Tales of the 80’s

 

 

Ross parked the car and we sat looking at each other.  We were in the heart of the worst housing project in the city.  Once housing for a WW 2 military base, it was now the most dangerous part of the city, at least according to the TV and the politicians running for office.  But then it was election time, and such things tend to get distorted.  We’d been here before on similar errands to today’s, but I can’t say I’ve ever felt too comfortable about it.

 

 

I made up for this discomfort by wearing a shoulder holstered 9mm automatic that fired more shots than a movie cowboy’s favorite hog leg.  Ross preferred a .357 magnum for his confidence enhancer, and between us, I figured we could at least shoot our way back to the car.  We are repo men for a "private" loan company..

 

 
 

“I hate this job, you know”, I said to Ross, and he looked at me and grinned.  “But think of the fringe benefits”, he said and we both laughed.

 

 
 

This was our routine preparation technique.  In this business, you never know what will happen after you knock on the door.  It’s amazing to me, even after five years of this, just how materialistic people are .  They get so attached to their stereos and TVs and VCRs that you’d think we were after their first born male child or something important to their lives.  Well, a dead-beat is a dead-beat, as they say at the office, so go out there and beat them.

 

 

“Let’s get this over with and get out of here before some of these people start something” Ross said, as he eyed the tough looking kids playing basketball.  We both knew damn well that those kids were lookouts for the nearby crack houses, and when we got out of the car, they disappeared like money from a doper’s pocket.

 

 

We dress like detectives-off the rack suits, dark wrap around shades, and narrow ties.  Our car actually did come from the Police Department, by way of the auction.  Appearance is eight-tenths of everything in this country, and our motto is if it works, use it.

 

 
 

We kicked leaves as we walked down to the far unit.  It was one of those sunny Fall days that you knew would be remembered when the rains come.  The trees were gold and red, the grass the green that only Oregon grass gets, and even the drunks, junkies, and fools hanging out on their porches looked pleased with things.  Some of them slipped into their hovels as we walked along, but we ignored them and continued towards number 3756.  Ross pulled an index card from his suit pocket and glanced at it.

 

 

“Jerry Walters, age 29, wife, 3 year old girl, wife’s full of another.  Third time we’ve been here.”  Ross stuffed the card back in his pocket carelessly and said, “This guy gives me the creeps, bud.  The way the guy acts, you’d think he had brain damage or something”.

 

 

“Jesus Christ”, I said, “the guy’s a fucking crack addict, Ross, what do you expect?  These kind of people aren’t your average weirdos.  I heard about this woman down in L.A. who shot herself in front of her old man and the kids when he wouldn’t let her buy any more of the shit”.

 

 
 

“That’s bad, man”.  Ross shook his head.  “Why the hell anyone would do that shit is beyond me.  Give me Bourbon anytime”.

 

 

“Well, this guy is different.  I did some checking up on him after our last visit.  Guy hasn’t worked for six months at least, wife’s about to have the next kid, and he spends every dime she makes on crack from the wonderful people around here.  I wonder why the hell she doesn’t leave the bastard for good?  She left him three times but came back every time.  This I can’t understand.  The guy’s a freak!”

 

 

“A real credit to the human race, you mean?,” the disgust plain on his face.  “What an asshole”.

 

 

We stopped at 3756’s door and rang the bell.  I could hear the sound of a game show from the open window.  Someone got up, knocked over something, and opened the door.

 

 
 

For 29, Walters looked pretty damn tired to me.  He needed a shave, and his glasses were smeared nearly opaque.  His clothes were second-hand bargains that would have looked better on a a healthy man.  Ol’ Jerry was not a healthy man.  Ross had contempt bursting out all over his face, so I figured I’d better speak up before he got the door in our faces.

 

 

“Hi there Jerry, you remember us,” I said as I pushed him back into the room.  I could see that he was fucked up pretty good so I figured I better take the initiative.  “Where’s our VCR”, I said as Walters backed up and fell onto the dingy vinyl couch.  “It’s time for it to go bye-bye”.

 

 

Ross sat on the cleanest looking spot on the other couch, facing Jerry and looking menacing, which he is very good at.  As Jerry babbled an incoherent greeting, I stood nodding and looking around me.  The place was filthy.  Kid’s toys were scattered everywhere, and last night’s dinner scraps were glued to the table between the couches.  The carpet had never seen the underside of a vacuum, and the smell reminded me of cages at the zoo.

