Valasco Rolez! Held in Contempt!

Part 2 of 7 of Valasco Rolez!

Written by Kiefer Lee

Edited by Alexander Taylor

Valasco had not seen this side of the city in months but crossed corners and alleys by memory alone. Rough and hungry people walked the streets all hours of the night. People shaking with withdrawals and the willingness to do what it takes to get more. He felt safer here than he ever did in his previous suburban neighborhood. Even in his finer work clothes, the dirt recognized its own, and he walked through the city without fear.

24-Hour Pawn

The words flashed a dim yellow light that only drowned out when the street light flickered on for a brief few seconds.

Valasco stood on the outside, staring straight up into the camera looking back at him. Knowing that he was expected.

The bell above the door rang as he stepped inside.

“Gypsies, holocaust survivors and Valasco Rolez ain’t allowed in my Pawn!” A gargling voice called out from the back. 

Bunko kicked his whale legs up and down scooting his wheelchair behind the glass display cases. Until he saw him, Valasco wasn’t sure if that was Bunko’s voice or his sister’s. 

“No love for an old friend?” Valasco laughed as he watched Bunko struggle to push his chair. Valasco sauntered to the glass case, and when Bunko’s shotgun clicked, Valasco pushed over the cases closest to him, and rushed behind Bunko.

Valasco nearly gagged. 

Bunko smelt like shit, and he was sticky to the touch. Despite that Valasco wrapped his arm around his neck and pulled. With his other hand he wrestled the sticky man’s wrist, angling the shotgun away from himself.

“Get off of me you snake!”

Valasco squeezed tighter as Bunko flailed around in his wheelchair.

“Snakes lie, but they bite too!” The panting blob of a man stopped struggling and gasped for breath. Bunko conceded and tossed the shotgun out of his grip. Valasco pulled the wheelchair back, then squeezed himself between Bunko and the glass cases. He rushed for the shotgun and swept through the backroom. A moment later he came back, shotgun pointed right at Bunko.

“Where’s your sister, Bunko?”

“Visiting our mother.” He said sarcastically, gripping his chest and panting. 

Valasco smiled, and seemingly satisfied by the silence in the pawn shop, set the shotgun down beside himself, wiping away his fingerprints. 

Bunko watched and smiled. Valasco laughed knowing they were thinking the same thing.

“Carson sent me. So you’re gonna help me.”

“Snake.” Bunko tried to spit but only dribbled saliva down his chin. He didn’t wipe it away.

“You’ve got some packages needing-running. And you can’t even wheel your ass out the front door? Poor you, you need me!” Valasco leaned in and laughed obnoxiously in his face, exhaling his hot alcohol scented breath. Decades of cigarettes and no brushing left his mouth smelling like something died on sun-beaten concrete. 

Bunko glanced at the shotgun, almost within reach. Then back at Valasco.

“Come on. Smile Bunko! It’s just like old times.” Valasco’s voice went flat and cold as he went on. “Just like old times. Kill me if you’d like. But you’ll have to answer for it. So come on now… smile Bunko.” 

Bunko hesitated. Valasco’s lips curved and his hands began to raise towards his throat, and so Bunko forced a smile over his chapped lips.

Valasco stood up, leaving the shotgun next to Bunko. He rummaged through the backroom and Bunko listened as things were shoved around in the other room followed by crashing sounds. Bunko tapped his fingers restlessly on the arm of his wheelchair. 

“Gonna make me do all the hard work to find it?” Valasco came back with liquor and a smile. “No, no… It’s okay, don’t get up.”

Valasco and Bunko paused, looking into each other’s faded hateful eyes.

“You wouldn’t be interested in picking up a few investments… would you?” With a devilish grin that he was inclined to believe made him handsome, Bunko knew he would strike some kind of nerve.

Valasco paused, hesitating for a moment. Something flashed inside and overtook his inebriated mind. Bunko grinned watching him almost vomit. 

