Too many cigarette butts. I needed to clean them up, but all I could do was look at them sitting there in the ashtray. A few dishes in the sink, nothing major. It was only me in my house so I didn’t see the point in fussing over it at all. I sighed as my ribs cracked and I made one of those instant coffees that never hit the spot. I was a lazy prick like that sometimes. I knew there was coffee at the clubhouse, but I had this morning habit down pat so I made my own. I let my teaspoon clink around in my mug which had rings around the top of it from overuse. While I listened to it clink away, my phone rang. “Shit and bricks. Couldn’t call later could they?” I muttered grumpily under my breath. I picked up my battered cell phone and answered the phone in a gruff manner. “Who is it? Can’t I enjoy my morning cup of coffee?” “You can go right back to your coffee once I’ve spoken to you. You’re lucky you even get to drink coffee,” a cutthroat voice answered on the other end of the line. “Derek, what the hell do you want? We’re finished, and I ain’t got nothing else to say to you,” I told him simply, putting my cup down as the contents splashed out onto the side of the bench. Now I was even more pissed. Not a great start to my morning. Derek was the reason for my delay in life. The reason why I went to prison for a decade when it should have been that nefarious prick. Every time I thought of him and what happened back then it made bitterness course through my veins. “We’re finished, that’s for sure, and I wanna keep it that way. This is my annual check in to make sure you remember not to say shit to nobody. You gotta get that through your head and I’m here to just keep you on the right track.” “I don’t know why you’re calling me. I’ve served my time and paid the fee I owed you and then some so don’t ever think for one minute you can call my phone and do shit to me,” I issued the warning back to him.

Talking to him made me want to get my knife and sharpen it on his throat. “Let’s not get touchy. You just stay over there with them pitiful Guardians that you’re hiding behind and mind your manners. What’s left of them anyway. I hope you didn’t meet too many Bubbas on the inside. You’re not that big a guy.” A hurricane was building and it wasn’t on the outside. If I ever saw Derek again it would be too soon. I wanted nothing to do with him and that botched up robbery from years ago. It was a part of my past that I wanted to keep deeply hidden under the floorboards never to be brought up again. “Don’t call my phone again. You’re blocked from my life. We don’t have any more dealings together and we won’t ever.” I made my point loud and clear as I pummeled my fist into the vinyl countertop making more of the tawny liquid in my cup jump out. “Fine by me,” he said with a twisted arrogance that made me hate him even more. My worn out phone clicked dead from the dial tone and my hands shook, not from being scared but from anger at this man’s sheer gall to call me up after all this time. I changed my number so many times I’d lost count since I got out three years ago, but he managed to get a hold of me and I didn’t know how. I looked down at my phone which was shot to shit and realized that I could do with getting a new one. Another opportunity to upgrade my phone and eliminate the murky corners of my old life. I went to prison because of that bastard. He told me I would do less time because I was younger than him. I slipped my dark brown hair behind my ear and kept drinking my coffee. He lied to me. I ended up doing ten years for a botched break- in with the sucker. “I can’t do time.

I’ve already been in. Please. You’re the one that got the lead on the house. I helped you access the other places. Please. I can’t do the time. When you get out we’ll pick up where we left off.” He pleaded and begged me to take the fall and all because I looked up to him and he taught me the tricks of the trade. I believed him when he told me he would look out for me… I thought I would do six months and that would be it. That was the wrong thing to do, believing him. I should have stayed away from him. We typically robbed rich houses back then. People who wouldn’t miss anything and sometimes didn’t even know we’d been in there. This time we got a rude shock because the family who lived in their rinky- dink high society house were home. They were sleeping in their beds and we weren’t prepared with any weapons. We thought we had a clear run at the house. I didn’t go all the way in. I waited on the outskirts for Derek to do his dirt. When that light clicked on and we tried to run we got the shock of our life as the man didn’t back down. He shut the doors on us and the security alarms started ringing around the house. We tried to run, tripping over the cords in the middle of their plush living room and I ran my hip into the edge of the couch. I didn’t have time to cry out. I was too busy trying to get the hell out of the place. “What the fuck are you doing in my house!” A large, bellowing voice followed us and Derek managed to get the front door open and I got to running, too. Obviously we didn’t answer the man back.

An imaginary knife twisted in my stomach as I recalled the stank memory. That night burned in my brain cavity for so long I knew every single step and movement that was made during the night. Derek ran like the little bitch he was and got away out the front door with me right behind him. I was up there in the bitch ranks, but we’d been caught red-handed. The slip up came because they got the plates to the car I was driving – which was stolen. I was a real menace to society back then. I grew up around criminals and I didn’t do anything about it. Derek wasn’t seen, I was. The man only saw me and not Derek which made the situation even worse. The cops came in a hurry the next morning to collect me and cart me off to jail. Derek made it clear that if I said anything about my involvement he would have to let the cops in on the details of the other robberies that I was involved in and it would be a tattle tale affair. “You should shut your trap. I got too much dirt on you. All them times I covered you for getaways. I got the times, dates and locations. Oh yeah, don’t think I forgot none. I didn’t forget shit. I kept that for a rainy day, like today. How about that?” The sneering is what did me in. Like he was waiting to pin me. Derek had saved me a couple of times from being beaten up and I guessed that he thought that was enough to get me to turn myself in and do ten years for him. Draining the dregs of my coffee I moved off from the bench holding up my weary bones, slid on my patched jacket and got ready to head to the warehouse. My Harley was waiting for me. She had a nice shiny, maroon chrome finish. Pretty much love at first sight when I saw her at the Harley Davidson store and I’d had her ever since I got out.

Cost me a pretty penny, but what I never told Derek was I managed to stash some of the money from the robberies. I might have been a naive twenty something, but I wasn’t that dumb about my money. That little pocket change gave me enough to set myself up when I got outside those hellish prison walls. I picked up what I came in with which was a plastic baggie with a bunch of silver quarters in it, my Swiss army knife and two sticks of Wrigley’s gum. Tried to chew it but the shit was stale and crumbled right in my doggone mouth. Spat out the cardboard real quick. Shit hot that day in Santa Fe, too. Had to hitch a ride into town which I didn’t want to do. They probably thought I was a bum and truth be told I was a bum at that point. “Where you headed?” A trucker stopped on the way as I held on tight to my canvas knapsack. “Somewhere where I can eat for ten dollars.” That’s what I told him and the trucker let out a chuckle and winked with conviction. “I got just the diner for that. You’re gonna have a nice meal for eight. Hope you ain’t no killer. I see you’re walking from the Santa Fe prison.” The trucker eyed me and cast his eyes back to the road. I let out a hoarse chuckle. “If I was I would have already slit your throat. You’re safe with me, don’t worry about nothing.”

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