Sweat: Part 2

Part 2

I don’t have money.

Let me rephrase that, I didn’t have money.

I say didn’t because the state of Colorado is an asshole.

False imprisonment is a big thing in America. It means that someone was thrown in prison for something that they didn’t do.

I, personally was a person who was a victim of false imprisonment.

If you have seen what happened to me, you know that I was thrown in jail under the pretences of murder, and then the leading of a murderous cult, and then forcing people to kill for me. But, after the case, I was able to use the same public defender to help me sue the city of Denver in the first place, simply because during the investigation and the trial, I was forced into prison. The judge in this case was very reluctant to let me out, seeing as to how I was literally in the wrong place at the wrong time. I just wandered in, and they decided I should go to prison.

I got 5 grand out of that case. I think that since I got that, I have just been living off of it. I decided that since I had all this stupid bullshit happen to me, I should leave the state, so I did. I took American Airlines to Albuquerque, because I thought it would be warm.

And it was warm. It was like fall there in the middle of winter. I think that I might have stayed there about a month, or at least a couple of weeks, but I still didn’t get a job, so I decided I should leave.

Albuquerque was a nice city. Small, but still nice. When I decided to leave, I was thinking about Salt Lake City, in Utah, because I was thinking that maybe I could live in a bigger city again. A nice population. Plenty of people for me to talk to, plenty of job opportunities.

I bought my ticket on march 10th, and it was set to be at 3 am and take us there by 5, but there was a delay. I didn’t mind it too much. I didn’t have anything to think about, nothing to do, but sit there. There still wouldn’t be much for me to do but sit there if I had anything to do, so I layed down toward the window, the opposite direction of the young man who sat next to me and seemed restless.

I slept for an hour or two. When I woke up, it was around 4:30 am, and some bitchy flight attendant was yelling at the young man next to me. He was talking normally and everything. It seemed like she was at fault, because she was yelling about soda or some shit. She woke everyone else up, too. Anyone who was sleeping. They woke up at that moment.

I like to say what I think. Whether it gets me in trouble, I don’t care, so I told him “what a bitch.”

“I know right,” he told me, “it’s like, what the shit? She didn’t even ask if you wanted anything.”

After this happened, the kid just sort of stared off into space. I swear, I thought that the kid was retarded, or had aspergers or something like that, because he just zoned the fuck out. I was freaking the fuck out for a few seconds there, and I felt like I should break the silence. “Well, my name’s John,” I told him as I held out my hand. He just stared at me for a little while. I think that the guy had gotten beaten in the head or something. I felt kinda bad for him.

“And my name’s Gerry,” he told me as he seemed to have a growing smile on his face. He was really fucking happy to have this conversation. I could tell there was something wrong with him, but I couldn’t really put my finger on it. I wanted to keep him happy. I felt like he was a psychopath.

“Well, Gerry,” I began, “I believe that we’ll have quite the adventure.”

I had no idea how right I was.

The rest of the plane ride, he was looking at his leg. I could tell that he was in pain, and every time he touched it, he made a disgusted look. Like he felt something was out of place. I thought to myself, Why would it be out of place, it’s there. Fuck it, I shouldn’t be worrying about it.

We got off the plane a few hours later. It wasn’t the longest ride, but it wasn’t a short one either. It was more in the middle. Around 4 hours, I think. But I don’t own a phone. Or a watch. All I know is that we got up, and we landed a little while later.

He was acting strange again. I don’t know what he was doing, but he would ask me what day it was. I knew what day it was. He didn’t. I knew what time it was. He didn’t.

I wanted to go somewhere that I could sleep. He was thinking for so long about this guy. He took me to a cheap motel for us to sleep.

I did something that I didn’t want to do after I did it.

The Woods: Chapter 2

Chapter 2

There was nobody in the room, but I could hear people talking outside. I was mostly sure that I was inside a back room at that bar, but I didn’t totally know.

Eventually, I noticed the handcuffs on me that held my hands behind my back. When I struggled, they seemed to hurt more.

The people on the other side of the door stopped talking once they heard a few knocks on the door. One drew a gun and cocked it. The other asked “you expecting someone.”

They weren’t.