“Never again.” No man would make Valasco Rolez work against his bidding again. He smiled, a newly defined man, and returned to his search with the hard shove of a rusty file cabinet.

Bunko bit his lip as he slowly wheeled around the wrecked Pawn Shop, watching Valasco consume his vodka and carry on with no regard for his surroundings. He broke things as if he was shaking the place down. And there were things Bunko didn’t want to be found.

He shoved his wheel along and came back to Valasco with a paper sack.

Valasco unraveled it slowly and looked inside. 

“Cash.” Bunko snapped. “It’s all cash. Jimmy gets $980 and you get $100 for the delivery. Jimmy better get all his money. Or you will have to answer for it.”

“As if Valasco Rolez was a novice.” Valasco held the sack open to Bunko. “Put a hundred more in. I owe Jimmy. And you’re gonna cover that for my delivery.”

“I already had to cover that debt.” Bunko smiled impatiently. 

Valasco held the bag in front of him with a stare, unmoving.

“Come on, Valasco. You would remember if you fucked a man like me. Don’t act like you don’t.”

Valasco’s words caught in his throat when the images invaded his mind. He took the paper sack and wafted away the smell of having Bunko sitting so close.

Looking through the barred glass he saw out into the streets. Something made him hesitate, but he knew Bunko would only wait so long before shooting him in the back.

“You’re a lot sweeter without that fuck-ugly sister of yours.” Valasco chuckled and slammed the metal gate closed behind him.

He continued to fight the oncoming sobriety by drinking Bunko’s poor taste in spirits. With the exhaustion overtaking him, the average person would regret not having a safe and comfortable place to rest their head. Valasco took it in stride as an advantage of freedom.

He was a block away from Bunko’s Pawn when he decided to collapse into an alleyway filled with trash bags. His safety wasn’t a concern, Bunko wasn’t going to make it out the front door of his business, let alone come looking for him.

Even at its worst, his house had always smelled better than this. But he didn’t regret what he’d done. He only dragged the filthy sticky rug beside him over his body as a blanket.

He was lucky to wake up to his own vomit, whereas nobody would mind if he choked to death on it. The light outside had changed. Even stranger was that he shot to his feet, hungover and half-aware. Though he stumbled like a zombie he still moved with purpose. He had things to do. A life to retake. So with vomit sliding down his chin and shirt, Valasco continued to walk the streets. Further into a stupor until something blunt hit him in the head.

Everything was hazy to him when he began to regain a sense of human cognizance. 

He was certain that he hadn’t made it to his intended destination. He took a shortcut, or found some tail to chase. Definitely didn’t make it home with the woman at Lou’s Booze. Something got him into trouble again. There were faint images and sounds in his head. He knew it started with people yelling at him. At some point he surrendered himself to the moment. At another, he remembered ice cold water being poured all over his body. It was around the time he could see bright reds and blues surrounding him. The only thing he knew he did for sure was collapse to be moved somewhere else. One long span of darkness later, he was slightly more cognizant, but ultimately still knew nothing. Bright whites pierced his fantasy world and made his head ring. People were asking him questions, probably. But Valasco wasn’t aware enough to know if he was being honest or deceitful.

In one breath he realized that he had been sitting in the same place for a long time. The questions must have ended a while ago; because he was sitting alone in general confinement. The bright whites were still killing him, burning his eyes like he was meeting god. Covering his eyes in his hands didn’t help the pain.

‘I’ve been here before.’ He thought to himself. This was true, he had been arrested in this county before, but it wasn’t what he meant. 

When his eyes could squint through his surroundings he realized there wasn’t a soul in sight of him.

The bright white lights had been his enemy for quite some time.

He reached around his collar, sure he would find a tie locked around his neck, but it wasn’t there. He smiled as he looked down on his stained clothes. They were his black, weekend clothes. No suit or tie to be found around him. He was behind bars now, but felt free without those shackles. Everything seemed to come back into focus. But he still didn’t remember how he got himself into the cell.

