Bloodroot (12 page)

From then on, when our folks took us to Willowbrook Park, I refused to follow Danny into the trees. Instead, I went fishing for perch and bluegills in the weedy pond while my folks shared a beer or two at a picnic table. I figured Danny went back to the graveyard. He’s only eleven, I told myself as I watched my bobber dip and jiggle in the water, how much trouble could he really get into? But I was afraid to ask what he did there by himself. Not afraid enough, though, to go looking for him.

Now, here we were, standing in the graveyard again. It had taken a lot of years, but he had maneuvered me back here. To one of the few places where I had told him no. Well, this night could be like that afternoon. I wouldn’t take what he was trying to hand me, not the cross, not the shovel, or anything that came with it.

I tried to push past Danny and go back to the car but he grabbed me hard by the arm and pulled me close to him.

“This isn’t a joke, Kevin,” he said. “Get your head outta your ass.”

Before I could answer, Al’s shovel broke open the earth, the scratchy ring of the blade biting the dirt silencing every cricket in the field, freezing whatever crawled around in the weeds. Al dug for several long seconds as Danny and I glared at each other. The strokes of Al’s shovel sounded in my ears like the chimes of a clock. Danny’s eyes begged a promise from me like they did when we were little:
I need you with me on this. Don’t tell Mom and Dad.
I took a deep breath. The scent of freshly turned soil filled my nose.

“There’s no way I can be involved in this,” I said. “There’s just no fucking way.”

“You’re here,” Danny said. “You already are involved.”

“I’m not doing it,” I said. “I’m not digging up these kids’ graves. It’s sickness. Maybe I can’t stop you, but I’m not doing it.”

Danny released my arm. “Christ, we’re not digging up these kids. What kind of monster do you think I am?”

Al threw down his shovel and stormed over. “What the fuck? I could use some help over there.” He turned on me. “And this fuck, you told me he’d be cool.” Al spoke to Danny but poked me in the shoulder as he did it.

Danny smacked Al’s arm away. “Watch yourself, this is my fucking brother you’re talking to. He’s just in shock. He thought we were digging up the kids.”

Al spat at his feet. “What the fuck for? What the fuck I want with a bunch of dead retards? That’s gross. He always think the worst of people, your brother?”

Danny bent down and picked up my shovel. He handed it to me. “Al, he’s good, I swear.”

“Totally,” I said. “I’m good.”

Al looked back and forth between us like we were kids he’d caught in a lie and he was too exasperated to argue. “Break it down for him,” he said to Danny. “Then get over there and help me.”

Danny watched Al until he went back to digging and then turned to me.

“Remember the other night in the bar,” Danny said, “when Al talked about putting the kids to bed?”

I nodded.

“That was a figure of speech, kind of,” Danny said.

“We’re digging up bodies,” I said. “Bodies Al buried out here the other night.”

“Yes,” Danny said.

“Christ Almighty,” I said, wiping my hand down my face. “Just tell me, Danny, tell me they aren’t really kids.”

“Fuck, no. You think I’d be involved in that kind of work?”

I didn’t know what to think. “Who are they?”

“Don’t worry, they had it coming.”

“Al killed them?”

“I’d say the odds on that are seventy-thirty against,” Danny said. “Al’s a loyal, obedient soldier but in case you hadn’t noticed, he’s kind of a moron. He does mostly disposal work.”

“And you ended up in this how?” I asked.

“I owed Al a favor,” Danny said, looking over at Al. “It’s a long story. Look, I wanted to ease you into this, that’s why I showed you my apartment, took you to the park, but I couldn’t find the right words. Then, well, circumstance conspired against us. You gotta tough this out. I’ll help you through the aftermath. But if Al thinks you’re weak on this, it puts both of us in danger.”

Too dumbfounded to speak, all I could do was nod. Twelve hours earlier I was lecturing about
Common Sense
in class. Now, I was digging up murdered people for the Mafia, or the Devil, or whoever. With my brother. What the fuck?

“Lead the way,” I said.

Danny held two bandannas in his hands. He poured cologne into them. “Take one. Wrap it over your mouth and nose.”

I did as he said. The cologne made my eyes water.

“It’s better than what we’re about to smell,” Danny said. He handed me a pair of black gloves. “You can have mine.”

