“Don’t you dare say ‘better than the alternative,’ Jason Presley!” Mia snarled, and my breath caught as I realized she sounded then just like my mother had when she’d scolded me as a kid.
She’s already sounding like a mom, I thought, and this realization felt like a bear trap had snapped shut on my guts and been twisted around. My insides suddenly felt like a laundry dryer that had been filled with razorblades and set to a hellish spin cycle—everything was dry heat and stinging lacerations.
The threat of a puke-storm intensified, and if it came up that instant with blood in it I wouldn’t—
Wouldn’t have been the least bit surprised? my brain finished, seeming to taunt me for how my thoughts had come back around again.
Stalling…
I was in a spiral of terrifying “what if”s that had me and my bucket of bolts all-but cemented to the damn pavement.
And—god damn me—I couldn’t take my eyes off Mia.
If it wasn’t making all this that much harder for her it sure-as-shit was making it that much harder for me.
I forced myself to look away, forced my gaze to drag itself to the only thing I could think to stare at. The trio of meters, encased in their own personal bubble domes, twitched and jittered as I stared at them; head lowered and aimed between the handlebars. Like a dog with its tail wedged between its legs.
And soon I’ll saunter away…
But why not now?
Soon…
Has to be now.
Soon…
It will never be easier.
No, it won’t…
Not ever.
The back entrance to Danny’s shop opened, and a new distraction strolled out. Candy, looking more like some sort of divine seer than the whore that she, herself, marketed herself to be, came to stand beside Mia. Mia, now sandwiched between the two bodies, gave no sign of noticing her friend’s arrival; the arrival that had effectively pulled my attention back to them—back to her!—and started the cycle anew.
You’re going out there to die.
The thought hit me like a slap in the face as the three stared back at me.
You’re going out there to die, I “heard” in Danny’s voice, and he stared back at me as though he were imagining the past Crow leaders who, in their own way, had likely been seen off by him when they’d gone off on some similar ride.
You’re going out there to die? I “heard” in Candy’s voice, and she glared at me, seeming to question my intentions; seeming to demand that I consider, that I carefully weigh, my next actions with the sort of calculated precision that I’d used so many times before as a distraction to keep me from acting.
Because, before all of this, I really had been the sort to look before I leapt.
And now that it actually mattered, I was too scared to do either.
Then, in Mia’s voice, I “heard,” You’re going out there to die! and it was every bit the accusation that I deserved from her at that moment.
Sighing, I switched off the motorcycle’s engine.
Three sets of eyes regarded me with skeptical confusion.
Groaning, I swung my leg over the saddle and dismounted.
Danny’s grip on Mia’s shoulder loosened, and she finally wriggled free.
I was sure we both wanted to run then. Like one of those cheesy, slow-motion movie scenes; hair billowing and frantic, needing expressions plastered on both of the overworking actors’ faces. But, while the distance between us had seemed much greater only seconds before, there really wasn’t much space to build up to a climactic run. Especially with both of us working to close the distance. We met halfway at a clumsy near-jog, working awkwardly to stop what our bodies were certain was working up to something more dynamic. We nearly crashed into one another, and saved ourselves from doing so solely by throwing our arms open and catching ourselves against the other—relying entirely on the forward momentum of the other to keep ourselves from outright falling.
A roman arch falling into its opposite end; held up only because the other end was held up by the first.
Come around full-cycle, I thought.
And then we were crying together…
Because we both knew what had to be done.
****
The road was unnaturally quiet.
Or maybe I just thought that because I was navigating it alone towards certain death.
Anne’s “ghost” was waiting at the end of every street, just as she always had been since she was murdered; just as she always had been since before Mia.
And Mia? Mia, I felt—in a similar fashion to the way I felt Anne’s “ghost,” I realized—as a sort of constant warmth behind me.
