Autumn Past for Len Kerrick

By Mike Gleeson

Fifty years on, Kerrick is eighty-three and all his old enemies are still out to get him, dragging their colostomy bags. He's protected by unseen forces, but that protection goes awry after a shoot-out, and things get further complicated when he finds himself in need of hospital treatment. Many complex set-ups, plenty of lowlifes shot dead.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mike Gleeson
• Release date: Jan 23, 2015

Mike Gleeson

I'm a 58-year-old hospital cleaner educated at grammar school,though the only books I bothered to read were the novels,and only the interesting ones at that.That's why I'm still a hospital cleaner.It's a good job because I can hoover the floors and clean the loos on auto-pilot and write stuff in my head.I wonder how many other people do that?The Len Kerrick Story is my first novel,Under the name of Mike Gleeson(68,087 words)

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AUTUMN PAST for LEN KERRICK

Mike Gleeson

Copyright 2014 by Mike Gleeson

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Table of Contents

Chapter One: Fifty Years On

Chapter Two: Greenfields

Chapter Three: One-Sentence Plan

Chapter Four: Belt and Braces

Chapter Five: Back to the Mugs’ Graveyard

Chapter One: Fifty Years On

The first thing I did when I woke was hook my left arm round the back of my knees and grab the edge of the desk with my right hand. Then I spun myself round side-on to the desk, hesitated for a moment or two, then lowered my feet onto the floor, wincing. Then I placed both hands on the desk, gritted my gums and pulled myself up into a standing position, growling as shards of pain shot through my lower back. I pulled my Browning HP out of the side-holster and slid the bolt to and fro, stuck it back in the holster and checked that the spare cartridges were in place around my trouser belt. I wore the gun in full view so my enemies wouldn’t try taking me alive and the spare slugs were arranged cowboy-style in case my coat-flaps hid the gun.

Next, I lifted one knee onto the desk, then the other one, got up on one knee, gritted my gums again and stood up on the desk, growling with pain once more as the pain shot through my knees. After taking the battery out of the smoke alarm I lowered myself back onto the floor, fished my false teeth out of the glass and shoved them into my mouth and lit up a cigarette which I left burning on the ashtray to mask the tell-tail odors generated by any guy that slept in his office. They didn’t mind you smoking as long as you didn’t set off the alarm.

Leaving the kettle on the boil I took some spare clothes out of my desk cupboard and hobbled out into the washroom in my socks for a cold shave before the other office workers could get there and catch me. There was no need to wash as today was bath day, and there was no need to answer the call of nature as I’d been doing that all night so I just put on a fresh pair of incontinency pants and dumped the used ones in the bin.

After I’d hobbled back into the office I stashed my dirty clothes into a bag under the desk and contemplated the smouldering cigarette. There was about an inch left. I thought I felt up to a drag so I forced the smoke down with difficulty and exhaled in spasmodic puffs as my throat clutched. The invisible band tightened around my chest and I fought to take in air. After a few shallow breaths I managed to get another lungful down and then took a rest, holding the remains of the butt between my fingernails. When the nausea had cleared a little I managed a third drag and that nasty little pain came up once more behind my breast-bone. I’d stopped trying to convince myself it was wind. These aches and pains came and went but these days they came more often and took longer to go.

I ground out the butt and made myself a coffee, then sat down slowly and painfully to put on my shoes. Walking in shoes hurt my bust-up toes about five times as much as barefoot, but orthopedic footwear was out of the question—they just didn’t look the part. I switched on the Atari ST and left it to warm up. I was in no hurry to use it—I’d only be able to use two fingers till mid-afternoon. For the last five weeks the last two fingers on each hand had been devoid of movement and sensation every time I woke and I wondered how long it would take this little ailment to clear up. And I wondered what kind of complaint would take its place when it did clear up. I pulled myself to my feet, more shards of pain tearing through my lower back, and hobbled over to the full-length mirror to take stock of myself as I always did.

Some guys of eighty-six had weathered the storm pretty well. I hadn’t. My once thick dark brown hair was white as snow—what was left of it—and there was nothing on top but for a few back-combed shreds. My right eye was an inch lower than my left. It wasn’t because my neck was crooked—I’d always held my head up straight to compensate for my scrunched-up posture. My skull had deformed over the years and I hoped it wouldn’t twist its shape any more. That’s why I wore rimless glasses to avoid drawing attention. Most white-collar workers, cops, squaddies and private dicks had worn amber-tinted glasses through the eighties to protect their eyes from the sun and harsh artificial light and I’d always wanted a pair because I secretly thought they looked cool. But the only kind I could get away with were the rimless kind that were almost invisible, so I wouldn’t draw attention to my crooked cranium. Bit of a shame. My brow was furrowed, my sunken cheeks overhung each side of my chin.

I still wore a mid-gray suit so I could blend in with a crowd as much as an old crock like me could blend in with a crowd, but it hung baggy so it wouldn’t accent my meager frame. When guys got old they’d gravitate towards frump or bag-of-bones, and I’d long since attained the bag-of-bones extreme. And I’d lost seven inches of height since I’d been in my thirties. First, my bust-up toes had cost me three inches, because the only way I could afford a bearable degree of comfort was to stand with my feet sticking outwards, which meant bending my knees and splaying my legs for balance. And I’d lost another four inches due to the vertebral disks wearing thinner. Some guys got it worse than others. I’d got it worse than others. So, in the course of time, I’d shrunk from five foot ten to five foot three. Not very imposing.

