A man who had served 20 years in prison for robbing banks in his wild youth told me the story at the center of this story.—S. O’Connor
JAILBIRD
by Stephen O’Connor
December 22nd. Two men sat at a bar in Lowell, Massachusetts. It should have been snowing gently outside the plate glass windows that overlooked Middle and Central Streets, but it was pissing rain. One of the men, Emmet Burke, was gazing out the window, watching the rainfall through the yellow halo of a street lamp and thinking it was another example of how the real never measured up to the ideal, which of course was the White Christmas that Bing Crosby had made famous; Irving Berlin's nostalgic ode to some wonderful days we used to know, a perfect holiday that never really existed—the Christmas in the ads where everyone is wearing warm socks and drinking hot chocolate by the fire and harmony reigns. A beautiful lie. Like people who die in the movies. The sun is setting, and their loved ones are around, and they say some touching and memorable thing or pass on some beautiful secret and expire in the radiance of grace. The truth is, people often die crazy, in some nursing home that smells like dirty diapers, howling at the staff to fuck off and wheezing and gasping for that last breath. But not Bing Crosby.
"You know how Bing Crosby died?" Emmet asked his friend. "You know what his last words were?"
Tony Dos Santos turned away from the TV news, where a professor was explaining that mistletoe was an invitation to sexual harassment. "I made a lot of crappy movies?"
"He should have said that. He said, 'That was a great round of golf,' and he died. Right there on the golf course. He was a hell of a golfer. Better golfer than an actor."
"I hate golf, but that's a good death. Clean."
"Damned right. 'That was a great round.' Boom! I dream about dying sometimes. I'm always in a crash—an airplane or a car crash. And I survive the wreck, but then I know I'm dying. Hope that's not an omen, a foreshadowing."
"I have the same dream over and over—what do they call it?"
"A recurring dream."
"Right. Yeah, I have a recurring dream that I'm back in the slammer. The guard comes by and I ask him, 'When is my release date? Isn't it soon?' And the guard says, 'No, they added a few years, Tony.' And I'm there screaming, 'Why? What did I do?' I wake myself up yelling at the guard."
"That's a shitty dream."
"Awful. Sometimes I jump up with my heart pounding like crazy."
Emmet watched Tony gulp his Michelob Ultra. There were fewer calories, he'd told him, but Christ, that battle was lost. With the extra weight he'd put on after his release and his bad knees, Tony lumbered a bit now, especially after his eight-hour shift in the kitchen of the Falstaff Club. He was a shadow, a fat shadow, of the tough bastard he'd been before he spent two decades in the can for armed robbery.
In jail, he was recruited by gangsters who may have heard of him or seen him box in the Golden Gloves or watched him pound the shit out of the heavy bag in the gym, but somehow, he'd managed to steer clear of any affiliation. Work out and study and do his job in the kitchen; that was his life for twenty years. Got his GED in there, and then his associate degree in culinary arts. A woman who came in to teach a literature class got him into reading; he had plenty of time, and he started to read a lot. He told Emmet he read Jack London, Hemingway, Jack Kerouac, Kurt Vonnegut, Ursula LeGuin—a lot of books—even poetry. If you thought Tony was dumb just because he was a jailbird, you were mistaken. That's why Emmet liked him. He had originally been friends with his younger brother. He'd met Tony through him, though of course, he had heard the stories. Tony Dos Santos was a local legend, or had been. The legend was old now. The young guys didn't even know him. People forget when you're away for twenty years.
He noticed that Tony's beer was empty. He finished his draft and ordered another round. There was a Christmas tree set up at the far end of the bar. When the aging ex-con turned toward him, Emmet saw that the lenses of his glasses were spangled with the reflected blues, greens, and reds of its bulbs. But he also saw, or felt, that the eyes beneath that shower of joyful color were anxious. Jerry, the bartender, brought their beers and asked if they thought the Patriots had a shot at the Super Bowl this year. They both shook their heads and agreed they didn't have the horses. "Father Time is catching up with Brady," Tony said. "And he's undefeated."
