Fake promises be damned.
What happened next played out like a violent video game, a halo of blur around the edges of my vision as I advanced on the motel room. The gun in my outstretched hands in front of me as I kicked open the door. Conner was crouched low on the floor over Dre, who was lying on her stomach, face down on the faded blue shag carpet. Her shorts down over her naked ass while the dirtbag fisted his little pecker in his hand. The slam of the door against the wall had Conner looking up with surprise, his reaction delayed by whatever shit was running through his veins. “Who the fuck are you? Get the fuck out…” he said, before zoning in on my gun. “What are you gonna…?” Conner started to ask, his face paling and his bloodshot eyes widening. “Wait, I know who you are…”
“Good, introductions can be so boring and all,” I said. “You know,” I scratched my head with the barrel of my gun, “junkies like you give drugs a bad name. You’re the very reason some of my favorite party enhancers will never be available and marked down at a discount on the shelves of my local neighborhood Wal-Mart at good-ole-American, made-in-China prices.” I aimed my gun at his chest. “Move away from her or I will end you right fucking here.” Conner stood up with his shoulders hunched forward, his softening little pecker hanging out of his zipper as he raised his hands and did as I commanded, stepping back from Dre. I spotted the open bathroom door. “Back, through there. Stand in the shower.”
“Please. Please don’t shoot me,” he begged as he shuffled backward. I spared a glance at Dre, kneeling down I made sure she was breathing. She was. I flipped her onto her back and turned her head to the side so she wouldn’t choke on her own vomit if she started puking again. I followed Conner into the tiny bathroom where he tripped over the rim of the tub, landing on his ass in the shower, pulling down the beige plastic curtain over the top of him. “I’ll do anything. Anything,” he said, glancing at my crotch.
“Dude, have some fucking self respect,” I said. “Unless that’s your thing. You a gay man, Conner?”
He shook his head, his lower lip trembled.
“Listen, I respect anyone’s choice to fuck the way they want to fuck and fuck who they want to fuck, but since you’re telling me that you’re a straight dude, then you’ve seriously just sank to the very last rung on the junkie ladder my friend, which in case you haven’t guessed it, is offering to suck another dudes cock.”
“I’ve just…I’ve got a problem,” he said, his feet dangling over the edge of the tub.
“Yeah, you fucking do.” Noticing a fingerprint on my gun, I huffed some air onto it and buffed it off on the rolled up cuff of my shirt.
“I just need help. I promise, I’m really not a bad guy…” he stammered.
I rolled my eyes. “Conner, stop your babbling. I believe you, buddy,” I said, using my most reassuring voice. I crouched down so our eyes were level. Instant relief filled Conners eyes.
“You…you do? You believe me?” His hope at getting out of that bathroom alive was downright fucking tangible.
I nodded. “Absolutely, I do.” I leaned over and pinched his cheek hard. He flinched but smiled awkwardly. “I think you’re just a confused kid who made some big BIG mistakes.” I turned my gun so it wasn’t facing him. Conner’s eyes nervously followed my every move. I stood up and leaned my hip against the sink, crossing my legs at the ankles. I turned the faucet on and let it run for a second or two before turning it off again. Wiping the grunge off the mirror with my closed fist, I gave my reflection a once over and straightened my bow tie.
“Thank you! Thank you!” Conner stammered, attempting to sit up in the tub. “I’m really a good person. This junk’s got me all fucked up. Makes me do stupid shit. Man, I’m so glad you’re not gonna shoot me in the fucking head.”
“Don’t be silly, Conner. I don’t shoot people in the head. You know how much blood and gunk gets sprayed around when you go all gangsta willy-nilly and start shooting people in the head? Let me ask you something, Conner, you ever see a watermelon explode?”
“Uh, what I meant was. I mean. Just thank you for not killing me.”
“When did I say I wasn’t going to kill you?” I straightened my posture, turned back to Conner, and raised my gun, aiming it straight at his chest. I watched the confusion pass through his eyes, followed by realization, and then fear.
“W…wa…wait!” Conner studdered. The sound of water bouncing off plastic caught my attention as he pissed himself on the fallen shower curtain.
“I really fucking hate it when that happens,” I muttered, the scent of urine immediately unbearably strong in the tiny room and made my eyes water.
“No, please no!” he cried, holding out his hands in front of his face, even after I told him I wasn’t going to shoot him in the head. It was almost like the fucker didn’t trust me. “You said… you believed me. That…that you didn’t think I was a bad guy!”
I let out a long breathy sigh, which turned into a yawn. Not because I was tired, but because Conner and the whole will-I-or-won’t-I-kill-him situation was growing boring as fuck. “I don’t think you’re a bad guy at all.” I cocked my gun. “But, unfortunately for you…” I squeezed the trigger three times, sending pops of bright red splattering across the dull beige shower tile. “I am.”
CHAPTER SIX
PREPPY
Sometimes, we as humans set out to do things with purpose and clarity. Other times, we carry the unconscious heroin addicted thief back to the very house where she’d helped steal your weed plants from, because the woman who lives there is a nurse.
Humans. Weird fucking animals we are.
I carried Dre in through the back door as quietly as I could. I’d wake Mirna shortly, but Dre wasn’t showing any signs of overdose so there wasn’t any rush. I carefully shifted the girl in my arms through the door of the guest bedroom, and that’s when I noticed the scar on the side of her face, right in front of her ear. It was a faded pink color so it wasn’t super old, and I wondered what could have happened to this girl to cause a scar like that.
I shuffled her into the bathroom and set her on the floor. I turned on the shower and propped her against the side of the tub.
The deja vu feeling that I knew the girl was overwhelming.
Maybe she was in porn?
No, because then I’d probably know her name. And bra size. And what her specialty was.
I lifted her shirt and the bruises I’d seen on the tower looked ten times worse under the harsh bathroom lighting. I knew first hand that addicts had a tendency to be bruised up. Either from the marks, from the needles, getting into fights, or just stumbling around. But these weren’t those kinds of bruises. They weren’t from a fight.
They were from a beating.