The winter was coming to a close and the potholes caused by the continuous scathing of the snowplows were abundant all over the roads of the small town. Bonnie looked at me. I knew the look and exactly what it implied. I took my cigarettes out of my left pants pocket and withdrew two from the pack. I put them both in my mouth and grabbed her orange lighter. Bonnie had an awful habit of canoeing her cigarettes when she lit them whilst driving so I lit both and passed one to her.
“Thank you very much, kind sir,” her faux-British accent coming out as it often did.
“No worries madam” I mimicked her impression.
We inhaled the cigarette smoke, with each pull allowing the deep breaths to relax us. Jazz played in the background as we sat there in her car driving to one of many destinations that would be covered tonight. Pothole after pothole approached and Bonnie swerved every time. There is something about potholes that makes me excessively uneasy, the control of being behind the wheel eases the uncomforting feeling, however sitting in the passenger seat with every bump comes an uncertainty that causes my fists to clench and requires another inhale of nicotine to settle me again.
Bonnie and I were heading to make a delivery, money was becoming tight again and this was the only way to make it back quickly. I wasn’t proud of what I was doing for money but career’s always seemed like a 21st century invention to me and I sure as fuck did not want one, because as much as I was ashamed of my work I loved what I did and there was no one I’d rather have as a sidekick. We were a team and fucking great one at that.
“Is Buck coming out or are we going in?” Bonnie asked
“We’re going in.” I responded
“I always feel so uncomfortable in that shithole”
I laughed “Yeah I know, he’s not all that hygienic but we’ve been pals for a while so I guess it’s just a respect thing.”
“Yeah I know, I know. Just feel like I’ve gotta be careful what I step on incase I catch something”
“I mean, don’t feel obligated to come in, I can go in on my own if it’s really going to be an issue for you”
“I might just do that…”
If this were anyone other than Buck, Bonnie would have been right there and she only let me go alone to him because I knew him. We had rules when it came to business and this was the only exception. There was just something about Buck that irked her. She had an issue with cleanliness although her car was a total fucking dumpster that reeked of subtle vanilla and cigarette smoke. I loved that car. She’d named it Chloe long before we met and if an inanimate object could have suited a name better you’d be hard pressed to find it.
One of the things about living life the way we did, on the lam, always on the lookout and having to duck undesirable folk was that it took its toll on you mentally and physically. I was tired, not in the sense that I needed sleep, it was more like if you picture yourself in a horror film and being constantly chased to the point where the mental torment becomes too much and you feel like your only way out is to stand there and wait for the inevitable, like it would almost be easier to let the worst just happen. If it weren’t for Bonnie I often ponder on whether I would take that route.
We all want the best for ourselves, we have these ideas of a perfect life and it’s envisioned in our heads and we strive and strive to reach that perfection. A nice car, 2.5 kids a white picket fence and golden retriever, or maybe your idea of perfection was something different, an apartment, 2.5 girlfriends, a fifth of bourbon and a Persian cat. Whatever it is, people give up their lives to reach these goals. They spent the best years of their lives waiting on the best years of their lives and fail to comprehend it until they are middle-aged and realize that life is never going to live up to their expectation of life. The problem with humans is that they think they are the be all and end all of existence when really they are as insignificant to the universe as dust particles are to humans. Time is the most valuable thing we have and we throw it away chasing pipe dreams and baby footsteps. These were the thoughts that planted themselves and unfolded like ivy on the side of a brick apartment building and this was the particular one that stretched out into my subconscious as we approached Buck’s house.
“Alrighty then, care to pass me the stuff?” I asked Bonnie
“Yeah, give me a second”
Bonnie uncapped our last bottle of tequila and poured 50ml into a vile. Tequila was our business. Years ago while spending time in Mexico I had uncovered that farmers down there had stopped planting Blue Agave plants; its nectar being one of the key ingredients in Earth’s finest icebreaker. Blue Agave plants took 12 years to grow and you had to care for them like an infant in ICU. Farmers decided that it was no longer worth their time or effort to stay in the Tequila business. A lot of them sought out work elsewhere, but mostly they just experienced life, instead of existing for their plants their plants existed for them and they held some of the rarest and most expensive crops in the world. Well I made this discovery early and set out to obtain as much of that nectar as I could. I knew that America would be stocked for at least a year before they started to realize how sparse the liquid gold was. Naturally I couldn’t wait that long so I leaked the news to the press as soon as I had my hands on as much Blue Agave as I could afford. Basic economics took into effect and the demand for tequila skyrocketed and what should have taken a year, took 2 and a half months. Bonnie and I became the only ‘Jose’ dealers in our entire county.
Bonnie passed me the vile and I stepped out of Chloe. I’m unaware of the scientific name of what I felt as I approached the front door of Buck’s dilapidated heap of a one bedroom studio he called home, but I knew there was one. I heard singing. The painful yet, soaring melodies of Jeff Buckley’s Lilac Wine. I knew the song well, my stepfather had played it too me many times before. I stepped up onto the porch and looked around, a full 360º. He lived in 35 minutes away from us yet it seemed like bumblefuck nowhere. I knocked twice. Loud. No answer.
“Fuck it” I mumbled to myself.
I opened the door and immediately was hit with the unbearable stench of what could only be a dead human. It’s a smell that stays with you forever and one that you can recall to mind at any point. I turned around and immediately vomited all over his porch. I took out a small vile of cologne I kept on my keychain and doused it over my handkerchief; I put it to my mouth and stepped inside.
It was dim. The stench tried to protrude through my handkerchief but the cologne blocked the worst of it.
