“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.”
“Shut up!”
His fist shoots out fast, right through my chin, and my body collapses back down into the pit of the trunk.
“You’d be just the same as everybody else if I knew you in different circumstances. Do you think YOU wouldn’t look down your nose at me? Don’t try and play games, talk about how you could help me. If I weren’t going to kill you, you’d never talk to me at all… …look, I’m sorry I hit you, I lose my temper sometimes, let me help you back up.”
“No! No, this is better. It really hurts my legs to sit up like that, just let me lie back here like this.”
“Suit yourself.”
“Look, Pat, I know it’s none of my business … but this is your life you’re talking about here. You only get one life, and if it’s a bad one, and you know it’s not what you want, how can you just let it keep going like that and do nothing to change it? Don’t you see that you’re wasting your life? Because one day, it’s gonna’ be all over, and that’s it. That will have been it.”
I’ve always been a smooth talker; it’s gotten me out of trouble many times. And into trouble just as many. I’m sharp, and this guy is dumb, and that’s my chance.
“Yeah, well…” he says.
“Look at me! I’m in a position where I know a little of what I’m talking about here. I mean, I’m a dead man, that’s what you said. I know what it feels like to know what the rest of your life looks like. And you can see the whole rest of your life as easily as I can. Only yours isn’t limited in time like mine. Yours is limited because you won’t let yourself out of this trap, and you can see yourself in it forever. But if this isn’t the life you want, and you know that as much as you know anything, you have to just leave it! Now! No option is worse than continuing with what you already know is a failure. Just leave Toronto. Never go home. What have you got to go home to, Pat? Just go, and start a new life.”