Venomous Fate

If Charlie’s shit for brains uncle had been working that night it would have been just another Friday night. But the lazy bastard decided to call in sick, and now here we are. Funny how shit can get started from the tiniest changes, ain’t it?

Anyhow, Charlie, Lobo, and me walked into the Grab and Bag to get some beer just like we did on every Friday night. But tonight Greg, he’s Charlie’s uncle, wasn’t working and that Arab asshole was filling in instead. Charlie got the idea that he would sell us beer just like Greg did, so he strolls up, pretty as you please, and puts a twelve of Bud on the counter. The camel monkey immediately asks for some I.D. and Charlie says, “I don’t have it with me, but will this do?” and hands the guy a five. The dude goes through the roof, starts cussing us and saying he’s going to call the police. Then he throws us out and says that if we ever come back he’ll report us. I didn’t know what else to do so I threw him the finger and then slapped Charlie in the back of the head.

“Good going, asshole. Now I can’t even get my smokes.” I told him. He just shrugged and handed me one of his.

With nothing else to do we just started walking around. Lobo wanted to go over to Lisa’s house, but Charlie and me didn’t want to sit outside while he got a quick feel, and Lobo had too many people after his ass for him to go walking around by himself. All the sudden this pizza delivery geek came screaming around the corner, and damned near ran Charlie right over. He parked in front of a house up ahead of us and ran up to the door carrying his pizza. To this day I still don’t know who’s idea it was, but next thing I knew we were in the car, driving down the street with the guy chasing us on foot.

So Charlie’s driving since he was the only one who really knew how, Lobo’s in the front seat, and I’m in the back with the pizzas. We’ve got the radio blaring, Charlie’s running over every mailbox in sight, and I’m handing out slices of pizza. Then Lobo opens up the glove box and it just fell into his lap.

We all reached for it at once, but Lobo got it first and starts pointing it out the window and acting like he’s Al Capone or something. I told him I’d trade him a piece of the pepperoni I had been keeping for myself for it. He said he’d just take the damned pizza if he wanted it, so I punched him in the back of the head. He turned around like he was going to point it at me and I grabbed it out of his hand. He tried to wrestle it from me for a while, but he’s such a lightweight, I didn’t have any trouble keeping it from him. So finally he just snatched the pizzas and sat there sulking in the front seat.

With Lobo out of my face, I could look the thing over more closely. It said on the side that it was a Lorcin .25 acp. It was small, and totally black. I had never held a gun before, but this one felt good in my hand. I pulled back the slide like I had seen on TV and a bullet fell out. I was rummaging around in the floorboard, trying to find the damn thing, when Charlie came up with his brilliant plan.

“You guys know what would be really great?” he asked as another mailbox flew over the hood.

“If Jimi would quit being such an asshole, that would be great.” Lobo said. He was still pissed, I guess, about me getting the gun.

“No,” Charlie said as he slapped Lobo a good one. “We should go back to the Grab and Bag and get some beer.”

“Hey Einstein,” I said, “weren’t you with us earlier? We already tried that and the shit didn’t happen.”

“Well of course it didn’t work when all we had was money and my good looks. But now we have that.” He turned all the way around and pointed toward the pistol in my hand.

“Are you totally fucking nuts? You want to go to jail for a case of beer?” I stuck the gun in my back pocket, as if by keeping it out of sight the idea would leave his head.

“Come on Jimi, you really think they’d put a bunch of fourteen year olds in jail for snatching a few beers? If the rat bastard snitches on us, we’ll just say he sold us the beers and now he’s trying to blackmail us.” Charlie always was the smartest of us three, and I have to admit it sounded like a good plan.

“Ok,” I agreed, “but I get to hold the gun.” Charlie had run off and left me in a couple of fights before, and I didn’t care for the idea of trying to hold up a place while the guy with the gun shagged ass down the street. And then there was Lobo. They didn’t call him Loco Lobo for nothing. Stealing some brew was one thing, but I didn’t want to be sent up for accessory to murder.

So we drove back to the Grab and Bag and walked in the door just as pretty as you please. The rag head didn’t even look up, so Lobo went back to grab a case of beer and Charlie and I walked up to the counter. That’s when the dick looked up and started yelling in gibberese and reaching for the phone. So I pulled the gun out of my back pocket, pointed it at him, and told him to shut up. But he didn’t shut up, he just kept yelling and pulled a gun out of his waistband.

