Pink and purplish neon strobed over the black parking lot. Occasionally a guy would go up to the club door, either a furtive loner with hands deep in his pockets or a group of shitfaced guys laughing and braying. I wanted them to get lost; I fingered the sweaty trigger of my revolver, hands trembling slightly.

“Come on. Where the fuck is he?” I whispered under my breath.

I just wanted to see his fat ass stroll out of the club, finish this business, and disappear. It’s not like I’m getting off on this shit.

* * *

What’s really strange and unusual is that I’ve known this guy for a while. We’d be out on the streets of our apartment complex, strategizing and battling each other with plastic action figures. When they put in the new cement for the sidewalks, we’d be daring each other to write our names in. I, stupidly, had written my name in big, bold letters, earning myself a beating and grounding for a month. At night, we’d run around with fake guns, imagining we were agents in hostile territory. All pretty stupid, when you think of it now. Then I hadn’t seen him for ages. When I saw him again, turning a street corner in the city, he was huge, fat, towering over me.

I had spent the years doing jack shit, getting a college degree then working in some shithole cubicle. It was clear, though, that he had prospered. His suit was of some form-fitting soft gray, ride was a Porsche, he had real estate investments, he had a fucking yacht. It sucked. “It’s good to see you doing so well, Tony,” I had said to him.

“I always knew you had a good business sense.” He smiled a strained little smile, like his mouth was constipated.
“And what are you doing?” I bullshitted, tried to impress him.

I basically said what he had said back to him, in different words—investments, property, all that crap. Yeah, right—in another life, maybe. It must have worked, because he gave me a number, asked me to be in touch.

* * *

 I pulled into our parking space, number 319. The asshole next to us was over the line and in our spot, of course. The absurdly massive spoiler on his new Celica, silver and gleaming in the mercury vapor lights, reached skyward like some substitute phallus. I revved the engine of my ancient Accord, tempted to floor it into this kid’s new Celica and emasculate the vainglorious spoiler. I knew the kid—some young hip-hop punk with his hat on sideways, lurking in the parking lot late at night with his friends, sneering and belligerent while he was living off mommy and daddy’s teat. I briefly wondered what he did out here—furtively smoking hand-rolled joints, taking chugs from his Peppermint Schnapps flask, or maybe slanging harder drugs—before realizing I didn’t care. I could kill the punk.

I could hear our baby crying from the parking lot. I walked in the battered brown door and the kid’s shrieks multiplied by a hundred—his face was scrunched up, his red tonsils bared. He looked so much like his mother at times like this. I fought an overpowering temptation to close the door and head back down the stairs. All I saw was the back of his mom’s head, nappy and black, watching TV. “I’m home,” I said, thinking it might be safer to say nothing and slink by. I think I heard a grunt in response under the shrieking, I’m not sure. I slipped past them both into the bedroom and closed the door. I sat on the bed in the darkness, trying not to think, while the baby continued shrieking in the other room.

* * *

All I knew is that I wanted what he had. I wanted it all, not just the shit he owned. I wanted to be big like him, to tower over people merely by my presence, to have charisma, to pull people in and make them my puppets. I wanted to be in control of other people—I wanted control over my life. We set a lunch date at some snazzy ethnic place that I didn’t know existed, but that was only a few miles away from my cubicle. I wore my best suit, to make him think I was high-level, professional. Of course, he came in in a casual collared shirt, khakis, making my gray suit look frumpy and ill-fitting.

He was talking about his various business interests again, ROI, due diligence, cash and carry. The terms he used were incomprehensible to me, but they stayed in my head, luminous and tempting hieroglyphs of wealth. If I could speak his language, maybe I could get what he had. He eventually got around to mentioning his ownership interest in a tittie bar; surprisingly, it was one I used to frequent. How well I knew that dimly-lit interior, the cheesy, rushed voice of the D.J., and most importantly, the girls working there, their names, their prices, and how nasty they would get in the lap dance lounge.

My pulse raced at the possibility of ownership; what sort of power and pull would I have over them then? No longer would I be the trick, the john; now I would be the pimp that they all worked for. My palms grew sweaty with excitement; I wanted a piece.

“That sounds like an interesting business venture,” I said, talking like I do at job interviews.

Of course, I’d never mention my frequent drunken visits to his establishment, the massive amounts I had spent there, probably going directly into his pocket. His eyes briefly flickered—or maybe I’m just imagining that now, in the retelling.

“It is one of my more rewarding and remunerative investments,” he sighed, breathing out softly with his huge lungs.

His voice lowered. “If you’re interested, I can get you in on this thing.”

Our voices lowered and we started “batting the numbers around,” as Tony described it.

