BIG WILLIE AND THE HALIFAX WHORE

by Patricia Kathleen McCarthy

* * * * * * *        

(Based on a true story)

Serena balanced herself upright on Will, straddling his hips with her delicate legs.  "You're my sexy, fat boy", she said, as she rubbed his hairy belly.  She moved rhythmically, throwing back her head, her long brown hair falling onto her shoulders in turned up curls.  Will snapped Polaroid photos at the same time.  He loved to observe her closed eyes and engorged lips.  "Sexy fat boy, I made you cum twice".  Upon hearing her words, Stan fell off from atop his partner, breaking into raucous laughter.   He was having intercourse alongside Will.  Both men enjoyed sharing women.  Stan sparked up his pipe and took another hit.  With his head alight, he rammed himself into her again, thrusting his body harder with every push. He did not possess the brainpower of a leader, so Will instinctually followed Stan's lead.  He lit up the pipe, the whites of his eyes shining as his pupils rolled back.  Serena and her colleague switched sides, each taking the opportunity to spark up another hit. Stan stood up.  His body was muscled, with blanched skin color.  He stood over Serena and inserted himself into her mouth.  Will kneeled behind her and entered her from the other side.  Photos were taken of their interlocked position.  Their day began in the early morning and the hours now melted into one another as the haze of cocaine fried their brains.

 

"I can't take it any more", exclaimed Keith.  He sat with his sister, Kathleen, in her tiny kitchen with the blue table- top.  A small window looked out into the parking lot, facing the back of the apartment building.  Kathleen poured Keith a glass of wine.  'Try to relax.  You have raccoon eyes.  Maybe it's time to involve the police'.  Kathleen spoke calmly to him, hoping her gentle tone would ease his worry.  "You don't understand.  Stan is a psychopath.  He wouldn't hurt anyone brave enough to run to the police.  He would go after your family".  Kathleen was acquainted with the history of Stan.  His police file had gorilla arms, scrolling over several computer screens, illuminating an illustrious career.  "He makes a living off of the misery of others", Keith added.  His eyes welled up with tears.  'Take the path of least resistance and move out', suggested Kathleen.  'And I wouldn't talk about this to Mom.  She'd be panicked.'  Keith finished his glass of wine in one fell swoop.  "I can't afford to move out.  I don't get these guys.  I don't care how hard up I am, I'll never pay for sex."  Kathleen offered an opinion.  'You need only look at the size of Will.  Ugly people have got to get fucked too.'   Keith nodded in agreement. 

 

Keith hadn't slept a wink. He pressed hot-knives before going to bed, hoping the hallucinogenic effects of hash would lull him into a comatose state. It was hopeless.  His thoughts were invariably drawn to Will.  "What was I thinking when I agreed to let him share?  He's a 300-pound, flat-footed half-wit. "  He spoke aloud to himself as he rolled over.  The digital numbers on his radio clock emitted light without heat or flame.  His hand knocked the clock off the dresser.  "Un-fucking-believable".  Will was Stan's lackey for bookmaking, pimping, and drug dealing.  Their days were devoted to drugging and screwing. The clock read 4:00 a.m. and Keith finally dosed. His door opened. Stan presented Serena. "For fuck's sake! I was just getting to sleep". Stan was wired, hardly taking notice.  'How come I never see you with chicks?  You can screw her on the house.  She's got very little mileage,' laughed Stan.  She was 18, a petite girl with a canopy of eyelashes.  She just arrived from Halifax.  Keith was unimpressed.  "You don't walk into someone's bedroom in the middle of the night!  I'm in my gitch for Christ's sake."  Keith pulled the covers over his head and turned in the opposite direction.  This was the fifth time they woke him in one month. He tolerated the bookmaking and drug dealing, but the constant flow of hookers became too much for him, arriving at all hours of the night.  'She'll show you her tits for nothing,' suggested Stan as a peace offering. Keith refused to answer.  He knew Stan was trying to buy his favor, to keep his mouth shut about their various shenanigans.

 

The indefinite progress of time continued as the week rolled on.  Keith met his landlady to re-negotiate a new lease, effectively evicting Will.  The details were relayed to Kathleen.  Alarm bells ricocheted in her head.  She realized Keith would be blamed for what was about to happen.  'Denial is a fat lady who eats donuts without sugar sprinkles because she believes they are healthier for her,' commented Kathleen.  "What have you been drinking?" said Keith.  He only hears his own truth.  Kathleen reflected.  'How is it you're convinced your name will not come up in the conversation?'  The allure of ostrich psychology was irresistible.  Her brother was no exception.  The lack of sleep has affected his brain.  That's got to be it.  Their phone conversation ended abruptly.

