Chapter 2: Money Talks

Mature content

Darkness and hazy red lights were the only things that were in the air, disseminating through the room and wrapping itself around me. The smell of aged and beat-up wooden chairs was probably the only scent that filled this place besides the alcohol and perfume that flooded this place like a tsunami. The red lights were like safe lights in a photographers dark room. The dark room that showcased your art and ultimately, your heart. A vulnerable girl graced the stage and reached her hand out, grasping the pole. I watched as she climbed up the pole, ascending to the top of the ceiling,nearly becoming pitch black and invisible. Like a photograph, she plummeted into the liquid below her, twirling and floating mellowly above the liquid. Various shapes and figures settled into colors of black and white. Her darkness turned into something visible, she became an image. With every step she took she unveiled more and more about who she was, I could see her story-the story she was now presenting in front of a bunch of men.

"Woo! Baby turn around!"  Some guy hollered out to the brown-haired beauty as his body  was sprawled out in the chair, looking overly comfortable. I glanced over at my friend Derrick and we both started laughing at the guy. Derrick shook his head, taking out his wallet as he pulled out a few dollars. Hanging out of the side of his wallet was a picture of his wife and 3 children, they were beautiful. He had no reason to be here in this dark, cloudy room with a bunch of women who were nothing but sub-par imitations, while his wife was the real deal, a diamond. I watched as Derrick shoved the money back into his wallet and he yanked his credit card out of the wallet, turning towards the ATM. The brown-haired girl was swaying back and forth around the pole while green paper was fluttering in the murky air.  "I'll be right back" He said as he walked away and I  flipped open his wallet, slipping 10 one hundred dollar bills inside.  Now, I'm not a nice guy by any means but there were moments when I felt like being generous and this was one of those rare times.

My gaze came back into contact with the winsome woman up on the stage, her body moving like honey dripping from a metal spoon being held at an angle. Like wooden chop sticks, her legs were perfectly aligned and straight. It was as if she were some sort of gymnast, I watched her body wind around the pole as her legs were in a 'V' formation. I sat there in the chair,  taking it all in intently.  "Come over here, sweet cheeks!" The wretched old guy called out to her, getting closer to the stage.

 A smug smile traced itself across my lips, the brown-haired beauty was giving him no attention. She swung herself around on the pole, facing me as she stopped dancing and her heels reached the ground. A wink flashed from her right eye, and she bent over slightly, blowing me a kiss,resembling a dainty little fairy, or perhaps a mermaid,she was like one of those silly exotic creatures people believed in. "Yeah, finally!" The guy shouted out from behind her while he stood there with his jaw nearly touching the floor.

The brown-haired beauty ambled along the arduous stage, before vanishing behind the curtain like a magician. "That was the last girl for the night. Closing time is in an hour!" The bartender shouted out from behind the bar. Derrick stood up, throwing on his jacket , swinging his head back as he finished the drink in his glass. "Well, I'll see you around man" Derrick said to me and I nodded.

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The air outside of the club was just as dusky as the air inside the club. Something felt strange and somewhat familiar to me, it was a feeling I had experienced not too long ago. All my life I had been hiding, yet here right now it was impossible for me to be invisible. The moon's intense radiance was shining down on me like a targeted spotlight that couldn't be evaded. No matter what moved you made, left or right, up or down. The moon followed you like some kind of skilled assassin hiding on top of the building with their rifle aimed right at you. The aroma of cancer, asthma, bronchitis, and soot filled my nostrils in the most devious way. A trail of smoke was rising up from a  girl's mouth, slithering into the air like a snake. Although she was standing at an angle with her back to me, her silhouette was distinct and prominent. My eyes trailed along her body, slowing down at the glimpse of her legs. Tone and sleek, like the legs on a model she stood there taking in the poison while sharing it with the rest of the world. Without her even turning around or moving closer to me I knew exactly who she was, the brown-haired beauty.

Gray and fierce, her eyes eyes met mine, feeling me out without even daring to blink or look in the other direction. There was some questionable force that stood between the two of us, a repulsive attraction. "I'm an exotic dancer not an object" She said quickly, with her voice as sharp as a knife. "And?" I asked her, with my eyes glancing over her once more. "What do you want?" She questioned me, as she took a drag from the deadly poison hanging out of her mouth before convulsively throwing it at the ground. White clouds of smoke flashed in front of me as she released a toxic yet slightly seductive ambiance into the air. "Who said something was being given?" I asked her and she remained silent, biting her lip and looking away from me. "No one said that. And you're not getting anything from me, I'm an exotic dancer not a prostitute" I frowned after she said that. "You blew me a kiss-" I mumbled before she cut me off. "That was for the performance. I would never give myself up for money!" She retorted. "Oh please! Look at you and your baby face, you know nothing about life. I've been around longer than you have sweetie, I've seen it all. You're already dancing half naked on stage for a bunch of men...All it takes is a price. Money is a powerful thing and money talks. What's it going to take? 100, 1,000, 10,000, 1,000,000?" I said to her while staring at her intensely, letting her know I was serious. Her body tensed up and she crossed her arms looking up at me. "What do you want from me?" She asked again, nearly pushing her head back into the filthy looking wall that stood behind her. I knew I had her right where I wanted her, she was mine-for now.

