American Trash

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American Trash - book excerpt

Chapter One

          There are too many guys packed inside Reverend Sammy's rundown trailer and it smells like a mixture of stale farts, body odor, and cigar smoke. There's new blood here today. I know the kid's fucked from the git-go. I don't know how I know, but I do. The kid, Travis, is young, probably twenty or so. Too blond and too eager; he's about as bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as a horny jackrabbit coked to the gills. All he wants is a job at the carnival, but I know Reverend Sammy's gonna make us kill the poor dumb bastard. I look over at my best friend, Cutter, and he looks back, and in that half-second exchange of glances I know we're on the same page.

          Travis is sitting at the table, looking across at Sammy. The kid's eyes are wide and excited. Sammy's eyes are dark and flat like a creature of the night that's waiting to kill you and pick the meat off your bones. I know Sammy well and yet, looking at him now, I'm scared. I wonder if Travis is scared. Or if he even has an inkling that he should be scared.

          Travis is chattery, telling Sammy a hundred reasons why he's always dreamt of being a carny. I think the kid is legit, just some poor dumb schmuck who wandered in off the streets looking for a job, but I can see Sammy isn't buying it. Sammy has always been a paranoid fuck, but that's how he got to the top of the food chain; that's why he's the boss of the biggest criminal operation in the Ozarks. But now Sammy's using enough Oxy to kill an elephant, and there's no way on God's green earth this kid is getting out of here alive.

          Travis is too educated. He probably only has a year or two of juco, but that's more than any of us. He's too blond. Look at him for God's sake, sitting there with his spiky hair, looking like a surfer who got lost and washed up in Missouri. There's something off about him, sure, but not in a working-for-the-feds way, but more in a he-doesn't-fucking-fit-here kind of way. But good for him. At least that's what I would say in any other circumstance; in a circumstance where he wasn't about to be killed.

          Sammy is sitting there at the table, too big to properly fit in his chair. He's staring at Travis, sizing him up, but he's already made up his mind. I glance around at everyone else in the room—everyone who is not Sammy or Travis—and I can see we all know the play. Cracker Jack is sitting on the busted-up couch beside Cutter, and I'm on a raggedy-assed old recliner that's probably as old as Sammy.

          Sammy's eyes narrow and he tells the kid, “These are my guys.” He motions towards the couch. “That's Cracker Jack. He's the tough old sumbitch with all the tats. And that crazy spic next to him, that's Cutter.”

          Jesus Christ. I realize now that the meth isn't just making the old man paranoid, it's making him sloppy. If Sammy believes Travis is working for the feds, why the fuck is he telling him our names?

          The kid, still smiling, looks at Cutter. “How'd you get that name?”

          Cutter looks at me, grinning. Then his gaze turns towards Travis. “You're gonna find out soon enough, kid.”

          We all chuckle and Travis does too. He believes he's in on the joke, and his smile doesn't waver. He's grinning big like any one of the kids I see here at prize alley who've just spent ten bucks to win a prize that was made in Taiwan and cost us thirty cents. Sammy points to me. “This mean bastard behind you, that's Billy.” I don't smile. Instead I'm thinking about Sammy calling me a mean bastard. I want to object, but I know he's right. And coming from Reverend Sammy, the cruelest man I've ever known, it says a lot.

          “These guys are gonna take you to Branson and have you fill out the necessary forms,” Sammy says around the fat cigar he's smoking.

          Travis looks at him happily. “You mean I got the job?”

          The old bald motherfucker reaches his meaty hand out across the table for the kid to shake. Travis shakes it, and that seals the deal.

          We all stand and prepare to take him away. To search him for a wire. To beat the shit out of him. To kill him and saw his body into little bitty pieces. To bury him deep in the woods in three or four different holes. Cracker Jack, Cutter, and I all watch as Travis thanks Sammy for giving him the job he's always wanted. We're tired and we all sigh at the same time. None of us mind killing folks, but lately it's been tough. Now that Sammy is paranoid and on edge, life feels like a shitty, less-funny version of Groundhog Day; a tiresome loop of killing, cutting, and digging graves.

          As the three of us lead Travis out to Cutter's old Caddy, Travis tells us about his little girl in Utah and about how he's working here to send her money, so she'll be okay. Again, I sigh.

          Some days I wish I'd never come to work here.

