Special Smashwords Edition
Not Such Nice Guys
Collection
By
Robert R. Bell
Special Smashwords Edition
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Published by
Melange Books, LLC
White Bear Lake, MN 55110
Not Such Nice Guys Collection, Robert R. Bell, Copyright 2011
ISBN: 978-1-61235-293-0
Names, characters, and incidents depicted in this book are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of the author or the publisher. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Credits
Editor: Nancy Schumacher
Line Editor: Taylor Evans
Format Editor: Mae Powers
Cover Artist: Caroline Andrus
Not Such Nice Guys Collection
by
Robert R. Bell
Not Such Nice Guys is a twisted collection of thirteen not so lucky short tales that blurs the lines between naughty and nice. We don’t always know what to believe or who to trust. We don’t always know ourselves. There will be moments in each of our lives when we’re not sure of which side of that line we will be on…or maybe…we’ll be right in the middle of it.
You can email Robert R. Bell here:
bobbelljr@msn.com
* * * *
The Beauty Part
Older and uglier by the day
…and damn proud of it.
Life has done this to me
…and damn sure of it.
Not important what you see here.
Everything needed is out there.
Plastic, silicon, dye, and ink.
But rotting corpses will always stink.
Spending fortunes to make a change.
All of these parts we can rearrange.
Before long you won’t need to wonder.
Resembling neighbors six feet under.
The truth was there from the start
…and that’s the beauty part.
Not Such Nice Guys
Collection
Table of Contents
The Man Upstairs
A guy with a pathetic lifestyle moves into a seedy apartment. He discovers a dark secret about a man living on the floor above him. When he finds out more about the mystery man, he tries to emulate him until it all ends tragically.
Back To Grandma’s House
A teenager goes to live with his grandma over the summer so he can stay out of the kind of trouble he had at home. But he quickly finds out that trouble is all around him—much worse than he could have ever imagined—a terrifying journey.
Breakfast At Tiffany’s Place
A stranger comes in for breakfast at a popular restaurant with an infamous past. Is he a good guy or a bad guy?
Dentist Appointment
What could go wrong if you open your mouth to the wrong dentist, especially regarding the past?
Dive Bar
The negative consequences centering around a dive bar and its restroom: too many beers, violence, strange people, old acquaintances, bad food, weak bladders, not flushing, and forgetting to wipe.
Eleven C Hilltown Express
Ah...the pleasures of waiting for, riding on, and attempting to exit a crowded city bus. You may never want to ride on one again.
Mister Red And Mister Yellow
What could happen when a dedicated sadist confronts a presumed pacifist on a busy downtown intersection? He has a hunch that he’s ready to break out from his passive ways.
That Florida Lifestyle
A disgruntled, semi-retired man shares his feelings toward the community golfers. He finally gets some satisfaction when something comes out of the lake to end the life of one of the duffers.
The Bad People
A private investigator searches for a missing girl. Familiar faces, coincidences, and ugly truths come to light throughout his investigation and afterwards.
The Loser Of Baghdad
An Olympic runner discovers that there are Iraqi people that despise his presence even more than he does theirs, and they may not allow him to finish the race.
Writing Lessons
A wannabe writer goes to a book signing to talk a renowned novelist into reading his terrible manuscript. The novelist’s critique is enough to end the wannabe’s writing career, well…maybe.
Good Girl Bad Girl
What can go terribly wrong when you have two girls who are total opposites that are trying to gain the affection of the same man? He’s tries to keep the peace in the home that they all share together, but disaster is inevitable.
Final Words
An almost famous writer of dark tales is invited to speak at a small town gala. After he finishes his despicable speech about life and death, all of the attendee’s worlds begin to collapse.
