“You guys are going to have to follow me. We’re going to take this to my hunting camp. I can’t have it on the driveway or Angie will divorce me.” I said with a smile. Joey and his dad followed me to the hunting camp and we dumped the mushroom soil on some tarps I had out there. I bought the thermal covers off Joey right there in the spot, so it would trap the heat. Mr. Fanucci really liked the hunting camp. There were turkeys feeding as we pulled in. Neither of them had ever seen a wild turkey before. They followed me back to the house and Angie had breakfast ready for us when we arrived. “So, are you guys going to stay the night? We certainly have room for you.” Mr. Fanucci smiled and said “No, I have to get back. Mrs. Fanucci, she-ah worry if I don’t come right back.” I looked at Joey in bewilderment. They had just put six hours on their backsides in that big truck, and now they were getting ready to do the same thing again with only a few hours break.
“Mr. Fanucci,” I said, “Please let Joey drive, at least. It’s a long trip and you have to be tired.” I expected him to protest, but he agreed. “You’re right,” he said, softly, “I’m getting old, and this driving, it-ah tires me out.” Joey shot me subtle glance. It wasn’t like his dad to give up the driver’s seat so easily. We finished breakfast and talked until Noon. I made them a pot of coffee and filled Mr. Fanucci’s thermos for him. “I brewed it like you and my dad like it, Mr. F.” I said. “I mixed half Folger’s and half Medaglia D’Oro, and double brewed it.” He smiled. “I could always drink coffee with your Papa and your Nonno. We old timers like it strong.” I handed the thermos to Joey, “Well you could start a car with this. Now you guys drive carefully and call me when you get home tonight so I don’t worry and call Nonna.” Joey promised he would and gave me a big hug.
“Dominucce...Grazi Paisan. Thank you my friend. I needed this.” Joey laughed. “It’s just poop, Joe!” I caught myself getting emotional. “No, it’s more than that. I needed to see you guys. I needed to hear a voice from back home...you know?” Joey smiled and kissed my cheek. I hugged his dad -after he finished hugging my wife- and told them to be careful. Anj and I waved until they disappeared down the street. I was turning to walk back inside when I noticed the blinds rustle over at Phil Lowery’s across the street. Danged peeper.
The following Monday night, old Tim Peppers came over to the house and we walked out back so I could show him where the garden was going to be. “Well this is going to be just about the biggest vegetable garden I think I’ve ever seen.” He said. He instantly acted as if he thought he’d hurt my feelings. “I mean, a big garden is great. It’s great! I just ain’t never seen one this big.” he quickly explained. Tim wouldn’t look me in the eye all night. I don’t know why he was so intimidated by me, but he was.
I pointed to the lines I had staked out. There were eight lines altogether, ten feet long and each in the middle of a twenty square foot section of my future garden. I turned to Peppers and asked him, “Tim do you have a Bobcat or a small backhoe?” “Oh Yessir!” He said with a bright smile, “Yes sir I do! I’m about the best backhoe man in Bedford County, too Mr. Mezilli.” I looked at him eye to eye. “Tim do you want my business?” I asked sternly. “Well...yessir. Of course I do.” He said nervously. “Then stop calling me “sir” and “Mr. Mezilli.” Call me Joe. Okay?” Tim Peppers swallowed hard. “Yes sir...I mean, yes, Joe. Of course.” “Good, now that we have that straightened out, can you dig me a trench on each of these lines, Tim? Just maybe two feet deep. no more. I need you to do that right away. Before you even start the irrigation system for the garden.” Peppers shook his head. I can come out tomorrow and dig them if you want.”
“Now you’re talking, kid!” I thought. “Yes, Tim, let’s plan that. It’s not supposed to rain all week. I’d like these trenches dug right away so I can bury some things.” Peppers looked at me quizzically. “You’re what?” he asked, “Nothing, nevermind. Bring your rig out here tomorrow and dig these trenches for me. And bring the pricing for the irrigation. Oh and did you find me screened topsoil?” Tim said he had and handed me a slip of paper with a phone number on it. “This here is Earl Davies farm. Old Earl has about the best soil in the county and he told me he screens it. He has about fifty yards over there now so just call him, he’ll take real good care of you.” I thanked Tim and we walked to the driveway together. “I’ll see you tomorrow Tim. Thank you for coming out.” I said as I shook his hand. He got in his truck and headed down the street, I was walking in the front door when I noticed he had stopped at Phil Lowery’s house and Phil was standing at the curb, leaning in the window of Tim’s pickup truck, gesturing frantically as they spoke. I ignored it and went inside.
