Managing

Managing

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One summer, I killed my father. OK, I didn’t actually kill him, but he died, nonetheless. He wasn’t my real father, either, but he felt that way a little bit. I probably could have stopped it from happening, but in my youth and fear, I failed to do the right thing.

The Darmstadter Hof was and still is a local icon. Some would call the granite building a relic, but a family member of ours had owned it and managed it for nearly ninety years. The ‘Hof’ sits snugly in the middle of the town marketplace, and over the years, though the area's fortunes rose and fell with the economy, our place stayed open to welcome travelers. Its Art Deco design went in and out of style, but the patrons always came; some left a lasting impression on me.

I am now the General Manager, but I didn’t start that way. Throughout my school years, I’d work in one menial position or another, finally making my way up the ranks to the gold jacket of the desk crew, a prestigious position in our fine hotel. I started as a busboy in the restaurant for two summers. Then I was a shuttle van driver for two more summers. That was fun because I interacted with people more and got out of the building. Even though most of my driving was just to the airport or seaport and back, getting out to see the city was always an adventure.

Most times, my passengers would engage with others in their party, discussing their trips or business dealings. It was the lone travelers who brought the best conversations to me. I met a few cool people, a lot of chatty types excited about their adventures, and more than one older woman who would have liked to show a younger man an interesting time. At least, that’s what my young man fantasies hoped for.

The first summer I drove, one man in particular caught my interest. He barely spoke to me the first time I transported him from the airport, but he had an almost recognizable air about him. I didn’t notice right away, but as I was loading his luggage, I was soon struck by how he stood, his stance, and the cut of his shoulders. There was something familiar in them. We drove along, and I’d peek at him in the rearview mirror to see his salt and pepper hair as he stared intently out at nothing. Even his button-down shirt and lack of a tie were reminiscent of someone missing from my life. And it finally hit me: my father.

Now, at this point, my father had been gone for eight years. Not dead, just disappeared. He left my mother and me in the mid-‘80s to live his life and hadn’t been in touch since. The man in the van certainly wasn’t my actual father, but his presence, his similarity to my father, stunned me into an uncomfortable silence. I don’t think he minded because he just stared off into the distance and sat quietly the whole ride. At the hotel, I wordlessly unloaded his belongings and was rewarded with a $20 bill, a firm handshake, and a genuine “thank you.”  I don’t know why, but I remember feeling like crying.

I saw him again the following summer, but this time, the early morning drive was to the airport. He recognized me from the previous year, said a fond hello, and sat in the van's front seat. He sat quietly for the first ten minutes of the ride, but then he looked at me and told me a story.

“My wife and I used to both come on these trips to the ‘Hof’ for weekends back when we lived in the area. Back when …,” His words trailed off.

“Yeah?” I said. I wasn’t sure where to go with this at the time. I didn’t want to say or ask anything upsetting. “Is she...still with us?” I thought this was a smart and diplomatic question.

“Yes,” was all he said. After a deep breath and a sigh, he continued. “It was for our anniversary weekend, and we thought it was a good way to rekindle some fun or romance or...,” he waved in the air to indicate he couldn’t find the words, “or whatever.” He paused for almost a full minute. I could see he wanted to say something, but he hadn’t found the words or the energy yet. Now that he had been in the van longer, I could smell what must have been last night’s alcohol coming through his pores. I’d driven enough hungover guests to recognize the odor.

“She stopped coming with me a couple years ago.” He let out another sigh. “I wish she would start trying again.”

Arriving at the airport saved me from the awkward situation. Another $20 bill, another firm handshake, and another genuine “thank you” later, he was gone again.

The next time I saw him was the following summer, my first in the gold jacket and on the 4 p.m. to 2 a.m. shift.

He had just left the hotel lounge when he saw me across the lobby. “Hey, kid,” he said a little too loudly for the late hour. “You’re moving up in the world. Gold jacket looks good on you. Who’d you sleep with to get that?” He approached slowly, in slow, smooth, controlled steps, and I could smell the whiskey that had loosened his tongue.

