Chapter 1: Junkies Don't do Paperback Business
Some may say this man hung around fast food restaurants or Big Lots parking lots like they were his home, but he would say that it pays the bills. Dairy Queen often spoke to him on a spiritual level. McDonald's was where the business made money though. Coming to him and asking for a Big Mac would get you the hookup guaranteed. Coming to him and asking for a BK Bacon Burger would get you the shitload. Coming to him and asking for a chicken sandwich would get you a dis. This is not the type of man to fuck with. This was not the type of man to sell you meat with lettuce and tomato, this was the type of man who'd sell you meat with the buns. But he liked lettuce and tomato just between the top bun and his meat. If it were between the bottom bun and his meat, you're in the shits with him.
But right now he was the man who wanted to enjoy his Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese as he sat in the parking lot of a Big Lots store. Every bite he took pleasure in. He liked his with exactly two pickles and a thickload of mustard. It was somewhat satisfying to see the mustard and grease drip from the burger and land on the wrapping paper. In a way of words by he who speaks: This was fucking great.
He took another bite of the burger and a shine captured his glance in the rearview mirror. A black SUV swiveled around behind him. The windows were tinted and it's bumper had a Colorado license plate. The SUV drove past the passenger side of the car and did a u-turn in front, stopping with the diver's side right next to his window. The SUV's window lowered and revealed a man with long, mangy hair that reached down to his neck, a beard that looked as if it has been unkept for about a month, tempted shades over his eyes, and a ragged leather jacket. There was a vigorous smile upon his face with yellowing teeth. The man in the car lowered his window to see what this other man had to say.
"Hello, sir, how are you?" The voice sounded slightly slurred, like he was still recovering from a hangover.
"What is it?" asked the man in the car.
The SUV man's smile widened. "A friend recommended me to you. I'm here for some of your famous, Calvarien shit."
The car man scanned the SUV man's face for a moment. "Everyone is wantin' the 'Calvarien shit.' But they never tell me what kind of the shit they want. What do you want? Do you want the shit, the bullshit, or the assload?"
The SUV man used a finger to lower his shades to the tip of his nose. "I love the sound of the assload."
The car man opened his glove department and brought out a ziploc bag full of EpiPens. He showed it to the other man. "You get the assload at purchase. Now you can have one for twenty, three of these for eighty, or the whole damn bag for a pound."
The SUV man's face disappeared under the window, as if looking for spare change. His face popped back up with a stack of money in his hand. The SUV man handed it to the car man through the window. The car man counted every bill thoroughly, and when he finished counting, he counted the stack again to make sure.
"You're still about two hundred short from the whole bag."
The SUV man's smile faded just as he spoke: "Sorry, I don't have that kind of money on my person. Would you take something in exchange?"
"I don't do exchanges, man."
The SUV man's face lowered under the window once more, leaving the car man to sigh in frustration. The SUV man popped back up with a toy Hot Wheel car in his hand. "You can have this one of a kind model car for the price of a bag of heroin."
"Keep your fucking voice down!" The car man looked around to make sure that no one was anywhere near the two drivers. He leaned in closer, nose edged just out of the window. "That's a fucking Hot Wheel car. I said it and I'll say it again: I'm not fucking going to make any exchanges."
"Hang on there, I think I might have something else for you!" He disappeared into the car again and popped back up holding a VHS tape.
"You can have this twentieth anniversary edition of Richard Simmons' Sweatin' to the Oldies: Vol. 2!" He wavered the VHS in the car man's face.
"Son of a bitch! Do you not listen! I'm not taking an exchange! Now, you can have a few for this price, but that's it!"
"Hold it partner, I think I may have one more thing you might like. Ever gone to Disney World?"
"Son of a fuck, man!" was all that he could say before the SUV man, once again, disappeared into the car. This time he came back up wearing a green witch mask and a Mickey Mouse cap. And he was singing.
"It's a tiny, tiny world..." he danced in the SUV, bumping on the steering wheel to match the beat.