 

 
 

“Yeah, yeah, we’re real happy to see you too, dead-beat, now where’s the VCR?”  Ross’s voice cut through Jerry’s and shut him up.  He sat twitching all over, his fingers busy picking at h the knees of his pants.  He raised a vacant face to us and said “I don’t have it anymore.  I sold it”.  He bent his head and stared at his nervous fingers.  Ross and I looked at each other and shook our heads.

 

 

“Look Jerry, you owe us for a VCR.  Now you either come up with the machine or you hand us the $325 you owe”, I said patiently.

 

 

Ross slammed his hand on the table.  The scraps jumped more than Walters did.  He seemed engrossed in his hands.  “Hey bud, pay attention”, Ross said, “we’re talking to you”.

 

 

Jerry looked up and a suck-egg grin came over his slack face.  “I haven’t got either one”, he said, and proceeded to tell us of our questionable sexual orientation, our unpleasant looks, and finished with a sincere hope for our destination after death.

 

 
 

Ross yawned.  We’d heard it before, and better said.  Walters wound down and looked at us for a moment, then looked at his hands, which had never stopped their picking.

 

 

“Wrong answer”, I said.  “Ross, take a look around while I tell ol’ Jerry the facts of life…”  Ross nodded and got up.  He went into the back rooms.

 

 
 

I sat down and said “now look, Jerry, you owe, so lets go.  We get the money or the VCR, and you get us out of your life, OK?”  Pick, pick, pick, went Jerry’s hands.  I couldn’t tell whether or not he heard me.  The phone rang.

 

 

While Jerry answered it, I got up and went into the kitchen.  Through the back door, I could see a mongrel pup panting against the screen.  It looked starved, and wagged it’s tail at me like it hoped I wouldn’t hit it.  I looked around the kitchen.  It was in need of a real cleaning, even worse than mine.  Junk was heaped on every flat surface, and the floor tiles were invisible under the grime.  I stood and looked around me while I listened to Jerry’s voice.

 

 

He was shouting now, saying mostly what he’d said to us.  Suddenly, he threw the phone down and dashed to the closet door.  Throwing things aside, he seized a baseball bat and started yelling about some “fucking nigger” who he’d ridden around last night in exchange for crack.

 

 
 

Ross cam running out of the bedroom with his gun in his hand, but he put it away at the shake of my head.  Both of us looked at Walters like he’d grown a third arm or something.

 

 

From what I could make out, the guy he’d given a ride to wanted money for the shit he’d smoked with Jerry, and Jerry didn’t think that was right at all.  Ross and I backed away from him.  No telling what this freak could do, I thought, and Ross’s face said the same thing.  His hand was inside his jacket.

 

 

I spoke to Jerry and calmed him down, got him to sit on the couch, and got the bat away from him just as someone began to pound on the door.

 

 

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Jerry got up and opened it, and a slim, crazy looking Black guy burst in, shoving Jerry back into the room just like I had.

 

 

“I want my money, asshole!” he shouted, and I turned and looked as the sun was blotted out by one of the fattest Black men I’ve ever seen.  He looked at me, then at Ross and then lifted his shirt.  An automatic was tucked into his waistband, and his hand curled over the butt.

 

 

Oh shit, I thought, I hate this job.  I sat on the couch and put my hands on my knees.  Ross sat in the armchair to my right, the big guy between us.  “This here is none of your business”, he said and I nodded my head in understanding.

 

 
 

I looked over at the thin guy and shivered.  I can only say it this way: he looked like a dangerous animal.  His eyes were the color of a tiger’s, and muddy.  He looked thin, but stringy muscles flexed under his skin as he and Jerry yelled at each other about the supposed debt.  I decided the guy looked like a wolf.  A trickle of sweat ran down my side.

 

 

The argument escalated.  The Wolf pushed Jerry, Jerry pushed back.  I glanced at Ross, and could see he was as scared as I was.  Sweat beaded on his forehead.  The big guy stood between us and the door, watching the shoving match.  His hand was still on his gun.  It didn’t look good to me, and it got worse.

 

 

 

 

Jerry threw a weak roundhouse punch at the wolf’s head and knocked him back a step.  The wolf snarled, bared his teeth, and he was on Jerry like a, well, like a wolf on a sheep.  Jerry didn’t stand a chance.  His glasses flew one way as he flew the other.  In less time than it takes to tell, he was sprawled at the wolf’s feet, blood running from his nose, a look of shock and despair on his face.  The big guy had tensed at the first blow, but now he relaxed.  The sweat was rolling down Ross’s face and my shirt was stuck to my back where it pressed against the vinyl.  I’d never been so scared in my life.