There was a—say it with me, class—twisted sense of irony in this duality that was, all at the same time, both agonizing and elating. The ever-constant reminder of death and loss before me with the unrelenting reminder of life and hope behind me. On their own either one of them might have forced me to stop and reconsider… well, all of this. Working in tandem, however, it seemed to be the only thing keeping me going.
I turned, struggled to change gears on the rusted relic between my legs, and overworked the throttle to maintain the speed. A morbid thought that I might not even survive the ride to get to certain death overwhelmed me then, and, like a self-fulfilling prophecy coming to light, I nearly dumped the bike then and there. I grunted, strong-arming the piece-of-shit into place and working the machine like a lover. She’d grown old and lazy, sure; the parts weren’t what they used to be, and I had to be a little bit rougher and a lot more patient to get her revving just right, but, just like a lover, I knew what it took to get the job done.
“That’s it!” I muttered aloud to the motorcycle once we were back in sync once more, then, repeating, this time slower and more calmly, “That’s it.”
Anne’s “ghost” was waiting for me at the end of this new street. She looked nervous.
Behind me, in the back of my mind, I felt Mia. I could practically feel her grip around my waist, her breasts against my back, and her excited breath at my neck.
I stole a glance at my watch and cursed, realizing how much time I’d burned up in my farewell “song and dance” with Mia and the others. Though I couldn’t bring myself to regret the words we’d exchanged or the embraces we’d shared prior to my departure, I was certainly worried about what might happen if I showed up to this “meeting” with Papa Raven late.
Just look at what happened the last time you showed up late on this piece-of-shit, a self-destructive part of my brain taunted.
And that’s when the real bulk of the irony came to me:
I’d been here before.
And I knew—I’d always known—that I’d be here again.
On my old bike, a toss-away piece-of-shit, with its clanking exhaust and worthless shocks. And—would you look at that!—I was even peaking the needle all over again.
It hadn’t been fast enough then, and it sure-as-shit still wasn’t fast enough now.
Piece of shit was never that fast to begin with…
But why did it always seem to go that much slower on the nights I needed it most.
It hadn’t been enough before…
You didn’t get there in time then, the voice taunted further. What makes you think you’ll get there in time now?
My mind told me that the scene was all wrong—that I was supposed to be seeing blacktop pavement below a blacktop sky through eyes streaked with tar-black tears—but all I saw was a cold, vacant street in the late stages of the evening. The only vision that seemed to truly tie that night to this afternoon was the “ghost” of the woman I’d lost seeming to wait at the end of every street.
Then, as an even greater moment of irony dawned upon me, I realized just how alone I was.
At least you had cops on your ass that night, the taunting went on. There’s nobody back there now, Jacey-boy.
“Fuck you!” I muttered to myself, and I worked the accelerator with a bit more anger than I meant to.
I might’ve been inching along at a pitiful and painful sixty-three, but my thoughts—my crazy, tireless thoughts—raced on and on and on.
Sixty-three miles-per-hour…
Papa Raven’s gonna kill everyone you love, the taunting went on. They’re all gonna die—the whole damn city’s going to burn!—and you’ll still just be peddling along at a wimpy sixty-three.
“It’s not going to be that way,” I told myself, shaking my head violently enough to teeter the bike slightly. “It’s not!”
I tried not to think about how that sounded more like a prayer than a certainty.
****
Anne’s “ghost” was practically standing beside Papa Raven. For obvious reasons, he didn’t notice her.
That’d just be crazy, I thought and nearly made myself laugh as I did.
The motorcycle he was seated atop was far, far nicer than mine. It was a classic, an early ‘80s Super Glide from the looks of it—though it wasn’t without some substantial modifications that, for lack of a better word, made it look angrier—but otherwise looking brand new. If it weren’t for the fact that I recognized it as an old school model, I’d be certain that it was fresh off the showroom floor.
“YOU ACTUALLY CAME,” he called out to me, shouting to be heard across the city block separating us but otherwise sounding calm.
