A PARTICULAR END

“So, wait. The creep realizes he was powerless when confronted by a different terror than his own. But he doesn’t actually redeem himself? So what’s the MOR…”

A whiff of chloroform, it wasn’t much, but the old man had no problem mustering up the strength to tie the young college student after he passed out.

“Write a book about that,” he whispered in a slimey voice.

There would be no further visits. Just another profitable day that ended well: the young man would never leave the retirement home, forever locked away amongst the horrifying visions of Pat Sajak, the poisonous scents of mint candy and the declining sounds of elderly hearts. A real wheel of fortune; this was a great find for the old geezer. He placed the body in the closet and shut the door.

“The moral,” he whispered, “is not every profit can be bought or sold.”

A knock at the door:

“What have you got going on in there, Mo?” asked another geezer.

Mo explained to the second geezer that there was a young man passed out in his closet. He promised to keep him.

“I’ll pay you $50 for him.”

Mo smiled at the thought of an honest day’s work.

Misconceptions Part 7

It was all wrong. Panic had overtaken the October morning. People were calling for the heads of every bank CEO who’d ever cut a cheque since the Mesopotamians financed their first temple. Men were slumped over, their heads buried in paper, and crying could be heard from all corners of the building.

Maurice looked at the security guard who acted like he’s never seen Maurice before – at least, not like this. Maurice knew the man. He knew the scar under his right eye. He knew the look of scaling up a foe. The stooge had once been a petty drug dealer some years ago, but had begun to feel remorse for what he believed was taking advantage of the weak. When his conscience got the better of him, he promptly quit the lucrative drug trade and became a cheap protector of extreme capitalism. Maurice smiled at the thought and then brushed the side of his sports coat as he walked by the man. The guard could do nothing but watch as he passed.

“It’s all gone. The markets have turned to shit!” a trader screamed. “Ink is bleeding everywhere.”

Another man approached Maurice and chucked a pile of papers at him “Here, take them, I don’t want them.”

Yet another man was seen jumping head first off the trade floor balcony; his head made a wooden echo as it hit the ground.

It wasn’t too long that they turned their attention to Maurice. He’d been found out. They must have known how he entered in the room. Of course, it was written all over his black face. And that the man who’s life he taken for money was a friend of theirs. These whities knew. He began to run… but they came running to Maurice asking him to do something. One they surrounded him, they began asking him if he knew what stock was safe; could he give them a tip? Just an old penny in the cap, they joked half-heartedly. Maurice had no idea what they were talking about. But they kept surrounding him and demanding answers. How come the coffee bean traders didn’t march today? Why did the environmental department approve the Appalachian coal mine? Was it safe to buy coke?

“Yes, but only from a trusted dealer,” Maurice responded.

Oh have a heart! One man screamed.

“I’ve had two,” Maurice snorted in slime.

“Come on Jason, come on. Don’t be selfish. We’re all about to get our asses handed to us on a plate in the soup kitchen. Don’t put us in that position.”

They pressed up against Maurice. One man yelled: “Trade – trade –TRADE!” and their transparent eyes went wild, looking at him with desperate hunger, as Maurice searched in to their insides looking for economic opportunity. But there was nothing. It was bankrupt. There was no shame in their hearts. They could have given nothing. And they would have taken everything.

Maurice cowered in the corner of the room. He wanted to slice each one of them. But their organs seemed worthless under this light. There was no market. There was no power in his heart to close the deal.

Misconceptions Part 6

Wiping his face to free himself of the sweet crimson sauce dripping from his chin, Maurice looked at the aorta and could not force himself even if he had to. The day grew in to an old man’s whisper and Maurice wasn’t about to hear its final words before the birth of new born day.

He flicked off the lights…

Saturday… all is well, but Maurice couldn’t be asked to work. He’s couldn’t concentrate. He needed to be on top of all the news. So he read, and read, but only a half story here, a lead there, a stock market graph –

“A stock market graph?” he wondered, flipping the pages of the business section. There were rumours in the Times that the derivatives markets were about to hit a wall and that Sunday night would bring many to the brink of madness. Men would be lost to it all, families destroyed by what bankers were doing. A new term entered Maurice’s lexicon: Credit Default Swap. It was a horrifyingly boring name.

