Selling

Selling




That morning the lane was wet and misty, as it often is in late September when warm moist air blows up from the south. The sun was behind a veil but barely, a slight thickening of the light behind the overcast. It was nine thirty, the usual time Tom began his rounds when the householders were off to work and the traffic in the lane reduced to the odd car.

Some lanes were more productive than others. Ones with heavy beer drinkers, too moneyed or lazy to return empties, were the best but the one he was pedaling along now had three houses which left aluminum cans in a cardboard box beside the garages for him to pick up. That morning all the boxes were filled to the top and he dumped them into the trailer bin thinking kindly of his benefactors. After covering a dozen more lanes, picking up the odd thing here and there, the trailer was full and he started on the long pedal home.

Home was a basement apartment on the riverbank. The building was ramshackle, cracks in the brick walls hastily filled with mortar mix, gutters hanging, flakes peeling from the front door, the last of a long ago coat of varnish. His apartment was in the basement at the back, a spot where the noise of drinkers and fighters was heard as rumblings far off in another county. Granted the natural light left something to be desired but then he had day glow fluorescents in his workroom. Rescued from the lanes they hung over a counter running the length of the wall in the second bedroom where he did his painting. On Friday and Saturday nights, when the crazies were at the height of their frenzies, he secured the door with three steel bars, turned on the fluorescents and painted happily late into the night with shouts, threats, screaming, running up and down the stairs and occasional gunshot as the background music.

There was a message on the computer from his brother Edward. Tom clicked on chat.

‘What’s up?’

“Small amounts of gleeful joy,” replied Edward.

“Jesus, are you using again?”

“No way. But I did have three cups of coffee and a donut.”

“Using of a kind.”

“Yes, but everybody does it so they don’t call it using. They call it normal.”

“Hmmmm.”

“I think I have a customer for you, Tom.”

“Who?”

“A retired drug dealer.”

“Are you sure he is retired?”

“Well, semi retired anyway. He lives in a big house on the river about two kilometers from you. His place is quite a spread, acres of lawn, sprawling ranch house, tennis courts, basketball court and a soccer field. He used to be a jock but now his knees are gone. I sent him the file you gave me and he likes the images. He says he would like to meet you. Wants you to bring the originals so he can have a good look.”

“Did you mention price?”

“Of course. Five hundred, right?”

“Right, but less for the less well to do and even less if desperate for rent money. Did he really sound interested?”

“Really interested. I don’t know anything about painting, as you know, but he seemed to be knowledgeable.”

“And how did you come to that conclusion?”

“He talked fancy, a lot of big words. Anyway, I hope you don’t mind but he was so interested I thought I better set up an appointment. Tuesday at five in the afternoon. Hope that’s OK.”

“That’s OK. Do you want to come?”

“Yes, seeing as I am a sort of agent, at least in this case.”

“Bang on the window at four?”

‘Right on.’



They rode their bikes, paintings wrapped and lashed onto Tom’s trailer. It was a lot farther than Edward’s ‘two kilometers’. The last part of the journey was along the river path. The place was obvious for the basketball court and soccer field fronted on the river behind a tall chain link fence. There was a gate and a guard in the far corner, the guard sitting in a lawn chair reading the newspaper. When they approached he got up and gave them an inquiring look.

“We have an appointment with Mr. Clusky for five o’clock,” said Edward.

“And you are?” asked the guard.

“Edward and Tom Mills,” said Edward.

“Just a minute,” said the guard. He turned his back on them and walked fifty feet away taking a cell phone out his pocket on the way. After a short conversation the guard came back and unlocked the gate.

“Follow the path. It leads to a door at the back of the house. Mr, Clusky will be there to meet you. Now, put you hands up on the fence so I can frisk you. Mr. Clusky says he’s sorry but precautions must be taken. He says many of those who did not take them are no longer with us.”

“Very true,” said Edward.

After the frisking they walked the bikes along the path. First it went between the soccer field and the basketball court. Then it wound through a beech wood, emptying into a flower garden bordering the back of the house. True to his word, Mr. Clusky was waiting at the back door, or, to be more exact, one of the back doors. He was smiling.

