Road Trip a chapter from my novel Willie

Road Trip

By Daigneault

           

            The hard plastic phone rings on the cluttered, oak desk.  A middle-aged cop picks it up. 

            He clears his throat and then answers with a gruff tone, “Spokane Police Department, Can I help you.”

            “Yeah, this is Detective Carl Whitlow, I’m with Rock Springs P-D.  We’re located in Southern Wyoming.  We got a circular from you on an armed robbery and I’ve got two youth offenders in our lock-up that match your description.”

            “Okay, let me transfer you up to the Lieutenant.”

            A minute later a different man comes on the line, sounding a little annoyed, he say’s, “Robbery, Did you get any names out of those little bastards.”

            Whitlow replies, “I got a Joseph Bisc and a Willard Bershears. They can’t be more than 12 years old”

            “That’s them… hold on to em, we’ll send a car out.  It’ll be a couple of days.

            Whitlow, hangs up the phone.  Shaking his head he looks across his desk at the two boys, sitting quietly, handcuffed to the heavy bench, with a look of deep concern on their faces.  They are both wearing dirty, white tee shirts, worn out jeans and work boots.  A couple of scrawny little shits that look like they should be playing baseball or doing yard work, or… anything…  anything else.  It’s hard to think they’ve robbed a grocery store, and even harder to picture these two using a gun.  Maybe it’s this damn depression.  Times are hard. The whole country has gone bust.

            Chuck, our old foreman, stops with his story for a minute and leans back to light a cigarette.  We are a small group of ironworkers, sitting in a dusty, plywood job shack on a construction site, in south Phoenix.  The air is thick with the smell of grease and stale cigarettes.  It’s over 100 degrees in the shack.  Too hot to eat, everyone is drinking as much Gatorade as they can get down in the 15-munite break.  Dripping with sweat, at least we are out of the brutal Arizona sun. Chuck is dark and wrinkled from years of the heat’s damage.  His hands are badly crippled, from being smashed so many times by the iron, but he can still get over two tons an hour, per man.  In short he’s one tough old rodbuster.

            He takes a deep drag and slowly blows out the smoke. As it billows across the room, he goes on, “That was back in 1935 or 36.  In those days they would send a couple of older beat cops in a car across country to pick up lower level crooks they wanted.” 

            I break in and ask Chuck, “Did you know Willie back then?”

            “He was older. We used to say there were 10 men for every job and there were no jobs.  So everyone was always broke.  But if Willie was around… well, things were different.  I remember one time Willie was at my cousins house.  We wanted to drive out to the lake and go swimming with our girlfriends.  So we were all pooling our money.  It just wasn’t enough to buy gas to get to the lake and back. 

            Willie said, “Everybody go get your swim suits, I’ll meet you back here in about an hour.”

            An hour later Willie shows up.  He’s got a case of beer, a bottle of whiskey, a ham, some bread and a bunch of other shit for a picnic. Then he takes us to the gas station to fill up my cousin’s gas tank.  I think it cost a few bucks. Willie had a twenty and a five.  That was a lot of money back then.  We all went to the lake and had a great time. 

            The next day my old man’s reading the newspaper. There is a story about a local store being robbed.  It seems the thieves got away with a case of beer, a bottle of whiskey, a ham, some bread and twenty-five dollars in cash.”  Chuck staring at the floor like he could still see the scene shakes his head as he lets out a little snicker.  Then he looks me in the eye and says, “Willie… he simply refused to go with out.  He was going to be okay, or he was going to be dead.”

            “So what happened with the cops in Wyoming?” I ask.

            Chuck takes us back into the story; “The way they got back to Spokane was, after the cops picked Joe and Willie up, they would drive all day.  You need to remember there were no freeways in those days, so it was backcountry roads all the way.  At night the cops would put the boys in some little small town jail and then go to a diner and sleep in a motel.  In one of the jails, Willie had a few bucks hidden in his sock, that the cops hadn’t found when they searched him.  He bought a knife.

            The next day Willie and Joe are sitting in the back seat, and the cops are up front.  They’re trying to make good time, maybe doing 60, which is quite fast in one of those old cars. 

            A beautiful spring day, sailing down the road in central Idaho.  A ribbon of highway, gently rolling through a carpet of knee high, bright green, potato plants as far as the eye can see.  The cops are enjoying the trip.  They’re relaxed, foolishly dropping their guard.  To them Willie and Joe are no threat… just two scared little kids.  Remember no cage between the driver and the back seat. Out of the blue, Willie leans forward.  He grabs the driver by the hair and quickly reaches around his neck, pressing the homemade blade to the tough, old cops throat.

            Willie says, in his most menacing 12-year old voice, Okay motherfucker, pull the car over or you’re dead.

            The two old cops are torn between the seriousness of the knife and the irony of this 80-pound child acting like Al Capone.  The driver lets out a little snicker.  The other Cop’s belly starts shaking, and then trying to hold back, he breaks into a low whine, which causes the driver to uncontrollably roar with laughter.

    Without a second’s hesitation, Willie slices the driver’s throat wide open.  A shower of blood sprays all over the driver’s window, the dashboard, and the inside of the windshield.  In the same instant the driver instinctively lets go of the wheel and grabs at his throat.  The car lurches on to the dirt shoulder and then the front wheels suddenly catch the edge of the asphalt.  In seeming slow motion, the car lifts into the air.  After silently rolling over a few times, it explodes when the rear end hits the blacktop.  Mangled metal and glass are flying everywhere as the smashed up squad car goes flipping down the highway.  The car finally skids to a stop upside down, the roof totally crushed in.  Everyone inside is drenched in the driver’s blood with multiple broken bones.  Stuck in the smoking wreck, fading in and out of conceseness, it was hours before some local cops could cut them out. ”

            Chuck stops and thinks for a second.  He goes on ”The driver died.  They charged them both with the murder.  Because they were minors they were released on their 21^st birthday. ”

            Chuck with an odd little smile says, “After that… those boys weren’t real popular with the cops around Spokane.            

"The Life" a chapter from my novel "Willie"

My school ID photo when I was studying writing!

