In recompense, I present an excerpt from the third of the three novels I'm currently working on. I expect this one to be out the end of 2019. It involves the Chicago mob, a town full of farmers, a motorcycle gang / French and Indian War reinactor club, a bar featuring scantily-clad young women and an overweight, lovelorn accountant named Honeyboy Fish. Following is the sad, sad story of Honeyboy Fish.
Honeyboy Fish
Honeyboy Edward Fish hated his job almost as much as he hated his name. And he really, really hated his name. ‘Honeyboy’ was his mother’s idea. Naomi was the only child of a mild-mannered accountant; a petite, demure Skokie princess enrolled in psychology at Northwestern. One day she signed-up for an after-hours session labeled Jews and Blues, which she assumed was a symposium on clinical depression. It was anything but. The music was a glorious revelation, and she soon began neglecting her studies for long afternoons at various and increasingly rough venues around the greater Chicago area. She discovered cigarettes, whiskey, weed and pills – with the exception of birth control – and eventually found herself pregnant by one member or another of an off-tune five piece ensemble from the South Side. Figuring it was Clyde, the rail thin guitar player, she named her offspring after one of Chicago’s greatest blues guitarists – Honeyboy Edwards.
Unfortunately, Eddie’s father turned out to be the three hundred pound drummer. In addition to the man’s inability to keep a beat, Honeyboy inherited his father’s temper and proclivity towards girth. The band broke up. Naomi split for the Coast, leaving the infant in the care of her befuddled parents. Ester and Irving gave it their best, but by the age of eighteen Honeyboy Fish was a silent, two hundred fifty pound ball of semi-suppressed rage destined to be a fixture in the Cook County juvvie system, until his hulking presence was noted by one Michael Connolly; gambler, mid-level bookie, and spittle-faced Aurora University football fan. Eddie’s size just screamed defensive linesman.
Connolly befriended Eddie’s grandparents and convinced them that football would be the young man’s salvation, or the Jewish version thereof. Irving and Ester were desperate to retire to Florida and needed little prompting. Eddie soon found himself enrolled in the school’s sports management program and ensconced in an off-campus apartment with a plasma TV and well- stocked refrigerator. Sadly, he proved much less adept at football than Connolly expected, until the boy instinctively slammed him up against a wall after a disparaging mention of his full name, which gave Connolly both a mild concussion and a brilliant idea. For the remainder of Eddie’s freshman season, Connolly could be found Friday evenings schmoozing the opposing teams’ offensive linemen at various hotels and bars while liberally dropping the Aurora nose guard’s full name. ‘Honeyboy’ inevitably became an on-field taunt, and as a result, Aurora had its best season in years, despite Eddie’s massive accumulation of off-side penalties.
The streak fell apart Eddie’s sophomore year, once all the conference teams were wise to the scheme, but in the meantime Honeyboy Fish had come to the attention of Connolly’s bosses. A two hundred fifty pound ex-football player could make a name for himself in ‘enforcement.’ Eddie dropped out of college and enrolled as an apprentice. Three months later, his mid-term exam - and first official job - was to put the fear of God into a skinny, middle-aged pimp who had been shorting the weekly take to support his coke habit. Eddie’s instructions were to drive the man to the edge of the Chicago River, wrap him in a steel chain and dangle him over the water at the foot of the abandoned Kinzie Street railway bridge behind the Sun-Times building as a means of expressing the organization’s displeasure. The event was scheduled for three in the morning. Honeyboy’s instructors had thoughtfully procured a Sun-Times parking pass and had arranged for the parking lot and bridge lights to short out at 2:45. The hapless pimp would be sedated and stuffed into the trunk of a late-model Chevy along with ten feet of rusty chain.
Given all the prep work, the actual job should have been straightforward - Eddie had merely to pick up the car, drive to the parking lot, slap the man around, wrap him in chain then drag him to the bridge and hold him over the ten foot deep water until he begged for mercy. Things started well enough - Eddie pulled into the darkened parking lot right on time and found a spot only a few feet from the dense trees and scrub that lined the river bank. But when he popped the trunk open he found that long years of drug abuse had enhanced his victim’s pharmacological immunity to the extent that he was nowhere near as comatose as expected. “The fak you doin, maa!” the pimp hollered.
Eddie was taken aback, but remembering his training, he grabbed the man by the scruff of the neck and rolled him out onto the ground, where he planted the sole of his left shoe and at least one hundred of his two hundred fifty pounds on the pimp’s face, essentially reducing the man’s voice to a gargle. He reached into his inside jacket pocket and extracted a silenced Ruger, then bent down and placed the barrel against the side of the pimp’s head. “You gonna be quiet now, right?” he asked.
