How To Succeed in Evil (17 page)

Edwin’s expression does not change. Edwin opens his briefcase and removes some documents. “You are right, I do not have a bond. My affairs are such that I am loathe to explain them to insurance inspectors. But I have placed $55 million in escrow. Far more than the decrepit Spackster building is worth. I hope you will agree that it is more than enough for you to indemnify yourself for any demolition related accidents.”

R Earl’s eyes widen. He’s obviously impressed with a man who can conjure up $55 million. “Yeah,” says the gruff old man, biting off the word as if it was something he didn’t want to swallow. “Now just don’t screw it up. I’ve got a lot riding on this.” The old man turns his back on Edwin, indicating that the meeting is over and that Edwin is dismissed. This annoys Edwin, but he leaves quietly.

Barry is in the high, bright room once again. Outside he can hear the wind blow. Inside he can feel the building move. He doesn’t like tall places. He’s clumsy and he falls down a lot. Right now he really is trying to pay attention to the words the Tall One is using, but it’s hard. All those sounds. And what do they mean?

“So you see,” Edwin says, speaking very slowly, “my associate will guide you on this new, and potentially, very lucrative path.”

All Barry hears is “Bl you bla, my, blahblahb blah blahb you bl blah new, and blahblahbla, blah blahblahb blah.” Barry squirms and blinks non-comprehension as if it is morse code.

The small one walks up to him. He smells funny. Like Dad. Barry doesn’t know that Topper has steadied his nerves with quite a lot of scotch before this meeting. Not that Topper is worried, but any excuse to steady the nerves, you understand. “You didn’t understand a word of that did you?” asks Topper. Barry doesn’t get anything out of that sentence either, but he nods and smiles. The little one is smiling at him. Barry thinks it’s funny.

“Yeah,” Topper says to Edwin, “you got yourself a regular old rocket scientist here.” Barry coughs again. Topper brings him a glass of water.

“Oh, I think I’ve gotten through to him,” says Edwin. He hands Barry a picture of the Spackster building. Then he holds up a duplicate picture. He waits until Barry is looking at the picture he’s holding. Then he tears it in half very slowly. He says “demolish.”

Barry drinks his glass of water and then crushes the glass.

Topper laughs. “Oh yeah, you got a real rapport going there.” Topper laughs some more. His shrill notes put Edwin on edge. “Oh ho ho, big boy, you’ve got no clue do you?” Barry smiles and laughs along with Topper.

“I don’t know about that,” says Edwin.

Still chuckling, Topper winks at Edwin as he hands Barry a phone book. Topper takes a piece of the photo Edwin has torn in half and tears it again. Barry tears the phone book in half. Topper squeals with delight. “Oh, you are a strong boy!” As Barry nods Topper shoves a piece of candy in his open mouth. “Good boy.”

Barry blinks twice and closes his mouth. He almost becomes angry, but when the sweet taste fills his mouth, he is happy.

“That doesn’t mean he understood you,” says Edwin

“What, you want me to get him to cut you a deck of cards?” says Topper.

Edwin shakes his head.

“So we can try it my way?”

Topper opens a cabinet and produces two identical cardboard models of the Spackster Building. “Bar-REE,” Topper says with a sharply rising tone. At the high-pitched word, Barry perks up like a dog. Topper sets one of the models on the table in front of Barry. He places the other model on the floor in front of him.

Topper takes two steps backwards. He claps his hands together dramatically then he jumps into the air and screams “GENTRIFICATION!” When he lands, he slams both feet down on the cardboard model.

Barry giggles hysterically and brings his hand down on the other model, palm open. Not only is the model flattened, but the table beneath it splinters violently and cracks in half. Topper runs over to Barry’s large, misshapen head and kisses it. “I love this boy!” Barry giggles some more.

Topper turns to Edwin, “I say we’re ready.” Topper scratches Barry behind the ear. “Good boy. Good boy.”

Watching them, Edwin experiences a moment of doubt. But he dismisses it. After all, Barry is supposed to destroy a building. What is the worst that could happen? The building would remain standing? It wasn’t like he could screw it up so badly that he would accidentally create another building.

Chapter Twenty-Eight 

Wrecking a Building

The day has come. Permits have been obtained. Streets have been cordoned. A crowd has gathered to watch the demolition of an historic building. In its day the Spackster building had been home to a full-service department store. Eight floors of glorious commerce named after its founder Hubert Spackster. When Hubert was in charge he liked to boast that there were only two things you couldn’t get at Spackster’s. Mothers and coffins. For everything else Hubert Spackster offered a layaway plan.

