“So,” he thought to himself, “this is how it ends.” Bradley was being held over the edge of the Staten Island Ferry by three goons. He could feel the steam of the engine against the back of his neck. As far as he could tell, one more push would have been finito.
A matchstick lit, and was brought up to Tom’s scarred face. He lit his skinny, lady style cigarette, and took and deep inhale.
“You fucked with the wrong asshole, asshole!”
Todd flicked his cigarette, still lit, at Bradley. It was intended to sear his face a bit, maybe something on the cheek, that would have been good too, but with all the wind coming from off the water, it just blew away.
“Shit,” Tom muttered.
Two weeks ago, Bradley was walking downtown, whistling. He was in a GREAT mood. His lottery ticket for the day hit, and he was ten bucks the richer. Also, there was the matter of his dick getting wet the night before. Some girl, I say some, as even Bradley was not aware of her name. It was a freak occurance, even for someone as reckless as Bradley. He found himself the night before at a hotel bar, really only going inside to use the bathroom, but when he stopped to ask for directions, a young woman, the woman in question put her hand on his forearm, and give him incredibly detailed instructions, to literally walk upstairs. In the time it took for her to describe how to get to the bathroom, she had blinked three times, moistened her lips twice, and smiled over every word.
Brad was pretty positive it was on.
Two hours and 4 drinks later, he was downstairs, in the “VIP” section making small talk with this woman. They had laughed over innoucous things like, baseball statistics, which neither of them really understood. They briefly discussed favorite pens, and the best place to get pizza. But really it was a very protracted excuse for Brad to get drunk enough at the bar to make a move.
Which he didn’t. Instead when he went to pee again, she followed him upstairs, gave him a quick glance, and grazed his hand when walking towards the ladies room.
4 hours later, they resumed their “work” in her bed.
As he got up the next morning, grabbing his leather jacket and putting on his ratty canvas sneakers, he noticed that by her bed was a photo. A photo, framed of her, and some guy with a long scar across his cheek. He wanted to, for his sake assume that this guy was a brother. Maybe an old friend, but the way he was holding her, and the proximity of this photo to her bed was a bad sign.
So when a few weeks went by, and he kept sleeping with her, in spite of this photograph, it didn’t really surprise him when a car pulled up with two HUGE guys and the same dude from the photograph. What DID surprise him, was that when he kicked the dude in the nuts, and they threw him over the deck, that he didn’t scream. Also, that he was such a strong swimmer.
That was nice to know.