Total pages in book: 128
Estimated words: 119454 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 597(@200wpm)___ 478(@250wpm)___ 398(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 119454 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 597(@200wpm)___ 478(@250wpm)___ 398(@300wpm)
“Just like I told you before, Mama, it all started when I was called to a scene to clean, over there on 32ND Street. When I got inside, there was a man in a business suit. Never seen him before in my life. He was holdin’ a bottle of bleach and I could already smell it in the air. He’d been pouring it all over. He looked at me in my hazmat suit, flashed a smile, and pulled out his gun to shoot. Without a moment’s hesitation, I grabbed my pistol and aimed for his forehead. Perfect shot.” A flash of the clean hole in the middle of the guy’s dome entered his mind. He wasn’t happy about what he’d had to do, but wasn’t exactly sad about it, either. “I’m just glad I was alone, and nobody else got dragged into this shit.”
“Why in the world would you have a gun with your hazmat suit?”
“Mama, I don’t go anywhere without the hammer. Heat stays on me like hot sun on a metal slide.” He heard her utter a long exhale, then groan. “Anyway, I had no idea who I’d killed until it was all said and done.”
“Well, I didn’t appreciate finding out about all of this on the news! They say he was a dangerous person!”
“Yeah? Who is they?” He turned back to the game.
“The reporter! Some sort of drug smuggler. Lord, Jesus.”
“Aren’t we all dangerous under the right circumstances, Mama?”
“I’m not in the mood for any of your mind games today, boy. What did the police say that man’s name was again?”
“Chase Evanston, and he isn’t even from around here. Come from Texas. Houston, I believe. He sold cocaine and fentanyl. Lots of it. He was a big player from my understanding. Too big to not be missed.” He glanced at his pain pills. Only a few were left, but he refused to take them, much to his mother’s dismay. He turned back towards the television.
“Who called you to do that job? The landlord of the building?”
“No. The police called me after their investigation to get the brain matter and blood out of the place. They finished their investigation.”
“I watched the news and didn’t remember seeing any guy like him around here, Axel.”
“Who? Chase? I said he was from Texas.”
“No, the one you were sent to clean up after. Not the one you shot, but the other one. The reason you were there in that building in the first place.” Mama started coughing, then drank her coffee.
“Guy named Paul Hudson. Ruled initially a suicide. I was called to do a job. Just another day in my work life, or so I thought.”
I’d taken down a shark in a small pond. Disrupted the feeding frenzy. Now, I’ve upset some folks I don’t even know. He had something to hide, tried to clean it up, but he didn’t seem to know he was too late, and he had no business being there in the first place. You pull a weapon out on me, you better use it and not miss. I could not give a flying squirrel fuck who you are.
“I called you so many times after that! I was worried sick, especially when I couldn’t get a hold of you. Found out you were in surgery to get that bullet out your arm. The doctor said you didn’t want to be heavily sedated. I swear you some sort of sadist.”
I tuned out the noise and did what I had to do. I hear no evil…
“You know how I feel about medication ’nd such. The whole reason we’ve been arguing today. Prescription refill…” They can shove those pills right up their buttholes. I can’t be doped up all damn day. I have work to do. He yawned.
“I’m glad the police didn’t give you any trouble, Axel. You’ve come a long way, and I didn’t want them thinking my boy was involved in this. Drugs ’nd such.” He could hear Mama sucking her teeth, and could just picture her shaking her head the way she often did when distressed. His mouth tightened as he grinned, imagining her holding her old cellphone that barely held a charge, and yet she refused to upgrade it to a newer model, even when he offered to pay for it. He figured her hair was as it typically was, parted down the middle, with gray and blond straight strands that hit her shoulders. Mama wore thin framed blue reading glasses most of the day that accentuated her bright sapphire eyes. There was a permanent gash on the side of her head from when her father had thrown a flowerpot at her during one of his manic rages when she was seventeen.
Mama had daddy issues, she said so herself, and she always chose bad men—his father being among them. Nevertheless, she got rid of them fast, too, never letting the milk get rancid once it turned sour. Refused to be a mistress. Refused to be used and lied to and be a punching bag. He respected the hell out of her, despite their occasional bumping of heads. That was his mama, and he loved her with all his heart and soul.