The Made Man

As the car barrelled down a grimy street more pothole than asphalt, Spill wondered how much bumping around the contents wedged into his trunk would feel. He also pondered about how breathable the burlap sack secured around said content's head was.

Spill half-squinted-half-winced and shook his head firmly, as if trying to dislodge the thoughts from his cerebral cortex. "No," he told himself, "I can't keep thinking this kinda shit. Gotta stay focussed - I'm so close." 

Paolo Salvatore Spillinghela was gifted his full name by his parents thirty-something year's prior, and the moniker "Spill" by the kids on the block he grew up on. The nickname had stuck and was a constant source of irritation to him. He tolerated it though, given that anyone who used it was generally a more advanced breed of aggressive Sicilian mafioso than he was. 

He had been trying to break through the Family's glass wall a long time, having been enamoured with the idea since absorbing crime flicks as a kid. So far all of his attempts to break in had fallen short. His brother Lorenzo (who had been connected for a few years now) kept putting in good words with the higher-ups, but there seemed to be some reluctance to give him a chance to prove himself. 

Not for long though - if Spill stayed on-track (and stopped wondering about whether burlap sack fibres could damage a person's lungs like asbestos could), he too would be a Made Man by the end of the week. 

Spill steered the car towards the outskirts of the city. Urban streets dissolved into highway then country roads as mid-morning crept past lunchtime and into the afternoon. 

The drive gave Spill the opportunity to rerun the events of that morning in his head. He had stopped by The Workshop (a panel shop where grease monkeys tinkered with vehicles in front, and greasy wiseguys smoked cigars, talked shit and counted stacks of cash in locked back rooms) to see Lorenzo - the brothers often boxed together at Al's Gym on Wednesdays, but Lorenzo had asked Spill to come in early today.

Spill had strolled past the old Buick (which had been propped up on a hoist since Lorenzo was in diapers) and pounded his fist on a door three times. He had expected Lorenzo, or some other button man to answer and did a slight double-take when the door eventually did swing open. 

Behind the door stood Umberto, the consigliere and close advisor to the Boss himself. Shorter than Spill, with a tight-fitting suit hugging his squat frame, Umberto had squinted with a cocked head, clearly trying to recognise the man before him. From his vantage, Spill noticed how shiny the hair oil had made Umberto's prominent bald spot. 

"Ah!" Umberto had uttered after an eternity. "Lorenzo's brother - I've been waiting for you. Come." 

Over the next few minutes, Spill learned that Lorenzo's advocacy efforts had either impressed or annoyed the consigliere enough to assign him a task. Spill was instructed to take the pistol and set of keys laid out for him, get into the black Lincoln Towncar from around back and drive to Blythe Canyon. Once there, he was to make the passenger in the trunk disappear. 

"If you do good, kid," Umberto had wheezed "I'll recommend to the Boss that you take the pledge and come into the fold."

Behind the wheel of the Lincoln, Spill cracked a smile. He sipped on the cold, stale diner cup of coffee that he had taken to The Workshop. It tasted more like styrofoam than ground bean juice. He threw the cup out of the window, then lit and dragged on a cigarette. I gotta stop smoking these, Spill told himself, from now on its just cigars. 

He only had a few smokes left and considered stopping at an upcoming gas station to pick up some more (he also needed to take a piss - he didn't want to risk splashing his new shoes while urinating on a tree later). He scowled at himself and violently dismissed this idea - the last thing he needed was for the trunk dweller (who had been strangely subdued thus far) to somehow draw the attention of some family in an RV on their way to the Lake.  

Instead, he mentally cycled through the checklist of what would need to happen when he arrived at his destination. He would have to rough-house the chump out of the trunk and up onto his feet, rip the sack off his head quickly and forcefully - stunning him with the brightness of the mid-afternoon sun, aim the piece at him (remember to take a step back in case the jackass pisses himself - his shoes cost $1,200), lead the man to the edge of the cliff and plug him between the eyes. Spill figured he could decide in the moment whether to watch the guy plummet to the floor of the ravine or not. 

Once this was all done, he would call it in to Lorenzo, who in turn would run it up the chain to the Boss. Spill allowed himself a half-smirk - he would be as good as Made on the spot. He spent the next few minutes fantasizing about the new life that was just ahead of him - he would have it all; the big house, the fancy wardrobe, the mistress (although, he would probably need to get married first). 

It was quiet on the country roads, and it dawned on Spill just how passive the guy in the trunk was. When Spill had checked the trunk back at The Workshop there were no panicked sobs, no pleas for mercy - this fella just lay on his side, hands secured behind his back, burlap sack in place, without so much as a whimper. If Spill hadn't seen the man's chest calmly rising and falling before slamming the trunk's lid down, he might have assumed that he was hauling a dead man. 

As Spill's second cigarette dissolved into its butt and fizzled out in a final gasp of black smoke he pulled the car up to a good spot, yanked the handbrake up and killed the engine. He paused for a moment, his instincts telling him that there wasn't likely to be any noise from the trunk. There wasn't.

Having arrived at the top of the cliff, in this secluded pocket of woodland, Spill was in no particular hurry to rush through the task at hand. As a boy, he would often catch a matinee film screening at the local cinema with his pals from the neighbourhood. While the other kids would laugh and roll their eyes at the villains of B-grade spy flicks for spending so long pontificating on and on (instead of say, just shooting the good guy in the head), Spill would relish their deliberating. There was a certain poetry to building anticipation and it suited Spill that he had the opportunity to linger uninterrupted like this. 

