S&S7

‘Do this for me…’ the loan shark’s words echoed incessantly in his mind, as David drove ahead through the mist. Oh, how he remembered that day… All of it! As he drove faster and faster away from what he was now certain had become a definite crime scene, he retracted in his head all those minute details that lead him here in the first place…..

After Billy had practically dragged David out of the car, the day before - in that shady parking lot beside the shoe factory - he brought him up to Tiny’s office, which was nothing more than a dusty, cramped room on the top floor of a decrepit old building, at the outskirts of the city.

Except for that particular room, which was exclusively furnished for Tiny, the entire building seemed to be vacated. As soon as they stepped inside, David could feel the terrible stench of dampness and stale air that pervaded the interior. With every step he took, clouds of dust would rise up from the rotting floorboards, blurring his vision and irritating his nostrils.

On the ground floor, in the massive hall of the factory where the workers should have been, there were only a few broken chairs, thrown about haphazardly. In some places, long, dusty tables were lined up next to each other, in parallel rows that spanned the entire length of the building. On these tables he could still see the vague remnants of past activities, the rusty sewing machines, the hammers and nails, and all kinds of tools that looked untouched for ages.

Eventually, they went up the metal staircase on the side, and ended up in front of Tiny’s office. Billy seemed so nervous, as he stood there …. Staring at it, visibly shaking, and constantly rubbing his hands raw, like a desperate junky in need of a fix .He breathed in heavily, and sighed - he knocked, hand on the doorknob, held it tightly, and opened the door without even waiting for an answer from inside.

‘You do this for me…’ Tiny had said. Leaning back in his high leather chair, his feet propped up on the edge of the wooden desk, he was looking down at everyone inside the room with a kind of ostentatious arrogance, vaguely characteristic of someone who clearly considers himself above all else around him. He probably thought that’s how a boss should appear when addressing his subordinates. David, however, just thought it was rude….

‘Do this for me,’ the loan shark repeated, ‘and I promise you, you won’t ever have another care in the world, ever again. You listening to me! Because I’m being serious with you now,’ he insisted, seemingly astounded by his very own magnanimity and understanding for the downtrodden folk, like this David fellow sitting humbly before him.

‘I take care of the people who serve me, you should know that,’ Tiny declared confidently, leaning back again on his chair in utter admiration of his own words - which he clearly like to listen to.

‘Isn’t that right, Mr Bobo? Don’t I take care for the people who serve me?’

The rhetorical question was aimed at Billy, who, standing by the closed door of the office, absent - minded chewing on a fingernail, seemed to be completely lost in the decorum of the very arrangement he himself had set up.

‘Make this trip,’ the loan shark said, turning to David again, with a sort of disgusted look on his face, ‘and afterwards … we’ll see what else we can find for you.’

He then rose up from his seat and, with a gigantic smile on his face, began to walk towards David. God, he’s huge! The young man thought, while the loan - shark only seemed to grow bigger and bigger as he steadily approached him.

‘For smart, hardworking boys like yourself, there’s always a place in my crew,’ he finally said. He then wrapped his arms around David’s broad shoulders, gently patting his deltoids a few times, clearly impressed by their size.

‘Thick!’ he exclaimed, nodding with surprise and rounding his shoulders almost perverted, as he exhaled his rancid tobacco and brandy breath in the young man’s face.

He then turned to his henchman - another veritable mountain of a man, whom David had observed from the moment they walked into the room - settled comfortably into a leather armchair in the shadow of the curtains, intently following the conversation developing before him, like a vulture studies his weakening prey.

The two began to exchange some words among themselves, but David paid them no heed. Instead, he was captivated by the large arms of the henchman that rose out of his armchair. He hadn’t even noticed how big he was too when he’d first entered the office, and now he was seemingly overshadowing the entire room, eclipsing everyone inside. He had really thick wrists, David noticed, quickly examining his own, to compare.

