outcome so far, he was tempted to smile. The murderer stumbled into his car and heated the engine as he took off his blood soaked shirt. He threw it carelessly at the back seat. The car was put into gear and he drove off to the main road. There was a four-way stop sign coming up, another car braked at the stop adjacent to him.
The killer flashed his lights, wanting the other guy to go. As the high beams pierced the darkness, some of the light bounced back from the car in an image that read “To Serve and Protect.” Perhaps his luck was being tested today as the officer waved the living one to go on ahead. The heavy foot lifted from the brake and gently pressed against the accelerator. Trying not to bring attention to himself, his eye wandered to the rear view mirror. His heart raced as the car rolled along, but froze when he saw that the squad car had yet to move. Icicles of sweat began to form on his forehead. Wanting not to draw suspicion, he maintained his speed hoping not to hit any wandering animals in the night. With a quick jerk, the squad car pulled ahead and paid no attention to the murderer that just got away.
The man pulled into the driveway and allowed himself to breathe at his normal pace again. He could not believe how fortunate he had been. An act of irrational passion had set the entire evening in motion and he had dodged every baited trap that fate had set out for him. The thick jacket that kept his shirtless body warm in the truck slid off and was hung on the rack by the front door. He could feel his body aching now.
Bang! He did not see his wife standing in the hall until the flash escaped the muzzle of the gun in her hand. The last thing he saw was the marbling wisps of smoke dancing from the pistol perfuming the room with the smell of gunpowder. She saw that there was blood on the jacket he took off before she shot him. That was all she would need to confirm where he was and what he did earlier that night. With a violent gasp for air, the man’s fortune had ended as abruptly as his life.
“I’m not sorry for doing this to you,” the words escaped coldly from her lips, “What use do I have for a husband, especially one that rids me of a lover?”
“I’ll just go with the bologna sandwich, Ernie,” the old man grumbled as he smiled a thank you to the man behind the counter.
“Sure thing, Mr. Conroy,” Ernie replied. He took out two bags and handed them to the elderly man. “I’m throwing in the yesterday’s bread with your order; no charge.”
“Thank you. That’s very kind, Ernie. And I’m sure if they could, the ducks would thank you as well,” Mr. Conroy tipped his hat as he walked out the door.
It was a warm morning, particularly warm considering how early in the spring it was. But the park was still fresh with the smell of dew on the grass. Mr. Conroy rested his aging body on a wooden bench facing the small pond. The aged wood responded with a whispering creak. He set the two brown paper bags at his side and let the sun warm his face from every direction.
Senility had not set in and Mr. Conroy refused to surrender to a life as a curmudgeon. His bones felt hollow and brittle, connected with rusted joints and hinges, held together by withered gristle and all packed loosely within the wrinkled, yellow parchment of his skin. His strength had dwindled to the point where a thick sweater would weigh too heavily on the old man’s shoulders.
The wrinkles at the corners of his eyes deepened as he squinted at the silver and gold flakes of sun floating on the pond’s surface. A small gray figure interrupted the pattern, slicing it into a modest “V” trailing behind it. The gray turned to white as Mr. Conroy’s cool cobalt eyes focused its pupils revealing the hungry duck in front of him.
Mr. Conroy took out the bread and as soon as the rustle of the brown paper bag echoed into the air, the hungry duck was no longer the only duck in front of the old man. He broke the loaf in half and indulged in the feeling of the cracking crust against his fingers. He pinched the soft cotton innards of the bread and tossed the bits towards his feathered comrades. Mr. Conroy smiled to himself and reached into the other bag for his sandwich. There was, however, an unexpected addition to his order other than the ducks’ and his lunch.
