An Unexpected Career

Unexpected Career ©

My name is Wayne Webber. You don't know me because I am one of the invisible people. I don't mean that you can't see me, but that you never notice me. I am the guy that looks familiar, but you can't remember his name or where you met him. There is absolutely nothing about my appearance or character that would stick in your memory. I didn't plan it that way: it just happened.

Of course that meant that I was well qualified for my chosen profession. I am a hired killer: a hit-man or exterminator. In my normal life, I own and run a fishing tackle shop. You can't get more invisible than that.

It wasn't the career that I had chosen for myself, but one that I sort of fell into. You don't sit down with your school counselors and tell them that you want to make a living by murdering people. Actually, I think most of the aptitude tests that I took, indicated that I would make a good bookkeeper or accountant.

I guess a lot of people would wonder why I would choose such a weird profession? First of all, it pays well. I make enough off of the tackle shop to live comfortably, so all of the money that I get from my real job, goes toward my retirement. You can't really claim income of this type on your taxes so, I have all of it safely tucked away over seas. I am planning on retiring before I am fifty with compensation ten times more than I am making now.

I also found the work to be rewarding and quite satisfying. For some reason, I have never felt any guilt or remorse. I sleep well at night. I am selective about my work and also very careful. The advancement of the internet has made things a lot easier.

I drive a light blue four-door sedan and live in a small three bedroom ranch home. My wife, Sally, is as non-descript as I am. We have two teen age daughters who seem to be happy with our low key life style, and in fact seem to be embracing it. There are enough jocks and cheerleaders to fill in the lime light, but the invisible people make the world go around. Sally is my rock. She keeps me focused and out of trouble. Without my loving wife, my career would probably have ended years ago. My sixteen year old, twin, daughters, Gwenn and Sydney, know nothing about my real profession or their mothers involvement. They do well in school and still stay under the radar. Life is good.

It all started when I was eighteen years old. I was raised in a public housing project by a single mother. She worked as a waitress. When I got up in the morning, my mother was still in bed, because she usually worked late. There would be lunch money on the kitchen table and a note if there was anything she wanted me to be aware of. When I got home from school, mom was at work. The only time we actually saw each other was on the week ends or when school was out. There was not a whole lot of love and affection growing up, it was more like practicality and survival. We never wanted for anything, but did not live the high life. There was no car, so I usually took the bus to get around. It taught me self reliance and independence. Looking back, I realize that I never felt deprived. It was what it was and I had adapted.

As you would expect, my home ground was close to, but not directly aside of, a nice upper class neighborhood. The school happened to be located directly in the middle. Some bunch of do-gooders decided that it was important to integrate the well-to-do kids with the projects low-lifes. I guess we were both supposed to benefit from the experience. All it seemed to accomplish was to make the project kids bitter and the rich brats standoffish. Since I was invisible, none of it bothered me at all.

Remington Post was from one of the wealthiest families in the area. I liked him because he seemed to be a little less snooty than most of his group. We were not buddies or anything like that, but their was no animosity between us. It was a normal relationship. Remington made an attempt to bridge the gab between the groups. There wasn't a clearly defined line drawn up, or anything like that, but just a separation in standards and values that existed. You wouldn't notice it unless you really concentrated.

His open personality was however noted by one of the hard-heads from my side of the tracks; Clayton Manning. Clay seemed to get pleasure out of poking fun at the well to do. He wasn't one of the those guys who took lunch money from kids, but just a nasty bully who got his kicks from picking on people. He was a big sucker and no one ever stood up or challenged him. Remington's ability to get along with students from both sides seemed to annoy Clay.

I guess it all started out as threats and intimidation. Remington did not respond the way that Clayton had wanted. Clay needed his victims to show fear and respect. Remington seemed to fear nothing. If he was afraid of his adversary, he never showed it. As a reward for his failure to show servitude, Remington started to receive some physical punishment as well as the verbal. Normally, under situations like this, the parents of the victimized students usually brought some sort of action against the school or the parents of the bully. In Remington's case, nothing happened. He continued to defy his antagonist, and continued to suffer the punishment.

