HERO'S

Part 2

Chris's point of view

Bruce's point of view

Michelle's point of view.

CONTINUED:

It was humiliating. She was going to wet herself unless she used the bottle, so she shifted into a half squat position in the car. The blonde man promised he wouldn't look, and he didn't. That made it a little better, though, not much.

She still didn't know what they wanted with her, but she was growing increasingly more comfortable. The thought of them raping her--or worse--still lingered in the back of her mind, however.

He was looking out the window gleefully. He was enjoying every second of this, in a twisted sort of way. Her mind drifted back to the men in the dice game. She didn't mean to hurt them, she didn't even want to interact with them. She could still see their broken bodies on the sidewalk. For what reason?

What reason did they have to hurt for?

She shook her head as the bottle filled, and she put the cap on it.


She shifted her position, and put the cap on the bottle. She had filled it. She really needed to go, and he was glad she came to her senses and didn't soil Bruce's luxury seats.

They were almost to Exhibit Number 2 now, in the worst part of town. She thought she saw some shit before.....hell he better make sure he has another bottle ready.

Smiling he looked at her.

"So......what if this were a survival situation?"

She immediately tensed up, her face a scared frown.

"If this were a survival situation.....you'd have to drink this."

Her eyes opened wide.

"It's basically water, with a few other ingredients. What? You look like you've never taken a little pee to the nose and mouth in some college frat bedroom......"

Her eyes were wide and she began to shake her head. A frown crossed his face. Had he taught her nothing?

They were inching closer to their destination, he could tell by how rough the road got. It was like trying to take a go-kart over gravel.

He put the bottle closer to her. "Drink it, Michelle."

Now the pretty girl was inching away, but he was inching closer.


Okay, this had gone a bit too far. He wasn't going to make the terrified girl drink her own pee now? What was he trying to prove?

"Chris, cool it. She doesn't want to drink it."

The man looked back at him, snapping his head around with a firey look. "Just focus on driving, old man."

This was insane. He felt his foot accelerate the gas pedal, trying to get to the next "lesson" before he forced urine down this girls throat.

"No....you're crazy! Leave me alone!"

Looking back again, he was basically on the girls lap.

"This can happen one of two ways, sugar. You can drink it, or I can feed it to you like a baby bottle. Either way, it is happening."

She squealed. He slammed the brakes on.


She couldn't contain a squeal, even if she tried to bite it back. Her worst fears were coming through. This was some sort of weird fetish and she was the victim. She prayed to God this all just ended, that she opened her eyes and she was in her bed in her apartment with her cat snuggling her.

Maybe if she gave in, he would stop. Maybe if she just did it, he would leave her alone.

NO!

Why was she giving in? Did she have a choice in the matter anyway? No, she had to stand up to him.

But she couldn't fight him off.

Just then she lurched forward, as did he. The bottle spilled a little but he kept a solid grip on it. She watched as her berated and scolded the old man, calling him names like "senile", "idiot" and "traitor." He then turned back to her.

"Here, take the bottle. Fuck it."

He moved back to his seat and got out of the car. What the fuck just happened?

In a way, she felt bad for this man. Did it mean this much to him? My god, why did she feel sympathy? Something in her, a part of her she hated, took the bottle and raised it to her mouth.

Was she really doing this?

As the plastic touched her lips, her inner conflict was raging. Why? Why was she doing this? Why didn't she just run out of the car--he had left the door open. But she sat there. The old man watched her through the rearview, silent.

Just as the first of the warm liquid began to touch her tongue, the blonde man who she had hear the driver refer to as "Chris" got back into the car.

"You don't have to drink it....." He said in a calm tone.

She brought the bottle down.

Phew.

"I don't want you to. I just wanted to see if you would."

She put the cap back on it and handed it to him. He poured it out, and put the empty bottle on the seat next to her.

"I just wanted to see that if in a life or death situation, a situation that you didn't control your own fate, a situation where you aren't expected to come out on top. Would you do what you needed to do in order to survive? Or would you give up, take the L and maybe somewhere down the road you will get another chance? You could have told me to fuck off and said no, and for all you know you'd never have a sip of liquid again and would have shriveled up and died in the back seat of this car. But no, you were willing to go the distance to survive, at least for now-------"

Her eyes went wide. His methods were crude, but what he was saying weirdly made sense. Without thinking, she took the bottle and chugged it, tears in her eyes when finished. The smile on his face was maddening.


Here they were, the bowels of hell. They had stopped in the worst possible place on planet earth. He wasn't even sure this was earth.

Third world countries looked better than this.

"Michelle, your father is a politician, is he not?"

The girls eyes went wide again, and she asked him how he knew that.

"You really shouldn't leave your Facebook open. When I rescued your phone, I saw your name. Quick google search was all it took. So tell me.....your daddy.....where is his jurisdiction? Does he oversea areas like this?"

She shook her head, still in disbelief.

"Umm....we are just outside Atlanta."

Her voice was cracking now.