A number of thoughts occurred to me then. How he’d managed to close off an entire city street for this little “get-together,” being one. Another being that, unlike myself—arriving, as we’d agreed, alone—he was flanked by a half-dozen Carrion Crew members. They were generous enough to keep to the side of the road, all of them straddling their own motorcycles, but it was obvious to anybody who cared to look that they weren’t just random bikers perched between the two of us—four to my right and two to my left.
It might have looked like they were just parked there at either side of the road, but it wouldn’t take long for them to encircle me if their leader demanded it.
“ALREADY STARTING TO REGRET IT,” I called back, hoping I sounded half as calm and confident as him. “SINCE MY DUMB ASS THOUGHT ‘MANO A MANO’ MEANT, YOU KNOW, MANO A FUCKING MANO!”
Papa Raven actually laughed at that and offered a sincere enough looking shrug. The gesture conjured visions of old childhood shows where some mischievous scamp pulled some unforgivable stunt and somehow managed to slide by, unpunished and unscathed, with nothing more than a “that’s so me”-glance at the camera. On cheesy cartoon characters and prepubescent whippersnappers with cowlicks and mud-stained overalls it was cute, dismissible; on a grimy, bearded man who was old enough to be my father it just looked dirty—like something Charles Manson might do.
“LIKE YOU SAID, PRESLEY: DUMB,” was all he answered with.
Anne’s “ghost” looked to be trembling in terror beside him. The effect in my eyes made it seem as though her spirit was being held captive by the son-of-a-bitch.
This, I decided, would only help motivate me to take him down.
Provided I could…
“SO WHAT NOW?” I demanded, holding my arms out. “THIS THE PART WHERE YOU HAVE THESE ASSHOLES GUN ME DOWN WHILE YOU WATCH? OR IS THERE A PLACE IN ALL THIS WHERE WE ACTUALLY GET A CHANCE TO SETTLE THIS LIKE WE’D INTENDED?”
Papa Raven answered by starting his motorcycle, the roar of the engine echoing between the buildings. Though I doubted he noticed, I saw all six of the men he’d brought along jump at the sound.
“Chicken shits,” I muttered to myself. Most of the men—at least three, but the features of the others were skewed by their helmets or the light—I recognized as former Crow members. They’d no-doubt switched sides with the same mindset of a rats leaping from a sinking ship to one that, at first glance, seemed safer. Given how things were going now, I wondered if they’d begun to regret the decision yet. Watching as two of the men I knew to be former Crows worked to avoid eye contact with me, I repeated myself: “Chicken shits.”
Papa Raven’s approach was slow and deliberate, every foot traveled a sign that there was no threat in it. I trusted this as much as I could, which was to say I trusted it as much as I’d trust a hungry dog to guard my steak.
He stopped almost ten feet away from me, supporting himself on one leg and folding his arms across his chest. “We will, indeed, settle this,” he said, no longer having to yell across the distance. With the growl of his rumbling Harley’s engine, however, I had to lean forward to actually hear him. “In the same way I gave your father a chance to settle things and the same way I gave your brother a chance to settle things, in fact,” he added.
“Sounds to me like you intend to settle this by killing me,” I said, not bothering to even try hiding the acid in my voice.
Papa Raven only shrugged.
“So… what now?” I asked again.
A grin tore Papa Raven’s face into a vulture-like sneer. “A race,” he said.
“A race?” I repeated, staring at him in disbelief. “With all that’s at stake—with everyone who’s already died and the entire city’s livelihood on the line—you want to race?”
A part of me cringed at that, though I was too wrapped up in the absurdity of the moment to understand why.
Papa Raven shrugged again.
“So I get to wherever first and you’ll just—what?—stop everything?” I pressed, knowing how doubtful I sounded as I did. “Hand over all your assets, shut down all your business, and slink away into the night?”
Papa Raven nodded, still grinning, and said, “Something like that.”
“And if I don’t get to wherever first then you’ll kill me?” I asked.