* * * *
Also by Robert R. Bell at www.melange-books.com:
Mortgage Cowboy
The Man Upstairs
It was April first, and I played the fool for most of my life. I had an appointment at eight forty-two in the morning to meet with hopefully my new landlord. I wondered why he would choose an odd time like eight forty-two, but I didn’t ask him why. He could have been a bigger fool than me. I needed the apartment. It was cheap and it was located close to my job. I didn’t have a car, and I got kicked out of the last hole in the wall that I resided at. I had been living in the basement of my aunt’s four bedroom—three of which were unoccupied—home for the last few weeks. She wasn’t exactly proud of me, but she should talk.
The landlord’s name was Mr. Sebastion. When I spoke to him on the phone, he said that he would let me know his first name if and when I signed a lease. I told him my first name, but I didn’t recall telling him my last name. He sounded like a real bastard on the phone. I wondered if I would accidentally call him Mr. Sebastard at the interview. I had certainly made bigger mistakes at other interviews, particularly with potential employers.
Once I had a construction job interview with a Mr. Retort. It went pretty smooth. I thought that I had a good shot at getting the job. At the end of the meeting when we were shaking hands, I politely said, “Well, thanks for the interview, Mr. Retard.” I didn’t get that job either. It would have paid twelve and a half bucks an hour—more than I ever made. I felt like a stupid fool…almost retarded.
I had to take a bus to get to my meeting with Mr. Sebas…tion. The same bus, the Eleven C Hilltown Express that I would take to get to my job at the StopGo convenience store which was only a few blocks from the apartment building. I would have asked Aunt Willamina for a lift, but her car was repossessed for lack of payment about a week earlier. I guess that type of thing ran in the family.
I got off of the stench-air conditioned bus at approximately eight twenty-eight at the stop near my job at Stop-Go—just like I would normally do when I would go to work; except it was Sunday, and it was my day off. Mr. Sebastion told me that the Garden View Apartments were on Hazlett Street. He also said that I would have to go two and a half blocks north of the StopGo convenience store to reach Hazlett, and than a block and a half east on Hazlett to get to the apartment building. I didn’t have a compass on me. So before I got off the bus, I asked the worldly driver if I needed to go up or down and left or right.
His directions were right on. Not only was I able to avoid stepping on all of the sidewalk cracks during my journey, but I was standing in front of the Garden View at eight thirty-four, a good eight minutes early. I set my watch perfectly to the time that was showing on The Weather Channel before I left Aunt Willamina’s house. I was always told that employers like it when your punctual…oh that’s right, it’s wasn’t a job interview; it was an interview with some arrogant, son of a bitching slum lord about getting a lease in his shit hole, rat infested, apartment building.
At exactly eight forty-two, a silver Lincoln Continental pulled up in front of the building. A shiny bald headed guy with a dark tan, Hawaiian shirt, and plenty of gold jewelry approached me. “Are you here about the apartment?”
“Yea, I’m John. I spoke to you on the phone a few days ago.”
“I’m Mr. Sebastion.”
I stuck out my hand for a gentlemanly shake. He just ignored it. But that was okay. I was sure that his palms would’ve been greasy, and I was already battling with a borderline OCD disorder…among other issues.
“Let’s go inside,” he requested.
I followed him inside of the three-story building while noticing a few old shingles sliding off of the roof and a big smear mark on the walkway that looked like it could have been from some unfortunate person’s blood.
When he opened the front door, it appeared to have partially separated from one of the rusted out hinges.
“I’ll have to fix that,” he nearly promised. “I currently have one available apartment on the second floor.”
I followed him up the stairway. It was covered with filthy, outdated carpeting that also may have had a few blood stains on it. I ran my index finger along the wrought iron railing that was thick with dust. I imagined if there was a dead body lying on top of the steps, Sebastard would have probably ignored that too and walked over it.
We proceeded to the first door on the left, apartment number two-zero-two. Sebastard turned the lock. I wasn’t too excited about looking inside, but I still gawked without any hesitation. Let’s just say that it wasn’t any shoddier looking than I expected, and the smell was no worse than the stench filled bus.
After about a half minute of admiring the fine décor, Sebastard said, nearly yelling, “One year lease—three hundred a month—two months deposit.”