"I worked very hard to get here,” I said a little indignantly. Then, with a little smile, I let the truth slip out. “Well, my mother is the General Manager, too.”

“Oh, shit!” he said, leaning back from the countertop. “I didn’t mean anything by that.” He shooed away invisible flies as if to wave away his faux pas. “Anyways, good for you. You’re probably livin’ the dream, aren’t ya?” He leaned back onto my counter with both hands as if the answer to this question was really important to him.

I didn’t like the question or what it implied. I didn’t like it because I wasn’t livin’ the dream. I was livin’ my mother’s dream: graduate with a BA in Hospitality Management, follow up with a master’s in business administration, work all the positions at the family hotel, and eventually take over for her as the general manager. If I just follow that path, I’ll make her happy. But it wasn’t my dream. I wasn’t sure what my dream was back then.

I lied. “Yes, sir. I’m working towards my professional goals.”

“That’s great, kid. I’m so glad to hear that. I’m proud of ya. I remember you when you were a busser in the restaurant. Now look at you.”

“You saw me back then?” I said, only half believing him. But how else would he know if he hadn’t seen me?

“Sure. I been coming here for years, you know that, and I see what’s what. Now look at you.  Well done, young man.” He leaned back from the counter and shot me three times with the finger guns he drew from his side holsters. “Pew! Pew! Pew! Congratulations, bud.” He toddled off to the elevator down the hallway and disappeared.

I’d been seen. This man, who wasn’t my father, saw me. This man, who reminded me of my father, was proud of me. I was profoundly shocked to the edge of tears. My mother, granduncle, and co-workers had expressed pride and pleasure for my promotion, but it wasn’t the same as if my father had done so. This man, this stranger, was the closest thing to it that I could imagine.

It would be another year until I saw him again, the late summer of ‘95. Again, he was coming from the bar, and it was again whiskey that loosened his tongue. He leaned on my counter as if he owned it. “I don’t see a ring. You married? Engaged?”

“No, sir. That’s not in the plans for me just yet.” The truth is I had no romantic options at the time that would make marriage even a remote possibility.

“Good. Don’t rush into that. Once you do, everything changes. Same with having kids.”

I never knew if he had kids. It never came up. He wanted to say more but seemed to be having trouble finding the right words. His mouth would open like he was about to speak, but then it would close. He held his hands in front of him like he was holding an accordion. Still, the words didn’t come, so I helped.

“Has today been a rough day for you?”

He dropped a bombshell on me. “You can say that. I finally left my wife. Or, maybe she kicked me out. I’m not sure.” He gave a little laugh. “She said not to come back from my little pity vacation this year.”

How does one respond to that? Instead of trying to say something wise or comforting, I went with the first thing I could think of. “Yeah?” Wise words, indeed. If the end of his relationship wasn’t enough, he shared some more disturbing information.

“Yeah. Our son disappeared eleven years ago. Fourteen-years-old and he just up and vanished from the neighborhood. We’ve never heard from him since. We’ve been trying to keep our shit together since then, but I just can’t anymore. I can’t be there for her. I can’t stand being without him, and…,” he looked down, avoiding my eyes, “I can’t stand being with me. I can’t stand being me. I guess we’ve both had enough of it all.”

The lobby was silent save for the whirr of the ceiling fans. From the bar, I could hear the staff closing for the night: the clinking of glassware, the shuffle of tables, and the laughter of the employees enjoying the end of their shift. There was nothing to break the silence of the moment except more from the man.

“I want him back so badly. There’s so much I want to say to him. I want to hold him, ya’ know? I want to tell him I love him and that I’m sorry I wasn’t there for him. I just want him back.” He wasn’t crying, but it seemed he was close to it. The alcohol and his demons were doing their work. His left arm leaned on my desk, his eyes were still downcast as if in recollection, and he stayed still in place, as if any movement would scare away all the memories of his son.

