Take Me Back to the Start: Part Two

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At the old gas station up town, Charlie was leaning against a large street lamp overwhelmed with purple and green graffiti. Charlie’s body was slumped, out of posture, and his stomach was peeking out of his almost-too-small shirt. His short, chubby arm jiggled wildly as he waved, signaling us he was there. As if we couldn’t see him enough as it is.

“Eric, how the fuck are ya?” he greeted me, punching me roughly in the arm as I stood in front of him.

Flinching at the impact, I said, “Good. We need to get to business if you want to help your friend.”

“Right, right,” he said to me lowly.

“So, uh, Kenny,” Charlie said, looking some place other than Kenny’s face. He always felt uneasy about Kenny. He thought he hated his guts. Kenny didn’t hate Charlie, he was just annoyed by him.

“You drive now, huh?” Charlie asked. Kenny nodded his head.

“Yeah. Where do we need to go to? I want to get this over with, Chuck,” Kenny said unexpectedly. There was boredom on his face.

There was a look of relief on Charlie’s face when he heard the nickname ring in his ears.

“Oh, just here in Tuckerson. By those docks on the waterfront,” he said finally.

On the drive to the harbor, it was silent. My heart raced inside my chest as I sat there and thought the unthinkable things that could go down while we were getting this Richard kid back on his ass. The sun shined brightly through the colored leaves as we turned onto a lonely, dirt road to the docks. The weather today didn’t seem to fit with the situation we were in. It was too happy, too clean, and too perfect.

Just before we were about to pull into the marina, Charlie broke the silence.

“Fuck. Back up, Kenny,” he ordered.

“What? No,” Kenny argued.

“Shit, this is not good. Kenny! Back the fucking truck up, now!” Charlie yelled.

“What’s your problem, man?” Kenny retorted.

“Winston. Winston is here,” he said lowly.

Kenny looked over at me in confusion.

“Winston is no joke, Kenny. Do as Charlie tells you,” I demanded.

Winston was a gang member and drug dealer and he went to our school. Charlie has owed him money for months now, but he kept avoiding it, putting it at the back of his mind. And every time they’d encounter each other, I had had Charlie’s back. Not this time though. I had nothing with me to bribe Winston with to give Charlie more time to pay him back. He was on his own.

“Shit. Shit. Do you think he saw me, Eric? Do you think he saw me?” Charlie asked in panic mode.

I couldn’t say because I didn’t know. Kenny had put the gear in reverse and slammed on the gas pedal. Dust flew all around us as we bolted off at a far enough distance down the dirt road.

“Do you still want to go through with this?” I asked Charlie a few moments later.

He didn’t answer for a minute. I could tell whether he was thinking about which life he wanted to keep: his or Richard’s.

Having the good heart that he does, he wanted to save Richard’s.

“I’m fucking staying here,” Kenny said, chickening out.
I knew he would and I expected him to because I dragged him into this.

“Okay,” I said and turned to Charlie and asked, “you ready?”

He nodded his head yes, even though inside he was screaming no.