Enter Valasco Rolez!

Part 1 of 7 of Valasco Rolez!

Written by Kiefer Lee

Edited by Alexander Taylor

There was a bitter and acidic taste permeating in the air, the piss he was spraying throughout the room added nothing to it. He stood at the end of the mattress with his toes tucked underneath, and his shins pressed against the edges. There were papers spread out in a pile on the frameless bed. They were written in large print and made demands of him, each punched and signed with deadlines looming just over the horizon. He only grinned as the black ink was washed out in yellow. 

With a crack and a cheer from the television in the other room, he zipped up his pants.

He dislodged his toes and stumbled back to observe his own fascinating handiwork. 

Next to the leaking mattress was a metal lunchbox with crudely scribbled pornography and gore marking over the factory design. He couldn’t help himself but to stop and stare for a moment. A week ago it was brand new. A week ago he was on a straight path. He reached down and pulled it out from the spreading puddle. 

His neck bent sideways as he glanced back and forth from the mattress to the lunchbox and smiled at his own undoing. Then he dug his fingers under the metal, and ripped the box open, breaking the tin latch and stuffing his fingers inside. He dug through a rotting sandwich to find his prize. The lunchbox clattered to the floor.

Triumphantly he raised the half-empty bottle to his eyes and swirled it around, then tilted it against his lips. It creased down his tongue and he shivered with a sense of familiarity, then found himself shouting with alcohol still splashing on his tongue.

“I am Valasco Rolez, I am and have always been my own man!” He choked, wiped his face off and clenched his empty fist. “I will not be held down like this.”

While pouring more into his mouth he stumbled from the bedroom into the living room. Wood panels on the walls were stained with splotches of brown and orange. His greasy clothes were thrown across the couch, counters and kitchen table. As the television came into view, he was in sudden attention, mocking and mirroring the pitcher’s stance he saw before him. In synchronized timing he chucked the bottle into the screen, breaking the boxset on impact. 

Above it, the clock had already been cracked open. The refrigerator was hanging open and its contents were left spewed on the floor. A hutch left by the last tenants had already been shoved over and long-vandalized with a knife tip.

He glanced around the room finding one clean thing yet remained in that household, and his eye was drawn to it. Standing valiantly on the shining coffee table were two unopened bottles of bourbon.

Valasco grinned at the bottles like expectant lovers.

“Well, how are you ladies? I didn’t hear you come in.” He tipped an invisible hat as his voice stretched out of his throat, then chuckled at his own humor.

Valasco weaved around the room in a self appeasing stride. He snatched the two bottles by the necks and began to dance with them. Swaying in place to a rhythm of his own creation. 

As quickly as the entertainment rushed around him was as fast as it snapped away. Valasco collapsed into his couch. Unamused by his own game.

He stared off into the walls. Seeing nothing and thinking of nothing substantial. 

Who did he think he was fooling before? And how did he fool himself? For the first time in a few years his own home didn’t feel like a prison to him. Was this all some kind of midlife crisis? He gave up the life he truly loved in pursuit of a notion that somebody would come back to him if he could become a different man. With wasted years behind him and a home surrounding him that wouldn’t be his home any longer, he was stuck asking himself the same question. Did he really try to change? Or was he always imitating the pitcher? Did he fake his way through it, only to prove that failure was inevitable? Could he even ask himself these questions with honesty? He wasn’t so sure. And he wasn’t sure that he cared.

He couldn’t be what they asked him to be. He found all the evidence he needed to be true to himself.

And so he would become himself again.

When the weight of nothing became too much for his head, his eyes glanced at that coffee table once again. No dust, crumbs or spills, nothing filthy at all. The last remaining sign that Valasco Rolez had ever tried. The last remaining image of cleanliness.

Screaming out, he bent his knees up and slammed his heels against the wood, rolling it over the floor. 

Then he opened the bottles and sipped from each side, sinking further into the couch the more he weighed himself down. Digging deeper, until he returned to the person he wanted to be.

Ten minutes later, Valasco was finishing the second bottle by pouring it lazily over his mouth, more splashing around him than being swallowed. He was wandering out his front door now, into the quiet rundown neighborhood. He was no longer smiling but poured the booze all the same. He swallowed what his mouth could carry, and stepped over the rest.