This was outside the bounds of any other discussion I’d had before, and at that point in my life, I didn’t know my social obligation in that situation. Part of me wanted to hustle him out of the lobby so no one would come in and get upset by such a conversation, but another part, the part that had been left behind by a father, wanted to hug the man and let him tell me all the things that he wanted to tell his missing son. I love you. I’m proud of you. I’ll always be there for you. Instead, I sat stone quiet as he let his mood pass.

He looked back up at me. “I’m sorry to drop that all on you, kid. I don’t know where it came from. It’s just been a helluva day, ya’ know?”

“I’m sure it has,” I said in a voice softened more from timidity than true compassion. I had no idea how to handle so much weight. Rather than being bold enough to offer the man any words of comfort, I was stunned into silence by what I wanted to hear. I love you. I’m proud of you. I’ll always be there for you—instead, nothing.

After a moment, he collected himself, took a cleansing breath, and straightened out his shirt and coat as if it would wash the sadness from him. He apologized for sharing so much and mumbled a quiet good night to me. I watched him walk down the hallway to the elevators and disappear. A few hours later, he would be dead.

The next evening, I came in to work to hear that the man had passed during the night from an apparent overdose of prescription medication. The loss hit me harder than one would expect, harder than the passing of any other guest. We’ve had guests die before and plenty since then, but it always seemed more of an administrative problem than an emotional one. This was different.

The shift passed with as little human interaction as possible. My behavior was curt yet professional with those who came to the desk, but I wasn’t in the mood to talk in-depth with anyone. There’d been enough of that for a while. I wanted that man to come in again. I wanted to let him talk some more. I wanted to ask him about his son. I wanted to ask him question after question to keep him talking about what weighed him down. I just wanted to see him again, to know that he was ok. But he wouldn’t come in.

All these years later, and many times since then, I’ve thought of that man and my lack of courage, of my selfishness. The man died because I wanted him, my ghost father, to tell me he was proud of me and that he loved me. Instead, in that instance, I was the only person in the world who had the power of life or death over him, and I could have said the words that could have let him live, maybe just for another day, but he would have lived. I should have talked to him and told him that his son knows that his father loves him. It might have made no difference at all, but I’ll never know because I failed.

Deadlined - Prologue

Deadlined - Prologue

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Deadlined, now available

Jonathan Robert Scotts was going to die tonight. He settled into his comfortable camping spot beneath the eaves of the South Hayward BART station tracks for the last time, his impending death by gunshot coming within minutes. This wasn’t something Jonathan, JR to his friends, had anticipated, but he wasn’t one to live a calendared life. Having lived on the streets for the better part of two years, his social activities didn’t call for much planning.

Luckier than most of his peers, he got a modest disability pension from the VA. It wasn’t much, just enough each month to get drunk a few times before the money ran out. Apart from that, Scotts depended on donations from the churches on Tennyson Road. Sometimes, he dumpster dived behind the markets, but there was often too much competition from his fellow street dwellers for whatever treasures they might contain.

He wanted to be around his family, but he’d burned those bridges. They still lived down the road in Fremont, but they’d grown tired of his bullshit. They’d grown tired of his lies, and they’d grown weary of him stealing from them when he needed some kind of fix. There were only so many times they wanted to retrieve JR from the county lockup.

The day arrived when they no longer came, and he could only manage a ride to Hayward. Then Hayward became home. JR tried downtown around the bus and BART station but found it crowded with too many hardcore drug users. The industrial areas lacked food or booze sources, and the prime foraging spots along Mission Boulevard were already occupied. After a few weeks of exploring and experimenting, he found his way to the Tennyson corridor and made it his home—for what that was worth. Sure, he had to break camp every night, but that didn’t take long, and it was easy to pack with him on the bike he had stolen. He’d never been robbed, the BART police never rousted him, and only the strongest of winds would bother him in the faux cave beneath the tracks.

