Chapter Twenty-Eight
TWENTY-EIGHT
“You play?” John asked. Greg glanced up from his beer to see John angling a cue stick at him. He had been at Jumbos for the last two hours, once again nursing a round of beers and buffalo wings with his new fake friend, hoping to be introduced to the next tier of leadership.
“Not sure,” Greg said, staring down at the cue. He couldn’t remember ever playing pool. He certainly hadn’t read a book on the topic.
John looked askance. “What do you mean... not sure ?”
Greg backtracked. “I mean...” he said, grabbing the pool stick and squaring his shoulders, all confident energy, “I can try.”
“That’s the spirit,” John said, clapping him on the back.
Bending over, Greg took aim. One red ball landed straight in a corner pocket.
“Damn.” John balked. “You hustling me?”
Greg pointed out the obvious. “If I was hustling you,” he said with a knowing smirk, “I would have missed the shot.”
It took John a minute. “I see,” he said, waving one finger at Greg. “I see what you did there.”
Greg found himself being forced to play two more rounds with the man—John talking his ear off the entire time—before Greg glanced down at his watch. It was getting late.
“So, you told me you had some friends you wanted me to meet?” Greg asked.
“They’re coming,” John said, missing his own shot in the process. “Mike has some sort of parent-teacher meeting...and Lewis doesn’t get out of work till nine.”
Greg nodded sympathetically, a pretense of understanding. It was a twist that he wasn’t expecting. Hearing that these people were raising families, attending school functions, and holding down jobs surprised him.
He half expected them to all be unemployed neckbeards, the type of folks keyboard-warrioring from their mothers’ basements all day, trolling folks for their lolz in the comments. He did not expect fully functioning members of society, voting members of the public, who also raised children. It made the threat feel even more insidious.
“You got kids?” Greg asked, attempting to learn more about these people.
“Nah,” John said. “You?”
“Me, either.”
“Probably better that way,” John said, after a few thoughtful minutes. “I mean, the way our country is going... I really can’t imagine bringing kids into this mess. This fucking world...it’s such a goddamn tragedy, you know? They’re destroying everything. Fucking Jews. Fucking hate them. I wish I could just...go back in time, finish the job that Hitler started.”
“Totally.” Greg pressed the word through his lips.
John was so extreme. Not just his beliefs, but the language he used. Greg couldn’t help but think it.
Everything with John was life or death, the end of the world, or a great battle for salvation. He talked about Jews the same way he talked about beer and buffalo wings. He loved the beer at Jumbos. He hated the cook, because he took it as a personal vendetta against him—some slight against the spinning of his universe—that the buffalo wings were never served with blue cheese dressing.
At times, John got so worked up in his own digs and rants, all Greg wanted to do was snap at him to simmer down . But talking to John was a bit like talking to an anti-Semitic brick wall.
He’d read enough books at this point to understand that it wasn’t only anti-Semitism affecting John. Perhaps he had mental health challenges, or a low IQ, or even was on the dark triad of sociopathy. But Greg had his own theory—an explanation much simpler. John had no ability to discern issues.
He was like a sieve, some empty vessel that downloaded information but was incapable of sorting through it. He didn’t question the things he read, didn’t sort information into fact or fiction. Beyond that, he was lazy. He word-vomited things he had seen online, repeated memes like they were facts, never dug up a research article or checked out a book—because anything backed by approved sources was somehow already tainted.
And yet he was a self-professed expert on every single topic .
He was beyond annoying. And exhausting. And Greg was beginning to think that he was nowhere closer to meeting The Paper Boys—that John was simply a wannabe, someone jumping on a bandwagon, instead of a person with a real connection to the cell currently operating in Woodstock—when two men appeared at the door.
John put his cue stick down and raced to introduce them.
The first man, going by the name of Mike, appeared to be in his late thirties. Also, clean-cut. Black hair pressed down, he was wearing jeans and a casual, almost preppy-looking sweater. He looked like a dad—like someone just coming from a PTA event, having a serious discussion with a teacher about the education of his children. But he stood in contrast to his companion, Lewis, who was much shorter, and smaller, than all of them—but who wore his intimidation out front in the form of a bald head and a string of anti-Semitic tattoos on his neck that peeked out from the collar of his shirt.
The next few minutes were tense. Mike and Lewis were clearly less trusting than John. Their eyes rolled over Greg’s form as they made small talk between them. Greg knew they were trying to suss him out, figure out his deal, decide if he could be trusted. Finally, the three shook hands, and Mike, perhaps as a form of a peace offering, nodded towards the pool table. “You up for starting a new game?”
“Sounds good to me,” Greg said.
They began to play. Everyone taking a turn—drinking beer, keeping things casual. After another hour, Mike began to trust Greg.
“John tells me you’re going through some hard times,” Mike said.
“Yeah,” Greg said, lifting off from his shot. “Lost my job three months ago. Been looking ever since...but no such luck.”
“And where you staying in the meantime?” he asked. “I haven’t seen you around.”
“I’m over at the Woodstock Lodge.”
