What I like to imagine is that I’m now twenty years old, sipping a martini in Bora Bora, and somehow the eighty grand I found in a sandwich bag will be able to last until my golden years.
To sum up, all of what I imagine is not what happens.
I used to think about where my life was going, and I had such a positive outlook and a feeling that things could always get better. But as I look at the heavy stacks of cash I have a darkening thought in my soul that now it will only get worse. I mean, I was going to be a lawyer and reenact scenes from Law & Order in the style of Sam Waterston.* (This is not true; I’m going for a business management degree, just in case you aren’t following the bouncing ball.)
So what do I do, you might be asking? Well it sure as hell isn’t take the money and run, and I’ll tell you why. I begin thinking of Nesbo and his conversation with Tony on the phone, his Sicilian accent giving me the strong impression that either Nesbo is in the Mafia or works closely with the Mafia, and that this Tony Soprano (or whatever his last name is) most definitely does and is a made man of some kind.* (I have watched Goodfellas and that being my most basic compendium of Mafioso knowledge, I know I have reason to worry.)
I wrap the money back up and pretend none of this ever happened.* (It doesn’t erase my memory though. It did happen, it isn’t over, and now I am scared shitless.)
Ten minutes later I’m on the front stoop waiting for Tony or whoever to answer the door. The guy answers and invites me in. I don’t want to go inside; it’s the last place I want to be.* (This isn’t true either; Hell reserves that spot.)
I walk in and try not to look at his face, but it’s hard not to. It’s crazy – he looks exactly like Robert De Niro. I’m lying again. He’s heavyset, and not at all dressed like what the stereotypes suggest regarding mob guys. He’s wearing a tank top and sweatpants, and from what I garner I don’t think he has underwear on.
Tony the mobster takes the ‘money sub’ from me and tosses it on his couch. From around the corner walks a fake blonde with super-oversized fake boobs. How do I know? Well, she’s topless and they sit funny on her chest. You know, the way a pair of enormous fake tits do; as if they have this strange otherworldly power, and that force of nature thing Sir Isaac Newton is famous for has no effect on them. Being weighed down by those giant magumbos doesn’t seem to bother her much. Plus, she’s obviously high. Anyway, they’re gross. I’ve always been a fan of the small and sporty, and I’m aiming to keep it that way. The blonde has a smearing of white powder on her nose and upper lip, and she’s walking unsteadily on her bright purple heels.
I want to leave now, and it takes all my willpower and control not to fly out the door and call the cops. What stops me is my Datsun; turning her engine over isn’t always easy – and now I’m cursing myself for not leaving it running. You dumb son of a bitch!* (Please don’t be offended I’m talking to myself here.)
Sweat pants/semi boner is walking back over to me and he hands me another brown sandwich bag. “Give this to Sam as payment. I seem … to have lost my wallet.”
I don’t mention he has a huge wad of cash in the bag I just gave him. I can’t think of one reason to take the package from Tony, except one. Life. You see, I have this strange fascination with still being alive after this chance meeting, and I’d like to keep doing that.
“Sure,” I say nonchalantly as I feel beads of sweat shoot from my forehead at Tony like a shower of sparks.
“You a good kid,” Tony is able to say over the torrential downpour cascading down his face.* (I’m exaggerating. I’m not sweating as bad as that, but it sure feels like it.)
I’m almost to the door when Tony hollers at me. I feel an extra wide load of poop drop into my lower colon, threatening to present itself to the world.
“Hey, before you go. Take dis.”
His fat hand holds a small folded set of bills.
“Oh, is that for the Philly? ‘Cause it’s only ten ninety-five.”
“What? Oh, right. Ha! – the Philly. No kid, dis is for you.” He offers a slow wink, and I barely contain the aforementioned dookie within my body.
In the next span of nanoseconds* (which are like really fast seconds), I’m thinking very long and very hard about what happens next. By taking the money, I’m accepting a life of crime, in a sense. If I don’t accept the bought silence, I might be in serious danger. I can’t stop my brain from showing me the possible outcome of being stuffed into a garbage bag, my body cut into sections and fed to a wood chipper – or dogs. Either way, it’s not a good look for me.