The next morning I called Tim Peppers as I drove out to the hunting camp. Earl Davies was delivering my topsoil and I needed to meet him at the gate so I told Tim to just go ahead and start the trenches and that I would be back by noon. He was so happy to be using his backhoe on my property that I think I could have asked him to do it for free and he might have agreed. “Don’t crack my driveway, Tim, and for God’s sake, stay out of Angie’s flower bulbs. If you run those things over she’ll bury YOU there!” Tim didn’t laugh.
Earl Davies looked pretty much exactly as I expected he would. He was a short, chubby, bow-legged man who drove an old Dodge dump truck. I hadn’t seen too many of these trucks. Back home everyone drove Chevy or Ford or GMC.
Earl’s truck was a very faded green, except for the passenger’s side door, that was blue. There were peeling letters on the door. The kind you see on mailboxes in trailer parks. “E. DAV_S and S_N.” it said. Underneath was his phone number. Earl backed his truck up the long gravel road like he had eyes in back of his head. He was really good at handling that big truck. I was impressed. When he came to a stop and hopped down, I told him so. “You know Earl, You could have made a lot of money for me back home. You could have been one of my best guys.” I said to him cheerfully. Earl smiled and spit some tobacco juice. “Doin’ what” he said, pronouncing the soft “H” very emphatically, so it sounded like; “H-what?”. “Oh driving for me.” He cocked his head a little, “What kinda business did ya have?” he asked. “I was in waste management. I owned trash trucks.” Earl just shrugged his shoulders and unchained the gate on his dump bed. I spread out a few big tarps and told him to dump the dirt on them if he could. Earl saw that as some sort of dare.
He walked to the middle of the tarp and reached into his pocket. He pulled out a ten-dollar bill and tore it in half. Handing me one piece he laid the other half on the tarp, as close to the center as a man can be without measuring to be sure. “You just stand aside, Mr. Mezilli” he said. He pronounced the vowel like a long “E”, so it came out “Mezeelee.” I stood off to the side as he backed his truck into position and raised the bed. The load of soil slid off in one smooth, powerful “Whoosh!” Tim Peppers was right...this was some dark, rich soil. It looked like coffee grounds, and I couldn’t see a rock or a twig anywhere.
Davies walked over to me and smiled. He winked as he spoke; “Now when you get all this dirt moved to wherever it is you’re moving it to, you’ll find the other half of that ten dollar bill...dead in the middle of the pile at the bottom. That’s how good I am.” He was grinning like a Cheshire cat. “If I’m wrong, you can keep both halves of the Ten. Deal?” This was bold. I like this. “How much do I owe you, Earl?” I asked. “Oh...I charge $295 for a dump load and the extra mileage for delivery out here...” He was figuring in his head. I thought of Jethro D. Bodean doing some “ ‘Cyperhin’. “How’s Three-Fifty sound to ya?” he said. I reached into my pocket, “Let’s make it Four Hundred.” And I’ll keep that ten either way. Fair enough?” I said. He stuck out his hand. “Fair enough” he said.
Earl Davies locked up the gate on his dump bed and as he was heading for the cab, he turned and asked, “What is it you’re doing with all this dirt?” I didn’t feel like explaining what a “dirt roll-up was” so I just said “You don’t really want to know.” and I headed toward the barn
to get my tools. Davis drove down the gravel drive and off toward highway 460. I set out to make my burlap burritos and get them buried by tonight.
Right away I realized I was going to have to make them in the bed of my pickup. There was no way I could make them on the ground, and then lift them by myself. I rolled out about ten feet of burlap in the bed, and cut it off. I filled it with Uncle Franny’s recipe. Three wheelbarrows of mushroom soil, one wheelbarrow of topsoil, half a wheelbarrow of sand, a half bag of lime and two bucket loads of compost. I rolled the ends toward the middle and tucked in the sides so it actually looked like a gigantic burlap burrito. I managed to get six of them made before filling the pickup bed to the top. I figured I’d get these buried and come back for the rest. Covering the mushroom soil and topsoil with tarps, I climbed in my truck and headed for home.