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Warmth and satisfaction were infusing  the inside of my car, yet my mouth felt cold as I sucked in my breath. The brown-haired beauty had her head in between my thighs, following  the motion of a yo-yo. She  was causing a shuddering vibration to emanate from within her mouth as she hummed "Mmmm".  I interlaced my fingers into her feathery brown hair and clasped onto it, dominating her every move and establishing the pace until she made me too weak to hold on any longer. "Do you like that?" She asked, while looking up at me insidiously. I didn't say anything to her, there was nothing that needed to be said as she took me over the edge and into a euphoric trance.

She knew what she was doing, and she did it well-almost perfectly. She looked  up at  the rear view mirror, examining herself and smoothing down her hair that I had just tousled and muffled up with my hands. Her fingers slid over the trench coat she was wearing, straightening out any crease that might've gotten into it. I pulled myself together also, and slid the money on the dashboard. It was questionable whether or not she really had never done this before, or if she was just astonished over the amount I gave her. The warmth from her hand gracing the back of my neck felt inflicting. I looked at her and she simpered, leaning in trying to get our lips to connect. "Hey! Don't try and kiss me, that's not even necessary" I said insolently, looking at her like she had lost her mind. I had no idea who this bitch was, I didn't know if she had herpes or some other strange disease. One could say that was a dumb excuse considering what I had just done with her and that is true but, it was just too awkward to kiss after everything that just took place, it wasn't like she was special to me anyways. "Well...What do we do now?" She asked me and I shrugged at her. "Go our separate ways" I said with my voice dragging on, trying to get rid of her. "I need to get to the train station...I don't have a car. Is it possible for you to drive me there?" She asked. I sighed, rolling my eyes and locking the car doors, starting the car and cruising off towards the direction of the train station.

This girl knew how to move her mouth in many ways than one, she didn't know how to shut the hell up. She rambled on and on about college and tuition and all of her financial issues, while I sat there remaining silent. I hoped she would get the hint that I didn't care but she just kept going and on and on. As a child my mother always told me to never bring home a woman that wasn't worthy enough of being introduced to her. Even though she was no longer here physically, I could feel her presence around me, I could feel her watching me and shaking her head at me, I could feel her haunting me and condemning me for the things I had done and the things I was doing lately. If she were the raindrops that fell down in the sky, she would actually be holy water, falling down from the sky and cleansing people of their sins. There we were bolting down the street like a comet, swift and cold as rain drops began cascading through the sky. "Slow down! You're going to pass the train station!"  Sometimes I wished I had a heart, and wasn't as cold blooded but that would never happen. I slammed the breaks rigidly and she yelled at me. "What are you doing?!" I looked her in the eye, showing no remorse. "Get out" She looked at me, perplexed. "What?" She asked me, and I sighed tapping the dashboard with my hand. Tap tap tap! "I said get out! Tu no hables Ingles puta?" I said as I unlocked the doors, reaching over towards her side of the car and opening the door. "Bu-but it's raining!" She protested. I didn't care, I pushed her shoulder and she quickly jumped out of the seat like a cat, slamming the car door shut. Bam! "Bitch!" I muttered under my breath as I careened off onto the road, leaving her on the side of the street in the cold and misty rain. Screech! I heard her voice but couldn't make out what she was saying. In my rear view mirror, a brown-haired beauty stood there in the middle of the road with her mouth open, screaming incoherent words and moving around mercurially as the rain seeped into her hair, her clothes, and the pores on her skin. The tip of her middle finger was the only thing salient and still on her body, and it was stark like a knife.

Chapter 1: Sentimental Sorrows

Dedicated to, Theodor

A picture is worth a thousand words, that was the motto of my life. The sun was  looming over the horizon even though the sky was about to grow dreary and all that sunshine would soon fade away. My toes were at the edge of the pool and I looked down at them. It reminded me too much of my own life, living on an an edge, and when you fall over the edge you're in the deep-end drowning. I look out at the sky, wondering what's behind those clouds, those birds, that blue color that was almost a backdrop, what was behind it all? My mother, my father, and my brother were all up in the sky, looking down at me right now.  They probably thought I was one lucky bastard, I cheated death many times even when death was right in front of my face. They all took the fall for me and still to this day I wonder why it wasn't me instead of them, anybody but them. Sometimes I wished I wasn't alive, I wished death would just come and take me. I deserved it, all they ever did was try to steer me in the right direction but I was too damn stubborn to listen, and they died because of me.