 

After a late dinner, Kathleen returned to her apartment.  There was a message on her answering machine.  ”You were right…(pause)…they flipped out.  Stan impersonated me and called the landlady.  She told him everything, thinking she was speaking to me.  He's threatening to kill me." The message ended.  Kathleen played back his frantic words for her company.  Their eyes opened wide, sitting blankly. Kathleen tried to reach Keith at home.  She couldn't relax, all the while fretting about Stan. She was ashamed for worrying about her own well being first and foremost.  Is he going to come after me?  It wouldn't be hard for him to find me.  How true that survival is uppermost in the face of imminent danger.  Keith showed up at her apartment door, three sheets to the wind drunk.  He held in his hands two paintings, asking they be held onto for safekeeping.  There wasn't a scratch on him.  'Get out of that fucking apartment.  Stay with a friend.  Anywhere, really, so long as you're away from them,' Kathleen implored. It was like trying to convince a lion not to eat red meat. Keith plunked himself down on the ottoman and proceeded to slur his words as he spoke.  Stan ranted and raved at him for 40 minutes.  Keith was at least a foot taller but his back was to the wall as Stan stood menacingly in front of him.  He would penalize Keith for one year by charging him half of Will's rent.  Stan threatened to ram Keith's body into the wall and leave his head behind for what he did.  A wonderfully descriptive way of inflicting pain, Kathleen mused quietly.  For the first time, she understood the expression drunk with fear.  Keith staggered out and was not heard from until next day.

 

The posted evacuation notice on the front door enraged Stan and Will to trash the apartment. They ordered hookers, who arrived at the wrong apartment, barging in on a male couple.  The boys called the police and everyone was hauled away.  The landlady related the drama to Keith how the police couldn’t press charges because the girls didn’t have anything on them.  Keith came home to find hookers sleeping in his living room.  He finally admitted to Kathleen they had been pimping out of his apartment for months.  Sunday next, Kathleen heard from Stan, pointedly asking, "Where's your brother?" 'Who's speaking please?'  "It's Stan".  'Oh, hello, Stan.  No, I haven't seen Keith.  Have you tried to reach him on his cell phone?'  Kathleen flipped through the telephone white pages to verify if her apartment number was listed. 'Well, if he's not at home, best leave a message.'  Stan was surprisingly polite.  "I just need to sort something out with your brother, have a conversation with him."  'Certainly.  I'll tell him you called if I run into him.'  She hung up the phone, her heart palpitating. A criminal is like a light switch.  Turn the switch on and they're violent.  Turn the switch off and they're charismatic.  The trick is in knowing how to turn off the light when it best suits you.  She remembered Keith assisted the landlady in changing the locks.  They attached to the front of the door a brass shield.  It took three hours to secure the locks and re-build the damaged doors, both front and back.  Keith boxed up Will's belongings, leaving behind his mattress.  He described a back-alley horror of crack addicts, the living room polluted by soiled condoms, tampons, empty food containers and glass pipes.  While Keith was with the landlady and her lawyer, he called Will to advise the locks were changed.  'Big fucking deal,' he retorted.  'Stan has another apartment.'  He let out a hearty guffaw.  'We use the other place to stash our girlfriends.  Yours is an excellent front.'

 

With Will locked out, Keith finally slept.  The nervous rash on his hands faded.  His former tenant, Jack, dropped by.  He was non-pulsed by the events of the last four months.  He assured Keith that Stan would forget him in a couple of months.  He too had made the mistake of living with Stan, until one evening a Hell's Angels biker showed up at his doorstep with a shotgun, looking to kill Stan because he slept with his wife while serving time.  But contrary to Jack's assurances, the harassment began again.  The front door locks were glued.  An attempt was made to break in through the kitchen window.  A biker revved his chopper outside Keith's window at 5:30 am.  Another message was received from Stan, advising he wanted to set up a private meeting.  He assured Keith he wasn't going to kill him. Kathleen pleaded with Keith to change his telephone number. 