"And this fella here knows about time!" Jerry said.
Tony nodded gravely. "Seconds, hours, and years," he said. He spoke the words as if they were a malediction or awoke the memory of pain.
Emmet pushed some bills across the bar and said, "That's good." Jerry nodded and rang the tip bell as he opened the register. Emmet reached for his draft and slid the Michelob toward Tony. To cheer him up, he said, "Dreams aside, you're out, and you'll never be back in the Big House. You're a law-abiding citizen now."
Tony didn't respond. He swigged his beer and looked at the Christmas tree. Finally, he said, "Let's take our beers over to the booth in the corner. I need your advice."
"Sure," Emmet said, and with his cell phone and damp coat in one hand and his beer in the other, he led the way. When they were installed at the table, the older man leaned forward and said, "I want to tell you something. I have to warn you that by telling you, I may be putting you in great danger. So, if you'd rather not hear it, I understand."
"Will I be able to protect myself?"
"Yeah, you just need to keep your mouth shut."
"I can do that."
"This information is dangerous to know because it's deadly to repeat. That's why I'm warning you."
"I get it, Tony. All you need to say is don't tell anyone. I take that very seriously."
Tony nodded and seemed to relax as if he were breathing freely at last. "Good. Good. I do know that. That's why I'm talking to you." He loosened his scarf. "Warm in here," he said and took a slug of his beer.
Someone at the bar yelled, "Who gives a shit about the news? Put the Bruins on!" A cacophony of voices arose. Emmet heard none of it, only the low voice of his companion—the quiet voice of experience, of dues paid, of a life redeemed.
"There's a guy," Tony began. "His name is one you would have heard. A street soldier from a particular gang of criminals. I won't repeat names here because that knowledge can only hurt you. He would kill you if his bosses told him to, or for a fee, or just because he doesn't like you. He'd kill you and think no more of it than you would of slapping a mosquito on your arm. I know him from the old days when I was doing drugs and robbing banks, and he knows me. Now there's another guy. He comes into the club most days, most weekdays, for lunch. And this killer—he wants him dead."
"Why?" Emmet asked.
"Hold off on that for now."
"Okay."
"So, this person, this street soldier, approaches me as I'm leaving the club the other night. I was not happy to see him. Like I said, he's a very bad person. He doesn't live in Lowell anymore, I don't think, so I was nervous. He slaps me on the back like he wants to talk about old times. 'Let's have a beer at the Worthen,' he says. You don't say no, Emmet. So, we cross the street and walk over to the Worthen, get a beer, and sit down, and finally, he says, 'I hear you're a cook at the Falstaff. That's where'—and he mentions this other guy's name—'comes in for lunch quite a bit.'
‘Yeah,’ I say, ‘he's a regular.’"
The door near the two men opened, and they turned to see a couple coming in, lowering a shared umbrella. Emmet had been half expecting to see some scowling street soldier of an unnamed gang. A cheer rose from the bar, and he glanced over at the TV. Krejci had scored and was gliding over the ice, his stick raised in triumph. He squinted to see the score. Two-zip, Bruins. He turned back to Tony, who was thumbing the label off his beer bottle. "So, he asks you about this other guy . . ."
"Right. And he asks me what the guy orders. I say, ‘You know, soup and a sandwich, usually. That's what he likes.’
'Listen, Tony,' he says, 'I need a favor. I'm going to give you something, and I want you to put it in his soup. He won't taste it, and people will think he had a heart attack. Happens all the time. He's in a high-stress occupation anyway. And if they ever found it in him, anyone could have put it in his soup when he went to the men's room or whatever. There's a crowd at lunch, right? You will have cleared off his table and put the rest of the soup down the drain and cleaned the bowl. The poison will come in a small paper container. You burn it at the gas stove flame, or flush it, put it in the garbage disposal. There's no evidence. None. Someone could have poisoned him before he ever got to the club.'"