The life            

            With a quick poke, the needle pierces the big, pulsing vein on Willie’s right arm just below a three and a half inch line of tracks that follow the vein to his current injection site, revealing several years of intravenous drug use.  He pushes a small amount of the dark brown liquid into his arm.  It is still warm from cooking it up in the spoon, with the burned bottom, that is laying on the table next him.  He pops loose the rubber surgical hose, tying his arm off, and starts to feel the warm rush. Drawing blood back into the syringe it mixes with the sweet brown nectar, a swirling cloud of narcotic heaven that Willie is now shooting three or four times a day.  He slowly pushes the plunger down.  As the syringe empties he feels the opiates ooze into every pore in his body; like warm honey.  Fading into a tranquil dream and then nodding out, he is floating in the arms of his one true love… Heroin.

            After about twenty minutes, Willie slowly opens one lazy eye; with a sleepy smile he thinks to himself, “well… time to earn.” 

            He unbuttons his fly and picks up a second syringe, filled with smack that is lying on the table next to the burnt spoon.  Checking to make sure the plastic cap covering the needle is secure he then tapes the syringe, point down, to the inside of his thigh, just below his crotch, with a wide strip of surgical tape, and then pulls his pants back up.

            Driving over to the job, Hank Williams is on the crackling old radio in his 1965, piece of shit, Plymouth Valiant.

            Even though it’s the middle of the night and snowing outside, he’s warm and toasty, partially from the heater but mostly from the heroin.  With a dreamy smile on his face he follows along, “Hear that lonesome whippoorwill, he sounds too blue to fly…”

            His mind wonders over to thinking about her… hotter then doughnut grease, that one.  It’s not his fault, if her old man doesn’t know what she really needs. Most straight johns have no idea how to treat women.  He snickers to himself, ”It’s okay honey we can try again next month.”  She couldn’t get enough of him, then he turned her on to the shit and that was the end of her Betty Crocker days.  By now he’s singing at the top of his lungs with the old car radio, “And as I wonder where you are, I’m so lonesome I could cry!”

“Man oh man is this some great shit,” he thinks s to himself.

            She told Willie about her boss, the middle-aged lawyer, with thinning hair and a huge paunch.  He was always standing too close, with his perpetual bad breath and those eyes that were always peaking down her blouse.  Then one afternoon, as Willie was leaving her house, before her husband got home, she mentioned the safe in his office.

            “Does he keep cash in it?”  Willie asked.

            “Not usually, but he’s been meeting with a client that owns topless bars all over town and he always pays in cash.  My boss keeps bitching about it,”

She tells Willie “I’m pretty sure he’s holding the cash in the safe, so he won’t have to claim it.” 

            Twenty minutes later, Willie drives into the parking space in back of the law office.  He wonders around to the trunk of his car to get his tool bag.  Checking his pocket to make sure he brought the key, he heads into the empty office.  Once inside he waits a few minutes with his eyes closed, to adjust to the darkness. While he waits he hums the Hank William’s tune he had been singing earlier enjoying the warm narcotic haze. 

            Opening his eyes, there is enough light to proceed with out a flashlight.  First he throws furniture and the contents of desk drawers around the room knowing full well that the safe is upstairs.  If he goes directly to the safe the cops will know it was an inside job.  He then goes upstairs and ransacks the other offices, saving her bosses office for last.

            Once at the safe, he points a small flashlight at the dial and puts on the stethoscope.  Three full turns to the left to clear the tumblers.

            Hank starts singing in his head “I’ve never seen a night so low.”

            Concentrate, he firmly tells himself. 

            “When tears get in your eyes”

            The dial starts to look a little fuzzy.

            Willie quickly realizes, he’s way to high to open the safe.  Plan b… He’ll have to take it back home and crack it after he comes down.  A quick nudge and he can tell it’s been bolted to the concrete floor… no problem.

            Willie gets out his pocketknife and walks over to a beautiful dark brown leather couch in the center of the office.  He cuts out a 20-inch square of the leather from the seat cushion.  Looking through his tools he takes out a splitting wedge and a 12-pound sledgehammer.  He wraps the wedge in the soft leather and tucks the edge under the front of the safe.  He adjusts the light to shine on the wedge and stands up.  Holding the sledgehammer like a golf club, he pretends to look down a fairway and quietly says, “four” to himself and takes a full swing at the splitting wedge.  The leather muffles the sound, but the safe doesn’t budge.  For the next 10 minutes, Willie constantly beats on the wedge, occasionally taking out his frustrations by smashing the expensive walnut furniture, lamps and assorted decorations that are scattered about the room.

            The safe finally gives; a few more whacks and it breaks free. He lifts the safe, checking the weight.  It’s heavy, maybe 125 pounds.  Lifting it all the way up he thinks, “I’ll need a shortcut.” Willie drops the safe on a coffee table just for fun, and looks around the room.  He walks on over to the huge picture window that has the words Law Office painted backwards in black and gold old English letters.  Looking up and down the street, the coast is clear.  Willie walks back, picks up the safe and runs at the window, raising it up as high as he can, as he gets closer.  One last heft and the safe sails through the second story window.  As it breaks through the glass the silence is shattered with the screaming clang of an alarm.

            “Shit” he says out loud…”Time to go!”

            Not wanting to waste second Willie steps out through the broken window on to the ledge.  The safe is lying down on the sidewalk surrounded by the shattered glass, about 12 feet below.  He leaps down, but what he doesn’t see is the ice covering the sidewalk.  When he hits the ground his feet fly out from underneath him and the back his head smashes into the corner of the safe.  Lying in broken glass he feels the warm blood dripping down his neck and back.  The police cars sirens are now drowning out the clang of the alarm.  Several squad cars screech to a stop a few feet away. The cops jump out and surround Willie, guns drawn. 

            He blurts out, “Man, am I glad to see you guys!  I was walking down the street, minding my own business when that safe came flying out the window and hit me right here on the back of my head.  I’m lucky to be alive. Just wait tell my lawyer gets a hold of these guys.”

            The cops, less than convinced, spend the next five minutes cuffing and kicking the shit out of Willie, followed by a quick search.  They empty his pockets and overlook the dope hidden in his pants.  At the jail, Willie gives a call to his lawyer and they toss him in a cell with a few drunks and assorted Nair-do-wells.  The guard leaves, Willie reaches inside his pants and pulls out the syringe. 

