2019-11-29 - What's In the Box!??

(TXT to Graham) Joey : Hey I got a pickup for you. POS Olds. Garage at 515 Elm. Emergency pickup. Something extra in the truck for you. Payment on delivery to IZ's place

(TXT to Itzhak) Joey : Delivery inbound in 20. Disposal. Hazard pay is covered. I owe you, man.

(TXT to Joey) Itzhak : Oh Christ.

(TXT to Graham) Joey : Might help to note it's in the god damned garage. Side door is bust back in frame. Get there early enough it'll still be empty.

(TXT to Joey) Graham : keys??? or do I have to watch that YouTube video about hot-wiring cars again cuz I fucking suck at that

(TXT to Graham) Joey : above the visor hoss. I set it up for you.

(TXT to Joey) Graham : ok I'm OMW

(TXT to Joey) Graham : am I going to get shot at?

(TXT to Itzhak) Joey : Yeah that's pretty much the status. Car and contents need to gtfo.

(TXT to Graham) Joey : Well I don't know if the car is hot but the contents is. I can arrange for you to get picked up at the diner after. Might want to avoid the house if you can. That's gonna need to get cleaned likely too. Not your problem but you won't want to be there when it does.

(TXT to Joey) Itzhak : Biohazard?

(TXT to Itzhak) Joey : You think this is Iran? It ain't explosive.

(TXT to Itzhak) Joey : What kinda budget you think we got?

(TXT to Joey) Itzhak : Why do I bother.

(TXT to Joey) Graham : np np, I got this

(TXT to Itzhak) Joey : Because I'll owe ya. Trust it's for a good cause if that helps you sleep or whatever.

Graham's about to get shot again, isn't he?

(TXT to Joey) Itzhak : Is there SHIT, Kelly. Piss. Blood. Anything that comes out of someone.

(TXT to Itzhak) Joey : I'll buy you a drink later okay?

Graham leaves his actual car stashed somewhere that makes it slightly less likely that everyone in town will see it and be like OH THAT'S GRAHAM STEWART'S MALIBU I KNOW THAT CAR. He should probably get a more discreet ride. But whatever, that monster gets him here in record time, and he climbs out of it doing criminal things - like making sure he has a gun on him and his phone and also taking a quick look around this place where he's breaking in. He's all set to actually do that - break in - but then, lo and behold! The door's busted in.

He mumbles a quick, "Cool," under his breath, throws open the door of this car, grabs the keys out of the visor, and immediately opens the trunk. Plausible deniability is for pussies. He rummages around for about two-point-five seconds, closes the trunk, and slides into the driver's seat. A quick text later, and he'll be on his way!

(TXT to Joey) Graham : this car is shit. I'm omw with it now.

Meanwhile Itzhak is hastily getting some stuff ready for the incoming disposal project. Cardboard boxes, warming up the Sawsall, 20-lb bags of gravel. He's cursing loudly in Yiddish, hurrying around the garage. His fiddle lies in its open case on the coffee table.

(TXT to Itzhak) Joey : Inbound.

Graham doesn't touch a goddamn thing. Other than the car. That's not to say that he doesn't let the headlights shine into the garage in a way that he really shouldn't - he should just leave them off till he's on the road. And what he sees definitely makes him whistle through his teeth. Then he gets that shitty beast onto the road and over to Itzhak's, fuck yo traffic, Gray Harbor.

Fuck your EVERYTHING, Gray Harbor. Itzhak's grabbing the entire box of nitrile gloves resting on top of Lemondrop's enclosure. Then he throws a thick blanket over her terrarium. He doesn't want her to see this.

Graham should not honk the horn once he rolls up at Itzhak's, but Graham might have impulse control issues, so Graham honks the horn. He also puts the car in park and leaves the engine running while he climbs out, adding one last beep-beep while he quits the vehicle, leaning against the driver's side door frame for more texting. Being a millennial is so hard on the thumbs.

(TXT to Joey) Graham : yo I'm here.

(TXT to Itzhak) Joey : He is outside. Keep me updated.

(TXT to Graham) Joey : Your holiday bonus is in the trunk maroon duffel bag. I appreciate it.

Itzhak is already hitting the switch to raise the bay door, and cringes as Graham honks. "Would you fucking not?" he hisses at him as he ducks out under the rising door. "Pull in, for Christ's sake." UGH! This is why he got out of crime in the first place. "Hurry it the fuck up."

"I already fucking did, so that'd be a big ol' no." Graham smiles his best 'aware of how annoying he is' smile at Itzhak, all dimples and shiny white teeth. He ducks back into the car with the smile maintained, putting it back in gear...

...and beeping the horn again...

...and then rolling it on into the open bay door. "You're welcome," he adds, sticking his head out the window.

