by James Green
The old man sat there a while but didn’t speak any more except to say, thanks, when he left.
It was watching that old guy sitting drinking coffee and thinking things out that made me think that maybe it was time for me to get moving. I never much cared about other people’s pain or troubles but that old guy had been good to me and for no other reason than he was a good old guy. There had been nothing in it for him. Seeing him troubled, and troubled so bad, well that made me uncomfortable and as there was nothing I could do about his trouble I decided maybe I should move on out so I could put him and his trouble behind me.
And I was right, it was time to move on out, because the old guy began to break up his ranch and that just about broke him up. When Sonny was ready to leave hospital his old man told him he would bank-rolled him to go East like he always wanted. He told him he would sell off half the ranch and send Sonny his share of what was coming to him. Now you’d think even a guy like Sonny would have seen that what the old man was going to do would be just like him killing himself, like putting a gun to his head, only slower and ole in a more painful. I mean the guy only lived for for two things, his sons and that damn ranch so Sonny letting him sell-up half of it was like telling him to die because Sonny wanted his share now. But I’ll say this about Sonny, he ran true to form, he never gave it a second thought, it was Sonny and nobody but Sonny all the way with him and he took the money and blew town headed for the good times as soon as he was fully mended.
Maybe it was better to get Sonny away, but it was only better for Sonny, it hurt everyone else. Once Jesse found out that his old man was going to break up the ranch to give Sonny his share, man was he mad? I mean, Jesse was never exactly a bundle of laughs at the best of times but the way he went round after Sonny left you could see the guy’s spit would burn a hole in a tin cup. Everybody could see why Sonny had been told to get going fast, Jesse would have killed him as soon as he set eyes on him and if he got the death penalty it would have meant the old guy would have lost everything, no wife and no sons, so what would the ranch be for then?
And selling off land hurt more than Jesse and his pop, it hurt plenty of cow hands. Less land meant less stock and that meant less work so guys at the ranch got laid off. The old man tried to get them taken on by the guys who bought land and stock from him but they usually had all the hands they wanted or needed so a few families had to sell up and move out and a few more hit hard times. You could say that if Sonny had come back and shown his face in Smallville around that time then lynching Southern-style would have come back into fashion in a big way. I used to see the old man when he came into town and it hurt me to look at him and. Like I said, other people’s pain is for them to deal with.
That day I told Jack who owned the bar that I was ready to move on and he should look around for someone to take my place. He said OK, he was sorry to lose me seeing as how I stole less from him than most guys who worked for him but he understood I was just passing through and he’d look out for a replacement. After a couple of weeks he told me he had found someone so I moved on out and headed East.
Chapter 2
Goodbye to Smallville.
I didn’t go back to New York, I headed to Chicago, I didn’t know anyone in Chicago and I hoped no-one knew me and that was just how I wanted things to be. Right from hitting the place I liked Chicago, there was action there and anyone with skills and experience could move right on in. And they were friendly people, if you have a few bucks to spread around that is, and I had a few bucks, not much, but enough to buy a new identity and make a new start with nobody on my tail. That was another thing I liked about Chicago, it wasn’t expensive, I mean not like New York expensive, I got a new identity there that would hold up under anything that wasn’t a full Fed shakedown and it didn’t wipe me out.
Pretty soon I was back in business, the drugs business, I got to know people and people got to know me. Don’t misunderstand, I wasn’t moving on up, I was never going to move on up, I was strictly a street guy, but as a street guy, I was solid and soon everyone knew me and knew where I stood in things.
I guess I had been in Chicago the best part of a year when I saw Sonny again. I was late one Saturday morning and I was in a bar, a low joint where small time dealers sold bad shit to even smaller dealers and where everyone was finking on everyone else and getting nowhere doing it. I was supposed to meet a guy who was supposed to have money for another guy who was… well, you know how it is, there’s always a guy who’s doing something for another guy and there’s some guy in the middle who’s the guy who gets caught, if anyone gets caught, if it’s illegal that is, and mostly it’s illegal because mostly it’s drugs.
Anyway, I’m sitting at the bar minding my own business, waiting, and who walks in but Sonny. He looks around the joint like he’s looking for somebody, he looks at me but he don’t recognise me, but I recognise him. Oh I recognise him OK, but it wasn’t easy because this Sonny isn’t the clean, well set, cowboy from Smallville. This Sonny looks like a piece of shit. He’s wearing a suit that must have cost real dough when it was new but now looks like a garbage can would throw it out. I mean, he was wasted. If ever I saw a cheap user who was having a hard time, it was Sonny. Well, there weren’t many people in the bar and only me and another guy sitting at the bar and the other guy’s head is on the bar because he was asleep. Sonny obviously couldn’t see whoever it is he was looking for so he came over and stood at the bar beside me. I looked at him and he looked at me looking at him. It worried him, being looked at, just me looking at him worried him. He was a bag of nerves.
‘Do I know you?’