            “Anybody want to party?” he asks the other men.  They all decline.  Willie tears off a piece of his shirtsleeve and ties off his arm.  He shoots the dope as the other men look on in horror.  His eyes roll back in his head and the world is once again right.  After about 10 minutes he comes to and bums a smoke off of one of the other men.  Leaning back with a big smile, he takes a slow drag off the cigarette, blows a few rings and starts singing, “And as I wonder where you are, I’m so lonesome I could cry!”

The First Day a chapter from my novel Willie

Willie

            Life is hard.  My father tried to protect me from the world, but also knew that one day I would have to stand up and fight.  My life up to that point was one of swimming pools, ice cream and ponies.  I was thirteen years old and the hardest thing I had ever encountered was not being chosen for basketball or loosing at monopoly. 

            I was sitting in the living room on the big brown couch with my father watching television.  Most of my friends had paper routes and always had pocket money.  I wanted a summer job.

“Dad”

“Yes son”

“I was wondering if you might have some work for me?”

“Well, we could use someone picking up the wire down at the fab yard.”

            My father owned a rebar fabrication yard in South Phoenix.  Rebar is, sort of, the skeleton of a concrete building or structure.  In the office, detailers take the architectural drawings and figure out what load and stresses will be on the various components of the building.  They design a rebar frame that is engineered to meet that load.  They create a set of plans and cut sheets that list the quantities and various lengths or shapes needed to build the columns, beams or floors in the high-rises, bridges, dams, power plants or whatever is being built.  The fab yard then takes stock lengths of rebar, cuts and bends it into the required lengths and shapes.  It is then loaded onto trucks and shipped out to the construction site. 

            I remember thinking ‘how hard could that be?’

I said, “Thanks dad, that would be great!”

            “Okay Joey, get some sleep and I’ll wake you up.  We leave at four.”

            “Four!”  I had never got up that early.  “What time do they start?”

            “At five, it gets hot early”

            The next morning while we were riding to work, he gave me a little talk. 

“Joey these guys are real men, they don’t screw around.  They don’t want to be your friend; they just want to get the work done.”  He went on, “It’s been my experience that in life there’s always a whip.  It will either be in your boss’s hand or in your own head.  Trust me it’s a lot easier if you hold the whip.”

            We got out of the car, on the oil-covered dirt road, in South Phoenix’s old industrial district.  I was sticky and sweating and the sun wasn’t even up yet.  There’s a smell in that part of town, chemical, steel, iron, dirt, sweat, and the smell of years of men working on the same piece of sun-baked ground.

            A few minutes later an old truck pulled up and a short unassuming man in his mid-forties got out.  He was wearing a faded yellow cowboy shirt and had a friendly little smile on his face.

Yawning and stretching he mumbled, “Morning Joe” 

“Good morning Chuck, Joey this is Mr. Reeves.

“Good morning Mr. Reeves.”

“You can call me Chuck, Joey, It’s nice to meet you”

Then my dad asked if I had any money.  I said, “no”. 

“Well, here’s a few bucks, A truck will come around at nine and then again at noon.  The foods not too bad.  Don’t eat too much in this heat, it will make you sick.  I’ll pick you up at two.”  He knew I was a little nervous and added, “Just do what Chuck tells you… you’ll be fine!”  Then he got back in his car.  Chuck and I watched as he drove down the street to the old two-story, red brick house that served as his office.

As soon as he was out of sight, Chuck turned to me.  The kindly look on his face had disappeared.  With more anger than I had ever encountered, starring a hole right through me, he screamed, but he did so without raising his voice.

“Listen to me you little mother fucker, your daddy might have gotten you this god damn job, but he can’t keep it for you.  Where are your fuckin hand shoes?” 

“What?” I squeaked out. 

“Your hand shoes… your gloves goddamn it.  You little son of a bitch, you show up on my time without your fucking tools.  Ya know, I don’t give a rat’s ass… when your hands look like raw fucking hamburger go whine to someone else.  Are you going to stand here bullshitting all day or are you here to work?” 

I tried to answer but before I could he went on,

“I want every fuckin piece of wire in that yard in that dumpster before the end of the day.”

In the fab yard they received up to ten trucks loaded with forty thousand pounds of steel each, every day.  The bundles are tied together with rusty wire called bundle wire.  It’s as thick as a pencil, so thick I couldn’t even bend it.   All this wire is cut off the bundles and tossed into piles, after the cutting and bending the rebar is retied into smaller bundles and shipped to the job site.  Wire is the lifeblood of a steel yard.  Needless to say it would be impossible for one person, let alone a thirteen-year-old boy, to keep ahead of the piles and piles of rusty wire generated everyday. 

I had no idea what I had done to make Chuck so mad, and I didn’t want to find out. I started picking up wire as fast as I could.  The bundle wire looks like big spiders about a foot across and the tips of the legs are razor sharp.  They get all tangled together and I had too pull as hard as I could to get them free.  On the second or third bunch, as it broke loose it sliced deep into the palm of my hand.  The blood oozed, and I howled, “I’m cut, I’m cut… Chuck help, help!!!  I’m cut.”  Chuck came running over.  “Let me see… Well shit boy you aren’t hurt, what kind of a pussy are you? You aren’t fuckin lucky enough to die… Get your ass back to work!”  I was crying, scared to death and quite sure I would need stitches, when the biggest man I had ever seen walked over and handed me a brand new pair of White Mule leather work gloves. 

            He was about six two, two hundred and fifty pounds, not a drop of fat with reddish blond hair, a sunburned face and steel grey eyes.  He stuck out his huge hand and as he grabbed mine he smiled and said “Hey kid, give those a try… my names Willie!”