"I bet you have a big nice, well manicured yard don't you? A couple horses? A pool?"

There she was, crying again. What with it with this bitch? She'd drink pee but can't take a little social commentary on her life?

"I bet your father rakes in the dough exploiting people just like this, doesn't he?"

The girl didn't know what to say. Her lips were stained with her own dried pee.

"But this is a place even Rick Scott himself will never step foot. This place is the bowels of hell. Hades. Just look outside."

As he said that, their car seemed to be gaining interest from some of the locals. They weren't thugs, even thugs didn't go here. This is a neighborhood, just a few short miles from some of the most pristine beaches in the area, that even the director of Saw wouldn't dream up. All of the chain link, it was gone. Chain link doesn't last here. You build something, these people tear it down.

Any time you park a vehicle in Tampa, be sure to do so in an area with security guards, camcorders, and lighting available 24/7. Here, you need a goddamn swat team.

Here, where they are, the poverty rate here jumped nearly threefold from 15 percent to 40 percent over the past decade, the cusp of what's considered extreme poverty. Here is a place where an annual income of $22,314 for a family of four is considered "rich". His thoughts were blurred by the soft carnival music of an ice cream truck slowly cruising down one of the beguilded streets, trolling for customers.

"He won't get many today, despite it being 100 degrees outside" he told the girl, "the ice cream man is just too expensive." Her eyes had a look of shame and sadness. A $2 Popsicle is too much money?

They were located just north of the busy Fowler Avenue and just east of Nebraska Avenue, both of which are high-commerce streets loaded with sports bars and shops near University Mall, and the University of South Florida. This entire strip was a seemingly forgotten patchwork of rusty mobile homes and aged apartments.

Just then, the car pulled to a stop outside of a run down looking trailer with cracked windows and age-old stains on the outside. The grass had grown to halfway up the off-kilter front door. He felt himself choke up. There was a knot in his throat the size of a baseball. All this time, and he is back here.


He remembered when he had first come to meet Chris here. Bruce was an up and coming boxing promoter who worked in downtown Tampa, but was from Thonotosassa, so he had seen his fair share of broke people.

But this was different. Those people were broke, these people were hopeless. He saw Chris choke up, and heard the door latch as the back passenger door behind him flung open. There was a crunch on the ground as his expensive Nike's touched the half dirt/half gravel road. He remembered getting robbed on his way here, at knife point, but luckily never carried and cash on him and wasn't wearing his thick gold Italy necklace that day.

He remembered knocking on the front door--it was rickety then, too--and an attractive blonde answered. What was she doing in this neighborhood? She had a pretty face, a model-pretty face, nice legs and a good rack on her. She also appeared to be around 8 months pregnant. Taking a drag of her cigarette, her voice was soft as linen when she asked him what he wanted. When he asked for Chris, she yelled for him and he came to the door. He still remembers that day, 10 years ago, when he first saw his protege.

Chris walked over to the front door, which was off the hinges. Staring at it, time seemed to stand still. The girl in the back seat had a sympathetic look on her face. He glanced at her briefly, then back to his "patient". Chris dropped to his knees outside the front door and pulled a pistol from his track pants pocket.


As he put it to his head, both himself and the girl seemed to be in a foot race to get to him, but it felt like they were running through quicksand.

He pulled the trigger and Bruce braced himself, expecting blood splatter and brain matter to shower him like an East Tampa rain storm.

Click

Click

Click

The best sound he had ever heard. Music to his ears. As he got within 20 feet of Chris, the blonde spun around, aiming the empty gun at them.

"There aren't any bullets. Figures. But it is nice to see you two aren't afraid to get out of the car anymore."

Bruce felt himself panting, his hands on his knees--elbows resting on the soft material of his designer dress pants. Michelle looked as white as a piece of paper.

"Please tell me this wasn't just a test to get us out of the car."

Chris looked at him with a look he hadn't seen from him in the 10 years he had known him.

"Please tell me this wasn't a test. Jesus H. Christ, Chris, have you gone mad?"

His voice was a more harsh tone than he originally intended it to be.

What he said next sent a chill down his spine, despite the heat.

"Everyone sees what you appear to be, few experience what you really are."

Chris stood up, dropping the gun.

"Michelle.....look around you, you too Bruce. What do you see?"

It took him a second to answer, but he felt his vocal chords retract into a reply.

"A shithole."

"Exactly. This is reality. Not some quest to fight Nazi's or getting really high on mushrooms and speaking to Jesus. This is life.....this is reality. This how people i this country actually live, Bruce."

"So why the gun?"

"Because it could all be over, boom, in the blink of an eye. I have fought for everything I have ever had in this life. The condo, the Jeep, the numerous televisions and granite laden counter tops. But Bruce, the one thing I never fought for........I never fought for these people."

Bruce felt himself looking at Chris, unable to say a word.