I couldn’t resist. I didn’t even want to negotiate. “Okay, Mr. Sebastion.”
“Let’s go down to my office and get you signed up then.”
I followed him back downstairs while wondering just where his office would be. He unlocked a door that was near the entrance way. I guess that he decided to make an office out of the janitor’s closet. It was at least as appealing as my apartment, and only slightly smaller. He pulled a lease document out of a top drawer of a tiny desk where he sat down, and then he filled in a few blanks. He handed it to me, and I skimmed over it rather quickly; not being overly concerned about all of the details.
“Can I borrow your pen, sir?”
He sat there fidgeting with the pen for a moment, and then he stated without even looking at me, “If you are late on your payment—you’re gone! Any illegal activities—you’re gone! Any property damage—you’re gone! Any noise after ten p.m.—you’re gone! No parties…no whores…no drugs…or….”
I decided to finish the sentence for him. “I’m gone.”
He finally looked up at me, and he started to hand over the pen while still having an expression on his face like he was thinking if he had covered all of the rules. Just as I was to grab the pen from his fat, multiple ring covered fingers, he said with a more serious tone, “Oh…one last thing. Whatever you do…don’t bother the man upstairs.”
“Huh? Who?…What man? Where?”
“Up on the third floor. He’ the only tenant up there. Don’t go up there for any reason. That’s a warning—capish?”
It was the first time that Sebastard looked at me right in the eyes. I felt a little uneasy. But I just responded with, “Yes sir, I got it. I won’t go upstairs.”
He finally handed me the pen. It had an image of a woman clad in a bikini on it. As I proceeded to sign my name, I looked at the pen again and the bikini was gone and the woman was naked. She had an extremely hairy vagina. It must have been an old pen. I almost laughed while putting my John Hancock on the signature line.
When I handed the lease agreement back to my new slum lord, I received the usual response that I had gotten many times in the past after I would sign something. With a slightly annoyed expression, Sebastard asked, “Is this a joke or something?”
“No sir, it’s not.”
He looked at my signature again. I tried my best not to laugh. But I’m sure that a smirk was present on my face. Over the years, I tried to make my signature closely resemble the one that belonged to my possible famous ancestor—according to my late dad.
Then Sebastard demanded, “Let me see your driver’s license.”
I hadn’t renewed it since the time it was suspended many years ago for a DUI, among other infractions. Instead, I pulled out my crusty old social security card and an even crustier old library card out of my new secondhand leather wallet.
I handed my identification to Sebastard, and he responded with a shyster-like smile while showing off several gold fillings. “Welcome to the beautiful Garden View Apartments, Mr. Hancock.” After a brief pause, he said, “I need six hundred today. Then you can send three hundred to my address showing here on the lease by the first of every month.” He pointed to his address which was the only thing on lease that featured bold lettering.
Then he handed me a key and a carbon copy of my agreement, and I pulled twelve nice looking US Grant’s out of my wallet and grudgingly handed them over to him. We walked out of the building together and he reminded me, “Remember—the first of every month or I’ll come calling…and don’t forget what I said about the man upstairs.”
We still didn’t shake hands, and he never told me his first name. He only put his initials on the lease. But then again, I didn’t give a flying shit-ball about that. I didn’t have the nerve to ask him for a ride either. I just needed to take the bus back to Aunt Willimina’s place and gather up the few possessions that I owned. Then I would take the bus back to the apartment to settle in. Sebastard did say the lease was effective immediately. One good thing was that the apartment came furnished…well, sort of a good thing.
So after the old back and forth—back and forth from Aunt Willimina’s dump to the beautiful Garden View Apartments via the stink bus, I was finally able to settle in to my new home for at least the next year. The first thing I did, even before I unpacked was to make sure that there was nothing in the room that I could hang myself with. I knew that I didn’t bring any good choking devices with me. I stopped wearing belts several years back.