"The life" from my ongoing online novel "Willie"

With a quick poke, the needle pierces the big, pulsing vein on Willie’s right arm just below a three and a half inch line of tracks that follow the vein to his current injection site, revealing several years of intravenous drug use. He pushes a small amount of the dark brown liquid into his arm. It is still warm from cooking it up in the spoon, with the burned bottom, that is laying on the table next him. He pops loose the rubber surgical hose, tying his arm off, and starts to feel the warm rush. Drawing blood back into the syringe it mixes with the sweet brown nectar, a swirling cloud of narcotic heaven that Willie is now shooting three or four times a day. He slowly pushes the plunger down. As the syringe empties he feels the opiates ooze into every pore in his body; like warm honey. Fading into a tranquil dream and then nodding out, he is floating in the arms of his one true love… Heroin.

After about twenty minutes, Willie slowly opens one lazy eye; with a sleepy smile he thinks to himself, “well… time to earn.”

He unbuttons his fly and picks up a second syringe, filled with smack that is lying on the table next to the burnt spoon. Checking to make sure the plastic cap covering the needle is secure he then tapes the syringe, point down, to the inside of his thigh, just below his crotch, with a wide strip of surgical tape, and then pulls his pants back up.

Driving over to the job, Hank Williams is on the crackling old radio in his 1965, piece of shit, Plymouth Valiant.

Even though it’s the middle of the night and snowing outside, he’s warm and toasty, partially from the heater but mostly from the heroin. With a dreamy smile on his face he follows along, “Hear that lonesome whippoorwill, he sounds too blue to fly…”

His mind wonders over to thinking about her… hotter then doughnut grease, that one. It’s not his fault, if her old man doesn’t know what she really needs. Most straight johns have no idea how to treat women. He snickers to himself, ”It’s okay honey we can try again next month.” She couldn’t get enough of him, then he turned her on to the shit and that was the end of her Betty Crocker days. By now he’s singing at the top of his lungs with the old car radio, “And as I wonder where you are, I’m so lonesome I could cry!”

“Man oh man is this some great shit,” he thinks s to himself.

She told Willie about her boss, the middle-aged lawyer, with thinning hair and a huge paunch. He was always standing too close, with his perpetual bad breath and those eyes that were always peaking down her blouse. Then one afternoon, as Willie was leaving her house, before her husband got home, she mentioned the safe in his office.

“Does he keep cash in it?” Willie asked.

“Not usually, but he’s been meeting with a client that owns topless bars all over town and he always pays in cash. My boss keeps bitching about it,”

She tells Willie “I’m pretty sure he’s holding the cash in the safe, so he won’t have to claim it.”

Twenty minutes later, Willie drives into the parking space in back of the law office. He wonders around to the trunk of his car to get his tool bag. Checking his pocket to make sure he brought the key, he heads into the empty office. Once inside he waits a few minutes with his eyes closed, to adjust to the darkness. While he waits he hums the Hank William’s tune he had been singing earlier enjoying the warm narcotic haze.

Opening his eyes, there is enough light to proceed with out a flashlight. First he throws furniture and the contents of desk drawers around the room knowing full well that the safe is upstairs. If he goes directly to the safe the cops will know it was an inside job. He then goes upstairs and ransacks the other offices, saving her bosses office for last.

Once at the safe, he points a small flashlight at the dial and puts on the stethoscope. Three full turns to the left to clear the tumblers.

Hank starts singing in his head “I’ve never seen a night so low.”

Concentrate, he firmly tells himself.

“When tears get in your eyes”

The dial starts to look a little fuzzy.

Willie quickly realizes, he’s way to high to open the safe. Plan b… He’ll have to take it back home and crack it after he comes down. A quick nudge and he can tell it’s been bolted to the concrete floor… no problem.

Willie gets out his pocketknife and walks over to a beautiful dark brown leather couch in the center of the office. He cuts out a 20-inch square of the leather from the seat cushion. Looking through his tools he takes out a splitting wedge and a 12-pound sledgehammer. He wraps the wedge in the soft leather and tucks the edge under the front of the safe. He adjusts the light to shine on the wedge and stands up. Holding the sledgehammer like a golf club, he pretends to look down a fairway and quietly says, “four” to himself and takes a full swing at the splitting wedge. The leather muffles the sound, but the safe doesn’t budge. For the next 10 minutes, Willie constantly beats on the wedge, occasionally taking out his frustrations by smashing the expensive walnut furniture, lamps and assorted decorations that are scattered about the room.

The safe finally gives; a few more whacks and it breaks free. He lifts the safe, checking the weight. It’s heavy, maybe 125 pounds. Lifting it all the way up he thinks, “I’ll need a shortcut.” Willie drops the safe on a coffee table just for fun, and looks around the room. He walks on over to the huge picture window that has the words Law Office painted backwards in black and gold old English letters. Looking up and down the street, the coast is clear. Willie walks back, picks up the safe and runs at the window, raising it up as high as he can, as he gets closer. One last heft and the safe sails through the second story window. As it breaks through the glass the silence is shattered with the screaming clang of an alarm.

“Shit” he says out loud…”Time to go!”

Not wanting to waste second Willie steps out through the broken window on to the ledge. The safe is lying down on the sidewalk surrounded by the shattered glass, about 12 feet below. He leaps down, but what he doesn’t see is the ice covering the sidewalk. When he hits the ground his feet fly out from underneath him and the back his head smashes into the corner of the safe. Lying in broken glass he feels the warm blood dripping down his neck and back. The police cars sirens are now drowning out the clang of the alarm. Several squad cars screech to a stop a few feet away. The cops jump out and surround Willie, guns drawn.

He blurts out, “Man, am I glad to see you guys! I was walking down the street, minding my own business when that safe came flying out the window and hit me right here on the back of my head. I’m lucky to be alive. Just wait tell my lawyer gets a hold of these guys.”

The cops, less than convinced, spend the next five minutes cuffing and kicking the shit out of Willie, followed by a quick search. They empty his pockets and overlook the dope hidden in his pants. At the jail, Willie gives a call to his lawyer and they toss him in a cell with a few drunks and assorted Nair-do-wells. The guard leaves, Willie reaches inside his pants and pulls out the syringe.

“Anybody want to party?” he asks the other men. They all decline. Willie tears off a piece of his shirtsleeve and ties off his arm. He shoots the dope as the other men look on in horror. His eyes roll back in his head and the world is once again right. After about 10 minutes he comes to and bums a smoke off of one of the other men. Leaning back with a big smile, he takes a slow drag off the cigarette, blows a few rings and starts singing, “And as I wonder where you are, I’m so lonesome I could cry!”

