Decay Inevitable

Vernon never blinked when he talked. First time I ever saw his eyelids was when I caught him asleep one time. And even then I had to look twice because it was as though they were so thin they were almost translucent, like he was watching you while he kipped. He gave me a chunky little glass filled with rum and told me to down it. After the drink he asked me straight if I wanted to come and work with him. He needed someone he could trust, he said. He needed another set of eyes. Another set of hands. It was getting too dangerous, he said, this line of work he was in. He was getting too old. He pinched my cheek and laughed when he said this. He said that the rewards for helping him out would be great. Unimaginable.

I didn’t like it, the work he was offering. But I stuck at it and developed a tough skin. The boat work tailed off anyway. We lost our gills and went inland. I took beatings for Vernon. I took a knife once. I got harder. The beatings didn’t happen so often. I started doling the beatings out more than I was taking them. Vernon and me put the frighteners on this part of the country. We had the Northwest in our pockets. We got word of the rich pickings and went round to collect. I didn’t know then that it wasn’t money that Vernon was picking up. I thought he was a debt collector pure and simple. I never asked who for and I never asked why. I just matched him pace for pace and stood behind him in the shadows, cracking my knuckles while he pleased and thank you’d and scraped shit off his heels on the steps of all those sorry little houses.

It was seven or eight years before I twigged. A long time, I know. But if I’d been known for the quality of meat between my ears I’d never have been in this game in the first place, would I now? There’s me, picking up my grey hairs and getting a bit of lard round the guts and Vernon, my elder and better, looking as thin as a stiletto and twice as sharp. I never saw him exercising. He ate like a gannet and drank as if to chase off the Devil’s thirst.