The phone rang for hours. But Maurice would not respond. The collectors would get theirs when he got his. He kept licking his fingers and turning each page as if they had honey and sugar at each corner of the page…

Sunday… Mauice did not sleep a wink. He went back to the fridge and finished the aorta. He had heard of the powerful experience of eating a man’s heart. And he couldn’t argue as he was feeling pretty authoritative on the subject of strength. Maurice had always been very good on this undertaking. But this was different. He was no longer looking to pick up humans in his cab for delivery to slave masters. He couldn’t think of taking someone’s organs at this juncture. No. He heard a different opportunity sing from his heart and bellow out a fine tune.

The phone rang once more…

Monday… the phone continued to ring, but Maurice was too busy getting ready. He wrapped his tie around his neck and threaded a neat Windsor knot. He pulled on his warm ironed pants and shirt and could feel the cool October breeze bounce from the cotton.

He made a coffee. Poured some sugar. Stirred and flipped through the paper once more. Then he admitted, quite proudly, that he was more than prepared.

He took the bus to Wall St. and smiled as he was thinking about all the great things they would say when he told them how he was a real killer on the markets. He would take each of their organs and allow the crimson to bleed all over lower Manhattan.

He couldn’t wait to see their faces as he repeated the horror of East Harlem.

Guilt Laden Intermission

“Wait, wait. So the Wall St. bugger gets his comeuppance. He treated other people like commodities, by trading and selling stock, putting companies out of business on a whim of a trade. So, he gets intercepted on the streets of New York and gets the same treatment by some ghetto-fab mass murderer, who seems to have a conscience,” the Young Man realized.

“You put that lit knowledge to work, my boy,” the old geezer responded.

“Great. There’s ten minutes I won’t have back.”

“Impatience is another result of our cold age,” the old geezer murmured. “But I suppose you’ll be off now. Time to visit another one of us old timers… get through this as quickly as you can. I understand this all too well.”

“That’s not what I said.”

“Good. Here’s part two…”

Misconceptions Part 5

The crimson began spilling out of the stomach, the rib cage broken easily. Jason awoke – an unfortunate incident that lead to unnecessary screaming, and a peculiar and deeply moving exchange of looks between Jason and Maurice. The cost of business reasoned Maurice.

A skilled surgeon, it wasn’t long before the screaming was over, the organs out and the deal finished.

“Where did you learn to do that? They don’t teach that kind of art to people of the bush in my country,” said the pirate.

Maurice ignored him and threw the heart on to the operating table, it’s last flutters spewing blood all over the floor.

“Maybe I want that heart. It looks healthy.”

“It’s no good,” said Maurice licking his fingers clean. “You need to move the heart immediately. And since you didn’t want it, I killed it. Now give me my money and get the fuck out of here.”

The sounds of the pipes, taped together with duct tape to keep the water from leaking out, clanked amongst the turbulent silence during the moments just after Asif had left.

There was little left in the dark room except for Maurice and an open body, its foul stench not out of place in this dump; the rotting corpse, already in its silent roar of decomposition, breaking apart at the finger tips.

Maurice arrived at the sink and turned the tap and his mind began flowing consciousness. The hard day had brought its share of work to Maurice. There were drugs to be moved, kids to be fed and men to be picked up. This man who lay before Maurice was a coincidence, just like the unexpected gift of life, his death was a left-field profit. It was his intention to take this man. Killing this man and licking his blood was just the end. Finding him was another matter. Perhaps this man had a wife and children. Perhaps he helped the little ghetto kids of East Harlem get involved in sports. Maybe he was a saint. But to Maurice, he was the next number in his taxi. He was a found cadaver derivative, to be used and discarded as quickly as possible. He was a commodity. He had been used to its full potential. He could have been a pirate’s slave. But there was no interest. There was the party at the East Harlem Hall this weekend. Lots of B-Boys and B-Girls would be breaking dancing to whatever the DJ was sweating out. The car needed to be fixed. And had someone fed the cat? Yes the thoughts kept on coming… until they stopped.

Cool water smothered hands, then soap and a towel. A profitable day had been had.

“All’s well that end’s well,” said Maurice in to the mirror. In the reflection he noticed the heart, and the mirror throbbed. He shook his head. “All’s well.”

Misconceptions Part 4

The guitar played a repetitive riff. It sounded like a broken man on his knees. But Jason was awake on a derelict couch that smelled liked mouldy cheese.

“He ain’t worth shit. I don’t need a white boy. I’ll take the Rolex, the Armani suit and… meh… okay, I’ll even grab the cubic zirconium. But the body you can keep. He can’t work. He soft.”