My career started officially the day that I followed Remington Post home. He was about half way when Clayton grabbed him and started pummeling in the face. He was holding him by his jacket with his left hand and smashing his face with the other one. Remington was kicking and flailing his arms about to no avail. It didn't last long. I walked over and helped Remington to his feet, which he accepted reluctantly. He appeared to be embarrassed about what happened.

What do you say to somebody in a circumstance like this that will not insult him or take away his pride. We sat on the curb. I stayed with him and said nothing while he regained his composure. He looked at me and noticed my silence. I sensed that he appreciated it in some manner. He was in pain, but he did not cry. In the morning he would have a swollen lip and probably a black eye. I knew that he would wear it to school and not try to hide it. I also knew that he would not allow his parents to intervene on his behalf.

"Is there anything that I can do?"

"Can you make my problem go away?"

"Do you have a thousand dollars?"

"I can get it."

Nothing else was said. We both stood up and looked at each other. I held out my hand and Remington Post shook it, starting a life long relationship.

As I walked home, I realized what I had just agreed to, and found myself more excited than I had ever been. It seemed as if I had just found a purpose in life. Up until this time I had been floundering around, with no direction and no interests in the future.

Two days later I had everything planned out and I was ready to approach Clayton. I was no threat to him. I was in fact invisible to him, until I spoke.

"I have a problem and I was hoping that you could help me with it?"

"Why would I want to do that, twerp?"

"Money. I think I figured out a way to make some cash, but I can't do it myself."

"Why is that?"

"I don't know any people. You do."

"What kind of people?"

"I have a source for marijuana: lots of it, but I don't know how to sell it or even how much to ask for it. I was hoping that you would know somebody."

This little banter got his interest. "I might be able to help you out. Where are you getting this stash?"

"I can show you after school. It is close but we have to climb a little."

"I don't like heights."

"Not up. We have to climb down."

Clayton gave me a big smile. It was so obvious that he was planning on screwing me as soon as he got the information that he wanted. That was exactly what I was counting on.

I took me a half a day to find the dead fall that I wanted on the Perdition river. Dead trees and branches would bunch up along the banks and the currents would pull any floating objects way down into the tangled mass of limbs, never to be seen again. The one that I selected was at least ten feet deep.

Reaching the river banks required Clay and I to climb down along the side of an abandon railroad trestle. Clay bitched a little about it, but accepted my reassurance of a reward for the effort.

We walked up stream until we were just passed my chosen dead fall. I wanted to get him as close as I could to the river bank. I pointed as he bent over to look at the several plastic bags that I had carefully placed under a fallen tree trunk. It only took one swing of a four foot piece of galvanized pipe to crack his skull open. I had planned on hitting him about four or five times, but it was clearly not necessary. I removed his wallet and rolled him towards the river. A bright red ribbon of blood, stretched across the swift water as soon as his head touched it. After a few grunts, I got his whole body in, and it started to drift directly towards the mass of limbs and branches. His torso went under first and then with a swoosh, his legs and feet followed. In less than ten seconds his whole body had been sucked under and completely disappeared. There was a good chance that in the middle of the summer, when the water in the river got lower, the body would be exposed. There was also a good chance that the heavy spring rains would carry it further down stream.

I picked up the plastic bags full of newspaper and started back up the side of the trestle. That was when I saw her. Sally Bones was standing on top of the abandon bridge with her basenji. She was looking directly at me, and it was oblivious that she had observed the whole episode. Her real name wasn't Sally Bones. We called her that because she was so damn skinny. She had no tits, no ass and no waist. She would have qualified to be one of the invisible people, if she had had a normal body. She stood out because of a severe lack of the body parts that adolescent girls were required to develop as a right of passage.

