Work Comes at Night
By Moses Levi
Not all stories have a villain. This one doesn’t.
Not all villains tell their story. This one
won’t.
Mikey Hugh stepped out of the hotel entrance onto a busy street, the daylight shocking his eyes. It was mid-morning, and the city was already well into its activity.
He adjusted the rim of his grey trilby to shade his eyes and dug around in his breast pocket for his Arnel shades. Finding his pack of Luckies instead, he pulled one out, squinting into the street traffic and passersby around him as he fumbled for his lighter. A spark and puff of smoke later, he stepped off the Hotel stoop and out onto the sidewalk.
He tried the other breast pocket, and found both his wallet and his glasses. He left the wallet where it was, and slipped on the olive shades. “Better”, he thought.
He walked past the Chinese grocer on the corner, waved at the old man stacking a box of fruit onto his produce display at the frontage of his little store, smiling. The old man smiled and nodded back in his direction, then turned his eyes back onto his work. Mikey nicked an apple from the table the second the old man looked away, and once out of earshot, took a deep, satisfying bite. Crossing the street, he noted a new kid working at the magazine stand. Dark skinned, early twenties, late teens, big smile, short hair, white shirt and tie. Good looking kid. Peurto Rican, maybe? He made a mental note to swing by later and ask the stand’s owner Chalkey about the kid. Chalkey was well into his sixties, no nonsense, keen eye, great source of gossip. Kept a fakey 1911 pellet pistol on hand for the neighborhood urchins, who were often caught swiping comic books and tittie mags. A dent or two in their little backsides was more than enough to keep them from trying a second time. The beat cops on the streets knew better than to bother him about it. The Rican kid? Not as likely to get off with a warning for waving around a fakey pistol. No way.
Tossing the apple core into a trash can, he crossed the street, and took a seat outside a small French style café. A young waiter brings Mikey a mug of coffee, asking if he needs a paper. Mikey nods, slips a few coins to the kid, and notes that he’s sporting the earliest hint of a bruise around his left eye, and glances at the dull red marks on his knuckles. “You been keeping outta trouble, Jones?” The waiter, turned away quickly to fetch Mickey his paper, mumbling, “Y’sr”. Mikey smirked. When the kid returned, Mikey took a closer look, “None of my business, kid. Gotta ask, though, what’s with the face? You doing okay?” The waiter looked at his shoes, and mumbled quietly, “Everything’s okay, Mr. Hugh. It’ll be okay, I mean. Nothing worth making news about.” Morning coffee on sunny days had been a part of Mikey’s routine since he’d moved to this neighborhood nearly a decade ago. He found that it satisfied the need to keep a public persona, but couldn’t help but be drawn into the day to day goings on around him. “You still studying, Jones?” Mikey knew the waiter was putting himself through night school, grinding out a bush league degree on his own dime. “Y’sir, Mr. Hugh. Three nights a week.” “Good, kid. You’re making us all proud of you. Got it?” Jones looked up and smiled. That eye was gonna become a shiner before too long.
Shortly after taking his first sip, Mikey was joined by a massive, gruff looking man in a tailored black pinstriped suit, his thick black tie tied too tightly around his twenty three inch starched collar, a worn black trilby, and immaculate spit polished black shoes. Mismatched argyle socks. Mikey didn’t look up from his paper until his companion was served. The big man’s voice was louder than it needed to be, as if he were announcing his order to the diner across the street.
Once served, he struggled for a few moments with the tiny sugar packets, certainly not made for men with kolbassa sized fingers in mind. Mikey continued to respectfully ignore him, glancing over the headlines and obituaries before taking a good look at the classifieds, and seeing nothing interesting, folding the paper and layed it down on the table between them. “Heya, Mikey.” The big guy announced. His voice carried. He removed his hat, then slurped down half of his coffee in one loud mouthful. “Hey, there, Manson. Good to see you. You look (he paused, taking a sip of his own coffee) happy.” Manson grinned, slurping back the last half of his coffee in another loud mouthful as he did. Mikey reached for his cigarettes, lighting one smoothly without taking his eyes off of his companion. A tear trickled its way down Manson’s cheek.
Only a few weeks earlier, Mikey had found Manson sopping drunk, sitting on the curb outside the Mary Kelly Pub, head in hands, sobbing like a fool. It was around 12:45AM. An hour and a half until the pub closed up. Nightclubs and dance halls generally closed much earlier than common watering holes. Some old timey places stayed open until 5AM.
…………………………………
Manson was a nightclub doorman. He looked the part. Not that he was a gentle giant – he was a behemoth. No one in their right mind would square up against him. Except Siobhan.
