"Nonno, he was with the Local 831. Paid his dues from 18 to 65," the raspy, slightly nasal accent mixes perfectly with the background hum of the booth at Jason's - and the whine of the white noise generator under the table. "He was out there on the fuckin' lines in 1999, and what did he get for it?" he leans over the chipped plastic table. "Retired, full benefits. Fuck Seretech, fuck the City of New York. What are they gonna do about it?"
"Anyway. Nonno, he had his kids early, I got to hear what life used to be like before all this fuckin' horseshit. Before all the fuckin' dragons, wizards, Japanese ninja swords, all that shit. You were a member of the family, and family takes care of each other. Papa, he was the same - he's still back in fuckin Staten, keeping the goddamn streets clean. You think the streets clean themselves? Trash just gets to the dump on its own? Fuckin' a," he snorts and waves over the Soyweiser draft Proletarian, a brief flash of a gold credstick as he buys himself another pint.
"Obviously I'm gonna keep the family name going. Age 13, papa gets me steel toed boots for my birthday, I'm ready to fuckin' go. Drive the truck, work the sanitation drones, tase the devil rats whenever they were feeling frisky. Ten hours, one hour for lunch, two breaks, Sundays off to go to church. Never really picked up much in Sunday school, but you got to see the neighbors, and the singing was all right. And sometimes after the sermon zio would come by, he'd slip you a twenty, ask you to pick something up, leave something somewhere. No problem. That's real work. Not this shit where you show up at the docks lookin' like a fuckin' Dickens orphan hoping some Russian numbnuts needs you to drive a forklift for a day."
"Lemme tell you, the day they asked me to drive down to St. Peter's Church, down in Staten? Proudest day of my life. I swore I'd never leave the family. On my blood, you hear me? And I tell you, swear on my life," - his voice lowers - "when the card of Saint Peter burned down, he talked to me." He pauses dramatically, then adds, "Talked to me in Latin, though, barely understood what he was saying. But lemme tell you - I knew I had done something right."
"After that, the family, they helped me step up my game a bit. They had bought a few of the NYPD Inc. guards down at New Riker's - the wiseguys there, they'd see what chrome was coming in on the fuckin' thugs the law scooped up, and if they saw something good, we got first pick. Spent a lot of time driving back and forth to Roosevelt pickin' up spare parts. Got some myself every now and then. Good stuff, usually, but it always made me a little nervous. Felt like I was doing something wrong, y'know? Maybe because it came from the cops. Never know who's gonna stay bought with the law anymore."
"Still, eventually the boss got me a rig. After that, he'd send me to talk to the punks that were pushing that Kong brainmelter shit, or bothering the girls out on Staten, and I'd either convince them to fuck off or load them in the back of the fuckin' truck. Got pretty good at both, and lemme tell you, it's a fuckin' breeze to get those Dodge pieces of shit into alleys when you're jumped in." He points with his chin at the garbage truck hogging multiple parking stalls out in the lot. "Life was good for a while. They started callin' me Garbage Day, because whenever I showed up it was time to take out the trash! Ha! Get it?" He buys another drink.
"Still, y'know, every now and then, I'd be praying before I went to bed, and sometimes I'd feel like I was supposed to be doing something, y'know? I'm not exactly caught up on my readings of the good book, but when the man upstairs has something to say, nonna taught me to listen. And I got the feeling I wasn't listening."
"Eventually, I went to talk with the boss about it. He looks real serious, makes a call. Twenty minutes talking about his daughter coming in second place at the local hackathon, in comes out some weasel-lookin' guy. He looks at me funny, then the boss asks me to leave for a bit. Then, after two hours watching fuckin' Neil re-runs in an orthodonist's waiting room, the boss, he calls me back in, he tells me I'm a fuckin' wiggler. The fuck?" He shakes his head, then does a pair of exaggerated finger-quotes. "'Social adept and psychometrist'. I tell him, do I look like I go to the psychometrist? I'm not paying 250 nuyen to spend an hour talkin' with some chump about my feelings." He shakes his head again. "First time the boss didn't laugh at my jokes."
"Work got complicated after that. The boss, he kept me on the same gig, but the rest of the fuckin' guys wouldn't even shake my hand anymore. What do you want from me, assholes? I'm working here, gimme the fuckin' coldpack, you think adrenaline pumps are shelf-stable?" he grumbles rhetorically. "The boss, he was sympathetic - kept it going for a couple years, but eventually it was just me and a truck full of fuckin' drones. I told the boss, this ain't right, I know it, you know it, God knows it." He shrugs.
"Boss, he says - you remember that big bald guy who used to pick up cyber out in Newark to take out to the Ciarnellos? He made it in Seattle, a fuckin' fireman, apparently. He asks me - how do you feel about moving west? Working remote, y'know? That's the hot shit with the suits lately."
"Anyway, so now I'm here. and lemme tell you - this city's a fuckin' dump. No wonder, with the way they got that Eta contract hanging on everyone's necks like a goddamn anchor. Listen to me, buddy. You know what'll last you the rest of your life? A job where you can look your boss in the eye and tell him to go fuck himself. A steady cheque, health insurance, and a wife you hate. If it was good enough for nonno it's good enough for us." He pulls a brochure (Paper? In 2083?) with a black cat on the cover and puts it on the table. "I'm gonna get this shit straightened out, God as my witness. Just got to get a little scratch together first. Donahugh, he set me up. You hear of these dickheads, Runnerhub?"
