It all started when Chenjenkov decided to take a stroll down the street. I had to follow him, as I was his anointed apprentice. I had no idea what his plans were for the day. My job was to observe and learn. To my surprise, he was approached by a man with a scattered beard, carrying his life’s worth of belongings in a torn backpack.
“We may have found our vagabond,” Kov (as Chenjenkov liked to be called) said, with an emotionless face.
I joined Vagabonds Inc. seven fortnights ago. The company’s billboards across the country had one simple message: “We help provide hospitality needs for real-world vagabonds.” The company did everything, from arranging temporary camps to taking the “vags” to free food centers, and even offering quick medicinal help. In return, the vags gave us any money they had left.
I didn’t understand the business model. Nor did I know how the company had survived for this long. Nothing made sense. But they paid like clockwork, and I started counting on those paychecks without questioning the bizarre mathematical logic of paying employees ten times what a typical vagabond gave in return.
My attempts to understand the business fell apart when I met their senior clerk , a man with thick-rimmed glasses who said, “Numbers are my thing. Why do you care?”. Noting my curiosity, a guy from IT whispered,
“It’s all bullshit. It’s a sweatshop setup for the IRS. Total scam.” And winked.
I stopped looking for logic after my first week. There are plenty of illogical businesses in this world, I told myself. For someone like me, with a feeble academic background, having a job was consolation enough. And as my hiring manager proudly told me, “We’ve never laid off a single employee.” I definitely didn’t want to be the first.
Once my training ended, I was assigned to Kov. He was a tall lad from Siberia, with stained teeth. The moment word got out about my assignment, a round of “oohs” and “aahs” echoed across the room like I’d been sentenced to be cremated alive. I soon learned why.
“He’s a sharp lad,” said my manager. “You’ll learn a lot from him.”
It’s been a week. I have yet to see his sharpness.
I usually get along with people as long as they leave me alone. And I had no issue with Kov, until I saw him eat.
He eats like a pig.
He eats with a ferocity not known to humans. For a man who looks lean, despite his protruding belly, he eats a lot. But it’s not the quantity that bothers me; it’s the way he eats. Like a tiger pouncing on live meat, without any elegance.
He swallows a triple-patty Big Mac in three bites. With sauces dripping from the corners of his mouth and tomatoes trying to escape their demise, the scene resembles a war zone. His obsession with sauces makes the mess worse. For a single burger, he uses a heap of napkins. When his ritual ends, the place looks ravaged.
And to top it off, he leaves a meager tip.
Now, how a man eats or how he tips shouldn’t be my problem. But his problems became my problems the moment I was assigned to him. My job is to watch and learn. Learn what, exactly? No one has told me yet.
So far, all I’ve observed is how he eats and what he thinks of himself. He believes he’s a loner. But I suspect he doesn’t realize people avoid him because of his habits. Be it a team lunch, happy hour, or anything remotely resembling a team-building activity the first rule is: Don’t invite Kov. The second: Send him out on a job.
Now, we’re both loners. Even the cute goth girl meticulously obsessed with all things purple ignores me.
Back in the alley, I heard Kov mutter, “He’s useless,” referring to the vagabond we’d found. He slipped the man a couple of twenties, patted his back, and moved on. I’d seen him do this before, no questions asked, just money handed out. I couldn’t resist my curiosity anymore.
“Why?” I asked, pointing to his latest act. “Let’s talk at lunch,” he said. I braced for another embarrassing moment.
We sat at an all-you-can-eat shrimp buffet. Kov piled his plate like shrimp was his appetizer, main course, and dessert. Even while desecrating the shrimp, he spoke clearly:
“Did you notice the scratches on his cubital fossa?” he asked, referring to the man’s forearms.
“He’s a user , probably has his liver and kidneys on their last legs. He’s of no use to us.”
I was both puzzled and impressed by his anatomical wordplay.
“Why do you talk in medical jargon?” I asked. “You’re not a doctor.”
“I don’t expect you to understand,” he said. “We help vagabonds, right?” I asked again.
“Our help is... subjective,” he said, looking at me for the first time while eating.
I remained silent, so he continued.
“What I’m about to tell you will make you feel worse. But there’s no better way to say it.”
He looked around and whispered:
“We find vagabonds with no lives, but we choose the perfect ones, the fit ones. We harvest what’s harvestable from them.”
“God gave us organs for a reason,” he added, his face cold and unreadable.
My world spun. Everything made sense now! the package I’d received during training had all the tools needed to make a man... faint.
This is how the company survives. We are not a non-profit, we are a for profit - organ mafia. Kov and I are its scouts.
Kov continued ,I know the team back at the office doesn't like me, I don't like me either. I stopped going out with the team long before they started ignoring me. I couldn’t shake off the smell of a man who shits when he learns about his missing kidney. I couldn’t escape the feeling that I wasn’t just doing this for myself, but for them too. The best thing I do is to be away from them.
When I got recruited, I was told, “In a body, every organ is vital. You may have your preferences, but this company operates as one.”
”Now, life feels like a circle. I Console myself by saying that , We don’t kill, we harvest. We leave a human behind to help another in need. We get paid handsomely for a few drops of chloroform.
There’s no blood on our hands. Right?“ He looked at me with a vindication to say otherwise.
“That’s what I told myself for the first few years.Deep down, I know what I do is wrong. Immoral. Evil. Still, I’ve made my peace. I know I’m being punished for my past crimes. You see, most people think the price of sin is paid in hell. What they don’t know is: punishment begins long before that.”
It starts with the quiet, invisible theft of little beautiful things we once loved.
“It’s a fool’s dream to wait for hell. A smart idiot knows: the true suffering lies in recognizing the invisible circle where cause and consequence march on, one after another, like footsteps in the dark. I am a living example of that,” said Kov. I slowly started hating food, every time I took a bite , I couldn’t help but notice that there was blood on it . This is why I try to finish my food up before that feeling hits.
I was still in shock , despair that I betray people for a living . I felt worse for the way the company treated people like Kov.
***
It’s been a few months on the job now and I am making exemplary progress, said my manager. My throughput ratio was off the charts and even gave a pay bump for picking the right vags. The best consolation I do is I don’t steal anyone’s anything directly . All I do is to lay a trap , spend a few dollars on the potential ones. If they look happier and healthier , I slowly pounce them from the back with my chloroform laced handkerchief over their faces and transport them to the hub . Where the actual stealing happens . Those are the real bad people.
Despite myself solace, my hair turned grey quicker for my age and wrinkles started appearing even quicker. I choose not to marry nor adopt. My appetite fell and I had to eat so as to move vagabonds. That’s all it matters . I carry the company now . Without me , the company would be a body without a spine. I support the lives of hundreds of families by partly taking over one’s. One at a time . It’s a fair deal , I told myself .
***
It’s been a few years now and I started eating like Kov, started living like Kov and I am a Kov now.