Clear sign of a strong grip - an arm wrestler, for sure! He thought. His swollen forearms stretched the fabric of his black, linen shirt to its very limits. And those "fists", massive and meaty - with prominent, coarse and bruised knuckles, which had lost all semblance of mere human flesh, and resembled more the discarded bits of shoe leather he had seen scattered on the factory floor earlier. David was no small kid, by any chance - but next to those two? He felt like a toddler!

‘You,’ Tony beckoned David closer - waking him abruptly from his meditation. He then fetched a notebook and pencil off his desk and began meticulously scribbling something. ‘Tomorrow morning,’ Tiny continued, while writing. ‘You show up at this address - You know where it is, right?’ He asked, as he ripped off the paper and handed it to him.

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Albert here,’ Tiny gestured towards his henchman, ‘He will wait for you there with the rest of the details for the journey. That’s it, for now. I’ll see you when you get back. OK?’

‘OK.’ David replied, obediently.

‘Good boy.’ He then glanced at Billy, who was grinning foolishly by the door, like a drunken court - room jester. Meanwhile, Tiny resumed his conversation with Albert as if they were now the only two left in the room, as if the conversation just then had never taken place at all.

Guess our part is over, David thought. He looked at Billy and signalled him to follow. They said goodbye but no one answered. As he walked out of the office, David turned around … and through the open door he could see the two gargantuan men, Tiny and his trusted henchman, one in front of the other - dialoguing in the pale light shining through the window on the side, and he wondered, who would win a fight between those two, if they were Really to go at it, one day?

The thought of those two stirring up a conflict terrified him terribly. Two tough men like that --- strong willed, strong bodied … going at it, in that city? That would be the truest clash of Titans, an outright war, and only the good would never survive it…

The bus stopped at the central station, downtown. David quickly stepped out and consulted the piece of paper that Tiny had given him. He looked around a few times and then started walking forward. Across the street he saw the entry point towards the notorious alley off Lupine Street, and a little further on, amid a maze of dilapidated houses hidden behind a few new structures, was the address of Tiny’s henchman which he needed to reach.

The wind blew strongly. He gripped the collar of his sweater and tightened it in his fist to block out some of the draft, then proceeded to walk further. David remembered when that street used to be a beautiful place - a grand, aristocratic neighbourhood, back in the old days. Now, however, it was but a mere ruin of its former past, riddled with shadowy figures of all sorts, cramming into the old buildings that had been senselessly nationalized by the former regime and fraudulently given back to all sorts of no - good people.

Although many had been terribly neglected by their current owners, most of those buildings still bore some semblance of their former glory on their sad facades. Yet, the effects of prolonged negligence however, were becoming increasingly more evident. Those beautiful mansions and villas that were once inhabited by wealthy merchants and state officials had now largely been converted into brothels. Hidden behind their purple window blinds, dens of various traffickers, of all sorts of pleasures and substances, went about their illicit trades, day and night, seemingly uninterrupted.

David was familiar with the characters who cautiously emerged from their hideous to sip their morning coffees and smoke their cigarettes outside, in the fresh air. And they were familiar with his presence as well. Not with him personally, mind you, but with the persona he could so easily embody in such moments of need.

David was a smart boy. He had no time for school, because he had to work, but he would always have preferred to sneak in the back of the construction site and read another page or two, of his only copy of “Burning in Water - Drowning in Flame“, than to hang around the corner with his colleagues, and talk about tits and or football. He would prefer to spend his nights at home, to read more and learn new things, than to hang out in those shady bars with those dubious people, or run around town - doing only - he could say what, in hopes that he might earn some money out of it.

Deep inside, he was a good man - or at least, that’s what he wanted to believe. He would have preferred to go to school - and learn something meaningful, but he had to trade all those desires in just to make his ends meet - and not just for himself, but for his crumbling family as well.