When I was arrested for pot possession at a rock concert in nineteen ninety-nine; before they threw me in a cell with the rest of the degenerates, they took my genuine cowhide belt away from me. After I was discharged—approximately forty-eight hours later, I decided to leave the belt behind, and I never bought another one. I heard it was a good concert. I don’t remember the names of the bands that I didn’t get to see. Luckily for me, it was the last time that I was behind bars.
Well, I was finally moving up in the world. I had a steady job at the convenience store and a new apartment. While I contemplated my current situation, I instinctively looked around the room again for any possible hanging apparatus.
So there I was—John Hancock—just sitting in my shitty apartment and contemplating life. I wouldn’t be signing the Declaration Of Independence like my great, great, great, great…grandfather…or was it uncle…did. At least he was great. I would occasionally get to sign invoices and receipts of deliveries at StopGo though. I wouldn’t be part of a worthwhile revolution either. Although, we were allowed to keep a gun behind the counter. I did keep my long hair in a ponytail and I often wore old, vintage clothing that I bought at the secondhand store. I continued to think about comparisons between my famous document signing relative and myself until I fell asleep.
I woke up the next morning a little later than I wanted to. I had accidentally left my cheap alarm clock at Aunt Willimina’s abode. I had a weird dream about a talking vagina. I woke up when the vagina belched, and I thought that it smelled like sushi.
So I had to leave the apartment five minutes after I got up. No time for coffee or cigarettes; but that was okay because I was trying to quit both. No time to shave; but that was alright too because I left my electric razor at my aunt’s house; which was a shame because the clock and the razor were the only two electric appliances that I owned. I didn’t even have time for my early morning masturbation session, but that was also okay. It was still sore from the previous day because I jerked the gherkin while knowing full well that I was out of Jergens lotion. My last girlfriend broke up with me when she discovered that I went into the bathroom to whack off after some of our foreplay sessions and then admit that I was too tired for intercourse.
My apartment was located in the worst section of the city. There were numerous shootings and various reports about drug dealing and prostitution that I recalled reading about when I used to subscribe to the city paper. The StopGo convenience store just happened to be strategically situated on the nastiest corner within the worst section of the city. It was one of only a handful of retail establishments that still operated in the area. I never had to use the thirty-eight that hid behind the counter. But some of the other clerks bragged about pulling it out in the past, especially during the night shift.
A few hours into my shift that morning, a dark negro dressed in filthy clothing and a long beard that looked like it was never trimmed decided to do some shopping. He looked familiar to me. I remembered him from a few weeks earlier, my first week on the job. He tried to make a charge on a defunct credit card. He probably didn’t have a car either, and we were the only joint in the area where he could pick up some groceries.
After grabbing a few miscellaneous food items from the shelves, he pulled out a Visa card from his shirt pocket. “Here, charge everything to my account, sir.”
I looked at the name on the colorful, plastic money card. It read Martin C. O’Connor. I immediately thought…that’s funny…he don’t look like a Martin C. O’Connor. I looked back at him and simply asked, “Is this good?”
He smiled while demonstrating that he still had half of his teeth. “Yea, I gots very excellent credit.”
I reluctantly gave him the partial benefit of some serious doubt. But I decided to run the credit card before ringing up all of the groceries, and I saw that it was authorized. I guess that the owner didn’t report it stolen yet. I looked at him and asked, “Will that be all then?”
A much bigger smile drew upon his face. “Uh…add a carton of Winston’s and two KitKat bars.” He figured that he would milk it while he could. A half gallon of two percent milk was one of the items that he brought up to the counter.
I was fortunate though. After a month of working at the store, the worst crime situations that I dealt with was a few shoplifters and an occasional character like the alias Mr. O’Connor. One of the female clerks were robbed at knifepoint during that same month. I doubt if she even considered pulling out the thirty-eight. The owner of the store gave us the option, but never recommended it.
I had my share of awkward situations though. On a Friday afternoon while working at the store, another familiar face came walking in. This gentleman was way out of his territory. He was well groomed and sporting a nicely tailored suit. If I didn’t know any better, I would say that the arrogant prick went out of his way to make me feel like shit.
