Toxic
Page 4
“I don’t know, Mom. I don’t know any of them and what if Angel’s see me going there. You know what they told me; we are to provide to them only and if we get caught...”
She tires of me bringing up valid concerns. She sighs heavy. “Alright, Neil. Shut up. Just do what we’re telling you to do. We’ll handle the consequences. You are your father’s son, it will be fine.”
I’m my father’s son.
Those words cut me down deep. My father’s son. I didn’t choose that and I sure as hell don’t choose this.
I give up. There’s no use trying to reason with her. “Fine, alright.”
Now that I’m older, I’ve grown taller. I notice that I stand almost as tall as my mom, who right now, as always, is packing me full of drugs and draping the coat around me. I’m sure this won’t cause any suspicion considering it’s the middle of July and it’s hot as fuck outside.
I’m lucky she still puts it in plastic zips bags before taping it to me. All I have to worry about now is not getting stuck to everything, not pulling up on my bike and wearing the offensive powder like a second sweater. I don’t think this judgment call has anything to do with the fact that Mom is as high as a God damn kite as much as it has to do with the fact she’s just dumber than a box of rocks.
After my precious mother has patched me up, I take off headed toward Peril. I’m riding into the unknown. I have no contacts with those people and no interest in knowing any of them, but I don’t get to have a selfish thought. It’s all about dad and his thriving ‘business.’
Pulling up, I don’t see anyone at the gate to greet me. This tells me one of two things.
One: They aren’t worried about me and they don’t consider me just a peddler. Which works in my favor because the beating I took at Angel’s set me back a couple months.
Two: They don’t know I’m coming, and this is nothing more than a cold call and could get me fuckin’ killed.
“Please, Dear God in heaven, please let them be nice.” I pray to no one as I walk to the clubhouse door and knock.
“Who the fuck are you?” Fuck me. I’m an unknown. The large grey-haired, bearded, tattooed Hulk look-a-like has no idea why I’m here. Not good.
“Umm, well, my dad ... he...” Stuttering isn’t something I’ve ever excelled at, but in the face of this monster I’m making out rather well with my new specialty.
“You on something, son?”
Oddly, I find him to be a patient man, and I’m able to pull my shit together before I piss myself right here on his stoop.
“My dad sent me. He’s a local, and won’t let me use his name until you decide if you are in need of…”
He laughs at me, and his burst of laughter is so loud it rings in my ears. He sounds something like I would imagine Santa would, if I had ever gotten to meet him.
“You selling magazines? Can’t say these boys here read much. If you’re selling cookies, now then, you may have an opportunity, boy.” Still smiling he waits for my answer.
I’m sweating profusely because I’m not only scared, but also because it’s about one hundred fuckin’ degrees standing here in the sun and I’m wearing my jacket like a cloak. I know only one way to get this done quickly so I can just go, success or not. I open my coat and display to him what I’m selling, ounce for ounce.
Immediately his face falls and his look has turned from jovial to sinister. The gentle older man I saw before me a few minutes ago has now turned his back, hollering into the room of other men for back up.
It’s inevitable, I’m dead.
I piss myself on the spot, feeling the warm liquid run down my leg and onto my shoe. At this point, though, I’m too scared to be humiliated.
Without notice, he grabs me by the front of my coat, which is drenched in sweat, and hauls me into the front room. I’m surrounded by at least four other men. I don’t want to count, because that would require me to raise my head, and through experience, even at my age, I’ve come to realize this means I’m throwing down a challenge. I like my face and prefer it stays uninjured.
“Who you work for?” A very angry man, someone that could easily be a Hercules twin, has grabbed my chin and is moving it to his face. He’s glaring down at me, waiting for an answer to a question I don’t dare respond to.
I don’t see any flakes of powder and surprisingly enough - I don’t smell alcohol on his breath. I smell mint and stale cologne.
