By Sean Kenealy
“My name’s Roy and I destroy!”
I know, it’s a silly slogan, but it turns heads and it’s helped me get ahead in this crazy business.
Need a TV destroyed? I got you.
Need a couch destroyed? No problem.
I even did a refrigerator once in a turnaround of 30 minutes. I kid you not.
Being a Destroyer is the type of job anyone thinks they can do – get a hammer and have a temper. But that couldn’t be farther from the case.
First you have to have the muscle to bring the item to a safe space to destroy – it gets messy. Second you have to photograph the destroyed item while making sure three of its serial numbers are still visible. Don’t fake it. Third you have to document the item has been disposed of in a way that meets the fancy codes of the Environmental No Returns Act.
And if you do screw up any one portion of the job your client is screwed out of their refund and you’re screwed out of this business. At 56 I’m not looking to change jobs again. Figure I have 4 more years until my body gives out. Destroying is my last shot to make any real money.
I started the job six years ago. It was right when all the in-person stores went belly up. Everything was now online. Eve-ry-thing.
And when the post office closed – and who didn’t see that coming – Amazon and the big wigs had to get real smart real quick and figure out how people would keep getting all their deliveries. Their solution? Private drones. Little birdies flying around dropping TVs and toothbrushes and all the other crap you can imagine like retail shooting stars.
But, and this is a big but, there was a problem Amazon and the big wigs didn’t think of. What do you do if you want to return your item and you can’t ship it or bring it in person?
So they came up with something so wacky and wild only a multi-trillion dollar company could back it up. You don’t want the product that you bought? Want a different size? Want your money back? Destroy it. Simple. Take a picture to prove you actually destroyed the item, send the picture back, and your refund comes through.
Problem solved, right?
But wait, wait, wait. What if you’re one of those people, and by one of those people I mean rich people, that doesn’t have the time and materials to destroy a larger item in order to get your refund?
Cue spotlight…
“My name’s Roy and I destroy! For a fraction of the original price, I’ll destroy your product and get you that money back!”
It’s so catchy I’ve had a handful of clients tell me I should turn it into a jingle. Too bad I hate music.
Oh, and for all the hippies out there shouting that destroying is just making more garbage and polluting the oceans, Amazon marketed this whole no physical returns thing by saying, get this: “it’s better for the environment to destroy a product than to use the materials to repackage it and the gas to reship it.”
Ha! You can’t make this up! This is Amazon’s way to save the world!
Is it true? I call BS. When you have more money than half the countries of the planet combined there has to be a better way to save the environment.
But still, wherever I’m hammering a TV or busting a table in half I like to think that maybe, just maybe, I’m doing something more than that. Maybe Amazon isn’t lying and I really am helping the whales and the rainforest and making sure the planet doesn’t implode.
I’m like most people, I’ve never had a family. Doesn’t mean I don’t want someone else to have a shot.
***
I’ve never destroyed a wooden trunk. I’ve done suitcases, plastic bins, but never a fancy trunk like something you’d see on a pirate ship or the end of a bed in a rustic cabin.
I figured this would be an easy job.
The client was some millionaire I’d never actually met. They lived outside the city in a white mansion with big pillars and stone gargoyles surrounding the front door. It’s how everyone lived in this part of town.
No one gets out of the city by having a nine to five.
I walked to the front door and an old, skinny bald guy answered before I could knock. I’ve gone to this mansion a handful of times and he’s always the one to greet me, always wearing a black suit like a butler in a dumb movie.
“My name’s Roy and I destroy!” I didn’t need to say it, the butler knew who I was, but my slogan was like an extra layer of identification. Lots of fake destroyers ripping off the rich.
“Trunk,” the butler said.
The trunk was at his side. He tapped it, signaling I could enter, and took a few steps back.
“Trunk,” he said again.
I smiled and covered my boots with plastic slip-ons.
The butler always spoke one word at a time. “Trunk. Crib. Dresser.” Whatever the item happened to be. I’m guessing his head wasn’t right or he thought my head wasn’t.
With all the new variants going around it’s just a matter of time for all of us.
“Trunk,” he said. This time it was more of a whisper.
***
Outside I set the trunk in between a coy pond and a basketball court. Never heard or saw kids here, but they had a swing set too. It was rusty, the one thing on the property that wasn’t kept in pristine condition on the bright green grass and manicured trees. Both fake, of course, but they made them look damn good in this part of town.
I grabbed my ax and did a few stretches. 56. Damn.