The man who cocked his gun walked over to the door slowly, and as he reached for the handle, it flung open, hurting him. The other man noticed the breach, and pulled the gun from the back of his pants. The man from the door shot him. The man who got hit by the door was shot shortly after, and was left defenseless due to him being crushed up against a door. I could hear him walking toward the room I was in. I realized he might be trying to kill me. When the door opened, it was that guy who gave me the free drinks.

“Oh man, am I glad to see you, man.”

He walked over to knock the handcuffs off me. “How the hell did you get here?”

“Man, I don’t know. I just woke up after drinking at your place man, and then you came in here.”

“Well, we need to get you out of here.”

The room outside of the one I was in had the same purple tint as the club I was in before. There were 80’s records everywhere. I could see the men bleeding out on the ground. Neither of them were dead yet. They were just shaking around freaking out. When we left the room, we left straight out the emergency exit. The alleyway was full of trash and used condoms. It wasn’t exactly a pleasure to look at. This guy seemed to know exactly where to go. I didn’t know where I was. I followed him for what seemed like forever. He kept looking around like he was crazy or something. I was getting more and more scared. The night seemed to eat me alive

When we finally stopped, we were sitting in the ditch I usually sleep in. he finally let me stop. I caught my breath. “What happened, man.”

“These guys are from my old neighborhood. They want money. Whatever they say to you, don’t believe them. I don’t owe them shit.”

“Man, why am I involved, man.”

“They think you work for me.”

“Why the hell do they think that, man.”

“You told them when you got high a few days ago. Why don’t you remember this shit man?”

“I must have blacked out, man. This is a lot to comprehend, man.”

“Well, just try. We’ll make it through this. It’ll be fine.”

He took me out somewhere else, again. I don’t know exactly where, but I assumed it was his. He had the key.

The room was filled with guns. Literally. Filled with guns. I was thinking about everything that had happened instead of this, so it took me a second to realize what was going on. It was a lot of guns.

He handed me one, a small pistol. I don’t know about guns. I don’t know how they work, where to point them. I don’t know shit. “Hey man, I can’t take this.”

“Why not?”

“Man, I don’t know how to use that man.”

“Well just point and shoot.”

“Okay man, but don’t blame me if you get a bullet in the leg, man.”

I was never the most mentally stable. Well, I was mentally stable way before the sixties. I always liked to volunteer my body to those experiments that they did for LSD. It was fun. We would drink that weird watery shit, and listen to a band while we looked at some trippy shit in front of us. You do that enough, it leaves a lasting effect on you.

I ran away with this group because of the LSD, I stole because of the LSD, I got fired from so many jobs because of the LSD, and now, at the age of 74, I’m homeless, helping a sleazy nightclub owner that I don’t know very well because of the LSD.

“Alright, these guys are relentless, and you just need to shoot first and ask questions later. If they’re holding a gun, shoot.”

“Okay man, I just hope I don’t die man.”

The men showed up quickly. Twenty of them were outside the door before you could say a word. He didn't talk. I guess he thought I was going to die or some shit. Or maybe he was going to die. Or both.

“Ferrero, we know you’re in there. Just come out and we’ll let you go.”

“Fuck you, man. You know that that deal going south wasn’t my fault. I didn’t do shit wrong.”

“You don’t get it, Ferrero. We know that. You can Just come out. You ain’t in trouble anymore.”

“Hey, fuck you, man.”

Ferrero shot three bullets from his cover next to the door of the apartment. I could hear them hit cars, break glass, and cause havoc for the people that were only about 30 feet away. Ferrero wasn’t slow to reloading, and put another clip into his gun with haste.

“Alright then,” was the last thing I heard the men on the other side of that wall get shot. They screamed. They yelled. I heard metal scratching and clanking together. Both me and Ferrero were untouched. He grinned at me.

“What was that, man?”

“Those were my guys.”

When we looked out the door, we saw the trucks shining lights in our eyes. They were waving in the dark night, and when I exhaled, I could see my breath in the beams. They seemed to fill me with a warm feeling.

One of them got down from the back of the truck closest to us. The man was about the same height as me, so I would estimate about 5’10”. He seemed pretty happy overall. He wore a leather jacket that had a hole on the left shoulder pad. You could see his white shirt under it.