When I rounded the corner on our street, I saw Phil Lowery standing on the sidewalk, peering back into my yard, obviously trying to see what Tim Peppers was doing. “Now why doesn’t he just walk back there?” I wondered. “I’m never going to figure this guy out.” I beeped my horn at Phil, partly to let him know I saw him standing there, but mostly to warn him to get out of my way...I needed to back my truck in right where he was standing. Phil jerked to attention and turned toward his house. By the time I was backing into my driveway, he was back in his house, no doubt peering from behind the blinds again.
I stopped the truck at the far edge of the front driveway, near the gate to the back yard. Walking back to the yard, I saw that ol’ Peppers had done a very nice job with the trenches. Turns out he knew his way around a backhoe. I called him over. “Tim, give me a hand will ya?” He followed me to the back of my pickup. When he got to the bed he stopped and stared. “Wh...whatcha got there Mr. Mezilli?” He asked nervously. I shot him a look. “Tim...” “Oh sorry,” he said, “Whatcha got there, Joe.”
I grabbed the end of one of the burlap rolls and started pulling. “Help me with this.” I said. I slid the roll off to the end of the tailgate and Tim grabbed ahold. Hoisting it up to shoulder height, he said, “Oh Lord this is heavy. And it stinks! Whatcha got in here?”
I hate trying to explain things that others will never understand. I also hate talking when I’m working, so I chuckled and said, “Trust me...you don’t want to know. Besides it’s a secret.” I mean, it was. Uncle Franny guards his soil recipes very closely. This stuff stays in the Mezilli family.
Peppers and I walked the burlap roll over to the garden and walked it back to the farthest trench he had dug. With great relief we dropped it into the hole. We headed back to the driveway to get the next one. I was pulling another burlap roll off the bed when I glanced over toward Phil’s house and noticed him in his garage. Like the smart ass I am, I waved at him. He frowned and walked back into the dark of his garage.
Tim and I unloaded the last of the six burlap rolls from my pickup. I told him to go back to digging so he would have the trenches finished tonight. I needed his backhoe out of the way by tomorrow, so I could just pull my pick up all the way back to the garden and not have to hoss these things across the yard. Tim finished up the trenches while I covered the rolls with some lime and then started backfilling them with topsoil. I was pretty deep into my work and hadn’t noticed Tim standing there staring at me. He cleared his throat. “Why do those things smell so bad?” he asked me sheepishly. I wasn’t in the mood to talk and so I shot him a one-word answer that I figured would stump him and stop any follow-up questions. “Decomposition.” I said, turning back to my shovel. That should do it, I thought, Why bother explaining the breakdown of the horse manure and compost into nutrients? One word is sufficient.
I straightened up slowly, and turned toward Tim. “Well, I’m finished here Mr. Mez...Joe.” “Okay Tim,” I said. “Come on up to the house and I’ll give you a check. Unless you’d prefer cash.” “Nossir, a check is just fine.” He answered. We walked into the kitchen and I wrote him out a check. “You want a glass of tea, Tim?” I asked. “Why yessir...I mean yes, Joe. That’d be great.” he replied. I poured him a glass of tea and he took a huge gulp. Then he made a horrible face like he’d tasted battery acid. “Not very sweet.” he managed. I laughed a little. “Oh yeah, I forgot. We don’t drink ‘sweet tea’ back home, Tim. I guess that’s a shock to your system growing up down here, huh?” I handed him the sugar and a spoon and he went about mixing enough sugar in the glass to attract hummingbirds. Angie walked into the kitchen just as I was asking Tim if there were any diabetics in his family. Angie smacked me on the arm. Hard. “Joseph!” she said sternly. Fortunately Tim hadn’t heard me, or he hadn’t grasped what I was asking him. He finished his tea in what I have to admit was uncomfortable silence. I handed him his check, thinking maybe he just wanted to get home. He took it silently and walked to the front door. “Tim you’ll have me a price for the irrigation soon?” I asked. “Sure Joe,” he said. I’ll call you with it tomorrow afternoon.” Great!” I said, “I’ll be looking forward to it.” Tim walked out the front door and pulled his truck out into the street. He hadn’t gotten any further than Phil Lowery’s house when his brake lights came on. I shut the door and looked through the sidelight as Tim stopped in front of Phil’s house and Phil leaned into the cab of Tim’s truck. Phil was gesturing wildly again as I turned to go into the kitchen.