Back in high school, I competed against Chris Stuart in sports, for girls, and for just about everything else except for grades. He had the same cocky look on his face that he did nearly thirty years earlier, and there was nowhere in the store for me to hide.
“John, my man, is that you?”
“Yea, it’s me Chris.”
“What are you doing here?”
I pointed to my name tag that was neatly affixed to the official, green StopGo shirt that I wore. I cleared my throat and said, “I…uh…work here.”
“You’re kidding. In this dump?”
“It’s just temporary…until…uh….”
“John, what happened to you, man? I had dreams for you.”
“What are you talking about, Chris?” He just kept grinning at me. Then I stupidly asked, “So, how have you been doing.”
“Every thing’s great, Johnny. I hit the lottery for ten million. I married a swimsuit model. I own three properties—one in Florida and one in Aspen.” I hoped he was done, and then he added, “Oh yeah, and my son Chris Jr. was a star hoopster at Ohio State. He’s expected to go in the first round in the upcoming NBA draft.”
“Yeah, I heard about that. That’s great. So, what can I get for you, Chris? Were you buying gas or.…”
“No, Johnny, I just came in to jerk you off.” He gave me an annoying laugh. “Just kidding. I filled up on pump two.”
As I completed his transaction, he kept looking at me with pity. It would be the only time that I hoped for an armed robbery to take place in the store. I needed to say something to redeem myself. “I’m just here temporary. My uncle owns the store. I’m just helping him out. I thought about buying the place, but I decided to use my money elsewhere.”
One of the regular customers stood near the counter and overheard my lies. I’m sure he knew that Mohammad with the green turban was the owner of the store. The customer had an expression on his face that I read as him possibly thinking—sure, dude and I’m Thomas Jefferson—one of the other famous signers of the Declaration.
Chris was on his way out of the store. “Good luck, Johnny.”
“Yeah, you…too.”
With all of the excitement and embarrassment that I dealt with at the convenience store during the day, I usually preferred quieter evenings at my apartment when I was off work. Of course, I didn’t have much choice. Not having a car and not wanting to wander out into the dangerous neighborhood where I often heard gunshots after dark had mostly kept me inside; and Sebastard’s rules prohibited me from having too good of a time indoors. I was still happy that I lucked out by getting a day shift at StopGo.
But being realistic, I knew that it was only a matter of time before I would break some of Sebastard’s rules. The first violation was the drug rule. But it was only a little bit of pot, hardly a crime these days. Half of the country was probably using it for medicinal purposes anyway. I tried to blow all of the smoke out of the window.
The other breach was a bit more risqué. I got so tired of whacking off, especially at my age. So when I was walking home from work one day, I decided to pick up a street whore that stood on the corner near the store. Actually, she was only half a whore. I don’t mean that she was a good girl by day and slut by night, and I don’t mean she was a transvestite or transsexual either. I mean that she was a midget—a Mexican midget.
I thought that she was very sexy in her own little way. When I approached her on the corner, she said with a Latino accent, “Hi, I’m Consuelo.” For a moment, I thought she said Hi, I’m cunts way low. I could tell that she was proud of her mini-cooter. Let’s just say that it was the most adventuress sex that I ever encountered. I was tickled when she agreed to have intercourse. She only weighed about seventy pounds. I made sure that she was on top the whole time. To my surprise, I didn’t have much trouble getting it in. But getting it out was a whole different story. I guess that both of us swelled up to the point that my thick shaft felt permanently stuck inside of her little critter. She kept shrieking something in Spanish while acting like some kind of crazy monkey. I kept yelling, “Holy Shit!”
I started having flashbacks from when I was a boy in my old neighborhood. There was a horny old beagle named Sir Duke. He would go around screwing all of the bitches on the street. One time he got stuck while fucking Mrs. Arrington’s classy poodle. Mrs. Arrington was so upset about it that she came out of her house with a bucket of hot water to separate her precious pooch from the old horn dog.