By Mad Coyote Joe

Willie, Time to go.

From my ogoing on-line novel "Willie".

For me it’s just another long, hot, summer day, working with my big buddy Willie. We’re fabricating iron on a pneumatic steel bender, in the brutal Arizona sun, in the gritty industrial district of old south Phoenix and will do so for the rest of the day… or so we think.

Willie Benson is 34 years old. An Anglo, that stands six foot-two inches tall, 240 pounds, without a drop of fat. He’s a big, friendly looking man, with penetrating steel grey eyes and a Paul Newmanesq grin that never leaves his face. Willie’s the kind of man that other men find likeable and a little scary, both at the same time. With a sandy blond, full head of curly hair, a classic bad boy, women find him irresistible. He’s also a self described “Rounder” or career criminal.

I’m fifteen years old and big for my age. He works with me in the steel yard my family owns. This is my third summer working with Willie, who needs a straight job to meet his parole requirements. Every Friday, he has to stop by and show his caseworker at the Department of Corrections his pay stub, and it better say 40 hours. The funny thing is, he never cashes the checks. He considers it a matter of honor that he earn his living through his chosen vocation… crime. He is quite proud of his vocation and discusses with me often. This morning he’s telling me how to steal TVs.

“I tell you kid, televisions are a great way to pick up a little quick cash. I mean who doesn’t want a better TV. On a good day I can unload eight or ten of em.”

I’m a little confused. “Just how do you get a hold of eight or ten TVs?”

At heart Willie is a big kid. He smiles with a twinkle in his eye, like a he’s stealing candy.

“Shit…grabbing TVs is easy. You wander into the Monkey Wards or any big store. All you need is a receipt. If you can’t find one in the trash or on the ground, just buy something that cost a few bucks. Walk on back to the TVs and fold the receipt so the store name is in plain sight. Tuck the receipt in your mouth, pick up a set and head for the door. You can’t talk and nobody is going to ask a guy with a receipt in his mouth if he paid for the TV. Shit… the manager will usually get the door for you. And if he gets wise and starts asking questions, you can always throw the TV on him. The problem with them getting the door is they may want to help you to your car. You really want to avoid that. It gets a little sticky when you’re trying to explain the six or seven TVs in the back of your station wagon.”

To me Willie is a great big guy with a lot of funny stories, who also happens to be a criminal. He’s not a threat. Like a big uncle, I always feel safe around him. But today, I will see first hand, just how afraid others are of my big friend.

Years later when talking with my father about Willie, he tells me he has seen his Criminal record, which states: When apprehending use extreme caution, he is to be considered, usually armed but always dangerous.

The bender we are working at is situated between two driveways that sit about twenty five feet off of the oily dirt road that runs in front of the steel yard. Trucks come and go all day, in and out loaded with steel reinforcing bars. The neighborhood is a combination of dirty, run down motels, shacks, old two room adobe houses and Industrial plants. It’s also the home of the poorest of the poor, numerous gangs, street people, junkies and drunks. So, it doesn’t seem odd when the two drunks start arguing just outside the gate on the other side of the bender.

They look like street people, unkempt, dirty long hair, several days of stubbly beard. Both in dirty work pants, one wears a sleeveless Levi jacket and the other an old, faded, sweat stained, tee shirt that say’s, “American Graffiti.”

The guy wearing the sleeveless jacket starts in, in a very loud, drunken voice.

“Jimmie, You didn’t even like that chick. I don’t need you shit!”

They’re so loud that most of the men working in the yard sort of stop what their doing to see the show.

The shaggy man in the “American Graffiti” tee shirt looks over and starts talking to Willie and me with an intoxicated slur, while his friend stumbles on seemingly unaware.

Approaching us from the front, he blirts out, “Like her… Can you believe him? She was my cousin! I’ve known her all my life!”

We’re starting to laugh at the developing scene when the other man notices that his friend has wandered through the first gate into the yard. He is now standing at the second gate, just behind us, so he wanders on over.

Extending a friendly hand, he appears to be the classic happy drunk.

He mumbles to Willie, “Hey man, that’s Jimmie, I’m Sam, how you doin?”

Willie smiles and turns to shake his hand. We are both snickering.

As Willie turns I noticed the man standing across from us reaching behind his back, as if to tuck his shirt in.

Suddenly, time slows to a crawl and all sound seems to disappear. I see the next few seconds like an instant replay in some sort of twisted, slow motion movie. I watch the look on the man’s face change from a lazy smile, to deadly serious. In a seemingly choreographed move, he pulls out a big stainless steel revolver. Grasping it with both hands. He is now pointing it directly at Willie’s head.

This movement causes Willie to turn back to the man. The barrel of the pistol looks huge and hollow and is about eight inches from center of Willie’s forehead. Meanwhile, the second man produced his own gun. Grabbing Willie by the shoulder, I watch as the barrel is firmly pressed just under my friend’s right ear at a slightly upward angle, causing him to carefully tilt his head to the side. Willie’s hands instinctively, slowly, rise, signaling surrender. The man on the other side of the bender say’s in very low, but deliberate, staccato voice“ don’t-even-breathe you big, dumb, motherfucker… F-B-I.”

It seems so surreal. In the same instant that the men are grabbing Willie, several Police cars and unmarked white sedans descend on the yard with lights flashing. Agents wearing blue blazers with F.B.I. in big yellow letters printed on both the front and back appear out of nowhere, all of them pointing shotguns or pistols directly at Willie. He is cuffed and shoved to the ground in seconds.

One of them say’s, to me, in a clear voice “Son… get over hear now!”

Scared to death, my heart pounding and starting to tear up, I immediately walk towards the officer.

As I do, I heard another agent say, “Willard Benson, you are under arrest for interstate trafficking of narcotics, fraudulent schemes and receiving stolen goods. You have the right to remain silent. You have the right to an attorney…”

In a way that makes me feel sick to my stomach, it’s just like some crime drama on television.