So he adapted… The way he walked, his facial expressions, the ease with which he navigated an area that most decent, ordinary townsfolk typically avoided - these traits camouflage the brooding scholar inside him, and transformed the cautious young man briefly into one of their own. He never came across as a lost tourist amongst the gallows of the underworld, but rather as a seasoned veteran amongst them, a warrior, strong and hardened by the struggles for survival in that city - which every bad man around knew all there was to know about.

If you managed to make it past Lupine Street - with your shoes still on your feet, he remembered a local joke - you would eventually find yourself at the entrance to the New Centre of the city, on the other side of the alley. This was the shallow, improvised attempt by the new so - called democratic regime, with its aspirations towards modernity, to somehow mask the squalor that often emanated from that notorious part of town, just a few feet down the street, behind it.

Here, as if overnight, shops and restaurants sprouted about all the time. The newly refurbished stores always had full shelves, catering to those with money, offering imported clothes, food, and other coveted items. And, as David walked along the freshly renovated street, he felt increasingly more discouraged.

He felt judged all of a sudden, as if the broad shops’ windows and their creepy mannequins, which looked down at him so patronizingly, whispered nasty slurs about him - in a tone of condescension so very typical of the people wealthier than him, that he had had the pleasure of interacting with, so many times before.

He tried his best to ignore them… to face his insecurity, and move on further to his destination. He would have much rather passed through the old street, with the mobsters and the hookers and the junkies, lurking, stalking him at every corner, praying for a slip so they could step right in and get whatever nothings he had on him, than to be objectified as the poor loser, out here in the open - in the light and sterile mood of the cleaner side of town.

He hadn’t been in this part of the city for a long while, not since he’d stopped hanging out with Billy. He was out of touch with the drastic changes that had taken place there. He looked around, wondering if there were truly people in the city who could even afford to shop there.

Eventually, he arrived at the given address. A low, unkempt wooden fence surrounding a tall villa - at least two stories high, David counted. Through the gaps in the fence, he could catch glimpses of a long, cramped yard leading to the open garage in the back.

Leaning over a parked car with its hood lifted up he could see Albert, the henchman - visibly struggling with something he worked on, and mumbling loudly, albeit unintelligibly. As if sensing David’s curious gaze from afar, Albert looked up and around and signalled for him to come in.

‘Alright, let’s see, now.’ Albert began, bending down next to the car to inspect the front tyre.

‘I think Tiny mentioned all the details to you yesterday, but I’ll repeat them too - doesn’t hurt to hear it twice, you know,’ the brawny man said, straightening back up. He quickly dusted off his hands, wiped them on his pants a few times, then grabbed David by the arm and started dragging him, rather involuntarily, along the entire length of the driveway - from the garage, all the way to the front of the house.

As Albert spoke, David’s gaze shifted, perplexed, between him and the car they were leaving behind. They had moved quite a distance from the garage already, yet Albert showed no sign of releasing his tight grip on his arm until he’d finished saying everything he had on his mind. He looked at David intently, earnestly, trying to convey all that he deemed necessary for him to know, while simultaneously searching upon the younger man’s face for any hint of fear or hesitation. He was apparently on the lookout for any sort of weakness - be it of character or of the stomach -that might cripple David in a tense situation, should one arise, or deter him from the unorthodox deeds he was expected to perform, if it ever came down to it.

When they reached the front of the house, the henchman halted suddenly. He gripped David’s arm even tighter and stared straight into his eyes, with a fierceness that shook the young man to the very bone…

‘You ever done this kind of thing before!’

‘Yes, of course,’ David said - obviously lying.

A few tense moments of silence passed, and David felt them deeply, underneath the giant’s gaze, as cold shivers raced down his entire spine. Albert’s serious gaze dissected every small detail of his face, no wrinkle, pimple or strand of stray hair went unnoticed by those probing eyes of his.