We all were breathing heavily in the car. The heater was getting hot, and all of us were as well. My toes slowly grew back feeling and I was getting happier. Both the jackets that I wore were beginning to get sweaty, which was not good, but I didn’t care. In the moment, I was unable to care. Whatever was happening was good. I didn’t care.

We stopped in front of a warehouse after what I assume was about ten minutes of time. We were just outside of the city. You could still see the lights in the air. A clock setting on the wall was reading 4:00 am. I was usually already passed out in a ditch by this time of night. It’s funny. When I was first starting LSD, my closest friends warned me that I would be sleeping in the ditches in the future if I kept on with it. They had this big old intervention. I could never get into that bullshit. I was going to do what I wanted, and I didn’t care what anybody said about it.

I was ungrateful to be outside again. The sweat on my jacket was making me cold as hell. I was walking slowly, as the snow in front of me was just about knee high. When we finally went into the warehouse, it was seemingly full of space heaters. The place was so warm, I knew I had to take my jacket off right when I walked in.

“Well, here, I’ll take that for you,” said Ferrero’s friend. He seemed nice, which seemed strange, considering I assumed he was behind the killings that I had just witnessed not ten minutes ago.

“Okay, man, but don’t get it all dirty, I just bought it today.”

“Don’t worry.”

He had one of his goons take me into the next room over, and I just plopped myself onto a chair that just seemed way too soft.

He left the room and it was silent. I had some time to think about what had happened since I had blacked out. I remembered dancing, drinking, and overall having fun. It reminded me of the old LSD tests that they did back in my twenties. We would listen to a band that would play live and dance around. It was always a lot of fun, because they had these cool little paintings where you could just stare at them all day, and it would keep changing.

I remember sex. This girl was bending over a white bed and it looked like she was having a great trip, because she was just loving my not that-big-cock. She was so fucking loud. That was another thing that I always thought about with those LSD tests.  There would always be these chicks who would be the breeders. They were high just like anybody else. And once one of your friends told you where they were, oh man, you would just be waiting around to get back in line to fuck. They didn’t care. They were getting high and having sex. Who would mind that.

I was interrupted when the door opened and another man sat down in the room. He offered his hand, and I took it. “Well, how have you been since this little debauchery?”

“Well, man, I ain’t as shaken up about it as you would think.”

“Really? Well, that’s good to hear. Usually, people aren’t too open to talking after something like that happens to them.”

“Well, man, I guess I'm just too mellow to be freaking out about anything, man.”

“Well, that’s just fine and dandy.”

We got to talking, and he explained more about what was going on with this whole “warehouses” and “excessive murder” stuff. He was a really nice man. They let me sleep in that warehouse that night. It seemed like they had everything in there. Food. water. Beds. it was a bum’s paradise. The warehouse was full of people dressed in respectable clothing. It looked like it was the fucking 1800’s in that warehouse. I finally caught up with Ferrero.

“Hey man, this is a pretty nice place. You got, like, everything here, huh?”

“Hey, yeah, it’s pretty cool. You wanna see where you’ll sleep tonight.”

“Okay, dude.”

He led me to one of the only beds that wasn’t a bunk. It was a twin size, but I was grateful to have it. It has been years since I had had a bed to myself. It was hard for me to wrap my head around it. It was comfortable too. Most people would probably not find it all that comfortable, but I had been sleeping on concrete for years.

The Woods: Chapter One

The Woods

Roci Herrera

Chapter 1

The ditch was cold. It had a small stream of water running in from higher ground. The winter was brutal. The four layers I was wearing weren’t enough to protect me from the cold. The night sky was bland. The city had always excited me, except for tonight. Tonight, I had no home. No place to stay.  I was homeless. No money. No food. Nothing.

When the time came around, I stood up off of the ground. Ice broke on my back and slipped off as I stood. The air was hard to breath. It was thin, and crisp. In Denver, this sort of thing happened to me a lot. I would fall asleep after a long night of drinking and swearing. It would be hard to wake up, I would lose bodily functions, a whole lot of other bad stuff would happen the next day. What could I say? I didn’t have a place to come back home to.

When I stood up, I could see some college kids looking at me. I knew them. They were underage, so I would buy them booze, assuming that they gave me money. It was illegal, sure. But what did I care? I was an old guy who bought whiskey for eighteen year olds. I didn’t give a shit.