He pulled out a mysterious confection that he did not remember ordering, nor could he recall if anyone else may have ordered it resulting in Ernie placing it in his bag by mistake. Mr. Conroy lifted the colorful cupcake to his face and inspected it carefully as if looking for clues to its origins. The ducks waddled around his ankles anticipating some of that cup-shaped bread. The only thing to steal Mr. Conroy’s focus from the phantom desert was the site of the young children in the distance. The laughs and the smiles seemed to outshine the spring sun as he gazed in envy. Youth had seemed too far away for him to recollect.
“I’ll just return this cupcake to Ernie,” Mr. Conroy remarked to himself, “I’m sure it was all just a mistake.” The cupcake beckoned to him through the paper bag. The sweet smell of the cake and the creamy top that sat so whimsically on top of it had emitted its sweet aroma into the air drawing the old man’s face toward the bag.
“Well, I guess a taste couldn’t hurt,” he reasoned, “My birthday is tomorrow after all.” And with that he looked around to avoid witnesses of his would-be crime. He ran his finger along the edge of the paper cup slowly dragging against the icing. This created a sweet bulb on the tip of his finger without leaving any evidence that any icing was taken at all. It was a trick that he had taught to himself at the tender age of seven and had perfected the method in the following years.
Mr. Conroy licked the icing clean off of his fingertip and closed his eyes at the feel of the velvety icing in his mouth. As soon as he opened his eyes again, he had felt invigorated. He had felt a surge of energy within him that he had not felt since he first learned how to steal icing from cupcakes. The smile on his face stretched his cheeks. He looked around again for anymore witnesses and in a fit of feeling like a child again, he took one giant bite out of the dessert.
His eyes grew wide and the knots in his stomach tightened with guilt over what he had done. Mr. Conroy’s hands raced to put the rest of the half eaten cupcake back into the paper bag. However, it was not the petty theft that he had just committed that concerned him the most, but the hands that had just put the cupcake back into the bag. They were not the hands of an old man, but those of a seven year old boy!
“It must be the cupcake!” he thought to himself, “I’m no longer Mr. Conroy! I’m Ben again!”
His heart began to flutter not in panic or excitement but with the resonance of youth. He shot up from the park bench and smiled the largest smile a boy can make. Ben raised his hands to embrace the sky. He felt the sun try to fight through his eyelids, but only the reds of the sunlight managed to sneak through. With his feet, he struggled out of his shoes and tugged his socks off and jumped onto the gravel and sand that met the water of the pond. His toes wiggled about like worms confused whether it was escaping the ground or burying itself.
One of the ducks approached him. He reached out and touched its delicate head, which the bird reluctantly tolerated. What Ben found most astounding was not that he had the energy and physicality of his seven year old self, but the wonder, the innocence, the insatiable curiosity of a young boy. It was the curiosity that had long been extinguished by the smothering of some ignorant teacher or the temptation of prestige that tragically is so easily confused with growing up.
Ben’s bare feet hopped onto the hot pavement. It seared his heels for an instant. He didn’t care. They slapped onto the rough concrete in excited rhythm. With a head start he leapt from the walkway to the grass. He hunted for spots still cool with the dew of the morning. Spikes dug unto the soles of his feet before kowtowing to his the weight they held up leaving a footprint of bent blades of grass. As he lifted each foot, he smiled in wonder at the resilience of some of the blades leaping back up almost in defiance to his seven year old feet.
He ran to the playground, and plunged his feet into the sand. Ben got on his knees and swirled his hands into the fine grains beneath him. The seven year old senior citizen picked out the bits of bark and leaves in a spot of sand and lifted handfuls in front of his face and let it rain through his tiny fingers. The world was veiled behind a haze of playground sand when he spotted an empty spot at the swings.
He lifted his tiny frame onto the leather strap at held tightly to the rubber coated chain that suspended him. Ben dug in his naked toes into the sand and walked back three giant steps. There was a crescent ditch just beneath the swing dug by previous riders when they wanted to stop. But Ben had no intention of getting off the swing anytime soon. Propping himself up against the pull of gravity he kicked his feet up into the air in a storm of flying sand to fling himself into a good stride over the ditch.
