It All Started with a Seagull, a novelette (Part 3: Mom's Spaghetti)

A divorce was out of the question — they couldn’t even come close to affording it — but Tristan and Mallory went their separate ways on the streets of Detroit. After bumming a cheap pregnancy test off a woman in a Walmart parking lot, Mallory confirmed it was a positive and vowed to protect the unborn baby with her life.

She started her homeless journey by sleeping in her car, but eventually the repo man came to take it away after she failed to make the payments for a few more months. This forced her to start sleeping on park benches at Beacon Park, Riverside Park, and one of her favorite places, Belle Isle. Having grown up fairly well off, wandering the city in the cold Detroit winter was unlike anything she had ever experienced, but she felt herself growing tougher and tougher every day, more and more hardened to the harsh reality of the world around her. 

As the calendar flipped over to spring, Mallory stopped having to wear heavy winter coats and leggings every day, starting to wear less and less. She also became more and more shameless with begging for money, not knowing where her next meal was going to come from, and she noticed herself getting more and more attention — and money — from men, even with her heavily pregnant belly. Hm, I could do something with this, she pondered. 

“Tax advice! Get your tax advice here! Fifty dollars a pop! Best price you’re gonna get in Detroit!” 

Wearing only a skimpy tube top and short-shorts, Mallory waved a cardboard sign in the air as she stood on Woodward Avenue outside Comerica Park — home of the Detroit Tigers. She considered her dual business idea a one-of-a-kind stroke of genius, and she could confidently say she was the only person in the city doing what she did. The sign read:

HOMELESS, BUT SEXY, SINGLE, AND READY TO MINGLE!

IT’S TAX SEASON, I AM A LICENSED CPA. GET ON TOP OF YOUR TAXES … AND  MUCH MORE ;)

STEP RIGHT UP FOR THE WORLD’S FIRST-EVER PROSTI-CCOUNTANT!

It wasn't long before Mallory landed her next client, a schlubby-looking man in his fifties named Keith who wore a tattered gray sweatshirt and jeans. She got the cash first, which she was always careful to do. Keith was eager to get to the fun part, but after they finished doing it behind her usual Dumpster — not her easiest session to get through, but not her worst either — they got to the part she enjoyed more. Keith pulled up his W2 tax documents on his phone, and Mallory scrawled out a series of notes on her pad that showed what exactly he owed in federal, state, and local taxes. He thanked her sincerely for her services.

“So might I ask, what is a beautiful and talented young thing such as yourself doing out on the street?” Keith wondered. “You could come stay with me, I could make your life and that baby’s life much, much better.” He shot her a wink, convinced he was the smoothest operator in all of the Motor City.

“Oh, it’s a long story,” Mallory sighed wistfully. “Appreciate the offer, but I’ll have to pass. Somebody else was already supposed to do that for me, but I don't need a man anymore.”

“Ah, well it’s a damn shame, that someone else is missing out,” Keith said. “You could at least let me buy your little sexy ass a drink.”

Mallory shrugged. He was a decent enough candidate for what she had in mind. “Sure, why not?”

At The Skip right outside Comerica, Keith bought himself a Skip old fashioned and Mallory a frozen cucumber margarita. When he got up to use the facilities, she pulled out her usual secret weapon she’d been hiding in her short-shorts: a bag of Quaaludes. She slipped two of the small, circular white pills into his old-fashioned, stirred them in with a straw, and got back to sipping her margarita. No one in the bar cared to notice.

When Keith inevitably began slumping in his seat, Mallory took out his wallet, used his credit card to pay the tab, and carefully maneuvered him back to the Dumpster near her work station, “Weekend at Bernie’s”-style. Behind the Dumpster, she grabbed the remaining $50 of cash from his wallet, took pictures of his card info, and left him there to be found by someone — eventually, maybe.

Tristan felt a little heartbroken and lost without Mallory at first, but like his wife, he was eventually able to harden himself to the homeless life. As a man, he found a larger array of hard-luck brethren to pass the time with on the streets, but didn’t find the common people very sympathetic to his begging. Like Mallory, he soon found himself getting his car repossessed, having been towed to the impound lot while he was sleeping in it. That morning he stumbled groggily out of the lot, the owner shaking his fist and threatening to report him for trespassing.

