Unwilling to Break

1

Don’t fear the reaper

Monday, 4 June 2018

A familiar black sedan pulled up outside a quiet suburban home. Greg jumped back and dropped the sheer curtain, heart pounding in his throat. His pulse raced and a sudden sweat broke out on the back of his neck. Through the thin fabric he could see two big gorillas dressed in dark suits, emerge slowly from the car. They were wearing dark glasses and grim expressions. The one nearest him stood a moment to straighten his jacket front. They could have been funeral directors.

How ironic.

Over the past week — this being the extension past their deadline they had generously allowed him— he thought he had come up with a believable excuse for not having the one hundred and fifty grand he owed their boss. A mysterious character, the Albanian drug lord they called ‘The Blade’. He would be lucky though if they gave him a chance to spin them that yarn, before breaking both his legs.

He searched the room frantically for some escape. But who was he kidding? These guys would find him if he managed to score himself a free flight to Mars. Rather than have them kick the door down, he nervously opened it, discreetly ushering the men inside, out of the view of prying neighbors’. Sure enough he saw the net curtain drop at old Mrs Wilson’s place.

‘You know what we’ve come for,’ one of them said with a voice like sandpaper. They had no names. No names and no necks. This was not what you would call a friendly business arrangement. The men stood, semi-relaxed, with their big hands at the end of tree-sized arms, clasped in front of them. They were like cloned Terminators waiting for the command to proceed in destroying everything in sight.

Greg went to speak but was embarrassed when it came out as a startled squeak. His vocal cords had abandoned him. He cleared his throat and tried again. ‘Yes, I see. About that,’ the men’s hands unclasped and they took a step towards him. He rushed out the next few words, ‘Look guys, I had the money but it was stolen from me. It was in my car and the thieving bastards stole it from an underground car-park, near work.’

‘Sure they did,’ the other gorilla said, dripping sarcasm. ‘So now we have to take it outta your hide. You were warned —’

‘I can get it!’ Greg cried out, panicking big time. He could feel the sweat trickle down his forehead and knew he was on the verge of pissing himself. ‘I know where I can get it, no bull. I just need a few more days, a week would be better, and he’ll get the money with interest.’ Greg was backing away from the men who loomed over him by a good foot. The wall stopped him suddenly, and he lost control. Urine trickled out his trouser leg into a puddle soaking into the grey carpet.

‘And how do we know you aren’t just going to up and disappear on us, if we trust you again?’

‘I won’t. You know where I live. You know I have a family. I wouldn’t, couldn’t abandon them. Not knowing what might —,’ he swallowed hard, fearing to finish that sentence in case he put more dangerous ideas into their heads. No doubt worse ideas were already there, just itching to be carried out.

The nearest thug drew back his ham sized fist and smashed Greg in the face with it. His head thumped into the wall, and he heard buzzing in his brain as the world went dark around him. The pain dropped him to his knees. He couldn’t see, but sensed the nearness of one of them. He heard him quietly say, ‘That’s for wasting our time. A little taste of what’s to come if you let us down again.’

Greg tried to look around the room but couldn’t see anymore than vague blurry light. He could hear footsteps through the buzzing in his head and the front door open and slam shut again. Moments later a car started up outside and revved loudly as it took off in a hurry.

He was still sitting on the floor some time later, in a puddle of his own making, head pounding and feeling sorry for himself when his wife’s car pulled up the driveway with their kids. She had just collected them from school.

Emma! Panic shot through him like an electric shock. She mustn’t find out.

He scrambled to his feet, shaking his head until his vision cleared a bit, even though his brain felt like a cannonball rolling round in there. As he heard the sound of his children’s voices, he felt the cold draft on the seat of his wet pants. He grabbed the flower vase from the breakfast bar, and tipped it on the already urine soaked patch, dropping the vase nearby. Then he grabbed the remote and flicked on the TV, flung a handy newspaper on his lazy boy, and sat on it trying to look as though he’d been there for some time.

The noise burst through the front door as the kids piled in, Emma behind them, arms full of shopping bags. The kids disappeared upstairs, not expecting their father to be home so early.