Disregarding that imagery I say, “It’s okay. I don’t take tips. Sam doesn’t like it.” I cannot have sounded more stupid if I tried. It comes out high-pitched and nervous, and Tony gives me a slow, quiet stare. The solidified turd I had earlier is gone, because my bowels turn to water and give a gurgle I hope only I can hear. And now I’m sweating more than before, and it feels like El Niño lives in my ass crack. “But what Sam don’t know, right?” I say, recovering.
Tony gives me another wink. I’m not sure, but this second one feels like it holds a perverted twinkle to it too, and that just sickens me. I mean, come on. His girlfriend is sitting – or should I say collapsed? – right there on the couch.
So an accessory to crime it is. I grab the money from Tony’s palm, feeling like I’m so far into the thick of it I might as well visit Buck-A-Tattz* (a local tattoo parlor), and get two matching Russian stars on my chest tomorrow.
Getting inside my Datsun and starting it up, I’m thinking two things. One, thank God I didn’t make a run for it because it takes four cranks before my awesome car roars – or should I say smokes? – to life. And two, I just became a runner for the mob and I can do some serious time for taking this package back to Sam. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know the item I just locked in my glove compartment is a bag of cocaine, heroin, or God knows what kind of illegal substance. All the stuff I removed from the compartment to make room – papers, registration, checks, pens, CD’s, and condoms – is now lying on my seat. I know putting condoms in a glove box is not the smartest due to the heat, but like Austin Powers I like to live dangerously; and I always forget about them anyway. Plus I’m really busy with school and don’t have time for women.* (Not true and never will be.)
03 The Phone Call
Chester doesn’t answer my phone call, but answers my text in four seconds. Go figure. After a brief back and forth he calls back. I don’t give away any details through my messages because the Mafia can wiretap your phone and see everything. That’s not really the reason; the timing for those events to actually happen doesn’t make sense at this point. I honestly just don’t know want to say. ‘Hey Chester, by the way, I ran into some Mafia guys and now I’m transporting at least five kilograms of coke. One of them is my boss and I’m scared out of my mind!’
“Ellis D, what’s up bro? Sorry, had to call – playing COD and can’t be textin’. I’m getting schooled by twelve year olds. These little rat-fucks have some dirty fucking mouths,” Chester says as soon as I pick up.
“Sorry? Dude, I just called you and you didn’t answer! Anyway, some shit went down; can’t talk about it over the phone, but we need to get together. Where’s Taylor?”
“I’m in my room,”* Chester says. (Now, first off I don’t know why he always calls it his room, since if we’re getting technical, it is my room as well.) “Tay’s here too. I just handed him the controller and I’m watching him DESTROY! Kid is unstoppable right now. NO, YOUR mom sucks cocks in hell! Sorry, I hate these little kids. So what happened?”
I hear people screaming insults through the TV and what sounds like a Rambo movie playing, but only the good parts. I can envision Chester with his chunky face reddened from each volley of profanities, but they go unnoticed by those on the other side of the connection because Chester’s been too cheap to buy a decent microphone for his PS4 after the one it came with broke.* (Chester’s Christmas gift has just been identified; that is, if I live that
long.)
“I just said I can’t talk about it over the phone, idiot. This is serious though. Turn the game off and meet me at Barnes and Noble.”
“Turn what? Tay’ is straight dominating this round. He just got a nine killstreak. We gotta see it through. NO, how about YOU die slow! You Kindergarten piece of shit!” Chester’s not so good at comebacks. He usually repeats what the original insult is and adds some stereotypical or racial slur. It’s just who he is.
“This is serious. Like serious, serious. I’m serious!”
“Seriously?” Chester chuckles. “Oh shit snacks! T just got slit in the jug!”
Chester is charming in his own strange, odd little way. Sometimes without provocation he’ll abbreviate words he never did before and it takes me a few seconds to realize what the hell he’s saying. By my calculations, Taylor got stabbed in his jugular.
“Alright, we’ll head over to the Kentucky Fry. This better be good since you’re making me put on socks.”
“I said the Barnes and Noble, man.”
“That don’t work for me; there’s nothing I need there. But I could totally go for one of those dub’down sandwiches. I ain’t had one in years.”