It was nine o’clock so I unlocked the door. I had a couple of hours till I had to go and that might give me time to track down my latest alimony dodger from the relative comfort of the office, but I didn’t feel like working the computer keys two-fingered, and the last two digits on each of my hands wouldn’t even twitch yet, so I turned on the radio and sat down slowly and carefully behind the desk to drink my coffee, hoping to work up some kind of an appetite for breakfast. Then the door opened and in walked a couple of young dudes, each peering past the door as they came in and then putting on a surprised smile that said, Fancy meeting you here!

First to come in was a guy of about twenty, wearing a light gray sports jacket over a green tee-shirt with Stearns Garden Equipment—Est 1892 printed on it. Green skin-tight jeans and white sneakers. Short, messy blond hair. The girl that came in after him was about the same age, same short, messy hair, only it was ginger. Bright yellow turtleneck jumper, blue pleated mini-skirt and bright yellow legwarmers. Her shoes were transparent jellies with bubbles inside. They both looked rather pretty, specially since they were wearing amber-tinted glasses. These kind of glasses were only fashionable now for office workers, so they weren’t prospective clients. They were trying to sell me something. Now that they’d overcome their astonishment at finding me here, in my office of all places, they looked at me as if they’d known me all their lives. The young lady sat in the client’s chair, with her partner standing beside her, both beaming with delight as if they were about to invite me to join them in some wonderful adventure.

Hi Mr Kerrick, I’m Jo, and this is Raddy, the young lady reminded me, though I’d never met them before. You’re in luck—we’ve got a place for you at Greenfields. A room for two—you can join Mrs Kerrick any time you want!

And guess what—, Raddy joined in, caught up in her enthusiasm, —it’ll hardly cost any more than she’s paying now! Siobhan’s funds would be drying up by now, and the dough from selling my son Lennie’s house would only last another three or four years. They knew an old miser like me must be loaded because they’d traced me to my address which was also my place of work, so I wasn’t renting an apartment. And my business was booming.

Me and Mrs Kerrick aren’t married, I reminded her sourly. We haven’t been married for over fifty years.

"We know that, Jo took her turn, breezily, but we reckon if you’ve got to pay all that alimony you might as well get something out of it. And Mrs Kerrick would love to have you there—she’s always told us she’s missing you!" I noticed that the backs of her bottom teeth were stained heavily with tobacco. She only bothered to polish the fronts. My irritation started to turn to anger at the moral blackmail—Siobhan missed me, did she? That wouldn’t have surprised me, being stuck in a place like that, except for one thing—she didn’t remember me anymore. They hadn’t been briefed about that.

What did you say that place is called? I enquired, with forced calmness. I hadn’t forgotten--I just wanted to hear it from them.

Why—Greenfields of course.

"Greenfields, I repeated with loathing. D’you know how much I hate that name?"

They both returned blank looks, till Raddy broke the silence, with a bemused, slightly hurt look.

It’s a good name. Comes from the psalms.

"Well I know that much. I mean, that dumb weathervane outside’s a bit of a giveaway isn’t it? I was forced to sing that wretched dirge every morning before classes to the insipid accompaniment of Miss Lynch’s piano. I’m not a damn sheep! I don’t eat grass!"

Vegetarianism’s not compulsory at Greenfields, Jo countered sweetly. In fact we encourage—

Shut up! I snapped, now enraged at her deliberate failure to get my drift. I was starting to get dizzy, and fought down my anger before my blood vessels could swell up and bring me another step closer to an aneurism.

I spoke slowly and calmly. If you think that I’m going to end my days stumbling around that place like a zombie you can think again.

Come now Mr Kerrick, you won’t be wandering around like a zombie.

My ex-wife does. I’ve been to visit her often enough. It gave me a good feeling to be able to pounce like that on someone who’d left herself wide open.

Raddy came to her rescue. There are so many things to do there. They’ve got a massive swimming pool. Sporting activities of all kinds. Entertainments, outings…..

But Siobhan’s not interested in any of those things. All she ever wanted to do was wander around town talking the ass of anyone who was too polite to cut loose. Now she’s been stuck in that place three years everyone’s sick of hearing her. No fresh game for her to hunt.

Now Jo rallied to her partner’s support. We’ve got to remember that Mrs Kerrick’s suffering from senile dementia.

She was okay till Greenfields had her certified insane.

Be fair now, Jo countered with a hint of severity,she was walking in front of cars and causing accidents.

"I’ve caused more accidents than she has. But there’s no point in having me certified because they can’t repossess my house. Seeing as I’m not a houseowner. That was a big mistake Siobhan made, buying that house. She should’ve stuck to renting, then she’d still be stumbling around the streets to this day, talking the ass of everyone and letting me pay off the fines."

A survivor like me learns internal discipline, and I’d already converted my growing rage to despondency, allowing my blood vessels