The dark blue sedan sat in the far corner of the empty parking lot. Inside the car, Kenny Stone finished his last cigarette and flicked the butt out the window. He\u2019d smoked the entire pack in the previous 30 minutes. Emily would be sure to mention it when he got home. The scent would be terrible, and he\u2019d told her he quit. He\u2019d just have to make her understand.<\/p>\n
His thoughts turned to the duffle bags in his trunk. He felt an irrational need to climb out of the car and make sure they were still there, but he managed to resist. No need to be any more conspicuous than he already felt. He just wanted to get this part over with and get home to Emily.<\/p>\n
As though summoned by his thoughts, his cell phone buzzed. He fished it from his pocket and saw her name on the caller ID.<\/p>\n
\u201cHey, what\u2019s going on?\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust wondered when you were going to be home,\u201d she said. \u201cThought you\u2019d be here by now.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, sorry,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m just running a couple of errands and then I\u2019ll be there. It might be late though.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat kind of errands?\u201d she asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust doing a favor for a friend,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cOkay,\u201d she said. \u201cIs there a reason you won\u2019t tell me exactly what you\u2019re doing?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, not at all,\u201d Kenny said. \u201cIt\u2019s\u2026really, it\u2019s nothing honey. I wanted to make us a little extra money, so I signed up as a driver for Uber.\u201d<\/p>\n
Emily was silent for a moment, and Kenny felt a knot form in the pit of his stomach. He hated lying to her, but the truth would make things worse. Peter, a friend he met at the Hochatown Saloon, offered him the job. Simple work for easy money. Show up with the bags. Hand them over. Get paid and then go home. Don\u2019t ask too many questions. If things worked out, he could do it again as needed.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou don\u2019t need to take extra work,\u201d Emily said. \u201cWe\u2019ve got everything we need. I\u2019ve told you that before.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah,\u201d he said with a laugh. \u201cLiving in a shitty apartment, scraping together groceries from Dollar Tree, and putting stuff in hock to make sure we can pay the bills. We\u2019re doing great.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we are,\u201d Emily said.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou deserve better than that,\u201d Kenny said. \u201cHonestly, you deserve better than me.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cStop it,\u201d Emily said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s true,\u201d Kenny said. \u201cAnd you know it\u2019s true. Your family sure as hell knows it\u2019s true. They\u2019ve always thought so. You can see it on your dad\u2019s face every time he asks about work. He thinks I\u2019m pathetic. Your brother too.\u201d<\/p>\n
At the moment, he had a job doing maintenance for the local branch of Southeastern Oklahoma State University. During the school year, that meant doing basic janitorial work, things like vacuuming classrooms, scrubbing toilets, and emptying trash cans. In the summer, he\u2019d be stripping and waxing floors, and steam cleaning the carpets. It was the sort of invisible work that the world needed to function but rarely deemed fit to acknowledge.<\/p>\n
Emily\u2019s father seemed particularly annoyed by the fact that his daughter was married to a janitor. He loved to ask Kenny when he planned to \u201cget a real job.\u201d He even pulled him aside before the wedding and informed him that if he truly cared for Emily, he would break things off and let her find someone who could properly take care of her.<\/p>\n
There was an unspoken understanding that their disapproval was also tied to his record. He\u2019d been arrested a few times. Once for a drunken brawl and a handful of arrests for DUI, one aggravated and one felony that landed him a brief stay in jail. He\u2019d also been required to enter an inpatient treatment program as a part of his probation. The judge warned him that any future trouble would land him back in prison. It was something Emily\u2019s brother liked to bring up from time to time.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know what?\u201d Emily said. \u201cTo hell with them. I love you, and I\u2019m happy with you. That\u2019s all that matters to me. Besides, it\u2019s not like they\u2019re working big, important jobs. Just office bullshit.\u201d<\/p>\n
He felt the sting of tears welling up and squeezed his eyes shut, willing them to remain dry. Despite his best effort, a few escaped and trickled down his cheek. He irritably wiped them away and took a deep breath to regain his composure.<\/p>\n
\u201cI made a promise, remember?\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The pair met in high school, back when Kenny still believed that anything was possible and that someday they\u2019d shake the Oklahoma dust from their feet and never look back. Back before his mother got sick and had to quit her job. Back before he dropped out of school to start working to pay her medical bills. Back before everything went to shit.<\/p>\n
One night they\u2019d gone out to Beavers Bend. They built a bonfire on the shore and drank cheap beer until early in the morning. At some point, they started talking about the future.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m gonna get us out of Idabel,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ll take you around the world and let you see it all. That\u2019s a promise. You wanna drink wine in Paris? Lounge on the beach in Mexico? Go snorkeling in Hawaii? We\u2019ll do it all.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t care where we are, as long as we\u2019re together,\u201d Emily said.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re just saying that because you\u2019ve never thought you could go anywhere else,\u201d he said. \u201cBut I swear I\u2019m gonna take you everywhere. Maybe we\u2019ll even buy a little place on some Caribbean island. You can drink out of pineapples and lounge in a hammock every day.\u201d<\/p>\n
All these years later and the furthest they\u2019d ever traveled was on their honeymoon. They\u2019d been married at the courthouse, just the two of them. Emily\u2019s family refused to attend. Kenny\u2019s mother had passed away, and he hadn\u2019t seen his father in 20 years. Besides, Emily insisted that she didn\u2019t need a big wedding, though he always suspected she\u2019d wanted something better. Just another area he\u2019d let her down. When the ceremony was over they went to Shreveport for the weekend, blowing a little money on the penny slot machines and dancing to the house bands that played the local bars.<\/p>\n
That was all about to change. After this job, he\u2019d put a little money in the bank, pay off their debts, and maybe even have a little left over to take her out for a nice dinner. A few more jobs like this and maybe they\u2019d be able to get away for a weekend, go down to Galveston and see the ocean, or explore the River Walk in San Antonio.<\/p>\n
Thinking about it now, he felt a faint twinge of excitement, a flicker of that old hope that had been smothered for so long. Which is when he noticed the car pulling into the parking lot and driving toward him.<\/p>\n
\u201cHey, honey, I\u2019ve gotta go,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m about to pick my passenger up.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOkay,\u201d Emily said. \u201cI hope you\u2019ll be home soon.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI will,\u201d Kenny said. \u201cI love you.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI love you too.\u201d<\/p>\n
He hung up the phone and glanced back at the approaching vehicle. In the distance, two more pulled into the parking lot. Red and blue lights began flashing as two officers stepped out with guns drawn.<\/p>\n
\u201cGet out of the vehicle with your hands in the air,\u201d an officer barked.<\/p>\n
Kenny closed his eyes and began to laugh.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It was a simple job. Just an evening of work and Kenny Stone would be on his way. But nobody gets out of Idabel that easy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18994,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fiction","writer-shaun-jex"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18233"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18233\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18995,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18233\/revisions\/18995"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18994"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}