After crossing the lawn, he turned back to look at the house, taking off his suit jacket as he spun around to give himself a sense of suave and confidence whilst being otherwise intoxicated and alone. He looked at the lights pouring out of the house and compared it against the first dark hour of the night. 

From his pocket he took out a cigarette pack, and slid his finger over his body as he raised it up. Biting his thumb he placed one cigarette in his mouth then put the pack away before fetching the matchbox from his pocket. Holstering and drawing the items like a TV gunslinger. He struck the match against the box like he was drawing an arrow. He held his breath as the match burned and counted the seconds before releasing the imaginary arrow and his breath. After seven seconds it nearly burned all the way down. He slowly put the box back in his pocket before lighting the cigarette. Inhaling deep as the heat began aching against his fingertips he became newly intoxicated by the smoke. All his actions were taken one at a time in a slow rhythm, and he finalized the intent of his actions by tossing the lit match over his alcohol soaked jacket. 

Valasco walked away as the flame began trailing over the ground and into the house.

He walked for two blocks, not hearing the sirens in the distance as he found a pay phone to slip a quarter into. He dialed, coughed as it rang and demanded for a taxi before the dispatcher could say hello.

The home, his vehicle to a better life, was collapsing into a flaming rubble. 

And he kicked himself for leaving behind his refrigerator list of pornstars. 

After sleeping through the ride, he woke up to the cab driver screaming at him.

Valasco paid his fare but didn’t tip. He stumbled out of the cab, fighting drunkenness and drowsiness to find his balance and clear his eyes. 

There it was standing there before him. Valasco’s eyes widened. They reflected the red flashing light over the door. A rare and gentle smile could be seen on his face. He almost shed a tear.

Lou’s Booze

Hard rock echoed around the black interior. These concrete floors with liquor and blood stains had been Valasco’s foundation for many years. The stale cigarette smell welcomed him home from his journey.

“There’s the old-fuck…” Valasco’s laughter cleared his throat. Standing behind the bar was the wrinkled man that plastered his own name on the signs. Lou, of Lou’s Booze, had a sour looking face and aged about fifty extra years when he saw the returning silhouette of Valasco Rolez. Lou freezed as he watched the ghost-like visage approach. 

Valasco grinned and noticed himself sobering up with each step aimed at the bar, joy waking him as he saw Lou clearer. He was the devil in the eyes of the old man. Why else would Lou’s Booze be his favorite bar?

There was a shotgun hanging on the wall above the bar. It may have been a relic from a time passed or it may have been a message; to intimidate would be troublemakers. But to him, it was overcompensation. It was a clear sign of perpetual anxiety.

Valasco swept up to Lou and leaned on the counter, and looked deep into the old man’s pale eyes and face. Valasco smiled and waited, slowly raising an eyebrow. 

“How come you ain’t dead?” Lou started to hyperventilate. “How come nobody ain’t shot you?”

Valasco spread his arms out wide.

“There he is! There’s my Lou!” Valasco’s cackling echoed over the music and rang in the old man’s ears. “Do somebody some good and let Carson and Hensen know who’s returned. A drink too, Lou.”

Lou tossed down a rag from his hand and stared at Valasco pulling up a barstool. His old bloated face wanted to shout, and to assert the dominance of the man for whom the bar was named. 

“Begone from us! Lou’s Booze no longer serves Valasco Rolez!”

That’s what he would shout if he had any power in his own place of business. But the words caught in his throat. If the bosses wanted to see Valasco, they wouldn’t allow the washed out bartender to stop them.

Lou slammed a full bottle of cheap whiskey in front of Valasco and walked away. Internalizing the torment of Valasco Rolez commanding him around. 

He pushed the door to the backroom open a couple of inches. For a moment he considered tearing it all down. Calling the cops and letting them sort it out for him. The good things Lou did with his money was always canceled out by the evil he allowed within his bar. Lou took a deep breath, and reminding himself of his family, realized today would be no different. With his voice cracking, he announced: “Valasco, to see you, Mr. Carson.” Then he slammed the door shut and returned to his bar. He had no power over Valasco, but his countertop was his ground to stand on. He would fend off Valasco Rolez until he slinked back into the gutters and the night. He would close the bar when the sun rose over the sky, as if it were some kind of victory on its own to see another day without Valasco.

