Dan Charrington Presents: Brothers

Dan's Notes: It's amazing the kind of ideas that run through my head just noticing stuff on my walks to work. I saw a couple of guys arguing one time and well... I though of this story. If anyone thinks I'm racist after reading it, fine, but that wasn't my intention!
WARNING: This story contains coarse lauguage, violence and mature subject matter. Reader discression is advised!

Heat
(C) Copywritten 2006

My e-mail: [email protected]

�� While Marc never considered himself anything less than handsome, he couldn't help but wonder how anyone could get an accurate perception of themselves at all in the dingy lighting of the grimy bathroom mirror he now saw himself staring into. The tiles on the walls and floor were crusted on their edges by brown filth; the mirror, small to begin with, was missing several pieces and cracked along its edges. Still, even in this cramped ugly restroom with its single dying light bulb, Marc knew he was still the well built young man of twenty four that he had grown into.
�� Marc brushed his hair again and again. He was frustrated to find it would not remain parted just the way he wanted and after a couple dozen strokes, he finally gave up and returned the comb to his back pocket. He had to face the fact that son of a bitch Steven Pierce would always have better looking hair than his.
�� "What does it matter?" he said to his dirty reflection. "It's just hair."
�� He pushed open the door of the restroom and returned to the booming sounds of the club's pulsating dance and hip-hop tracks. As he had done on his way to the bathroom, he pushed and shoved the patrons aside in an effort to get back to his table. The crowd was in full swing to the blasting beat that bumped and boomed from the large black speakers at the front of the dance floor down below him. A sea of young twenty and thirty-somethings rustled and bustled all around him, some lost to the enchanting throbs of the music; some paired in a casually passionate embrace. The warm air of the club had complemented the evening well, and Marc began to wonder if it was still as humid outside as it must now have been inside.
�� His table came into view after not too long, and Marc eventually reached it and retook his seat at it across from the other two fellows he was with. Derek, a slender and well kept African exchange student, had ordered yet another beer and was well on his way to the bottom of it already. Next to him sat Steve, a shorter young man with dusty red bangs that hung down the side of his head.
�� "Did you fall in?" Derek shouted over the music. He had only been going to school for four years but his accent was nearly unrecognizable anymore. He slung dirty remarks and sarcasm as if he had been raised down the street, and it always made Marc laugh when he could keep up with the trash talking of his fellow university students.
�� Marc smiled at him. "Yeah" he answered. "I think I met a few of your relatives while I was down there. Good swimmers, the lot of them!"
�� Derek smirked right back at him, flipped him off, and then returned to his bottle. Marc began looking for whatever it was that had captured Steve's attention had wandered to. Following his gaze, he spotted what had to be Steve's best selection of the night.
�� The pair was standing across from them, both sipping out of martini glasses. The blond on the left looked about twenty-five from what Marc could see in the dim, flickering lights. Her dark black dress stopped just short of knees and he peered down them, stopping to notice her matching black heels. Her brunette friend also wore black heels beneath a much longer dark red dress that shimmered brightly.
�� Marc looked back at Steve. "What do you think, Romeo?"
�� Steve's eyes didn't move, but his face gave away to an obvious look of consideration. Finally, after brushing his hair away from his face in that too-cool way he always did, he answered "Well everything is where it should be. I think it's worth a shot".
�� "Which one tickles your fancy?" Marc asked, looking back at the women.
�� "What do you mean 'which one'?" Steve inquired.
�� Marc snickered and Derek joined him. Steve had an ego about women that could have easily been shared by the three of them. "Alright" Derek said. "I will wager my last green friend here that both of them shoot you down in flames." He wrestled the bill out from his jean pocket and slammed it on the table next to his empty beer bottles.
�� "Don't do it" Marc began to say. Before he could continue, Steve had snatched the bill, finished his drink and left the table, striding towards his prey slowly.
�� Marc turned away from the floor and instead back to face Derek. "That was a mistake man. Not only did you buy him a bigger ego, but now you won't even make it to last call."
�� "No way. I can promise you that inside fifteen minutes, he'll come back with his tail wagging, and I'll be at the bar lining up some 'real' ladies to knock back!"
�� Marc laughed. "First of all, you are dreaming if you think any more ladies are going down for you this night. Secondly, we are not even going to see him for the rest of the night." He looked again towards Steve, who was undoubtedly beginning his speech already. "In fact, make it two nights. Face it, his weekend is booked."
�� Perhaps some of Marc's words were finally getting through to him. Regardless, Derek turned his tone towards a more serious discussion the two of them had started earlier. "So, are you going to take the Warrens job or not?"
�� Marc sighed. "I told you I don't know."