The car man let out frustrated sigh and pointed at the other man. "Listen, fuckass, I want you to get this straight, you do not have enough for the bag." — throws stack of bills into SUV — "Take you money and fucking leave." The SUV man continued to dance. "Man, if you do not fucking leave right now, I will —"
Pfff
Blood exploded from the car man's head and onto the passenger seat, a few drops hitting the window along the way. The SUV man sat holding a suppressed gun in his right hand, thin strands of smoke filtering out of its barrel. Without hesitation, he drove forward a few feet, trunk to trunk. He stepped out, mask and cap still on. After getting a closer look at the inside, he found that the blood made a much larger mess than he anticipated it did. No worries, he was going to be out of here in a moment.
He opened the car door and took the bag of EpiPens. There were slight twitches coming from the body, but by poking it you'd find nothing but death.
The only thing left to do was find the other bag. The man looked in the glove department — nothing. The man looked in the corpse's pockets — a few crispy hundred dollar bills. He pondered for a moment, then an idea came. After some struggling, he managed to lift the seat the corpse was on, and sure enough, the lottery bell had been rung. Several crumpled up ziploc bags had been hiding under the seat. He took every last bit and hid them in the pockets of the inside of his leathery jacket.
He lowered the corpse's seat back down and took notice of something. A stiff smell was in the air. Something that smelt rather... delicious. He didn't notice it before, but now he did — on top of the dashboard was a paper McDonald's bag. He looked in it to find two more burgers: a Quarter Pounder with Cheese, a Big Mac, and to top it all off, a large fries. He took the bag and left and returned to the SUV which still had the door wide open. After closing the door, taking off his mask and cap, and placing the burgers on top of the glove department, he met eye to eye with a glaring and disappointed lavender pony.
"You didn't have to kill him, you know!" she said, just as the man closed the door.
"Hey, he wouldn't share his toys. I was only reminding him to show some nobility next time."
"There won't be a next time because he's dead! You killed him! You shot him in the head, Mike!"
Mike exited the Big Lots parking lot and began driving down the road. There aren't very many cars on this street. Not a very busy road. Mike would say that he's in the clear.
"Are you listening to me?"
"Yes, I hear you, Twilight. You're yelling in my goddamn ear."
"Because you killed him! You could've just bought a few and been done with it — better yet, don't buy any drugs at all!"
Mike pushed his sunglasses from the tip of his nose and back between his eyes. "And live a life without fun?"
Twilight's nostrils flared. She place a hoof between her eyes in a way of frustratingly pondering something. She spoke just a Mike rounded up to a red light. "Okay, look, you're going to get yourself killed one of these days."
"— and when that happens you won't have to deal with me anymore and I won't have to deal with you anymore, so I say, 'Fuck yes to death.'"
Twilight this time facepalmed (facehoofed, as how she and Mike would put it) herself. The light turned green and Mike drove forth. He picked up the McDonalds bag.
"So you want a burger?"
Twilight glared at him in the eyes once again. "I don't eat meat. I'm a vegetarian."
"Suit yourself."
Mike took out the Big Mac, opened the box that held it, picked up the burger, and took a huge bite. "This is a tasty burger," he said. "If only I stayed long enough to see if he had any beverages. Then I could maybe wash this down." Still holding the burger, he pointed at the bag. "You've ever try their salad?"
Twilight looked out the passenger window, trying to hide her discourage for him. "You brought it home one night and then passed out drunk. It was the only thing you had around the house that I could actually eat."
"I got it just for you," he smiled. "Even told them to not add any meat. They're real keen on that sodium level, you know."
The car went quite. Any source of a topic for conversation was eliminated from the air. All that was left to do now was make it through the ongoing traffic. After awhile, the silence got awkward and Twilight interrupted it.
"So did it come with fries?"
Mike looked at Twilight, still driving straight. "Sure it did!" He reached into the bag and when he did, he caught something in his eye. He glanced at the back seats and noticed a car seat, on it laid a baby rattle. On the seat next to it laid a journal opened to a drawing of a house in bright, pink crayon and colored in with green marker. He looked at Twilight.
"So whose car is this again?"
Author's Note
Although this is different from what I write now, I do plan on picking this back up soon. Right now I'm just trying to rework the overall plot because the original one I had planned was crap. That said, I probably won't be rewriting this first chapter anytime soon, but I might change some dialogue and/or sentences that I don't like.
