From the Dark Side: Excerpt from Drew Beatty’s “Letter from a Possible Corpse”

Check out an excerpt from author/podcaster Drew Beatty’s contribution to the From the Dark Side Charity Anthology. Check it out, and tune in tomorrow for another sneak peek from a different author. Be sure to pick up your copy of the anthology next Friday, July 9.

Letter from a Possible Corpse

If you are reading this, either I’m dead, or I’ve made it through to the other side. If I’m dead, well, you probably already found my rotting corpse in the bathroom. Sorry about the smell. If my body isn’t there, I thought somebody might want to know what happened. I don’t know who would really care, but here’s my story.

You know those aptitude tests they give you in high school, the ones that are supposed to tell you what job you would be good at so you can get your life all planned. The problem with those tests is my answers didn’t really fit their parameters, so it took me some time before I realized what I was good at, really good at, was conning people.

I discovered my particular talent in high school. The technical term for it is social engineering, but most people know it as good, old-fashioned conning. I conned my way out of essays, exams and projects, changing my pitch for each teacher. I could talk the lunch ladies out of paying for my food, the bigger guys out of beating me up, and the girls into giving it up for me.

Yeah, it might not have said so on that aptitude test, but I was a born con man.

But that was a long time ago, almost twenty years now. My turf, not to sound all gangy, but that’s what it’s called, is the downtown waterfront. Lots and lots of tourists pour through the Harbourfront center, new faces every week, lots from small towns, honest folk with a wad of cash in their wallets. All that cash, just waiting for me. Three card monte, shell games, even some old school bait-and-switch games. I make enough to keep me in smokes, drinks and pay the rent on my apartment. Not much of a life, but it was working all right for me.

I was walking around the boardwalk when I first noticed the new tent. The Toronto Harbourfront has a few different areas, from the upscale art galleries and concert stages of the Harbourfront Centre, to the more pedestrian boardwalk area. The boardwalk is like a mini-carnival, all aged and sagging rides, paint peeling from the merry go round, a two story high rusted Ferris wheel. It attracts a different clientele. I didn’t hang out there a lot, not that I am classist in any way, but in my line of work it’s better to go where the money is. The Harbourfront rubes think they are pretty smart, so they are easier to sucker than the people down here who actually know the value of a dollar.

But I digress. I was telling you about the tent. It was a funhouse, the outside lined with bent and twisted mirrors. Some kids were playing there, looking at themselves stretched out and skinny, or short and fat, laughing at their distended reflections. I walked over and took a look myself.

“Fancy a turn?” asked the owner, a shabby looking man dressed all in faded browns. His hair curled over his ears, and a few days’ growth covered his pointy chin.

“No thanks,” I replied, moving on.

“Afraid of what you will see looking back at you?”

I was taken aback slightly; this was not the standard patter that most carnie types used to draw people in. “Got other places to be,” I replied, hurrying away.

“No you don’t,” he shouted after me.