Chapter Two

Year One

          Not every carny is a criminal, but every carny at Funland sure the hell is. It's a hell of a place, Funland. Is it a carnival, or is it a criminal enterprise? The answer is simple: it's both.

          You might be asking yourself how I came to work for such a no-good sonofabitch as Reverend Sammy in a tenth-rate carnival/crime family smack dab in the middle of the Ozarks. And you know what? Sometimes I ask myself that, too.

          Aside from this possibly being a punishment for some wicked shit I did in a now-forgotten past life—a scenario I consider frequently—this is how it all went down. There's a smarmy fat-fuck lawyer named Richie Marks who lives in St. Louis. He's a duplicitous, shady motherfucker, even by lawyer standards. He specializes in defending scum. Guilty scum. So, of course, he's had plenty of dealings with Reverend Sammy and his crew. But Richie is more than just a lawyer; he doubles as a scout for Funland. So, every now and then when he comes across someone he thinks has just the right kind of criminal potential, he calls Sammy. That's what happened with me.

          I wasn't privy to the conversation, but this is how I imagine it:

          Richie calls Sammy. Sammy is in his trailer, smoking a fat cigar and getting head from some young runaway—that's his M.O.; he loves head, and he loves young runaways. Sammy begrudgingly answers the phone.

          “Who the fuck is this?”

          “Hey Sammy, it's me, Richie.”

          “Okay, what?”

          “I got a new prospect for you.”

          “Oh yeah?” Sammy asks, only the slightest bit interested. I say this because nothing ever makes Sammy too interested or excited. Nothing. I used to think I was just misreading him, but I wasn't. That's just him—a mean, disinterested old prick.

          Richie says, “I got this kid, Billy Hanson, over in lockup.”

          “Tell me about him,” Sammy says as he watches the little skank's head bob up and down on his prick.

          “Billy's the kinda kid who don't give a fuck. The cops tell him they've got him dead to rights and he's gonna do serious time, but he just looks 'em in the eyes and tells 'em to go fuck their grannies with a spiked dildo.”

          “Yeah? How old is this kid?”

          “He's twenty-three,” Richie says, “but he's smarter than twenty-three.”

          “What was the crime they got him for?”

          Richie laughs. “This time? This time he stole a car that was sittin' in the parking lot of a gas station. The dumb bitch who owned it just left it sittin' there unattended. But the thing is, Billy stole it without realizin' there was a baby in the backseat.”

          “Oh shit.”

          “You bet your ass, 'oh shit',” Richie says. “But this kid Billy, he sees the baby back there, so he drops the car off in the parking lot over at Barnes Jewish. He's a criminal, but he's not tryin' to steal a baby. What he tells me, this kid, is he knew he could make a profit off sellin' the baby to some sex freak or some broad who can't have a kid of her own, but he could see the trouble there. He knew if he did that, he could go away for a long stretch, and he didn't want that. On top of that, Billy said he didn't feel right takin' somebody's kid.”

          “Yeah?” Sammy asks as he uses his dick to smear cum on the skank's face.

          “We get to talkin', and he tells me he really loves doin' criminal shit,” Richie says. “He tells me he knows he could get a straight job. Says he used to work at a porn store out on the highway and made decent money, but he says he really loves committing crime. So, I say, 'What kinda crime?' He looks me in the eye and says, 'Anything really. I'm down for whatever so long as it's against the law.' I'm tellin' you the kid gets off on criminal shit the same way the rest of us get off bustin' nuts. He's an arch fuckin' criminal, this kid.”

          There's a pause and then Sammy says, “So if they couldn't tie him to the car, how come he's in jail?”

          Richie laughs. “A witness saw him take the car, but when they stuck him in the lineup, she wasn't sure enough to ID him. The cops know it was Billy, so they're tryin' to convince her to say it was him, but she won't do it. She's one of those goody-two-shoes liberal types, wants to be completely sure before sendin' somebody upstate.”

          “Right.”

          “So, the cops know our boy Billy stole the car, but they can't stick him with the crime. So, they run his name in their computer and find out he's got a bench warrant in Chicago for some tickets. No big deal, but for now they've got him in lockup.”

          “You can get him out?” Sammy asks as he stands, pulling his pants up.       

          “I can and I will.”

          “I wanna meet him. Can you arrange it?”

          “Of course,” Richie says. “Ask and ye shall receive.”

          And that's how I became a blip on Reverend Sammy's radar.