"When you knocked on the door that day, you saved me. I didn't know it would lead to what it lead to, but I knew it would lead to something. You were my hero, Bruce. You pulled me out of the pits when I was at my lowest and you taught me to fight--literally--and since that day I haven't stopped fighting. Since that day I have battled tooth and nail to live up to the potential you saw in me 10 years ago. To this point, I feel I have failed you."

This time he could speak.

"You haven't failed me, Chris, you----"

"When I won that Universal Title, Bruce, it was the best day of my life. When I walked out of that chamber, I had finally felt like my life was worth something. I felt like all of the nights I had to eat play-dough because Ramen was too expensive, the nights my mother would overdose and I had to put the narcan needle in her neck myself, the nights I had to ride my back 12 miles round trip just to take a bus to the Dollar Store----Bruce that night I felt like everything that had ever ailed me disappeared. It wasn't about winning, about being the best, it was about feeling like I was actually worth the skin that covered my bones. After being dicked around in Phoenix Wrestling, I felt like I had finally accomplished something other than a report card full of C's and a knack for fighting."

Bruce put a hand on his shoulder.

"Then it was ripped away from me. Ripped away from me like financial aid has been ripped away from this neighborhood. Ripped away from me like the bus station that no longer sends routs here, like the Family Dollar that no longer accepts food stamps because the store would be empty after one neighborhood visit, ripped away like any hope that things here will ever get better. Ripped away by someone I trusted. Gabe Reno didn't beat me. Vinnie Lane beat me. But it was okay, I had been beaten down by those I trusted before. I wouldn't let that stop me. But then, like the cruel hand of every politician who has ever said they want to "help" the less fortunate, I was smacked down by Jim Caedus. I couldn't seem to get over that hump. I felt like the mother who has to support 6 kids on minimum wage because CPS will take her kids if she doesn't work but government assistance reduces because he $18,000 a year is "too much."

The girl spoke up.

"They can't do that!"

"They DO do that. People like your father do that. You have no idea what happens here miss priss, because you grew up with a pool in your backyard. Capitalism and democracy are not synonymous, and the people above don't give two shits about the people below."

She stopped talking.

"I couldn't beat Jim Caedus, Bruce, and it killed me. I hadn't been the same since Lethal Lottery, and this whole thing with Jim.....it made me question. It made me want to come back here, to sell the condo and the cars and come back to this same bed bug infested room and curl up--hoping they'd eaten enough of me to feel numb by the time I woke up."

"Chris, I---"

"Save it, Bruce. That feeling is gone now. That bubbling pool of gaseous shit Blingsteen and that living, breathing Calvin Klein mannequin are going to do battle at the biggest Pay Per View event in recent history for the honor to wear MY belt. Then, I am going to beat Robbie Bourbon to within an inch of his bacon-filled life for a chance to wear it just one more time. A chance I felt I would never get back. A chance I felt was as far away as Beverly Hills from this place. But I know now what I have to do. Robbie says he is going to beat me for an hour, hour and a half even, and lays out in detail what he is going to do to me like the rough draft script of a torture porn movie. I've felt worse, hell I've done worse. He wants to make the people around him better?"

Chris got off his knees and walked towards the car.

"Hero's aren't made by wild goose chases and quirky sayings. Hero's aren't made by beating up the bad guys........I decided to take a little pay cut to prove my point......."

He pops the trunk, taking out a duffel bag.

"Hero's are made by one's willingness to do what it takes in the face of an impossible situation to ensure that the deed is done. A hero simply survives when everything else around it dies. A hero is looked at as a hero because he is the only one with enough testicular fortitude to kill off everything else that poses a threat. Life of death, that is when hero's are made. I am the hero of the XWF, just like you, Bruce, are my hero. I am the hero of the XWF, they just don't know it yet........


Because sometimes........"

He pops the zipper on the bag. It was filled with money......lots of money......and one bullet.

"The best hero's, are the ones who could just as easily be villains."

He takes the bullet and jams it into the gun. Then, taking Michelle's debit card out of her pocket--he must have pocketed it when he retreived her purse--he threw the money into the air like a kid throwing leaves on a crisp fall day. People ran from their houses and scrambled for it, fighting like children for pinata candy at a birthday party. A young kid, no older than 10, approached, a hand full of money. Chris threw Michelle's debit card in the air as well, and this kid just so happened to have it in his hands.

He shoved the gun into hers, and Bruce could only watch on in horror.

The kid looked at them, then picked up a twenty dollar bill before backing away, a stack of money and her card---her livelihood and her lifeline here in Florida---in his hands.

"Set yourself free, Michelle.....do what a hero would do. Set him free......be his hero"

She looked at Bruce with a look of terror, then back at Chris, shaking her head.

"What do you want me to do?!"

"Shoot him."

She yelped.

"Shoot him, Michelle......because he has what is truly yours. Shoot him. It will make you feel vindicated."

"I can't!"

"He is getting away with what you worked hard to earn."

She hesitated.

"Shoot him," Chris's voice rang out again.

Bruce lunged just as her finger impulsively began to twitch.


TO BE CONTINUED