It took me ten minutes to get to the top. Sally Ebbert and her dog were gone. On the way home, I got rid of Clay's wallet and the plastic bags. I had no regrets about what I did to Clay, but I was awake all night worrying about Sally. She was a grade higher than I was and a year older. I had never talked with her, and I realized that almost no one talked to her. Maybe, maybe she was just a bitch that nobody wanted to be friends with. It reminded me off something that Willie Nelson said in the movie Barbarosa; 'What cannot be remedied, must be endured.'

Clayton's school attendance was sporadic at best, so his absence wouldn't be noticed for several days. I usually ate lunch alone or with a few of the other invisible kids. Today was different. No sooner had I sat down, when I was joined by Sally Bones. She sat beside me and said nothing. My reaction to her unexpected intrusion was similar. It was like a moment from the twilight zone. We both sat, eating, without actually acknowledging each other. For twenty minutes, neither one of us said a word. She finished her lunch, but before leaving, she leaned over and gave me a small kiss on the cheek. It did not go unnoticed, and I received a good bit of teasing about it the rest of the day. Things like that didn't happen to people like me.

That afternoon, I happened to pass Remington in the hall. He looked my way and I gave him a small nod. No one noticed.

Sally Bones was waiting for me as I started my walk home. She also lived in the projects, so it was not an abnormal occurrence for us to be going in the same direction. However, it was abnormal for us to be walking together.

Nothing was said until we were almost home.

"Wayne, there is a dance at school Friday night. Pick me up at seven. Wear a tie and jacket."

The sneaky little bitch was going to blackmail me. I worried all night that she was going to report me to the authorities, but I never considered the possibility of her using what she knew to manipulate me. I didn't reply to her comment. Before I got to my house, I realized that I should be flattered at her actions. It was the first time in my life that any girl had shown any interest in me. She wasn't the type of girl that every boy fantasizes about after he goes to bed at night, but she was real. That had to count for something. We walked to and from school together every day after that. There was little if any conversation between us.

Friday turned out to be an exciting day. Clayton's disappearance was no longer a speculation. His parents reported him missing to the police and they began making inquiries around the school. They had no direction and their approach was sort of hit and miss. They didn't even talk to me. Hell, I was invisible.

Just before third period math, Remington handed me a small envelope. A quick glance revealed ten one hundred dollar bills. My first pay day. I knew now what my future profession would be. It was, to say the least, exhilarating.

I picked Sally up exactly at seven. I had my drivers license, but no car, so we had to walk. It was my first date and I was determined not to screw it up. Of course I blew it as soon as she opened the door. I never seen her fixed up before and she looked good. My eyes immediately when to the two bulges in the front of her dress. I was embarrassed when she caught me looking.

"Don't get your hopes up, Wayne. It is mostly tissue paper."

Her candor made me feel comfortable instead of being embarrassed. I was beginning to like Sally Bones. The rest of the evening went pretty much as you would expect a first date to go. Like all girls, Sally thought that she could dance, but she wasn't very good. Like all guys, I knew that I couldn't dance, and I couldn't. We bounced around on the floor and before long we were laughing and giggling about our mutual ineptness. We didn't have to worry about being self conscious, because nobody was looking at us. We were just two invisible people having fun.

No, we didn't have sex. I didn't even get a feel, but I did get my first real mouth kiss. In fact, I got a couple of them. By the time the school year was over, we were necking on a regular basis, and the warm summer offered us many great opportunities to finally taste the forbidden fruit of real sex. I think Sally Bones enjoyed it more than I did.

Once we started there was no stopping us. I quickly discovered that hips and tits were not necessary for good sex. We were comfortable with each other. There was no doubt in my mind, that Sally would be my life mate.

