What we get, boss?

You meet up with Eric at the Walmart parking lot further up the hill, and he joins you in your subcompact. He’s a tall thin guy with a hipster beard who looks like he could pass for a skinny Charles Manson but for the ridiculously intelligent look in his eyes. You wouldn’t really call him a friend - if you’re honest with yourself, you don’t have any - but he’s a stand up guy and a consummate professional. Kinda fun to hang around with too as long as you don’t get him talking about politics. Communists talk a big game about wanting to rise up and seize the means of production, but outside of a handful they wouldn’t know what to do with it once they did. Mostly it’s just anti authoritarian rhetoric, just a skewed as any other political ideology.

Counting out the take with rubber gloves on isn’t easy by any means, but better safe than sorry. You quickly separate cash from checks and charge card receipts and pack the loose paper into one of the bank bags along with all the deposit slips. It seems that Christmas has come early. After the split you pocket about three grand. This wouldn’t have been nearly as successful on a week night if it weren’t the holiday season. Eric takes the empty bank bags, and on your way home you drop the one stuffed with paper in the night deposit of a completely different financial institution.

Beth is sleeping when you get in, and you quietly strip off your disguise, mustache and all, and after a three minute shower, crawl into bed next to her and cuddle up. Sleep finds you quickly as you lay there listening to her soft breathing.

Thursday goes by pretty quickly. Beth is gone by the time you wake up, and when you go to brush your teeth you can see that she somehow wrote “I Love You” in fire engine red lipstick on your forehead in such a way that you can read it clearly in the mirror. You can’t help but smile at the admittedly slightly odd romantic gesture.

Before you know it night has fallen and you’re pulling into the parking lot at Sugar Daddy’s. It’s a total dump, with a flickering neon sign that hums in the icy air. Your Toyota shares the lot with a couple beat up pickup trucks and a handful of diesel rigs, all but one of which is running with a trailer. The truly conspicuous item however is the single Harley that’s parked by the door in what would be a handicapped spot anywhere else. Considering that it’s about 25 degrees, that’s one dedicated biker. You approach the door and suddenly stop as you see, dressed in a black hoodie with a huge gold chain around his neck, the bane of any con man’s existence. Someone who knows you.

Elwood “Kitten” Runningdeer isn’t what you’d call a friend. Or even an acquaintance. The appropriate label is “high school bully” or more specifically “one of the reasons you dropped out”. He’s not as tall as 16 year old you recalls (back then he looked more like a shaved grizzly bear than a teenager) but he’s still a big fuckin’ guy, topping 6’4” easily and probably tipping the scales at about 400 lbs. He’s the epitome of what Mom used to call a “BFI” (Big Fuckin’ Injun... Mom was never one for political correctness), and he regularly made life hell for you when you were younger. Of course you scored a little payback before dropping out. You sure hope he doesn’t remember you or the fire that you started in his locker (or the saline you poured into the flask he kept, or the mothballs you put in his gas tank, or the five 15-year subscriptions to gay men’s porn mags you signed him up for with a stolen credit card... yeah, you were a bit of a prick).

It’s been almost 30 years and you’ve filled out considerably, you look a hell of a lot older, and you no longer hide in the nearest trash can when you see that goddamn Sasquatch. The fucking Earth Wookie barely even glances at your ID, collects your cover, and you’re in the dark enclosure of the tittie bar.

This place stinks. The usual smells of sour stale beer and pungent ancient cigarette smoke (even though it’s been illegal to smoke inside for damn near thirteen years, the smell never really goes away) combine with the odors of sour stale semen and pungent ancient pussy to produce a unique bouquet the like of which you pray never assails your olfactory senses again. You head for the bar and order a fifteen dollar draft beer in a plastic cup. You’re just scanning the room and pretending to enjoy the beer when an update pops in your peripheral vision.

20:15 12/5/19 - Profile unlocked: Christine Amanda Anderson