But those days are gone. It has been years since anything has been sold in the Spackster building other than sex and illicit drugs. Things have come full circle. Now mothers and dead bodies are available. 

This has not exactly been a convenience for the neighbors, but it was what it was. Spackster’s is the only place within three blocks that has yet to be swallowed by redevelopment. The stately, if crumbling, old building has been surrounded by taller and sleeker structures. And now, the time has come for the old place to make its final stand.

Edwin looks at this relic of the past. He is confident that the building doesn’t stand a chance. A police Sergeant waddles over and says, “We’re all clear Mr. Windsor, you can blow your building whenever you’re ready.”

“Thank you,” says Edwin, “But explosions are dangerous. And explosives cost money.”

“But I thought... yer sposta blow up this building aren’t you? Says so right on the permit.”

“Demolish. The permit does not specify how.”

“Then howda heck are ya gonna?”

Edwin shakes his head. “Not how. Whom.”

Behind Edwin, the door to a mobile trailer is thrown open so hard that it leaves a dent in the siding. One of the hinges lets go with a horrible popping screech. The Sergeant flinches and grabs for his weapon. Edwin stands straight. He has become accustomed to the destructive path that Barry cuts through the world. The senselessness of it is no longer terrifying, it is merely tiresome.

Now that Barry has made an opening, he exits the trailer. But the force with which he has opened the door had also damaged the trailer’s steps. So no sooner does his foot touch the first step than the entire structure gives way. Barry lands on his face. In spite of himself, the Sergeant laughs.

But his laugh is cut short as Barry roars in frustration. In true, utterly senseless form, Barry rears back and punches the ground with all his might. The earth itself seems to recoil in terror. The pavement ripples and cracks race along the ground. As the first of the car alarms go off, a wall of glass in a nearby building explodes.

The Sergeant looks around frantically to see which building is going to fall on him. Edwin calmly flicks a piece of pavement from his well-tailored pant leg. “You see?” Edwin asks the Sergeant. The Sergeant nods in mute agreement, all the while wondering if they have a gun big enough to stop this guy. After pondering this for a minute, the Sergeant says, “Jesus.”

Topper leaps down from the door of the trailer. He is high on life, destruction and several other substances. “Ah HELL YEAH!” He shrieks, “That’s it. Get mad. Get mad at it. It’s showtime.”

Barry picks himself off the ground. Topper stands right in front of him and holds his open palm as high in the air as he can manage. “C’mon. You’re a monster. You’re an animal. WHOOOOOOO-ugh.” Topper’s high spirited rant is cut short when Barry high-fives the little man and sends him rolling across the pavement. Topper comes to rest at Edwin’s feet. He looks up and says, “We gotta get this kid in a boxing ring.”

“Only if you can get him to throw the fight,” says Edwin, “Otherwise we’ll get no odds.”

The Sergeant looks at Barry. Then he looks at Topper. Then back to Barry. Then at Edwin. It makes him seem less a person and more like some kind of spastic, over-caffeinated pigeon. When he realizes that both Edwin and Topper are staring him he says, “Are, are, are you sure you can control that thing?”

“Him, he’s a pussy cat,” says Topper, rubbing a spot on his head where it slammed against the pavement. “Hey, dumbass, get over here.” Barry smiles and lumbers towards Topper. The Sergeant flinches again. He thinks about calling for a S.W.A.T. team, just in case. But then he realizes that if this went wrong, there’s probably nothing a S.W.A.T team could do. It would be out of his hands and nobody could blame him.

“Come on dumbass, let’s go mess up this building. Then we’ll go get a double helping of pie.”

“PUH-EYE!,” bellows Barry.

“Yeah, yeah, pie. I know you like pie!” And with that Topper goes into a fit of verbal and physical gymnastics. He simultaneously curses and praises Barry. He moves quickly and erratically and incessantly, like the end of a piece of string dangled in front of a cat. All of this serves to keep Barry’s attention. In this frantic manner Topper moves Barry towards the doomed structure one gesticulation at a time.

Edwin can not imagine how this communication is possible. It is as if Topper has a gift. The kind of a gift attributed to horse whisperers and snake charmers and wild-eyed mystics who spend most of their time in the dry, empty places of the world. There is only one way to say it. On some, animalistic level, Topper and Barry have a connection.