Emma noticed though. She also noticed the strange dent in the wall opposite the TV.

‘Greg? What are you doing home so —,’ she stopped as he turned toward her and she realized his eye was swollen and darkening from bruising. She quickly plonked the bag of groceries on the table and rushed forward in concern, ‘Are you alright? Greg, what the hell’s been happening?’

‘Oh this,’ he smiled and brushed it off as nothing. ‘Bob and me got in a little accident on the way home. Some bloody Asian driver cut us off. Bloody air bags! Things are a menace.’ He waved away her worried inspections irritably. ‘I’ll be ok love, don’t fuss.’

Emma was sort of relieved but felt something was a bit off about his tone. She looked at the wall and her eyes then dropped to the vase and flowers on the floor. There was also a familiar smell which she couldn’t fathom. It was a scent every mother is familiar with. Urine? Surely not. She frowned and stared back at him. She just caught the angry look on his face before it changed and he said, ‘Ah yes. Sorry, that was my fault.’

He stalled then, deliberately drawing the answer out, mainly because he was still trying to think one up.

Emma stood staring at him for a few moments, incredulously. She folded her arms across her chest. ‘Your fault? Please explain how you put a big dent in the wall. And why there are flowers and water all over the carpet. I’d expect that sort of crap from Thomas, but not from you.’

He drew a deep breath, ‘Look, I had a really bad day at work alright? Then I got a phone call that made me even angrier and I ... well I was waving my hands about while I was talking and knocked the bloody vase flying. You really shouldn’t leave it sitting there Em. Anyhow, that was the last straw. I got shitty and punched the wall. Sorry, I’ll fix it up with some filler later, you’ll never notice it.’

See this was the problem with telling lies. They snowball. Once you spin one, you have no choice but to keep on spinning.

‘What phone call? What would make you that upset?’ She glanced at his knuckles which looked white and healthy, perfectly ordinary. They certainly didn’t look as though they had just had a rough run in with the hard surface of a wall.

Watching his wife’s observations, Greg started to get really annoyed. He always did whenever she didn’t simply swallow his lies without fuss or question. His face hurt and he was rapidly losing patience, and answers. Thankfully Chloe and Thomas stomped down the stairs at that moment demanding something to eat, and the question was left hanging.

He gave the kids a quick ‘hello’ avoiding their hugs, instead excusing himself to go work on his motorcycle in his garage workshop. He stood clutching the newspaper he had been sitting on at the last minute to hide the fact he’d wet his pants. Emma wasn’t paying attention to her husband anyway, full on busy with the children and preparing dinner. Witching hour was never a good time for in depth discussions with your partner.

But later that evening when the kids had been bathed, dressed in their Pyjamas, teeth brushed, story read and settled snuggly in bed, Emma thought it a little strange that Greg still hadn’t come back inside. Not that he was ever a great help with the children, even when he was around, but he had not eaten dinner either. When she called him in for tea he had claimed he wasn’t hungry. He never usually passed up food, unless he was unwell.

She didn’t really mind. It was nice at the end of the day to have a short spell of peace and quiet. She remembered the handful of mail she had retrieved from their mailbox when she got home. It still sat where she had dropped it, forgotten about on the sideboard when she came in. She picked up the pile and sat down at the table to see what bills had arrived.

Fanning through the pile she identified the envelopes: power bill, phone bill, rates bill — fuck she hated that prick Bill!

She left them on the table, and went to the fridge. She was going to need a few glasses of wine to go through this lot. After returning from the kitchen with a nice chilled glass of Sauvignon Blanc, she sat down at the table and ripped into the first envelope she picked up, in no particular order.

Power notice, the red stamp stood out like a neon light. FINAL NOTICE OF DISCONNECTION!

‘What the fuck?’ she said out loud, then looked about in case the children were still up. But they were well worn out from their active day of play and asleep long ago. She read on, and discovered that the two previous notices had gone unanswered. The notice threatened that they were due to have their power disconnected within seven days of the date of this letter unless the $480 bill, including late charges, was paid in full by that date.