I pulled on the gloves and followed Danny across the graveyard, toward the sound of Al’s shovel tearing at the ground.

 

 

 

When Danny’s shovel blade pierced dirt, tarp, and flesh and cracked a bone, I threw up Santoro’s glorious steak into my bandanna and down the front of my shirt. Al laughed, joking about popping my cherry as I retched on my knees. Danny rubbed my back, gave me a piece of gum and a cigarette. I hadn’t smoked in two years but I took the cigarette gladly. I had the smell of myself to contend with now, not just the bodies. I smoked the entire thing without removing it from my mouth, afraid to touch anything with my hands.

I retched again when Danny and Al heaved the second body onto the ground at my feet and the head rolled away from the corpse, leaving a glistening trail in the grass like a slug. Al apologized as he darted after the head. He grabbed it by the hair and the face stretched like putty.

“What’s the fucking point of that?” Danny asked. “If you’re gonna bury the head and the body together. Defeats the whole fucking purpose.”

“I buried ’em like I got ’em,” Al said, clearly embarrassed.

We carried the bodies back to the car one at a time, Al at one end and Danny and me at the other, mud and gore sloshing around inside the tarp. We managed not to drop the loose head.

At the car, Danny and I heaved the dead into the trunk. Al arranged them so they fit better. After I tossed in my puke-stained shirt and bandanna, Al slammed the trunk closed. We washed our hands and faces with water from a plastic gallon jug Al had in the car. Danny stripped off his T-shirt and gave it to me. Al walked around the other side of the car to take a leak. Danny and I leaned against the hood, me wearing his T-shirt, him there in a wife-beater and a black suit jacket. His cuffs glistened in the moonlight. He didn’t seem to notice. Ladies and gentlemen, the Curran brothers. Just another night out on the town. I took another smoke from my brother.

“How you doin’?” he asked.

“I’m completely fucking numb,” I said. “So I’m either in shock or an emotionless, soul-dead sociopath.”

“I’d put the odds at ninety-ten in favor of the former,” Danny said.

“I think I hate you for this,” I said. “I think I’m unbelievably pissed off.”

“We’re almost done,” Danny said. “Then we can sort this out between us.”

“Sort this out? Jesus, Danny. It’s not like you stole my Halloween candy.”

Danny handed me a bottle from inside his jacket. I drank the whiskey down until my eyes watered. The liquor tore my empty, sick insides to shreds. But I held it down. Al had climbed into the car. He had the stereo turned on low.

“I am done,” I said. “I’ll fucking walk home from here if Al won’t take me back.”

“You don’t want to go home,” Danny said. “You think you do. You think you want to go home, drink all the beer in the house, crawl into bed and pretend this never happened. But it did. You need to be with us when it hits you. And it’ll hit you tonight. The last place you want to be is alone.”

“Maybe that’s true,” I said. “But I won’t want to be around you and Al.”

“Who else is there?” Danny asked. “Who else knows what you went through tonight?”

I spat on the ground. I took a deep breath. The smell of the dead and their graves clung to me. “Tell me we’re not on film.”

“You think I’m out of my mind?” Danny said, chuckling. “I don’t record anything
I
do.”

“Let’s get this fucking over with,” I said. “Get in the car.”

Danny didn’t argue. I climbed into the backseat and slammed the door closed behind me. I thought Al might gripe about it but he just threw the car in reverse and backed us out along the trail. We didn’t hit a single tree on the way out. I knew that Al’s talent for reversing down a dark and narrow trail came from an abundance of practice.

When we made the asphalt, Al swung the car around. “Double-check our clearance for the dump,” he said, leaning on the gas.

Danny pulled his cell from his jacket. “I’m thinking about a table for two . . . Okay. No problem.” He turned to Al. “As long as we get there within the hour. That’s when his replacement comes on.”

“Good, good,” Al said. “We’ll be in and out before he even gets off.”

 

 

 

AS IT WAS FOR
everyone else who lived on Staten Island, the dump was a regular part of my life. I passed it going to the mall, the movie theater, and the bowling alley. On any trip from the southern end of the island to the north, the dump was impossible to avoid. But despite having grown up with the dump, I had never been inside it.