Another group of police and FBI agents are taking Willie’s car apart, cutting the seats and spare tire with a razor knife. I don’t know what they are looking for but, they don’t seem to find anything.

They immediately take Willie to a waiting car. A tow truck backs up and hooks on to his old station wagon and in an instant they’re both gone. Just a few cops are left behind, talking with Chuck our foreman.

As they drive away, I catch a glimpse of the side of Willie’s face. He’s seated in the back of an unmarked white sedan. Sitting slightly forward, obviously because of the handcuffs behind his back. Although he’s still smiling, trying show he’s not been beaten, all color has left his face. He looks as if he has aged twenty years in just a few minutes, like a caged dog on his way to the pound. This is the last time I will see my friend for just over eight years.

Willie Road Trip

This is from my ongoing on-line novel Willie I was told this story when I was about 17 by Chuck the old foreman that ran our crew when I was an iroworker. Those were hard years, but I look back on them fondly.

Road trip

The hard plastic phone rings on the cluttered, oak desk. A middle-aged cop picks it up.

He clears his throat and then answers with a gruff tone, “Spokane Police Department, Can I help you.”

“Yeah, this is Detective Carl Whitlow, I’m with Rock Springs P-D. We’re located in Southern Wyoming. We got a circular from you on an armed robbery and I’ve got two youth offenders in our lock-up that match your description.”

“Okay, let me transfer you up to the Lieutenant.”

A minute later a different man comes on the line, sounding a little annoyed, he say’s, “Robbery, Did you get any names out of those little bastards.”

Whitlow replies, “I got a Joseph white and a Willard Benson. They can’t be more than 12 years old”

“That’s them… hold on to em, we’ll send a car out. It’ll be a couple of days.

Whitlow, hangs up the phone. Shaking his head he looks across his desk at the two boys, sitting quietly, handcuffed to the heavy bench, with a look of deep concern on their faces. They are both wearing dirty, white tee shirts, worn out jeans and work boots. A couple of scrawny little shits that look like they should be playing baseball or doing yard work, or… anything… anything else. It’s hard to think they’ve robbed a grocery store, and even harder to picture these two using a gun. Maybe it’s this damn depression. Times are hard. The whole country has gone bust.

Chuck, our old foreman, stops with his story for a minute and leans back to light a cigarette. We are a small group of ironworkers, sitting in a dusty, plywood job shack on a construction site, in south Phoenix. The air is thick with the smell of grease and stale cigarettes. It’s over 100 degrees in the shack. Too hot to eat, everyone is drinking as much Gatorade as they can get down in the 15-munite break. Dripping with sweat, at least we are out of the brutal Arizona sun. Chuck is dark and wrinkled from years of the heat’s damage. His hands are badly crippled, from being smashed so many times by the iron, but he can still get over two tons an hour, per man. In short he’s one tough old rodbuster.

He takes a deep drag and slowly blows out the smoke. As it billows across the room, he goes on, “That was back in 1935 or 36. In those days they would send a couple of older beat cops in a car across country to pick up lower level crooks they wanted.”

I break in and ask Chuck, “Did you know Willie back then?”

“He was older. We used to say there were 10 men for every job and there were no jobs. So everyone was always broke. But if Willie was around… well, things were different. I remember one time Willie was at my cousins house. We wanted to drive out to the lake and go swimming with our girlfriends. So we were all pooling our money. It just wasn’t enough to buy gas to get to the lake and back.

Willie said, “Everybody go get your swim suits, I’ll meet you back here in about an hour.”

An hour later Willie shows up. He’s got a case of beer, a bottle of whiskey, a ham, some bread and a bunch of other shit for a picnic. Then he takes us to the gas station to fill up my cousin’s gas tank. I think it cost a few bucks. Willie had a twenty and a five. That was a lot of money back then. We all went to the lake and had a great time.

The next day my old man’s reading the newspaper. There is a story about a local store being robbed. It seems the thieves got away with a case of beer, a bottle of whiskey, a ham, some bread and twenty-five dollars in cash.” Chuck staring at the floor like he could still see the scene shakes his head as he lets out a little snicker. Then he looks me in the eye and says, “Willie… he simply refused to go with out. He was going to be okay, or he was going to be dead.”

“So what happened with the cops in Wyoming?” I ask.

Chuck takes us back into the story; “The way they got back to Spokane was, after the cops picked Joe and Willie up, they would drive all day. You need to remember there were no freeways in those days, so it was backcountry roads all the way. At night the cops would put the boys in some little small town jail and then go to a diner and sleep in a motel. In one of the jails, Willie had a few bucks hidden in his sock, that the cops hadn’t found when they searched him. He bought a knife.

The next day Willie and Joe are sitting in the back seat, and the cops are up front. They’re trying to make good time, maybe doing 60, which is quite fast in one of those old cars.

A beautiful spring day, sailing down the road in central Idaho. A ribbon of highway, gently rolling through a carpet of knee high, bright green, potato plants as far as the eye can see. The cops are enjoying the trip. They’re relaxed, foolishly dropping their guard. To them Willie and Joe are no threat… just two scared little kids. Remember no cage between the driver and the back seat. Out of the blue, Willie leans forward. He grabs the driver by the hair and quickly reaches around his neck, pressing the homemade blade to the tough, old cops throat.

Willie says, in his most menacing 12-year old voice, Okay motherfucker, pull the car over or you’re dead.

The two old cops are torn between the seriousness of the knife and the irony of this 80-pound child acting like Al Capone. The driver lets out a little snicker. The other Cop’s belly starts shaking, and then trying to hold back, he breaks into a low whine, which causes the driver to uncontrollably roar with laughter.

Without a second’s hesitation, Willie slices the driver’s throat wide open. A shower of blood sprays all over the driver’s window, the dashboard, and the inside of the windshield. In the same instant the driver instinctively lets go of the wheel and grabs at his throat. The car lurches on to the dirt shoulder and then the front wheels suddenly catch the edge of the asphalt. In seeming slow motion, the car lifts into the air. After silently rolling over a few times, it explodes when the rear end hits the blacktop. Mangled metal and glass are flying everywhere as the smashed up squad car goes flipping down the highway. The car finally skids to a stop upside down, the roof totally crushed in. Everyone inside is drenched in the driver’s blood with multiple broken bones. Stuck in the smoking wreck, fading in and out of conceseness, it was hours before some local cops could cut them out. ”

Chuck stops and thinks for a second. He goes on ”The driver died. They charged them both with the murder. Because they were minors they were released on their 21^st birthday. ”

Chuck with an odd little smile says, “After that… those boys weren’t real popular with the cops around Spokane.