 I begin to feel my eyelid twitch as I can see a painful memory all too vividly, this was a memory that marauded my mind all the time. Hanging around the wrong people is what leads you to find your own father in the bathtub, surrounded by crimson liquid. Even though I had it all now, I never did back when I was growing up and that was my blessing and also my curse. Having nothing made me work harder, it made me do whatever it took just to be successful in life. I turned around and looked back at my house, laughing. All the lying, stealing, murdering, drug dealing, all the lies , and all the pain, all of it somehow led to this. I didn't deserve to be here, I was an outsider here. I was probably the only Latino in this neighborhood yet I don't think anyone noticed because I looked nothing like one. I barely had an accent even though I spoke the Spanish language pretty damn well. My mother named me the most American name ever even though it was technically Latin, Adrian.

The water from the pool was moving around in a slow tumble Swish swish. I was always different, even back in the barrios of where I'm from. Knowledge was everything to me and it still is. Although, I hung around the wrong people and ended up joining a gang, I still knew the mathematical equations of a circle and always had my head buried in a book and that was why things were always difficult for me back in that town. People who lived in shitty neighborhoods like I did, weren't expected to graduate so no one gave a damn about anything, really. I was one of the few, that actually cared and my 'homies' always gave me shit for it. I always ignored their snide remarks and insults  because, unlike them I was 2 steps ahead of them- I always had plans for the future. I've always been very perceptive, seeing the bigger picture behind everything. Everyone in that town was just re-living the same life, the same destiny, and they all had the same fate. It was all a cycle: You join a gang because someone in your family was in one, you end up dropping out of highschool and end up doing things you never imagined you would...Just for money. You look at the little bit of money you make off of drug deals and others silly things and think it's the best thing in the world yet it's still not enough to move your family out of that impoverished shit hole. And in the end you either end up dead, or in prison and this dreaded, and daft cycle repeats over and over again.

I slouched down in one of the chairs outside, dumbfounded. No one in that town ever woke up, and realized the bullshit but I did. Everyone was so ignorant and that's why I hated living there. They were all so scared to break the mold and be different so instead they all became robots- dressing in the same colors, proclaiming loyalty and a bunch of other stupid shit. They actually believed getting jumped to be initiated into a gang, somehow equated to love. And when you try to leave a gang, they come after you and sometimes they try to kill you, yet all the people back in that town believed that was some glorious and amazing thing. They even believed white people were the cause of all of the problems in our town, they looked at them as the devil and it sickened me. There was barely any white people back in that town and they were kind of looked at as jews, sometimes the hatred was so strong that it actually reminded me of the Holocaust in a way. The white people weren't the cause of our problems in the community, we were- yet all the people there couldn't see that, it was just pure ignorance. Self-worth was what made me realize I was better than that shit. Self-worth was what made me realize that it was all just a big facade and nothing was real about it.

I used my brain and graduated, but as soon as I turned 18 I fled that town, I left my family, I left the gang, everything- no one knew where I went. I got a plane ticket and went to Miami and that was when I got to where the real money and power was-drug trafficking. If there's two words to describe that life style it would be : Lavishing and lonesome.  Now don't get drug-trafficking and drug dealing confused, although they can be looked at as the same thing, they are two totally different life styles. Drug dealers are the kind of guys that hang around on a corner and come home with $800 a night or sometimes even less. Drug traffickers on the other hand, are almost invisible, sometimes they're driving boats across the coast, transporting drugs from one place to another, it's much more serious but you can make about roughly 12 grand in a week-if you're smart. Instead of looking at customers sorry faces and hearing their excuses for not having the money, you're looking at guys dressed in suits, guys that have gold guns and henchmen that aren't afraid to end your life. It's a glamorous and exciting joy ride but at the end of it all you really end up becoming paranoid and alone.

Trust and friends are two things that just don't mix in that kind of life. Anyone is willing to turn their back on you at any moment and I learned that the hard way, nearly dying. Three guys were on top of me pinning me to the ground, with an enormous blade. They tried stabbing me to death but they fled the scene once they got the news that one of their distributors was being set up. Blood was spilling out of my wounds, yet I managed to make it to a hospital even though they left me there to die. That day isn't forgetable, I have a huge scar on my chest because of that day and surprisingly enough, I had only one scar on my face despite all of the things I've been through. 

