Roger’s Story

It was a simple plan, like they say in those movies I can never remember the name of. Jules and Jason and me, well, we weren’t totally straight when we came up with this, but it sounded good, and seemed fairly safe. Besides, we needed the cash.

Jason handled wholesale. He had a friend who could get coke at a good price because he knew someone who knew someone who was bringing it in from Canada. We would get a fresh shipment about twice a month, and well, it was pretty good stuff even though you had to figure everyone was stepping on it a little, but we never got any complaints about it being spiked with fentanyl, so it’s not like anyone was being harmed, right?

Jules and I handled retail. We’d cruise the clubs Downtown, look for a bartender with a friendly face, and let them know what we had available. Well, that wouldn’t be me, that would be Jules who approached the bartenders; she’d size them up while they were sizing her up and I suppose they felt she was pretty safe and thought they’d have a shot at her later. Jules always said we were solid, she was just letting them look. I believed her, but then again, I was never really sure.

Last night we were at one of our regular clubs and this guy wipes out our inventory for the evening with a single buy. At first we were a little worried he was a narc, but he looked to be high already so we didn’t worry too much and decided to celebrate. We had a few drinks and then walked out of the club to go home.

Next thing you know, Mister Big Spender appears out of nowhere all agitated and such and starts going on about how he fucked up and didn’t mean to spend so much cash, and as he hadn’t even sampled the product yet could he have his money back? Well, I thought the guy was acting pretty weird like he was drug paranoid or something, and was thinking of just giving him his money back, but Jules had the cash and she’s like “No fuckin’ way, what do you think this is, Amazon with free returns?”  And Mister Big Spender keeps getting weirder and yelling louder and grabs Jules by the arm and damn if she doesn’t pull a gun out of her coat pocket and says “Fuck off!” And Mister Big Spender says “No, you fuck off!” And then Jules shoots him right in the face, and even though it looked like a little gun it was only six inches from his face and it did a lot of damage, and then he fell backwards.

Well, I’ve never seen a dead person before other than at a wake, but he had to be dead with a chunk of his face missing like that. So, I said to Jules, hey, since this is a head shot we could make it look like a suicide; why don’t we just wipe your prints off the gun (that’s how they say it on TV) and put it in his hand and get the fuck out of here? And Jules says no that won’t work as she bought the gun at Sportsman’s Warehouse last month and it’s registered in her name and I’m like “WHAT THE FUCK you’re a drug dealer with a registered gun are you completely out of your mind?” And Jules is like “yeah, maybe, but I think you like it” and I’m like “yeah, I mostly do, but I think you’re just going to get us killed” and she’s like “well buster, too fuckin’ bad, get out of my face or I’ll shoot you too.”

I don’t know where that “buster” came from, must have been from some old movie she saw on FreeVee.

Emilie’s Story

I woke up with water streaking across the Greyhound window. Last night’s downpour had become a persistent morning drizzle, keeping everything wet and muddy, with clouds that blocked the sun and prevented any hope of drying out soon. I looked out into the murky countryside and could not avoid replaying the events of the previous evening.

What was Henry thinking? He was impulsive, but not a criminal by nature. Yes, we had argued about money often, and most recently about his spending our rent money to score some coke, but I was not quite done with him yet, and would have preferred to stay with him for another year or so. But after that last argument he stormed out of our apartment and apparently returned to the club, located the dealers, and followed them outside, demanding his money back. Why would he do that?  How could it have turned out any way other than wrong?  The preliminary police report said one of the dealers shot and killed Henry.

The rational part of me knows it’s not true, but yet I feel somehow responsible, as much as if I had pulled the trigger myself. Sensing my time was over in Pittsburgh, I packed what I could in relative haste, headed for the bus station, and soon boarded this bus for Chicago.

Roger, Again

Yeah, I knew Jules was a bit crazy, and things have been pretty weird lately, but threatening to shoot me, that was just too much. Plus, I suspect she’s already hooking up with Jason and like half the bartenders in Pittsburgh. So last night I grabbed my shit out of our apartment and got on this skanky bus to Chicago.

Now, I’m sitting here with wet muddy sneakers watching the rain and my feet are starting to smell, but you know, that girl across the aisle looks kinda interesting, cute and not at all crazy like Jules but just a little sad or depressed or something, and maybe I’ll check her out and see what happens once my shoes dry out a bit.