Tucked away under his blue tarp, sipping the last of his malt liquor, he weighed whether to take a piss now or hold it in through the night. He wanted a better life, and he had a plan for it. He wanted his disabilities reevaluated to see if he was eligible for a better pension. He’d qualify for VA medical care if he had a high enough rating. If he could do that, he would get to rehab. With rehab, JR almost teared up at the thought that he might get his family back.

He’d fucked up so much, so many times. He knew his family would never forgive him, but he’d wanted to try. He had no idea how to get sober and had every excuse and opportunity to keep drinking as things were now.

Sleep approached as he thought of his ex-wife, Debra. She hadn’t remarried, so maybe he had a chance. He recalled their first dates, how they met, how they kissed and made love. It made him sad. He turned in his blanket to face the concrete wall, took a heavy breath, and eventually slipped into slumber.

JR wasn’t aware how much time had passed, but he woke with a jolt when his tarp and blanket were jerked away. Was he being robbed? For a moment, he felt relieved, knowing he had nothing to steal.

That comfort ended with two quick spits of light from the gun barrel pointed at him. For the briefest of instances, images of Debra passed through his mind before the final shot entered his brain, and he slipped to the other side.

* * *

Start at the beginning with The Stone Harvest.

Oscar Braga looked forward to the killing on this night. It was an idea a long time coming, and that time was now.

While traversing this busy corridor commuting to and from work sites, he had seen the patterns of people in this area and kept mental notes on their activities. He’d seen where the homeless gathered, where they hid and nested. A few weeks back, he’d parked his truck and scouted this area to get a more intimate feel for which dark corners held his targets. He had found the alleys and corners that gave shelter to those he despised.

Tonight, he would clean the streets and make a better world for those remaining, he thought solemnly.

Tennyson Road ran east-west and crossed Hayward just south of downtown. Lower-middle-class neighborhoods saddled its length up and down with a few strip malls, churches, and schools thrown in. Once gentrification took hold, the area’s glory days were behind it and, if lucky, ahead of it. For now, though, it had more than its share of homeless souls seeking refuge from the world’s economic woes where and when and how they could.

The South Hayward Bay Area Rapid Transit station was the site of his first planned contact. Braga didn’t know if it was a male or female, only that this silhouetted figure would be in its usual spot, as it had been every time he’d checked in the past few weeks.

Braga had been keeping himself calm during the roundabout walk from his truck to this starting point, but knowing he was about to commence his wave of cleansing, he was both scared and excited beyond words. His breathing was quick, and his heart rate elevated like he was about to begin a trip on a rollercoaster. But he was ready.

He walked westward along the north side of Tennyson, dipping low to avoid the BART tracks in a half-underpass. Braga shone his flashlight into the eaves of the underpass to check for anyone unaccounted for. Had there been occupants in that dry area, he’d have to skip this first kill, but he already knew from his weeks of prep work that no one had taken up shelter there. Braga wanted a clean start with no potential witnesses. At other spots, he’d easily be able to kill any witnesses, but not at the beginning. Too open, too busy with traffic, too well-lit.

Head on a swivel, he reminded himself while keeping one of the massive concrete support pillars between him and his target. One flickering light cast his shadow intermittently upon the stone. It was a short path and worth the risk. Traffic was clear.

Once on the other side, he steeled himself, pulling a suppressed 9mm pistol out from the front pouch of his black hoodie. It was an old military surplus Beretta 9mm and probably had a few thousand rounds sent through its barrel—maybe even a few in anger. It would work for tonight’s mission.

With one final glance over his shoulder to the street behind, Braga turned and hustled up the concrete incline toward the eave, where it met the underside of the BART track overpass. There it was, in the same spot it had been every time. Tonight was its last night of being a drain on society. Reaching his target, Braga seized the edge of the tarp and blanket the person had used for protection from the world and whipped them away, rousing him with a start. It was a man, after all. Before the man made a sound and while staring into his rheumy eyes, Braga overcame the rapid rise of the man’s stench and placed three quick rounds into him: two in the chest and one in his face. No time to enjoy the victory. He had more to do.

