by Mitch Goth
The coffee shop Rain and Ben went to was oddly high end for the neighborhood it was in. Ben ordered his usual black coffee with sugar while Rain rattled off some intricate concoction of special creamers and flavor shots. Ben was shocked the barista was able to get all of it straight. They sat at a small, granite-topped table on the small patio outside the front doors. For a few slow moments all they did was observe the low class scenery, unsure what to say to each other.
"So," Ben fumbled, "was last night enough adventure for you."
"You could say that, yeah," Rain nodded with a smile. She averted her eyes to the ground, only because the early afternoon sun was too much for her brain to bear. "It was the best damn night of my life. That is, up until I had to kill people," her voice turned glum at the last moment.
"Don't feel bad about that," Ben instructed in a calming firmness. "You killed two people, but saved three. Just look at the scoreboard."
Rain couldn't help but chuckle quietly at this, "I don't feel bad. They were going to kill you guys for sure. I just feel...weird, you know? I mean, I've been raised my whole life learning that killing somebody is the absolute worst thing that you can do, and that's because it is. It's a terrible, awful thing to do. But, I guess its weird not feeling bad about it. Am I a bad person?"
"No," Ben assured. "Not at all. I felt the same way when I first started in this business. But, if its justified, its not bad to not feel bad. Just as long as you still feel bad about not feeling bad, you haven't become a psychopath or anything."
"That's a good way to put it. I do feel bad about not feeling bad. How long does that last?"
"Depends. I had that feeling for a week or so after my first time."
"Who was it?" Rain inquired, leaning forward in curiosity.
"What?" Ben raised an eyebrow, confused by the question.
"Who was the first person you did in?" Rain didn't find a problem in the question until she saw Ben aim his eyes to the ground. It obviously wasn't the sun causing him to adjust his gaze. "I'm sorry," she took back her inquiry swiftly, her heart sinking.
"No, I'll tell the story," Ben's eyes rose again, albeit not back to their original height, "its just not a question I've been asked before."
"You don't have to," Rain spoke with sorrow in her tone.
"It was about three months after I started working for Vin," Ben told the tale anyway. "He'd tossed me a lot of product to sell in a week, I'd barely slept the whole time, I was irritable. Then two real gross, stick thin junkies tried to rob me. A guy and a woman. The guy had a knife longer than his forearm on me, but I knew he didn't know how to use it, the woman only had a box cutter. All together it wasn't anything I couldn't handle. I could see in their faces they were scared to do it, scared of me. I knew all I had to do was pull my forty-five and it'd send 'em running. But I wasn't in the mood to be fucked with, I wasn't ready to settle for scaring them. So I pulled out my gun and shot the guy first, he went down fast. Before the woman could even move I put her down too. I picked up the casings and got the hell outta there. I didn't think anything of it, just two junkies who needed to be gone, who the world was better without. It wasn't until I read their story in the paper that I found out the woman was pregnant. For a while I felt terrible about doin' it. But, the more I think about it, the more I figure it was better. That kid wouldn't have lived a good life, if he'd have lived at all. You ought to be glad your first time happened the way it did. I sorta knew those two, they were nobodies, no families, no nothing. Some aren't quite so lucky."
"Jesus," Rain's eyes lowered as far as they could go. "I'm sorry."
"Don't be, it's not your fault," Ben comforted. "I'm not anymore. Pregnant or not, they did the wrong thing at the wrong time. They were nobodies just like those two guys you hit. The only difference was the kid she was carryin'. I know I'm not some ruthless killer. There's a rule in Vin's operation, that you don't take out anyone who isn't goin' down anyway or doesn't have it comin' to 'em."
"Who decides who has it coming?" Rain asked apprehensively, trying to avoid offending Ben any further.
"Most of the time its self-explanatory," Ben answered. "Those two junkies, they had it comin'. Those two KC Devils guys, they had it comin'. Only do what you have to do, never what you only want to. And the second you kill someone who's got a family, people who'll cry over their graves for years, there ain't no comin' back. Killing is a slippery slope as it stands, when there's families involved, that's just it. I've seen great guys fall to pieces after they pulled the trigger on mothers, fathers, sons, daughters. That's why we stopped serving those weekend users."
"Weekend users?" Rain was intrigued once more, but she recalled where her curiosity got her last time.
"You know, people who have normal lives. They have picket fences and a pre-owned Lexus or somethin' like that. But they're stressed, and they need their fix, so they come to us on the weekends. It only takes one of 'em gettin' hooked and blowin' cash until they're broke for them to try and hold up a dealer. And our dealers take that as having it comin'. And when a suburban family man or woman gets killed, its news. You'll see their widows, orphans, whoever crying for the cameras, and that's it. Only the monsters among us make it through that. Guilt brings on a lot of things. Like I said, just be glad you did in who you did."
"I guess I kinda won the lottery," Rain joked humorlessly.
"This time, yeah," Ben nodded. "But, if the next time comes, I guarantee you won't be quite so lucky. You ought to get outta here before that next time comes."
"And go where exactly?" Rain wondered.
"Just go home, Rain. Just go home.
"You know I can't do that."
"Well why the hell not?"
"I'm a runaway, Ben, there's no good way out of that. There's no going home free. As soon as I show my face back there, I'll go to jail. I can't ever go back there. I don't want to go back there. Do you have any idea what that's like?"
"Yeah," Ben replied frankly, "I do."
"How?"
"I ran away from home when I was sixteen," Ben admitted. "And I didn't ever go back."
"Seriously?" Rain was floored by this. She didn't imagine Ben to be the type of person a runaway would become. This brought her to the realization that she didn't quite know the kind of person any runaway is supposed to become.
"I was like you, stifled at home, strangled," Ben went off on a new story. "I left, in the middle of the night, lookin' for freedom, a better life. I guess I found it," he shrugged. "I met Vin real early on, he sort of took me in. But, he went to college, and I never finished high school, so I had to find somethin' to do. I started dealing, that's how I got here. But through all that I never looked back, and nobody ever found me. They looked, hard, I know that. For a while I took pride that they never found me, laughed at it. But, a few years back I found out my mom died, and I realized that she died thinkin' I was dead. And I never got over that, I don't think I ever will. If you won't go home, at least let them know you're okay every now and then. Send letters, do somethin'."
"Wow," Rain sighed. She'd never thought about that. Even she didn't think that far into the future, and now she regretted it more than any other decision in her life.
"So, what's your thought?" Ben wondered.
"I'll think about it," she nodded. Rain knew she had to do something. She couldn't go back home. But her family needed to know she was okay somehow. She owed them that at least.
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