�� "Whadda-ya mean you don't know? It's a four-month contract. They give you the truck, they pay for gas, and all you have to do is be in each city for the deliveries. You might as well be printing your own money!"
�� "Yeah but there goes my whole summer!" Marc replied.
�� Derek was frustrated now. "So what? You weren't going anywhere all summer anyway!"
�� "Whatever man. Look, let me sleep on it and I will tell you what I think tomorrow." Marc stood from the table. "Listen I'm going to head home. You should probably do the same. It doesn't look like lover boy is sharing tonight." Marc directed Derek's glace across the room. The both of them saw both the blond and brunette now on either side of Steve, giggling like freshmen.
�� Derek scoffed in disappointment and grabbed sports jacket. "Yeah well, it will be their disappointment later."
�� Marc smiled and the two of them made their way out of the club. The air outside was cool at first, compared to the thick, sweaty musk that hung inside the small building. As the two guys walked down the street away from the noise of the dance club, the humidity that had been lingering over the city for the past week became, once again, impossible to ignore.
�� "Man I don't know if I can take this muggy shit anymore." Derek snapped. He pulled a cigarette from the packet in his pocket, lit it, and took a long drag.
�� Marc walked next to him with his hands in his jean pockets. He only had on his jeans and a tight fitted T-shirt. It was the kind he always wore out: a size or two too small, which he felt, helped him accent his arms and chest. He had been slacking off lately with his workout schedule and felt this was the best way to make up for it.
�� The street was littered with discarded trash and worn out street signs. Ahead of them they saw a spares collection of nighttime partiers going to and from the various bars, clubs and shops they were trying to get to. Some of them walked in clusters, some of them stumbled, and some of them shouted as the police cars and taxicabs drove up and down the street. The amber streetlights painted the long hazy streets in a dim orange glow that made it look like a mild twilight.
�� Marc lived a distance away from the downtown area, whereas Derek shared a house only a few blocks away. When it came time for the two of them to head in different directions, Derek had already finished his cigarette.
�� "Well brother, I'll catch you later" Derek said as he punched Marc in the arm. "And hey, think about that job man. Don't pussy out on me."
�� "I will" Marc lied. "I'll call you on Monday and let you know what I think then. For now I just need some sleep."
�� Derek turned and started walking. "Right. No jerking off for you tonight! You get home and get straight to bed now!" he hollered back and laughed.
�� "Fuck you" Marc yelled back and started walking.
�� As he made his way down Riverside Ave, Marc let his head drift off. He was tired and still had a buzz from the bar, but he didn't feel like hailing a cab. He didn't trust cabbies, nor did he feel safe around them.
�� It took him roughly ten minutes to get out of the thick urban maze of the downtown area, and now Marc was slowly pacing down a quiet road towards his apartment complex. On his left side he watched as the stores he had seen a million times before each came into view and then passed him by. On his right side, near the curb, he walked by several dozen street signs, bus stops, newspaper stands and overfilled public trash bins. The bins all stank in the humidity and Marc began to yearn more and more for his air-conditioned apartment each time he passed one.
�� This was the first night he had been out with his friends in a while. Normally he spent his time working at his two jobs. He worked behind the counter at a sporting goods store during the day and moonlighted as an assistant superintendent in his apartment building, filling in for his landlord when she wasn't around. He had been telling his friends and family for the last few years that he was going to go back and finish up school when he put together enough money, but it seemed to be something he was always putting off.
�� "Fucking don't move!" The words startled him and made his chest tense. They had been screamed at him from some unknown direction behind him. Instinctively, he raised his hands in a surrendering motion.
�� The voice cried out again. "Motherfucker I will blow your fucking head off if you move an inch." Marc stood stiff. He was over the initial shock and was staring straight ahead down the street.
�� The footsteps of his unknown commander came closer, and Marc noticed his shadow come into view on the sidewalk at his feet. "What do you want?" he spoke lowly.
�� "Shut up!" the boy behind him shouted. Marc could tell now that he was right behind him, and he felt a jab in the back of his head. It was cold and hard and made his chest tense a second time--harder. This time it was a lot longer before he could breath comfortably again.
�� "Alright" he quickly responded, and then said nothing. The frustration and fear had made it hard for him to think. His mind thought of the first fight he could ever remember being in as a child. Bullies were commonplace at his grade school, since he had grown up in a poor neighborhood. He could remember tackling a seventh-grader that was two years older than him and pushing him face first into a wall. The kid had broken his nose, and Marc had spent two weeks in detention. He hated it too, because if he hadn't bashed up that stupid kids face, he knew he'd be the one in the hospital. He had sat there in the library day after day thinking how unfair it was.