Three blocks west, someone had made a home of tarps against the tall noise-abatement wall, partially protecting the adjacent neighborhood from the sounds of passing trains. The wall kept him safe from the elements but not from predators.

Braga grabbed the tarp that served as the man’s home and ripped it away. Held in place by ropes and bungee cords, it didn’t get torn down altogether, but it did expose the alarmed occupant to the cool Hayward night.

The man’s panic didn’t last long. Two quick shots to his chest, with another well-aimed shot to his forehead, ended any possible emotion or commotion.

Braga crossed over Tennyson again to a small camp in the shadow of overgrown oleanders near the corner of the recently refurbished strip mall two blocks west. There were the usual businesses, all closed: a laundromat, bar, liquor store, taqueria, check cashing store, and a doughnut shop—minimal illumination at this hour.

As soon as the lights from a passing van faded, Braga used the noise to cover his movements as he headed toward the far side of the lot and oleanders. Walking a slow arc to avoid making a straight line to the bushes, he noticed movement to his far right while focusing on his target area. A man shuffled toward him. No, not toward him, but in the direction of the shade and shadow and safety of the overgrown plants. The approaching man carried a bundle, probably sleeping gear he’d stolen.

Braga took a chance to see if anyone inside was sleeping. He looked around in the gloom while adjusting his eyes to the darkness. Two, no, three people were sleeping in their blanket cocoons. The suppressed 9mm had nine rounds remaining, ready to go in Braga’s grip.

The homeless man with his belongings stepped between two overgrown oleanders. As the shadows of the heavy branches embraced him, blocking the light, Braga welcomed him with two quick shots to the chest. Only one of the three vagrants inside the impromptu camping spot stirred from the muffled gunshots. Though they were in the shadows, Braga saw his dark Central American features and greeted the man’s shocked appearance by placing two rounds into his forehead. Neither other camper stirred.

Five rounds left. He put one into each man’s heart and followed it with another into where their heads would be. He gave the second man an extra round in his skull just for fun.

Motionless and silent, he absorbed all the sights, scents, or sensations from the scene: spent propellant from the multiple rounds, the metallic tinge of blood, human filth of the routinely homeless, the wash of noise from the rare passing car, and a distant train. Nothing close that would present a threat.

He reloaded his pistol and surveyed his latest kills for signs of life, satisfied they were all ex-homeless and would no longer be a burden on society. As at the other scene he left his spent shell casings behind. He had stolen all the ammo, making it untraceable to him, and wiped down each round before loading it into the magazine—no chance of leaving a print behind.

The next kill site was two blocks west on the other side of the street. An auto repair shop sat on the opposite corner from a brightly lit 7-Eleven, its lights a blanket of hope and a sense of security for those ensconced inside for the time it took to buy a late-night pack of cigarettes or a Slurpee.

Braga walked to the kill site, the shadowed side lot of the shop, and played this stop differently, knowing he had a full magazine. He quickly placed two rounds in the chest of each of the three sleeping victims he knew frequented the place, short Latino men who appeared to be in their forties. Then, taking a few more seconds, he put a final round in each skull.

He had no more attacks planned out. His truck waited a few blocks away, and if the night’s killing ended here, he’d be okay with the body count. Nine. About as he expected. Naturally, he wanted more, but prudence demanded he take precautions. If he really wanted, more targets could be found in the dark alleyways behind nearby businesses or tucked under bushes at parks. He’d learned in his many trips up and down Tennyson that no matter the hour, there were always stragglers lurking about in the landscaped to add to the count. The fat one without shoes who often stopped traffic by walking right into the middle of the street, regardless of how busy it was. There was also the gal who slept in front of the Mexican market and changed her clothes on the sidewalk. He also knew of an old man who pushed his two shopping carts up and down Tennyson and made his home wherever he felt like it.

There was always more.

