All Gone

by Stephen Dixon

  I call Penny, tell her what’s happened and ask if Larry’s serious about sending men over to rough me up.

  “Oh he’s serious all right. He can be a real thug and knows who to go to to get what and now I’m afraid for your life. I never should have got you involved but didn’t think you were bent that way.”

  “How can you work for him if he’s like that?”

  “It’s a job when they’re not too easy to find and you think mine’s the only one where someone has to compromise? You should have made a couple compromises also if you wanted to work that bad and you now wouldn’t be in such a spot. Besides, Larry’s a damn nice guy outside of those things, pays a great wage, doesn’t breathe down my neck about the pettiest things like my previous bosses did, gives me plenty of room and control and what he does that I have no part of or care for is his business and it also goes to keeping a dozen honest workers on the books and their families fed. Like our own government might kill or detain perfectly innocent people but we still pay our taxes and don’t complain about these illegalities too much, true? But I think I have the solution for you. I’ll tell Larry you blurted out something before you knew you shouldn’t have and that to make amends you told your black friend and his league that you were lying about our renting practices, more to momentarily break up the seriousness of their cause a little and have a good laugh with him, but it backfired.”

  “He wouldn’t believe me.”

  “Say you were lying anyway. Your friend will at least know you won’t go into court on their behalf, and if he still won’t listen to you, phone the league and tell them yourself.”

  “Why don’t I just phone the police and tell them Larry’s threatened me?”

  “You have it on paper? Your sister’s my best friend besides? And excuse me, but I tried to do you a favor and you now want to lose me my job that took a half-year to get? And what’ll you do when the cops stop protecting you if they ever start? Don’t come to me. Be smart. Drop the matter entirely and look elsewhere for your crusade.”

  I call Max and tell him I was told by Larry’s office to say I was lying about its rental policies. “But what it really means is that I’m afraid of him and that whatever you told the league I said I’m going to say isn’t so or was just drunk talk or something when I told you it.”

  “Then I’ll call the league and tell them my friend was mistaken and they have no case. But about you and me, Mort, I don’t see how I’ll ever be able to see you again,” and hangs up.

  Doris calls later and says “For the first time since I’ve known you you can do something for people actively, not just verbally, and you give that up and Max’s friendship just to protect yourself over some punk’s probably baseless threat?”

  “It wasn’t baseless.”

  “They actually threatened your life?”

  “They intimated.”

  “That isn’t the same thing.”

  “Trying to find out if they’ll go through with it could be. But I didn’t want you to know and still don’t because that could put you in danger too.”

  “I’m not worried about myself when it comes to this matter and certainly Max isn’t worried about him, so why should you be about you?”

  “I’m worried about Max and you.”

  “Just answer me.”

  “I’m worried about me, Max and you.”

  “That still doesn’t answer it.”

  “I’m more involved with it than either of you, can’t you see?”

  “No, you’ve no guts. Nothing to back up your big principles. Hell with it. I’ve lost all my respect for you just as Max has,” and hangs up.

  I call back and say “Please understand what I’m up against, Doris,” and she says “And you try and understand me. If I can’t respect you, how can I still see you? Bye.”

  Next day Penny calls and says “How’d it work out?” and I tell her and she says she’s sorry and tells me to hold on and she comes back to the phone and says “I just spoke to Larry and it’s all right with him, if it is with you, since he feels you’ve nothing to lose now and he’s already put the time in to show you how, to work for us at the same job if you adapt to our policy about those asterisks and things.”

  “I don’t think I can.”

  “He has no hard feelings for you anymore.”

  “Neither do I much for him, I think, but I still can’t go along with it.”

  “Good enough, but the word from here is to still keep your trap shut.”

  “And if I don’t?”

  “You acting stupid again?”

  “Don’t you even have the slightest regret about what you do?”

  “Right now no, goddamnit, no. Now what do you have to say to me but your acting stupid again?”

  “I understand. I’ll keep my mouth shut. And as for all the problems you caused me and your own ethics: fuck you,” and I hang up.

  Larry calls me a minute later and yells into the phone “Don’t you ever speak to Penny like that again, don’t ever, I’m warning you, don’t.”

  “All right, take it easy, I won’t,” and he hangs up.

  JACKIE

  The badly decomposed body of an unidentified man was found floating in Billowy Bay off Motorboro Airport at 4:15 P.M. by a Port Authority police officer.

  So?

  Know who it is? No.

  Jackie. Jackie?

  Jackie, Jackie. Jackie Schmidt.

  I see. Jackie Schmidt. Floating in Billowy Bay. What’s that, a little article?

  Under Area News.

  And you can tell who it is just by reading this little thing in the paper?

  I’d known he was thrown in there. First shot, then thrown.

  Does it say anything about the man being shot?

  Doesn’t have to. I know.

  But if he was shot, wouldn’t they also say it?

  They haven’t found where yet, but they will.

  And there can’t be another unidentified man thrown in the same day? Of course not.

  It doesn’t have to be the same day. It takes time to get decomposed. In fact, it couldn’t’ve been the same day.

  How long you think it takes?