Itzhak turns on Graham, lip curled, hazel eyes more than a little crazy, and--CRUNCH! Kicks in the passenger door behind the driver's side. The door bends in two, the car rocks on its shitty shocks. "I," he growls. "Am not. In the fucking mood. Pop the trunk."

Graham stiffens in the driver's seat, but he keeps his shit together. "Goddamn, man. Take a pill or something," he suggests, spending a while pretending (very credibly) to not know how to pop the trunk. He twists at the waist, looking this way and that, bends over like he's really feeling around hard underneath the seat, even goes so far as to bump his forehead on the steering wheel. "Ah-hah!" Click. "Don't touch the red bag, that's my shit." At least that thought gets him outta the car.

After he turns the knob on the radio up full blast. 'I stay out too late~ Got nothin' in my brains~ That's what people say~' He head-bobs contentedly.

Itzhak takes one look, turns back around and closes his eyes. And starts swearing in Yiddish, long raspy sentences full of calling down doom. But finally being confronted with what he's got to do actually settles him a little. He nods to the bag, pulling gloves out of the box and jamming his big knuckly hands into them. "Get ya shit." Itzhak won't touch another man's promised payment. "Then you gotta help me with this."

First off, Graham wasn't told to be careful on the turns. Second off, he wouldn't have anyway. Third off, "I keep cruising, can't stop won't stop grooving," he sings along cheerfully, snagging the duffel bag with one hand and shoving it safely off to one side of the car, on the ground on the passenger side. Still in time with the music, "Sorry, but I think you got me confused with," hold on, he can't make this part fit with the song and so sighs before cracking on, "some guy that cleans up dead bodies. I steal shit and drive places. You don't have, like, a dog or something?" Having dealt with his stuff, he stands, hands on hips, looking at the mess in the trunk, then Itzhak.

Itzhak glares at Graham. Glares at him real good. Then he looks at the ceiling, holding up his gloved hands as if asking God to please look at what he has to cope with. "If it wasn't Joey Lee Kelly I wouldn't be doin' this," he informs Graham. "This ain't my gig, it ain't my job." ...Maybe he's lying to himself just a skoosh there, but anyway, he adds, "Put the gloves on," like Graham didn't just say he's not helping.

Itzhak may have been talking directly to God, but it's Graham that's surprised. "Wait, you're not getting paid for this?" He grunt-smothers a laugh, then eyes the gloves he's supposed to be putting on but still not actually putting on. "I'll help you get them outta the trunk or whatever, but I'm not chopping nobody up into little pieces or dissolving them in acid. I'm not good at that shit, and we'll all get caught if I try."

"Lucky for both of us I ain't doin' any of that shit." Itzhak holds out the box of gloves. "You gotta put 'em on, man. What if they have AIDS?" Then he smirks, and it's ...it's really unpleasant. Vicious. "I'm gettin' paid all right. Put the gloves on." The AIDS line usually works!

Blue eyes squint skeptically, but Graham pulls on the gloves. Actually, you know what? He also pulls down the sleeves of his super-PNW-appropriate flannel, so his arms are covered, too. "Just in case." Then he makes gloved jazz-hands at Itzhak and pulls the golf clubs outta the trunk; they clang clang clang noisily 'cause he drops them wherever, over there is fine.

"Good man," Itzhak mutters. "A'ight." He drags over one of the cardboard boxes. It's bigger than a breadbox, the kind of box Amazon sends you a dishrack in. (It might have in fact been a dishrack-shipper in its first life.) Then, unhappily, he looks at the big lump covered so suggestively with the quilt. What's that cord go to? Itzhak is very much afraid he's going to find out.

"Grab the other end," he says, briskly, like they're moving a dresser. He grabs one end and lifts.

"Oh hello, gorgeous," is Graham's way of dealing with what he sees when he lifts up the blanket, because of fucking course he lifts up the blanket. At least his 'eek, gross' face should inform Itzhak to not also lift up the blanket? Anyway, he puts the blanket back over the dented head and scoops both arms underneath, now grateful for having pulled down the flannel. "You really," he struggles to get out while lifting, "can get anything on Amazon nowadays. Even," puff puff, "a place to dump a corpse."

Itzhak says the first syllable "Don't--" of 'don't lift up the fucking blanket' but Graham's already gone ahead and done it. He sighs. Then he can't help it, he snorts in unwilling laughter. He has to tamp that down because he's going to start laughing and not be able to stop. "Head first. Like a snake."

Oh God, dead bodies are really unwieldy, it turns out. Limbs flap and flop everywhere, and they don't call it 'dead weight' for nothing. Itzhak grits his teeth hard in order not to whimper. He's sweating by the time they wrestle the first unfortunate asshole's head into the box...and then the box really does swallow the corpse like a constrictor. All the way down. Impossibly down. Physics are being bent in the name of body removal.

