Roy Glenn - No More Tears In The End

“That got anything to do with your sister-in-law?”

“You ask a lot of fuckin’ questions,” Rain said and finished her drink.

“I just noticed that you two didn’t really speak to each other.”

Rain got up and headed toward the bar. “I don’t like the bitch. Never have. I haven’t spoken to her since I was in the seventh grade. There. You happy now?”

“Why don’t you make me one too?” I said and finished my drink. “Why don’t you like her? She seems like a nice person.”

“Yeah, yeah, she’s real nice and whatever. I just don’t like her, and let’s leave it at that.” When Rain came back she had both bottles. Like she planned on us being there for a while. That was fine with me. I had a lot of questions for her; about her brother and their operation. Specifically; what else she had going on. If we do move on them, I wanted there to be as few surprises as possible.

She took my glass and poured me a drink. As soon as she poured herself a shot, I raised my glass.

“Didn’t mean to make you mad,” I said and drained my glass. Rain followed suit and drained hers.

I took the glass from her hand and poured her another and one for myself.

“I would rather drink to something else,” Rain said.

“What do you wanna drink to?”

Rain raised her glass. “Anything that don’t have nothin’ to do with Lakeda Johnson.” Rain turned up her glass. “Talk to me about something else.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know; anything.”

“I’d rather talk about you.”

“Why you wanna know about me?”

“You already know ’bout me. Only thing I know about you is that you’re twenty-two. I know you can handle a gun.”

Rain looked at me and smiled. I was starting to like the way she smiled. Rain had those pouty lips I seem to like so much. “My daddy taught me how to shoot.”

“You daddy’s little girl?”

“Yup. Everything I know that’s important I learned from him. He taught me a lot about dealin’ with people.”

“How to get them to do what you want them to do?”

“That too. But he taught me to look and listen. Said that’s why we got two eyes and two ears.”

“And only one mouth.”

“Exactly.” Rain poured herself another drink. “I remember once when I was in high school.”

“What school did you go to?”

“Immaculate Conception.”

“Catholic school girl.”

“And I ain’t even catholic. Pops sent me there after I got kicked out of public school.”

“What you get kicked out for?”

“Fightin’. Let this mouth get me into somethin’ I had to fight my way out of. That’s when he told me about lookin’ and listenin’ to mugs, see where they really coming from. But when I first got there these girls wanted to try me, you know, ’cause I’m new and shit. But I just got kicked out of school for fightin’, so I’m tryin’ to be cool. But these bitches won’t let up. So I tell Pops about it.”

“What he say?”

“He listened, and then he said, ‘I can’t tell you what to do. I could tell you what I would do if I was in your place.’ Then he said that I had to start makin’ my own decisions, and once I made those decisions that I had to be willing to stand up and be responsible for those decisions.”

“Good advice.”

“Yeah, I’ve lived by it since. But anyway, he said this is a matter of honor. You already know what the right thing to do is. The right thing is not to fight in school. So if it just a question of right and wrong, the choice was easy.”

“Don’t fight in school.”

“That was the right thing. He said what I have to decided is doin’ the right shit worth what I had to give up?”

“Your honor.”

“Pops told me once that all you really have at the end of the day is your honor. If you don’t have honor you don’t have shit. I know the right thing was to let them bitch-punk me everyday, tell a teacher or some shit. I tried all that, it didn’t work. I had to beat the bitch down, but it was a decision I had to make for myself.”

“What you do?”

“They would always come at me in the lunchroom. So, like, I’m in line, right, gettin’ my food and here they come.”

“How many?”

“Four. Soon as this bitch says something to me, I takes my tray and wheeled around on her ass. I caught her in the face with it and she starts cryin’ like a fuckin’ baby. After all that tough talk, this bitch is cryin’ like a baby. You believe that shit?”

“Sometimes bullies are all talk.”

“Yeah, no shit. I just kept hittin’ her with that tray until the teachers came and pulled me off her ass. The other kids was cheerin’ and shit, ‘get her, get her,’ ’cause this bitch used to fuck with everybody. Nobody liked her, but they was all afraid of her. I got a rush from beatin’ her ass. It was the best feelin’.”

“Did they kick you out?”

“Pops had paid for the year in advance and he spread some money around, so they just suspended me since everybody knew she had been fuckin’ with me since I got there.”

“I bet nobody fucked with you when you got back?”

“Nope. I was the queen fuckin’ bee after that.”

I raised my glass. “To the queen.”

Rain raised her glass and pointed at me. “Queen needs a king.”

For the next couple of hours I sat in the office drinking shots with Rain while she flirted with me and I asked her questions. The more Patron she drank, the easier it was to get answers. I needed to know about their gambling operations, and what exactly she was in to, but I worked it into conversation so it didn’t seem like I was interrogating her.

When Rain announced, “I’m fucked up in this bitch.” I finished my drink and stood up.

“Where you goin’?” Rain said and tried to get up, but couldn’t.

“I got something to do.”

“Why you gotta go?” she pouted. “Have another drink with me.”

“You don’t need no more to drink and besides, you haven’t even finished the one you got.”

“Oh yeah,” Rain said and looked at the glass in her hand. She put the glass down and tried again to get up. I held out my hand to help her up. “Thank you,” she said in a whisper. “You can’t go.”

“Yes, I can.”

Rain took a step closer. “So you think you can just come in here, get my ass drunk, ask me a bunch-of-fuckin’ questions, and then leave?”

“Yes, I do.”

“No, Nick. That’s not right. You can’t leave me like this.”

“This is your spot; you’ll be all right here.”

Rain took a step closer but she stumbled a little. I caught her before she fell. She pressed her body against mine and put her arms around me. “That ain’t what I mean. You can’t leave me like this. The least you could do is drive me home, strip me down and put my ass to bed so I can sleep this off, ’cause, I’m for real, I’m fucked up,” Rain laughed and so did I.

What was I supposed to do?

“Come on, Rain.” I stepped away and took her by the hand. “Can you walk?”

“Long as you don’t let me fall I can walk.”

Rain showed me the way out the back door. That’s when I saw it, another computer sitting on a desk where anybody and everybody could use it.

We made it to my car without her doin’ too much stumbling. I unlocked the door and helped her get in. When I started the car I turned to Rain. Her eyes were closed. “Where do you live?”

“Mount Vernon,” she said and repositioned herself.

“Where?” I asked and turned on the navigation system. Rain said the address and made herself comfortable.

Rain slept through the drive to her apartment. While she slept, I thought about what I was doing, and more importantly, what I was about to do. I mean its not like I don’t see where this was goin’.