Tristan knew he needed cash in a bad way, and it wasn’t long before he came up with a business idea of his own. Unlike Mallory, he ventured out of Detroit, using his passport to make his way up to Windsor, Ontario. He still had his binoculars on him, and he still liked to study birds. After procuring a few steel birdcages and a mist net with some of the little cash he had scrounged up, he made his way into Ojibway Park with a plan. It may not have been completely ethical, but desperate times called for desperate measures.

He made his way into the thick, wooded forest and threw the mist net up over a couple of the trees. Before long, a few warblers, tufted titmice, and a hairy woodpecker had flown into it and gotten trapped. Tristan was able to climb his way up through the trees, carefully extract the birds, and place them gently into the birdcages. After a quick trip back across the border to meet with one of his connections in Detroit, he made his way back out to a residential part of the rural Canadian wilderness.

“These creatures you got here certainly look like they could use a home, eh?” observed Ira Cloutier, one of the men who had responded to Tristan’s ad on the dark web, as he peered into the cage full of birds. “How much we talkin’ for ‘em?”

“Well, the warbler’s going to run you about five grand,” Tristan explained. “The tufted titmouse is about ten, the cool name adds a little bit to the price. The hairy woodpecker is more rare and not easily accessible on the mainstream market, so it’s going to be about a hundred grand.”

The two of them stood outside Ira’s secluded mansion in the remote Ontario forest, freezing cold wind rippling through their clothes. Despite the weather, Ira wore only a loud Hawaiian shirt and gray sweatpants. An eccentric and somewhat gullible multimillionaire in his mid-sixties, he was Tristan’s first client for his new side hustle.

“Lord have mercy, these are some absolute beauties,” Ira marveled, running his hands through his long gray mane of hair. “I had some funds put aside to start saving for a summer home down in Vancouver Island, but I suppose that can wait until next summer. The collection’s gotta keep on growing, no matter what the ol’ ball and chain says. I love these damn birds.” He chuckled.

“Ira, are you buying from one of those illegal bird men again?!” his wife yelled from upstairs.

“Just a second, sweetheart!” Ira hollered before getting back to Tristan. “So how do you want me to pay, do you take debit cards?”

“No, that would be too traceable,” Tristan explained, pulling out his phone. “And cash is too hard to get through the system. Here’s my CashApp. But before you pay, I have something else that may interest you.”

Shooting Ira a wink, he dug back into his storage bag and produced a small Ziploc bag full of pills — all shapes and sizes, all colors — and more.

“Feast your eyes,” Tristan said coolly as Ira gazed into the bag like it was a treasure trove. “I got ‘Ludes, opioids, fent, even a little bit of coke. Uppers, downers, the whole shebang. Whatever your heart desires.”

“My goodness gracious, you sure know how to get me, don’t you?” Ira mused with another chuckle. “I’ve been trying to stay away from this stuff, but I just keep on coming back. Fuck it, I got an art piece to work on tonight. I need some inspiration. My wife’s gonna kill me, though.”

“Hey, I know all about that,” Tristan sympathized. “But gotta have that inspiration when you need it. Doesn't matter what the old lady says.”

“Well, I suppose you’re right.” 

One CashApp transaction later, Tristan had a few more grand in the bank. His financial outlook was looking rosier and rosier by the day.

About a year after the separation, the calendar had flipped to October, the leaves had turned multi-colored, and Tristan’s pill-and-bird side hustle had become his new, lucrative livelihood. Exhausted but satisfied from another successful day of work, Tristan dragged himself back across the border to Detroit. With demand being greater than he had anticipated, he hadn’t quite grabbed enough stuff from his dealer on the original trip, so he had to re-up — both for his clients and for himself. The nice part of the whole being homeless thing was having the freedom to drift.