The grey-haired man I first encountered interjects. “Tank, don’t be rough with him, we have no information on where he came from. Give the boy a chance to speak.”
I feel my face flush. It won’t be long before they start ripping me apart, so hiding my fear has no purpose here. Instead of focusing on my soon to be broken limbs, I respond with the truth.
“I can’t tell you that.”
The grey-haired man pulls me from Hercules’ hold and sits me down on a red lumpy leather chair that’s positioned in the middle of a large open room. Keeping eye contact, he moves to stand above me. The other four, I was right in that there were four others making it five in total, stand around me and my drug infested attire, waiting for the apparent leader to speak again. I swallow loudly.
“You have any idea who I am, son?”
“No, sir.”
I’ve learned a few tricks, not from my father, but from the lessons I’ve been taught by others in this field of training.
“My name is Doc. I suspect you have no idea what you’re doing and that someone is putting you up to this, am I right?” His eyebrow arches at my reaction. He already knows he’s spot on with his assessment of my situation.
“No, sir.”
My eyes leave his quickly as I attempt to lie my way out of him finding out the truth, that I am in fact doing this against my will, but if I don’t do this I starve and become a human punching bag to the drunken, drugged, and destitute.
“Son, look at me when I speak to you, show me some respect.”
I hear Hercules growl at my side because I’m not moving my head fast enough. I’m sitting in my own piss and my body is starting to shake with nerves. Since my shirt is draped with sweat, it’s starting to chill against my skin under the fans in the room. I look up as I’m told so Doc can continue speaking. I hope speaking - I’m never ready for the hitting.
“You have one chance to tell me who put those fuckin’ bags on your body and told you to walk up to my fuckin’ clubhouse and offer me this to purchase. This will go easy or it won’t, son. You get the choice, but you don’t have long to answer.”
“If I tell you, I get beat. If I don’t tell you, I get beat. Help me.”
I haven’t uttered those words in my entire life. Looking into his grey eyes, I’m pleading with him to help me, one way or another. Help me by buying what I have in its entirety, or help me escape the compound in which I live.
Leaning closer to me, he bends as he puts both his hands on my shoulders and offers me words I’ve always longed to hear with sincerity, and he means every word of it, I just know it. “Tell me how to help you and I will.”
~~~~~
“I miss him, Hem. He was gone too soon. He was here just long enough to save me from a life, not worth livin’.”
Hem slaps my shoulder before returning to his drink. He allowed me a few minutes of silence in order to honor the memory of Doc - my way. “Yeah, now you’re life’s worth livin’, friend. Feel that, own that, and most of all, live it the way Doc intended you to live it. You owe him that. Fuck, you owe us all that.”
I take the last pull of my beer before turning back to Hem, who by all means, has doubled me in drinks. “Fuck, this shit got deeper than it needed to be.”
“Go tell Gunner and Honor what time to be at the church. You know those jackoffs aren’t going to be ready on time so tell them to be there no later than two thirty, that outta get them there by three.”
“Who’s gonna get me there on time?” I’m kidding, but now that I look back at Hem his face is serious and he looks wor
ried. “Brother, I’m messin’ with you. Shit, loosen up, you lazy bastard.”
He doesn’t smile, just continues to stare ahead as he gives me the middle finger and mutters, ‘Fuck off’ as I turn to make my way upstairs.
Chapter Four
“Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal.”
-Albert Camus
“You cannot be fuckin’ serious right now. You guys are gaming?” My voice doesn’t even register to these dumbasses. At this moment, I’m invisible.
Both Honor and Gunner, whom I thought were grown ass men, have headphones on and are screaming and carrying on at the scene that plays out on the television. Rapid fire, grenades, tanks, and guns are creating chaos in front of me.
I’ve seen it all now.
I move my body to stand in front of the game console and motion to Honor that I’m about to shut it off. “What the fuck? Shame, move!”
“Move? You want me to move? For what, Honor? You scared you’re gonna take an imaginary bullet to your make believe ass?”
