Total pages in book: 131
Estimated words: 122609 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 613(@200wpm)___ 490(@250wpm)___ 409(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 122609 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 613(@200wpm)___ 490(@250wpm)___ 409(@300wpm)
“Do you miss your mother? I mean, I know she’s not deceased, but you had said—”
“Yeah. I miss ’er sometimes. I just avoid her. A contradiction, I know.” He smirked.
“No, not really. We can miss someone but at the same time not want to talk to them.” She chuckled. “It happens. I can relate. Are your grandparents still alive? Your father’s parents, that is?”
He shook his head. “No. My grandmother died two years ago. Heart problems. My grandfather died when I was twenty-three. If you ask me, they both died a little the same day my dad did. Nothin’ was ever the same. They tried to move on, but I could always feel their pain.”
“Archer, can I ask you something?”
He looked at her. Waiting.
“You’re special. You’re unique. You look like you’d be some, I don’t know, male bimbo because well, you’re very easy on the eyes and you don’t really show a lot of emotion… You’re hard to read. Makes people wonder what’s going on in that head of yours. I’ve spent this time with you and discovered you’re actually very intelligent. You’re intuitive. Clever. Fast on your feet. Decisive. Amazing work ethic. You have an astounding memory… and yet, you’re also prone to violence as a first solution to solve problems. You’re argumentative at times, unnecessarily so. Defensive and cold. But all of that aside, this career path seems beneath you.”
“How’s it beneath me?”
“The more important question is, why do you do it? You’re the kind of guy that could have gone to college and became CEO of some Fortune 500 company. Why alcohol smuggling?”
He seemed to mull her question for a long while, then his mouth curved in an obscene grin. “…Because I like it.”
“You like hiding from the police? Dealing with horrible people like Bannon? You enjoy the fact that your sister is locked up partially due to her own mistakes, but also because someone in this line of business, your business, snitched on her? You mean to tell me you enjoy all of that?”
“Do you enjoy the tears that run down the faces of mothers who have lost their children in a school shooting? Do you like being shoved around by the police when you’re in a protest parade that your boss told you not to attend?”
“It’s not the same. I do all of that for an honorable cause. Nothin’ you’re doing is honorable.”
“I help put food on the table for folks who’d be back in prison otherwise. I help small businesses that are bein’ taxed out of their ass for alcohol by our greedy government officials, to be able to keep their damn doors open, and give a man or woman a fuckin’ break after a long day at work, kick back with a beer.”
“You shouldn’t be there! At that warehouse!”
“And just where should someone like me be, huh?”
“Running a company! Like I said. YOU’RE A BOSS!”
“I DO run a company! You saw it yourself! You just said I should be the CEO of a Fortune 500 company. It’s not a Fortune 500 but it gets the job done, and for damn sure I’m the CEO and head motherfucker in charge. So now what do ya have to say for yourself, huh? Ms. Know-It-All.”
She swallowed. She’d almost forgotten that yes, he was in fact a CEO already. This booze business simply overshadowed it.
“I like what I do, Honey. Just because something is illegal doesn’t make it morally wrong to everyone. I have a right to believe how I believe.” He pointed at himself. “If I lived by what others thought of me, I wouldn’t even get out of bed.”
“Let me ask you something.”
“Must you?”
She grinned at that. “Do you think it’s right or wrong, what you’re doing? Look me in the face and answer. Now be honest.”
“I’m nothin’ but honest. You want to talk about right and wrong? What’s wrong is overtaxing us American citizens who work our asses off, in order to line the pockets of someone who doesn’t appreciate our labor. We’re being pimped. What’s wrong is giving a man a life sentence for a first offense at the age of seventeen. What’s wrong is lying to American voters, promisin’ a living wage, good jobs and good healthcare, only to give ’em twelve damn dollars an hour for a family of five and a deductible that’s laughable. What’s wrong is chargin’ someone thousands of dollars for their heart or diabetes medication, and if they don’t take it, they’ll die. What’s wrong is increasing grocery prices three or four times over, and blaming it on a recession when there’s actually plenty of product to go around the moon and back fifty fuckin’ times. Greed is this country’s thumbprint. The money ain’t green. It’s red.”
“But it’s wrong for you to—”
“What’s wrong is jammin’ a microphone in an eleven-year-old boy’s face whose mother left rehab for the third time and is missing in action, and he just saw his dead daddy on the gotdamn boob tube while eatin’ SpaghettiOs! THAT’S WHAT’S WRONG. Not all of us are meant to be like you—go to a fancy school and smile for the fucking camera. I’m a miracle, Honey. It’s incredible I’m even still alive. And now that I think about it, you’re no innocent little lamb, either, so point your moral compass in another direction. You’re traveling down the wrong road.”