Despite his newfound prosperity, Tristan hadn’t quite figured out a logical way to get his life back together. He had no money laundering experience and wasn’t sure how to get it through the system in a way that appeared legal. As a result, he was nervous about trying to rent out a new apartment or buy a new car, so he remained a drifter until further notice. He made his way to the area near Comerica Park where he typically met with his Quaalude dealer, Kamal. This was the nice part of Detroit, so people didn’t tend to be as suspicious around there. 

It was a busy night at the ballpark, as the Tigers were facing the New York Yankees in Game 5 of the American League Championship Series. After starting the season red-hot, the Tigers had fallen all the way to last place in the American League Central at the All-Star break, only to steamroll back in the second half, squeak into the playoffs, and advance past two teams with better records to face the almighty Yankees. They were heavy underdogs, but the blue-collar people of Detroit knew their team and city would always keep on fighting. After a Game 1 loss in New York, the Tigers had reeled off three straight wins and now had a chance to finish things off without needing to return to Yankee Stadium.

When Tristan approached the Dumpster that served as their usual meeting spot, he was surprised to see someone else talking to Kamal — a hot blonde woman who looked eerily familiar. She wore big dangling hoop earrings, a high-cut belly shirt, a short skirt, and high heels, and she carried a crying baby in a sling over her shoulder. It took Tristan a second to process it, but he soon realized it was her. Mallory. And his child.

His first fight-or-flight instinct was to run for the hills, but he was so curious, he felt his feet continue to carry him toward the Dumpster. He paused about twenty feet away, lingering and overhearing the conversation.

“So if you can throw in twenty extra ‘Ludes, I’ll take that as payment on tax preparation for this year and next year,” Mallory told Kamal.

“Hell yeah, I appreciate that,” Kamal said. “Cut out the middle man. But I was just wondering, what is it that you be doin’ with those ‘Ludes? I be seein’ dudes around here just passed out in the street like they wasn’t expecting a ‘Lude to hit them.”

“How I choose to utilize the items I buy from you is my business,” Mallory insisted. “But if it sweetens the deal for you, I can throw in a little extra something something on top of that tax return.” She winked and grabbed Kamal around the shoulders seductively. 

“Nuh-uh, baby, I don’t play like that,” Kamal said, pushing her away. “I don’t be messin’ around with clients, some of us have professional standards here. But keep on doin’ your thing, girl! Ain’t nothin’ wrong with your line of work.”

He pounded his chest twice and pointed at her in solidarity as she turned and walked away in disappointment. Kamal made eye contact with Tristan and started to greet him, but it was at that exact moment that Tristan and Mallory’s eyes locked. 

Neither of them looked quite the same as when they had last seen each other. Tristan had grown out shaggy hair and a patchy, scruffy beard while downgrading his wardrobe to a tattered gray hoodie and ripped jeans. Mallory, on the other hand, wore a full face of makeup, bright red lipstick, and the revealing outfit that was her new norm. The most strikingly new thing about her was the baby over her shoulder, which gazed blankly at Tristan with a bemused look of oblivious innocence.

“You,” Mallory whispered.

“You,” Tristan replied.

“What are you doing here? You know Kamal?” Mallory asked defensively.

“That’s right, I do,” Tristan said confidently. 

“Wait, you two know each other?” Kamal was confused.

“That’s my husband,” Mallory said.

“That’s my wife,” Tristan said at the exact same time.

“Whoa, something gone seriously wrong with that marriage,” Kamal observed. “I don’t be wantin’ no part of that. But y’all can talk it out.” He wandered away and sparked up a joint, leaving the husband and wife to resolve things for themselves.

“And who the hell do we have here?” Tristan said, pointing at the baby in the sling. “Is that my son?”

“My daughter, actually,” Mallory corrected him. “I don’t know what gives you the right to claim her for your own.”

“Uh, maybe because I am the biological father?” Tristan ventured. “At least I assume I am. Unless you’ve made even more bad choices than I thought.”

“Oh, and who are you to talk about choices, Mr. Neckbeard?” she shot back. “What exactly are you going to Kamal for if you’re so fucking high and mighty?”