  Days. Maybe two weeks. Badly decomposed, three. That’s when they threw Jackie in. Shot, took his clothes off, boom, in the water. Today’s Thursday? Then three weeks today. It’s him. So what are we going to do about it?

  What do you mean? Nothing. It’s done. Jackie’s dead. I knew about it. Now I read about it. I was only telling you, thinking maybe you knew and if you did, then who from? And if you didn’t, that you’d probably be interested.

  You mind my making an anonymous call to this paper so his wife could know?

  Jackie not coming home for three weeks, she knows. So will everyone else in time.

  How? He’s unidentified and decomposed. And no clothes you say. Nothing at all?

  Stripped clean. Wrist watch. Socks. Even his gold star.

  I don’t know why they didn’t say nude in the newspaper, but all right. Did he also have no fingerprints on when you people threw him in?

  I didn’t throw anybody in. Neither do I know who did. I just know some people who know who did and why and how it went. Gambling debts. But in bad, and loans. Things like that. Worse. Taking on additional big debts with another group and not paying off the first one a dime before he did and then telling both groups to go eat it. Now if he’d just been in deep with the first people and told them to eat it, they would’ve only broken his arm. But taking on two big debts way way over his head and telling them both to eat it and then going to another city to take on a third, well that was too much. The first two met and, with the third’s approval, decided to dump him. As for your fingerprints, I guess not. Why bother, for they’d also have to kick out all his teeth and fill in his chin cleft and scars. Besides, they didn’t want to make it impossible for him to be identified.

  Then you’ll have to explain to me. Why only take off his clothes and in other words only go halfway wi
th his unidentification when they know Jackie has a record and will eventually be identified? Time to give them a cover or get the people who did it away?

  No. They thought it’d be a good lesson to whoever might think he can beat out on two big debts to two vaguely related groups and to tell them both to go eat it besides.

  But how these people who are supposed to get the lesson supposed to find out it’s a lesson and then one meant for them? By reading of an unidentified decomposed man found floating in the bay who could’ve gotten there through some long sleepwalk? How did the groups even know it was going to make the paper, nothing as the article was. And if they did, that it’d even be read?

  Whisper and word got passed around starting a month ago. Jackie’s betting. Jackie’s welshing. Jackie’s in very steep. Jackie won’t cough up a note for them and told both of them to eat it raw. Jackie could get a leg broke talking and acting that way. If anyone’s a pal of Jackie’s, give him the word? Jackie’s missing. Hey, anybody see Jackie or hear from him the last few days? Then, body found. Man. Hmm, bay you say? Tomorrow or the next day we’ll read he’d been shot with a small-caliber bullet so close and clean that it almost got lost behind the back hairs of his head. Everybody will know who it is and what for. As for the newspaper, that’s not the important thing. If it didn’t get in, someone would phone them. What’s more important is that the people this lesson’s directed to get to know it slow.

  These groups never seemed that clever to me to plan it so smooth.

  Listen, we’re no psychologists and know little about the subject, but in what these groups do and their customers, they are. They haven’t studied it but just know.

  So I’ll forget my call and even thinking about it.

  You’ll see for yourself. Jackie’s wife will claim the body in a few days and there’ll be a funeral and we’ll attend.

  We were his such good friends and nobody will mind?

  No one. Neither his wife, who’ll be compensated for the lesson. And the people who did him in will even expect it of us and some of them will be there too. They play it decent, very orderly and good manners, something Jackie didn’t do or have. That was his problem. Not much brains too. Hand in hand with his gambling, that can kill you. Being a smart ass besides, you’re dead.

  I’ll remember that.

  It can save your life.

  Lookit, a life worth saving might as well be my own. I’ll remember that. You know, I don’t think I like this business anymore. Money’s good and not too many hours and so far steady, but too much excitement for me and you never know who to trust. Your friend’s your friend one day, next day you’re fingered by him on maybe even a lie and with his or her thumb pressed down on your throat goodbye.

  There’s a lot depending on it for everyone, that’s why. You just got to do what’s expected of you till you get the right to give orders and advice. That takes time and you got to want it. No matter what, never think you’re absolutely safe. Like with any job, any business. Draw up your own parallels.

  But even when you’re right up there, company president and the rest of it, do something wrong and you can get it in the head.

  Not if you do nothing wrong. Everything’s protected. Or let’s say, all your moves are almost already made. Sure, accidents happen, flukes out of nowhere. New people move in, alliances fall apart and develop, but then you got to know who to be for. All in all though, you got to just stay in line.

  But what you’re saying makes it seem even more impossible. This one, that one, time comes along how do I know I’ll be dumb enough to pick the wrong one. You saw with that phone call. Suppose I’d dialed it and some power person found out and they didn’t like it and for all I know it could’ve been my third to fourth very wrong move in a short time and they might decide I also definitely belong away. You could’ve told them of all those times I don’t know about and now know in fact.

  Me? Your best friend?

  No trust. I can feel it. I really think I want out, but total.

  Too early. You got too much put in and they with you the same for you to go so immediately. You have to withdraw and keep on stepping not so much in as you’re withdrawing till everything you do’s being done by someone else or among a crew and you’re so unnoticed you’re out. Something like that. But takes time.

