Short Story: There Is A Difference

Short Story: There Is A Difference

There is a difference between having a big head, like OJ Simpson, and being big-headed, like Marcos Levere. And when someone has both a big head and is big-headed, the difference becomes almost the same.

Marcos was born to a drug addicted prostitute who never knew who his father was; neither did he, at least not until he was thirty and even then he wasn’t sure. To cut to the chase, he had nothing growing up: no money, little food (courtesy of all those well-off folks in Kingston who dumped leftovers), and no education and, as always, as goes with the territory, he had no manners.

One chilly morning, after a particularly gruelling night during which she had earned two thousand dollars, his mother died of an overdose. Marc, as his one friend called him, did not know what his mother had had to go through that night but the autopsy report had been disgusting to read. He had never forgiven her for not knowing his father and for never taking him to school.

He had left home at five and had roamed the streets, eking out a living as best he could. He did all there was to do to survive from rummaging through refuse to loading banana boats to unloading cheap whisky in the dead of night spurred on by sinister employers. By twenty five, the year his mother died, he was known as the most fearsome enforcer in the region. He worked solo and rarely turned down jobs. He did collections, retrievals and dispatches.

With his mother’s inheritance money, as he saw the two thousand dollars (finally the bitch had done him some good and given him some money), he bought a 1970 Volkswagen Beetle and pimped it up. It was canary yellow and could be heard blasting music from quarter of a mile away.

He had rented a two room apartment in a part of downtown Kingston. The building was full of gun runners, drug peddlers and chain-snatchers, drug addicts, prostitutes and their pimps. Bob, his only friend from childhood, had advised him against renting there but he had told him to shut up.

So, for fifteen years he had lived there, blasting music from his apartment when he was home and from his car when he was on the road. His neighbours had complained in vain for years. That was until his neighbour, a drug peddler, was killed and a crazy Rastafarian took over the next door apartment.

The Rastafarian was as thin as a wash board, with a stomach to match. On his first night in his new apartment he had banged on Marc’s door and insisted he turn his `shit` down. Marc, used to bullying his way through everything, had opened his door and threatened to wring the guy’s neck if he did not shut up. That was the last anyone saw or heard from Marc. That was, until a week later, when the smell from his room became so overpowering that people complained to the landlord. He, in turn, called the police and the door was smashed down, to reveal a naked, cut up and very dead Marcos Levere. His head was placed strategically on his lap, covering his unimpressive and rotting manhood.

After the blaring music was turned down the police surgeon told his Captain that Marcos Levere had been stabbed fifteen times. It took them as no surprise, however, that no one had heard his screams; there was no way the volume of music would have allowed any other sound to penetrate the thin walls. “And he must have screamed his head off, literally!” the police surgeon said. After taking statements from unwilling neighbours, the Captain realized that Mr. Levere was a victim of his own folly and bigheadedness, literally. If he had ever turned down his music, someone would have heard his initial screams and if that could not have saved him, at least it might have brought forward witnesses who could identify the suspect.

Like I said, there is a difference between having a big head and being big-headed. And if a big-headed guy also had a big head, the difference would make a funny ending to a rough-lived life.