“Because I am running a business here,” Tristan explained. “And I am doing what it takes to get back on my feet, using my entrepreneurial spirit and my ornithology expertise.” She scoffed. “And how exactly are you using that while buying pills from a dude on the street?”

“I have become the foremost retailer on the black market for high-end birds captured from the Canadian wilderness,” he boasted. “And a great deal of my clients also have a passion for the use of recreational drugs. So it’s an intelligent, efficient side hustle that kills two birds with one stone — pun intended — and makes me that sweet, sweet, moolah, baby!” 

He rubbed his hands together in a “money” motion. Mallory nodded her head in surprise, trying to process her husband’s new career choice.

“Okay, Devlin, I gotta admit, that’s kind of impressive,” she said. “I respect your hustle. You still look like shit though, what’s that all about?”

“Hey, it’s not easy getting all this money through the system,” he explained. “How am I supposed to rent out a new apartment when they need to know where my income is from? And how am I supposed to carry a bunch of fancy clothes and shit around when I don’t have anywhere to live?”

Mallory thought about it for a second. “I might have some ideas.”

“Oh yeah?” Tristan challenged her. “What has your brilliant mind come up with? And tell me your story of why you’re parading around like a Vegas showgirl with our infant daughter.”

“Why, thank you,” Mallory said sarcastically. “I have come up with the most innovative business plan in all of Detroit. It’s never been done before. I do men’s taxes … but that’s not the only thing I do for them.” She winked.

“Whoaa.” Tristan was taken aback. He had expected the prostitution part based on her outfit, but the taxes … not so much. “That could be pretty lucrative, actually. I mean, not so much now, in October. But come spring and tax season, I’m sure you’re making a fuckin' killing.”

“Yeah, sadly it’s not the best time for business right now,” she sighed. “I still have a little bit saved up from this year to survive. But I could always use … a little help.” She played with her hair and looked at him with sad puppy-dog eyes.

“A little help, huh?” Tristan was intrigued. “I am still technically your husband. What kind of client would that be for you?”

“It could be my kind,” she said. “I’ve been having to resort to the pills sometimes to get my clients a little more … vulnerable. But if you’re making big bucks, you could help end all of that. And if you need help laundering them, I’m a tax expert, baby. I know how we can make those dollars look realer than real.”

“I see, so we could both get something out of this,” Tristan said. “Kind of like a modern-day Bonnie and Clyde. I think. I’ve never seen that movie.”

“Me, neither,” Mallory laughed. “But it could work. We’re about to be one big old happy family of lowlife criminal scum.”

Tristan thought about it for a second and smiled. “And what’s with my baby? What’s her deal?”

“Well, her name is Talula,” Mallory said. “Short for Talula Does the Hula in Hawaii.”

“And how did you come up with that absolute fucking poetry?” he scoffed.

It’s a baby name that became illegal in New Zealand when someone gave it to their poor child,” she explained. “It’s not illegal here yet, but we’re about to make it that way. Might as well keep breaking the rules while we’re at it.” She winked at him again.

“You know what, Mallory Elise Devlin, you’re pretty all right,” Tristan admitted. “And so are you, Talula Does the Hula in Hawaii Devlin.” The baby shot him a wink with something of a mischievous glimmer in her eye.

“Aw, thanks Devlin, you’re sweet," Mallory cooed.

The newly united couple went in for a warm embrace, then Tristan held and kissed his baby girl for the first time. Right at that moment, the crowd inside and outside Comerica Park erupted with ecstasy. The Tigers had won Game 5 of the ALCS, eliminating the Yankees and moving on to the World Series. They would be heavy underdogs against the Los Angeles Dodgers, but most of Detroit knew the Motor City Kitties had a real shot to take home their first title since 1984. While Tristan, Mallory, and Talula didn’t pay much attention to the chaos surrounding them, they did use some of Tristan’s cash to celebrate their reunion with spaghetti sandwiches at the Mom’s Spaghetti food stand owned by Eminem, the most delicious — and only — spaghetti sandwiches they had ever had.

