River Rules

  Copyright © 2019 Stevie Z. Fischer

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Printed in the United States

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  To Edith

  “Who hears the fishes when they cry?”

  —HENRY THOREAU, 1839 Observation of Lowell

  “Well, we’ll know better next time.”

  —TOM STOPPARD, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

  PART 1

  T WO YEARS AGO

  CHAPTER 1

  WHEN PETER RUSSO DISCOVERED THAT SAUNDERS Construction got hired as the general contractor for the Zenergy fuel cell site in his beloved hometown of Bridgeville, Connecticut, his chest practically exploded. Not only had Brock Saunders sold his older brother, Jeff, a worthless investment in the biggest Ponzi scheme outside of Bernie Madoff, almost causing the Russo family to lose their farm in the late 1980’s, but Brock had date-raped one of Peter’s best friends two years before the scheme went bust.

  The light from a brilliant peach and purple early-May sunset illuminated the fuel cell construction site as Peter grimly took stock of the land’s devastation. Astonishingly located in a pleasant residential neighborhood that hadn’t guessed an electricity-generating behemoth was being built in the treed expanse abutting the road, Peter found Saunders Construction signs plastered all over the chain link fence surrounding the property. How Saunders got hired to do the site work for Zenergy’s fuel cell facility, adjacent to a natural gas pipeline that most people welcomed because it freed them from the tyranny of oil, didn’t rank as public knowledge. Neither did how Zenergy somehow obtained the wooded tract in the leafy riverfront town. Yet the facility was just about up and running.

  “Satan with a backhoe loader,” Peter, hale and hearty at fifty four, explained to Brutus, his rescue pit bull and stalwart companion. “Zenergy steals the land. Saunders guts it and builds a butt-ugly industrial eyesore that belongs on the Jersey Turnpike. No way it should be in a residential neighborhood. And Saunders should be in jail, not fucking Bridgeville up the ass again.”

  Reluctant to tell Nancy Yates about Saunders’s involvement, Peter didn’t mention it or anything else about his newly hatched plan to give Zenergy and Saunders a raised middle finger. He also knew to stay away from Saunders in person; the last time Peter saw him had been after Nancy broke down and told him everything.

  “Yeah, I shoved him. So what?” Peter said to the police officer Brock flagged down at the ferry landing, where Peter found him standing alongside his precious Porsche. Peter’s best buddy, John Tomassi, had just joined the force, and told him privately in no uncertain terms to stay away from Saunders.

  “He’s a piece of shit, but he’ll bring charges the next time. For once in your life, think about consequences.” Tomassi grabbed him by the shoulder and squeezed hard with his meaty paw.

  “Jesus, alright. Lay off. But what he did should have consequences, too.”

  “Nancy didn’t report it. End of story as far as you and Brock are concerned.”

  But, it wasn’t, not by a long shot. Peter knew the last thing Nancy’s poor health, depression and anxiety needed was a reminder of Brock’s violations let alone his reappearance in Bridgeville after being run out by burned investors who wanted him tarred and feathered or, better yet, roasted alive on a spit.

  Peter poked around the Zenergy fuel cell facility site for much longer than anyone suspected. On every evening excursion, he spat on Brock’s photoshopped face adorning the Saunders signs.

  “Rot in hell, Brockie.”

  The perpetual smirk on Brock Saunders’s face had been a fixture since toddlerhood. An only child, his mother coddled him while his father beat the shit out of him, favoring a jab-cross-hook punch combination. Whenever possible, Brock could be found outside, where he loved to catch frogs and kill them. Taller and meaner than most kids his age, he bullied almost everyone except the farm boys like Jeff Russo, his school classmate who brawled with ferocity. Brock focused his rifle scope elsewhere, spreading suffering and fear among the more defenseless. No mercy kills; just prolonged agony that the adults in charge either didn’t know about, care about or view as more than boys will be boys. The rewards of hyper-masculinity as practiced in American schoolboy Darwinism were good to Brock. A quick study, he branched out into sexual predation in his teens, twisting the bodies and souls of young women, preferably defenseless ones, like screw tops.

  In his twenties, Brock’s father called in a few favors after Brock fucked up too many times at the family construction firm and got him a marketing gig for Pioneer Premium Properties, a high-flying real estate developer. Brock sold $50,000 units of can’t-miss real estate investments to almost everyone he knew. In those heady go-go times, New England commercial real estate ran hotter than the sun. All Brock had to do was reserve a meeting space, offer a full bar with passed hors d’oeuvres, dim the lights for a short dog-and-pony slide carousel, and voila. Eager investors, now including average folks like teachers, farmers, small business owners, and retirees pressed checks into his hands. No one wanted to miss the boat to riches and tax write-offs, although the small-potatoes investors didn’t even belong in the same universe with the real estate scheme. Somehow, big-time accountants, auditors and bankers blessed it all; their names, synonymous with fiduciary standards, impressing everyone.

  How Jeff and the family patriarch, Artie Russo, got sucked in, given what Jeff, twenty-five at the time, knew about Brock infuriated Peter.