Sally graduated and started work at one of the neighborhood sandwich shops. I still had a year to go. It felt odd having a girlfriend who was working, while I was still in school. With my mothers support, I bought a used pickup truck and a lawn mower. I could tell that she was curious about where I got the money, but she never asked. By the end of the summer, I had increased the thousand dollars to almost four, by mowing lawns. It was satisfying work, but I knew that it would not be a career choice. Sally was saving almost all of her wages. She announced our pending marriage at Christmas time to both of our families. It was as much a surprise to me as it was to them. I never felt that I was pussy whipped, and I always appreciated her approach. If she had waited for me, we would probably still not be married. I needed Sally's decisiveness to complete my life.

Shortly after the new year, Sally approached me with a problem and asked for my help. We had never discussed Clayton's demise: not once. I knew that it would have to come up at some time, but as usual I avoided even thinking about it.

"Wayne, I know that this is a delicate subject, but I need to talk to you about it."

I tried to get comfortable and nodded for her to continue.

"Do you remember Miriam Perkins?" I nodded.

"Her mother has been in and out of the hospital constantly for the last six years. Miriam has been taken care of the house and her little sister most of the time."

"What are you trying to say?"

"Miriam's father is an over-the-road truck driver. He is also a nasty drunk. When his is home, he drinks constantly. He beats on his wife and sometimes Miriam. Miriam has been able to protect her little sister but hasn't been able to help her mother. Things seem to be getting worst and Miriam wants to stop it, but she doesn't know how. Social Services has been to the house several times, but Miriam's mother refuses to press charges."

"She graduates this year. She can leave home. What is the problem?"

"If Miriam leaves, she believes that her mother will probably die shortly and she is afraid of what will happen to her sister."

"Why are you telling me this? What am I suppose to do? I can't protect Miriam's sister."

"Yes you can, Wayne. You know you can."

I didn't answer her. I didn't know how to answer her.

"You can help Miriam the same way that you helped Remington."

"I don't think so."

"Why did you do it for Remington?"

"Mostly because he needed the help."

"What do you mean by 'mostly'?"

"He also paid me a thousand dollars."

Sally Bones looked at me with a big smile on her face.

"I told Miriam that you would do it for five thousand."

"What? Where the hell is an eighteen year old girl going to get that kind of money?"

"Her father has a hundred thousand dollar insurance policy."

Well, needless to say, a month later Sally rented a safety deposit box for the start of our retirement fund. Miriam and her mother made out a lot better than she had expected because her father had a double indemnity clause on the insurance policy. He died in a car accident. Miriam had enough money to go to college and take care of her little sister. She continued to be part of our life for years after.

It was a small wedding. Two kids from the projects can't really justify a gala event and to be honest, we didn't want one. It was very private. Remington Post was more than willing to be my best man and Miriam was the maid of honor.

Sally and I were surprised, four years later, when Remington and Miriam had us stand up with them at their wedding. Remington's side of the church was jammed with all the society folks. Miriam only had a small handful on her side. I was glad to see that Remington choice a real person to marry rather than one of the debutantes that he was expected to merge with. I think his parents liked Miriam as much as he did.

I worked in one of the local sporting good stores after I finished school, just long enough to learn the business. Before I was twenty four I had started my own fishing tackle store. Sally liked having our own business because we could work together and it was a comfortable place to bring the twins. My career as a serious professional killer was not going anywhere, so I used the time to get the business built up.

Remington finished law school and returned to town with his wife. Miriam was young, but still able to get a position as the manager of the local family center. They took care of abused and neglected wives and children. Remington was working for his fathers law firm, but did all the pro-bono work for the family center.

Up until that time I was only doing about one career job a year. I stayed busy running the bait and tackle shop. Life was good. Occasionally Remington would come across a situation that he felt could benefit from my area of expertise. As his law business grew, he began taking on more and more pro-bono cases. Many of them seemed to have some situation of desperation that he felt could benefit from my skill set. Most of them, we immediately dismissed, but every once in a while we decided to take one. My only condition was that I would not do anything for free. Some sort of compensation was always required. No compensation meant no assistance. Remington agreed to handle that part of any contract that we decided to take on.