JOSH

 

To explain the events leading up to my uncharacteristic heroics we need to go back exactly twenty-four hours before the crash. Back then, I was still in bed sleeping off the remnants of the night before, and, like so many nights, I’d dreamt of Heather and my mother, their faces haunting me in the shadows of nightmarish realms.

“Do you love me?” Heather’s voice whispered from the darkness. “If you did you’d—”

I awoke suddenly.

Opening my groggy eyes, I immediately saw the breathing, naked back of a girl, the golden threads of her blonde hair fanned out across her lily-white skin, the vertebrae of her spine showing and her rippled ribcage going in and out. Watching the skinny chick sleep, the movement of her pulsating ribs began to make me nauseous, so I closed my eyes.

Once my stomach was back in order, I reopened my lids and carefully got up out of bed, removing myself as delicately as I could from the sleeping girl. Prizing my arm from underneath her, she stirred a little and my heart stopped for a second. But as I watched her with genuine terror, she merely moaned a little and went back to her snooze, allowing me to remove the rest of my limb without further alarm. Performing this act of extraction, I took a good look at her sleeping face and tried to recognize her. No matter how hard I pressed my brain, nothing but aching stirred in my delicate head and I only got a vague impression that we’d spent the night having sex.

Once free of the girl, I got dressed in absolute silence, my hawkish eyes watching her for movement the whole time, and soon I was out of there, the dusty corridor of her apartment block smelling of sweet freedom, even if my stomach and head didn’t agree. When I began dismounting the stairs, the elevator broken, images and memories of the previous night came flooding to my mind, the flashbulb scenes hitting my swollen brain like lightning strikes going off in my head.

I saw one bar followed by another. I saw neon beer signs and smelled the stench of booze and vomit. I saw toilet seats covered in neat little lines of white powder. I saw dancing women wearing barely a stitch on their bodies. I saw their big old asses in my crotch as we swung about the club to some bassy track. I tasted their cigarette tongues inside my mouth. I saw men talking shit, continual shit pouring from them like burst sewage pipes. And then I saw it pour from myself and an inner cringe erupted down my back.

Reaching the parking lot, I was glad to see my car there. It was haphazardly parked at an odd angle across several bays and there was a huge dent in the fender that I didn’t recognize. But its sight still pleased me.

“Must’ve driven here,” I remarked to myself with a shrug, happy that that meant I could also drive home.

Seated in the car, I gave a quick look about the lot, and, seeing there were no eyes around, I took out my little powder pot—an old silver saltshaker that I’d stolen off my grandma years ago—and poured a little coke onto the edge of my hand. I then sniffed it up real quick, having another look around when I’d finished, wiping my nose and glancing up in the mirror to see if any flecks of white were hugging the nostrils.

Having cleaned myself up, I drove out of there, roaring the engine of my Ferrari Testarossa as I wheel-span it away from the apartment block, and—more importantly—away from another senseless fuck.

Ambling the Ferrari through the mid-afternoon traffic, I switched my phone on and called my bro Terry.

“Hey, Terry!” I cried out the moment he answered.

“Hey, bro. You only just woken up or something?”

“Yes, I have, buddy.”

“You go home with that brunette chick last night?”

I had to think. I was sure that the girl in the bed had had blonde hair. Yes, it was definitely blonde.

“No, she was blonde,” I informed him.

“Ah! You walked outta the club with a brunette and ended up in bed with a blonde! You’re a true fucking player!”

“Oh, yes I am, Terry.”

Another cringe tingled inside of me, which I pushed back, the thought of my mother’s eyes flooding me.

“We still on for tonight?” he snapped in.

“Of course we are. You think I’m gonna let those fucking white-trash-mafia-wannabes walk away with our money after the shit they pulled last month?”

“I know you’re game, motherfucker. But can you get Charlie all the way onside and not have him blow this?”