Gunner, who is still engrossed in the game, is ignoring me in hopes I get bored and go away.
“Dude, move.” Honor sounds desperate so I look back at the screen in time to see him take a serious hit, his death replaying, and just as quickly as he died he gets another chance to ‘re-spawn'. Are they fuckin’ kidding me with this shit? Just like in real life, you get another chance after an instant replay and are able to witness your own death.
Holy shit, I thought I had seen it all with just the sight of them here, now I really have and it’s pathetic.
“What the fuck happened to your nuts man? You’ve been laying around here for weeks. You’re no longer considered being in recovery and your addiction to this fuckin’ game continues; only now you’re suckin’ Gunner down into this bullshit with you.”
We both still, turning our heads to Gunner, who has his tongue out as he maneuvers the controller in order not to get shot himself. I would hate to lose another imaginary brother so soon after losing the one that I just lost.
Un-fuckin’-believable.
“I told you before, Shame, when it rains my neck locks up and the pain comes back. I’ve been resting it for your big day.”
Right.
I lift a bed pillow and throw it at his ‘neck injury’ with force. “Don’t be so fuckin’ stupid, it hasn’t rained in three days. This tells me your candy ass hasn’t been out of this fuckin’ building or near a window in that time. Fuck if you couldn’t use a shower, too. Jesus Christ.”
Gunner, out of nowhere, raises his hands over his head in victory. “I win, bitches!” He looks at me, tries to cover a smile, but continues to throw me a two fisted air pump.
Whew, he must have just saved the world. Somewhere his mother is weeping with pride and joy.
“Get your asses up and showered. You’re to be at the church, dressed, and ready no later than two thirty.”
Gunner and Honor look at each other searching for some unknown fuckin’ answer to a question I didn’t ask. These two yahoos have been inseparable since that mind fuck Ty took a hit at Honor, nearly killing him with a hunting knife. Thank hell that son of a bitch had shit aim and Honor had made a full recovery except apparently on fall afternoons, when the sun is shining, and his best friend is over to play war games. Then his neck gets stiff and he’s unable to function outside this room.
“I’m telling Kegs to cut you off. No food, no sex, and sure as shit no more beer. May even have her cut the Wi-Fi. Will that get your asses movin’?”
Gunner finally speaks, always direct and to the point. “Damn, you’re a mean mother fuckin’ groom, aren’t you? Calm down. We’re going, but I don’t see why we gotta be at the church so early, we aren’t the idiots getting hitched today. What the hell is this pre-wedding meeting bullshit about anyway?”
Honor glares at Gunner, as if asking him to just stop talking to me, again in hopes that I’ll just walk away. “Who cares, we have hours yet. That’s definitely another round on the campaign trail.”
They win, I give up. These two are a match made in hell. They remind me of Hem and I when we were younger. We didn’t always get along, but we knew from the first meeting that we would be together forever, and all that shit.
Fuck if these two aren’t making me start to feel my age.
~~~~~
Peddling as fast as I can, I need to get home. I need to explain to my dad that Doc isn’t interested in our ‘business’ and advise him that if I come back Doc, personally, will kill me. Doc told me he didn’t really mean that, but said that was what I was to tell my parents. If they give me any guff about that then I’m to come back and tell him that, as well.
To show my father’s business no ill regard, he purchased every bit of the narcotics in my possession. He explained to me that he didn’t want me riding around with it on my way home. Immediately after purchase, I watched him throw it at Hercules for disposal. He bought it, paid me over three thousand dollars, only so he could destroy it. In my mind I’m thinking of ways to pay him back, even if it takes me forever.
Doc lectured me for another hour after his decision was made and the exchange was complete. He was asking me if I lived life the way I wanted to live it - with honor and respect. Or was he going find me someday in an alley, with marks on my arms, and begging him for money so I could find my next fix. I didn’t answer him; he said he didn’t need me to reply because he saw truth in my eyes.