The Norman Midnight (a poem) by Daigneault

The Norman Midnight

By Daigneault

Vacant congregation

Standing in line

Desolate perversion

Inflation of the soul

Sexless

Lifeless

Property of the Penthouse

Caught in a two olive pontification

Amateurs at sin

of this Norman midnight

Begging for burden

And lies and sordid definition

With headlights off I too am speeding

On a dead-end street

Glutinous fools

At this baneful banquet

Not of Rockwell

Nor of Saxons

But the withered fruits

Of Slavoda’s nightmare

Upon which

We now feast

Out new chapter in my novel "Willie"

Out

Joe Daigneault 1278 words

I show up, as usual, twenty minutes before the rest of the crew. The sky to the east is just starting to lighten a bit. It’s still too dark to see. I go over the sheets, layout the rigging, set up the torch and check the wire. Today we’re finishing a six-barrel, box culvert in the desert just outside of Whitman. As the crew shows up I drink that last cup of coffee and pop four 500mg Tylenol.

Kenny, an ex-bull rider turned-Christian-speed-freak, who is now the Super, wonders over. “What do ya need, Joe?”

“When’s the pour?”

“At one.”

“Well, I could use two men and three punks.”

“I’ll give you black Howard and two new skins.”

“How fresh?”

“Right out of the box… just came off the rez yesterday and Joe, don’t kill em we’re short on help.”

“Okay but we’ll be chasing it, see if you can’t get me a few more.”

“Billy T called and said the office was sending out some new guy and they said he was only to work with you!”

“Call those assholes back and tell them, if they want me to baby-sit, they need to tack 50 cents an hour on to my check and send out a few cases of Pampers.”

“Either way, it’s gotta pour, so it’s assholes and elbows!”

“Amen to that.”

Kenny walks over to an old truck. Two young Indians get out. He points me out; they put on their brand new, tool belts and walk over quickly.

I say, Yah teh hey apena, denez (Goodmorning, Navajos.)

The older one replies, Yah teh hey, hostein (Hello Boss.)

About the same time, Howard, a huge, scary, midnight black, man, with a two inch wide scar running across his face, walks over, and growls, “Good morning, you fat, white, piece of dog shit”

“Morning fudge blossom! If your all done with the sweet talk, why don’t you get these guys loading in that bottom and I’ll lay it out. Oh, and Kenny says if you break em, you buy em. So play nice.”

Howard walks over to the iron pile and starts shaking out the rods. I tell the Indians “Just do what that big black guy over there tells you, keep your hands on the rebar, don’t slow down and you’ll be fine.”

The older one says in broken English, “Wha happen to his face?”

I’m tempted to lay some bullshit story about a knife fight in the ghetto on them, but decide against it. “Well, when He was twelve, down in Morenci, he and his little brother stole the limo at his sister’s wedding. Shit, they were just two little black kids that had never seen a Cadillac that big before… going for a fucking joy ride. They made it about a mile before Howard wrapped the car around a big old oak tree. Howard went through the front window. His little brother was crippled for life. He’s every bit as mean as he looks… so I’d leave it alone.” Nodding my head toward the iron I say, “Get to it!”

Howard picks up three of the 35 pound, number seven hook bars. They are 12 feet long, with a six-foot tail. Howard is tall enough to rest the bars on his shoulder as he carries them out to be placed in the box. Unfortunately, the Indians are only about five feet tall, so they hold the bars over their heads as they walk. Both try three bars and make it about ten feet before their arms give out. The bars go tumbling to the ground. Howard storms over and starts screaming.

“You clumsy, gut eating, ccoksuckers. Are you fucker’s lazy or just plain stupid? That’s a good way to end up in the hospital. If you’re too fucking short to carry these by yourselves then team up. I don’t want to see you carrying less than five of those ‘Chingaderas’ all fuckin day… And don’t let that fat, white, son of a bitch over there run out of iron, I don’t want to hear it!”

As Howard and the Indians pack the rods in I set them into place. Working as fast as I can I tie the bars together by wrapping the wire around them, where they come together. Then I cinch them tight by pulling and twisting the wire at the same time with my hands. Another quick twist with my pliers then I cut the wire short. There’s no time to be careful, so about every five minutes I accidentally run my knuckles or forearm across the razor sharp wire. After twenty minutes, my arm drips blood and will do so for the rest of the day. I’m so use to getting cut that I don’t even flinch anymore. If it feels too deep, I just check quickly to see if it needs stitches.

Around nine, an orange Toyota pickup pulls up. An old Mexican, wearing thick prescription sunglasses, gets out. He’s the field superintendent.

He asks me, “Hot enough for ya Joey?” I’m hot and sweating. it’s around 110°.

“Hey Billy T… no, but don’t worry we’re suppose to hit 118° this afternoon. How’s that A-C been treating you?” At 118°the average guy will make it about twenty minutes before he starts puking. When it’s that hot, people die from heat exhaustion.

“The A-C’sFine… just fine. Come on up out of there I need a word with you.”

“Look, I got a pour at three and my ears work fine, so just speak up.”

“Hey… get you ass out of that hole NOW1… I need to talk with you about this guy the office is sending out.”

I’ve worked around Billy T all my life; he has a look of concern on his face that really grabs my attention, so I tell Howard, “Hey, take over.”

When I get up top, Billy T. says, “Do you remember a huge con that worked down at the yard. The FBI came in and scooped him up one day about eight years ago?”

“Yeah, I remember him. His name was Willie. I used to work with him when I was a kid… Why?”

“He’s out and coming here. Apparently, they were so afraid of him down at Florence that he’s been in solitary for the past six years. I guess he beat three guys to death.”

“So why’s he out?”