The man couldn’t reply, Eddie’s shoe having mushed his cheek into the macadam. Eddie took the silence – and smell of urine – for fear and submission, so he stepped back and motioned with the gun for the man to stand up. Instead he let forth with a string of slurred profanity and vigorous, if poorly aimed, kicks to Eddie’s shins. Stifling an oath of his own, Eddie reached down with his free hand and snatched the pimp up by his neck, holding him at arm’s length. In the dim light of far away street lamps, Eddie saw the man’s eyes bulging. “You gonna be quiet?” he repeated.
The pimp’s head bobbled up and down. Eddie released him. The man bent forward from the waist, gasping for air. “Jesus, what the fuck is this?” He straightened up and for the first time looked closely at Eddie. “Wait a minute. I know you!”
Which, as Eddie had been taught, was the oldest trick in the book. Keeping the Ruger pointed at the old man, he reached into the trunk and grabbed the chain. “No, seriously, man,” the pimp continued, “I seen you ‘round.”
Eddie reached for another handful of chain as the man began rattling off the names and addresses of bars, barbecue joints, drug houses, whorehouses, all the time searching for that one place that would make a personal connection to the overweight young man with the silenced pistol. Eddie stopped listening halfway through, though, and began wondering instead what was it with the fucking chain? He kept yanking it out of the trunk, but it never ended, it was like the whole goddamn back of the car was full of metal! Those mother fuckers, he thought, they’re playing with me! He was sure there was a group of his so-called associates up in one of the dark apartment buildings across the River watching him with binoculars in one hand and a whiskey in another, all of them having a good laugh. Bastards!
The chain finally ended. Eddie had the pimp gather it up in his arms and, prodding him in the back of the neck with the gun, led him into the bushes and down the steep bank to the pitted concrete bridge footing under the massive, rusting girders until they came to the wooden pilings at the foot of the river. In the meantime, the old man had moved on to possible sightings at sports venues: bowling alleys, cock-fighting houses, the concession stand at Wrigley Field -
“I got it!” the pimp shouted, dropping the forty feet of chain and twirling around to face Eddie. “I knew it! You play college ball, don’tcha? Northwestern, right? No, U of Chicago. Aurora? You ever play for-”
The pimp’s eyes grew wider. “Damn,” he exclaimed. “Honeyboy!” He opened his arms wide. “It’s me! Me! Your old uncle Clyde!”
It was true. The skinny man was an only slightly seedier version of an photo Eddie remembered from his youth. The news shook him to his core. His resolve waivered. His new found relative sensed an opportunity and tried to dart away, but tripped over the mountain of chain and fell into the river. Eddie heard the splash and then a sound not unlike that of a toilet flushing. He rushed to the pilings and saw his uncle three feet below in a swirl of black water. The old man went around and around. “Help me, Honeyboy!” he screamed, and then he was swallowed by the whirlpool.
Eddie couldn’t think of what else to do. He dove in.
The Kinzie Street railroad bridge had opened in 1909 and was, for a time, the longest and heaviest drawbridge in Chicago. It was unfortunately built above an abandoned light rail tunnel. Over the decades the bridge had slowly settled into the underlying strata, applying more and more pressure to the top of the tunnel until the evening of Honeyboy’s mid-term, when the masonry ruptured and sucked Eddie’s uncle away. The tunnel shot straight towards the Sun-Times building, where it took a sharp turn to the west. There had been a circular opening, rather like an oversized porthole, in the Sun-Times foundation right where the abandoned rail line made its swing. The opening had been inexpertly bricked-up a hundred years ago by a crew of inebriated Irish workmen, but no one remembered that, or if they knew, would have particularly cared.
Until now.
The weight and speed of the river water blew-out the brickwork. It exploded into the building’s lower level, bowling over a trio of computer operators in the middle of a game of three handed Rummy. A tsunami of fetid water shot into the paper’s computer center, followed by Eddie’s uncle, who flew like a Jamaican luge rider, feet first between two rows of expensive - and rapidly submerging - Hewlett-Packard file servers. He came to a stop next to the emergency exit, shook his head clear and bolted out the door only a few feet behind the operators. The electric mains shorted, but the backup circuits came on, activating the emergency lights and keeping the security cameras rolling, which captured Honeyboy Edward Fish as his head and torso blew into the room, then came to a jarring stop, the remainder of his two hundred fifty pounds plugging the hole perfectly. His shirt remained in place, but everything below his navel was stripped away in the torrent.
