Day 200 - Upside Down - Chapter 36 - (1079 words)

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UPSIDE DOWN, BACK TO FRONT

By Wayne Webb

CHAPTER 36

Intervene back.
Too many things had been randomly reassigned, he had not been clear in his requirements. He had set a faulty expectation of James’s worth when setting the deal. He had allowed James to value himself in the equation instead of being the leader and settingclear guidelines for behavious and rewards.
That was the problem. The force he had been using was not focussed on an outcome.
The method was correct, the delivery lacked directionality.
Restate the objective, underline with the unavoidable reality of the situation.
James had taken the money. He could not keep it, he would not. He would return it and he would get the cut he earned. He would not be allowed to cheat Ivan of his share, or part thereof. This would be equitable, this would be fair. Sam can make his own midn up about how to split that dividend. Half at least was Ivan’s that was in no doubt.
None at all.
Do the math, check the ledger and the balance of things is found there.
That is a fact. Like death and taxes one that it is simply pointless to argue with. So there will be no arguments, there will be facts and a a rewriting of the rules. A resetting of the balance of things.
None of this comes for free of course, there is an element to this that James will have to pay for, and Sam too for letting this happen.
Sam had nothing to worry about though. He as family and family looks for family, all the time. That’s a family that sticks together. James is not a part of that family.
Sam needs to work on the family unit first, shore that up and then help his friends.
We are not selfish after all are we? We have priorities, that’s altruism in it’s most relative sense and not self interest.
Ivan drew a breath and stood over the coffin, the thoughts again parked as he felt the power in his chest dissipate to see what was left of his teacher, mentor and confidante.
This kind of man that stood for his family even when his family abandoned him. Ivan had seen what mother had done to him, the excuses she had made, the ones that his father reaidly admitted to. The things that were external to the family and should not have trumped anything that would have kept them together.
Sam needs to not be Ivan’s mother in this equation.
His head spins, the sense he had made of everything was slipping away.
It had seemed to clear when he had gone over it and now it was elusive as waking from the vivid half slept dream that cannot be grasped no matter how hard and fast you hold on to your misty memory of it.
He had to get outside and clear his head of death, see the thoughts clearly again.
His father had already passed and this was just a formality and a physicality that needed to be dealt with. Space and time, time and space.
Outside there was a lanky teen in an ill fitting wisp of moustache and a jauntily angled cigarette. He gazed at the ground and seemed to have no visual recogintion that there was another person there. He kept his gaze on the ground and then Ivan saw why.
A wire ran to the other ear and in a tiny echo he could hear the radio commentator’s voice rattling about in the cold air outside the funeral home.
Blood boiled in the spaces around his eyes and nose, filling him with pressure. He steeled his body into a clenched fist of a man and took the most deliberate step he had taken in a long, long time. The boy who worked for the home saw him and instantly regretted being caught in this way.
He did not know Ivan, did not recognise the violence in him or the rapid descent to the madness of irrartionality that was spilling his way.
This was a job to him so he got bored and he got restless. He wasted a lot of time and he found ways to engage himself in those downtimes. But he had also been doing this job for a while and it was his father that owned and ran this funeral home. The boy never intentionally set out to offend anyone, just to cure the malaise brought on by the short attention span of being a teenager.
Death and grief bored him, he was used to it. Not so arrogant to think that this was everyones experience. Death was a business, not one he was interested yet one he had trained in since birth, unlike the rest of mankind who get thrown in the deep end he had the advantage of the professional and unwelcome advice of his father.
Don’t piss off the grieving son.
This is a lesson.
Don’t piss on the dead.
This is a lesson.
Getting caught in a boredom trap of his own devising wold embarrass his Dad and certainly hurt his bottom line as an employee at the funeral home. He knows this and he knows that in being caught when he thought he was alone is the thing that the does not want.
The apology never makes it to the air as Ivan’s hand closes around his throat.
One handed, grip of iron resolve.
It hangs there a while and Ivan can see into the boy’s eyes, now watering as he struggles to breathe.
He reads what he sees and sees what he wants to before releasing his grip.
“Are we clear?”

This is a lesson.