If I destroyed the trunk quickly I could get another job in, an oven three miles away. I lifted the ax, about to swing it down, and I heard a cry from inside the trunk.
It was like a bees’ nest fell on my foot. I jumped back, turning from side to side and dropped my ax, almost cutting my left foot in half. Of course no one was there to see it. These houses have yards so big you could scream at the top of your lungs and the neighbors still wouldn’t hear.
Another muffled cry from inside the trunk.
I inched closer, expecting the top to fly open and a rabid animal to jump out.
The trunk was covered with dozens of lines. It looked like rivers flowing in and out of each other. Like an ancient map of roads and bridges. I rarely take the time to look at what I’m destroying. What’s the point in getting attached? But this piece really was beautiful.
Inside was a baby boy, no more than a few weeks old. He laid on a brown blanket, naked. Eyes bright blue with dark, long eyelashes. Don’t think I’ve ever noticed a person’s eyelashes before. His skin was pale, more like translucent, and I could see little veins all through his hands. He wasn’t crying, just making noises. Coos.
I’ve only been near a baby one other time in my life.
I reached my hands in the trunk, about to pick him up, but instead grabbed my work gloves, brushing them off for almost a full minute to make sure no garbage or dust went near his little nose and mouth.
I gently rested the baby on my forearm. He was as heavy as a coffee maker I destroyed two days earlier.
I walked around the yard, lightly rocking him, figuring someone would jump out. Someone must have lost him. Someone must be looking. But there was no one. No noise except a small speaker camouflaged like a rock playing bird noises and light music.
I hate music.
***
I knocked on the mansion door again, softer this time to not wake the baby.
A young woman answered dressed in a suit with a clipboard tucked under her arm. Her posture was so straight I knew she must have been thinking about it.
It was the first time at this mansion that the butler didn’t greet me.
“Is everything okay?” she asked.
I gestured to the trunk by my feet. The lid was open and the baby was back in his spot. Only difference was I folded the brown blanket a few more times to add some cushion.
“Why do you have a baby?” she asked.
“No, I…”
The baby cooed. What they say is true, it actually sounds like a coo, and any thoughts I had went straight out of my ears.
“This is highly unprofessional,” she said, now looking down at her clipboard. “Bringing a baby to a hazardous job. I’m going to have to leave you a horrible review.”
I couldn’t take a bad review. Too many other Destroyers to pick from.
My phone beeped – more jobs nearby.
“Or you can leave with the child,” she said. “That will be easier. Trust me.”
The baby cooed; she looked at her clipboard.
“Where am I supposed to go?” I asked her.
Past the entrance, I saw the butler at the end of a hall. He was partially hidden by a grandfather clock or dresser, something they would need a guy like me for if they ever wanted a refund. I could tell he was watching us.
He turned a corner and the woman shut the door in my face.
***
I ordered some milk, a bottle, and a clean blanket. The baby peed in the blanket 2 minutes after wrapping him up, so I ordered some diapers and wipes. I couldn’t figure out how to get the diaper on him so I ordered two new blankets. And a clean shirt.
It all got droned down 30 seconds after pressing submit. Being in a rich part of town has its perks.
I don’t think I broke more than 10 miles an hour when I started driving with the baby resting on my lap. I was expecting the police to pull me over, but instead cars kept passing without honking, probably assuming my beat-up truck had some kind of hazardous material on board and it was best to stay out of my way.
A few minutes into the drive the baby kicked his legs, opened the blanket, and peed again. This time it hit my chin and dribbled down to my new shirt. He cooed and shuffled his little feet against my hard belly, and even though I couldn’t imagine anything funny about being kicked and peed on, it was the first time I laughed in months.
My phone beeped – more things to destroy.
***
The police station had an officer sitting at the front desk blocked by five computer screens. I was still clearly in a rich part of town. Back in the city police stations are called “cop stops,” broken down buildings filled with graffitied bots trying to organize lines of homeless people. Here you at least got a bored person sitting at a desk
I stood next to the officer, watching different colors bounce off his face. When he finally looked up and noticed the baby resting against my chest he let out a low grunt, as if already knowing I was about to cause him a crapload of paperwork.
“It’s a 4,000 unit fine,” the officer said. “You want to drop off a kid, it’s going to cost you.”
“He’s not mine. I found him.”
The officer stood, as if I’d finally earned his attention, and he leaned towards me to get a better look. His breath was still. Must have assumed I smelled like garbage and urine. Guess he was half right.
“Bring him closer.”
I moved a few inches in, keeping the baby lightly pressed against my chest, making sure his skin only touched the new blanket I ordered him. More coos. This kid loved to coo.