�� Marc felt a hand reach into his back pocket and fish out his wallet, and his attention was once again at the moment. The ache in his head from the metal being pushed into it from behind him was intensifying.
�� "Is this all you got, motherfucker?" The voice sounded young and defiantly that of a black kid to Marc.
            He hesitated and responded. "Yeah"
            "Fuck there is no cash at all in here" the young man behind him screamed. He tossed it aside and it landed on the sidewalk ahead of Marc. The loose driver's license with his high school mug shot on it flew out from underneath it.
             He had other cards in his wallet. His gym membership and a few banking cards, as well as a wealth of scrap papers, some with phone numbers on them, some with directions to house parties and other events that had long since passed. He even had a picture of Terri, his brother's kid who had just started school and that he loved to death, tucked neatly in the folds of the wallets fading stitch work. It all lay discarded and face down on the sidewalk now however--tossed aside without a second glance.
              "Sorry bro..." he answered back, not even half thinking about it. The words came from his mouth almost by reflex, as if he had said "bless you" after someone had sneezed. It wasn't until after he had said them that he realized that the fastest way to end this whole encounter would have been to keep his mouth shut.
              "What did you call me, motherfucker?" the man with the gun to his head said, and for the first time Marc saw what he looked like as he removed his weapon from the back of his head and circled around to face Marc. Though he nearly matched Marc's six feet and two inches of height, he was defiantly young--maybe a late teenager even. He had on an ordinary dark hoodie that hung down over his baggy jeans, and in his hand he held a small silver pistol sideways, aiming it directly at Marc's chest.
              The boy in the hoodie spoke again, "you wanna die, bitch? Is that it? You wanna die?" Marc could see a resisting tension in the boy's face that seemed to cause his expression to come across as a mixture of anger and frustration.
               Marc was frustrated too, but he had more focus. "No I don't want to die," he said, locking his eyes with the young boy's. The memory of his fight in grade five flashed in his head for a brief second before he spoke again. "But do you want to spend your life in jail?"
               He held his breath and waited anxiously for the boy's reaction. Marc saw the tension in his face intensify and the gun in his hand begin to shake. He was almost certain that he would be shot any second now, and that he'd never get to see Terri or have a Terri of his own some day. Despite this, he couldn't help himself.
               "Murder one will put you away for at least twenty five years. Do you want to spend twenty five years locked away in a cell" become someone's punk?"
               "SHADDAP!!!" the boy screamed at him. Marc felt his chest being torn open. He felt like he had been shot, but after a few painless seconds, he realized his hard had just gone berserk for a moment. It was now racing and the boy's cry had nearly caused it to burst. He said nothing else but retained his eye contact with the boy, who now gripped his pistol with both hands had was trying desperately to aim it at his head.
               An instant seemed never-ending as the two stared into each other's eyes. Marc couldn't bring himself to retreat his stare. It was either immense courage or fear that kept him locked on the young boy's dark eyes. He wondered what could be driving such a young man to an end like this. What was the reasoning that pushed him--that drove him to hold the life of another man within the nervous grip of his sweat-covered stare. All of these questions seem to swirl through Marc's mind as he stood with his hands raised in the warm night.
                The boy blinked. It seemed to shatter the eons they had spent in their face-off, and now Marc's attention had snapped into focus. Dodging quickly to the side, Marc brought his left arm up swiftly. It made contact with the boy's outstretch arms and a second later there was a mighty crack that echoed loudly as the gun went off. He felt startled, as if his hand had made the noise merely by hitting the mugger's arms, but he was too . His hand took hold of the boy's arms and he tugged hard. As he did, he swung hard with his right fist, and it made hard contact with the boy's face.
                The boy's arms came free and jutted out to his side as the boy reeled backwards, doubling over before he fell to the ground. Marc saw his gun land near where the boy had thrown his wallet. It made several loud clanks as it slide down the pavement. Marc was afraid it might go off again, spraying random bullets in any direction--perhaps in his direction--but it never did.
                The young boy moaned loudly and made an effort to stumble back to his feet. Marc didn't know what to do, but he knew he didn't want that boy back on his feet again, so he charged him and caught him in a tackle that brought him down on the boy, nearly crushing him under his weight. Pushing himself up, Marc took hold of his sweater and pulled the boy's face closer to his. He was bleeding badly from his left nostril and his cheek was swollen. Marc's first blow had been a good one--a solid shot right to his entire face.
