The quarter-mile down the winding two lane entry road never felt long during the day; it took an eternity before merging into the freeway. The dull yellow of the streetlights started to burn as they hit and mixed with the paint fumes coming from the back. A can probably fell over when I put the bag in, though that was the least of my worries.
Work was never something easy to come by in this city, there were guys who would work sixty hours a week and still need government support to feed their families. Luckily I never made the mistake of getting married, nor producing small, eating, crying, defecating versions of myself; however I wasn’t out of the woods yet. Until I met Rodco, he explained that he was looking for general handymen for his business and I showed potential, in my weekly drunken stupor, I accepted any compliment. My position as painter was only paper deep when I arrived on the scene of my first job in the glamourous Greenwood Estates.
Greenwood is the kind of place where the help must be white middle class America, the kind of people who hire immigrants to tend to their homes; high-class servants, that’s where I came in. The eight hours I spent that day at 34 Paper St. taught me how to repair stucco, board up a broken window, and remove blood stains from a white carpet; the secret is protein if you’re interested, like at the dry cleaners. All of this came from the frightened little lady in the house after walking me through how to apply an absorbable suture on the five inch gash on her wrist. Married life, am I right?
The prayers you say when you’re truly nervous, really afraid, expecting to die, are a funny bunch of words. You never notice you’re saying them until the siren passes or the lights stop flashing and that cramp in your leg that was feathering the gas pedal subsides. Some people never hear theirs, but I heard mine as the cop that had been tailing me finally put on his lights and coerced me onto the shoulder. It’s a mix of grammar school prayers and italian swear words, if you’re interested. It didn’t last long as he walked up from his bike to tap on the window.
“Can you open the back sir?” he inquired.
The work continued uninterrupted for about six months, people kept screwing up and I was the man for the job. Hit your wife? Make up artist. Domestic dispute? Interior decorator. Probation? Sensitive materials disposal. A couple bills could hire any idiot to do this work, what really earned the bucks was pretending not to know that Mr. Livingston didn’t bruise his knuckles rock climbing, that Mrs. Livingston wasn’t clumsy, that Mrs. Mark had more than thirty different ‘plumbers,’ and that Mr. Mark had his share of plumbers too. Silence had a price, and when Rodco called me all spastic and bothered at 4 a.m. one saturday night offering me enough to retire on from one job, I was all ears.
“A hell of a mess you have here,” the Officer yelled, leaning in the back of the van prodding an empty paint can. “At least we know what was painting lines on the interstate.”
“Yeah, it must’ve rolled when I was on the on ramp.” I yelled back leaning against the door of the van.
“What’s this,” The cop whispered almost imperceptibly loud as the traffic thundered around us. He leaned further, his hands working on the clasp on the large canvas laundry bag that sat at the back of the space, covered in paint.
“Attention all-” was all the officer could shout into his walkie-talkie before he fell forward, pained. His radio was sent flying before smashing against the wall as he was pushed into the van. He struggled for his gun before the knife planted itself firmly under his shoulder blade, his groan for help that was drowned out by the gunshot was drowned out by the traffic. The knife hit the metal of the van interior as the blade settled in the back of the officer’s neck.
“I couldn’t let you find Mrs. Livingston,” I said to the officer as I folded the arm and tucked the head back into the bag “You should’ve just read the container, and all it would’ve been was dirty laundry.”
