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Benny Vendetti · (03-05-2018)

The surroundings are solid and the music is silent. As silent as a fly buzzing in your ear. The naked truth shrouds itself in denial and the feral beast stops for packed lunch. You can accept the answers while soaring through life like an arrow in flight. You can accept the path forced from behind and accept the pile of shit like a paycheck. Nothing will ever be the same.

Spiraling downward like a sea creature into the depths of yourself. Finding what lies beneath like shaving away a bad haircut. Sorting through the good and the bad, popping the dice like a game of Trouble and responding accordingly.

Pop. Take three steps.

Pop. Take another two.

Pop. Start over.

Pop.

Pop.

Pop.

The rear-view mirror has not changed. Every time he looks back, it's the same each time. The miles behind him have grown slowly, just as the hours have past-by during his little trip.

He could have sworn he heard a scratchy noise coming from behind, but it had to be his imagination. It had to be. Did it?

Glancing downward towards the gas gauge, he notices the needle crossing very closely to the "E".... He meant to catch it earlier and plan his stop a little bit better, but unfortunately.... The next stop is going to have to do. While the gas mileage on this thing isn't horrible, today would be the day it would let him down and he would be stranded with his "delivery" in the back. That would be unfortunate.

He slowly raises the volume on the car stereo. If anything, we could drown out the scratchy noise and forget all about it. Suddenly, there is a loud BANG! from the trunk! He nearly takes the car off the road after being startled nearly to death. He looks in the rear-view again to see if there is any other traffic behind him and pulls the car off to the side of the road. After a couple of breaths and checking for a pulse, he reaches into his glove box, pulls a 9mm pistol from it, and exits the vehicle.

Looking one way and then the other, he checks for traffic one last time before reaching down and pushing the button for the trunk. It pops open, he readies his gun, and approaches the back slowly. He looks up and down the road again, then pulls the door up.

He looks everything over....

"You're crazy. You're crazy."

He says over and over again to himself after reassuring that nothing was going on back there. He takes a deep breath then slams the trunk shut.

-----------

Back on the road, I see in just a few miles there is a place to stop and fill-up. I need to get this over with. The quicker in and out, the better.

Mike's Pass & Gas was the name of the place. Clever. Almost worth a smirk. If I was twelve. The place was from the Stone-Age though, no way to pay with a card at the pump.... So I had to go in. It was probably for the better anyway. If anything would happen, I'd hate to be traced back to here. As I made my way into the small store, a police car entered the parking lot, as well.

Go figure.

Just keep it together. Just keep it together. I say this in my head. I'm smart enough and together enough to not say something to make me seem suspicious out loud. Plus, some may argue, but I DO realize when I'm talking to myself. It's called thinking out loud.

Anyway, there's a line inside of people waiting to check-out. Funny, I didn't notice this many vehicles out front and this place seems a little far out there for anyone to walk. Very strange. Instead of waiting in line, and believing that it should not extend much more in a few minutes, I choose to wander about the store.

It had your typical inventory. Stop and Grab It auto repair shit. Smokes. Beverages, alcoholic and non. Magazines. Candy. Yeah, typical stuff. I wander around the back, there's some Hindi doing all the work up front while some bitch-ass millenial sits in the back on his phone. A line of six people, a guy wandering around, a cop entering the building, two registers, and one Abdul slinging the groceries. God I hate the world.

Two cops eventually wander in, one goes straight for the coffee and the other to the lotto machine by the bathroom. I manage to make eye-contact with the fellow going for the coffee, as a trapped myself and was forced to do something. I give a smile and a quick nervous nod and walk past him to get in line. No where was safe anymore. The quicker I got myself out of there, the better.

It seemed like a smart idea at first. The gambling cop stayed by the lotto machine scratching away his paycheck, but the other didn't take long to pour his coffee and end up behind me in line. He stands there for a moment, but you can tell he's one of those people in general that can't keep their fucking mouths shut or thoughts to themselves.

"You the one with the out of state plates out there?"