 

 
 

The Wolf stood over Jerry and snarled at him, “you weak, Jerry, you weak!  Lookit yourself!  Can’t even punch like a man!  You think you can handle it, but you just another junky.  It was $40 before, but for hitting me, it’s gonna cost you more.  Get up, weak man!”  His foot lashed out and caught Jerry a good one in the ribs.  The air went out of him and he collapsed.  Jerry lay there gasping, as we all watched him; the Wolf with negligent disgust and Ross and I both, I’m sure, with gladness it wasn’t one of us on the floor.  It seemed like a long moment.

 

 
 

“Daddy?  Daddy!”  A little girl stood in the bedroom doorway, whining sleepily.  Everyone looked at her, everyone, that is, except Jerry.  I jerked my eyes from the girl to him and saw him yank a chromed .25 auto out of his back pocket and all of a sudden, time slowed to a crawl.

 

 

 

 

The gun pointed at the wolf, the wolf’s expression changed to one that would have been funny at some other time, and then the gun went off with a sound that shook the world.  The wolf stumbled backwards as Jerry emptied the gun into him, and he fell at the big guy’s feet looking like a fish flopping out it’s last minutes in the bottom of a boat.

 

 
 

The big guy looked down at him, looked at Jerry who stood pointing the now empty gun towards him, and pulled his gun.  It went off, and Jerry was flung against the closet door, most of his head now plastered on the wall behind him.  His body slid down the door and collapsed.  I knew he was dead.

 

 

The little girl burst into tears and ran to the sprawled body.  Ross fumbled his gun out, his face fish-belly white.  I broke my paralysis and got mine out too.  I pointed it at the big guy, he pointed his piece at me, and Ross pointed his at the big guy.

 

 
 

The wolf on the floor groaned.  The big guy swung his gun from me to Ross.  My ears were ringing from the shots already fired and the sweat coursed down my body.

 

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The wolf on the floor was covered with blood.  He shivered and then died.  The big guy looked down at him and said, “He’s my brother.”  I wished I was anywhere but here.

 

 

“Hey look, bud,” said Ross in his nicest voice.  “This here happening is none of our business, like you said, so let’s all just get out of here while we still can”.

 

 

The big guy looked at him and said, “I should kill you both”.  Ross’s eyes got more worried.  Our guns were still pointed at each other.

 

 
 

Ross smiled at me and said, “hey now let’s be smart here.  You might, might, get one of us, but the other will blow you away.  Look, we want to live, you want to live, so let’s just call it even and split, OK?”

 

 

The big guy nodded wisely.  “You right, man.  This shit is none of your business.  Get the fuck out of here”.  He waved his gun at me, and I stood up, my pistol clenched in my sweaty hands.  Ross got up too, and we both backed towards the door.

 

 
 

The big guy stood facing us, his gun pointing between us.  Ross slipped out the door behind me and I looked at the big guy’s eyes.  His gun centered on my chest, mine covered his.  His eyes looked into mine, and I knew he was thinking of wasting me.

 

 

My gun was steady enough, but I could feel my bladder tensing.  Shit, I thought, I’ve never shot anyone before, and got ready to.  I don’t know, but the big guy must have seen it in my eyes.  He nodded and said, “Ok, s’not your business”.  I slipped out the door.

 

 

 

 

A hand grabbed my shoulder, and I nearly pissed my pants.  Ross’s voice said “Let’s go”.  The door closed in front of me and we turned and walked to the car like two guys who’d rather run.

 

 
 

Ross dropped the keys at the car door as he tried to unlock it.  I tried to look everywhere at once.  The gunshots must have been heard; not a soul was to be seen.  Ross got his door open, threw his gun on the seat, opened my door, and twisted the key in the ignition.  The car screamed into reverse before I even got in and I had to pull my legs in fast as the door swung shut.

 

 

I looked at my pistol and saw the safety was still on.  I dropped it to the floor, and began to laugh and shake at the same time.  We flew down the street, squealed around a corner and away as sirens rose in the distance.  We moved in silence for a few minutes, then Ross pulled to a stop in a quiet, middle-class neighborhood.  It was still a beautiful day out.

 

 

 

 

Ross turned and looked at me as he pulled out a cigarette.  He gave me one and we lit up.  “Goddamn” he said, and looked at the hand holding the smoldering cigarette.  It trembled violently, just like my hands.  “Guy got himself killed over 40 bucks.  In front of his kid.  Goddamn”.  He shook his head, looking out the window.  “Forty bucks!”

 

 

 

 

I looked at the tip of my Winston, and said “I hate this job”.  

 

 
 

Neither of us laughed.

 

 
*****