Now I’d like to impress you by having you believe that it was some of that deep crap people write about that told me it would be better not to know Sonny, but it wasn’t any deep crap. You didn’t want to know Sonny like you didn’t want to go and pat a rabid dog. Sonny was contagious. He was almost shaking and his eyes were like piss holes in snow and he held himself tense like if he didn’t maybe both his arms would fall off. He was a user who had a hard time feeding his habit.
‘I said, do I know you?’
His voice was as shaky as the rest of him and too frightened to be angry.
‘No, friend, you don’t know me.’
Which was true, in his condition he wouldn’t know the guy looking at him from out of the mirror.
‘You know Joey?’
Now even if I did know anybody called Joey, which I did, I wouldn’t tell a guy in Sonny’s condition so I shook my head but Sonny went right on.
‘I’m supposed to meet a guy called Joey here in this bar,’ and he looked at his wrist but there was no watch there. That seemed to confuse him for a moment,
‘You got the time?’
I looked at the big clock over the back of the bar.
‘Eleven forty.’
Sonny looked up at the clock like I’d just made it appear.
‘Thanks.’
Then he just stood there, shaking and looking round.
Then Joey came in with the two guys who he always said were his bodyguards. Now don’t misunderstand me, I had nothing against Joey. If he wanted to say the two guys with him were bodyguards that was fine by me. Some of these guys drive fancy cars, some dress fancy, some make a lot of noise but it’s always the same, the more show you need the shittier you are because when a real guy walks into a place you know it, you don’t need a neon sign to light up and tell you. Joey was small time, if you could say that Joey was any time at all, but I suppose he could pass for some sort of time in that bar.
He looked at Sonny and came over. The two guys came along behind him.
‘You Sonny?’
Sonny nodded and looked eager.
‘Yeah. You Joey? I got your…’
Sonny had put his hand into the side pocket of his jacket but Joey had caught his arm quick.
‘Not here, fool, what do you think I am, dumb or something?’
I almost laughed out loud at these clowns because they
were damn funny, better than TV although that’s not saying much.
There was Joey grabbing at Sonny’s arm, whispering at him and almost pissing himself because Sonny was about to pass him some goods right there at the bar with everybody watching. Now what kind of show is that if it isn’t pure comedy?
Now I know that you’ll say anything going down in a bar like that is strictly birdseed and that’s true but what I say is get it where you can find it and enjoy it. I mean it wasn’t just Joey coming in like he did, or going straight to Sonny like he did, and announcing himself like he did, I think it was the bodyguards that gave it the classic touch. The way they just stood there, looking tough, while a total stranger puts his hand into his pocket and gets ready to pull something on their boss. I mean, just stood there, and behind him. Sweet Jesus did they need acting school.
Anyway, Joey woke up his henchmen enough for them to put on a show of hustling Sonny out of the bar and Joey followed trying to look like Al Capone. See, he wanted to be noticed, the poor, cheap dude wanted those no-account low lives in that bar to see him pulling down something down with an out-of-town contact and Sonny was that contact. Now I know I don’t have to spell it out for you because even you will know that a mule, to be any good as a mule, shouldn’t look like somebody who’s going to fall down if they don’t get their next fix in five minutes. A mule has to look straight and Sonny looked all ways west of straight. And I could guess what he was carrying, what he was carrying was cut so bad it was probably almost legal. See there was a big heat on in New York, like there is from time to time. The politicians were gearing up for elections of some sort so they were all breaking sweat being honest and righteous and that had coincided with the big guys in narcotics slaying each other in turf wars so newspaper circulation was healthy and editors were making sure it got healthier with plenty of corpses and indignant headlines which fuelled the whole messy business, all of which meant that to poor suckers like Sonny who needed their shit cheap couldn’t get it. The people with money were OK, people with money are always OK because drugs is no different to anything else, it’s the poor who get shafted.
It didn’t surprise me that Sonny was on the skids, Sonny hitting town with all that dough was a mark a blind man couldn’t miss, but it was a hell of a bank roll and I was surprised Sonny had got parted from it all so quick, I figured he’d last at least a couple of years before he was totally skinned. Even Sonny, I had reckoned, would have learned enough in one year to try and go a bit more careful and last another year, but that just goes to show what an old softy I was to believe there were limits to the stupidity of true selfishness.
I got tired of waiting and left, my guy wasn’t going to show. Outside, next to the bar was an alley and as I passed it I heard this moaning. Now moaning down some crummy alley wasn’t any of my business but for some reason I stopped. I wasn’t thinking of going down that alley, I wasn’t that stupid, but I stopped, I still don’t know why. There were a couple of trash cans by a door which must have led into the back of the bar, one was full and upright one was on its side and had spilled
trash across the alley. That was where the moaning was coming from. I suppose I waited a couple of seconds and was about to move on when somebody crawled out from behind the trash cans, it was Sonny. Now if anybody had asked me when I was sitting in that bar if Sonny could have looked any worse than he did, I’d have said, ‘no’, but I’d have been wrong because now his jacket sleeve had been ripped off at the shoulder, his face was covered with blood and he was on all fours retching.
One thing all city folk know is that you don’t go down an alley to help a guy, no matter how bad he looks hurt, because if you do the other two guys who are out of site laying for you jump on your back as soon as you try to help and then you’re the one on the floor with blood on your face and no wallet or watch or anything else and you’re on your own because no-one will come down the alley to help you out because all city folk know…..