Lou stood at the bar, keeping Valasco in his line of sight at all times. Valasco drank as he waited, and jeered at Lou all the while. Lou didn’t pay him mind as best he could, and a man like Lou earned his wrinkles through his years with patience. Lou outlasted the trenches, and he was certain that he could outlast Valasco. It was only a matter of waiting him out, to practice the patience he had spent so many years begging God for.

He turned to look at Valasco, cigarette smoke rising around him and abnormally quiet while scoping the bar. He stared into Valasco’s drink wide eyed and pale. Wishing he had cyanide sitting in his pockets among the loose change. Thinking of the days where poison seemed to always be on hand. He lost himself fantasizing about the idea, and stood still, like a fly floating dead in a glass. 

“Lou.” Valasco’s velcro voice demanding his attention startled him out of his trance. “Who’s she?”

Valasco stretched his arm out and pointed right at her, but stared coldly at Lou.

“Come on, Valasco. Leave her alone.” Lou was well-practiced at eye contact, but he struggled looking into his dark, restless eyes.

“Now, Lou… I’ve been gone a long time.” He warned the old man, and Lou felt the burning pain along the skin of his back and spine. Flame scars Valasco had painted on him before. His flesh begged not to be the victim once again and the fear forced Lou’s weak eyes to glance up at the woman. She was blonde and well put together. There was a smart look about her but she stood by herself. Lou had a daughter of his own. He spent a lot of years keeping the scum he worked around away from her. This woman didn’t look anything like his daughter, yet he wanted to scream for her to run, to protect her like his own, to tell her to get away from Lou’s Booze and to never return. 

“She could be in the dirty films, eh, Lou?”

Maybe it wasn’t patience he should’ve been praying for all of these years. 

“I’ve never seen her before, Valasco. I can’t tell you who she is.” Lou flinched as Valasco stood up.

“Yeah, who needs you anyway?” He dusted his cigarette over Lou’s meager tips and knocked his drink over before he walked away. Leaving it pouring down the counter, barstool, and floor. 

It was the oldest trick Valasco had, a pinch of snide torture to make those he hated clean up after him. Lou left the drink pouring out sideways, clenching his fist against his beating chest.

Valasco as he walked reached down his pants and peeled his sweaty sack off of his thigh. Walking with a hitch in his step until his hand reappeared from his pants.

She didn’t pay any particular attention to her surroundings. A detail Valasco knew he liked about women. He straightened his back as he approached her, taking pride in his lost artform and slid his sticky hand on the wall behind her. 

His leery tone accompanied a raised eyebrow, hiding slightly behind his hair. His eyes collapsed conspicuously on her chest. It had been some time since he ‘engaged’ with women in this way, but he wasn’t trying to be friendly or any manner of sociable any longer. Only himself.

“Sweetheart…” He exhaled long and hot over her face, for which Lou could see her gagging across the bar. She crossed her arms and turned her heel to start walking away.

Valasco’s knees buckled for a moment, like rust falling off the gears of a forgotten machine.

He reached out to tap her on the shoulder, almost to beg her to stay. Then there was a laugh inside his head. As if that was the man he was, as if he had the capacity for politeness.

A connection was reformed inside his head, then the laughter in his mind became the laughter in his throat, and his legs were swift to obey its desire.

He stepped around her, cut her off and placed his opposite hand on the wall.

“Somebody has to buy you a drink before you leave. It’s my rule.” He pointed to a small round table with two plastic and unwelcoming chairs. She glanced over his shoulder for any kind of escape. He shook his head at her with the stern look in his eyes commanding her to forget that notion.

With a deep sigh she began to examine Valasco. His teeth grinded together into a smile, his skin betrayed his age and the stance he held was crooked. With an inaudible scoff, she conceded to him.

Lou’s guts sank down inside him as he watched them take a table together. What could he do? If he made a scene, if he scared her away… would Carson and Hensen defend him from Valasco? They hadn’t yet shot him for reappearing on their doorstep, and he couldn’t understand why. Lou gripped onto his pounding chest and took a deep breath. 

Lou’s Booze was his. So too should the safety of his patrons also be his. He must be the priesthood in command of his steeple. Valasco couldn’t just take anything he wanted. Lou returned to his duties as sole proprietor. He served drinks, cut limes, and wiped away the refuse. Leaving Valasco’s chair and spilled beer alone to keep anybody from taking that spot. An offense Lou had witnessed Valasco take vengeance on before. Besides, Lou wanted a clear view of Valasco and the woman. He wouldn’t let her leave with him.