A few times when we were kids my father drove out there to toss old furniture or a broken-down appliance. My mother had never let us go. As kids, we thought mountains of trash translated into acres of undiscovered mysteries. The dump reminded me of the ancient ruins I read about at the library. Danny just wanted to get dirty. But Mom wouldn’t see it our way; she couldn’t stomach her sons being that close to so much filth. Every kid heard the rumors about the Mob stashing bodies out at Fresh Kills. We all secretly dreamed of discovering one, like finding a fossil, and of being a player in the drama that followed. The find would imbue us with a neighborhood notoriety we both craved and feared. It felt like a gyp to me then, being deprived of my shot at stardom.

Now, as Al turned off the service road and into the entrance to the dump, I couldn’t believe that me, my kid brother, and one of our high school pals were about to bury our own gruesome treasure. I was fulfilling one childhood dream that would’ve best been left forgotten.

The Charger’s tires crushed random bits of glass and plastic as Al slowed under the choleric lights of the guard booth. He rolled down the window and a damp stench wafted into the car. I gagged and wished for a cologne-soaked bandanna. Al and Danny didn’t flinch. Danny lit a cigarette and passed it back to me. I took it gratefully. The guard scrawled on something with a pen. He handed Al a yellow ticket that Al placed on his dash.

“Just in case you pass someone on your way out or back,” the guard said. “Not likely, though.” He leaned forward, trying to get a better look at me. “Who’s the third?”

“Nobody. Forget you ever saw any of us,” Al said. “Same as always.”

Danny leaned across the car, pointing over the guard’s head—with a .45. “That fucking camera off?”

The guard raised his hands. “Of course. Whadda you think, I’m stupid? You wanna come in and look?”

Danny cocked the hammer. “You want me to?”

Al handed the guard an envelope. Danny tucked the gun into his waistband at the small of his back. The guard stuck the envelope in his pocket and leaned out the window to give directions.

“Stay away from hills three and four, they’re bein’ worked on. Keep to one and two up front here. And the ones way in the back? That’s where the Towers are.” The guard crossed himself and closed his window against the stink.

“We need a new guy out here,” Danny said. “That one scares too easy.”

“Maybe it was the gun?” Al said. “Just sayin’.”

“Cops have guns,” Danny said. “They keep them close when they ask questions.”

“We do the dump guy,” Al said, “where we gonna take the body?” He laughed. “That’s like ironical, right? Like one of those Chinese puzzles.”

Danny crossed his arms and sank down in his seat. Al drove on, his window still rolled down.

In the distance, hills three and four glowed under towers of fluorescent lights. In the shadows at the edge of the light trucks and tractors crawled over the hill like giant insects with enormous, bright white eyes. Their black exhaust rose like clouds of ink, disappearing as it drifted out of the light.

“This place is supposed to be closed,” I said. “What’re they doing out there?”

“Leveling if off,” Danny said. “And cleaning out all the chemicals and biohazard shit that never shoulda been here to begin with.” He turned in his seat to look at me. “One day this is gonna be a park, with a golf course and a nature preserve and a wind farm. At least that’s what the city says.”

“Yeah, right,” I said. “And I’m gonna be pope.”

For the first time, Al laughed at one of my jokes. “When you’re pope, Kev, can I have some of the forty virgins you get?” He bounced in his seat, thrilled with his own wit. “You can keep the hat.”

“You got it, Al,” I said. “So, Danny, the guard recognized everyone but me. You’ve been here before.”

Danny turned in his seat. “No, I have never been here before in my life. And neither have you, and neither has Al.” He turned to Al, who slammed on the brakes at the foot of a massive, seeping mountain of trash. “Relax, he’s still learning. He’ll get it.”

Al said nothing as he climbed out of the car. Danny and I followed. Standing there amid acres and decades of garbage, about to add two dead bodies to the pile, all I felt was ashamed of embarrassing my brother. And sick from the stench that engulfed us. I could feel it settling into my pores like humidity.

Al stood back from the open trunk as Danny and I lifted out the first body. I held the feet and Danny the shoulders. We rocked him three times and tossed him onto the pile, just like my father and I used to do when we threw Danny in the pool, only the body didn’t go nearly as far as Danny used to. It hit the pile like a bag of wet phone books. I wiped my hands on my jeans, glad I couldn’t see what came off in the dark. Danny and Al handled the next body. It landed right beside the first.