Sunday, November 21, 2010

Misconceptions Part 4

The guitar played a repetitive riff. It sounded like a broken man on his knees. But Jason was awake on a derelict couch that smelled liked mouldy cheese.

“He ain’t worth shit. I don’t need a white boy. I’ll take the Rolex, the Armani suit and… meh… okay, I’ll even grab the cubic zirconium. But the body you can keep. He can’t work. He soft.”

The man’s voice was deep and gravely tone of African, and sounded like rain on a window pane. It gave the cool and moist air a bite. Jason, unable to grab his bearings, had no idea why he seemed to be sharing a cab. The subject of the discussion was gruesome. And there was a faint scent of scumbaggary in the air. Jason didn't think much of it. This was New York.

“But he’s got organs. Body parts. Things people need on their death bed. Never undervalue what people need the most,” said another voice, this one like the slime you find at the bottom of a toxic barrel.

“I’ll consider it. But the market is flooded with lungs and corneas. You can’t simply flood the market with organs no matter how good their conditions. His heart had better be something. It had better be. But I gots my doubt, naw wa I mean?”

“Yeah, a vrai rico boy.”

“Hey, heard the gov want to make medicare free or some shit. Heard that Obama wanna get that done for da’ people. Some silly Main St. vs. Wall St. mumbo jumbo. That would kill us, homes. Absolutely destroy us. Someone has got to kill that motherfucker.”

Jason heard the conversation and couldn’t have agreed more. Feeling loose, but unable to open his eyes, he murmured a point of view he'd read in the Wall St. Journal:

“Yes, Obama is a commie and he will kill this country. We need a Republican to keep our country going forward: Someone who loves the American dream.”

“Man, I thought you shut him for good,” said the rain voice.

Jason soon felt the sticky texture of duct tape, heard sickly laughter and then the immediate thud of a hammer sticking his temple.

“Hey Maurice, you find that ring attractive?” asked the man with the rainy voice.

Maurice, the man with the slimey voice, had always wanted to have a little more than he had. The former small shop owner and cab driver was rarely satisfied. Yes, having a little more than the next guy in East Harlem was nice but it left him still feeling utterly worthless. He could feel his neighbourhood fall upon his shoulders each day and the load was always heavy. He wanted out. So, he had moved in to human trafficking. It mostly dealt in women, picked up in his taxi and dragged off to this dank warehouse in the middle of East Harlem where they were bid on. Sometimes he would drag men off. These weren’t as valuable. There was only one buyer for men: Pirates – African pirates. Maurice didn’t know how, but somehow these rogues of the sea entered the New York harbour without being noticed. And when they arrived they wanted men to work and whatever else.

“Sure. But you gonna take him or not?”

“What do you mean by ‘take him’?” the man with the rainy voice asked.

“What the fuck you think I mean? I will not own this man by midnight. That you can be sure of,” Maurice said, tiring of this conversation.

The pirate shook his head and began stripping him of his clothes. He pulled out a bowing knife and kissed the tip. The notion was clear. The organs were what he wanted. And he could have them… for a price.

“I’ll do the work myself, Maurice. So it don’t cost what it normally does,” explained the pirate.

“You sure you don’t want to take him and have him work? He seems like he’s gots some grey matter. Perhaps you wanna rethink this a bit.”

The pirate smiled and moved forward with his knife leading the way. His movement was sudden enough that it took Maurice a few nano-seconds to catch up. But he eventually placed his hand on the pirates chest in order to stop him. Maurice could feel that the pirate’s heart was racing. He was unprepared to cut this man’s body parts loose and dump the rest of what was unneeded. The pirate was going to do this, perhaps to save a buck. This would not do. Mutilating this man was one thing, but to make a hash of it would be bad business and Maurice would not deal with a lost product on his hands.

“No, I’ll carve. Each organ is $20,000, but for the heart which is $100,000.”

The pirate complained that this was highway robbery, which made both men laugh a little. The pirate passed on the heart, but took the rest of the treasure with him.

Jason Phillips, a 36-year old stock trader had never been worth more.

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