Last Confessions.

I’m standing in the rain. I wait here, cigarette hanging out the corner of my mouth, rain beading off my suede jacket, soaking into my boots. I used to hate the rain, but now, I dunno, I don’t mind it so much. There’s something cleansing about it. And believe you me, I’ve got a lot to be cleansed of. I lean against a lamp post. Here I am, standing at an intersection, in the rain. I remember the last time I stood out in the rain, back when I was someone else.

A drug dealer, to be specific. I had one of the biggest rings in the Midwest. Hundreds of people answered to me. It was pretty rare for me to do my own dirty work, but that day, I wanted to. He hadn’t paid in a month. But, he had been snorting. Thus, my conflict. I met him in the park. He told me something about his sick wife and daughter, about how he had the money. He did have the money. All of it. In small, unmarked bills. I was about to walk away when he dropped the bomb on me. Apparently, he wanted out, ‘for his family’s sake.’

I didn’t have many users that I dealt with directly. Mostly, I sold to the guys who sold to the users. Sometime, I sold to dealers’ dealers. So when I did take on a personal case, I demanded they be loyal…i.e. not quitting. I got mad. I told him I couldn’t believe after all I’d done for him, after all the late payments I’d accepted without a late fee, after all the ‘free hits,’ after the times I’d loaned him money to help feed his family (at a hefty interest), I couldn’t just let him walk away from me like that. He said something about how he had to, for his daughter.

Next thing I know, I’m standing over him, holding a pipe with blood all over it. It was raining, just like today. He was lying there, in a puddle. Bleeding all over the place. I saw his blood mingling with the mud and water on the grass. God, that color. I’ll never forget that color. I guess that moment was it for me. A moment of clarity, finding God, whatever you call it. I just looked down at him, and I knew I couldn’t do what I was doing anymore. I had just beaten a man nearly to death. A father, who might have a little girl, just like me. I could only guess what my ‘associates’ had done along these lines. This had to stop, or at least, I had to get out of it. I dropped the pipe and ran. I ran like I hadn’t since I was a little boy. I didn’t even know where I was going, I just knew I had to go until I found it.

I ran and ran and ran until I wound up on the steps of the Cathedral my parents had taken me to as a kid. I sat down on those steps and just started bawling my eyes out. At first, it was just harmless. Helping some other kids get high and making some pocket cash doing it. Then, it turned into just making some money. I would’ve never dreamed of hurting anyone. Until I had. I was so overcome with guilt. I vowed right then, never again to sell drugs. Never again to hurt another person. I didn’t even want the money I’d gained over the years. I saw it now for what it was: blood money. Money made from ruining lives. And I hated it. I wanted to rip my clothes off and throw them away. I didn’t, there. But I did when I got home.

The first few days were easy. I avoided taking phone calls by smashing my phone. I avoided doing anything to promote drugs by flushing all the stuff I had in my house. I avoided tearing my house to pieces by selling everything. I called in art dealers, car dealers, even a real estate agent. I didn’t want any of it. When it was all aid and done, I had almost four million in my hand. Money I didn’t want.

If you’ve never seen a nun curse, I’ll tell you how to do it. Hand her a check for $3.7 million. After I’d done that, after I’d renounced my ways and put the blood money someplace I figured could cleanse it a little, I only had one thing left to do…put my life back together.

First, I had to find a job. A respectable one. But with no prior decent work experience, it was tough to find one. Nobody wants to hire a thirty-year-old man with a suspiciously blank resume. I finally got a job flippin’ burgers at midnight at some all-night diner. Then, I got an apartment. It wasn’t too bad, but the roaches didn’t pay rent, so I had to start stomping them out. The easy part was officially over.

I started getting calls at my new number. Some just from junkies needing a fix. Others from dangerous men, men with a lot of money riding on me doing what I did. I was amazed at how fast they’d found me. I was also amazed at how few of these men listened to me now that I wasn’t their supplier. There I was, friendless, moneyless, respectless, just waiting for someone to come and kill me. I’d always thought it was bullshit when I saw the guys on tv talking about how hard it was to get out. I just always thought they were making excuses. But when I put on my boots and jacket that night to go out for a walk, I knew exactly what they meant.

It would’ve been so very easy to call up a guy from Argentina and be back in my mansion, surrounded by bodyguards and friends just waiting for me to get around to throwing them a bag of rocks in exchange for a few thousand dollars. But I knew I couldn’t. I knew I couldn’t go back to the people I’d lost all my respect for. I couldn’t ever be a part of another man getting his face bashed in.

I walked, and before long, I was at the hospital. I went inside for some reason, and somehow wound up standing over the man I had pummeled in the park. I just stood there, looking down at him.

“He’s, he’s gonna be okay,” a lady told me from the doorway. I looked up and saw a young woman, presumably his wife, standing there holding the hand of a little girl, presumably his daughter. My god, she even looked like my little girl. “He’s got twenty-eight broken bones in his face and shoulders, but the doctors say they got him in time. He’s, he’s gonna,” her eyes started to well up, “he’s gonna, be…okay. He, he has to be…” she broke down and started crying. Stepped over and put my hand on her heaving shoulder as she sat down. “He was all we had. Who would do this, Mister? I don’t understand. Who, who would do this to someone? Someone nice, a good person like my husband?”

“A monster,” I replied. I wished I’d kept back some of the drug money to rebuild this man’s face, his life. But I hadn’t. I was now totally useless to these people. I felt like jumping out the window. But I knew it wouldn’t be too long now until I was gonna be found by some guys looking to give me my karma, repay me in kind for what I had done. If I was lucky, I might get away with twenty-eight broken bones. Who knew? Maybe I’d get to stay in this guy’s room.

I sat there in that room, with my hand on his wife’s shoulder, until four o’clock in the morning. Then, I had to get out. I had o get some fresh air. And I had to get away from this family before the violence found me. I knew the people who were looking for me. I was taking food out of their families’ mouths, too. God, was I making the right decision? I didn’t know, I still don’t know.

I only walked a few blocks before I came to this intersection. What better place to wait for my impending doom, thought I. So, I leaned up against a light post. It started to rain again. I lit a cigarette…and that’s where you came in.

Oh, shit! Here they come! What do you mean, where? That Hummer up there with two guys in ski masks in it! Get out of here, kid. Get out of here. They don’t want you yet. Go on, leave. Don’t ever claim you talked to me. But, do me a favor, will you? Keep an eye on my daughter Melinda? And look out for that dude whose face I broke. Think of it as a dying man’s request…

*POPPOP*