The man’s voice was deep and gravely tone of African, and sounded like rain on a window pane. It gave the cool and moist air a bite. Jason, unable to grab his bearings, had no idea why he seemed to be sharing a cab. The subject of the discussion was gruesome. And there was a faint scent of scumbaggary in the air. Jason didn't think much of it. This was New York.

“But he’s got organs. Body parts. Things people need on their death bed. Never undervalue what people need the most,” said another voice, this one like the slime you find at the bottom of a toxic barrel.

“I’ll consider it. But the market is flooded with lungs and corneas. You can’t simply flood the market with organs no matter how good their conditions. His heart had better be something. It had better be. But I gots my doubt, naw wa I mean?”

“Yeah, a vrai rico boy.”

“Hey, heard the gov want to make medicare free or some shit. Heard that Obama wanna get that done for da’ people. Some silly Main St. vs. Wall St. mumbo jumbo. That would kill us, homes. Absolutely destroy us. Someone has got to kill that motherfucker.”

Jason heard the conversation and couldn’t have agreed more. Feeling loose, but unable to open his eyes, he murmured a point of view he'd read in the Wall St. Journal:

“Yes, Obama is a commie and he will kill this country. We need a Republican to keep our country going forward: Someone who loves the American dream.”

“Man, I thought you shut him for good,” said the rain voice.

Jason soon felt the sticky texture of duct tape, heard sickly laughter and then the immediate thud of a hammer sticking his temple.

“Hey Maurice, you find that ring attractive?” asked the man with the rainy voice.

Maurice, the man with the slimey voice, had always wanted to have a little more than he had. The former small shop owner and cab driver was rarely satisfied. Yes, having a little more than the next guy in East Harlem was nice but it left him still feeling utterly worthless. He could feel his neighbourhood fall upon his shoulders each day and the load was always heavy. He wanted out. So, he had moved in to human trafficking. It mostly dealt in women, picked up in his taxi and dragged off to this dank warehouse in the middle of East Harlem where they were bid on. Sometimes he would drag men off. These weren’t as valuable. There was only one buyer for men: Pirates – African pirates. Maurice didn’t know how, but somehow these rogues of the sea entered the New York harbour without being noticed. And when they arrived they wanted men to work and whatever else.

“Sure. But you gonna take him or not?”

“What do you mean by ‘take him’?” the man with the rainy voice asked.

“What the fuck you think I mean? I will not own this man by midnight. That you can be sure of,” Maurice said, tiring of this conversation.

The pirate shook his head and began stripping him of his clothes. He pulled out a bowing knife and kissed the tip. The notion was clear. The organs were what he wanted. And he could have them… for a price.

“I’ll do the work myself, Maurice. So it don’t cost what it normally does,” explained the pirate.

“You sure you don’t want to take him and have him work? He seems like he’s gots some grey matter. Perhaps you wanna rethink this a bit.”

The pirate smiled and moved forward with his knife leading the way. His movement was sudden enough that it took Maurice a few nano-seconds to catch up. But he eventually placed his hand on the pirates chest in order to stop him. Maurice could feel that the pirate’s heart was racing. He was unprepared to cut this man’s body parts loose and dump the rest of what was unneeded. The pirate was going to do this, perhaps to save a buck. This would not do. Mutilating this man was one thing, but to make a hash of it would be bad business and Maurice would not deal with a lost product on his hands.

“No, I’ll carve. Each organ is $20,000, but for the heart which is $100,000.”

The pirate complained that this was highway robbery, which made both men laugh a little. The pirate passed on the heart, but took the rest of the treasure with him.

Jason Phillips, a 36-year old stock trader had never been worth more.

Misconceptions Part 3

Racing through the city, a city block a nano-second, the faces degraded from supreme Yankee nobility to pathetic immigrant beggary. That’s what goes on as you head north in Manhattan: you can literally go rag to riches in a taxi cab.

The cab came to a screeching halt at the corner of Park Ave and 110th St. Jason looked outside and felt that there really wasn’t much to do. East Harlem, the decedents of refugees from Hispaniola, Puerto Ricans and Haitians stocking the streets speaking their New Yorker Franco-Latin, were for whatever reason giving Jason the ‘eye’. He kept to himself and knocked on the plastic window that divided him and the cabbie.

“Let’s go, it’s green.”

The cab took its sweet time, crawling through neighbourhood.