“Whatchu lookin at, you young piece of shit?” I said, jokingly, as I walked over to them to say hi.

“Well, we lost our ID’s again. Maybe you could help us out.”

“Sure thing, kid”

He handed me the twenty dollar bill he had been holding in his left hand, folded into quarters. The nearest gas station was a few blocks away. I walked at an ample pace, hoping that if I came back fast enough, he would give me a sort of tip. I walked through a few feet of snow ridden ground, and got to the station. They have two types of whiskey here. The ten dollar kind and the twelve dollar kind. This kid liked the twelve dollar kind. It could get him drunker, quicker, and it tasted pretty good too.

I remember back when I was his age. I did the same thing as him. Pay some bum to buy me shit that I couldn’t get myself. It started in my sophomore year when I payed some guy to get me a pack of menthols from a convenience store pretty close by. He was good with it, I gave him a ten dollar profit from the situation.

As I was thinking, the man at the counter interrupted my zoning out. “Sir, would you like to buy something.”

“Ah, yes. I’ll take a bottle of your finest whiskey sir.”

“Okay, that’ll be twelve bucks.”

“Here’s twenty.”

He grabbed me the bottle and I was off again. What adventures would I have today. Maybe I’ll get a few more dollars and I’ll be able to buy the twelve dollar kind for myself. Maybe I could get myself some food. That’d be nice, eh. Get myself an actual meal that has meat and everything. Maybe go to a diner and get some eggs and pancakes. What about a haircut? With this eight dollars left, I could rule the world.

I brought the bottle of whiskey back to that kid. He ran off and I could see him open it a couple blocks away and take a pull. He always takes it back to his dorm and dumps half of the bottle into a cup to put it on the rocks before he drinks the rest. He just likes to have a taste before he gets back.

I decided to spend that eight dollars on a new jacket that was heavier than any one that I have owned before. I walked over to the nearest thrift shop, it was owned by a church or something, and bought it. It felt nice having another layer. It was warmer than before. I wouldn’t have such a hard time getting to sleep at night with this on.

I went over to downtown. It was loud, as always, and the scenery was alright at best. There was a bar blasting already loud EDM music, and I could see people dancing jaggedly inside, like they hadn’t tried before in their lives. The freeway a few blocks away was my destination. I started walking again, but somebody stopped me.

“Hey, old man. You want some cash.”

I stopped dead in my tracks. He was offering a job. Not giving me a nice little insult to lower my self-esteem for the day.

“Yeah. Of course I do.”

“Come over here.”

I turned slowly and walked straight toward him. He gazed at me with a big smile. I walked faster. I was by his bar faster than he could say pronto.

“Let me look at you.”

Despite the bad weather, this man wore his black top mostly unbuttoned. His chest was flashed at me and anybody else around. He had a small cross around his neck and spoke in a Jersey accent. I was honestly questioning his sanity.

“Well, you’ll work. Come here, we need you to lift some boxes. I’ll give ya, eh, ten bucks. Get it done good.”

“Okay,” I replied. He was eager to put me to work. I lifted cases full of what I could assume was recording equipment. I have no idea how they could record anything with the club in the background.

When I was done, he paid me. “You did good. Eh, what’s your name.”

“John. Why?”

“John, you come by sometime, you can have free drinks the whole night if you tell them your name.”

“Alright man.” I reached to shake his hand.

“This is a one-time offer, ya understand? I ain't gonna give you free drinks all the time alright John.”

“Okay man. Thanks though, man. I could really use those.”

I walked away with a grin on my face. A whole night of getting drunk all paid for. It was a blessing. A gift for me to receive in exactly three hours when the club reopens.

I decided to spend the money he gave me on some food. I hadn’t eaten since the day before. My stomach ached like it had been punched by thirteen strong black men. I walked to the diner across the street. I ordered fries  and a coffee. The coffee never ended, so I spent the next few hours waiting for the bar to turn into a nightclub.

Once it did, at 7:00 pm, I walked over and prepared myself for the longest bender I would ever be on. When I walked straight up to the door, the bouncer asked me to “step the fuck off and make room for someone who will actually fucking pay,” until I told him my name. Then he let me through.

The bar was vibrant, colorful. I could see a purple tint on everything. When I walked up to the bar, the tender said the same thing as the bouncer. Until I told him my fucking name.