He felt his face, just around his eye, remembering he might’ve been punched at some point throughout the night. He couldn’t feel it now, and so it didn’t matter.

He leaned his head back against the painted brick, his ass hurting underneath him from the stainless steel bench. He didn’t adjust or try to get comfortable. Just like the chair occupied at work or every pair of handcuffs he had ever known, he never found comfort in them and so he stopped searching for it. He just let the brick compound its pressure in the back of his head. While the buzzing light invaded his closed eyes.

His memories and his current state of consciousness were both flooded in white.

He remembered a man that used to come there, later than the rest of the workers every morning. Even later than Valasco most of the time, which often tested the patience of Mr. Hatchet. Something Valasco shamefully took pride in at the time. Regular pride, now that all of that was behind him.

It seemed as if the man could drift in and out of that hell whenever he pleased. There was something Valasco always respected about that. He wanted to be the master of his own world again. 

He had seen him one time, leaving a closet with his shirt a mess and untucked. Valasco had watched him as he put his sunglasses on and walked away. Moments later a secretary peeked her messed up red hair out of the same closet. She looked confused, then strikingly dumb, like she expected him to still be standing there. 

He wasn’t. 

She closed the door quietly behind her, and fixed the top two buttons on her blouse. When she looked up she had made eye contact with Valasco, it was like an eruption of shame glowing in her cheeks to match her hair. She fled from sight.

If it was funny then it was downright hilarious now.

This guy, whoever he was, at least gave Mr. Hatchet somebody to hate more than he hated Valasco. The man reeked of pot under a heavy layer of cologne, but he did have strikingly clean teeth. His tough guy exterior never impressed Valasco and very likely nobody else either. He looked goofy wearing his sunglasses half of the day inside the office. Despite it all, Valasco could laugh at him when he walked by, and the man wouldn’t even flinch. 

“I wish I had a pair of my own, right about now.” He whispered to himself squinting, yet still unable to escape the lights. He rubbed his eyes harshly until he saw more than two colors behind his eyelids. The usual blackness that was being drowned by the white piercing light was joined by reds and blues. His brain conjured vague images from his night before, remembering now the force with which he was slammed against the police cruiser and cuffed by some hairy pig.

Valasco laughed at one of his personal favorite jokes, repeatedly whispering to himself:

“Come on, officer, buy me dinner first.” He chuckled. “Some wine and pork? Some wine and pork, pig?”

Then he groaned. Boredom set inwards on him and his tired humor was wearing down on his own nerves.

He stood up slowly, and noticed a mirror was on the wall next to his bench. He slouched as he walked and moved with little intent towards it. Staring at his feet dragging on the floor until his eyes adjusted to the light. He took a quick glancing look at his eye, somewhat darkened around the socket. 

“As if I had known all along.” He said rubbing it.

His eyes traced downward back to his clothing again, and he frowned. Certainly these were his weekend clothes. But they hadn’t always been. His black button up was ruined now, and he liked it better that way. But even in a ruin what they represented to him made his face turn vile and his stomach fell ill. He glared into his own eyes in the mirror. The weekend clothes he had chosen to adorn his false personality with.

“Mr. Hatchet sure did make a fuss over this stuff.” He thought of the man and his name in a violent combination. Valasco had always heard about scalping a man from the television westerns, but hadn’t given it so much thought to do it himself before. He pulled his hair back in the mirror with an iron grip, and slid his thumb across the peak of his hairline, picturing blood rolling down into his eyes.

“I wish she didn’t go so fast.” He grinned at himself, still stretching his hair high above his forehead in the mirror. A fantasy played like a film reel in his mind. He let his hair loose and ran his hand down his face to his collar and began unbuttoning his black shirt in front of the mirror. His flesh looked pale and gaunt as it always had, but it was amplified in the white lights. He ran his thumb along the waist of his pants as he looked his chest up and down. He looked like shit but he felt like sculpted marble in his own eyes.

That girl at Lou’s sure was a cutie. With an audacious little smile. 

He watched his own eyebrow cock up.