“Terry! Terry! Terry. Charlie Hodge does anything I tell him to. I told you: he’s my dog. I got the kid on a leash. I got it held in my hand right now. I’m telling you, it’s right in my hand now as I steer my car through the streets, one end in my hand and the other around Charlie’s skinny fucking neck!”

“You’re a dark motherfucker, Josh.”

“I’m only the truth, bro. I’m only the truth.”

“Well, I hate to mess with your truth, but Kane went round to Charlie’s room today and your dog says he’s having second thoughts. So if I were you I’d go see the mutt and pull hard on that leash.”

I felt an instant surge of anger trickle up my spine like a thousand tiny spiders all biting into it at once.

“What do you mean?” I snapped.

“Like I say: Kane went round Charlie’s earlier to make sure he hadn’t skipped town—to make sure he was still on—and he was real nervous. Kane reckons there’d be no point taking him along with you, he’s so nervous he’ll give it away.”

“No! He’ll do it,” I announced loudly to Terry, bringing my fist down angrily onto the dashboard. “He just needs to be persuaded that he’s a man is all.”

“But he ain’t,” my friend quickly put back to me.

“Being a man is naught but a state of mind, Terry,” I remarked. “Bravery is nothing more than perception. I just gotta adjust Charlie’s perception for one night. What did Kane say to him?”

“He treated him like you said; wasn’t mean or nothing. Just said that you’d be real upset and left it at that. Apparently Charlie’s roommate told Kane that all night Charlie’s been pacing the room unable to sleep. He’s real anxious.”

“Okay, okay. I get the picture: he’s shitting his pants. I’ll head back to my place and freshen up and then I’ll go hit up the dog and put some fire in the gutless bastard’s belly.”

“That’d be good, dude. Give me a call when you’re finished.”

“Okay, will do.”

“Peace out.”

“Peace out.”

I put the phone down and sighed. My master plan—well, my latest anyway—was only hours away from fruition and that little prick Charlie Hodge was about to ruin it.

Charlie was nineteen and a fellow student at my college. I never took any classes with him and only knew him through coincidence. He was at a party one time on campus and I happened to come by him. He was sitting all on his own in some dark corner of the garden and I almost tripped over him when I went there to take a leak. Because I was wasted and he was sitting there all by himself, I stopped by him to have a smoke and a talk—you know, be social. I got talking to him over trivial shit, but he took a real shine to me and ever since he’s followed me around like a lost lamb in need of a wolf.

Anyway, he was just a novelty until last month when me and Terry lost forty grand playing poker with some real mean bastards. After that Charlie became more than a mere novelty; he became our revenge.

You see, Charlie Hodge, as well as being a super nerd, was a mathematics savant with a photographic memory. We got him playing poker one night and realized that he could count cards. Some fucking novelty, aye?

So that brings me to the next part. For the past four months, me, Kane and Terry had been visiting a real heavy underground card game we learned about from some card players we knew. They’d always howl on about this real high-stakes game involving some of the dirtiest sons of the city. I guess they told us rich college kids in order to scare us, some old bastard ghost story. But it made me wet! And I just had to find it.

Six months ago, we did.

It was twenty thousand dollars stake money and only happened once a month. We went there and showed them the color of our money, so they invited us in—easy pickings is what I guess they thought. The players were these really crass guys that tried hard to scare us the whole time, giving us the eye and growling when they talked. They gave Terry and Kane the shits, but I found being in their presence exhilarating. Since then, we’ve been going every month.

Anyway, last month they must’ve got bored with us, because they cleaned us out. I didn’t give a shit about the money, it wouldn’t be missed. What really got to me was that toward the end of the game I realized that those sons of bitches were working us. They were in it together and playing me and Terry like fools.

At the time, I just took it all on the chin and grinned at their fat scowling mugs as they counted my money. But afterward I swore to Terry that next month we would return. Only this time we would clean those fuckers out.

And that, you see, was where young Charlie Hodge comes into things. Because, like my billionaire father always says, if at first you don’t succeed: cheat!