Saint Oswald by Jay Bonansinga (motivational novels .txt) 📕

pregnant, the quarrels, the money problems, the car accident, all of it. Oswald watches, transfixed, as the memories of a marriage flash and subside, slowing fading like a candlewick guttering out.

A moment later, Matilda’s ghost floats down to the ground with the weightless grace of a feather. “You did good, Ozzie,” she says to him as she approaches the train.

Peering through the gap like a little boy on Christmas morning, Oswald is transfixed by her translucent white robe fluttering in the breeze like a delicate sea anemone. Her angelic presence positively glows. Her smile is a supernova. “For once in your life, Oz,” she says, “you did some good in the world.”

“Hold on a second, sweetie,” he says with a grunt as he tries to squeeze his massive girth through the gap between the dining car and the ruined hatch. He wants to get closer to her but he gets stuck. “Gimme a second here, honey,” he says, and flexes as hard as can against the metal, the wreckage creaking but remaining stubborn. It won’t budge. “Just one second.” He squeezes and squeezes. “Hold on.” He’s stuck. Wedged there like a beached whale. “Almost there.” Finally he pops out the other side with the force of a cannonball, sprawling to the ground.

“Well done, Oz,” she says with a twinkle in her baby-blue eyes.

Oswald levers himself back to his feet. He stands before her in awe and wonder. “What’s it like on the other side?” he says at last.

“Boring... but nice.”

“I knew I would see you again.”

“This’ll be it for a while, Ozzie.” The sadness in her smile makes Oswald’s stomach clench with emotion. “You got many more good years in you. Make them count, Ozzie.” She starts to fade like milk dropped in water. “See you on the other side,” she says softly.

“Wait... I just... wanted to tell you,” he calls out to her, but she’s already faded away. He reaches for her. His hands pass through the air. His big, beefy shoulders slump with sorrow, his head bowing, voice barely audible. “How much I love you.”

Right then Oswald experiences something he will never be able to put words to. His stomach tightens, and his throat constricts, and his eyes well up. All his life he has stubbornly fought the urge to let loose. Even as a child, bound and strapped into the Tilt-A-Whirl’s rusty clutches, he would not give his stepfather the satisfaction of seeing him sob. Sure, he has wept a few times—especially in the wake of Matilda’s battle with cancer—but he has never truly sobbed. He has held it in for a lifetime.

But now, watching those last ghostly vestiges of his one true love melt into the night, he finally lets the tears loose, and he sobs and sobs.

* * *

An indeterminate amount of time passes. Sirens close in. Voices pierce the air, coming from the buildings a half a mile away. Emergency vehicles approach, pounding over scabrous ground. Inside the upended dining car, in a fog cloud of acrid smoke, Oswald is on his hands and knees, his head down, his tears dripping off the hot skillet of a wall beneath him, when he senses a presence looming over him.

He looks up.

The undercover cop stands there, throwing a long shadow in the full moonlight slanting down into the overturned dining car. Trembling slightly from the shock, eyes blinking away the smoke, Special Agent Brian Cosentino—alias Jimmy “the Cucumber”—manages to stand. He still clutches his Remington. “I was sorry to hear about your wife, Chief,” he says finally. “She was a good soul, a wonderful woman.”

Oswald swallows hard and then acknowledges the sentiment with a nod. It doesn’t occur to him to ask how the hell an undercover FBI agent would know about Matilda’s character. The capsized enclosure seems to spin, nausea rising up Oswald’s gorge.

The Cucumber has a wistful smile in his lips. “The truth is, I wouldn’t have gotten anywhere with the Ferri clan without Matilda.” He sees Oswald’s confusion. “Years ago, your wife was worried you were up to something. She hired a young private investigator to put a tail on you.”

Oswald looks at the agent, the truth starting to sink in. “Don’t tell me... that young PI was you.”

The agent gives a proud nod. “I just gave her a vague idea of what you were doing... nothing about the mob. But I took notes.” He smiles. “In a year, I had enough background on the Ferri operation to build a case. I used it to get into the Bureau, and I used it to get into the Ferri family. Matilda was the best thing that ever happened to me.”

Oswald manages to winch himself up to a standing position, holding onto a broken steel chair-leg to steady himself. Dizziness streams through his wounded brain, the light dimming slightly, as he struggles to stay on his feet.

Special Agent Cosentino looks him in the eye, and Oswald returns the gaze. The two men look at each other for a moment, and finally Oswald manages to find his voice. With a sad smile he says, “Join the club.”

Then Oswald folds to the floor, passing out into blessed oblivion...

... as the harvest moon way above the switchyard turns to blue and then, very very slowly, moves on.

EPILOGUE:

BIG-ASS TITTIES

AND ICE-COLD BEER

“Fate’s a bitch.”

- Chainsaw Dupont

The snore of a tattoo needle is music to Gerbil Goldstein’s ears.

Whistling absently, she makes another little filigree of midnight blue along the uppermost contour of the fat lady’s gigantic bosom. The design is starting to take shape, beginning to resemble an elaborate Grim Reaper.

“Fuck a DUCK—that hurts!” The topless obese woman sits with a towel draped modestly across her massive breasts, perched on a swivel chair in the heart of Gerbil’s sanctum sanctorum—a two-hundred-square-foot room in the back of an Iowa City bungalow