No wonder Greg had been keen to grab the mail from her before she had time to read it lately.

With a sneaking suspicion she took a big fortifying swig of wine and tore open the phone bill. She was not surprised, but extremely pissed off, to find similar threats of disconnection and penalties added.

She half got out of her seat ready to go on the warpath and interrogate her husband, but had a feeling the rates bill would be yet another whinging ‘pay up or we go to debt collections’ threat.

It was.

She lay her pounding forehead in her palms, elbows resting on the table, and closed her eyes wondering what the hell all this meant. Things were never perfect in their marriage but they had always paid their bills on time in the past, or at least pretty close to.

Not one to sit on problems and sulk, Emma skulled the rest of her wine, snatched the handful of bills, and marched out the backdoor to the workshop.

It was empty. Greg had gone.

2

discrepancy

A month ago …

Why did they always have to meet in a place that reminded him of Dracula’s tomb?

Greg waited in the dark, sat nervously behind the steering wheel of his car for the ‘mule’ to arrive. Noisy echoes screeching across the underground park drew his attention and his heart rate increased. He swallowed, took a deep breath and got out of the car, hoping he looked like he had his shit together.

The guy had ebony skin and sunglasses which were obviously just for show because there was only artificial lighting down here. He stood around six foot five and was a man of few words. Greg swore if a giant pair of wings burst out the bugger’s back, he would die on the spot.

‘Boot,’ he said in a deep barrel voice.

Greg jumped, embarrassing himself, then realized the mule was looking at his car boot. ‘Oh boot … right,’ Greg flicked the switch to unlock his boot.

He took possession of several small opaque plastic bags and the mule left him there, without another word. He didn’t need to. All the arrangements had been made over the phone with the big boss, the one they called ‘the Blade.’ Greg was to sell off all he had, at a profit if he were shrewd about it, and they would meet again in a month’s time to collect one hundred and fifty grand.

He had been doing this for a while now; built up a few regulars. He shouldn’t have any problems clearing the product.

He was thinking that for business purposes Greg as a name wasn’t quite cutting it with these buggers, as he pushed the button on his car lock, waiting for the ‘beep, beep!’ before disappearing into the elevator to head back up to work. Lunch hour was over ten minutes ago. Maybe he should be called something more intimidating like … ‘The Stallion’; that might get him some respect among this crowd.

*

From the shadows two figures emerged. They were rough unkempt characters, wearing ripped jeans, dark hoodies and balaclavas. They looked around them to make sure they were alone and converged on the car they had just seen loaded up with what they were hoping was a life time’s supply of Methamphetamines.

One of them let rip with his slingshot smashing the overhead fluorescent lights, buying them a little time and privacy. His mate, wearing an LED headlamp jimmied the car boot open with a special tool. The alarm sounded, and they quickly stuffed their backpacks with the bags of Class A drugs, followed by his headlamp. With legs pumping, tendons straining and lots of heavy breathing, the pair were racing along on their bikes and out of the car-park, lost in the traffic of midday shoppers.

*

‘The Stallion’ was busy at the water cooler trying to sow some wild oats with the office girl when his boss tapped him on the shoulder.

‘Security said your car’s alarm’s going off. Go down and sort it out will ya.’

Greg couldn’t get down the elevator fast enough. In fact it was taking too long ascend from the lower levels so he raced down the stairs instead.

Bursting through the doors, he could see from where he stood, his boot still open and the security guard standing there looking inside it.

‘Oh no...no… no… shit!’ Greg said hurrying across the carpark.

‘Did you have something of value in there Sir?’

‘Ah, oh, nothing much. Just some tools and a pair of jumper leads,’ he lied. ‘I’ve got insurance, I’ll sort it. Cheers mate.’

The security guy left him to it and went back to his little room.

Greg waited till he was gone before dissolving down the door of his car to the cold cement floor. Head in his hands and breaking out in a cold sweat, he moaned, ‘What am I gonna do now? The fuckers’ll kill me.’