I pretended to be considering how much of my vast capital to put in, but by the time we were through, I had put up all of our savings. I thought I was finally going to get my piece.

* * *

“Where do you want to get lunch?” asked Mark, poking his well-coiffed head over the side of my cubicle.

He had small, porcine eyes and a recessed chin; a perfectly bland and unthreatening man, he was also the perfect employee in insurance sales.

“I’m up for anything,” I said, turning away from the gibberish of text on my monitor that filled my waking days.
“Hooters?” I asked, hoping to get a glimpse of silicone-injected female flesh to get me through the rest of the day.
Mark chuckled momentarily, then squinted at me.
“You serious?”
“Why not?” I said, shrugging.

* * *

Our server left with our orders, her thronged ass swaying to the beat of Credence Clearwater. Mark was making an obvious effort not to look at her ass.

“I really don’t feel comfortable eating at a place like this,” Mark said.
“I’m a married man.” “So am I,” I said.
“Married, not buried, though.”

When speaking to Mark, it was best to use clichés. Mark was in sales, and his manner was usually gregarious and expansive. Now, he looked like a pinched and withdrawn version of himself.

“Yeah, I know, it’s just expensive,” he muttered.

Within minutes, Mark’s smile returned and his hands began gesturing. He was back on familiar ground, expounding to me the benefits of evangelical Christianity, to him, his family, and potentially to me. He ended on a familiar note.

“The evidence is all there before us,” he said, his large eyes luminescent with rapture.
“It’s just getting people to take that step of acceptance.” His hands closed together, grasped each in other in warm self-love. I smiled politely, allowing his empty words to wash over me, imagining the particulars of my new investment. Soon, I would be spending my days surrounded by willing, naked women; conversations with Mark would be nightmares of the past.

* * *

“Where the fuck is our money?!” she screamed into my face, her large, equine nostrils flared and spittle flying from her thick lips.

Damn. I must have known that this was coming down eventually; I had just pushed all thought of her back in my mind. I had just hoped she’d never look in that account. I tried to be casual, knowing that that never worked, with her. Nothing did.

“Calm down a sec,” I said, putting up my hands in a peace gesture.
“You remember Tony? Did you ever meet him? No? He’s an old friend, I grew up with him. There’s this business opportunity, to invest…”

It was like her body was on fire, and I was pouring gasoline on the flames. Her eyes widened further and her small hands clenched, preparing to throw something.
“Why the fuck didn’t you ask me?! Why the fuck didn’t you even talk to me about it?! That’s my fucking parents’ money! That was for our house, for Baby Joe’s college education! What the fuck is wrong with you?!”
Her eyes were loose in her head, wet with tears. It went on like that for over an hour. I tried to explain that this was for all of our future, that Tony had made good and so would we, that this was a great investment, etc. She didn’t buy it, of course.

* * *

 Later that same night, I was at Tony’s club. I had had about ten Red Bull vodkas—moving through the darkness of the club was like swimming in an aquarium, surrounded by tanned, perfectly hourglass fish. I just have dim recollections of faceless women rubbing their thighs on my groin. After all the drinks I was incapable of responding, but was also past the point of caring.

“My bitch wife.” I remember saying that a lot.

A face broke through the haze. In a brief moment of lucidity, I could see her wrinkles and her ugliness through the wig and makeup. Her nose was pointed downward, her face was scowling.

“Come on, asshole, it’s $9,278.69. You pay up now or I’ll call that big guy over, he’ll make sure you pay.”

I gave her a sloppy smile, thinking she was joking, my emotional discernment deeply impaired.

“Hey!” she shrieked, motioning to a huge beast across the darkness of the club.

The Russian’s white, steroid-fueled muscles stood out sharply against the blackness. When his face appeared, huge, close-cropped, and belligerent, I knew this was no joke. I meekly handed over my credit card. The nameless stripper left. The Terminator did not. He stood over me, never altering his cold expression. I knew that the card would not go through. I knew that I was in deep shit. I spoke to the Terminator, tried to reason with him.

“How could the bill be almost $10,000?” I shouted over the metal-techno blaring of Rammstein.
“That’s impossible, even at $40 per lap! There’s no way I’m paying that!” I yelled in desperation, trying to take a stance on principle rather than poverty.
“You buy champagne for girls,” was all the Terminator growled in response. Sure enough, she came back, and the card hadn’t worked.
“Hey, talk to Tony,” I said, trying to be in charge but sounding increasingly desperate, even to myself.
“I’m a part owner of this establishment…. That’s the only reason I don’t have the money in that account, I already invested it here! Shit, you can say I already paid…. I should be treated with a lot more respect than this, wait until I talk to Tony!”
“Tony not here,” the Terminator intoned in clipped, guttural language.
“I don’t know what you say.” Without altering his facial expression, he grabbed me roughly by the wrist.
“You come with me.” The stripper leered mockingly as I was dragged away.

