THE HEAD/ Chapter 3

let's negotiate

Chapter 3

Mitch failed to show up for work on Friday morning, so Buddy had been forced to pick up with a person he never liked named Tommy Abbas. At lunchtime, instead of eating his lunch, Buddy drove to the trailer court where Mitch lived. The trailer court was on the white side of town in a neighborhood inhabited mostly by what Buddy called low end white people, factory workers and meat pack guys and like that. Buddy had been there a couple times because once a month Mitch liked to host poker parties in his trailer just for sanitation workers. Top bet five dollars. Mitch’s blue Ford pickup was sitting right there beside the trailer so obviously the young man was home.

Buddy walked up to Mitch’s trailer and hammered on its door, but no one answered. He put his ear to the door to see if he could hear anything, a TV or music. Nothing. He pounded some more. “Mitch, you in there? It’s Buddy. Open the door!” He looked at the nearby trailers and felt uneasy because he was a black guy in a trailer park full of poor whites.

Two women, a fat one and a skinny one, were standing in the street looking at him. Probably in this trailer court, a black man was an unusual sight. Buddy thought about peering in Mitch’s windows to see if his co-worker was in there but did not want to be seen doing that, so he walked over to the women and tried to look harmless and friendly.

“You ladies know Mitch Nelson, the guy who lives there in that trailer? He’s a friend of mine. We work together. You seen him out and about today?”

The white women looked at each other. The fat one said, “That’s his truck, isn’t it?”

The skinny one said, “Isn’t he home?”

“What you want him for?”

Buddy decided to hell with it, got back in his car, and drove away. He thought about his co-worker, hiding inside his trailer like a coward, and thought when he finally did catch up with Mitch, he was going to punch him in the mouth.

An hour later, Becky Simms and Slick drove into Mitch’s trailer court. Becky was driving. They had a plan. They had at least an hour to case Mitch’s trailer because the garbageman would be at work. He never got home before four in the afternoon. Becky had a key to that trailer. The reason she had Mitch’s spare door key was because of a mistake Becky had made on New Years Eve.

Red had opened his party room at the bar for a celebration. He’d even booked a cover band for the event, guitar, bass, and drums. At midnight, when all the couples were on the dance floor, embracing one another, and helping the singer do the countdown to the New Year, five, four, three, two, ONE, Becky had found herself kissing a man at least seven years younger than her who had turned out to be Mitch Nelson. That was the kind of reckless thing Becky did when she’d had a few beers.

By February, Mitch had gone around declaring that Becky was his girlfriend. That was another mistake on her part, letting him do that. All her friends at the bar had told her she was making a serious mistake.

Pretty soon, Becky and Mitch started getting into fights, loud fights in public, over stupid things like Mitch would see her talking to a customer at the bar and get jealous.

In April, she decided enough was enough and dumped his ass.

Mitch had not taken getting dumped well. He had brooded about it for a week and then decided to get revenge. One night, around midnight, he had located Becky’s car in the parking lot of Red’s Place and poured sugar into its gas tank. He did that because he was an asshole. The sugar had clogged up something inside the engine, and Becky had been forced to pay a mechanic to replace the clogged up part and do other chores that had to be done after a jerk pours sugar into your gas tank.

As soon as the mechanic told her what was wrong with her engine, Becky had known who the culprit was. Who else would do something like that?

And then, because Mitch Nelson was not only immature and vindictive, he was also stupid, he had waltzed into Red’s Place one night acting all innocent, as if butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth.

Becky had been serving drinks that night. She went for Mitch the moment she saw him come in the door. She screamed, ran at him, screaming continuously, jumped on top of him, knocked him to the floor, and started punching him with both fists. Mitch had not put up much of a fight. Becky had squatted on top of him and started to strangle him.

“Jesus, don’t kill him,” someone had said.

Slick had been behind the bar. He’d vaulted over the bar and dragged Becky off Mitch. Then he’d had to frog-march Mitch out the front door and into the parking lot.

“Everyone knows what you did, you asshole. You’re not welcome here. Don’t ever come back, you hear me? You’re banned for life. If I even see your stupid face in here again, I’ll kick your ass.”

That was the last time Mitch Nelson dared to enter Red’s Place.

Becky pulled over to the side of the road; they were in the middle of the trailer court. “Oh- oh,” she said to Slick.

“What?”

“That’s his pickup. He must be home. He must be in there.”

“Jesus Christ, you said he wouldn’t be home. Why’s he home?”

“How would I know?” They were a few car-lengths down the road from Mitch’s trailer.

“OK, what do you want to do?”

It was typical of Slick that this whole thing was his plan, using her key to get into Mitch’s trailer and look around until they found whatever he had hid in there, a gold item worth plenty of money. One little thing went wrong, and already he needed help. In Becky’s experience, this sort of behavior was typical of men. All men. They talked big and acted tough but in fact, they were children.

Slick ducked down in the car because he did not want Mitch to see him.

Becky knocked on the door to the trailer. “It’s me. It’s Becky. Open up.”

The door opened two inches. From across the street, it appeared to Slick that Mitch did not want to let Becky into his trailer. Slick could not hear their conversation, which was brief because Becky got impatient, yanked open the door, pushed past Mitch, and entered the trailer. The door closed behind her, so Slick could not see or hear anything. Maybe he should have gone with her. No, she’d find out more by herself.

Twenty minutes later, Becky emerged from Mitch’s trailer and got back into her car. She didn’t say anything, just started the car, and put it in gear.

Slick demanded, “What happened? What’d you find out?”

“Plenty,” Becky said.

“What?”

“I seen it.” Becky gave Slick a smile. An evil smile. Clearly, she was enjoying herself. “I know exactly what he’s got. But tell me this. Why should I tell you?” She pulled out into the street and started to exit the trailer court.

Slick looked sick. He was not enjoying this.

“What’s in it for me? Know what I mean?” Becky stared straight ahead. She was smiling that one kind of smile, the one a woman uses on the man she plans to torture. “Let’s negotiate.”

Link to Chapter 4