“Why are you killing me?” I ask out of the side of my mouth, kind of mumbled because of the cigarette.
“That’s the job, buddy. I’m not supposed to, I’m just supposed to get rid of you, but here we are and what are we gonna’ do?”
“No, I mean, why am I here? Who is it that wants to kill me?”
“Look, I don’t get into the business side of things. I just know what I’ve gotta’ do. I’m sure your job, not that I know what you do or want to know, but I’m sure you got things you gotta’ handle that you don’t think about either. Everybody does.”
“If you’re going to kill me anyways, why can’t you just tell me?”
“Because I’m telling you, I don’t know anything about it! Don’t you listen? I don’t fucking know, okay? I’m just a delivery boy, okay? I’m not a boss of anyone… but I’d rather be in my position than yours right now, I’ll tell you that.”
A cigarette smokes fast when you can’t pull it away from your mouth. I don’t smoke actually, or I should say, didn’t, but I guess it won’t kill me at this point. My eyes are tearing up again from the smoke, though; I wish I could take the cigarette from my mouth for a moment to blow the smoke away.
He looks at me, and pulls the cigarette from my mouth. I exhale deeply and cough, closing my eyes to clear them up.
“Want more?”
“One more puff.”
He gives it to me, then throws the butt down into the dirt and steps on it.
“I’ll pay you to let me go,” I say, “I’ll pay you – whatever it takes to make it worth your while, I’ll pay you.”
“Yeah? Enough even to cover my funeral expenses? ‘Cause that’s what it’ll be if I let you go. This isn’t some volunteer job, buddy – you do what they tell you in this job. It’s you or me, and between you and me, I pick me. No offense, I’m sure you’re a hell of a sweet guy, and I’m sure you got a ton of people that’d miss you, but I’d sure as hell miss me, so that ain’t gonna happen.”
“Look, please, I know you don’t wanna’ do this.”
“It doesn’t matter what I want to do. We all gotta’ do stuff we don’t want to do, why should my life be any easier than anyone else’s?
“We don’t all kill people!”
It came out like a sob; I didn’t like the way it sounded.
“Oh, like you’re so fucking perfect! You’re so fucking better than me. You know, I hate people like you, you think you’re so superior. You don’t know what my life is like. It could just as easily be you in this position, and if it were, you’d be doing the same shit as me. Don’t judge me. What gives you the right?”
“Look, I’m not judging you, but –”
“You’re already dead! Don’t you get that? As soon as they put you in the trunk, you were already dead. Abandon all hope ye poor bastard who enters my trunk. They’ve killed you already, so, how about we just assume you’re dead and put that behind us, and get on with our lives, I mean, you know, this conversation. Heh. I know that came out funny. Look, I just wanted to enjoy the fucking few minutes we could here and thought you’d fucking appreciate it, so don’t try and ruin this for both of us, okay?… It’s like, I can never tell anyone I talk to what I do, I always feel like I’m hiding something. I just thought, with you, we could just sit here and I wouldn’t feel that way. You know, if you don’t want to chill, I can just finish this conversation fast if that’s what you’d prefer.”
“No, no, look, it’s cool. We’ll just – we’ll just chill for a minute… …So, umm… you got a girlfriend or anything?”
God, what the hell kind of question was that? I’m trying to think of anything to talk about. He doesn’t look at me, just shakes his head. “No. No, you know, it’s hard to meet people in Toronto. And like, I don’t even know what kind of chick would want to be with someone who does what I do.”
“So… your job makes things rough for you,” God, if I can just get him talking like this, maybe he won’t do this, maybe he’ll not be able to kill me if he talks to me, maybe he’ll decide to retire, maybe he’ll die of old age, I don’t know, I just have to keep him talking. At least I’m alive while we talk.
“No, it’s not the job exactly. I mean, there’s a lot worse jobs. But it’s the… it’s society, you know? …It’s like, there’s two sides of society, the clean people and the dirty people. And once you become a dirty person, you can never be with the clean people again. It’s so hypocritical, you know? I mean, nobody wants to be on the dirty side, but people just wind up there. I mean, I made my own choices. But I didn’t start out doing this. I mean, I was a bartender at first. Wrong bar, that’s all. It was a gang bar. Bad guys. It was cool to me, getting to see the underside of the city, of life. I was like a voyeur. It was like, I had a club that I was in on for once. Eventually, if you work with dirty people, you become dirty too. You start as a clean guy who gets to see the dirty side, you don’t know that makes you dirty too, because once you’ve seen it, they’ve got you, they can’t let you go. They’ll pull you in and you can’t say no and you become dirty too. I bet you wondered, how do people get these dirty jobs? Did their guidance counselors give them some bad advice somewhere? Nah, it’s just, you’re in for a dime, you’re in for a dollar. After a little while working there, I started to get scared about the whole thing. I prayed they wouldn’t ever ask me to do more than serve drinks, you know? Because if they did, how do you say no? Then when they ask, they say it’s just one little job. Just do this, and it’s over. But this kind of job is never over. Instant career for life. Because every job connects with another one, and once you’ve done one job, you’re expected to be in all the way, you don’t stop. This job… never… ENDS… and when that’s your job, you can’t ever go back to clean people again. That’s the way society is... How can I have friends outside now? How can I have a girlfriend? Nobody would be with somebody like me. Yeah, I’ll say to her, ‘How was your day at school today, honey?’ ‘Oh, not bad. The kids behaved for once. I had to coach the girls’ soccer team afterwards ‘cause Vickie was sick. How was it for you today? You get the cargo out alright?’ ‘Oh, yeah. Took him up to the spot. Thank God he was dead! Just loaded him up and dropped him down.’ ‘I love you, jellybean.’ ‘I love you too, oky-boots.’… Doesn’t quite sound right, eh?”
“If you hate it so much, why can’t you quit?”
“You can’t quit! I just told you.”
“Look, I know that before, when you still, you know, were clean, they couldn’t let you go ‘cause you might be dangerous, but now that you’re dirty too, why can’t you just walk away? They know that they have no reason to worry about you blabbing or anything.”
“Yeah, well, that’s just it. I’m dirty too, now…it’s too late. What would be the point? Where am I gonna’ get a straight job? How do I explain what I’ve been doing all these years? Big blank space on the CV. Always looks bad. And how could I be with any clean people anyways? I couldn’t tell them what I’ve done. You can’t change what you’ve done, everybody knows that, that there are certain paths that your life takes and you can’t undo it or make it go away.”
“Well, for god’s sake, Pat, learn to lie! It’s not like it would be the worst thing you’ve done. Wouldn’t it be better to live a lie than keep on like this? You can still get out, that’s all that matters.”
“What’s the point?! What’s the point of finding a good woman, and falling in love with her and having her fall in love with you, if it’s a lie? Fuck it! Everyone in Toronto is so fake. I don’t want to be fake. Look at you, with your designer shirt, and your expensive watch. Would you let me marry your sister?”
“Well, it would be kind of awkward, to be quite frank…”
“Oh, that’s very funny wise guy. Wise dead guy.”
“Look, just… maybe I could help. I’ll do anything I can to help you get your life sorted out. If we just calm down, we can figure this out.”