* * *

That was yesterday. I had woken up in some random industrial-zone wasteland of highways and concrete, the ground littered with empty beer cans and used condoms. The loud thrum and honking horns of traffic overhead felt as if it was driving over my forehead; I wished it would, to end this misery. My face was swollen and puffy, and one of my contact lenses had rolled around behind my eyeball, swelling up my eye so much it wouldn’t open. The other contact was missing. I stank of urine, not sure if it was mine or someone else’s. I was many miles from Tony’s club. I must have walked, or was dumped.

The night before was a stretch of impenetrable blackness, with only brief, painful flares of memory, consisting mostly of shouted voices, punches to the stomach, kicks to the groin. With the beating and a hellish hangover, I felt like my head and my stomach were going to explode at the same time. Fuck, fuck, fuck. I wandered the streets, empty except for a few filthy, toothless derelicts, who probably looked no worse than I did. I knew I couldn’t go home. At a pay phone, I tried calling Tony repeatedly. A voice would put me in hold limbo, then come back and say he was out of the office. I left voicemail after voicemail, watching as the coins dwindled in my pocket.

“Tony…” I said, trying to speak through my swollen, broken lips.
“Come on, Tony. You must know what’s going on. I am a part investor in your club, and I was treated with complete disrespect last night.” I paused—that sounded wrong, weak.
“Fuck that, I got my ass kicked!” I laughed uncomfortably, or was it a cackle?
“At your fucking club! Shit man, did you even invest my $50,000.00? Talk to me, man, talk to me… My wife wants a fucking divorce, I just got my ass beat at your fucking club! I need that money, goddammit!!”

I slammed the phone down and kept wandering. My tongue ran over my bruised gums, and I realized that some of my teeth were painfully cracked, and it seemed others might be missing. I was shaky, felt like I was going to barf up my entrails, but I still couldn’t go home. I had an ounce too much pride for that.

* * *

I did go home, though—only to get the gun. Luckily, she wasn’t there. Now, I’m nursing the gun close to me, feeling its icy steel power against my numb fingers. My body is weak and bruised, feeling like it wants to roll over and die—at this point it’s a mindless, empty vessel driven forward by the revolver. I’m going to ice that son-of-a-bitch Tony. I can’t wait to set his smug, self-satisfied body on a morgue slab; only that would restore the proper order to things. Fat Tony was probably eating haute cuisine and sipping fine wine with some gorgeous young bimbo, while his henchman almost killed me under a freeway. To think that we used to play together, so long ago; but as they say, people grow apart, and Tony had become an evil, calculating son-of-a-bitch who had just robbed me of my life savings and left me for dead.

That juice monkey bouncer dished out the beating, and he’s there right now, just inside the door. But I don’t want him, yet. I want the fucker who robbed me blind and destroyed my marriage.

“Where the fuck are you?” I whisper again through broken teeth, trying to see through my single bloodshot eye. I feel like I’ve been waiting for hours. There’s a tap on my window. I look up to see Tony, a strange expression on his face. He usually looks completely in control and on top of his game. Now he doesn’t. He looks confused, his brow furrowed and his black eyes inquisitive. “What are you doing here, hanging out in the parking lot?” he says softly.
“And what the hell happened to you?” I try to stay cool, but a hysterical little giggle comes bubbling up beneath my cracked mouth and I can’t stop it.
“Like you don’t know…” I whisper, my hatred of him congealing into hard ice.
“No, I don’t know,” he responds. Is he inching away, or is it just me?
“I was out of town on business, and just got back…”

I can’t stop laughing for some reason, even though it’s totally inappropriate. I must be a scene to Tony, a broken loser lurking in a parking lot, cackling to himself. The jig is up—the jig of pretending to be a winner. Looking back on it now, I think I killed Tony because it all might have been an accident of fate. If he had been purposefully screwing me, I don’t know if I could have done it. He was always a good businessman, just doing what came naturally in the dog-eat-dog business world. But if this was all just random, if he didn’t know anything, then this was all on me. I just couldn’t deal with that.

Hell, I don’t even know if it was his bouncer that had beaten me; the night before was only a dead blackness, without memory.

“Suck lead, bitch,” I say, because it sounds like a cold, Godfatheresque thing to say when you kill someone. Then, through a film of tears, Tony’s head explodes in a slow-motion crimson cauliflower; over the echoing report of the pistol, I can just hear the cries of baby Joe.