 

Weeks went by until finally Keith heard from Stan.  He wanted to know if he had seen Will. 'He's a fucking dead man!' screamed Stan.  He kept hidden a video camera and caught on tape Will and Serena stealing the contents of his safe.  Thirty thousand in cash, one ring valued at $10,000 and Stan's personal supply of cocaine was taken before the two hooligans skipped town.  His name on the lease of an apartment shared by he and Stan was left behind.  Keith jumped for joy.  Jack was correct after all.  Stan's attention was taken away from him. "At least I never ripped you off," Keith pointed out. "I was only trying to take control of my life." Begrudgingly Stan agreed.  'You were right about Will.  He's a fucking dead man!'

 

Keith met Kathleen in the grocery store.  Both stopped in the aisle to discuss the latest news. "What an interesting turn of events, so Big Willie and the Halifax Whore robbed Stan the Man.  There's a story in here somewhere."  Keith saw the humor in the whole situation, for the first time and he began to make jokes about Will having sex with hookers.  He told Kathleen that one time he proudly displayed a card from one of the hookers, who wrote you're the best.  Keith commented, 'But you pay her for sex…isn't she going to sing your praises?" Kathleen continued laughing as she bought groceries.  Humor is deeply buried in even the most perverse circumstances.  She felt the same sense of pressure having lifted, as did Keith.  Up until this time, neither had fully comprehended the potential danger.  "Be prepared.  I'll bet you Stan approaches you with a business offer to use your apartment if he cuts you in on a deal."

 

Stan made his proposal.  If Keith agreed to live with him, he would sell everything at cost.  They talked over a beer.  Keith felt the confidence of a man who had dodged bullets.  He was ebullient in speaking with Stan, patting him on the shoulder in a gesture of goodwill.  And Stan ate up Keith's audience.  He offered him another beer.  With a smile as wide as a canyon, Stan confided in Keith.  "I was pinched last week by four undercover narcs in Crackers.  Bastards stopped me from making my deal in the can.  It took four of those assholes to cuff me."  Keith knew when to laugh at the appropriate moments.  Stan continued.  "I dropped my ounce baggie, but I still managed to pick it up and flush it into the toilet with four of them still on me!"  Stan was excited with the thrill of regaling his tale.  Keith genuinely enjoyed the story because he knew Stan was not given to exaggeration.  His encounters with law enforcement were the stuff of legends in the city.  "The assholes robbed me!  I had $3,000 and their report said I had nothing.  I spent the night in jail."  'Are you going to beat the charge?' asked Keith.  "I have a new lawyer".  He smiled again, laughing as he drank his beer.  Keith imagined that a lawyer for Stan would have to be as ruthless as was he in order for a relationship to co-exist.  Stan was hardly phased by the outcome. "Guess what I did?"  'What?' said Keith.  "I dug a hole in my backyard". 'What for?' said Keith.  "A hole for Will.  A pawnbroker contacted me.  He recognized my ring.  He bought it from Will for $200.  I've put out a contract on his head!"  Stan held in his hand a revolver, brandishing its polished metal plate in front of Keith.  "He won't get very far before I find him".  Keith finished his beer, letting out a belch.    He looked around the room, taking in the large wall-unit on which hundreds of movies were shelved.  Limited edition prints were mounted on every wall.  Stan always had oodles of cash at his disposal. 

 

The summer ended.  Keith began working at an upscale kitchen boutique in the Market.  He wasn't thrilled about having to wear a uniform, although he liked the interaction with people.  Life was never boring when dealing with the public.  The accuracy of hearsay is doubtful, thought Keith.  He thought he saw Will the other day, walking down the street.  He looked lighter by about 100 pounds.  Maybe it was the shaved head.  Jack told me Will was back in town.  I wonder what became of Serena.  Keith stepped out of the shower, toweled his body dry and put on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt.  He was getting ready for work.  Jack was on the phone. "You'll never guess what I heard," said Jack.  'Tell me quick because I'm just on my way out the door.'  "Stan's been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.  I went by his new apartment in a grungy part of town.  He's working as a superintendent and the building is owned by a Hell's Angels chapter."  Jack chuckled after his update. "All of his former partners have dropped him.  He can only get around now using a wheelchair because the soles of his feet are split open. Considering all of the women he's abused and the men he's robbed, the cancer couldn't have happened to a nicer person."  Keith's dream immediately popped into his head.  He lit a cigarette and imagined himself on stage, singing lead in a rock band.  'Couldn't have happened to a nicer person,' he repeated.

 THE END