Possibly No Next Time

Episode 2:
Jeremy Barr

It wasn't the first time that he had owed someone money.  Although even Jeremy Barr himself would admit to having a sense of somewhat twisted honor, it was still a sense of honor.  He didn't borrow money from anyone who he might want to call a friend the next day.

Obviously, Wes didn't count, as Wes didn't so much lend Jeremy money as nail it to his hand.  It burned like physical contact with half-finished blown glass, so he avoided it whenever possible.  Wes earned his money by busting his anatomy building houses and fixing them.  Jeremy bussed tables or washed dishes wherever anyone would take him.

There was no comparison.

All this mental self-examination served only one purpose: to distract himself from the fact that this time, he owed too large an amount of money to the wrong people.  The game had seemed a sure thing off and on, although nearer the end, it had been much more off than on.  And then the damn shortstop had broken the toggle switch, and Jeremy had been too panic-sickened to keep up the metaphor.

At a time like this, it was a good idea to lie low.  Bookkeepers didn't like him any more than they'd liked his father, but there were a few that had an in for him in particular.  Loan sharks, though, they liked him.  A little too much at the moment.

He always stayed clear of the apartment complex after a heavy loss, as a rule.  This fact had quickly made it into his reputation, effectively protecting his friends and neighbors.  Thugs were simple.  They apparently didn't like going places they knew wouldn't involve punching their target in the face.  ...Not easy to deal with, but simple.

Jeremy ducked into an alley for the sake of sensationalism, and because someone had been looking a little too hard at him.  That someone was an old Asian lady about half his size, but she'd had a glare that rivalled Celesse's when her ire was up.  He also really really needed a cigarette, and there were too many people around.

His hands both shook as he took the beat-up, nearly exhausted pack of Midnight Specials out of his back pocket.  He dropped the cigarette five times before he finally managed to get it lit and take a long, mildly satisfying pull.  The stench of a nearby and very full dumpster did a great deal to ruin the experience.

An unexpected gust of wind whipped past his ear and made him jump, not quite startling enough to make him drop the cigarette that was fast becoming a dog-end.  He clung to it like a drowning man to driftwood, then took refuge next to an old refrigerator box.  It was slashed up, supposedly with a box cutter, but it was better cover than nothing.  Even in a deserted alley half the length of a city block, he felt like a wounded gazelle out on the veldt.

Realizing that he was perhaps a few seconds away from smoking the filter, he dropped the cigarette butt and squished it whilst obtaining another.  Only one left, not good when he felt as if it would take a crate to keep him from running up and down the alley wall.  He almost wished that the gang of thugs he'd been expecting for the past three days would just hurry up and find him so he could take the beating and be done with it.

His mind screamed the word 'almost' for thirty seconds as dark shadows crept up to melt into his own.  They were familiar shadows, cast by men whose names were more familiar than some brand names.  Thugs, at best, came in twos, at worst in fives.  His luck must have been middling, because this time there were only three.  Vargas, Kulitz, and Setter.

He stuck the dog-end behind his ear, careful to avoid setting his dull brown hair to crimson fire, and just blew out a trail of revealing smoke.  They had to know he was there anyway; little sense in crying and hugging the refrigerator box.

Sure as pudding, the widest thug, Setter, who wasn't Irish and looked more like a wolf than a dog, thudded menacingly into view.  He ripped the box away, leaving Jeremy feeling ridiculously naked, in spite of the fact that he was wearing two shirts and a windbreaker.

"Uh...hi."  It wasn't the smoothest thing he'd ever said, and he was aware it had competition.  "Listen, I--"

It didn't really matter that he hadn't thought out his speech, Kulitz ended it with a swift uppercut to the solar plexus.  Jeremy's eyes teared up and he doubled over, too winded to cough.  As soon as he hit the ground, he knew he should curl up and protect his liver and other valuable blackmarket-destined organs, but he couldn't manage it straight off.  A shiny dress shoe he didn't know a label for connected painfully with the tender area just above his hip, twice.  Then a meaty hand fisted in the collar of his shirts and he was reminded of elevator-style lightheadedness.

When he was able to open his eyes, his world was full of Setter's large, many-times-broken nose.  "We been lookin' for ya, Barr."

"I'd..." Jeremy coughed, just barely keeping it from turning into a cultivated hack.  "So I guessed..."