Jason looked out the window, his heart racing. His face was fixated on this alien culture. He couldn’t focus. His eyes were heavy. They were struggling to stay open. He surmised that the trading day had taken more from him than he’d thought. He surmised that he would need that rye and ginger as quick as he could get his hands on it.

The cab stopped again.

Jason began thinking that there wasn’t much to do other than talk.

“It’s really all the same. We are all struggling,” Jason said to the cabbie, who seemed to not notice he was being spoken to.

“Look at that guy – the one in the puffy yellow winter coat,” Jason pointed out in drowsy tones. The cabbie looked to his right. “Yes, the crack dealer slanging cat’s pee to the lost and destroyed. I should hate him. I should think he’s destroying America. But how could he be doing that? It’s all quite a shame. If he hadn’t grown up in this neighbourhood with those parents and this preconceived attitude about him, he damn well would have been a fine trader on the stock exchange floor. But the man is a product of his environment and a product has to be moved before it can be worth anything. The longer he sits on this neighbourhood shelf, the longer he’ll keep on collecting money by spreading dust.”

The cab began rolling again and Jason was happy with this thought. That crack dealer was able to cultivate what you could whenever you could. Perhaps drug trafficking was capitalism’s dirty secret, but the drugs would be there without money. They didn’t ban vodka in Communist Russia even if it were harder to come by. But if you couldn’t eradicate the need for vice, you couldn’t eradicate the want to deal.

Jason’s eyes become even heavier. The cab was going even slower. Jason intended to insist on the cab picking up speed, but he could feel his cheeks fill up with cotton balls. He found it agreeable that he should gain some shut eye before the cab arrived at Merci Diner.

His final thought before he took his nap: upon arrival I’ll make sure this cabbie gets full value -- $60.

Misconception Part 2

The taxi cab pulled over the curb on 34th.The windows at Frugal Feliz were dimmed, just like they always were. It was always hard to see what level of activity happened to be taking part inside. So Jason checked his watch. It was 6:30 pm. Just before the dinner rush, he was sure. He handed the cabbie an extra $20.

“With speed like that, my boy, you could be a winner on the trading floor,” he said.

But it wasn’t right. The restaurant was packed. Face after face illuminated the rather dark restaurant and the smiling waiters were scurrying like rats in a cat chase. It was 6:30 pm, but it was still not soon enough.

Jason immediately ran outside to fetch both the cab and his $20, but they were both lost to the New York evening. Upset, Jason called another cab and one immediately found him – an unusual circumstance for even the whitest of men.

“Battery Park Diner, now,” Jason barked.

The taxi sped off, just like the last one. But it kept picking up speed and was soon slicing through the vegetative traffic like a fine knife. Jason screamed “SLOW DOWN!” but the cab driver refused to heed his call and simply kept going and going, the speedometer likely about to burst. “WATCH OUT!” The cab driver peeked back, his green eyes vacant and his mouth fronting a crooked smile. “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” The car made a quick left and narrowly avoided a young man selling cheap knock offs to tourists on Canal St. It then made a left on Broadway and was at Battery Park in a lightyear.

“Holy shit, what the fuck do you think you were doing? Did you fail the driver’s exam? Is this even a real cab?

The cab driver, a short man with a weathered brown face and those green eyes, simply looked forward, refusing to look Jason in the eyes. Fed up with awaiting a response, Jason looked at the sky, which had become a malevolent rich shade of plum and shook his head. He then smiled.

“Alright, do that again, but this time get me to Merci Diner just after it opens at 7:30 pm. There is $40 in it for you if I arrive in on piece at that time.”

The chariot was off.

Misconceptions Part 1

“Alls well that begins well,” shouted Mark as the stock exchange bell rang over the trading floor… then the inevitable screaming.

“Trade – Trade – TRADE!” bellowed Mark just as the rush of lookers and losers gathered towards the man.

It was September 28th and the world was doing well, and even better was the New York Stock Exchange, the last bastion of old world capitalism.

Jason Phillips looked on the floor and laughed a little. It was so right. All this activity, all this trading, all this money and all of the world at their disposal.