In between his glances at them, he felt mixed emotions of disdain and empathy, regret and worthlessness. If they decided to stand up to leave together, how could he possibly save her then? Whenever he found himself feeling helpless and asking himself what he could possibly do, he reminded himself he could pray. He could pray for the end of Valasco Rolez. He could even humbly ask to take part in it. But until that day would come, a day he truly believed divinely appointed, he couldn’t bring himself to ask for anything more than patience. Ending his prayer, he glanced at Valasco and they stared into each other’s eyes. There was an unexplainable feeling in Lou’s chest, like the pain of a bullet wound, and the simultaneous electricity of passion.

Valasco turned his head back to the woman. Things began to feel familiar to Valasco Rolez. He felt his body language was becoming something he could recognize. The disdain this unmet woman showed for him was familiar.

Her body was cold, her face was rigid, and she was angled to leap out of her seat at any moment. When she stuck her nose up to him, he sat up taller and prouder in his seat. A woman he could respect was a woman he could pursue. For love… or down a dark alley.

Whatever.

Women always refused to talk first around him. Her silence may have been a show of disdain, but it was really just playing into his hand. He could sit through silence for a woman. He could watch her dead face for hours. Whether she wanted it or not, he could give a girl that kind of commitment. So he sat there watching her. Gazing at her beauty and letting the passion inside of him burn slowly. Waiting for the thrilling outburst of violence to come.

After several minutes, Valasco broke the silence by shouting for drinks. He didn’t break his gaze while he barked. Lou, seizing his opportunity, rushed the drinks over and tried to make eye contact with her. He wanted to give some kind of silent warning. But her head turned distractedly towards the front door.

“That’ll do, Lou. Shoo.” Valasco smirked, seeing the failing desperation in Lou’s eyes.

If she would just look for his signal, she could run for it now. Right…

“Now!” Valasco stood and shouted directly into Lou’s ear, staggering the old soul. Lou’s body quaked and scrunched together, as if he was gripping a ledge from fear of plummeting.

Lou survived the trenches, alongside and against men who fought for the same neutral and unjustified purpose, yet here in his own place, his own name along the walls, he could do nothing against the presence of pure evil.

To Valasco, however, there was no soldier in the body of Louis Jay. It was an old, aging body, weighed down and slow. There was no man behind his eyes. Whatever demeanor Lou held, or pretended to hold, Valasco was not blind to it, but willfully and blissfully ignorant of it. He only liked the Lou that squirmed, the fleshly and fearful part of him. 

He couldn’t stand the feeling of Valasco’s hot breath against the side of his head. Lou finally moved, only one tiny sudden step, and froze again, for fear of being stricken. When he wasn’t scraped, clawed, bruised, burned, shot or stabbed by Valasco in that moment, his legs began hustling underneath him, and he fled back to the bar. 

A room of distance between him and Valasco wasn’t enough, he felt as though he needed to claw through the walls to get away, but it was all he had. Somewhere in between his pride and his sense of justice, he had enough of this misery. Lou heard Valasco’s laugh from across the bar. His body shivered in a violent anger, and he barely caught himself before screaming. He had too much patience to break down then and there. There was still the matter of the woman. His eyebrows came together in determination, and he tried the next thing.

He made no effort to hide it from Valasco, he was watching them intently. He watched as the two said very little at first. She started to speak even though she didn’t want to. Talking just seemed like the only way to progress forward. Valasco continued to drink, and when he finished his drink, he drank hers. When she kept talking, he interrupted her. For him, the game had just started.

That’s when Lou began to have ideas. He filled more drinks, and delivered them quietly to the table. He could see it in Valasco’s eyes now. The glaze. Valasco might have been drinking the entire day. Day-drinking was usually a problem on its own, but now, it gave Lou an advantage. Conversation ceased as he came around. It frustrated him, but he did not linger on the irritation nor did he remain near the table. He kept moving and he made the rounds to other tables.

In a few sideways glances Valasco knew he was being talked about. He watched Lou whisper in the patron’s ears, and every half-witted or liquored-up one of them took a long look at Valasco.

Like the good ol’ days. Lou was making witnesses.

Some were big guys, capable of breaking Valasco’s bones, others were smaller, but equally capable of pulling a weapon or calling the police. 