Ben became a bob for this massive pendulum bending the knees at the peak of his rising to quicken the trip backwards. Then the feet kicked forward again, using his own momentum to fling him towards the sky. Each to and from motion, each back and forth endeavor brought him closer to the sun, or at least to that elusive event of actually overshooting and doing a loop-de-loop on a swing set.
As the swing cut swiftly through the air, Ben would close his eyes at every backwards motion and indulge in the illusion of chaos, the fear of swinging out of control and onto the ground below. In every forward motion, his eyes were wide open, squinting only for the sun as he pretended to be a pilot swooping dangerously close to sea level.
Eventually he would tire on his swing set adventure, extending his tiny legs to touch the ground beneath him, skidding along the sand to slow himself down, digging the crescent ditch even deeper than before. He had slowed the motion of the swing to a safe pace and readied himself for the dismount. Sure, Ben could have halted the swing completely and walked away, but what was the use of a renewed youth if he did that?
One. Two. Three! And off he went jumping at the peak of the gentle upswing landing perfectly on the mound of sand his feet had created. He smiled and breathed to himself. He thought of the blessing of having his young body back, but the wisdom of his old self was maintained. His chest heaved outwards, then deflated inwards as he caught his breath. Fatigue is not in a seven-year- old’s vocabulary, which is why he darted up the slide, then down the slide, then up the slide, then down the slide. Hands up or down, on his belly or on his back, feet first or head first, if there was a way of going down a slide, young Ben thought of it and slid down the slide that way.
He walked back to the park bench, yawning as if he were about to devour the clouds of the sky. His tiny hands balled up and rubbed into his eyes. The young boy on the outside wondered what sort of sorcery had drained him of his energy. Exhaustion had crept up on him quietly, but steadily. The old man on the inside knew it was time to take a nap. Ben climbed up on to the bench and sat down, refusing to let his eyelids win the battle.
“Maybe if I feed the ducks,” the young boy whispered to himself, “I won’t fall asleep.” But before he could tear off a second crumb, his tired head is thrown back and sleep had taken over completely. When he awoke, Ben was Mr. Conroy again. His wrinkles were back but seemed more like supple lines than rigid cracks. He looked at his hands which had returned to him in his sleep, not with regret but with a sort of nostalgia. Mr. Conroy had returned from his vacation from his own age and smiled at the wondrous memory.
“Was it all a dream?” he wondered. The old man looked at his side, and into the brown paper bags but found no evidence of any cupcake anywhere. He smacked his lips together, and flapped his tongues against the inside of his cheeks. The taste of the icing was still there, but there was no dessert, not a single crumb to be found. He looked back and saw that the swing was still swinging. The ducks jumped back into the water and flapped the water off their backs. Mr. Conroy stood on his feet and felt the hollowness of his fragile skeleton, but could only remember the sensation of swinging.
He had returned to the deli the next day to order his usual sandwich and day old bread. The smile on his face had become more than curls on the corner of his lips. Ernie came out form the back room with his usual warm voice and a handshake to welcome any customer, old or new.
“Happy Birthday, Mr. Conroy,” Ernie greeted, “Well, a bleated one, anyway. Why didn’t you tell me it was your birthday yesterday?”
“How did you--?” the old man stopped himself as he realized, “I see your wife and my daughter haven’t outgrown the age of gossip quite yet.”
“I guess we can’t outgrow everything,” Ernie answered with a chortle.
“I couldn’t agree more,” the old man replied, “Nor would we want to. Well, I suppose the reason that I didn’t tell you is because one loses count of one’s age after the number of candles exceeds how much breath is in these lungs. ”
“Ha! That’s a good one.”
“But thank you so much for the greeting, Ernie.”
“Just the usual, Mr. Conroy?”
“Yes,” Mr. Conroy answered. He stopped himself and raised a hand at Ernie. “Actually, Ernie… Do you have any cupcakes?”