He opened his hand a let a stock slip right out. It was another failing junior mining stocks slip for a proposed mine that wasn’t going to gain traction. The U.S. Environmental Department wasn’t about to give the mine it’s blessing given that it would once again lead to a political quagmire involving environmentalists, residents, competing mining players and politicians whose wheels needed to be greased. And the discovery wasn’t much to talk about anyhow; just another small coal deposit in the Appalachians that might cost more to develop than the profits it would produce. At least that was the scuttlebutt on the trade floor. And while Jason didn’t put a lot of investment in rumours on the floor, he knew enough about the project that at 48 cents per share, it had hit its peak. Trading activity was low on it and no one was going to buy in. Jason sold the stock for 28 cents, just to get ride of it.

“Hey thanks Jason,” said Mark, who happened to be the purchaser.

The final bell rang to end the trading day.

“Absolutely,” Jason responded joylessly before he threw out his hand for a shake.

“Hey, rumours are flying around right now that the banks are about to fail in a major way. There are big meetings down the street and someone said you could hear the CEO of AIG screaming out his window,” Mark informed Jason.

Jason looked at his watch and asked if there was anyway to get to Frugal Feliz on 34th before the real dinner rush hit.

“This could be bad, Jason. If these banks fail – and they might – we could be looking at catastrophic turmoil of the likes we haven’t seen since… well we haven’t seen it; not at least in our time here at the exchange.”

Jason laughed and shook Mark’s hand. He said there wasn’t much to be done if it were true, which he highly doubted.

“Hey look at this,” he said wryly, throwing his Blackberry in front of Mark’s face.

“Ugh, what is that?”

“Two girls and a cup. Now aren’t you glad you know me?”

It had been a successful two weeks for Jason. He had made play after play with exceptional speed and precise moves: coffee beans prices are about to go down? Sionara before anyone’s awoken. Harder gas emission controls and greater bureaucracy surrounding purchasing a truck? That means truck prices would level off. See ya! Big baby diapers going out of business? Give me some of that Proctor and Gamble stock. And so on.

When Jason wanted to sell, he sold and not only sold but sold well. As a floor trader, you had to be exceptionally coordinated with the people in the trading office down Wall St. Like a good wide receiver, you had to be able to read the trade calls, make the adjustments mid stream and then either catch or release whatever was coming your way.

“What a fucking week, Mark. Made some good money. Bonus city here I come.”

Mark’s face scrunched, as if the bitter pill he swallowed contained a monkey’s anus.

“Yeah, well fuck you Jason. I’ve heard some of those coffee bean plantation owners were none too happy with the stock sell off. They are saying guys like you made their crops worthless. I’ve even heard that they are here in the city and will march on Wall St. on Monday.”

“So, Frugal Feliz or no?”

“I’ll meet you there, Jason. But you’re paying…”

The conversations on the trading floor had themselves worn out. It was Friday and the weekend – the City that Never Sleeps weekend – was about to begin.

Mark’s comments had impacted Jason more than he’d have suspected. At times, he’d thought about the effect his trading activity had on those who relied on strong prices to make a living in far flung places where the actions of Wall St. were as familiar as a conquistador to a Mayan. The more he’d thought about it, the more the sensation grew in his heart. It pulsated through his chest and he walked out of the stock exchange looking like a proud general. He had never felt more powerful.

“Where to?” the Cab driver asked.

“Frugal Feliz. And if you get me there before the dinner rush, there’s an extra $20 in it for ya, my boy.”

The taxi sped towards the causeway.

Yes, thought Jason, never more powerful.

Misconceptions

PROLOGUE TO A SHORT STORY:

The elderly man pulled out his iPhone. He shook it a little and smiled at the young man sitting beside him.

“You ever see the horrors of capitalism?” the elderly man asked.

“Well, of course. We know what just happened on Wall St. Too Big to Fail,” said the young man fixing his green army jacket. “It’s just so... immoral. I’d like to start a revolution and return the world to the people.”

“You fight in a battle?” asked the elderly man earnestly.

“No, not as such. I guess you could say my English lit studies are a bit of a battle for a decent grade. And lord knows my arguments with my group for my Collective Creative Writing class is an ongoing war,” said the young man, still trying to make is jacket fit right.

“So no war, eh?”

The elderly man began pushing away on his iPhone, pulling up a recent video he enjoyed. He said that the world was a good deal colder than it was when he was in university. He blamed it on money. The real monsters of the world had always been those who wanted to possess.

The young man approved and added that you could tell, “The corporate world is full of possession obsesses. Fucking Wall St.”

“Wall St. you say,” the elderly man said, placing his iPhone back in to his pocket, “that reminds me of a story.”

“Tell it my friend,” encouraged the young man…