                The boy's eyes, dark and half closed, swirled around randomly in a vein attempt to get a handle on things. Marc had knocked most of the fight out of him, but his rage--his will to defend himself--was strong and had yet to relent. He brought his fist up again like a blacksmith's hammer and struck the boy across the face. This time his hand shook as the bones cracked across the surface of the boy's already broken cheeks. Blood shot out in a splatter across the sidewalk as the young man now went limp in his grasp.
                Marc landed three more punches, each one taking longer to muster the strength than the last, before a sound behind him--a voice--made his hammer-like hand halt before striking again.
             "Freeze!Police!"
�� The two words echoed in his head. They sounded blurring and distant, but as he began once again to focus on what his eyes saw, he noticed the light on the battered young man's face had changed now. It was flashing and alternated between red and white. In his rage he hadn't noticed the police car that had caught sight of the two of them not a moment beforehand.
            Marc exhaled a gust of air and relaxed his raised hand. It opened slowly to a claw and finally an open palm. He released the boy's shirt, letting his head fall back to the ground, and then raised the other one to match it. He then began to slowly push himself up with his now suddenly exhausted legs.
             He heard the voice scream again. "Step away from that man, pal! Keep your hands in the air!"
�� "All right, all right!" he called back compliantly. He rose and backed away slowly. His eyes remained on the huddled boy's battered face as he stepped backwards away from him. Gazing at the boy like a lion that had just run down its kill, Marc could see nothing more of the street talking punk that had held a gun to his head not moments before. There was nothing left of the murderer in this poor boy. He had been beaten down and defeated by Marc and his rage, and now he could only lay and twist his busted face back and forth in pain.
             "Put your hands on top of your head and get down on your knees! Do it now, asshole!" Marc heard a second voice, much older and muffled by a worn out throat like that of a chain smoker, and he obeyed instantly. He dropped to his knees and crossed his fingers together on top of his hands as soon as the order had been given. He had fell so fast his knees were both stabbed with the pain of the impact as they landed on the cement.
             But still, his eyes could only see the triumph that lay before him in the form of a crippled mugger. He had never felt so victorious in his whole life, which was now going to continue to go on because of what he had done this warm evening.
              It wasn't until he felt the stone grip of the officer's hand on his own, crushing his fingers together and bending his arm harshly behind his back that Marc's eyes dropped to the sidewalk and lost focus. He felt his face being drained of color as fear once again took hold of him.
              Marc was pulled to his feet and shoved hard against a now parked police car at the side of the road. He cried out as his shoulder came into contact with the smooth cool surface of the small white inner city police cruiser.
              "Shut up, pal" the cop scoffed at him unsympathetically. He leaned over and Marc could feel his hot breath on his ear. "Didn't you hear? Lincoln put an end to that shit over a hundred years ago!"
               It took a while for what the old man said to register with Marc, and even it did he still was confused. He felt as if he had shown up to a party nobody had informed him had been cancelled, or that he had missed a detailed state of emergency bulletin on CNN issued by his authorities.
              He wanted to reply, but couldn't. His energy was spent, and all he could do was allow himself to be cuffed and wrestled into the car. The seats were worn and the grated window that allowed him to see the front seats and dashboard looked chilling and inhospitable.
              Through the window he gazed out back at the scene to see if he could tell what the cops would do next. He saw the gruff man who had handcuffed him talking on his shoulder radio as his partner was now leaning over the young black man. He appeared to be trying to bring him back into consciousness.
              He looked back to see if he could spot his wallet with the tossed aside driver's license, but couldn't see it. The young man's gun was also gone from sight. All Marc could see were the two men trying to aid the gunman, and the flashing white and red lights shining off the reflective surfaces of the scene.
              Marc slumped in the seat and closed his eyes. His wrists and knees ached and he felt his shoulder tense up. He was shaking now. He began to wish he had left the bar five minutes sooner. The night would have gone smoother--a lot smoother. He probably would have already been home right now. He'd have the air conditioning on and be out the damp bar clothing he had on now.
              But that wasn't going to happen now. He probably wouldn't even see his apartment until at least another night had passed. There were nothing but difficult questions and disdainful looks for him now.
              The gruff police man pulled the driver's door open and slide inside. The entire car swayed like a rocking chair as he plopped down inside and slammed the door.
              "Did you guys find my wallet?" Marc said finally.
               The officer ignored him and brought the car's engine to life. He didn't answer any of Marc's questions the whole trip downtown. Marc didn't expect any answers anyway, nor did he need them. He had won his victory--his struggle for survival amidst the heat of the night--and now all he had left to do was to keep on living.

This is my writing. If you want to rip it off, there really isn't much I can do to stop you, but you will be shunned in your next life. If you have something to say about it or want to comment, critisize, or question something, then head to the guest book and speak your mind there, or e-mail me personally.