It took the combined efforts of the Chicago police and fire departments to free Honeyboy. This included every member of the dive squad, including several off-duty officers who begged their superiors not to pop the kid loose until they could get there and see it for themselves. Luckily for Eddie, Connolly and his cronies had been in an apartment across the river and they watched, mystified as the Eddie and his uncle were swallowed by a massive and sudden whirlpool. “I swear,” Connolly said later. “It was like somebody flushing the can.” They managed to beat the cops and the fire department to the scene, grab Eddie’s gun and the forty feet of chain, stick them in the trunk of the Chevy and drive away. One of the Sun-Times security guards who was a friend of a buddy of a cousin of a mid-level loan shark was told to wade into the computer center and give Eddie his alibi – he had been walking down the street and had to go take a wiz. What he was doing walking down Kinzie at three in the morning, that was up to him.
Eddie had several hours to work on his alibi, the police and firemen coming to the conclusion that he was not in any immediate danger once the tunnel had filled and the rush of water subsided, with the exception perhaps of fish bites. Sun-Times management was aghast, but mostly by the possibility that prematurely dislodging the young man could completely flood the computer room, which, for reasons of economy, was where they had also housed their backup servers and all their backup data. One of their junior lawyers was sent to wade out in the knee-deep water in his Brooks Brothers pinstripe to present Eddie with a proposal of five thousand dollars and a lifetime subscription if he would simply agree to stay where he was until the tunnel could be sealed and drained. Eddie was in a quandary. He assumed that he would be wacked the minute he left the building for being such a dumbshit, but he didn’t even have the money or the trousers necessary to catch a cab. He and the lawyer – cell phone pressed to his ear - eventually settled on a five thousand dollar minimum and an extra five for every hour after the first three – all in cash, a hot meal every hour, unlimited coffee, and a set of clothes from the nearest big and tall shop.
By late afternoon the computer center had been pumped dry, and a watertight cofferdam erected around Eddie’s backside. The water was drained, Eddie was greased and carefully pulled through the hole into the computer center. His first instinct was to run, but he was surrounded by cops, firemen and lawyers, and besides they were still trying to come up with a pair of pants with a 56 inch waist, and his legs, puffy and wrinkled from the water, were useless. The cops put him on a gurney, stuck him in an ambulance and took him to Northwestern Memorial where he was given a private room, courtesy of the Sun-Times, and a private guard to keep away the gawkers and personal injury lawyers. The doctors gave the terrified, caffeine-saturated young man a course of increasingly potent sedatives until he fell asleep. As he drifted off he assumed he would not be waking up.
He woke up. Michael Connolly was sitting in the chair next to the bed. It was three in the morning, exactly 24 hours after he blew his exam. “Eddie, kiddo,” Connolly said. “How you doing?”
Eddie tried to shout for the guard, but Connolly put his meaty paw over Eddie’s mouth. “None of that, now, kid. There’s nobody to hear you, anyways. Your man’s off in a closet getting a freebie, care of the boys from the home office.”
Eddie started crying, the first time in years.
Connolly looked confused. “Need another pillow?” He grabbed a big fluffy one in both hands. He held it up about a foot in front of Eddie’s head. “How’s this?”
Eddie began screaming. All Connolly could think to do was jump on the bed and mush the pillow down on Eddie’s face to try to get him to shut him the fuck up. Honeyboy Fish began flopping around like a hooked tuna. Connolly was suddenly wise to the problem. He threw the pillow off in a corner and clamped his hand back around Eddie’s jaw. “Jesus Christ,” he stage whispered. “I’m not here to pop you, Eddie! Shit, if that’s what we wanted, you’d be fucking dead by now!”
Connolly waited until Eddie quieted down, then cautiously released his jaw. “You’re . . . not?” Eddie asked.
“Why’d we do that? You’re the man of the hour!”
Honeyboy was dumbfounded. Connolly explained. “I only learned this today, kid. I’m not so sure of the details, but the long and short is, we are into the internet big time: gambling, videos, scheduling the ladies. These require computers, but for reasons of security and keeping our asses out of jail, the tech guys prefer we not keep this stuff on our own equipment. Plus, these kinds of systems got to be up 24/7 to make any money so things gotta be redundant.”
“Redundant?” Eddie asked.
“Yeah,” Connolly said, nodding his head.
“What’s that mean, redundant?”
“What? You don’t know what redundant means?” Connolly, of course, wasn’t sure of that himself.
Eddie sat up in bed. “Yeah, I know what redundant means! My grandpa, he was an accountant, remember? He was using big words all the time: accrual, amortization, overhead. . . redundant. What I’m saying is, what does redundant have to do with metaking a swim in the goddamn river?”
Connolly shrugged. “All they said about redundant was it costs money. And the Sun-Times, we thought they had redundant, but it turns out not so much.”
The unstated implication was not lost on Eddie. “We run our stuff on their computers?”