“Okay then, whatchu want?”

“The hardest shit you’ve got, man.”

He poured me a straight vodka. Nothing else. No flavor. No ice. No tonic. He poured me the strongest smelling, horrible tasting, alcoholic volume rising, liver killing vodka I had ever tasted. When it hit my tongue, my mistake hit me like a bullet. That didn’t stop me from rolling with it. After downing that terrifyingly large glass of vodka, I said “another.”

“Mmm mmm. No more. That’s the hard shit that Vince keeps around to get as drunk as possible as fast as possible.”

“Then make me something fucking else. I want a bourbon on the rocks. Whiskey. A daiquiri. Something that will get me drunker.”

He started laughing. “Alright, old man. You want it, you got it man.”

He made me a strawberry daiquiri, using the same vodka he had poured me before. I drank it reluctantly and ordered another. And another. At some point, I passed out.

I woke up somewhere else. Somewhere I’ve never been.

I am deeply regretful in informing you that this story will not be as long as the last, simply because I endedit at a point that seemed natural.

Blood: Epilougue

Epilogue

Then I woke up.

I lifted myself off of the pavement outside of the airport. I was weak, and my chest hurt. I knew where I was. I didn’t know who took me.

Whoever they were, they wanted me to leave.

I could feel the tickets I had bought a couple days ago for salt lake city in my pocket. No luggage. No problem.

I went through security, got on my flight at 9:00 pm on new year's night. When we were off, it was January second, 2017.

And I guess that’s it.

Blood: Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Carletta was in front of me, and she had a man wearing a mask standing behind her, holding a shotgun. When I looked up, the man said “where’s my money.”

“What money? Who are you?”

“You owe me, because you were supposed to sell the coke. Give me the goddamn money.”

Okay, he had a gun, the room was small, and he wanted money. I knew his name. Gabriel Gonzales. He was my boss in albuquerque. I sold Coke for him. When I didn’t sell coke, he would kill someone. So, I sold the coke. But I didn’t this time. I was going to leave. I was going to tell him. He was distant, and high constantly. I didn’t. Big mistake.

“Fine.” he said, disappointed as he pressed the gun to the side of Carletta’s skull, and pulled the trigger, killing her.

“Dude, what the shit!”

“Give me that money, man.”

“Okay, shit.”

He kicked me out, and I ran back over to my house, where James and the white kid were waiting for me. “It’s going down.” I exclaimed as I walked in. they knew just what it meant, and they both stood up and grabbed all the guns we owned.

Which was four.

One 44 revolver, one Uzi, one Hunting rifle, one Glock. That’s all we needed. James was the gang banger. He got the Uzi. I was slow and careful. I got the revolver. The white kid was a sharp shooter. He got the Hunting rifle and the Glock if things got hairy too close by.

Together we were the three assholes who were going to kill other assholes because we owed them money.

The Hunting rifle was silenced. It wouldn’t make a sound. The other guns weren’t. So we needed to kill as many as we could and get out of there within 18 minutes. We timed it. That’s how long it takes the cops to get there.

We all got ready. Loaded clips. Punched each other in the stomach. The usual stuff. When we got there, the people inside were all getting ready to come over to our house for the money.

James took point, I was behind. The white kid was 500 yards away. It was fixing to be a great day.

James kicked open the door, allowing it to swing halfway open before he swept the room. One full clip and three people were hit hard enough they were down. Next was me. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. everybody else was dead. Next room was more of the same. Bang bang, you’re dead. The white kid shot the boss as he shot me in the arm. When we got home, we picked at my wound and tried to fix it. We really didn’t.

“Well shit. Do you think we’ll get away with it?” asked James. He was scared, which makes sense. We had just killed a lot of people.

My wound starting hurting more and more as the adrenaline calmed down. “Yeah. according to this city, we have never done anything wrong. We’re model citizens.”

That night, I slept sweeter than usual. On the chair next to the door. Drunk off of whiskey, high off weed, I went to bed like a baby.