He was a big man. “John Clusky,” he said reaching out a hand the size of a catcher’s mitt. First Edward and then Tom shook it, their own hands disappearing entirely into that great muscled paw. “His knees may be shot,” thought Tom, “but his hands are still in good shape.” Clusky was a little under fifty with graying hair and the kind of suntanned face you only get by spending much of the day outdoors.

Clusky led them into the house. They stepped into a sunroom filled with potted flowers, heavy with their scents and as humid as the entryway to a public pool. In the far corner of the room was a sitting area with table and chairs and a counter with sink, fridge and stove. Neither Edward nor Tom wanted a drink and neither did John Clusky, so Clusky boiled water for tea and they sat at the table. Tom put the paintings on the end of the counter nearest the table.

Tom and Edward drank tea while Clusky took the paintings over to a window and looked at them. He held them up to the light coming in the window. Then he put them on a small table and stepped back to look at them again. Tom and Edward were on their third cup of tea when he came back to the sitting area. He placed three of the paintings on the counter and put the rewrapped remaining seven on the table. Then he sat on his chair.

“I’d like to buy those three,” he said jerking a thumb at the counter.

“Which ones are they,” asked Tom.

“ ‘Sad Morning’, ‘Easter Holidays’ and ‘Almost Gone’.”

“You have taste,” said Tom, “they are the three I would have chosen myself.”

“Well, I have always had an interest in paintings and images. I think I might have become a painter myself if I didn’t like money so much. In the library is a collection of prints of the Old Masters and the moderns as well. You paint like a modernist, unusual for around here. Mostly its flat realism, tractors, animals, old barns, nostalgia. I used to have quite a collection of that sort of thing when I was younger but it was like living in a grave yard having that stuff on the walls. I sold it all at auction ten years ago replacing it with pieces from New York and prints too  - Klee, Miro, Dali, people like that. Your brother said five hundred a piece but I want you to accept a thousand each. Is that OK?”

“It’s alright with me,” said Tom.

“Fine then,” said Clusky and he reached into his pocket, pulled out a roll of hundred dollar bills, peeled off thirty and lay them on the table in front of Tom.

“Count them,” Clusky said. Tom counted them.

“Right on,” said Tom.

“Good. If I see you to the door can you find your way back to the gate? I have people upstairs I have to get back to or we could spend more time together. The next time I’ll make sure I’m free and we can talk. I’ll phone you.”

“ Fine,” said Edward. Clusky walked them to the door and they followed the path to the gate where the guard smiled and let them out onto the river path.



Edward and Tom came in the back, bringing the bicycles with them and leaving them in the hall inside the door. Tom put the cash on the kitchen table.

“Three thou,” said Edward. “Not bad for a day’s work.”

“Hmmm,” said Tom.

 “So, what’s wrong? You don’t like money all of a sudden?”

“I have lots of things I can use the money for including paying off debts. But still, I can’t help think that this money is a little dirty.”

“Dirty?”

“Dirty.”

“Drugs you mean.”

“Yep.”

“All money is dirty,” Edward said. “If it’s not drugs then it’s some guy underpaying his workers or building substandard buildings to crank up the profit or whatever. It’s all dirty. The world is dirty. Get over it.”

“I think I’ll give some of it away to charity. Maybe that will help clean it up.”

“Some?” asked Edward. “How much?”

“Half maybe.”

“Fifteen hundred dollars?”

“Well, that’s half.”

“A quarter would probably do.”

“I read somewhere that in a situation like this people give half.”

“Well to do people maybe but not church mice like ourselves. After all we have to eat; we have to pay the rent. If you consider our situation – you being a penniless artist and me being a penniless bum -  I would say forty percent at the most.”

“OK, forty percent then.”

“At the most I said.”

“OK, then what’s below the most?”

“Let’s say twenty-seven percent.”

“How about thirty-seven?”

“Let’s settle at thirty-three then. It will make the math easier.”

Edward extended his hand across the table and Tom shook it.


Tom counted out one thousand dollars and put it in his wallet. Then he counted out five hundred and handed it to Edward.

“The thousand shouldn’t be considered in the ten percent, “ said Edward. “You are giving it away, remember?”

“Yeah but I decided to do that, not you, so why should you suffer? Take it please. It still leaves me fifteen hundred which is lots.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. And to include you in the blood money I’m raising your percentage so that means you gave some money too.”

“Well that just about covers all the bases.”

“Exactly,” said Tom.