“In a manner of speaking, is what the tech guys told me. They also said that last night, in the middle of prime mid-west get-your-rocks-off time, the lights flickered, but they didn’t go out. Exact quote. They didn’t go out. The systems stayed up. The videos ran, the ladies showed up on time, the johns got laid. And all because of you. You, my friend, are a fucking hero!” Connolly leaned over and gave Eddie a first-class noogie.
“It don’t matter I fucked up, you know, the exam?” Eddie had recovered sufficient wits not to mention that the subject of the exam was his long lost old uncle.
“Skinny Ass Clyde? He was into us for what, twenty, thirty grand over a couple years? Chump change. Plus he was buying the nose candy from us anyway, so what’s the big deal, I want to know. But the videos, man, the video alone is worth a million an hour. An hour!”
Connolly reached out to give Eddie another noogie, but Eddie grabbed his wrist. “So what happens to me? I get another chance? Maybe not near the water this time?”
Connolly’s face grew serious. “I’m thinking not, kiddo. Buttonmen got to be – what’s the word – innocuous?”
“Inconspicuous.”
“Yeah, that’s it. They need to blend in. You – sorry, but I got to say it – do not blend. Plus you are a hero, so your name is known and probably your face. So, what I’m thinking is you’ll be laying low for a while, then maybe something will open up. You’re a smart guy. Something where. . . where you can use those big words, you know?” Connolly looked at his watch. “Hey, I gotta go. Your buddy out front was authorized ten minutes, it’s going on fifteen. Time’s money, know what I mean. You hang tight, kiddo. And keep your mouth shut.”
Appearances and performance to-date aside, Honeyboy Fish was not an unintelligent young man. He knew, for example, how to keep his mouth shut. And, as he showed Connolly, he knew a great many big words – especially words having to do with accounting. His grandfather had run his own accounting firm and did much of the firm’s business from the dining room table. As a result, little Eddie couldn’t help but absorb the vocabulary and arcania of the profession. These were on display three weeks after the Kinzie Street incident when Eddie accompanied Connolly to a meeting with Connolly’s boss. The excitement had died down, the cops had had other things to do than continually question the young man who needed to take a pee at three in the morning, and the Sun-Times had been more than happy to move on to other stories of corporate stupidity, in particular stories that didn’t involve them.
Nick Mucci, Connolly’s boss, was impressed. He thought the boy showed promise, just not in enforcement. Also, like Connolly, Mucci was an Aurora football fan and had made a killing Eddie’s freshman year. He was thus in an appreciative mood and after a few phone calls he had Eddie Fish enrolled in Aurora’s accounting program; tuition, fees, living expenses all on the house. “Four years,” he told Eddie, “Lay low. Get your degree. There’ll be openings in accounting.”
“You sure, Mr. Mucci?” Eddie had asked.
Nick Mucci gave Eddie the fish-eye. “There will be openings in accounting.”
Eddie, being a smart kid, knew this was the time to shut up. He went to school, laid low, became a solid B student – so as to not attract the attention of the more prestigious accounting firms or the feds – dropped a few pounds, and when the money from the Sun-Times finally showed, he stuck it in the bank. Eddie grew in confidence, if not girth, had weekly encounters with the ladies, care of Connolly, and developed an appreciation for expensive yet understated business attire. He was looking forward to going to work, but sadly, a month before graduation, there was a reorganization.
Nick Mucci was retired in such a way as severance would not be an issue. Connolly kept his job and his skin, but was demoted back to bookie. Worse, the new boss, Ralph Appleton, was from downstate and a diehard Illini fan. He was aware of Eddie and the valuable service he had provided four summers before, but felt that the tuition, fees and a more than generous stipend had pretty much evened the score. Senior management however was on an equal opportunity kick, and it would look good to keep an up and coming black kid on the payroll. There were no immediate openings in accounting, so H. Edward Fish – as he now preferred to be called - his BA and his closet full of Brooks Brothers suits were put to use counting inventory at various clandestine warehouses.
This was the job Eddie hated almost as much as his given name. For four and a half months – May to September – Eddie either sat in hard plastic chairs behind rusty, wobbly metal desks in un-airconditioned back rooms, or walked oil-stained floors counting pallets of toilet paper, feminine hygiene products, carburetor cleaners and the occasional engine block. Lunch, if he was lucky, was a hamburger. His co-workers were lifers, middle-aged Italians and Irishmen for the most part who had little use for the big black kid with the accounting degree. Not one of them gave a damn about Aurora football. And Eddie lived in constant fear that one of them might connect him to the Skinny Ass Clyde Incident, or to the kid stuck in basement of the Sun-Times building, and if discovered he would become what he was when he was growing up – an object of ridicule. It was in such an agitated state of mind that Michael Connolly found him and took Honeyboy to meet Mr. Appleton.
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