Papa Raven nodded back over his shoulder, gesturing towards his backup. “I’ll have one of them do it, but yes. You lose, you die.”
“Seems sort of unfair that you get to walk in one scenario and I have to die in the other,” I pointed out.
Another shrug. “Then kill me if you win,” he offered, his grin widening. “It was you who suggested I walk. ‘Slink away into the night,’ remember?”
I gave a single nod at that. “Provided I win, of course.”
“Of course,” he parroted.
“And that neither my father nor my brother survived this is probably a good indicator of my chances, right?” I asked.
The grin widened, but Papa Raven only said, “I’m no mathematician, son, but it certainly seems to me that the odds aren’t in your favor.”
“Even less in my favor when you consider the beast you’re riding and the clunker I’m on, right?” I offered sardonically.
Papa Raven said nothing; he just stood, waiting, grinning.
Sighing, I dared to ask, “So what do my odds look like if I refuse?”
Another shrug, the gesture still as casual and dismissive as though we were discussing nothing more than who’d be buying the next round. “You’re here,” he pointed out, “so I imagine you already understand how good things are looking for you and yours at this point. Are you likely to fail? Almost undeniably. Is everything that you know and love going to burn and turn to ash beneath my feet? Absolutely. Do I have the means to guarantee that both of those processes can either end quickly and painlessly or be prolonged to brutal, agonizing lengths?” he let the question hang there on its own, letting me answer it for myself.
“And Mia?” I asked.
Papa Raven paused, seeming caught off guard by the question. “The whore?” he finally clarified.
“Don’t call her that,” I warned.
He laughed. “Why on earth not?” he demanded. “It’s what she was, and, provided I let her keep her life, it’s what she’ll go on to be. In many ways, it’s her being a stinky, stupid whore that’s brought all of us here today. Oh, sure, we were bound to come to this point eventually, but I’d been thinking years. Your Mia—your whore—sped things up a great deal, didn’t she? Her being a whore with the Carrion Crew, which is to say her being my whore, is almost entirely to blame for what’s happened since, wouldn’t you say? So don�
�t go muddying facts by trying to flex your chivalry—or your dick—and claiming that this isn’t all happening because Mia is, in fact, a whore.”
My body was seething, practically shaking with rage at that point, but I still managed to hold my ground and my tongue. Fighting to maintain control, I pushed forward—through the brambles of bullshit Papa Raven had just thrown down between us—and asked again, “What about Mia?”
“What about her?” Papa Raven asked back.
“If I lose—”
“When you lose,” he corrected me.
I sighed, still fighting to stay calm. “What will happen to her?” I asked, my voice trembling.
Papa Raven’s brow creased. Then he smiled. “Are you asking to negotiate her fate?” he answered my question with one of his own.
I couldn’t even bring myself to nod at that.
It turned out I didn’t need to. Papa Raven, still beaming, said, “Sure. Why not? If you go along with this—follow the path that your father and brother both chose to follow—then, yeah,” he gave another casual shrug, “she’ll be allowed to live. Granted, she’ll still be a whore to the Carrion Crew, and I’ve got no intention of letting her past transgressions against us not influence the nature of the jobs I give to her, but at least she’ll be alive, right?”
But what sort of life is that? I could almost hear her asking.
I let out a pained breath, let my head fall back until I was staring at the sky, and muttered something that even I couldn’t quite make out.
It sounded something like “Mister sixty-three.”
“And I don’t even have to ask what will happen to her if I don’t, do I?” I finally asked, returning my gaze to him.
Papa Raven rolled his eyes. “I think we’ve already covered that,” he said.
“Okay then…” I said with a defeated sigh. “So where’s the finish line?”
I shouldn’t have been as surprised as I was when he told me that we’d be racing to the corner of Church and Lyell.
“Provided,” he finished, “you even make it there.”
****
I should have seen this coming, I thought to myself for possibly the hundredth time in just under two minutes.
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