While my stiff cock was still plugging up Consuelo’s little crevice, I carried the Mexican dwarf into the bathroom while she nervously gripped my testicles. Then I simultaneously sat both of us down into the tub to soak our troubles away. It was the ultimate example of how pain always seems to compliment pleasure.
As time marched on, I comfortably fell back into the same old rut that I had been accustomed to many times in the past. I would go to my worthless job during the day. I would come home to my dump apartment for the night. I would watch a lot of television, smoke a little weed, hit the bottle now and then, and bring home the occasional street slut, as long as she was over five foot tall. Days turned into weeks. Spring became Fall. Two thousand and nine turned into two thousand and ten. It all became so redundant.
Even though I had clearly become a product of my environment, a bitterness had begun to creep inside of me. In one sense, I had become content with my sad lifestyle. But I sometimes had to cry myself to sleep. I thought that I deserved better, but I wouldn’t do anything about it. I often criticized others that were like me. I was gradually becoming your typical hypocrite.
The StopGo convenience store was located on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. Was it a coincidence that every major city in the United States had a road that was named after the infamous slain preacher? Was it even more ironic that the road would always go through the most crime infested areas of the inner-cities? I often wondered if they would name highways after B. Hussein Obama—rhymes with Osama—my favorite reality show star—if he was accidentally knocked off. He might be the first white Muslim to ever receive that privilege.
The black drug dealers and pimps would take advantage of this fatal flaw. They figured that if there was any place that they could get away with their lucrative trades, it would be along a highway that was named after their patron saint. The white, cowboy, racist, pig cops would give them some slack as long as they didn’t venture anywhere near…John Frigging Kennedy Memorial Highway for example. Besides, some of those scumbag cops got a cut of the action.
Of course, there were plenty of honky and spic criminals too; and it stood to reason that if the fuzz would go easy on the brothers, they might as well have a parley with the other races too. Now, whenever there is that much dealing going on, it increases the stealing and killing too.
It seemed like in my part of town, almost anything goes. Even the ice cream truck guy was in on it. How else could you explain him making his rounds all hours of the day or night, no matter the weather conditions. The truck had fancy hubcaps that spun around, tinted glass, special hydraulics that jacked the vehicle high off the ground, and an expensive sound system that played mostly hip-hop music. He wasn’t selling that many cones or ice balls…maybe coke and eight balls?
I became nauseated by the whole business. I got tired of building up my confidence every time I had to walk past the street thugs on my journey between StopGo and The Garden View. Usually, they would leave me alone. They probably thought that I was cool with them because I would say, “What’s up,” when I walked past them, and I would occasionally purchase a dime bag. I was a pretty good actor. But my baby sister overdosed on crack cocaine when she was seventeen, and my former co-worker’s innocent little kid was gunned down in a drive by shooting. I also lost interest in throwing my pocket change to the friendly hobos that seemed to be everywhere. If I could hold a job—then anyone could.
I hoped that I wasn’t turning into one of those angry old jagoffs that I used to see hanging around the bar. The ones that would rant about everything that was bad within society, but would never think about lifting a finger to help improve it.
There was an old crud that lived across the hall of my apartment. His name was Joseph Bittner, the apartment jagoff. I referred to him as bitter Bittner. According to him, everything wrong in the world was everyone else’s fault, and there was nothing he could do about it.
Unlike Mr. Bitter, I put at least some of the blame on myself, and somewhere deep inside of me, there was a desire that hid behind years of laziness and neglect that was dying to make itself present. How could I possibly be happy about my pathetic little world after the nine and a half years I spent hanging around college. Mohammad with the green turban—I don’t know why he didn’t change colors—only paid me seven and a quarter per hour…oh that’s right, he raised it to seven and a half when I agreed to stay on after the last series of robberies.
I got to the point where my anger and despair had reached it’s worse level in some time, and I even contemplated wearing a belt again when I recently walked through the aisles of the local rummage store. But I sensed that something incredible was about to happen.
