To make matters worse of course she saw him (Citrus) from time to time which is probably inevitable in a small city with a siege and a curfew like that one. He would be hanging at the improvised checkpoint on 9th Street getting tolls and dues from the Cunts who were all leaving town. Or he would be sat in the abandoned playground next to the park, watching traffic, women and shopping carts with a hungry eye. Only he would even dare walk to the bench in that playground cos only he knew where all the landmines were. He bragged about it, sure, but he really did know and when some dipstick called Barry tried to emulate him he got his fucking legs blown off in to pieces. Another time Charlene saw Citrus running down what used to be the Broadway (?), pursued by men and dogs and cop cars and youths with sticks and crying children and weeping women and soldiers and tigers and birds and security guards and mobsters and rare insects and journalists with Satellite phones. He had something of legend about him, even when he was in trouble.

*

In the end The Jones just gave Charlene an indirect number for his friends in disorganised crime. She called it directly and told the whole story – a total recap in a fraction of the words – her early optimism back on the day when she’d first met Citrus, his grace and beauty and how his intentions seemed good and then the whole thing with the blow-job videos and her Sanyo Microwave that she never saw again. The bloke at the other end seemed impassive, not really there, just phoning it in, but the next night he showed up at midnight, outside Charlene’s place on the sidewalk with Citrus’ body in a Circuit City shopping cart and his bloody hacked-off head in a double-thickness Wall-Mart polythene bag.

Nothing’s too much trouble for a friend of The Jones he said, we guys in Disorganised Crime we stick together. And then he handed her the bag and was gone.

Cellar Story

Cellar Story