“He’s got E17,” the officer said. “You can tell by the blue line on his hand.”
I reached for the baby’s palm and gently spread his fingers. I couldn’t believe how strong he was when he griped my pinky. He had to be healthy.
But there it was, a light blue line across the center of the baby’s palm.
I traced it, back and forth, just like I traced the lines on the wooden trunk. Rivers and bridges leading in and out of each other on the softest skin I’d ever touched.
“Who cares what he has? Can you find out who he’s registered to?”
The officer rolled his eyes, like he’d heard this question a thousand times today and the answer never changed.
“People dump these kids all the time,” he said. “Better than paying the fine.”
“Why would you get a fine? The rate is down.”
“Exactly. We don’t have the people to take care of them. Especially the ones with E17.”
I gently shifted the baby so his head rested between my shoulder and neck. I knew I’d have to order more milk soon. He should probably have some toys too. Maybe a rattle.
“They dump kids? What’s wrong with people?” I wasn’t asking the officer, but he still smirked as he sat back down in his chair.
“You don’t watch the news much, do you.”
***
Five minutes later two new police officers showed up and gently took the baby from my arms. One wrapped him in a new, clean blanket. He kept saying peek-a-boo. The other had a stuffed animal he playfully shook by the baby’s face. I knew I would remind myself of all this later that night. How soft they were.
I asked if I should order some milk. They said no. I warned them that he peed a lot. They nodded.
“Don’t worry,” one of the officers said, now rocking the baby. “We’ll find him a good place. He’ll be safe.”
“Safe?” I repeated. It was like a word from the past, something I understood but couldn’t explain if there was a gun to my head.
“Safe,” he said again. “Trust me.”
People kept saying that to me today. To trust them. The officer holding the stuffed animal had a clipboard tucked under their arm, just like the woman from the mansion.
“Do you want to say goodbye to him?”
***
When I was 12 years old my sister was born. Clair. Little blonde hair and blue eyes. It was right when E1 started, but no one knew what to call it yet.
I remember standing at the edge of their tiny hospital room, watching my mother gently rock her new baby. A clear plastic sheet hung between us that felt as thick as a waterfall.
“Say hi to your sister,” my mother said.
My mother never cried in front of me, but I knew when she was hiding it. She would smile more. She would blow kisses my direction.
I waved at them, wondering why there weren’t any nurses in their room. The whole wing of the hospital was nearly empty, except for other rooms filled with mothers and babies surrounded by plastic.
“Can the baby see me?” I asked.
I had just finished collecting bottles and cans, and as silly as it sounds I didn’t want my baby sister to see me covered in dirt.
My mother told me that newborns can’t see well. But they can smell. They can hear. They know what safe means.
“Sing us a song,” my mother said.
I took a step back from the plastic sheet. Behind me I could hear a hospital bed being wheeled away, but I was too frightened to look.
“Sing Clair a song,” she said.
My mother knew I loved to sing. I was never good at it, but she always asked me to sing. Every night. We would eat whatever canned food I found that day, crawl into bed, hold each other to keep warm, and I would sing to her.
I opened my dirty hand and placed it on the cold plastic sheet dividing us. I knew this was the last time I would see them.
“Roy?”
I ran out of the room.
***
The officer brought the baby a few inches closer. “Sir, do you want to say goodbye,” he asked again.
“Sir?” I said. I shook my head no. “I have work.”
The officer carried the baby away. He hummed a lullaby.
I hate singing. I hate when anyone sings. I hate music.
I kept the baby’s blanket draped over my shoulder. I watched the officers walk down a hall. After a few seconds they were small like a spec of color, that’s all it took. I reached my arm towards them. I opened my hand. There was nothing to touch, but I could still feel the cold plastic sheet swallowing my fingers.
***
When I got home I put my phone on silent. I made a circle of pillows on my bed, laid two stuffed animals inside of it, and put three gallons of milk in the fridge. Even with my phone on silent I could see the screen light up with dozens of new jobs, so I turned it off. It was the first time in years.
I don’t know why I did it. It doesn’t make any sense. I don’t know how I’ll make money. Don’t know how I’ll destroy. I don’t know what I’ll do in a studio apartment in a city filled with mountains of trash and homeless people living inside and on top of it.
But there’s something about his little hands.
I gently rocked him, staring at his closed eyelashes.
I can do more than keep him safe.
I started to sing. He opened his eyes.
“Hi little one. My name’s Roy and you’re my boy.”
THE END