The Accidental Pallbearer by Frank Lentricchia Read Free Book Online

pants? When he hurt the small father of a small boy, I made a plan.”
    “What did he do to the small father?”
    “Broke his jaw. No witnesses.”
    “What did the father do to incite Del’Altro?”
    “Not a damn thing.”
    “Can it be?”
    “I know Del’Altro. I’ve known him since grade school, when he hurt little girls. I know what I know.”
    “How did you find out about the incident?”
    “The small boy tells his friends who tell their parents et cetera. I went to the father to verify the grape vine. In front of the son, it was done, the broken jaw.”
    “Then springs the noble Eliot into action!”
    “The first thing I … He doesn’t have a garage. Just a carport. In the middle of the night, I affix a personalized plate over the front bumper. The way the car is parked, he’d get into it the next morning without passing the front. Personalized. You’ve seen them. His said, I, FAGGOT . He drives around for a couple of days, so I gather, in ignorance. Passing vehicles blow their horns. Teenage boys yell out, ‘SUCK ON THIS!’ Then, at the post office, one of his fellow clerks, much meaner than Del’Altro, much bigger, says to him, ‘You decided it was time to advertise it? You finally coming out of the closet?’ Del’Altro says, ‘What?!’ The guy says ‘Keep one thing in mind, Dave. I will not, no matter how much you need it, I will never fuck you in the ass.’ Del’Altro takes a swing at him, the guy knocks six teeth out of Del’Altro’s head. Made him look like a carved-up Halloween pumpkin. Two days after this incident, middle of the night, I screw a long screw into one of his tires, tight, then reverse a couple of turns. Slow leak. The next day he leaves work to find a flat tire. I repeat the procedure three times, a different tire each time, over the next ten days. Del’Altro becomes increasinglyhostile at work to the customers. Tells one, who complained about the price of first-class postage, a woman in her late eighties, to go fuck herself. To her credit, it is said that she replied, “Would that I could, because you could never satisfy a real woman like me.” He’s suspended without pay for a week. One morning during the suspension period he walks out of his house in heavy fog and steps down into a substantial mound of human feces. I let a month go by. The middle of the night, I pour a two-gallon container of bleach into his gas tank. You’ve heard the stories of sugar in the fuel line? Pure urban myth. Bleach is the real deal, Milly. The next day, three quarters of the way to Rochester, the car simply stops. Sixty-five miles per hour then nothing. The engine is destroyed beyond repair on his new Buick. Takes the bus back to Utica. Two weeks later he’s driving a two-year-old Ford Fiesta. I bleach again and tell an investigator friend of mine for his insurance company that Del’Altro is a well-known scammer from way back. He goes to Del’Altro’s house – this got into the
Observer-Dispatch
– he questions the claim and Del’Altro, now nearing insanity, decks him. Del’Altro is arrested, gets six months in the county jail. Upon release he moves to Akron.”
    “Bravo, Detective Conte!”
    “Milly, had Robby done a number on him when we were at Proctor High, Del’Altro – he may have turned out a decent citizen and even, who knows, a good man.”
    “Violence can be a cure?”
    “Sometimes we reach that point.”
    “What do you have in mind for Michael Coca? Akron, too?”
    “Milly, I’m going to send him to the bottom of hell.”
    Back home, Conte immediately contacts the owners of Utica’s three African-American beauty salons and tells each that he’d like to buy a $200 gift certificate for their most well-known customer.
    The first one says, “Who would that be, darlin’?”
    “Millicent Robinson, who had an appointment with you day before yesterday. Friday at 10:45.”
    “Never heard of any Millicent whatever.”
    The second responds, “That stuck-up