They're doing this to Graham's 'Andre' playlist still blasting out the speakers of the shitty car, which is almost entirely Taylor Swift. So now Graham's humming along and mumbling lyrics, "getting back together, we are never ever ever HOLY FUCK!" He falls backward from the weird box, lands squarely on his ass, and scrabbles till he gets his back safely against the side of the car. "What the fuck did you buy?!" With huge, baffled eyes turned upon Itzhak.

...getting back together~

"Black hole. You really can buy anything on Amazon." Itzhak's unpleasant, vicious smirk is back. He picks up a 20 lb bag of gravel like it ain't no thing and drops it in the box, too. Then he shoves that aside and pulls over another box. "One more. Home stretch." He mutters it like he's trying to convince himself. He lays hands on the other body and works to wrangle it out. "Then I'm breakin' out the Sawzall."

Wary side-eyes keep shifting to the black hole box, but Graham manages not to completely puss out. He keeps his back pressed to the car, sliding upward till his feet are under him, maintaining as much distance between himself and the box as possible. This keeps him pretty well oblivious to any goose-feathers, his attention dropping to the second corpse.

"You do the head this time," he decides, and will totally slap-fight this out if he has to. Otherwise, he'll carry the feet like a good (but pretty well freaked out) soldier.

Lucky for everybody involved, Itzhak isn't interested in slap fighting it out. He just wants to get this horror over with. So without argument he takes the head like a criminal low-rent Voltron and stuffs that motherfucker in the box too. Like Audrey II slurping down Mr. Mushnik, that is. Itzhak's shaking pretty good by the time that's accomplished. He throws in another bag of gravel, strips off his gloves, grabs new ones, and has to spend a minute getting them on his shaking hands.

"I got it from here," he says, not looking at Graham.

This is where Graham should be like 'you sure? i can help' or 'here lemme give you a hand' but guys? There's no honor among thieves. Graham throws his side toward the scary box and skitters out of the way, snagging the handle of the duffel bag and swinging that bad boy up to his shoulder. "A'ight, then. I'mma call somebody to pick me up. You need a smoke or something?" 'Cause shaking hands. And Graham has smokes, he takes out the carton and offers one toward Itzhak, already dangling one from his own lips.

Are there a lot of gas fumes in this garage? Because a fireball would solve a lot of problems.

Itzhak is kind of at the point he'd welcome a fiery death, let's be honest. "Do NOT light that shit up in here!" he snaps anyway, and points Graham firmly OUTside. "Go on. Get outta here. Start walkin'. Get picked up down the street." He shouldn't need to tell Graham these things, but he's doing it anyway because the kid doesn't have the sense God blessed a goose with...is that a goose feather on the leg of his coveralls? He picks up his foot, scowling at it.

"Sooooo, that'd be a no on the cigarette?" Graham holds the carton out there for another second or two, just in case Itzhak changes his mind, then nicely takes one out of the box and sets it into the weather-stripping on top of the passenger side door of the car. "In case you change your mind." He smiles at Itzhak, dimples for days, and lingers long enough to snatch his phone out of the car. Which stops the music from blasting, so \o/

Then he's out, phone to ear for a minute - don't worry, guys, he's not calling an Uber to come get him at Itzhak's Body Shop (get it? BODY shop???), just a buddy - while he walks on down the road to meet his ride. And text Joey.

(TXT to Joey) Graham : yo you better check on your boy. He's shaking and shit. Plus he has a fucking psycho box that's eating the contents of the trunk.

(TXT to Graham) Joey : We don't much care how he gets rid of shit so long as he do it. Try not to think too hard about it. You'll sleep better.

(TXT to Joey) Graham : I dgaf but homeboy is twitchy. Just letting you know. I'm out, thx for the bag 😃 <3

(TXT to Graham) Joey : Shey hey to Elise for me. ty again

(TXT to Graham) Joey : Shey hey to Elise for me. ty again

It's like Itzhak can hear the wiseassery through the dimples. Maybe the dimples are actually psychic repeaters. "...Yeah, thanks," he mutters, about the cigarette. He fumbles plastic goggles on. Then he picks up the Sawzall and fires it up. This shit car is about to become a shit pile of shit parts. Which will then go into a box. And all these boxes are getting flung out to sea. And then Itzhak will throw up.

(TXT to Itzhak) Joey : If you're having a meltdown over this I'm a need you to do that tomorrow. How we looking?

(TXT to Joey) Itzhak : Great. Fine. Everything is fine.

(TXT to Itzhak) Joey : I had to help someone man. I couldn't walk away. I'll explain later. If something comes up call don't text. I'm about to be in some mixed company.

(TXT to Joey) Itzhak : Nothing's gonna come up. Go do your thing. Talk to you face to face tomorrow.