“Fine. But we have to make it quick. I gotta go back to The Sub Shop after.” I hang up the phone, and with everything on my mind, I feel like I’m forgetting something. It must be important, whatever it is, because it’s giving me that hot sensation in my cheeks and under my arms. I figure if it’s important enough, I’ll remember eventually.
04 Disappointment
“I guess there’s a reason you haven’t had one in years. They don’t make it anymore,” I say to Chester, who has an animated sulk all over his face like a character in the Sunday funnies.* (I can’t think of a reasonable simile, so this will have to do.)
“Bbbaaauuuuuhhhhhh, what a let down! That’s all I wanted. I’m not a greedy person. I’m a good man. I do my best in life. God must hate me,” Chester says, and turns away from the menu.
“Ooooooo-K, that’s a bit much. Just get something else,” Taylor says.
“Nope, it’s time for a boycott.”
“We came all the way down here so … never mind – you are a child. Just give me my money back,” Taylor demands, his palm out, ready to reclaim his loaned – but probably never-to-be-reimbursed – cash.
It’s getting late and I don’t want to interrupt this lovers’ quarrel, but I really need to get down to business with my two best friends. “Look, fellas, we need to talk about something, so can we wrap this up?”
“Alri’, I’ll just get a six stripper meal, a side of biscuits, and a large Pep.”
Chester never wastes money that’s freely given, and I gather ‘Pep’ equals Pepsi in his newfound vocabulary.
In a few moments we’re all outside. Taylor is leaning up against my Datsun and Chester’s jamming whole strips of chicken into his mouth, covered with a mix of honey mustard and barbecue, which he coins as being suicidal. I’m still not sure what he means by that.
So as I lay out the groundwork of the story to the guys, they absorb it all. After the conclusion, I get what I expected would be the main response from both, and Chester fires off first.
“So how big were they?” His eyes wide, waiting for details.
“Huge,” I say, deciding not to go into detail that her boobs did in fact remind me of Superman – they defied gravity, stood for truth, justice, and the American Wet Dream, or whatever that last one was.
“Did you get a picture?” Taylor says, and crosses his arms, puffing his chest out, and partially flexing his biceps.
“Yeah, I just waltzed in and was like, ‘Hey can I take a photo of your braless bimbo?’ – Why are you flexing?”
“I’m not. This is just how I …” Taylor uncrosses his arms and shifts weight to the opposite leg.
“Big or small nips?” Chester asks with a grin like a child on Christmas morning.
“They were perfect, but her face could have used a bag. Look, I –”
“Were they like dinner plates? Dark? Light? Were they even? I want some details for the spank bank.”
After Chester’s latest chime in, I can’t take it anymore. “Look, this is serious. I think I’m in trouble with all this, and the one thing you guys take away from it is that I saw some coked out chick treating this guy’s house like a nude beach?”
“Bewbs,” Chester and Taylor say in unison.
I ignore it and open the car door, unlocking the glove compartment. With stealthy movements I show them the package Tony gave me, trying to make sure no one else is watching.
“What’s that?” Chester says.
“Flour to make delicious pastries. Some sort of drugs, you idiot. It’s gotta be coke or heroin or something. I don’t know. I grew up watching the same movies as you.”
“We should take it,” Taylor says as he takes a step forward, eyeing the wrapped brick of drugs.
“Yeah, totally. That sounds like a great idea. Go for it, Scarface.” I make to hand it to him. “Only one problem. When I don’t deliver this crap to Sam, he’s going to know who has it, and us sharing the same dorm room won’t be good for either of you. Also, what the fuck do we know about dealing drugs?”
“I buy a dime bag every now and then. But it’s for medical-inul … I mean medicine-al …” Chester struggles to say.
“Medicinal?” I ask.
“Yeah, that’s the one. Remember when I tore my shoulder muscle when we were kids? Well, it still bothers me. That’s why I can’t hit the gym like I want.” Chester begins rotating his arm in a slow circle and rubs the socket joint as if the imaginary pain has suddenly resurfaced.