The next morning I drove out to the hunting camp and made up the last eight burlap dirt rolls. I loaded the rest of the lime bags and compost and headed home. This time, because I knew Tim Peppers wasn’t going to be there to help me, I backed my pick up all the way to the garden area. But it was still a wrestling match getting those long, bulky burlap rolls off the bed and into position in the trenches, so I yelled up to the house and told Angie to send the boys out to help. Now, the boys couldn’t have lifted these things themselves –they were too heavy and awkward- but they did provide enough help to me to get them in place. We wrestled them off the truck one at a time, the boys wrinkling their noses at the pungent aroma of mushroom soil and compost. “Aww dad!” Said Petey, my oldest, “This stinks something awful!” I smiled at him. “You should have smelled those trash trucks when I’d ride them at your age with Nonno. I smelled ten times worse than this for days afterward.” I laughed to myself at how the circle comes back around.
We got the last rolls placed and the boys went inside, except for David. David stayed with me and helped me cover the burlap with the rest of the lime and then – without me asking him- he grabbed the other shovel and assisted me in covering the whole thing with topsoil. It took us about an hour. Afterward, I leaned over to him and said with a wink, “Hey, I’ll tell you what, since you’ve been such a big help, let’s you and me ride to town and get a couple of hot dogs at the DQ.” David lit up. “Just you and me?” he asked, plaintively. “Yeah. Just you and me, son. Since your brothers didn’t want to help out here. You hop in the truck and I’ll tell your mom.” He was ecstatic. We pulled away from the garden slowly. The late-afternoon sun had warmed the February frost enough that my truck would have dug into the ground pretty good had I goosed her a bit. Then too, I didn’t want the other boys to hear us leaving. He had earned this time alone with me, and besides, since we’d moved here, there wasn’t any opportunity for our time at the ball park like back home. As I nosed the truck around the corner of the house and out toward the end of the driveway, I noticed Phil Lowery, scampering across the street with his cell phone in his hand. “What the...” I said under my breath. “This has gone far enough. What’s that old man doing spying on us all the time?” I guess I said this louder than I thought, because David asked me “Who, dad?” “Oh Mr. Lowery, son. I think he thinks he needs to know everything we’re doing at all hours.” “Like Mrs. Begnetti, back home?” David said, “Are you going to put newspaper over the windows down here too?” He was laughing at that. He’d gotten a big kick out of us all playing that prank on Mrs. B. “No son,” I said, “That wouldn’t work down here with old Phil. I’m going to have to come up with somethi
ng else I guess.” Eventually I would. And that’s where the trouble began.
9
I Tell Ya
He ain’t
Nothing But
Trouble
I knew this man was in the mafia, I knew it! I tried telling old Hank next-door but he just ain’t as suspicious a man as I am. I told him what I seen and I told him what Timmy Peppers told me. I knew he was trouble when I seen that stainless .45 in his hip holster. Driving around in fancy cars and having himself a pretty wife. I knew he weren’t no garbage man, nossir!
I called my friend Monte Crispin down at the county records office and he said the man paid cash for a seven hundred thousand dollar house. Cash! Monte said he heard from Susie Travis at the title company he brought it in a suitcase. Seven Hundred Thirty Five Thousand Dollars in a suitcase. Now, tell me what I’m supposed to think about that?
I’ve been keeping an eye on him. A real close eye. I been here a long time and I know folks. In fact I pretty much know everyone here in Forest and I made sure the word got out; “Ya’ll keep an eye on this Mezilli!” Then a week after he gets here I find out he’s tellin’ folks that he is retired from the waste management industry. Waste Management! And nobody here saw through his disguise? Why, anybody with half a brain knows they all call their business “waste management,” it’s a cover. It’s code. They talk in code, them mafias. They’re sneaky. I watched “The Sopranos,” I know all about these people.
But I said to myself, “Phil Lowery, if the whole wide world plays stupid to this man, you are gonna be the lone voice of reason! By God you’re gonna save this town, even if it means savin’ it from itself!” So I’ve been watchin’ him. I watch him all the time. I’m real good at watching folks, I always have been. I’m gatherin’ evidence, and when I get what I’m looking for, I’m gonna pounce like a mountain lion. I figure he’s either in the witness protection program, or he’s come out here to little ol’ Forest to expand his mob territory. Either way, he’s trouble
The Legend of Joey Trucks: The Accidental Mobster Page 15
