Entry #77

Policies
by John McAuley


I took out insurance on every job. Most everybody knew I was just covering my ass, so they went along with it.

Maybe that's why I'm still alive and my old bosses are dead.

Or rotting in prison.

Which is as bad as dead.

I don't work anymore. My hands are shaky and I move slow. Damn near blind too. My hearing is still pretty good though, so I guess that's something.

I have few regrets over the jobs I did. They were all on guys that knew how things were.

Most of them faced the end with guts. Especially if I promised not to beat on them before I shot them.

Enzio took it best: " Shit. Guess I'm done huh? Remember when our kids watched that show where one cartoon guy says to the other, '" You knew the job was dangerous when you took it..."'

I did him clean and fast. I sent his wedding ring to his wife. Anonymously of course.

Last week I visited my mother at the nursing home just before she died. For over thirty years she'd kept the maps and names. My insurance policies.

The only question she'd ever asked was where to send them if something bad happened to me.

Now she's gone.

I'm sitting on a tree stump in the woods of Northern Michigan.

There's a halo of black flies buzzing around my head and Jimmy Hoffa's hands ain't where I buried them.

And I hear twigs snapping behind me.