There is one more post, which is the epilogue. Don't stop paying attention. There are short stories coming up as well

Blood: Chapter 4

Chapter 4

I could see a cut on my arm, long, deep. The windshield was almost broken, so I kicked it out. I got out of the car, and helped Carletta get out herself. She was less hurt than me, but less strong all the same. I had hit the gym quite a bit in the last month. We were on our way to get to Cheddar’s scratch kitchen, closer to the west-side. I was driving, and the freeway was mostly empty. We were riding around 85 miles per hour. A drunk driver skidded onto the road from the merging lane, and hit me from behind. We swerved and span out. What a way to get to know somebody.

“Are you okay?” I asked her, scared the cut only looked minor.

“I’m fine, just a little hurt.”

“Okay. Well, i’m gonna call the cops.”

“Alright, go for it.” she was shaken up. So was I. we could have died. We weren’t exactly going slowly. I took a look at the car. It was definitely totaled. The other car wasn’t. I ran over to the man in his car. The operator answered, and I said “hello, I was just in a car accident on I-40, and I don’t think the other guy is gonna be okay.”

“Okay sir, i’ll put you through to the police, do you know the nearest mile marker.

“Yes, it would be 49.”

“There should be some police there in a moment.”

“Thank you.”

I hung up, and looked at the man in his car. He had his head on the dashboard, and I could see blood seeping out of the sides.

Carletta ran up next to me to look at him. “Jeez, he really got fucked up.”

“That could have been us.”

She didn’t want to think about that. I was confused. Why is it that this guy could be dead, but our car took more damage, and flipped over, and we survived. I even passed out. Why would he die?

Carletta ran up to the window, and knocked on the glass. “Hello, are you okay.”

There was no response to her question. He was most definitely dead. A few minutes, a squad car and an ambulance pulled up next to the wreck. They set up cones, and pried the man’s car door open, to reveal that the man was more hurt than me and Carletta had thought. They pulled him off the dashboard and he woke up. I could see four deep cuts, and a broken nose that were obvious. When he woke up, he let out a painful scream, and yelled “fuck” nice and loud so everyone could hear it.

When he got up and started trying to walk. He fell right over. He was a mixture of drunk, and injured. The paramedics helped him up, and then to the ambulance. He had a compound fracture in his right leg, and a broken bone that was split cleanly, so skin and muscle dangled the rest of his forearm. He mumbled something mean and painful. Once they got him in the ambulance, they shoved some morphine in his arm. When he started screaming, they restrained him, to make sure they would be able to give him proper medical treatment. I could see him scream after every single bump in the road. The expression on his face told me he was in pain, even before the accident.

One of the paramedics saw the cut on my arm and sat me down to check it out. He dabbed on rubbing alcohol and it burned my skin. When he was done, he put on a cloth bandage, and let me go on my merry fucking way.

I called a cab for Carletta, and another for me. They both came around the same time. I got in mine, and Carletta got in her’s, because we weren’t romantic. We just left. That was the end. The taxi driver took me to my apartment, and I could see James and the white kid sitting inside. When I walked in, they were both tied into wooden chairs, and somebody hit me in the back of the head with a frying pan. In my mind’s eye, I could see the words “wake up.”

Then I woke up.

James had a few of his ribs broken from the fall. After I called 911, a paramedic and a police car pulled up. James was still breathing, beside the fact that he had fallen off the second story, after breaking glass. Some shards were sticking out of his legs, so he couldn’t walk.

James had always thought that it was my fault that he had gotten into a gang, and essentially that I was the reason that the three of us were in so much trouble all the time. Every time something bad would happen to me, he would tell em about it. He would always say something like, “why did you do this to us?” or “what were you thinking?” For some reason, in his mind, I was always the bad guy.

This wasn’t the first time he had tried to kill the white kid either. One time he pointed a gun and stuck it right into his face, and started screaming demands at him. The white kid met the demands, which were step the fuck off, and in return, James agreed not to blow his head off, and leave me with the gun.

I knew that James was the type of person that would do anything and everything that he was told. One time, I asked him to kill some random person, just because he was behind on coke money, and James slit his throat right there. James didn’t care about his actions. If there was nobody to hold him back, James would kill, slaughter and otherwise rape anybody he wanted to. If he wanted to do it, we would, no questions asked.

The police questioned me. I told them all about James. Well, not really. I didn’t tell him he had a history of violence, that we were both in a gang, or that I had come from Tallahassee. So basically, I was lying through my teeth to this police officer. Once I told him the entire story, I knew what I needed to do. It was time to run away. Just one more time.