The Devlins’ morality may have been utterly corrupted and decayed by the seagull experience, but their love for each other was back and bigger than ever, and now they were truly a family. Their one-in-a-million stretch of fateful bad luck had turned them into a sick, twisted family, but a family nonetheless. The highly questionable and illegal journey ahead wouldn’t be safe or easy, but they were in this together and they were determined to keep fighting.

Both Tristan and Mallory were surprised not to have been further hassled by Salvatore James or Officer Rhonda Reese since their eviction. They figured the debt collector and the turbo-aggressive cop were unable to find them without an address, but it was surprising that the authorities didn’t have better resources to locate their vagrant targets. 

As it turned out, however, resources were not the issue in the slightest. Salvatore and Rhonda had long since left Detroit, having bigger fish to fry back in San Juan. In fact, Salvatore wasn’t even a debt collector or a real person at all. His “real” profession was as an attorney, and his real name was Raul Diablo Bueno.

Back on the streets of Isla Verde, Raul and Rhonda strode into the Malsuerte Hotel and were greeted by Raul’s identical twin, Adolfo Bueno. They made their way into a massive, luxurious conference room for the hotel’s quarterly “shareholders’ meeting,” where Adolfo took his seat in a massive chair at the head of the table. Between his chair and the table, he had his own tall brown cocobolo desk that towered high over the peasants beneath him. Seated next to Adolfo was the man who had stayed across the hall from the Devlins, Dr. Amir Gaekwar, and inside a large metal birdcage next to Adolf was the seagull that started it all — whom they had named Gulliver.

“Everybody, I just have to say, fantastic job milking that last couple of American idiots for all they were worth,” Adolfo commended his staff. “Dumbass tourons weren’t worth much, but we got almost twenty grand in the bank from them. We do that to a few more people with a little better finances, and we could pull a hundred grand a month from this, easy.”

“Yes, very well done, everybody,” Dr. Gaekwar agreed. “It was not easy to sacrifice the ashes of my beloved grandmother, but some sacrifices have to be made to get where you want to be. It is also not easy to train the laughing seagull to be aggressive, but I studied the techniques of Dr. Eugene Sheldon enough that I was able to make it work. We better hold on to this one, though. It’s a moneymaker!”

“Oh, he most certainly is indeed,” Adolfo concurred. “Gulliver is our very favorite feathered moneymaker, and his travels will continue to serve us going forward. Dr. Gaekwar, I expect you can help me continue to maintain Gulliver’s aggression while in captivity. In the meantime, Raul … mi hermano! Hell of a pull reeling them into your legal services, and damn, I wish I could have seen Salvatore’s performance! It sounded like you were going for the Oscar.”

“They might as well just hand me the trophy right now,” boasted Raul, who had shed the fake mustache from his debt-collector character and was now back in his car-salesman suit. “Just being a good, honest lawyer who helps his clients. Helps them ruin their lives, that is.” 

The three men burst out cackling as Rhonda remained silent with her arms crossed.

“Everything okay, Miss Rhonda?” Adolfo inquired.

“So where’s my Oscar at?” she snapped at them.

“Rhonda, I’m sure you played a most convincing police officer,” Adolfo reassured her. “You were a lovely little guest star to have in our movie.”

“Mr. Bueno, what the hell are you talking about? We weren’t making no damn movie,” she sassed back. 

“Calm down, lady, it’s a figure of speech,” Adolfo snapped. “A metaphor for the cinematic series of events we set in motion that led to our inevitable victory over these clowns.”

“Well, I’m glad you enjoy fucking people over, sir, but I was just doing my damn job ‘cause I need the damn money,” Rhonda said sternly. “Now when do we get our cut?”

“I will be splitting up the proceeds very soon,” Adolfo said. “It will be ten grand for yours truly, four for Dr. Gaekwar, four for mi hermano Raul, and two for yourself.”

“WHAT?!” Rhonda’s head nearly exploded. “Only two grand for me? HELL no! You better give me my fair share of that money, bitch!”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Adolfo put his hands up. “You cannot speak to your superior that way, or you will not get a cut at all. I appreciate your work, but you only had one job to do. You did it damn well, but it was still just one job. Besides, you are a woman. Everybody knows women get paid less.” He shrugged.