I walked into the house, the sun was nearly behind the moon now. This place was new, and pretty much a bachelor pad yet I never invited anyone over here. It was too risky to have people over, not to mention the fact that I also had guns  in my bed room- as decoration. This was a new beginning for me, I had money now-too much money.  No one knew I was here, in New York. I looked over at the end table, my neice and my sister were hugging eachother in the picture I had taken of them when I was 17. It was a shame how she didn't let me see her, and it was Easter yet here I was in this big house all alone. I couldn't blame her though, even though I somewhat cleaned up my life, she didn't want to risk anything especially since everyone around me always seemed to drop like flies. I concentrated on my sister who was smiling so much in the picture, she always was happy even though we didn't have much but don't let her smile fool you, she was stubborn as all hell. I tried to send her money, I tried to help her out, I tried to help her escape that little hell hole of a town but she refused to take my money and called me every word in the book. I wished she would stop shutting me out, I was only trying to help her and the last thing I wanted was to see my neice end up in the cycle, I wished she would see that it wasn't about her, it was about her own god damn daughter. Sometimes I wonder if things would be different if I had kids of my own but that was too risky, and I wasn't exactly a role model- I would never want my future kids to do the things I did, I wouldn't even want them to know about the things I did. Maybe it was time for me to do something totally different, like go to college- I had the money for it- or was I too old for that now?

My stomach growled, and I shook the thought of going to college out of my mind and I walked over to the kitchen. The cabinets in the kitchen were empty, I really needed to start buying some food. 

I slipped on some shoes and headed outside. My Lamborghini was still in the driveway where I left it. It was black just like the color of my heart, I got inside and started driving down town. The drive was long and the roads down town had a whirlpool shape. 

I'm pretty sure everyone could hear my music as I drove through the town and into the parking lot, it felt like my heart was thumping in my chest as I was driving but it was just the music. I finally arrived at my destination, the liqour store. I got out of the car, locked it and began walking as fleetly as I could. I bumped into a man with hair that was so long it looked like it actually put a strain on his neck. Normally, I would keep walking but this guy stopped me dead in my tracks. "Sir, I can tell you have a very-very dark soul...God loves all, please repent now and read this. Oh! Here take this too!" He said to me while handing me a little pamphlet with a bunch of doves on it and a christian music cd. Who the fuck did he think he was?  I really wasn't in the mood, I never talked to anyone so why would I want to talk to this Jesus freak. "Listen man, I would really appreciate it if you'd leave me be-I'm not in the fucking mood" I said sullenly, hoping he would get the picture but nope, of course he didn't.

The man kept going on and and on about Jesus and hell, almost as if he thought it would make me petrified. I had seen way too many messed up things in my life to be scared of his little hell speech. I was about to lose it any moment until I was totally caught off guard. Some girl with blonde hair came running from a building nearby, it was a church. She dropped some pamphlets on the little table they had set up and looked at me with her big grey eyes. She rushed over to me and pulled me into a hug. "Oh God! It's okay-Jesus loves you...We all need love, we love you! Repent! Repent! Get on your knees and repent!" The girl shouted in a mumble as her face was planted up against my chest.

These people were fucking lunatics. They were trying to help me but in all honesty I truly believed they were the ones that needed help. I hated when people got close to me, emotionally and physically. My blood was boiling and I pushed the girl off of me, grabbing her by the neck and holding her out to the side, still gripping her neck. "Daddy! Help me this guy's gone mad!?!?!" She yelped while squirming around trying to get away from me. I gave her father an evil glare, he was about to come over and do something but then he stopped dead in his tracks. "Now you listen and you listen good rubia (Blondie), if you ever see me around here again you better not try to pull that Jesus shit with me again other wise I'll slit your throat,I can find your whole family and have them all killed..I swear to God-you better not try me. And that not only goes to you-that's for all of your other little Jesus freaks too" The air felt colder after I said that, perhaps the coldness of my blood had somehow radiated into the air.

I let go of her and she collapsed,falling to the ground with her glassy eyes. I darted back towards my car, and I could still hear her ragged and exasperated breaths as her dad fell on his knees, comforting her. "Oh God! Why must people be so evil?" She bellowed.  As soon as I got in the car I sped out of there, not wanting any of them to even get a glimpse of my license plate number.  I knew what I did was wrong but I had no intention of actually hurting the girl and I honestly didn't even care. It was better that she learned that from me, rather than someone else who might've assaulted her right then and there. I had no care in this life, I had nothing to lose and people were just merely objects to me-annoying ones that talked and had emotions that just got in the way of everything.