The hotel that we stayed at was high end, and right near the airport. I took about 15 minutes and walked over there. The ticket to salt lake city was about $400. Which was not too much for me, because from the time I started selling coke in Albuquerque, I had already made about $20,000. I walked a few blocks over and got a soda from some restaurant I forget the name of. The flight was set to leave in about five hours. I had all the tie in the world to do basically whatever I wanted. But I still needed to protect myself.

I had a gun, a knife, and a corkscrew on me. I dumped them all in a nearby trash can so that security wouldn’t give me too much trouble. I was on my way back to the airport, when something had struck me in the back. It was sharp, and a loud bang followed. I fell onto my stomach. As I heard people screaming and could feel the presence of somebody coming closer and closer to me. He flipped me onto my back, and I could see his Colombian smile under his bushy mustache before he said “wake up.”

Then I woke up.

The room was musky and dirty. There was nobody near me. I sat in a twelve inch chair that only held half of my body. I was leaning to my left with a door sitting in front of me. There was a wall directly on either side. It was dark, and all that was lighting the room was a small 50 watt light bulb above me. I could barely stand up, because the door was so close to my face. The knob twisted before I touched it, and James was on the other side.

He pulled me out, and I fell over. He helped me up to my feet and said “dude, are you alright.”

“Yeah, just haven’t really moved for a few hours.”

The room outside was the living room of Carletta’s house. She let us stay there for a few nights while we had our apartment bug-bombed. We had just moved in, and there was already so many cockroaches inside, we couldn’t sleep.

I stepped up, and we walked into the next room over, where Carletta had let out some cereal for us all to eat, and the white kid had already poured himself some fruity pebbles.

We both sat down and Carletta said “Hi. How much are you guys gonna eat.”

“We haven’t eaten in three days.”

“Answer the question.” she said, in a joking manner.

James thought she was serious, and said “ I’m fucking hungry.”

She looked at him kind of confused as her smile changed. She walked away, just to get away from him.

“Good job man.” the white kid told me, and I was just as confused as Carletta was.

When we were done, we all left the house as fast as we could. We didn’t want the same thing that happens every time we are somebody’s guest. Which was that our host dies. We decided to head  over to the Felony to get some coffee. Carletta didn’t like the smell so she wouldn’t let us drink any in her house or when we stayed in the motel.

The Felony seemed more claustrophobic than ever before, and we sat down. Coffee smelled strong and we all paid a bit for our coffee, and booked it. We didn’t want anybody to find out where we were. Especially any police. We wanted to avoid anybody in our gang, so we wouldn’t have any more jobs to do. We didn’t want any police to know where we were because we have killed plenty of people in Albuquerque, and we didn’t want to got to jail very much.

Once we were a few blocks away, we decided to stop and look at the construction happening on central. They were just starting to dig up the road. The days were about 80 degrees, and I was very sure that the workers for the city were hot as shit out there. They were getting ready to put in some trolley system or some shit that everybody was bitching about. I didn’t understand it, but it did make it harder to get around. You mostly had to walk, and there was a much higher charge for taxis.

We all walked around, and didn’t do much the rest of the day but wait for the bug bomb to clear out of our house. When it was done, the exterminators called me and told us about it. We walked about ten blocks back and made it back to our house. It stank, but none of us were sick.

I slept on a bed that folded out from our couch, James and the white kid took a lumpy, stained and disgusting piece of shit in the only other room. I stayed up late listening to music. It was almost like we were back in Tallahassee again.

That was, until somebody decided to try and break in.

Behind the couch, was a window. Somehow, despite the lock and the fact that we were living on the third floor, somebody opened it up and jumped over me to try and steal our shit. He didn’t know who I was, and I didn’t know who he was. Maybe he was on of our clients. He saw our shitty tv, and moved into the room that James and the white kid were in. I stood up, and pulled out my gun. He could hear me and turned the light on in the room I was in. I was already pointing the gun at him, and he was scared as shit.

I got a good look at him. He was maybe 20. Scrawny as shit, and unarmed. His hair was dirty, and so was his clothes. He stood there silent, as he could hear James and the white kid waking up and getting out of bed in the room behind him. He looked like he was in so much fear, that he was going to piss himself. I told him “You picked the wrong house, motherfucker.” and cocked my gun.