On a frigid February night, I lay in my lumpy whore-bed while trying to sleep away my problems. The cold winter air easily made it’s way through the cheap single-pane windows and faulty insulation. Sebastard kept the thermostat at fifty-nine degrees. But I gradually shivered myself asleep by about one o’clock. Then, sometime after the closing of my eyelids and before dawn, I was suddenly awakened. It sounded like a gunshot, which certainly wasn’t an unusual occurrence, except that it sounded awfully close by.
I hopped out of my bed and instinctively went out into the hallway. I gazed at the stairwell that went up to the third floor, and I started thinking about the mysterious man upstairs; the one that Sebastard warned me about when I first moved into the apartment nearly a year earlier.
I promised Sebastard that I would never venture up there, and I never did. It was one of the few rules that I didn’t break. I never saw anyone else go up there, or come down from the third floor for that matter. I didn’t recall ever hearing a sound coming from upstairs either…until now…if that’s where it came from? My curiosity finally got to me, and I decided to go take a gander. As I walked up the steps, I thought about the scene from Psycho. When I reach the top of the stairs, I noticed that the one and only door up there was left partially open. For all intents and purposes, I guess that it could be referred to as the penthouse suite.
As I was about to knock on the door, I started to hear heavy breathing inside. I decided to push the door open instead. The breathing became more pronounced with every quiet, steady step that I took. Then suddenly the breathing stopped! After a few seconds, it was replaced with a slurping noise. It seemed to be coming from a well lit, adjacent room. When I walked in, I saw an old man dressed in all black. He was looking into a large wooden bowl with a greasy spoon in his hand.
Then the old man slowly looked up at me. I could see that one side of his face was badly disfigured. His eyes had an unfamiliar color. They look gray. In fact, everything in the room appeared to be black, white, or gray. It felt as if I went back into time, and I was there to take a picture of what would end up being an old time photograph. The man didn’t utter a word, and neither did I. I just started walking backwards until I made it out of the room; and then eventually out of the apartment. I nearly fell down as I raced down the stairs and back into my apartment where I double locked the door.
As I pondered about what I saw, I turned on the television and I sat there watching an old black and white movie until my eyes were closed. Shortly after, I woke up again when I heard footsteps above my ceiling. Then I heard the footsteps coming down the stairwell. It continued until it sounded like someone was right outside of my door! I started to hear the heavy breathing once again. I pulled a blanket over my face, and I sat there shivering until the breathing stopped. I didn’t dare to go near the door. I just sat there wondering about what I saw and heard until I eventually fell back asleep.
When I woke up the next morning, there was a bottle of Jim Beam whiskey on the table that was nearly empty and a couple of roaches were lying in the ashtray from the joints that I had recently smoked. I sat there for a while and contemplated whether I had a nightmare or another sleepwalking-hallucination trip. I tried to forget about it, but that just wasn’t possible. Those images and sounds stayed with me.
Later in the week, I ran into bitter Bittner as I was walking into the apartment building. “Mr. Bitter, what do you know about the man upstairs?” He was just deaf enough that he didn’t realize I called him Mr. Bitter.
“What? The man upstairs, you asked? Why do you want to know?” He asked suspiciously.
“It’s no big deal. I thought I saw him the other day.”
I started to walk away, and then Bitter said, “Alex?”
“What’s that?”
“His name was Alexander Hamilton.”
I started to walk away again while thinking—what does Bitter mean by—his name was Alexander Hamilton. Then I thought that it was an awful coincidence that he had the same name as another one of the founding fathers.
“You couldn’t have seen him the other day.”
I turned back toward him while an eerie feeling grew inside me. “Why’s that?”
“Because he died a few months ago. Weren’t you here when the coroner showed up? There was an awful stench.”
“How did he die?”
“Gunshot.”
“How? Who? Did they find—?”
“That’s all I know. See you later…and stop bringing whores in here, okay?”