“That dump over on Highway 89?”
“That’s the one.”
“Damn,” Mike said, all friendly-like. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
Mike was calmer than John. Cooler, too. Greg matched his energy, when suddenly, John broke into one of his diatribes. “Freaking Jews,” John said, shaking his head. “That’s what they want, you know? To keep everyone in poverty so they get richer.”
“Hey,” Mike hushed him, slapping his cue stick out of the way with one hand. “What have I told you about going on and on about that shit. Not here, alright?” John slunk back, and then, Mike pulled out his phone. “You got a social media page?”
“I got a phone,” Greg said.
Mike was incredulous. “What? No Facebook?”
“What can I say?” Greg leaned back over the pool table to take his shot. “Never quite got into the social media thing.”
“What about an ID?” Lewis interjected.
Greg shrugged simply. “Didn’t bring it with me.”
An awkward silence spread out across the four men.
“You see,” Mike said, finally leaning in to whisper, “we got to be careful who we talk to, who we let into our inner circle. There’s a lot of eyes and ears out there, heat we’re not looking to take... Now, my friend John here says you seem like a good guy. The problem is, we got no way of knowing that.”
Greg let the suspicion, like the question, linger in the air. And then, blowing all the air out of his chest, he acted like he was being forced to spill the beans. “Listen,” Greg said, “you’re right. I’m not exactly who I say I am. And I’m not trying to be dodgy here, not giving you my name and all that. It’s just...if you want to know the truth, I actually got a few warrants out for my arrest.”
“What kind of warrants?” Lewis interjected again.
Greg moved in for the kill. “Listen, it really wasn’t my fault.”
“What type of arrests?” Mike repeated. “We don’t hang with no pedos.”
“Hey.” Greg stepped into the men. “Neither do I.”
His reaction worked. The men relaxed. With tempers calmed, Greg returned to his explanation. “Anyway,” he said, “I lost my job a few months back. So, I go to the bank to pull out some cash, ’cause I know I got at least two hundred dollars left at that bank...when this Jew tries to tell me that I’m overdrawn.”
Mike interrupted him. “How’d you know it was a Jew?”
Greg wasn’t expecting that question. “What?”
Mike’s eyes were icy. “How’d you know it was a Jew?”
The seconds ticked by as he scrambled for an answer, before John decided to intervene. “Duh,” John said, practically jumping between them, excited by his own brilliance. “They were working at a bank. Of course she was a Jew. Plus, I bet she had a big Jew—”
“Shut up,” Mike said again.
John immediately buttoned up.
“Anyway,” Greg continued. “I’m trying to pull out my money, because I know I got money in there, and she’s busting my balls, giving me a hard time, and I’m getting pissed off, you know? I start screaming at her, calling her names... It wasn’t even a big deal, you know? Just a way to vent my frustration. But I go back after hours, spray-paint some swastikas on the outside sidewalk, break a few windows... Now they got me on hate crimes, harassment, along with a whole other bunch of unmentionables.”
“What a scam,” Mike said.
“Right?” Greg was relieved to finally be winning him over.
“Actually, we could use someone like you,” Mike said, before nodding to his empty glass. “Can I get you another beer, man?”
“That would be great.”
Shortly thereafter, John returned with a drink. The three men closed in around Greg, shifting themselves from the pool table to a booth in order to speak more privately. Greg took another sip of his beer. “So, you guys are what,” Greg asked curiously, “Aryan Brotherhood? KKK?”
“Hell no,” Lewis said, offended.
“Amateur hour,” Mike laughed.
Greg waited for a breath. “Paper Boys?”
The men side-eyed each other. Greg had his answer.
“You heard about The Paper Boys?” Mike asked, thumbing a napkin on the table.
“The folks with the flyers, right?” Greg said.
“Not just flyers.” John sneered as if insulted. “We do way bigger stuff than that!”
“Seriously?” Mike said, punching him in the arm. “I told you to shut up with all that.”
The table settled back into silence. Obviously, they were open to the idea of a new member to their organization...but also, he was still a stranger. They were anxious. Their friendliness shifted into outright distrust at the smallest whiff of trouble.
Greg needed to be careful about what he said next. He took a long drink of his beer, biding his time, before lobbing the only comment he could find. “Well,” Greg said, thumping his now empty glass on the table, “if you are The Paper Boys, I should be the one buying you the drinks.”
It worked. The men relaxed. Eventually, the decision was made that Greg was okay—trustworthy enough to meet up with again, possibly even garner an introduction to their fearless leader. Greg perked up at the news but didn’t press them further. He had just made significant headway. He didn’t want to scare them off by seeming overzealous. Beyond all these things, he still needed evidence.
Right now, the only thing he had to take to the police was a lot of talk.
But later that evening, returning to Magic Mud Pottery, seeing that door to Faye’s bedroom once again closed and locked tight, he realized something important. Even though he still couldn’t remember his past, even though he had no idea who he was or what had brought him to Woodstock in the first place—he had never been a Paper Boy.