Valasco was trying to recollect where he lost himself the night before.

It didn’t seem right.

It seemed impossible.

When had she found the time to smile so memorably? He could remember pulling her hair. He could remember her fleeing, and crying. Lou got in his face. When would he have seen her grin like that?

He crumpled up his alcohol and sweat soaked button-up and pushed it through the bars. And he stood there staring at himself.

The way she smiled was so much like his old fling, it gave him a thrilling surge through his chest, to know she was out there somewhere. Maybe hiding from him.

“You need to do better.” His dead mother’s voice echoed in his head.

“Fuck you,” He grunted out in a burst of fury, then shook his head at himself. His eyes traced back up and focused into their own reflection. “I mean I did, ma. I did try.”

His head was aching but he only leaned back slightly. He didn’t show off his pain to the empty outside world, even if nobody was around him.

“I saw that I needed to change… I did. I tried to be patient with them all. I tried, mama. I tried to be… What was it that you called it?”

He sat in silence.

There had been a lot of silence since she went away decades ago.

Her voice was there one moment ago, and he stood there waiting for a chance to hear it again. He sat in silence, and he was used to it. So he sat there motionless in it. Staring at himself. Sure of himself that the answers had disappeared long ago.

“That was the other thing.” Valasco sighed to himself. “Prayers. Right, mom?”

He listened to the silence. Then leaned forward.

“One for you then.” Valasco brought his head down and whispered: “God. Let her be somewhere nice. That’s it, amen. Goodbye.”

He closed out his prayer and leaned back against the bars. Valasco refused to think about God any further.

His foot tapped on the hard white tile.

His mind tried recollecting his reasoning.

His psyche refused to allow it.

Knowing what kind of spiral would come from his confrontation with God.

He smiled and shook his head at the memory of his mother. He could still smell the stains in the carpet.

“Aside from you telling me to, I can’t remember why I try.” He locked a smile on his face, trying to grasp her voice that echoed in his head. It wasn’t a lot but for a moment it was clear. It was something. Even if it was fading away.

A few minutes or an hour passed. Valasco couldn’t tell.

Then the officers came around. He didn’t look at them.

They shoved the shirt back into his hands and dragged him around by the arm. They pulled his wrist and he scribbled out signatures for them before they pushed him out the doors into the orange morning light.

“Don’t leave town, Mr. Constance.”

Valasco stumbled down the steps then turned back hearing what was said.

The door was closed and the officer was gone. 

Mr. Constance… wasn’t that his neighbor’s name?

With a spoon full of lies Valasco was spit back out like what happened the night before didn’t matter. Another night washed out, forgiven and forgotten.

He fixed the shirt on himself, but didn’t bother with any of the buttons. His feet slapped and dragged along the ground as his legs propelled him. The sun was bright but his head and eyes began to adjust. The crushing feeling in his eyebrows faded away and the fresh air graced his lungs like a kiss.

The system didn’t care about Valasco, it only stood to gain from his suffering. It was a short but honest fling, if he did say so himself, so he felt no remorse in breaking it off now.

His steps evened out into the rhythm of the birds chirping their morning songs. It was bizarre to watch, it felt strange to do, but it felt right.

“I tried my best. If my best isn’t enough for this world… Then it was all rigged against me…” His self-fulfilling attitude returned to his stride and his leery eye watched the city start around him.

“I’ve played by their rules, I’ll go back to my own. The old ways.”

Valasco Rolez smiled as he watched the birds flee from him.

“Valasco’s Law…”

Stores unlocked their doors and registers began to chime. Men kissed their wives goodbye and children walked themselves to school. Phones and satellites lit up and vehicles hustled down the streets as the world began to function in its normal way.

A world unaware of the threat walking in its streets. People turned a blind eye to him as he walked by. He was a dangerous man walking the streets because he had nothing left to lose. Valasco Rolez was walking in his own world, a world without confinement, routine or consequences. A world that was his to command. Between every collapse and slide of each footstep was the music of freedom.