Valasco and Lou looked at each other again, but Valasco made no faces at him. Lou staring deep into his eyes had more confidence now than ever. 

Suddenly he was reminded of why he got into this business. To serve liquor responsibly.

For the first time, he smiled while pouring a drink for Valasco Rolez.

As he set the drink on Valasco’s table and walked away, he realized he had no need for cyanide, when men were capable of poisoning themselves. 

He had no idea what Carson and Hensen would do for, or to Valasco. He had no idea what kind of judgment awaited him. And he humbly reminded himself, it wasn’t his place to be the judge.

It was only his place to protect those that he could.

As the song on the radio faded out, the volume on the speakers lowered, Lou could almost make out what she was saying to him. Something about God’s purpose. Something about choices.

It was a surprise to him, Lou couldn’t remember a time where somebody discussed religion in his place of business before. Even as a man of faith, he never spoke of it here. He sighed remorsefully, with the image in his mind of his signature on the bar’s deed. 

A harsh noise cut her voice off. Choking on his third cigarette since arriving, Valasco vomited a mixture of mucus and bourbon over himself and the woman.

This was enough for her to stand up and scream.

She turned to run, but Valasco, who had been staring at the vomit on his feet, snapped out of his haze and drunkenly leapt at her. Grabbing her by the arm and hair he pulled while she screamed. 

Lou quickly glanced around the room and realized quickly that nobody would intervene. Some even continued to stir their drinks as they watched. He wanted witnesses, and witnesses is all they would be.

Lou dropped everything and moved his aging weight as quickly around the bar counter, tables and drunks as he could. 

Valasco pulled at the woman’s hair, drunkenly unaware or merciless to the pain that was evident in her face. 

Lou rushed forward and grappled his hands around Valasco. Trying to pull, or push him away. Lou was strong once, but his aging body couldn’t muster strength as quickly as it used to. He screamed at Valasco to let her go, Valasco screamed at her to sit still, and she just screamed. Hardcore drinkers barely noticed the commotion, the rest of the bar just seemed to watch on blankly.

The adrenaline was flowing through Lou’s body, and still he couldn’t pull Valasco away. Valasco’s unhindered demeanor started to change. His body straightened out again and he stopped shouting at the woman, but with his fingers still gripping the strands of her hair it was clear he wasn’t giving up. Lou looked up and recognized the clenching jaw and twitching cheek. The scar on Lou’s back began to ache and burn as if it was fresh again.

Valasco’s fist slowly raised to the air above the woman’s head.

There was nothing Lou could do, so he did the only thing he could. 

His strength seemed to well up inside of him all at once.

It expanded then exploded out of him, and the deed was already done before he could realize he had gone so far. 

“You always surprise me, Lou.” Valasco spit out a tooth. Lou’s fist, aching slightly in the knuckles, lowered slowly. He didn’t remember his legs carrying him to Valasco. Really the last several moments became a blur to him. But now they stood face to face.

The door to Lou’s Booze slammed behind as the woman fled into the night. Terrified slightly, but safe now, as long as she was anywhere but here.

The screaming had stopped, and so the few souls remaining there went back to their drinks. No eyes were left on the two men standing against each other. Lou’s witnesses, all patrons of his who had received a drink and exchanged kind smiles, abandoned him.

“Lou…” Valasco’s angry eyes brought back flashes in Lou’s mind. “I told you it’s been a long… long time…” 

Lou took two small steps back and held his hands up, ready to make a fist again if he needed.

“You know how I get… Lou.” Valasco grinned.

The scar on his back ached as he remembered the last time he tried to run from Valasco. 

Valasco stepped heavily toward him, cracking glass beneath his feet. Lou tried to swing but his strength failed him once again. Valasco was thinner in every way, and only younger by a small margin, but the age made all the difference. Valasco grabbed Lou’s arm and pulled him in. Lou’s knees felt like paper and offered no strength to pull away, only a crumbling sensation as Valasco slammed Lou’s face into the table, then pulled him back up to eye level to spit in his face. 

He was a ragdoll in the clutch of a rabid dog’s jaws.

“Tell me you missed me…” Valasco whispered in his ear, then punched Lou’s bulging stomach. Lou wanted to drop to the ground but Valasco held him upright.