The next morning Tom went to the charity office to hand in the money. There was a young woman at the desk and she looked at him suspiciously and who could blame her? Tom looked like a person who should be receiving charity rather than giving it. His jeans were worn and soiled. The neck of his T shirt sagged to the middle of his chest. His ball cap was so ancient and grimy it shone with a patina all its own. He hadn’t shaved for three days and his hair was uncombed. But he was well spoken and handed her a thousand dollars cash so she asked him to wait a moment and took the bills in to be examined by the accountant. She came back a few minutes later, the accountant following behind.

The accountant, a rat faced man with a ginger beard, glared across the counter at Tom. He had the bills in his hand and shook them at Tom. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself,” he said.

Tom needed no more than that. With the quickness of a striking cobra he leaned over the counter, snatched the bills from the accountant’s hand and ran out the door. They ran after but were no match for Tom. Tom was over fifty but lean and well muscled while they were fat layered and office bred. He was turning his third corner as they were coming up to their first.

At the apartment he washed, shaved, put on clean, presentable clothes and replaced his ball cap with a barret. He put all the money in a secret place and walked over to Edward’s. He was still asleep, thank goodness, otherwise he would already have gone to the bank. Edward got out of bed and let him in. Tom explained the situation.

“That’s low,” said Edward.

“Very low,” said Tom.

 “I thought gangsters had a tradition about that,” said Edward. “When they are dealing with civilians they deal honestly, even generously.”

“That’s what I thought too,” said Tom.

“Well,” said Edward, “I suppose it’s true ninety-nine percent of the time and we happened to get the one percent.”

“Yeah.”

“Good thing you were able to snatch it back from the accountant or things would have been much worse.”

“I just thought of something,” said Tom.

“What?” asked Edward.

“The office probably had a camera.”

“O my God!” said Edward.

“But then I wouldn’t worry about that when I come to think about it. It’s probably a grainy old thing and the cops have better things to do than setting up an operation to catch an old codger trying to pass a few hundred in counterfeit bills. It will end up at the bottom of the worksheets and no one will ever get to it. But still we should get rid of the stuff right now. You never know.”


They walked to Tom’s, retrieved the money from his secret place and made their way down to the riverbank. The traveled the path until they came to a group of cottonwoods hanging out over the stream. Here they climbed down through the trunks onto a narrow shelf on the bank and built a small fire of twigs. They laid the bills onto the fire one by one, somewhat reluctantly. When they were charred they stirred them with a stick and added more twigs. When everything was white ash they stirred it again and then buried it with a layer of mud they scraped from the shelf wall.

They climbed up the bank and walked the six blocks to the soup kitchen. It was midmorning so there were only a few people sprinkled about in the large dining room. Turkey soup and a corn beef sandwich, a cup of tea and two lemon cookies for dessert. They sat at a table overlooking the side yard of the church where the children from the daycare were chasing one another about, above everything a blue, fall sky. When they had eaten everything and only the tea was left, they leaned back as best they could on the folding chairs provided, sipped their tea and looked out the window. After some time of silently, companionably contemplating the scene before them, Tom said,

“I suppose he’s happy with his big house and money stashed away in offshore accounts.”

“And let’s not forget the stashes of cash, huge wads of it and real cash too, not like the funny money he gave us,” said Edward.
“But then, of course,” said Tom, “he no doubt worries someone will come to take it away from him.”

”And in the world he lives in, someone taking it away from you means they shoot you dead,” said Edward.

“True,” said Tom. “But then we all die sometime, anyway, Edward.”

“Yes,” said Edward, “ but some die sooner than others and since they worry about it all the time, thinking of the others they knew who were killed that way, then they die perhaps hundreds of times before they actually, really die, startling awake in the middle of the night, that sort of thing.”

“Maybe, but Clusky didn’t seem to me to be the type who would startle awake in the middle of the night. I would guess he sleeps a solid eight hours.”

“But to do such a rotten thing, wouldn’t that bother you?”

“Well, it would bother me but maybe for him it makes him happy. Maybe doing things like that for him is a dark joy, a kind of weird pleasure.”

By now the tea was cold and they got up, walked to the long counter, poured the dregs into the sink and placed the mugs in the rack. They said goodbye to the cook who was making soup for supper and walked out into the bright sunshine.