  Then I’m leaving the area.

  Forget it. They see a small hole, means someone’s missing. You’re not around, means it’s you. They find out and you’ll have to explain. Once out they’ll be afraid you know too much, or in again, that you’ll want out too much again no matter what your denials and future promises to them. So they might start watching you and soon think maybe they’re spending too much energy watching you and they might take other ways. You should’ve thought of all this before you came in.

  How could I have known?

  Come on. You heard of it, read about it, grown up with it, since a kid seen it in the movies and still do. Well it’s not so far from all those combined where you should’ve known what it was like beforehand.

  Poor Jackie.

  Stupid Jackie you mean.

  Poor. Because he’s dead. Little I knew; I liked him. Oh, let’s go to bed.

  I want to read some more.

  You feeling like a little physical activity tonight?

  Not tonight, love, not tonight.

  The article about Jackie?

  It’s not that.

  Then good reading.

  And you, sweet dreams.

  THE BATTERER

  My wife beats me up. Occasionally. I’m a relatively small man so she can beat me up without being afraid I’m going to beat her up back. Oh, I hit her back. Hard as I can sometimes. I got to protect myself. I’m a peaceful man and peace-loving, all that, but sometimes she gets so mad, and often over what seems the smallest thing, that she’s got to take it out on something, and after she takes it out on something—a glass against the floor, tearing a piece of cloth apart—she takes it out on me. That’s when I got to defend myself. I try all ways. First verbally. That sometimes works, but not usually. Then when she starts challenging me more, I walk away but she usually follows me wherever I go. When she starts swinging I try holding up my arms and deflecting her blows, but can’t deflect all of them and even the ones I do deflect hurt my hands and arms.

  That’s when I got to stop being so peaceful and start defending myself. I hit back. I try for the blow that will incapacitate her without harming her, like in the arm where it’ll hurt so much she can’t swing it, but that one rarely works as my aim is never that good. When she really gets violent and uncontrollable I have to hit back hard and even aim for her belly or head. But she’s much bigger than me and the harder I hit back the harder she hits me and because she hits harder than me and I’m smaller and can never get as ferocious as her, her hitting hurts me much more than mine does her.

  I’ve gone to court about her beating me up. First time they wouldn’t even hear me. Second time I made sure to come with X-rays and my doctor’s report and the judge said “You’re pressing assault charges against your wife? Where is the woman?” My wife stood up.

  “Do you beat this man as he says?” Several people in the courtroom laughed and he banged his gavel for them to shut up. “No,” she said. “That’s a filthy lie,” I said.

  “Steady there, sir,” the judge said, “or I’ll get you for contempt.”

  “All I’m saying, Your Honor, is that she overpowers me and at times has nearly knocked me out. I never start the fights. I do everything I can to avoid and then stop them. This wound here—the one above my eye? She gave me that one two days ago.”

  “What about the one over my eye?” my wife shouted. “That was in self-defense.”

  “Hell it was. You started it. You hit me. You tried to kill me so I swung back.”

  “If you don’t like the treatment you get from your husband,” the judge said, “why don’t you move out?”

  “Because I love him and all the other times
he treats me very well.”

  “And if you don’t like the treatment you say you get from her, why don’t you move out?”

  “I have,” I said. “But for one reason or another I always go back. Probably this time I can’t, or as long as she’s still there or at least till something can be done about her. Because why should I move out for good and give away everything we own to her? And I like my apartment. It’s cheap and cozy and where I live. If anyone’s to move out, it should be her. She’s the one beating me up, not the reverse.”

  “What are you asking of this court?”

  “This is the Family Court, right? So if it wants us to stay a family then I want you to issue what I heard’s called an order of protection prohibiting her from hitting me. That way I can move back with her. But if I come in here again from a beating then I want another order of protection issued forcing her to leave our apartment and never to try and see me again. If she still does after that and strikes me, then I want the court to next time get me victim’s compensation for her or stick her in jail, since maybe those are the only things that will stop her from attacking me if the orders of protection don’t.”

  “I’m sorry but your petition’s denied. For one reason, you’ve no witness to the alleged beating and it seems that she could have just as easily pressed assault charges or asked for an order of protection against you. Secondly, this court doesn’t like to interfere in domestic disputes except of the most serious kind and then mostly when it’s the child or wife who gets battered by a parent or spouse. Even if your assault charge is true, I wouldn’t think you’d come to this court to resolve the problem but would deal with it as a man in the privacy of your home, or just move out if you’re unable to remedy things.”

  I tried to explain. “She’s bigger than me,” etcetera. “I’ll end up getting killed by her if I hit her any harder than I already do to protect myself,” but the judge started to laugh a little along with most of the courtroom.

  I always take a hotel room after a bad beating and have always moved back. She sends me flowers and love letters and poems. I’ve heard of men batterers doing some of those things to get their wives back and there have been TV programs on it also—fictional and documentary and in the news—so maybe that’s where she got the idea of those love gifts and romantic apologetic phone calls, though I’m almost sure she was sincere about them each of those last times.