But, what the hell, that was Sonny I was looking at so I went down the alley, but I went slow and careful and when I got to Sonny I had a good look round before I bent down and yanked him up to his feet. He was no decoy, he’d been beat up alright, the blood was real and it was all his.
I took him back into the bar, sat him down and got him a drink. The barman gave me a glass of water and a bar towel so Sonny could clean up his face and apart from missing a couple of teeth it turned out he was as OK as he was ever going to be.
It was obvious that the guys he was supposed to sell the shit to had taken the goods then beat him up and taken off. If Sonny had put up a fight they would have killed him so his being such a wreck and going down as soon as he got it in the face probably saved his life, although given what his life had become, I wouldn’t say if the luck was good or bad.
So there we were sitting in that bar while Sonny pulled himself together. You know I didn’t think Sonny could surprise me, I mean I knew from Smallville that he was weak, but in that bar he did surprise me because I began to find out just how stupid he was as well. We sat in that bar for a while and he talked and you know what he talked about? How he got all the tough breaks! That guy had run through a bundle, and I do mean a bundle, he had set out to do it all, the drinking, the whoring,
the gambling, and when they pulled down the curtain on his high time the dumb bastard had gone and wasted what was left by becoming an addict. For me, in the hundred metre dash to shit bottom Sonny had come out as world class and what I say is, it just goes to show what real dedication and perseverance can do.
Anyway, there he sat telling me how he had got all the bad breaks. With him it was still Sonny, the whole Sonny and nothing but the Sonny, so help him God, the guy was still griping. Sitting there listening, and him with a drink in his hand, it was just like being back in Smallville.
‘You know I used to be an important guy, a rich guy, but getting all the bad breaks means now I have to work with pigs, I mean that’s all they are, they’re just pigs. They tell me to carry their shit for them and you know what, do they give me just a shot for myself? They do not. I mean, I could take some, hell it’s so cut already nobody would know the difference, but they’re not just pigs, they’re mean, vicious bastards, so I carry their shit for them for a few lousy dollars. I mean, a few lousy bucks that don’t buy you…and I was rich man, I mean like loaded, I had it all…they’re just a bunch of lousy pigs.’
And he sort of petered out for a while. I thought he was thinking or slipped into a junkie daze or something until I saw the tears running down his cheeks. At that moment I almost felt sorry for the guy, he had brought it all on himself and hurt a lot of people doing what he did but I could see he’d come to the end of the line and hit the buffers hard. He was more than a wreck, he was a dead man walking.
He was stuck in nowhere, he couldn’t go on because he was busted in all the ways you can be busted and he couldn’t go back because some guys there would want the money he was supposed to bring them. He was a user with a habit to feed and nothing to feed it with, he had no friends and he had no future. Hell, in his position all anyone could do was cry so, like I say, I nearly felt sorry for him.
‘You could go back home.’
He looked at me with bleary, confused, tear-filled eyes.
‘Home?’
‘Yeah, go home.’
‘No, there’s guys there who think I should have money for them, and they’re pigs, man, real pigs…’
‘No, I don’t mean New York, I mean back home, back to your old man, back to the ranch.’
I watched as the thought began to penetrate what was left of Sonny’s mind. Slowly the thing began to take hold. You could see it in the way he sort of revived, like something that had just got watered.
‘Home. You know my pop has hands working for him who live better than I do right now, and they’re just hired hands. Why if I was a hired hand on pop’s ranch, well, I guess I’d be OK, because pop’s a good guy and he pays top dollar…’
&nb
sp; And suddenly he had stopped and was looking at me, something was stirring and there was a sort of wariness in his eyes.
‘What do you know about me and my old man? How come you know he has a ranch? Do I know you from somewhere?’
He wasn’t aggressive, more sort of petulant, like a frustrated kid.
‘Take it easy, friend, with an accent like yours I guessed there’d be a ranch somewhere. It don’t take an Einstein to place you as coming from cowboy country.’
It was an easy lie but it was enough because Sonny didn’t really care, he wanted to think about going home. Now Sonny was weak and stupid and since I’d last seen him he’d probably given turning his brain into soup his best shot, but even he saw that maybe his welcome back home wasn’t such a sure thing. Not remembering me he didn’t know that I knew that as well as he did.
‘Yeah, well, I mean I know he’d want me back, I mean he wouldn’t want me to go on living like this but, well you know how it is. Your old man tries to run your life and when you stick out for what you want, well, words get said, and well, you know how it is.’
I told Sonny I knew how it was.
‘I mean he’d want me back, I mean, I’m his son so he’d want me back and he wouldn’t want me living like this and I’d work, you know, I’d work hard, hard as any hired hand. I’ve had my time in the big city and I guess I’ve done about all there is
for a guy to do so maybe now I should settle down and go back and work on the ranch, pull my weight…’
‘Like a hired hand.’
He had perked up at that as if my agreeing with him made it a sure thing, so the poor, dumb bastard sat there and carried on telling me how he was going home.