I don’t recall this tale he is speaking of or how he injured himself, but if Chester has told the story before and I don’t remember, it usually means it was so dumb that I cast it to the far reaches of my brain. “Oh, yeah. I forgot, totally. But that’s not what I’m getting at. What I am trying to say is that people get murdered all the time over drug deals gone bad.”* (Not to be confused with Girls Gone Wild.)
I hold out the drugs farther, tempting Taylor or Chester to relieve me of my unwanted burden.
Taylor takes a step away from the cocaine block as if being close to the substance might give him cancer.* (Proximity to cocaine has not been found to cause cancer.)
“You guys didn’t really think that through did you?” I toss the drugs down onto the passenger side floorboard of my car and close the door. It bounces back and I have to give it a more forceful slam for it to lock into place.
The behavior Taylor has just exhibited is his classic fashion: show his strength/machismo, and as soon as it’s tested, back down like a pair of cold, shrunken balls.
Taylor says, “Maybe we should call the cops. They can come on down and we can set up a sting operation or something. Maybe we can get a reward?”
For the first time in a long time, Chester speaks up with something useful. “Let’s not get all cray about this. Calling the 5-0 is a bad idea. The only real crime here is that the menu is missing my meal of choice.”* (A quick clarification: the first part of his comment was the useful one – the one where we shouldn’t contact the police.)
“I guess,” I say, still pondering.
“Listen bro, Gary* might be a douchebag, but he is absolutely right when he says you can’t trust the po po.” (Here’s a recap for you: Gary is a mega-turd, that is for sure. Most people assume that Gary is Chester’s stepdad because he is always referred to by his first name, but in truth Gary is his biological father.)
“Maybe you’re right. The less involved I am the better. I can just claim ignorance. I know nothin’ ’bout nothin’. Right?” Why I’m listening to Chester’s advice right now, I am not sure. After all, he was the one who gave my grandma a goodbye card when she was in the hospital. To be fair, he was right and we all knew she wasn’t going to make it, but Chester just doesn’t … well, he just never thinks about the feelings of others when it comes to his decision-ma
king skills.
I check the time. I still need to give the bag of ‘five to ten’ that I’d serve to Sam in at least fifteen minutes, or my ass was toast. That’s when I have that gnawing at my insides again. It’s that all too familiar feeling that I’m forgetting something that I felt earlier.* (At this exact moment across town something is indeed happening, and I’m going to feel the repercussions from it later.)
The last two minutes of our discussion conclude with Chester still in a funk because the Double Down was no longer available at the KFC, and it’s decided that I need to hand off the incriminating evidence and hope that this special delivery service I provided is a one-time thing.* (It isn’t.)
05 The Remembrance
I’m back at my dorm snoozing like a baby and catching Z’s like it’s my sole mission in life.* (Actually, I’m staring at the clock display that says it’s after 2 AM, and I haven’t closed my eyes since I returned.) I’ve been locked in an epic mental battle regarding right and wrong and contemplating how much time I will end up serving in any maximum security prison across the continental United States. And I’m positive I’ll end up there. When I’m grilled by the cops or detectives and later a judge in court – and I will be – I know in the floating viscous purple matter that is my soul,* that I will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. (I don’t think souls are supposed to be represented as I mentioned, but for some reason I can’t help but picture it that way.) Anyway, Guantanamo is where I will go for sure, I keep reassuring myself with the grim outlook that I can’t seem to shake. I envision Sam Waterston, the ace District Attorney from Law & Order saying, ‘Are you aware that thirty-two states still enforce the death penalty, North Carolina being among them?’
Yeah. It’s official. I’m going to die young.
I can still hear Taylor tearing it up in a multiplayer battle online, but the volume has been severely muted, and I can only make out snatches of dialogue and the occasional frag grenade or Bouncing Betty. Chester has long since fallen asleep with a bag of Doritos at his side, the remnants scattered on his favorite ‘Enjoy Coke’ T-shirt. His TV is still on and a rerun of The Big Bang Theory* is playing. (Chester does not watch that show; he – as well as Taylor and I – thinks it is God awful-terrible. Unfortunately, the channel happens to also air episodes of The Mentalist and Elementary, which Chester says make his brain function better. If there is proof in his logic I have yet to see it accurately tested.)