“We all thought you were dead…” Lou pulled at Valasco’s arms, but they didn’t give way. “Why couldn’t you have just been dead?”

“You want it?” Valasco tilted his head. “Quit waiting for someone else to give it to you.”

Valasco grinned as he slid his hand from holding Lou, to wrapping it around his neck.

“Quit!” Lou choked while his eyes washed over in panicked tears. “You don’t have to be like this…”

“Oh, oh Lou.” Valasco’s shoulder slumped momentarily, allowing the bartender to labor for his breaths. “How could you know me so long and so well? And yet be so wrong? I could never change. I never will. And if you really thought so, where were you to help fix me?”

“How…” Valasco squeezed Lou’s throat like a quick pinch just to hear him choke. “How could you tell yourself such a thing? That things can’t be better?”

“Oh, things will be better. I’ll never surrender again. I regret that I ever stepped away and I haven’t earned my own forgiveness yet. But I’m right here… where I belong, Lou.” Valasco looked down at his feet, then looked back up with a large smile. “Welcome me home, Lou.” Valasco squeezed tighter as he laughed in his face.

“If that’s what you tell yourself, then…” Lou wheezed. “Then you can just kill me.”

“Aw, and what is it you tell yourself?” He gritted his teeth. “Remember… last words.”

“I’m not afraid of you, Valasco. The Devil taunted us with the truth in the beginning. In the Garden of-”

Valasco tightened his grip around Lou’s throat and his voice seized momentarily; but he choked out his words defiantly. 

“But I know you.” He gagged. “I already know the truth about you.”

“Valasco Rolez.” From the door at the back of the bar, a shrill but harsh voice demanded for him, with no room for patience. Valasco squeezed tighter and didn’t take his eyes off of Lou’s gaze. Even with his cheeks growing red Lou didn’t look away either.

“It’s been a good ride… Lou.” Valasco wrapped his second hand around Lou’s neck, and the veins in his head began to pop.

“Valasco Rolez!” Clint, a bald man with a scar down the center of his skull, could shout with such an ear piercing quality that felt like shattered glass.

Inhaling deeply, taking in the smell of stale smoke and terrified sweat, Valasco released Lou’s throat. He shrugged and stretched out his arms.

“Thanks for the drinks.” He said, then stammered away.

Lou stood there, holding his hand against his throat, gasping until he could breathe, then breathing until he could do so comfortably.

Then a small, indiscernible smile appeared on his face.

Lou looked up, blindly to the ceiling, and continued to smile.

Lou had to pray for courage in the trenches, and Lou had to pray for courage against his own sinful nature. But he never had to pray for courage in the face of Valasco Rolez.

Valasco walked past Clint, saying nothing, refusing to acknowledge the hired help. 

Clint growled as he slammed the door shut behind him.

Familiar and unfriendly faces sat before him in that smoke filled room.

Carson and Hensen were street guys that worked their way up to running their own crew. Age was getting to them. Hensen’s hair had become white since the last time Valasco had seen him.

They sat in that back office with a table in the center, where they smoked, counted their money and played cards. Hensen looked like he wanted to go home and rest, but he sat up straight as he always had, and watched Valasco stroll in. Carson pretended to be more interested in the papers before him, his forehead wrinkling over them in some kind of focus, his hair still jet black as the day they met.

“Baldy gets to sit in the office all day now huh? Workers comp?”

“Shut the fuck up, Valasco.” Clint leaned against the only exit.

“Mr. Rolez.” Hensen nodded. It was the closest thing he’d ever had to ‘good-to-see-you.’

“Brave of you to come back, Valasco.” Carson reached under the table, and still reading his papers instead of the room, placed a pistol on the table.

“It was braver of me to leave.” Valasco shrugged it off but a lump formed in his throat; as if he had spoken too honestly. Refusing a moment of silence to consume them, Valasco sang out:

“So how’s business?”

“Ours to worry about and ours alone.” Carson slighted.

Valasco mocked his words in a childish tone.

Carson finally looked up from the papers at Valasco and stood up from his seat. 

Valasco was grinning until Carson’s back straightened out. Carson didn’t look like the biggest man in the room until he stood up to prove it. Valasco forgot that ever important detail.

“You couldn’t survive without us, Valasco.” Carson looked straight into his eyes.