"Jesus H. Christ," Emmet said. "What did you say?"
"I said, 'Listen, I can't—I can't do that. I'm sorry. I'd like to help you out, but I can't do that.' I told him about my recurring dream, that I'd rather die than go back, that I follow the rules now 'cause I can't do any more time. I'm too fuckin' old. I tell him all that because he can understand it, you see? I don't say, 'I'm not a killer. I never was.' I was a bank robber, Emmet. Yes. But I never shot a teller. I never would have, really. Like that old song says, 'I walked in a lot of places I never shoulda been.' That's true, but a killer I never was."
"How did he take it?"
"He listened, and he stared at me—right into me. I'm telling you when you look into the eyes of a guy like that, you can feel the cold. They have no feelings, Emmet, no sympathy, no conscience. Then he says, 'Five grand now and ten grand after? Would that change your mind? You know, the price is negotiable.' I told him it wasn't a question of money. I just couldn't do it. Finally, he says, 'I understand. People will be disappointed, but I'll explain the situation. You don't have to worry, Tony. I always liked you. When you went down, you kept your mouth shut and did your time. I respect that, and we'll do right by you. Only one thing I'm sure you already know. If it ever gets back to me that you told anyone what we discussed here tonight, I will kill you.' I told him I wouldn't blame him, and he got up and left."
After he had heard the story, Emmet said, "What's the problem? My advice is to shut up. Mafiosos kill each other all the time. You're not going to change that. You're off the hook."
"This guy they want to kill is not a mafioso. He's law enforcement."
"Not my brother! Is that why you're telling me?"
"Not your brother. Your brother would know him. This guy is a prosecutor in the city."
"Shit."
"I told you I wanted your advice, Emmet. That's not true. I guess I want your approval. Like I said, I did a lot of reading in jail, a lot of thinking. Who am I? Who do I want to be? It's almost Christmas, and I thought, how am I going to feel when this guy's family celebrates Christmas without him because some piece of shit doesn't like the way he does his job, and me, I just let it happen."
"You already told the cops."
He nodded. "I ain't gonna die like Bing Crosby, Emmet. But I'm at peace with that. I taped a deposition this morning."
Emmet's brother told him, a month later, that the cops had arrested Greaser DeCola, Mule Murray, and Garret Buckley and charged them with conspiracy to commit murder and a string of other crimes.
"Who were they planning to murder?"
"Tom Benchley, works for the DA. There was an informant. Then they got a wiretap that confirmed the contract these guys were planning to put out. The cops offered the informant witness protection, but he says he's going to stay in the city."
"Well, maybe when they're locked up . . ."
His brother let out a skeptical chuckle. "Yeah. Good luck with that."
Emmet called Tony and pleaded with him to take the offer of protection. There was resignation in Tony's voice. "Come on, Emmet," he said. "I'm old and fat and worn out. Too tired to go count the days in some strange place. That's just another kind of jail. I never wore a mask when I robbed banks. Never liked to hide. Maybe that was stupid. But I won't start hiding now. I did what I did."
A month later, Tony disappeared. His body was discovered shortly after near the Pawtucket Gatehouse, tangled among the debris that gathered at the flashboards above the falls. There were two bullets in his head and the word "RAT" scrawled in marker across his shattered face. Emmet found that he was crying as he read the account in The Lowell Sun. He let the newspaper fall, and his head sank into his hands.
What a crazy world, he thought. We have priests who say they devote their lives to Christ and end up raping children. Respected lawyers whose job it is to help killers go free. Politicians who swear they just want to serve us, and no one can understand how they got so rich. And then you have a convict who dies for a stranger because he doesn't want to think of his kids facing Christmas without Dad.
He looked toward the ceiling and spoke to the spirit of his friend, or to his image in memory: This whole stinking ship is full of rats. But Tony Dos Santos, you were not one of them.