David hardly even dared to breathe before him anymore, fearful that he might somehow betray any hint of a weakness that he himself might not have been aware of …

‘If you haven’t, just say so …I won’t get mad. But tell me now, so we know how to proceed,’

Albert continued, with a note of implied confidentiality in his voice. It was a tone meant to convey an absolute trust in his unconditional support, regardless of the young man’s answer. For a moment, David realized later, it felt like the question upon which his entire future had hinged - and, simultaneously, a last chance to escape the evidently treacherous path he was about to embark on.

‘Alright,’ the henchman nodded, unconvinced, taking the young man’s silence as a definitive answer. ‘ If Tiny trusts you enough to put you on this, I’m sure he must know what he’s doing - Anyway, whatever happens,’ Albert went on, finally taking his eyes off David, ‘Just be careful … And if anyone stops you along the way, just stay calm. Most of them are Tiny’s guys anyways, at least on this route - but answer back politely to everyone, anyway. You never know who you might run into, out there. And they can’t do much to you anyway, the cops - even if some wannabe hero, trying to play good cop, pulls you over, worst - case scenario, they take your license - but we’ll handle that afterward, too, when you get back. We got a guy down at the burro, so no problem. Oh, and another thing, technically - legally! No one should search your car unless you act suspiciously - so, yet another reason for you to just keep your damn mouth shut and stay cool, if you get pulled over. You have your papers with you, right?’

‘Yes.’

‘You got your driver’s license? ID? All you need? I gave you the car registration, right?’

‘Yes, yes, I got them all right here, look,’ David said, trying to pull them out of his pocket.

‘No, no, no! Keep them,’ the henchman said, annoyed. ‘Just keep them there, in your pocket; don’t pull them out - you might lose them, Wait here, in moment I’ll be right back,’ He added.

He quickly went inside the house and re-emerged almost immediately, carrying a large cardboard shoe box. David tried to grab it, out of reflex, but the henchman held it tightly in his massive hands; evidently, he wasn’t finished.

‘Listen, and listen well to what I’m saying, because I know what I’m talking about,’ he declared, looking him in the eyes with an expression that would make anyone understand this man was not one to be taken lightly.

‘Keep your mouth shut, don’t act tough, you hand over the money, you take the bag, and that’s it. You don’t speak - you don’t shout - you don’t get angry and - no matter what happens!’ he exclaimed, still gripping the box. ‘Hey! Do you hear me?’ He shouted again.

‘Look at me! When I’m talking to you, alright? No matter what happens. YOU DO NO HIT ANYONE! You Got it? Especially if they’re a cop. I heard about you… I know you’re story… That poor kid - that one time, punched his lights out, broke his neck… No room for that kind of action on this trip, you got it?’

‘Yes,’ David responded, taken aback by Albert pressing tone which already seemed excessive by now. ‘I understand,’ he said again, bitterly ‘I’ll be careful!’

He did not like to be reminded so frankly about the people he’d hurt in the past… He did not lie to hear stories about himself out of context. He never got a chance to defend his side of the story, to tell people what really went down, when things went down - the guy, with the broken neck… he was hurting Sasha! Punched her lights out for no reason, in the middle of the street, cracked her tooth on the side of the building, he slammed her so hard… That’s why she had to pull it out, because it was too busted to fix. He didn’t mean to break the guy’s neck, he just wanted to push him away. His heavy hands though, they were so hard to control when he would lose his temper as badly as when he had to defend the people he cared about. All the limits on his strength and fury were lifted in a second when someone he loved needed him to step in and protect. But those were details… facts that were always left out, just for the sake of a story, or gossip. And he was so sick of having to defend himself all the time!

‘Here’s the money,’ Albert said, handing over the box, with a touch of resentment in his voice. ‘And know that they’re counted, so don’t get any ideas.’

David carefully took the box this time, gauging its weight by gently shaking it up and down, trying to listen to the movements of the contexts inside, and figure out what they were.

‘Take care on the road and… well, that’s about it, we’ll touch base when you return,’ Albert finally concluded.

He then extended his hand, gave David a firm handshake, and with a tone as sincere as cold be, he pulled him closer towards him and said. ‘Just … Be careful out there, alright?’