  “You gave that scumbag $50,000? What the fuck is wrong with you?” Peter shouted at Jeff and his father. Artie and Peter never had a good relationship, even before Artie ruled from on high that Jeff would get the farm, freezing out his independent-minded younger son who left home after dropping out of community college. Peter kept his distance, finding steady work on the booming aerospace assembly lines that prospered in the area.

  “You’re a good for nothing ingrate,” Artie yelled in response. “You don’t know shit. What did you ever do for me?”

  “Oh, right. Everything’s all about you. For once in your life, admit it. You fucked up. I know this wasn’t only Jeff’s idea.”

  Jeff muttered something inaudible. Peter leaned towards him. “What?”

&n
bsp; “Didn’t want to miss out. Sure thing—everyone said.”

  “Yeah,” Artie said, jutting out the chin that both his sons had inherited. His wife, Peter and Jeff’s mother, died earlier that year after driving drunk into a tree, saddling Jeff with Artie’s constant presence on the farm that desperately needed modernizing.

  “Oh, so you’d jump off a building if everyone said to?” Peter barked a laugh and poked Jeff in the ribs to see if he got the richness of being able to throw Artie’s mantra from their youth right back in his face. But Jeff, slumped in a chair, his head in his hands, didn’t stir. To this day, only Peter knew how close he came to taking his own life.

  CHAPTER 2

  PETER SNEERED AT THE BIG ZENERGY SIGNS THREATENING doom and damnation for anyone who dared trespass.

  “Oh yeah? Just try.” The promise of arrest, fines and prosecution egged him on. Creative revenge could indeed be a dish eaten cold. “I answer to a higher power. Count on it.”

  The gap he’d jimmied in the chain-link fence surrounding the fuel cell went undetected. Peter searched online for information about how the chemical reaction in the huge fuel cell converted natural gas into electricity. He learned that Zenergy had big contracts for selling the electricity it would generate in Bridgeville. But when it came out that contractually, only 15 percent of the electricity would go to town residents who already paid through the nose, Peter took it as a personal challenge.

  “Game on.”

  There were a lot of if’s involved in his decision that beauty would be his weapon of choice. Brock Saunders sullied everything and everyone he touched. Saunders Construction’s involvement leaked an even more putrid stench that just added to his zeal. If Zenergy had just located the brutally industrial facility on the business side of town, if Zenergy had just acted in good faith by actually asking permission to build in Bridgeville, if Zenergy had just wanted to be a good neighbor and share some electricity, if Zenergy hadn’t hired Saunders to kill every living tree in sight. Brutus agreed with him—the desecration of a modest neighborhood of small ranch houses and modest capes smacked of complete disrespect, a Saunders specialty.

  “Disrespect can’t go unpunished, right, buddy?” As the only living creature with knowledge of Peter’s secret mission, Brutus’s opinion counted for a lot. “Gotta swing for the fences here, B.”

  Peter wore a miner’s helmet to explore when the sun went down. He created a schematic of the site and labelled the pathetic plants Saunders’ sub-contractors slapped into the ground.

  “Ten dead, four beyond hope and three on life support. Atrocious, Brutus. And there’s not an ounce of topsoil.”

  The invasion of cement trucks and earthmoving equipment left an alien landscape in stark contrast to Bridgeville’s towering oaks, maples, and pine trees. A world of hurt, decorated with cigarette butts, cans, bottles, fast-food wrappers, styrofoam, ketchup packets, and used condoms.

  “Not on my watch,” Peter said, double-gloving and shoving it all into big plastic bags. The condoms were the worst. It was probably just kids looking for a place to hump, but still. “Not cool.”

  Peter ripped out the raggedy dwarf Arborvitae quickly; the holes hadn’t been dug deep enough for petunias. Round-the-clock nurturing in the ICU wouldn’t have helped these babies.

  Armed with spades, shovels and a pitchfork, Peter coasted his pickup truck with his headlights off into a small clearing near some evergreens. A security firm patrolled the site after eleven, so he made sure he was always out by 10:30. Expertly, he mixed manure and topsoil in a barrel, all from the Russo farm’s stockpiles. He added time-honored growth boosters: coffee grounds, rotting banana peels, pulverized sea shells, and fresh water from the brook near his house.

  “Brutus, we were meant to do this, dude. Look at this. Just pitiful, fucking pitiful.” Brutus lifted a leg and pissed. “My feelings exactly, buddy.”

  Peter worked methodically for a week straight. Jeff, who Peter left completely in the dark, including about Brock Saunders’s resurrection after his prolonged exile from Bridgeville, quizzed him about his evening activities and seemed to think Peter had finally gotten over the heartbreak of Carmen Fiori, who had cut him off at the knees two years ago.

  “At least tell me your new lady’s name, Romeo. She’s gotta be a saint or blind to put up with you. C’mon, Pete, dish.”

  “Hey, don’t jinx me.” Peter wiggled his hips.