He told me to come back and visit. I was still so shaken and convinced he was leading me into a trap I stopped listening to him preaching and stayed focused on giving him the answers he wanted to hear so I could leave.
He seems like a nice guy, though, and someone that maybe I’ll be thankful to have met.
Rounding the corner, I hear a woman shouting in distress. I can’t see her yet, so I continue to make my way towards her voice. Once I spot her, I’m immediately drawn in like a moth to a fuckin’ flame.
The woman is hot. Slender build, dressed to turn any hot blooded teenagers head, not to mention someone like me, who has fantasized about what being with any girl would be like. Her hair is long, shiny and blonde, and hangs down her back as it blows gently with the breeze. She looks older, but that doesn’t matter because she’s seriously hot.
At the present moment, though, she’s also kicking the hell out of her driver side car door, screaming for someone to come help fix whatever is broken.
“Son of a fuckin’ bitch, Patrick. Not now! Fuck, Warren is going to come unglued when he sees what you and your little tantrum just did. I had places to be today. Damn it, Patrick, can you hear me? Fix this!”
She stops when she sees me approach and her anger melts in a matter of seconds. She’s eyeing me up and down as I stop my bike in the street, get off, and head towards her slowly, pushing the bike by my side. I’m unsure if she’s scared of me, feels sorry for me, or maybe she, like many others before her, is just disgusted at the sight of me.
“Hi.” Her voice is soft and gentle.
“Hi, ma’am.” I’ve surprised her merely by speaking.
Her head tilts to the side and a small smile rests at her lips. “What’s your name, honey?”
“My name is Neil.” I don’t know if I should give her any other information considering my dad and his need to remain below the radar due to his career choices.
“How old are you? Do you live around here? I don’t think I’ve ever seen you before.”
“I live on the other side of the block; green house, red door. It’s the house on the corner. I just turned eleven.” So much for not telling her any more about my life.
I have no idea why I felt the need to explain where I live and what my house looks like. It might be because sometimes I like to believe that people in the neighborhood don’t know about my life and they haven’t just ignored the fact I’m abused by monsters. I think maybe if I explain where I live she will recognize it and help me like Doc just had.
She winks and I smile. As soon as I smile back at her, her face lights up. “Can you come here? Just a little closer? I have a favor, honey, I want to ask you to help me with it.”
I’m suspicious. Looks are so fuckin’ deceiving and I’m not in the position to take on any additional emotional or physical torment today.
Thank hell I’m not still wearing the pants I pissed in. Doc took those from me, throwing them in the trash, and gave me a brand new pair of sweatpants. I know they were brand new because I saw him rip the tag off. He told me they were for another kid in the neighborhood, another ‘little shit’ he explained, but that he would replace those and give me these.
Now I owe him three thousand dollars and a new pair of sweatpants. It’s understandable that I’ve had a decent day and at any time the bottom will fall out.
I trust her face though. She looks how I would suspect a loving mother is supposed to look. Her teeth aren’t rotten, her eyes aren’t sunken in, and her hair is clean and shiny. I bet she even smells good, too.
Once I reach her, she runs her hand through my dark, dull, and dirty hair, messing it up a bit after she’s combed through it. “Well, I have a problem. My son, Patrick, has locked my keys in my car. He does stupid things like this, a lot.”
She laughs gingerly at the comment she just made about her son, but continues. “I need to be somewhere in about twenty minutes, can you help me out? I mean, can you open the door for me without the key?”
I think silently to myself that this woman is in for a shock. I’ve been pickin’ locks since I was seven in my pursuit to steal valuables out of vulnerable cars and bring them home to my dad, who considered that my rent payment.
Yes, age seven is when I started paying rent.
I smile at her again, a wide grin that she doesn’t miss. She knows I’m not the average eleven year old that is only interested in soccer and video games. “Yeah, I think I can help you out. Can you hand me that hanger, please?”