When Manson first met Siobhan, she was a party girl at the club he was employed by. He was paid muscle, a doorman and bouncer, but his main job was standing around looking ugly and intimidating. And he did that job well. Siobhan was paid to fill her dance card and keep the patrons entertained, liquored up, and spending their stacks like the high steppers they pretended to be. Her job was also a form of intimidation, far more intimate than Manson’s work, and often far more dangerous. Most of the men she was paid to entertain were harmless -- married men blowing a wad -- trying to recapture the madness of their glory days. Or just their glory days. Or what they imagined glory days could have been like, since most of them were too busy being caught up in academia or the fields of war to have ever had the kinds of glory days they were acting. Most were wealthy professionals from families of means, well off and making excuses. For most, their wives and kids were asleep out in the suburbs, somewhere. Siobhan was more than capable of tickling the fantasies of hard-up men who were living out their mid-life crises without having to tickle anything else. She was street smart, clever and sassy. She had no problem playing the available coquette, in spite of the endless advances of her handsy suiters.
Sure, some of the girls made a few extra bucks on the side, entertaining after hours. It was allowed. But that wasn’t her gig. She was taking care of family, and paying her own way through school. She had goals, and she had a mind of her own. She was a good girl. Everyone who knew her well enough to have an honest word or two were well aware of her ambition, and her dedication. She wasn’t a dreamer, she was a doer, and sharper than a double-edged Wilkinson. Fact is, everyone who knew her fell in love with her. She wasn’t the typical ditzy good time girl. She had looks, talent, conviction, and the smarts to back it all up. It’s no wonder Manson was four on the floor.
The second their eyes met, her first night on the floor, Manson was immediately smitten. His bicep was the width of her waist. She stood nearly as high as his elbows with heels on. His was a lost cause. Big bull of a man that he was, she scared the hell out of him. When he caught her looking his way, he turned into mush. He couldn’t put two words together when he knew that she was nearby. She inspired poetry, but he couldn’t utter a single phrase. Stutter and stammer as he might, he couldn’t bring himself to utter a single word in her presence. She made him feel and sound like the gorilla that he looked like. After weeks of dueling glances, his tongue-tied blushing face threatening to burst his soul wide open. His heart ached.
Then, following weeks of intense silence, Manson found himself standing face to face with Siobhan.
It was the end of a long and brutal Saturday night, the patrons had all been poured into their rides, and as soon as the doors were locked, they could be found crawling around on their hands and knees under the tables and chairs scrounging for treasure before sweeping and mopping up. It was a long-standing tradition that any staff who helped close up were allowed to keep anything they found, no questions asked. Cigarettes, reefer, hats, purses, jackets, lighters, keys, jewelry, money, wallets, business cards, and as often as not, little baggies of powder. Once they had finished sweeping and mopping up, polishing the tables and scrubbing the toilets, those who owned cars would drive the others home, usually charging a buck or two for gas. Most often, the party girls would stick around late, sipping on drinks and smoking cigarettes, relaxing with their sore feet up on chairs.
The staff started to file out in small groups, having negotiated who was driving people home. It was just past midnight, the full moon was high in the night sky, and Manson was the last to file out the door, the keys jangling in his gigantic mitt.
He closed the door and locked the deadbolt, and tested it to make sure that it was shut tight. He turned around, expecting to be standing there amongst a handful of remaining stragglers, like most nights. Siobhan was standing several feet from the door, smoking a cigarette, and silently watching him. He stopped cold, looking down at her tiny, freckled face. She smiled. Their eyes remained locked on to each other for what seemed like the longest moment of his life. Then, without thinking, he found his voice, “Siobhan, I …”
Too late, it would seem, as his words stalled in his mouth as she was led away towards Shaun O’Grady’s waiting sedan. The goon who led her away muttered at him, “Off limits, Big Boy.” She glanced back at him as she climbed into the vehicle.
It was later that night when Mikey found Manson crumbled in a heap out front of Mary Kelly’s. Mikey had no idea the sort of trouble that Manson’s broken heart was about to dump on his doorstep.
…………………………………………….
Though they were familiar with each other in passing, Mikey and Manson were not formally acquainted. Mikey had worked for Manson’s employer, Sean O’Grady, taking care of more than a few sticky situations for him, over the years. Nothing that could be shared in a letter home – even though every single one of his commissions for Mr. O’Grady somehow found media attention. And lots of it. Mikey figured that every story wants to be heard, which was fine, so long as his involvement remained undisclosed. He supposed that often it was the silences between words which were the loudest. Mikey was usually grateful that the attention span of the news was short, and that yesterday’s headlines tended to become warehouses filled with unexplained cold cases.
Shaun O’Grady, on the other hand, reveled in the notorious reputation which had grown around him over the years. It was a thing of whispered speculation, gossip and rumor cluttered with controversy, hearsay, and trash talk. Shaun was a clean player, for the most part. At least as far as Johnny Lawman was concerned. Certainly, he entertained some folk who were “allegedly” involved in the kinds of activities no one who knows anything about dare disclose for certain. But he figured that the list of big wigs and ne’er-do-wells he was associated with also included music and film celebs, political climbers, business tycoons and the who’s who of the society pages – the kinds of people whose dealings were likely far more questionable than the company that he kept behind closed doors. Besides, he believed that his job was to keep people entertained. He was a man of the people. O’Grady was, after all, a proper businessman[1]. He didn’t cause problems, and did whatever he had to do to keep everyone smiling and having a good time.