Oh crap. I feel my face turn red. I feel the sweat building up in the small of my back like it always does. I feel my knees start to give-way. He stares at me as I give out a chokey-chuckle.

"How'd you guess?"

How DID he guess. There's like ten other people in here.

"Oh lucky, I suppose. You're the only one standing here without anything. Figurin' you're payin' for gas."

Even with his obvious reasoning, I still feel my face blush.

"Yeah, that's me."

He sips at his unpaid coffee and nods, not taking his eyes off my vehicle.

"Quite a ways from home. Visiting family?"

"You could say that."

I shrug. A little too nonchalantly, I think, but he doesn't seem to care that much. Thing is, I'm not actually from out of state, but the plates are. I need to get out of here, and finally, it's my turn.

"Twenty-five in gas."

"Which pump, please."

"Uh, I dunno, the only one out there."

The clerk and I both peer out. The guy is slow as shit at what he does.

"Pump two!"

The police officer shouts from behind me with a smile. I give a "Thank-you" nod and accidentally roll my eyes as I turn back around to shove my money further towards Habeeb.

"Do you need change?"

Just then, both cops' radios go off with static and yammering that, to me, is indecipherable. The cop behind me grabs his receiver and yells back with a loud sigh....

"10-4! Unit 3 in pursuit!"

He snaps his fingers with one hand and holds up his coffee with the other....

"I'll have to get you next time, boys! Duty calls!"

The lotto machine zips out two more tickets which are grabbed and the two cops rush out the door. Apu looks up at me.

"I think they do that shit on purpose. Every time he comes back, he never pays."

I give a fake smile to Gahndi and I'm headed towards the door. The cop car zips out of the parking lot leaving a cloud of dust and sirens blaring in my ear. It's a little nerve racking wondering where they could be going....

The sun is beginning to set now. It's a shame because I thought this could be done in daylight, even with the distance of the trip.... How horrible I have misjudged.

It won't be long, however. It must be done regardless, whether in sun or moonlight. Speeding is out of the question as one run-in with authorities was enough. Even if it didn't amount to anything, it was enough to burst one's heart if it were any weaker than my own.

It won't be long now.

---------------

Chasing the fantasy as I grow ansy with every passing fancy. Tracing my steps like doing reps in the gym, finding myself again while time grows thing.

There's a place in your mind that you might find lurks the best things you could possible think of. Digging those up can cause a rift so rough that you'll end up buring something else in the process. Remembering your place in a race while saving face won't get you your ticket to the show. It's started without you and by the time you realize the end credits are rolling. At the top of the list is the reason you won't be missed because the best don't belong at the top. You'll look down and you'll see the prize is with me and you'll spit but miss then fall to your demise. Waiting below isn't friend nor foe but your own spit that you tried to spat down at me.

Chris Valley. A blossom from within a cage. A clueless rebel with no true purpose. An animal with no place to be had. We learned a long time ago to read over things before signing them.

Acknowledgements.

Contracts.

You never just sign.

Whether Chris Valley did so when he signed up for the XWF, he didn't read close enough. Had he, I doubt we would see him in the position he is at this moment. I doubt we would see any of us here.

There are some things in life that I'm sure a lot of us would take over prison. At the same time, I'm sure we would take prison over a lot of things in life. Chris Valley will soon realize that being locked safely within the iron bars of prison, for whatever reason he is there, is a lot more logical then getting what is going to be coming to him.

So, what exactly are we watching? An old Jean-Claude Van Damm film? The bad ass fighter guy gets pardoned so the dirty warden can make a few bucks? Why can't we make a movie where the warden is actually doing his job and is a good guy? I mean, the prisoners are the assholes locked up right? Why are THEY always the ones looking so damn good and wronged. Makes America's judicial system look flawed or some shit.

We'll all do you a favor and in the short time you'll spend here send you to to a bed where you'll be strapped because of your injuries. Whatever you did to get your sentence, whatever you did to make yourself look SO tough to get this freedom, it'll all look like Playskool™ crap when I'm done with you.

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