“No one left to testify, but he did the did the rest of his time in the box. They let him out for one hour a month to walk around in a cage in the sunlight, wearing shackles with two armed guards watching. Your old man gave him a job so he made parole. No General population for him. They took him out of solitary this morning and put him directly on the bus. He’s a little spooky. The office told me to give him to you… keep a fucking leash on him. There’s a tool belt for him in the back of my truck. Tell him I’ll take it out of his first check.”

“Will do”

Billy T drives away and I get back at it.

Around eleven, I look up from the hole and there he is in brand new, Levis, boots and a white tee shirt. Just as big as I remember, except he’s as white as a ghost from being inside.

“I’m looking for Joey Daigneault,” he says.

“Well Willie, that would be me. How the fuck are you?”

He smiles that big, shit eating, Willie grin and says. “Fine as frogs hair, boy… I’ll be, look at you. You grew up!

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Puke and Weeds / Willie

This is a small chapter in the beginning of my novel, "Willie" it takes place about halfway through my first day I was getting yelled at by my boss Chuck and I had been picking up wire and got a bad cut on my hand. It was an introduction to the main character in the story. This finishes the day

Puke and weeds

An Essay by Daigneault 1174 words

It’s hard to explain what the heat in a South Phoenix steel yard is like. The thousands of pounds of rebar heat up in the sun by June the daily temperature can hover between 115°f and as high as 128°f and the iron works like a heat sink, or a giant solar oven. When the temperature is in the 120°’s which is taken in the shade at the Airport, the temperature in the sun between two eight foot tall piles of rebar that are stacked three feet apart can be in the 130°’s. Combine that, with a heat that’s both humid and greasy at the same time, and the smell of cut steel and diesel. Within a few minutes you are covered with sweat, grease, dirt and the iron flakes that come off the fresh iron. Next there is the iron itself, if it’s been in the yard a while it’s covered with rust it’s heavy and the cut ends are razor sharp. The result is an environment that will smash and crush your fingers constantly cut open your hands, arms and legs, while carrying the bars, if you happen to allow the bars resting on your shoulder to touch your neck, it can blister and even remove skin. All of this in heat that’s like standing in the opening of a dirty oven that’s on high. Not to mention Chuck who seams to take great pleasure in expanding my knowledge of words based in carnal knowledge and feces that are used to describe my lacking efforts. In short, to Chuck, I was a shitty worker and a first class pussy.

But I kept grabbing the biggest bundles of wire that I could pull free. And dragging them over to a dumpster that was headed to a scrap yard.

When you’re new to working in the heat your first thought is to get a drink of water. And when you’re walking over to the water barrel your not carrying a big rusty pile of wire. It’s a little break, or so you think. I noticed the men snickering as I kept going back to the water barrel. But amazingly Chuck wasn’t screaming at me for getting a drink. I soon found out why, after about my 15^th cup of water in the first few hours my belly started to cramp. I was now not only cut and filthy but I was full and way too hot and starting to feel sick. By 9am it was around 120°f. The Roach Coach pulled in and blew its horn. All of the men grabbed a bottle or two of Gatorade. I wanted to get some energy so I wisely grabbed a burrito and a coke. Once again I saw the others snickering, but I didn’t get the joke. Feeling like I just survived the Bat tan Death march I choked down the burrito while sitting on a cardboard box that was in a garbage pile that happened to be in the shade of the big crane. That was the shortest 15 minutes of my life. When Chuck told us that the break was over, I was sure he was reading his watch incorrectly. But I grabbed what was left of my Coke and headed back to the wire.

Chuck stopped me and said, “follow me over here with that shovel.” We walked across the yard to a pile of wooden forms, stacked on the other side of the yard. It was an area about 60 feet square, which was waste high in weeds.

“Cut them down and drag them over to the dumpster. When you’re done I want this area completely clean!”

The weeds had grown up in the spring rain and bloomed, then dried in the sun, so they sort of shattered when I hit them with the shovel. The blossoms were covered in stickers. Within a few minutes I was covered in little scratchy pieces of the weeds. They caused me to itch all over my now sweaty torso. This was too much, after a few minutes of scratching I was covered with red hives. I headed over to negotiate with Chuck, on the way I was starting to get dizzy and the men were watching me. As I approached Chuck I tried to say something but instead of words a stream of vomit blew out of my mouth, which about half of landed on my hive, covered belly.

The men howled and I heard one of them say, “Who had 9:45?”

Chuck tried to hide the smile on his face as he said, “Yes?”

“I’m sick,” I said.

“And?”

“I can’t do anymore work. Can I go see my dad?”

“Sure.” he said. I could hear him snickering as I walked away. I wondered out the big gate and walked down the sidewalk the two blocks to my Dad’s office. I remember thinking that I may not make it, and thinking ‘will anybody find me if I fall down.’ But after about five minutes walking in the sun I came to the old brick office. I walked inside and made my way up the stairs to his office. Walking in I was sunburnt, filthy, cut and covered with hives and fresh coat of vomit. My father’s partner Ray couldn’t hide the humor he found in my condition.

My father looking up and acting surprised said, “ Did they quit early today son?”

“No,” I said, “I got sick!”

“Well why don’t you go in the bathroom and clean up a little.” He said.

His office was an old house and his bathroom had a shower and sink. I took my shirt off and washed my face, hands and arms then I took a paper towel and slowly washed my belly. It was red and swollen. The paper hurt but was cool so I would just press the wet towel against my skin, it was soothing. After a few minutes I washed my shirt. It took several rinsing to get the stickers and smell of puke out. The shirt felt cold but still stung as I put it back on. When I came out of the bathroom I was surprised that Dad was continuing with his work. I just assumed that he would stop what he was doing and take me home… after all I was sick.

He said, “Why don’t you take a few minutes on that couch there.”

Soon I was fast asleep. I slept for about an hour and a half. When I woke up, my Dad asked if I was feeling better.

I told him I was, and he said, “ Then head back to the yard I’ll pick you up when done.”

I remember almost crying walking back to the yard, but when I got back Chuck told me to finish the day picking up wire. I just concentrated on not getting sick and waiting as long as I could for a drink. The next thing I knew my first day was over.

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