ripped into my eyes. I tried to sit up.
“Fuck!” I yelped out as I fell back down.
I guess this meant I was staying here a little longer after all. The pain I had been in was nothing compared to the pain of knowing.
Knowing that I survived. Knowing what I have done. Knowing that I have lost it all.
The Fiber of My Being
That a nightmare. My life—a nightmare, a train wreck. A long line of endless bad choices, that’s me. I have a really hard time remembering how it is that everything skipped
so far off the tracks. Honestly, even the simplest memory of how I got here, handcuffed to this hospital bed, is kinda sketchy. I never saw this coming. I mean, I’m usually pretty good at seeing the upcoming twists and turns, but not this one.
“How are you feeling, Corbin?” said my attending nurse. I looked over at her and couldn’t believe my eyes. It was Melissa. I have known this girl since she was in diapers. Now, now that I have lost it all, now that I am the property of someone else, it has to be her? She’s even got the nerve to smile at me as I lay here, handcuffed to this God-damned bed.
I may as well be standing in line at a homeless shelter, begging for a plate of food. That is how low this is. The disrespect. The disgrace, humiliation, powerlessness, the loss, and this bitch is smiling at me, “Oh, just fucking peachy,” I said to her with a scowl. “Best day of my whole damn life!”
I always win; I always have the upper hand. I am always in control. You see, control equals ownership, and I always made it a point to possess everything around me. Or at least, as much of it as I possibly could.
I remember seeing June Taylor standing in my living room, acting as if she hadn’t been a homeless junkie sleeping in the post office for years. I remember her starting to poke around in my whole operation. I remember.
June, the junkie I had given so many chances to. June, who I had helped over and over and over again. Her?
It really had to be her?
Her and her buddies who banded together to be pains in my ass. They ruined everything.
Lives were lost, lives that could have been spared, but those lives were nothing compared to the carnage bestowed upon this town if the Cartel found out that the whole operation was exposed.
This place was going to burn, starting with me, like literally me. “My chest feels like hellfire over here; you got any drugs?” I said to my nurse.
“I’ll go talk to the doctor,” Melissa said.
“Make it snappy,” I said to her, as rudely as the driven snow.
Listen to me, talking to her like that. I’ve known that girl her whole life for Christ’s sake. Now I lay here, handcuffed to the God-damn bed, my chest on fire from that freight train mercilessly colliding with my heart at warp speeds, while she caters to me like I’m some kind of an invalid. I can’t even believe it. That junkie whore ruined everything.
“Sh-sh-sheriff- um, I mean, Corbin?”
Oh, and him! Deputy fucking Walker. This pansy-ass bitch has a lot of nerve. I thought he was on my team. I owned his ass. I had him under control.
“What!” I looked at his pussy ass standing in the doorway of my hospital room. “What the fuck do you want?”
He stumbles into the room, like the lazy, underachieving kid that was picked on his whole life, till he finally got himself a badge and now thinks he’s all that and a bag of potato chips.
“How’s it going?” he slightly stutters as he awkwardly inches his way into the room.
This fucking guy ruined everything that I had going. Everything. He’s the last person I expected to see stumbling into my hospital room. “How do you think I’m doing?” I shouted at him.
He hung back by the door, too scared to walk in.
“You look scared; that’s smart. You got good reason to be. You oughta be three states to the wind right now.” I smiled at him with a seething hatred. “While I sit here trying to get the tire tracks off of my back.” I laughed, but it wasn’t funny.
“I’m so-so-sorry,” he stuttered, shaking like a scared child.
“Cut me loose and maybe I’ll forgive ya!” I rattled my handcuffed hands at him.
“I-I can’t do that.”
“Well then, why in the hell are you here?” “I needed to, um, talk to you.”
“Spit it out.”
Deputy Walker grabbed a chair from the corner and spun it around as if trying to put a barrier between us. “I just couldn’t do it anymore.” His face flushed red. Standing up to me must be the hardest thing he’s ever done.
Why did I ever deputize his ass? Why did I think this pansy could ever handle the responsibility of working under me? It was simple. He was weak. I knew it the moment I laid eyes on him. He was easy to control.
I guess he got hungry. Hungry for power, hungry for ownership; then he turned on me. The things we try to own will always turn around and try to own us. “So how’s it feel?” I asked.
“You have the right to remain silent, anything you say—” “Seriously?” I balked.
“I have been sworn in as Sheriff.” He choked a little on his words, looking around the room with the guilt of a child.
“My old girlfriend used to babysit this little toddler who didn’t like to go to the bathroom. One time, we took him with us to a coffee shop. I looked down at him. He was so cute, but his eyes had a certain glow to them. He was looking around at everyone, like, checking to see if any of them were looking at him, and then I watched him fidget with his pants as he let loose a little turd onto the coffee shop floor!” I laughed. Walker laughed with me.
“You’ve got the same look on your face right now” I was laughing so hard I felt a little tear roll down my cheek. He was still laughing with me, always the best tension breaker in the room.
“I was gonna pick up the turd, but some old lady stepped on it before I had a chance. I watched it squish under her shoe. It was about as flat as a pancake, except I don’t think your head will look so flat when it’s propped up on a stick.” I laughed a little more.
The color drained from Walker’s face, and his eyes filled with terror. “I told you, I’m sorry,” he pleaded.
“You need to listen to me. That is what THEY’RE gonna do to you, unless I stop them.”
“I can’t cut you loose,” Walker said. “Bumbling, fucking, idiot,” I said.
I don’t know who I’m more disgusted with, him or myself. So here it is.
The naked truth.
It’s all about rights, ownership and control. Every puppet has its strings, and every puppet, a master. When Walker screwed me over he screwed over Hunter Slip. The head of the cartel, the drug dealer of all dealers. “This control you have right now, or I guess I should say you think you have, is nothing more than an illusion.”
“I can handle anything they throw at me,” Walker said.
“Sure, puppet, they’re coming, they’re cleaning house, and they will annihilate every man, woman and child connected to that Pharmacy. This whole fucking town is gonna bleed, and that is on YOU!”
“No.” He shook his head as he got up and started pacing back and forth. “It’s you who made this mess,” he said.
“Apples, oranges—I’m sure it’s all the same to them,” I said.
Even though I was the one in charge around here, even though I had all the power and control, even though I clearly owned the town and everyone