As Barry nears the building, he becomes distracted. He looks down and sees two tiny flowers that have managed, against all odds and logic, to claw their way through a crack in the sidewalk. Their existence is impossible, but, as so often happens with nature, no one has bothered to tell the flowers. It is enough to move a person with even the slightest amount of imagination to tears. One could see the flowers as a metaphor for beauty’s eternal struggle to prevail in harshest of conditions. Or as an example of how the gentler emotions can take root in even the rockiest and most uninspired of places. One could, but not Barry.

“Pretty,” he says as lumbers to a stop. And there Barry, vicious brute with forehead villainous low, stoops to adore two tiny yellow flowers.

“Hey. Hey! HEY!” Topper stomps over to the flowers. “What is this? Flowers? What are you, some kind of sissy boy? Stopping to pick flowers? C’mon, we got buildings to mess up.”

When Barry doesn’t even look up. Topper gets mad. He slaps Barry across the top of his head. “C’mon, dumbass, leave the flowers alone.” Barry still doesn’t look up. With uncharacteristic gentleness, he caresses the petals with one sausage-like finger.

“Pretty,” said Barry.

“Well piss in a parasol! If you like the flowers so much we’ll take them with us.” Topper reaches down to rip the flowers out of the earth, but he doesn’t quite make it. Barry drops one of his meathooks on Topper’s head. Topper is compressed into the ground. As the air escapes from his lungs he says, “Awk.”

Barry lifts Topper off the ground. Legs flailing wildly Topper commands, “Put me down. Put me down DUMBASS.”

“Flowers pretty,” says Barry. Then he tosses Topper over his shoulder. Once again Topper tumbles across pavement and lands at Edwin’s feet.

“E, I don’t like this job anymore,” says Topper.

“I’m not sure I can care about that Topper,” says Edwin, not taking his eyes off Barry.

“He squeezed my little brain,” says Topper.

What an apt turn of phrase, thinks Edwin. “I am sorry Topper, but we have a schedule to keep and a building to destroy.”

“Oh yeah, well I’d like to see you do better. Beanpole!” Edwin ignores the strange insult. Clearly Plan A is not working. Edwin is never without a Plan B. But Plan B and C and all the other secondary plans are always messier, riskier and less profitable than Plan A. So Edwin does something remarkable. He lets go of all his plans.

He quiets his thoughts and simply observes. He sees the building. He sees Barry. From the corner of his eye, he can see the Sergeant. He can perceive the Sergeant’s indecision. Edwin can feel the situation becoming untenable. The moment has developed its own urgency. Something must be done.

Edwin pushes passed this noise. He allows himself a greater calm. He uses his will to clear his mind. And at the bottom of it all. Past all the worries and the factors and schemes and the judgements is a breath of air that ruffles tiny flower petals.

The idea arrives fully formed. As if it has a will of its own. It is not completely accurate to say that the idea had Edwin, but that’s the way it feels. Endorphins rush through Edwin’s brain, confirming the joy of this Eureka moment.

“Ed, are you okay?” asks Topper.

Edwin walks. He brushes by Barry, who is still hunched over his flowers. Edwin approaches the Spackster building as any penitent might approach any temple of commerce on any day. The entrance is boarded and covered in graffiti. The remnants of a revolving door litter the sidewalk. But Edwin is not interested in the inside of the building. He is interested, for once, in the facade of things. And there, among the dirty stones, he finds what he needs.

A brick tumbles and grinds across the sidewalk. Before it comes to a rest, it shears the tiny flowers off at their base. Barry jerks his head up in outrage. And there stands Edwin pointing at the building as if, somehow, the building has just spat the brick on Barry’s precious flowers.

Barry doesn’t think much. Barry doesn’t think often. And it goes without saying that Barry doesn’t think very well. So when he sees that the little flowers have been crushed by a dingy yellow brick, and that there is large pile of dingy yellow bricks right in front of him, it’s not hard for him to put two and two together and come up with – well, not four, exactly, but a really, really big two. Which isn’t the right answer, but for Barry, it’s close enough. He comes up swinging.

‘MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRGAHHHHHH!”

Fist hits bricks. Bricks lose. In fact, the bricks of the Spackster building lose so badly that they can’t even qualify as bricks anymore. They are demoted to hot and highly confused dust so fast that the effect is indistinguishable from an explosion. Pieces of building whiz by Topper’s head at a frightening velocity. Everybody runs. Even Edwin puts on an uncharacteristic hurry.