After one more cigarette (and zero knocks, bumps or yells from the trunk) Spill slowly and methodically opened the driver's door and ambled towards the rear of the car. He paused, flicked the dead cigarette butt and popped the trunk. 

The man inside did not appear to have moved since Spill had last seen him a few hours earlier. He must have been sedated, Spill figured. The guy was still breathing (apparently unperturbed by any burlap fibres) and had the calm disposition of a person out for a walk in the park, despite having spent at least half the day awkwardly wedged into a cramped space. Also strange was the orange jumpsuit that the guy was wearing - he looked like either a prisoner or a mechanic. 

Spill, who had laid his overcoat across the backseat before settling into the driver's seat, rolled his own sleeves up to his elbows, pocketing the cufflinks. He reached in and gripped the jumpsuit fabric, before lifting one foot up onto the bumper for leverage, and pulling the man across and outwards by the chest. 

The man was surprisingly light and carried none of the weight that Spill expected him to. Spill performed an awkward half-stumble and the man fell silently out of his grasp and face-first onto the gravel. Spill was glad that the only potential witness to this misstep still had a sack over his head and would soon have a bullet inside it. 

"We've arrived." said a muffled voice with flat affect. The question (or was it a statement?) threw Spill off his guard - it was the first sound he had heard from his passenger.

"Yeah," Spill replied, trying to inject his response with a sense of menace. "Get on your feet."

The man did so - effortlessly - and stood stiff and upright. He looked like an orange-clothed and burlap-masked impression of a Buckingham Palace guard. 

Spill sized the guy up. He was taller, Spill thought, than he had looked while folded up in the trunk. Spill wondered what this man had done to draw the ire of the family - been unable to repay a significant debt? Squealed to the authorities? Insulted someone who he really shouldn't have? Whatever it was, the guy standing before him was now Spill's ticket to becoming Made. 

Time to get down to business, Spill told himself and ignored the sporadic birdsong that filled the air around him. He reached up and with a brisk flourish ripped the burlap sack from off the man's head. 

The guy didn't even flinch. He stared straight ahead and monotoned the words "Yes. We are here." before blinking at about half the speed of a regular human blink. 

Spill felt a cold shudder dance up and down his spine but was determined not to let it show on his face or in his body language. He withdrew the pistol wedged in his waistband and barked "Walk" at the man. 

"Walk", the man repeated, slowly pivoting his head downwards to look at the brandished weapon. He shifted his body 180 degrees and took slow, purposeful steps in the direction Spill was pointing the gun.

Spill followed, his heart thumping loud enough to drown out the sparse chittering of birds. The blood pumping through his body produced a kind of low white noise in his ears as he focussed on the task at hand. Within a minute or so the job would be done - then what? Most likely some kind of celebration. Spill pictured the dark elegant room, the solemn omerta ceremony where he would pledge his loyalty to the Family, then drinks, cigars, maybe some girls. This time tomorrow he would have acquired two things; the privileges and protection of the family, and a pounding hangover. 

"Turn around," Spill growled, flicking the pistol's safety switch off. 

"I am turning around," the dull-voiced man responded, announcing his intention a second or two before the action itself. 

It was quiet now, as the man stared directly ahead. For a second Spill was struck by the man's bug-like eyes that blinked once more with the speed and intensity of dripping treacle. Then a grin cracked through the granite facade of Spill's face. He cocked the pistol, aimed at the man's forehead and said: "Congratulations pal, you're about to make me a Made Man."

The man's eyes shifted focus from the barrel of the gun in front of him and rose to a point above Spill's head. A grin spread on his own face to mirror the one on Spill's. 

"I have passed my test." the man intoned, his broadening smile adding some semblance of emotion to the sentence. 

Spill furrowed his brow, perplexed at the man's response, then noticed his bug-eyes pointing towards the sky. Spill had not realised that the birds were no longer chirping, or that a large shadow had crept over the landscape. With the gun still trained on the freak before him, Spill looked upwards. 

A sophisticated metallic-looking craft hovered in the overcast sky above both Spill and the man he was trying to execute. What looked like piping, hatches and mechanical components made up the undercarriage, with blinking lights of dull colours flickered on and off. In a Saturday matinee screening of a sci-fi movie, the characters would describe this kind of thing as a 'flying saucer'.

"What the fu--" Spill started, but was cut off by a brilliant white flash that engulfed both men and the surrounding terrain. 

"--ck?!" he thought - Spill could only conclude the expletive within the confines of his head. His mouth - in fact, his whole body - was instantly paralysed by the flash. He floated, suspended in a bright and undefined space. 

Gradually his inert eyes caught up to his racing mind and Spill started to make out some vague shapes moving in the white void ahead of him. 

As his eyes adjusted and recalibrated, the abstract shapes developed into fuzzy-edged silhouettes - one man-shaped one surrounded by a gaggle of taller, longer-limbed humanoid shapes that moved around the man in apparent jubilation. It looked... like the figures were... having a party?

"Motherfucker..." Spill thought to himself, shaking his head mentally instead of physically. "They're fuckin' celebrating..."