Between here and his truck, the most likely spots to find prey were behind the Life Church community center, outside the 24-hour Jack in the Box, or near the park library, but they all looked too busy. Braga knew already, but he triple-checked his ammo count. Loaded with a new magazine and two more ready, he had one other quiet spot to check.

Ruus River was the local name for the cement creek that ran perpendicular to Tennyson. It was part of the city’s rainfall-runoff abatement that gathered all the rainwater from the Tennyson Basin. It brought the water to the shoreline during the rare storms that dumped so much rain and runoff that the regular drains and gutters couldn’t handle it. During the drier seasons, like now, the river served as a pathway for those trying to stay out of the streetlights. The county fenced off the area where Tennyson and the river met, but the chain link fencing wasn’t enough to stop the natural flow of humans on this primate game trail. Braga found a place where someone had cut through to make a path. There’d been no rain, so the concrete river was dry except for a bare trickle down the center of the channel. The tunnels under the road proved too dark to see anything, but the stench of human filth was thick. He gave his eyes a moment to adapt, then noticed a motionless human silhouette at the far side of the street leaning against a pillar.

Braga made an arc around and behind the man, walking past the target with about ten feet between them, making side glances in his peripheral vision. He couldn’t tell if the homeless man was asleep or unconscious. Odd. He was more than sleeping.

He’d seen this man several times shuffling up and down the street, wrapped in his old blanket, looking as bad as he smelled. Probably smelled worse than that fucking donkey, Braga thought. Whatever alcohol or drugs he had gotten hold of had incapacitated him enough that no matter what noise Braga made, he wouldn’t have roused. This wouldn’t be a killing. It would be euthanization. This pathetic piece of shit needs to be put out of its misery, out of our misery.

He changed his mind about how he wanted this kill to play out and slipped his Beretta away. He pulled out the five-inch lock blade from the rear pocket of his pants and used his thumb to bring the blade into position. Smooth is fast, and fast is smooth.

Taking a quick step toward the target, he dropped to one knee, clasped a gloved hand over the homeless man’s mouth, and slid the blade with ease directly into his eye, dead center of the socket. The man’s body convulsed violently, his upper torso lurching toward Braga before flopping into stillness. He kept the pressure on the knife until the man’s body relaxed completely and then pulled it free, not bothering to check for a pulse, but he didn’t get up immediately.

Braga wiped the bulk of the gore from the blade onto the homeless man’s blanket and stood. He was concerned there may be blood on his face or hoodie, but there was nothing much more for that than a quick, cursory wipe with his sleeve. He retraced his steps back to the cut in the fence to see if anything was different, any new people, or maybe someone not there who was before. No. All looked smooth and clear.

Passing back through the fence, he noticed a slight uptick in traffic, which meant more eyeballs on him, but mostly it meant more noise and movement in which to remain concealed. Several parking spaces were empty on the side street where he parked. A few locals headed out to work, he assumed.

On his walk, he pulled out his cell phone and turned on the camera to check for any splatters on his face. There were none, but there was some blood near the right cuff of his hoodie. He’d have to get rid of it, but that’s why he bought cheap ones.

Approaching his truck, he unlocked the passenger side with the fob he had secreted inside the wheel well and got to work. He removed his hoodie, placing it along with his pistol, gloves, shoes, and knife inside a plastic bag. He put his regular sneakers back on. Next, he pulled a package of baby wipes from the glove box, then cleaned his face and hands. Those dirty wipes went into the plastic bag, too. He brought out a small bottle of hand sanitizer, the kind with a substantial alcohol percentage. If he missed any blood, the sanitizer would destroy any DNA value it held. Lastly, he switched out of his “work” shoes, stuffing them in the bag, too.

Braga gave himself a final visual inspection before climbing into the driver’s seat, feeling good about his appearance. He pulled from his spot, headed northward along smaller streets, and reviewed his after-action checklist. Moreso, he thought about the drain on society caused by his ten victims and the incalculable gain to the community because of their deaths. No one gave out medals for this sort of thing—but he felt they ought to.