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Monday, April 23, 2012

Wild Ride -- Chapter 5

 One night soon I would remove my bootlace and try to strangle him in his sleep because he asked me to. When I failed it would be the beginning of the end of us.



 We met up with Canyon at the recycling center and Aidan sprang his plan into action. We would be a team, not live in the shelter and we would split the recycling profits. Canyon was only one of the few people who could change Aidan's mind about anything but there was no going back once we’d agreed and toasted the occasion, with vodka and beer at eight o’clock in the morning. Aidan and I would live in the Cadillac until we had enough money for the three of us to buy a tent. Then we would live in the woods.

The owner of the Caddy had resigned himself to a thirty day stay at the V.A. detox and threw the keys to Aidan.  By any standard the car was dead so it was relegated to ‘home’ status. I took my place in the drivers seat to sleep, with Fred, another friend, shotgun, as well as the myriad people who stopped by, wanting to make the back seat their own.

Not only did we have the homeless people who needed a place to stay stopping by, we had other street people such as drug dealers and whores. They knew the car and its occupants and were always willing to bring something into our ‘home’ -- a bottle, a pipe or their naked bodies. The days were filled with adventures that no one could imagine -- ten dollars still goes far in the armpit that is our city.

One night as we were drinking and smoking and talking,  Aidan made a simple request that I kill him while he slept. He was at the end of his line and wanted out. He wanted someone he trusted to make it happen.

I thought I was that person and agreed. I gave him a handful of medication that would render him unconscious and helpless and, of the dozen pills I gave him, he secretly took only two, a sign to me that he was bluffing, that he didn't want to go through with it. He should be thankful I noticed the pills he had left in his hand, the ones he tried to hide. It's the only reason he's still alive.

I switched seats and sat in the back with our temporary occupants -- that left me sitting behind him. When he asked if I could be depended on, I told him I had some experience with untimely death but I was drunk and had little to use in the way of tools.

As I untied my boots, I made the connection that I had something to use to bring his sorry life to a conclusion. My preferred method would have been to drug him though.  I had tried choking him with my hands while he slept but his arms instinctively went to his throat and he was a big man. The laces would have to work. He took the first lace away, so I tried my second one. I had a vision of ten years at least in prison with a group of people who knew Aidan and would have a deadly interest in the man who killed him in his sleep.

I curled up on my seat and went to sleep knowing that I would have explaining to do the next day but that I'd done the correct thing at least to protect myself. He woke up groggy the next morning and was bitter. He came up with a plan that I was to cut his throat with a razor knife the following night as we were beginning to can our route. He placed the knife in my hand and begged that I not let him down again.

There was suspense the entire night as he walked in front of me, the plan was that I come from behind him and just do the deed -- he gave me many opportunities. As the sun came up, he admonished me -- he was disappointed to see the sunrise,

I looked at him and said that I was selfish, that I wanted him here with me and that I would not do it.

Acts such as this were my downfall. I had lost respect by not carrying out my word but I kept myself intact by not performing the deeds that would have made him love me. He said he would love me forever if I did these things and still I couldn't do them. At least I knew my brain was working even if it was costing me the man I was attracted to more that words can express.


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Brian is a bohemian writer with a fab-ola warped sense of humor and sarcasm, provided at no additional charge. He married a great guy and moved out of the States to Australia.

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