There are still quite a lot of posts that need moved out of my drafts folder already. This was originally scheduled for 31 March 2012, intended for the long-discontinued Sweet Saturday Samples bloghop, and set aside indefinitely. It differs slightly from the published version.
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This week, I’m featuring an excerpt from Chapter 36 of Adicia’s story, “Carlos Goes to Prison.” Carlos, Adicia’s oldest brother and the next-oldest Troy sibling, was paralyzed in an accident at work in early July of 1962, and while he was in the hospital, a number of charges were brought against him for his drug-related activities, stealing at work, and (accidentally) starting the fire that destroyed the Troys’ original tenement. Five years later, he’s finally mentally and physically fit enough to stand trial. Now he gets a chance to take the stand, and unwittingly incriminates himself for basically everything. The rating is PG-13.
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“Will you raise your right hand and swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth, so help you God?”
“Yup,” Carlos says.
It is the second week in September, and the prosecution has decided to put Carlos on the stand. The defense declined to use him as a witness, citing his alleged diminished mental capacity and the fact that he’s already been through enough trauma, but the prosecution lawyer thinks he’s either crazy like a fox or so genuinely stupid he’ll be putty in their hands.
“Will you please state your name?”
“Carlos Ghislain Troy.”
“Now, Mr. Troy, at the time of your accident, July 3, 1962, Wednesday, you were working at Mighty Mike’s Mechanics on the Lower East Side, correct?”
“It was the second job I had in my life,” he says proudly. “I was a car repairman and mechanic.”
“And what did this job entail?”
“I fixed people’s cars and performed basic maintenance services.”
“Did you ever take anything out of the cars you were entrusted with?”
“All the time. That’s onea the reasons I wanted the job after I was fired from my first job. I knew some rich folks would be taking their cars in, and I’d help myself to their belongings. They either wouldn’t miss ‘em or would just buy new stuff. Hell, my own mother right there told me she hoped I’d be stealing from the cars the same way I useta help myself to cereal when I worked in a cereal factory.”
Mrs. Troy hangs her head in her hands.
“So you are basically admitting to stealing from your customers and pleading guilty to the thirty counts of petty theft you are facing?”
“All poor folks steal. We deserve nice stuff, and rich folks deserve to be put in their place. Besides, I was told they found mosta the stuff in my work locker. That problem is solved and the charges should be waived.”
“That’s not up to you, Mr. Troy. That’s up to the judge and jury. Now here’s another question for you. Can you remember when you started using or selling drugs?”
“I was fourteen, maybe?” he guesses. “I think I waited till I started high school to start joining my parents in the wonderful world of drugs. We useta have a whole drug lab in our old tenement, before it was destroyed by fire.”
Now Mr. Troy hangs his head in his hands.
“Did you start selling them at the same time you began using them?”
“I want to say yes. I sold and used all kinds of drugs you can imagine, though my favorite to use was meth. Speaking of, I’m dying for some meth right now. Can anyone oblige me?”
Mrs. Troy wishes she could run out of the courtroom right about now.
“Mr. Troy, are you aware you are incriminating yourself by your testimony? You do have Fifth Amendment rights to refuse to answer any of these questions.”
“You asked if I’d tell the whole truth, and I agreed. I ain’t got nothing to hide. I’m proud of my roots and what I’ve done.”
“Fine. Now that we’ve quickly established you did steal from your customers at the car shop and that you’re a drug user and pusher, let’s move onto the most serious charges you’re facing. Do you remember what you were doing on the late afternoon of June 27, 1962, Wednesday?”
“Using meth, probably. Is that supposed to be the day our old tenement burned down?”
“Yes it is. Does that jog your memory now that you know what exactly I’m asking about?”
“That was the day I got my job at Mighty Mike’s Mechanics. On my way home, I siphoned off some gas from a fancy car for my buddy Nick and his wife Louise, onea the few families I knew with their own automobile. Nick and his wife lived on the fourth floor of our old tenement. Nick told me their electricity had gotten shut off ‘cause they hadn’t paid their utility bill, and asked if I’d please go into the basement to try to fix it by fiddling with the fuse box. I gladly obliged. I saw the cheapskate landlord had taken out the penny I’d put into the socket last time I’d been working with the fuse, so I stuck another one in. It was really dark down there, so I lit a match to see. After I was done fiddling with the fuse, I threw the match on the ground. It musta come in contact with somea the gasoline I’d accidentally spilled when I was setting the gasoline canister down on the ground. So as you can see, this fire was a total accident. I did not maliciously set a fire or intend to kill nobody.”