  Jeff shook his head. “I feel sorry for her. You look like you’re having a seizure.” The two brothers laughed, and in that moment, they looked almost like twins, although Jeff, two years older at fifty-six and more weathered by the sun, outweighed Peter by about twenty pounds. Jeff and Peter had the same thick dark hair shot with gray, the same deep brown eyes and the same strong chins. They both would have scoffed at being called handsome, but age had been kind to them.

  Nancy called him a few times during his nocturnal excursions and left messages about her latest travails with online dating.

  “Another dagger to my heart,” she said. “He might’ve been the one.”

  Since this happened with amazing frequency, Peter barely had to glance at the guy’s bio and headshot to know that Nancy had leaped again before she looked.

  “He lives on a boat, Nance. You get seasick on an escalator.” Peter held his hands up in disbelief. “Plus, he looks like a gerbil.”

  “Only in profile.”

  “The one from last week collected shrunken heads.”

  “Bullshit. He collected Russian fur hats, the kind with earflaps.”

  “Same difference.”

  Peter tried not to whistle or hum—nothing to draw attention to himself. He counted on Brutus to keep quiet, too, so he packed Brutus a little care package every night: a juicy bone, an old tennis ball, and a ripped dish towel. Brutus had more joy in destroying a dish towel than most people experience at Christmas.

  A few times Peter felt like he wasn’t alone up there in the woods. It couldn’t be the security people; they stuck to the paved front of the fuel cell and never came early. It had to be nocturnal animals foraging for food. So, he tethered Brutus to a tree; there was no point of him chasing after some raccoon or fox. Fisher cats were mean as hell, too.

  When the soil finally smelled fecund and ripe, Peter rechecked his selections. “Let’s see. Mountain laurel, pink azalea, holly, and Stella De Oro day lilies in purple and yellow. OK, time to cook with gas.”

  The first night went well. He dug deep into the newly fertile soil, gently lowering the bushes and plants. But then it rained like hell for two days straight. Thunder, lightning and high winds shut everything down. Once he got back up there, tire-spinning mud and quicksand kept him from parking close.

  “Shit. I can’t do this all in one trip.” He lugged his tools and the remaining plants in two trips. On the second one, he stumbled over Brutus and landed on a shovel blade with his right hand.

  “Fuck.” He sucked on his butchered hand and soldiered on.

  Throbbing pain and swelling made it difficult to grip the bloody shovel. Perspiration stung his eyes and big ropes of snot hung from his nose. At 10:50, he looked at his trusty Timex and knew it was way past time to get out of there.

  Pain and fatigue made him woozy. Steadying his legs against Brutus who braced himself to provide a sturdy base, Peter surveyed the fruit of his labor as he gathered up his tools.

  “Fucking A+, my man.” It looked so good, phenomenal actually, until blaring sirens and flashing lights cut through the dark. Cop cars, ambulances, and fire trucks seemed to burst out of nowhere.

  CHAPTER 3

  “WHAT THE HELL?” PETER’S BODY REFUSED TO MOVE. Sitting down heavily on a nearby boulder, he pulled Brutus close and hugged him tight with his good arm.

  “I love you, buddy.” Peter whispered as Brutus’s powerful chest expanded and contracted in perfect rhythm. Brutus licked Peter’s cheek and looked at him expectantly.

  “I don’t know what’s happening. Just sit tight, B. Si
t like you’ve never sat before.”

  The cops swarmed closer and closer. They had to be locked and loaded, ready to counter any threat. Peter knew their adrenaline rush was off the charts. He prayed with all his might the cops wouldn’t shoot Brutus. He heard the clicking of weapons and looked down in horror as the red laser dot landed on his chest.

  “This is Bridgeville Police: drop your weapon and come out with your hands high in the air. Walk slowly,” a loud male voice commanded.

  Peter staggered to his feet, hands above his head. “Fellas, I’m coming out. I’m unarmed—it’s Peter Russo. But my dog is here; don’t shoot him.”

  Brutus started barking like a madman. Peter inched forward slowly just as instructed. He got on his knees and begged them not to hurt Brutus. Guns trained, they patted him down and cuffed his hands behind his back.

  “Jesus, he’s covered in blood.”

  “My dog, guys, my dog.”

  “Shut your mouth!”

  “Wait, Russo? Peter Russo is that you?” One of the younger cops, who Peter recognized as Kenny Johnson, a skilled baseball player who almost played in college, nodded at him and said something inaudible to the others. All but two of them lowered their weapons and asked him what the hell he was doing at the facility in the dead of night.

  An ambulance sped past them and Peter asked, “What’s going on? What’s this all about?”

  The loudest, biggest cop, who Peter didn’t recognize, yelled at him. “Maybe you should tell us.”

  “I don’t believe this. Everybody’s up here to arrest me for what, trespassing? Jesus, I only planted some bushes and flowers.”

  “This is no time for bullshit, Russo. You know damn well what’s going down here. Where’s your truck?”

  “What …”

  “Shut it.” Herding him into the backseat of a squad car, someone squashed his head down hard.