I didn’t know what to do. His gun was a lot bigger than mine was, and he looked like he was ready to use it. I don’t even remember pulling the trigger. I just remember the little pop the gun made, and the spot of red that appeared above the fucker’s left eye. Then he just sat back down on the stool and died. Nothing like the movies. No thrashing around or cursing me, he just went limp.

Well, Charlie just went total ape shit and ran out of the store. I’m sure he would have left me and Lobo there if he hadn’t dropped the keys on the way out. By the time he came back in to get them, Lobo had grabbed the cash from the register, along with the raghead’s pistol, and was pulling me out the door. So I jumped into the front seat and Charlie took off while Lobo was still trying to drag his skinny ass into the back.

None of us said anything for along time; Charlie just kept driving around. Finally, more to break the silence than anything else I told Lobo to pop open a beer for me. After that it was like we couldn’t get Lobo to shut up.

“Man, you sure showed that fuck!” he slapped me on the back like he was congratulating me or something. “Pop! Just like that, right in the fucking head. You’re a regular Jesse James.” Then he started pointing his pistol, the one he took off the dude I shot, out the window. It was a big revolver, the kind you see the cops with on old movies. You know, like that “make my day” guy. Then we turn around a corner and the shit just started falling on our heads like rain.

Charlie was the first to see Jesse walking with his little sister and, being a dumbass, he pointed him out to Lobo. Jesse was the starting linebacker on the high school team and the only thing he liked better than football was stomping Lobo’s ass. So Lobo’s been waiting to get the upper hand on this guy since like the third grade and now he had the chance. He just leaned out the window and fired that big pistol twice.

The first shot missed and took out the big window and a big screen TV at Ed’s pawn shop. But the second found its mark, kind of.

Lobo missed Jesse, but nailed Jesse’s twelve-year-old sister right in the chest. This time it was just like in the movies. The bullet just picked her up and threw her into the wall. I don’t think she ever felt it hit her. She just folded up on the sidewalk, dead as all hell.

The only problem now was the fact that at the next light, watching the whole thing was a cop who was already on the lookout for our stolen car. We didn’t even know he was there until the lights started flashing and he was coming straight down the street for us. Charlie tried to turn the car around to go the other way, but Charlie wasn’t that good of a driver. He ended up parking the damned car on top of a fire hydrant and we weren’t going anywhere. The cop stopped in the road and got out of his car with his gun in hand.

I guess that was the first time that I felt like the shit wasn’t going to go down very well. If we would have just gotten out of the car like he told us to, maybe things would have been different. Maybe if it had just been me and Charlie in the car things would have been fine. But you could always count on Lobo to stir shit up. I don’t know if he did it because he was scared, or if it was just because he was that big of a dumb ass, all I remember is the glass shattering as he took a shot at the cop.

Lobo couldn’t shoot for shit, they never did find the bullet he shot, but that cop was dead on. The first shot hit Lobo right square in the face and it was all over for him. The second went all the way through his throat and ended up stuck in Charlie’s spine. I guess you could say it was all over for Charlie then too, the prick hasn’t moved anything but his mouth since then. But he’s done plenty of damage with that mouth anyhow.

Now I’m not real book smart, but I’m not an idiot either. I threw the gun I had out the window, put my hands up and didn’t move a muscle until the cop told me to. I knew I was in trouble, but I didn’t realize how much until two weeks later when I actually walked into the courtroom. You see my family doesn’t have money, so I end up with this fresh out of school public defender that couldn’t give a shit whether I ever see the light of day again. Charlie’s family on the other hand has money out the ass. He ended up with a real hot shot lawyer who had cut him a deal with the prosecutor before he was even woke up at the hospital. Only problem was that the deal depended on Charlie sticking it up my ass and breaking it off.

Like I said before, Charlie had left me holding the bag in a couple of fights before, and this was no different. By the time he shut that mouth of his, I was a criminal mastermind. Turns out that the gun the pizza guy had in his car was hot, so he tells it like we stole his car at gunpoint. Charlie goes right along with the story since it looks better for him if he can say he only stole the car because he was afraid I would shoot him with the gun. The best advice my lawyer can give me is to plead guilty so the court will go easy on me, great advice that turned out to be. So now I’m sitting in this little cell, and I’ve already done two weeks of the twenty-five to life that I get to spend in here. Like I said, funny how shit can get started from the tiniest things, ain’t it?