Rhonda shriveled up her face in disgust. “Now what the fuck is this misogynist-ass bullshit? I’m outta here. Fuck your two grand and fuck you low-life scumbag scammer pieces of shit. I’m gonna go get me a real job!”

“No, wait! We still need you!” Adolfo pleaded pathetically, but his words fell upon deaf ears as Hurricane Rhonda stormed out of the conference room and out of the building.

“Well, we will have to find someone else to play the cop for the next one, but no skin off our asses,” Gaekwar put in. “Lady was a loose cannon anyway.”

“Exactly, if you’re gonna cause problems like that over a gap of just a couple grand, you’re clearly gonna be a problem moving forward,” Raul agreed.

Adolfo had been stunned into silence, but he came out of it and put on a brave face.   “Absolutely, we should be getting a man to do a man’s job anyway. Anyway, the Devlin clowns are out on the street homeless now. They don’t have anything else to give us, so fuck them. We’re moving on. This next Canadian couple just checked in today and I think we can make a good old-fashioned killing off of them. They’re older, more affluent, and seem prone to bad decision-making. I think we can actually squeeze the full three hundred grand out of these ones, gents.”

“Yes, I can return to my room and run it back again,” Gaekwar said. “No ashes this time, but I’ll figure out something else for Gulliver to ruin. Do we have their room stocked with the expensive shit?”

“Yes sir, I was able to get more of the cheap fake shit on eBay,” Adolfo said. “Glasses, vases, statuettes that’ll shatter at the drop of a hat. Fake Renaissance-looking paintings from some goober in his mom’s basement. Make them think they owe us hundreds of thousands, but it didn’t cost me more than a few hundred bucks.”

“Now that is how the Bueno brothers do business,” Raul bragged. Adolfo nodded and gave him a fist bump.

“Very good, very good,” Gaekwar said. “And we still have all the neighboring hotels on our side?”

“Absolutely, I have already informed them that the Cloutiers will be a problem and not to take them in,” Adolfo confirmed. “Plus, I gave them a few hundred more reasons not to question anything.” 

The man in charge winked smugly as he grabbed Gulliver’s cage. Gaekwar headed up the elevator to his room across from their targets as the Bueno twins carried the trained bird outside through the lobby, which had been decorated with fresh paintings and a brand-new pissing angel baby fountain. They headed outside and made their way directly under the balcony of their next victims, being sure to position themselves so they couldn’t be seen.

The latest couple to check into the Malsuerte was Ira Cloutier and his wife Florence, who had decided to leave the Canadian wilderness tundra for a few days in favor of a tropical getaway. They had left Ira’s illegal bird collection with a high-end pet-sitter for the time being, but little did they know that they would likely be forced to sell off all of the expensive creatures soon. Life was pretty much perfect for Ira and Florence as they stepped outside onto the balcony, bird-related tensions having been eased as they settled into vacation mode. Unfortunately for the Cloutiers, vacation mode was about to get a whole lot less relaxing.

“We ready, Raul?” Adolfo asked his comrade.

“Siempre, mi hermano,” Raul said to his twin. Adolfo opened the latch of Gulliver’s cage, and the majestic bird flew directly up to the Cloutiers’ balcony. After a few minutes of harmless perching on the ledge, Gulliver got the chance to make his move. The Cloutiers re-entered the room and he swooped in, unleashing an epic wave of chaos and destruction that was sure to ruin yet another pair of lives.

The Bueno brothers couldn’t see or hear their handiwork very well, but they were confident enough in the training Gaekwar had given to Gulliver that they knew the plan would work again. The evil twins high-fived one last time and then parted ways, Adolfo heading inside to play the role of the angry manager and Raul heading down the street to play the role of the rogue lawyer seeking justice. They may have been destroying the lives of others, but they were lifting themselves up in the process, and their own prosperity was all that really mattered to them. It was a dog-eat-dog world, or in this case, a seagull-eat-human world, and the Buenos were determined to continue coming out on top.

THE END