Valasco believed otherwise, but voluntarily left it undisputed. Valasco could survive ground zero on his own, he only needed a helping hand if he intended to live above the cockroaches.

Hensen chewed on rice that looked mushy, overcooked and under seasoned. Carson crossed his arms expectantly. They kept dragging his dignity through the mud by watching him silently. They would offer nothing until Valasco brought himself down to his knees for them.

“I need work.” His voice shook and his eyes squinted. They still looked at him expectantly. They wouldn’t put two together for him, they would force him to say it. They kept watching.

“Because,” Valasco grunted indignantly, “Because I need your help. I need a new connection-“

“You don’t get anybody new!” Carson slammed the table. “Because you fucked up, Valasco. And that nearly cost us more than you’ve ever brought in. Either you pick up where you left off or you find somewhere else to crash and burn.”

Clint’s laugh echoed over the room. Valasco looked over his shoulder and exchanged glaring eyes with him.

“That’s the only thing we can offer you.” Hensen spoke softly.

Valasco growled.

“So Bunko or Steve? What kind of a fucking deal is that?”

“We call it the Valasco deal, Valasco. You’re gonna work your way back up, or we’re gonna let Steve shoot you in the face.” Carson leaned back. 

“Wanna know what flowers I want for my funeral then?” 

“Oh, take this seriously, please.” Hensen sighed. “You must see how lucky you are that we’re even throwing you a bone!”

“Right, no flowers at a dog’s funeral.” Valasco shrugged.

Hensen rubbed his forehead, squinting in frustration.

“Dammit, Valasco…” He whispered.

Carson jumped up in his seat screaming.

“You disrespectful shithead! You better act right! Listen, Steve needs some enforcers for a job coming up. All you gotta do is stand around and look tough. And Bunko needs somebody to run some packages for him. Everybody has to make choices, Valasco. You’re lucky to have one at all.”

The hard echo of his voice left the room silent for a moment, as they let Valasco toss it over in his head. Hensen’s soft, aging eyes wanted to offer a solution, but knew better than to try guiding the hand of Valasco Rolez.

Valasco smiled to himself as he arrived at a thought, then he pointed at Carson.

“Speaking of choices, if I had to choose between eating fresh shit and smelling your cologne I wou-” Valasco lurched, then vomited over his shoes once again.

Staring dumbfounded at his own feet, his hacking laughter bombarded the edges of the room. The cackle echoing in his own ears only delighted him further. Lou shivered, hearing that awful thing from a room over. Clint standing just behind him gritted his teeth and took a step back. 

Valasco’s joy sank down to the bottom of his gut when Carson stood up two-feet taller than Valasco and made his way across the room. Carson grabbed Valasco by his black hair and dragged him across the room. 

“Get the fuck out of here, Valasco! Don’t you dare ever come back piss drunk like this!”

Carson’s foot shoved into Valasco’s spine and propelled him back onto the bar floor. The door slammed before Valasco hit the ground.

Valasco collected himself, stood up and shook himself off. Lou’s Booze seemed to return to normal. Drinkers drank as if nothing happened. 

He glanced over to his side, seeing Lou’s exhausted body leaning over the bar. The bruises on his neck were already forming. He could glare at him, or threaten him, but the old man was falling asleep against the palm of his own hand. 

He reasoned to himself that he couldn’t keep causing trouble at the bar if Carson and Hensen were going to choose to help him. Lou had entertained him enough for one night. He opened the bar door into the night and began thinking over his options. 

Holding the door open with his heel he put a cigarette in his mouth. Breathing in through his nose, listening to the crowd and the music with a fresh breeze.

“Bunko didn’t earn his name for nothing,” Valasco exhaled a clean breath of air. “And Steve?” He grinned. “Might put a bullet between my eyes for that last job. Golly, Steve, I didn’t know it was your mother.” 

Valasco laughed to himself and flicked a match over his mouth. Lighting the tobacco. 

Valasco and Bunko went back a long way in this business. Thinking about it made him sick, but there was always good money with him and his sister. He only crossed his fingers that he wouldn’t walk in on them fucking again.

Valasco held his chin to the dark, starless sky. Whatever he felt in the air wasn’t enough to deter him or imply any whimsy. He simply looked outwards. 

He made his choice.

The heavy door slipped away from his heel. 

“Did I leave that damn dog on the chain?” Valasco cackled as the door slammed behind him.