James got the shotgun in the next room and pressed it against the back of this kid’s head. He started crying. He begged “Please don’t kill me. Please.”

I whispered, “you’re gonna jump out the window then.”

James poked him with the shotgun, directing him back the way he came. His hands were up, as he walked slowly toward the couch, and stepped up onto it. He put both his hands on the windowsill, and jumped onto the pavement. I heard a crack, and a scream. I knew he broke a lot of bones. I didn’t call a paramedic. He knew what he as doing could get him hurt, and it did.

I went to bed. I was tired as shit, so it didn’t take too long. I had a dream where I was in a closet, and somebody busted open the door and hit both my knees with a hammer before screaming at me to wake up.

Then I woke up.

Carletta was sitting across from me. So was the white kid and James. Block wooden chairs held them still, as they looked at me. They weren’t even tied up. No duct tape. Just sitting in a room. The room was an interrogation. As I looked to the side, I could see a baby blue room, and one way glass. We were all there in the investigation of the kid who leaped from our window. He was trying to press charges. We knew he wouldn’t win. He broke into our house. We all knew what happened. I mean, I knew everything. But I told them what happened. They believed me, because it seemed to all line up. Also, I didn’t lie to James and the white kid that often.

A police officer walked in, and sat down at the end of the table to my right. “Good afternoon.”

“You too.” I said, trying to seem polite.

There is something that I have learned about police officers. I mean, you have to have learned something if you have to evade getting in trouble as many times as I have. You just act polite, and be extremely nice to them. Pretend you haven’t been in trouble. Have them explain all the charges, rather than acting like you know them. Try and joke around.

Most of all, act like the good guy. Make the other person look as bad as you can. It will make them look worse as a person. Even though you do this, don’t put yourself on a pedestal. Gloating makes you seem like a worse person.

“What happened here.” said Carletta. She was genuinely concerned.

We didn’t have a lawyer present. That makes it look like you don’t need somebody telling you whether what the next thing you say will be incriminating. Besides, I was right. The kid came into our house, and we pointed guns we bought. Illegally. Shit. maybe we did need a lawyer.

“Well, the boy is saying that you invited him in and threatened to kill him if he didn’t jump out of the window. He is saying that you lured him into your house with the promise of an illegal job, selling drugs. All we need is your statements.” The cop said all this with a small smile. I think he knew that the kid came in through the window. He was already on our side. I don’t totally know why.

“I wasn’t there,” said Carletta. And it’s true. She wasn’t.

“Yes, well, you did use to lease the apartment, didn’t you? Because if you did, you could be liable to it again.”

“Well I did. I moved out years ago. Why would it possibly matter.”

“There’s just a possibility that you could have been involved.”

I could feel a thumping in my head. From the back of it. It was almost like somebody was hitting me repeatedly. I could hear this strange gunshot kind of sound too.

“Well, see what happened was that Me and the white kid were both sleeping, right. And all of a sudden we wake up because our door was wide open and the light was on in the other room. I sat up far and I could hear Gerry yelling at this kid in the other room. He had his gun out, so I reached behind the nightstand, and grabbed the shotgun. I walked up behind the kid and pressed the gun behind his head. He let out a whimper and begged not to die. So we said ‘okay’ and made him jump out the window. We thought that would be a good punishment for him. We didn’t call any cops.” James seemed smart. Smarter than usual.

Sometimes I forget that James is black.

The cop looked at the rest of us and we all nodded our heads.

“Well, his statement…” he was cut off by Carletta.

“Look, we told you the whole thing, can we just go to a holding cell or something.” she was breaking all my rules when dealing with police. She cut him off, talked in a smart ass voice, and she was demanding action be taken in her favor. I had to do something. But I didn’t.

“Okay.” said the policeman, seeming more satisfied with the situation than they usually are.

When he left the room to get paperwork, we all leaned over to James. This was the first time he had spoken up to someone that was superior to him, without killing them with a knife of course. The cop walked back in and let us go. They questioned the kid again and he came clean after hearing our statement. We were free to go, after we signed a couple papers. When we left, we all went to our respective homes and went to bed.

Then I woke up.