[1] The most recent mess which Mikey had been tasked with cleaning up involved a missing shipment of “100% Organic Juan Valdez Premium”, which had disappeared from inside the Customs and Border Protections Agency’s holding yard before the Contraband Enforcement Team were able to unseal the shipping container and search its contents. Whatever had been inside the big metal shipping box though, simply, and impossibly vanished! The fiasco made the news, and triggered a massive internal government audit of processes, policies, and personnel, many of whom were unceremoniously shuffled out of the pack. The shipping company’s insurer was on the hook, owing a small fortune to O’Grady’s Import company, which they held out on for as long as they legally could, before cutting the cheque. What happened to the thousands of missing bags of coffee beans? No one in the know has let details slip. But I for one suspect that Mikey’s team of sanitation engineers and janitorial staff gave the term “black bag operation” a whole new meaning.
Manson
prided himself on putting names to faces. He placed Mikey right away, even when
he was seen through blurry, tear filled eyes. He also prided himself on being
able to maintain a blank expression when he recognized people who would prefer
not to be recognized, which, in this situation, was virtually impossible to
manage. It’s easier when no one wants to look into the eyes of a man larger
than a school bus. His job was to keep the nightclub from becoming a latrine.
His job was not to place this face from that for coppers. Manson was jaded, and
for good reason. He was hauled in regularly, due mainly to the source of his
employment. Mr. O’Grady had been good to him, for a very long time. He never
called on him to get involved in situations that were better off left alone. He
was not involved in Mr. O’s business dealings outside of ordinary club goings
on and such, and his boss kindly kept mum. Manson was paid well, treated with
respect, and given more than enough credit for being more than a monster. His
smarts were considered. O’Grady gave him real responsibilities. He appreciated
that. He was even provided the services of a tailor who fit him for a new
outfit every few weeks, courtesy of the club. When he needed money for his mother’s
funeral, his employer kindly covered it, no questions, no strings, and anonymously
gifted bouquets of pink and white roses filled the funeral home.
……………………………
Mikey roused Manson from the curb, handed him a handkerchief to clean himself up with, and suggested a wander around the block to get his head on straight. The wander turned into a long walk around the neighborhood, while Manson revealed his vulnerability to a complete stranger. As night gave way to dawn, Manson had told Mikey his story, inside and out. He was ashamed. He was humbled. At one point, he sighed and revealed that at thirty two years of age, he was still a virgin, having promised his late mother that he would wait for someone she would have approved of. And when he found himself whelmed by Siobhan, he could only add further shame by not being able to approach her. Worse, she was now completely out of his reach. She was his Boss’s girl. His loyalty to the man who fed him, clothed him, treated him with respect and generosity had become a source of frustration. Manson revealed that, for the first time in his life, he was crippled with jealousy and hatred towards a man he believed was his benefactor, for the man that he revered and looked up to, in spite of whatever goings on were most likely going on. Manson was having a dilemma of character. And Mikey saw a man that had revealed everything about himself, an intelligent, spiritual, moral, and decent person, whose desire to be loved was matched only by his fear of the same. He was a good man. A truly good man. Incorruptible, even when facing the brutal reality that the people around him were not the vessels of goodness that he pretended them to be – his gangster boss using his wealth and position of power to tempt away the pretty little “spinner” he’d infatuated himself with, imagining her virtue tempted, her glimmer defiled. And he blamed himself for letting it happen, as if he had any say in the matter. Mikey found himself incomprehensibly empathetic to this simple minded, kind hearted, good natured, gigantic, sucker. Mikey pitied the irony, though he would never reveal that fact to anyone, ever. Especially to Manson. He kept it to himself, while Manson revealed himself. Mikey understood all too well the most important and the most ancient of philosophic precepts – “The Only Truths are found in the Silence”. Empires had fallen because ancient minds did not heed this wisdom. Mikey’s career relied on its genius.
From the late hours of the evening, to the late hours of the following morning, Manson emptied out the contents of his soul, for the very first time, and to a man whose reputation was one best kept secret, but whom was, at least for the moment, was considered legitimate, and for the moment, disconnected from anything and everything that might get in the way of worldly matters, insofar as Manson the giant was capable of considering.
Mikey Hugh absorbed every mediocre detail. He remained without judgement. He could only promise silence. He could only see patterns of human behavior, social influences, Manson’s (unexpectedly virtuous) religious beliefs, rules he lived by, truths he insisted upon, passions he felt, and desires he tried to ignore. When Manson was done revealing the watch-work of his being, Mikey Hugh felt only love for this unfortunate, beautiful(ly ugly), soulful, (surprisingly) intelligent and gigantic gentleman. For Mikey Hugh, it was a first.
(TBC)