"Where's the money?"

"Did you try the bank?"

That idiotic remark earned him a wind-sailing trip into the same alley wall he'd been previously using as a comfort.  How quickly situations shift, he thought acidly.  Then there were a few moments in which the only thing he could think was "ow", as he was again lifted to his feet only to meet with a left hook to the side of his head.  The ground, his new best friend/worst enemy,  slapped him with as much vigor as whoever was hitting him.  He was getting a bit disoriented and it was all he could do to keep hold of his own name.

Then the world went from muddy to blurry and full of color as he was dragged...somewhere.  Probably a car.  He was sitting now, and the seats felt nice.  The holes in his jeans allowed him to decide they were leather.  If this was going to be his Final Ride, at least it was in the BMW.  He thought of his father and hoped that he wouldn't get saline in any of the cuts he could feel bleeding down his cheeks.

Outside of his bubble of fear and increasing agony, he could hear air conditioning and a couple of mouth breathers.  The driver had the radio on.  Johnny Cash.  As blood crusted in his nostrils, Jeremy joined the mouth breathers, hoping that none of the thugs would take offense at the squeak in his breathing and deliver a violent response.  Worrying about it only made the squeak more frequent and higher-pitched.

Then the car stopped and he came as close to wetting himself as he had since his childhood had ended.  It seemed the only thing that kept him in moderate control of his own body was a few fleeting memories of a smiling face teaching him sleight of hand and poker at the same time.

A crunching noise made him squeak in a completely different way, but a quick swishing of his head to take in the scene around him, and he was afforded the luxury of feeling like an idiot.  He'd been led into a lounge, curiously devoid of sycophants, but full of mob boss.  Giannelli.  The large Italian man was dressed in a similarly Italian suit and eating asparagus spears louder than any normal person could aspire to.

Jeremy was pushed forward, but then yanked back before he could ram into the desk and bleed on the boss's fresh greens.  He was tempted to try another clever speech, but reminded himself how the last one had turned out.

"We had an agreement," the boss said, as if life had melted out of Jeremy's head and pooled into a world that was only a video game.  He looked down at himself to see if he'd gone polygonal.

When he was satisfied that he was still fleshy and most likely sporting a few very real broken ribs, he realized that Gianelli had gotten through his own clever speech and was waiting for a stumbling reply.  Jeremy cleared his throat and swallowed a gob of bile.  "I'll have your money, just give me some ti--"

Someone, Kulitz, most likely, backhanded him into Setter.  The illogical part of Jeremy's brain, detached and bored, was getting tired of this treatment, but he knew that throwing a punch at anything in this room would get him killed.  He hadn't earned a Final Ride, but that didn't mean he wouldn't.

Crunch.  He was spun around, to be subjected to another clichéd mafia speech.  This time he kept his answer short and what they wanted to hear.  "Right.  I'll just get on that then."  Inside, his anger was rising, and he was imagining choking someone.  At this point he didn't care who, as long as he dished out some hurt.  He kept his wobbling gaze on Gianelli, waiting for the wave of the be-ringed hand that would send Jeremy thrown out onto the sidewalk.

Gianelli was midwave when a woman built like a dark-haired Barbie doll strutted into the room.  She spoke with a piercing voice that Jeremy would swear made dogs whine, and seemed to be talking about her hair.  She didn't even glance in his direction, something he couldn't help understanding.  The understanding stung more than the shunning.

After a while, the thugs either tired of her joy over whatever had been done with her hair, or they had slowly interpreted her entrance as a synonym of the hand-wave.  Whatever their small minds were processing, Jeremy was dragged across the thick carpet and into the hall.  As they approached the big glass double doors, his ankle caught on something and tugged him free of Kulitz's grip.

Obviously mistaking this as an escape attempt, the big man yanked Jeremy off the ground with so much force that his sneaker popped off.  That hurt his ankle more than the pull hurt his arm.  Something in his head said Enough, and he began the dumbest fifty-six seconds of his life.

First he used his momentum and topmost layer of clothing to swing out of Kulitz's grip, and then he was a flurry of movement.  He expended more energy than he could possibly have, punching, kicking, biting--attacking so blindly that all he was aware of were the blows he was dealing and the strikes he was fielding.  In a split second of clarity, he was able to see what he'd done and be horrified, but then it was over and everything went black.