“Sir, are you aware of what putting a penny into a socket or fuse breaker can do?”
“I guess it could cause a fire hazard, but that ain’t no reason to never do it. Tons of people get in cars every day, and they ain’t avoiding ‘em for fear of dying in accidents.”
“And are you aware of how flammable gasoline is, and even more so when it comes into direct contact with a flame such as a match?”
Carlos waves his hand dismissively. “Those were complete accidents. It was actually pretty funny when we looked out our door and saw a fire at the bottom of the steps. It was onea them ‘Did little old me do that?’ moments.”
“You find it funny that you caused a massive gasoline and electrical fire that completely consumed a ten-floor tenement building where roughly two hundred people lived, claimed twenty lives, and left everyone homeless?”
“Of course that part wasn’t funny! It’s like how you laugh when someone falls on a banana peel. You know it ain’t funny for him, but it’s funny to watch since it ain’t you, and ‘cause people getting hurt are funny.”
Mr. and Mrs. Troy’s mouths are hanging open in shock by now. They’ll have no reputation left if any of their friends, family, or neighbors read about this in the papers or hear about it through the grapevine.
“Sir, are you aware of how quickly a gasoline fire spreads, and that when combined with a concurrent electrical fire, the end results will be disastrous?”
“You act like I did this on purpose! I hated losing everything I owned and being made homeless, though at least we was able to move right into my older sister and her ex-husband’s apartment in Two Bridges, since she’d just divorced him and he’d moved back in with his parents.”
“Did you make any efforts to report this to the police, or let the firemen know how it had started?”
“Now why in the hell would I incriminate myself like that? Accidents happen. That don’t mean all harmless accidents need to be treated like criminal matters.”
“Now I’m going to read you a list of names, and you can tell me if you recognize any of them or know how these names relate to one another. Angela Barbieri, Maria Delmonico, Edward Gallagher, Hannah Gallagher, Stanley Houlihan, Jane Johnson, Lisa Jones, Nathan Jones, Timothy Jones, Adela Levine, Charles Levine, Peter MacIntosh, Georgia McIntyre, Philip McNulty, Alexander Nankin, Vera O’Loughlin, Richard Rogers, Randolph Spirnak, Jerry Teitelbaum, and Sharon Zoltanovsky.”
“My mother was friends with a Mrs. Nankin on onea the lower floors, but I don’t remember if I personally knew that family. The only name on that list that rings a bell is Spirnak, who moved in across the hall from us that May. He had a daughter Julie who’d just turned eight. Spirnak sold drugs as his full-time job. My parents and I became somea his best clients. There was no Mrs. Spirnak, since they’d divorced a couple of years prior. That bitch tried to tell the cops and lawyers he was doing degenerate things to their daughter, but we all know how girls and women make stuff up when they’re desperate for attention or trying to get people to take their side. The girl, Julie, disappeared not that long after they moved in, and I have no idea where she went to. Why, are these people the ones who are charging me for accidentally burning down the building?”
“No, they can’t do anything now, because they are all dead. Most of them were found dead when the firemen arrived too late to save the building or anyone inside, and Mrs. O’Loughlin, Mr. MacIntosh, and Miss Lisa Jones, who was only nine years old, died shortly thereafter in the hospital of their injuries. Do you feel any remorse, now that you’ve learnt the names attached to the people who died in the fire you started?”
“Why should I feel bad for something that I didn’t do on purpose? I ain’t some pansy like my brother Allen, who was pathetic enough to quit all drugs, alcohol, and even cigarettes, and who don’t mind being surrounded by more girls than guys.”
The prosecuting attorney smirks and turns to the defense. “Mr. Hoffman, would you like to cross-examine this hapless witness?”
Carlos’s lawyer feels like throwing his hands up. “No, that’s fine. I don’t think my client will be able to get out of the hole he’s just dug for himself no matter what I ask him.”
Mrs. Troy looks like she wants to murder Carlos as he wheels himself off of the witness stand. Mr. Troy has to suppress the urge to reach out and smack his firstborn son upside the head. Just about the only thing a poor family can claim to be proud of is its name, and now they probably don’t even have any name left after Carlos has cavalierly admitted in court to using and selling drugs, stealing at work, and starting a fire.