I wondered if it was a suicide, or if someone else did the job; and if there was a perpetrator, how did he get up there? I hoped that the killer’s last name wasn’t Burr. That would be too damn bizarre. On top of all that, just what the fuck did I see if I was in fact up in his apartment the other night…and if I wasn’t sleepwalking or hallucinating—his spirit?
I needed to find out more about the mysterious man upstairs. I figured that I wouldn’t get much more information from Bitter or Sebastard or anyone else in the apartment building. So I needed to do some digging. It was the first time in a long while that something truly interesting had happened to me, and I needed to search for some answers. But I didn’t have to look far for some of them.
One of the few amenities that I had as a renter at the Garden View was that there was an ancient but still usable washer and dryer in the basement. When I did my laundry that weekend, one of my socks fell behind the dryer. The sock had a hole in the big toe area. But I reached around the bulky appliance to try to retrieve it anyway. While doing so, I noticed a section of an old newspaper that lay on the ground near my sock.
I grabbed it also. I could barely make out the print, but the date on the newspaper looked like…April…twenty-third…nineteen…eighty…three? It was nearly one score and seven years old. Wait a minute…nobody uses the word score anymore, perhaps my famous ancestor did. Well, it was about twenty-seven years old then.
The front page of the newspaper section had a photo and an article that someone had circled with a pen. The photo wasn’t quite clear. But when I first looked at it, for some reason I immediately flashed back to the disfigured man dressed in black that I saw when I thought I ventured upstairs about a week earlier.
As soon as I finished folding up the laundry, I headed back up to my apartment while still clinging onto the newspaper. I remembered that I had a small magnifying glass that I kept in the kitchen drawer. While sitting at my kitchen table, I started scanning the article like an amateur sleuth. I still couldn’t make out most of it, but a few key words stood out: murder, indictment, secret organization, Alexander Hamilton. I felt an odd sensation running through my body and up to my brain. It was stimulating enough for me to go further.
I decided to take a trip to the library that afternoon. I had a membership card there ever since I was in high school. It was one of the few intelligent decisions that I ever made. There used to be a branch of the Allegheny Library about a half mile from my apartment, but it burned down a few years back. What kind of creep sets a library ablaze anyway?
I had to take the stinky bus once again to get to the next closest branch. They had a few computers there, and I was barely literate enough to use one of them. It had an extensive database where I could look up old newspaper articles.
After several hours of peering at the screen, I was able to find out quite a bit of intriguing information. Alexander Hamilton was a prominent lawyer before he got disbarred. Supposedly, he was also the leader of a secret organization called The Great Society, not to be confused with LBJ’s social programs of the nineteen-sixties.
Hidden documents were discovered about The Great Society as part of a long going investigation. According to their charter, the group had two main purposes. The first was to create a fellowship and sense of well being within its membership. The second was to use various means to eliminate the worst scourges of society.
Hamilton, along with a few others was eventually indicted and sent to prison for numerous counts of murder and some lesser crimes. For some reason, he ended up receiving an extremely early parole. I started imagining that he may have wanted to continue with his vision when he got out of prison. His new headquarters could’ve been the top floor of the Garden View Apartments—located within the worst section of the city—ground zero.
I felt that I shared a lot of common ground with this man. I once did a stint in the same prison that Hamilton resided in when I was only nineteen. I was also let go early. Of course, my situation was different. It was a case of mistaken identity. My estranged mom even thought I was guilty. But the real criminal, who did bear a resemblance to me, was apprehended as part of a robbery sting operation. The fool confessed to a whole lot of crimes. I never killed anyone…yet. But like they say—what goes around…comes…? A few years later, I was arrested for impersonating a cop. I’ve had such a pathetic life that I often pretended I was someone else.
On my way back on the bus, I decided that I would try to carry on with Mr. Hamilton’s vision. I would commit to putting together my own version of The Great Society. I would take the time to draw up my own charter, and eventually I would try to recruit other members.
The next day, during a visit to my favorite thrift shop, I was able to find an old quill pen, ink pot, and quality parchment paper that I would use to draft my own declaration, similar to what my famous ancestor might have used.