July ninth, 1988. The first time I tried cocaine. The passing of my family member was heartbreaking, but in sheer coincidence some bum from the streets offered. I was told that the outskirts of L.A. were drug businesses but didn't come across one until now.
I hesitated of course, but I realized: How am I going to go through the pain? My thoughts had a good point, so I bought a pouch of 500 milligrams of cocaine. Once done, I did my usual stroll around building-to-building just looking for work.
Being sketchy was something I didn't want to be, I wanted to be cool, especially for this day. My hair was slicked back with gel and oil, I was wearing my long leather coat with a handkerchief inside of the pouch. My black vest was gleaned from the sun and my necktie was tied around my neck and tucked away for me to look like a businessman. The cocaine was tucked away inside of the inner pockets and I made sure it was tightly secured in there.
I got around the first corner today to a SHELLS gas station. Vehicles were parked but no one was outside, how odd? I reached down into my pocket and grabbed my pack of cigarettes I kept for stress-relieving. I opened the little fold and saw only four, four wasn't going to keep me through the day. I felt my inside pocket to make sure the powder was still tucked away, and it was. I grabbed one of the four and lit the end with a match; I took one puff and walked close to it. As I was walking towards the gas station with my hand shoved in my pockets, someone came out with what seemed to be multiple packs of zig-zags. A man came out with a pistol and aimed towards the gas station. He shot one round and a woman began screaming, and I guess he got scared and ran with his buddy.
I spit out my cigarette and charged towards the one who was armed. He was persistent, but I managed. I put both hands onto his black-clothed shoulders and jumped on him; we both tumbled down and I knocked the pistol from his hand.
"James get over I need help!" The (used to be) armed one said. "James get your ass over here, you backstabbed me!!"
I struggled with him once more. Someone came out of the store and grabbed the pistol and aimed it at the pinned man, and that's when he stopped struggling.
"Police are coming, just remember that!" The man yelled, I guess he was the owner. He had an Asian accent and was breathing heavily with fear struck in him.
"Just wait for my men to come and kill you, see who'll be talking about arresting someone." He laughed, he looked right at me with murder in his eyes. "You better let go of me, cracker man, don't want to die trying to play the fancy act."
"Just shut up, your men can go to hell if I care."
He just laughed, he was moving his wrist like he still had the gun. He lifted his head, bashed his head onto the pavement, and continued.
"I'm not going to prison anytime soon!" He laughed, and he kept continuing with blood puddling.
I let go of his arms and tried to prevent him from bashing his head, it was an instinct. The used-to-be-gunman punched my face and pushed me off of him. He got up and tried getting the pistol from the owner, but it failed. The owner pulled the trigger and a bullet shot into his chest, he didn't stand on his feet for a second before falling.
My coat was almost off of my chest, I quickly folded it as if I was tightening a blanket in winter. I got onto my feet and brushed off any dust that could've gotten onto the leather.
The Asian man lowered the pistol while he was huffing in the air.
In the distance, police vehicles were coming this way, to witness a random man dead on the ground. I hugged my coat and attempted to walk away, I felt my slicked-backed hair falling to the front. I could feel the cocaine still secured in my pocket, that part I was relieved. I took a couple of steps forward until I heard the store owner near the body.
"Where are you going?" He said it with a little bit of anger, and I guess with guilt. I turned around and we both exchanged eye contact. I felt like I should've tightened my grip, but not too much to choke me.
"Home, I'm done here." My eyes focused in the distance and saw three police vehicles parked near the gas pumps.
Two of them exited out; one of them was bulky and obese, smoking a cigar and having ashes dropped onto the ground near the pumps. The other guy was skinny but obvious that he was gaining weight, he was smoking a cigarette. They both walked up to the Asian man and started asking questions that I couldn't hear. At some point, the Asian man pointed towards me and the cops started walking my way. I could feel my body heating up, feeling tense that I had an illegal substance on me.
The fat-cigar one was (somehow) the first to approach me. He had a beard with ash on it, and his teeth were bright yellow.
"Do you know anything that happened here?" He had an average fat man voice, deep but also a little light. I nodded my head and eased the grip so it wasn't as suspicious.
"No, I was out back and saw two people exiting the gas station; one of them was a robber and the other was armed." I tried my best not to sound shaky, but my mind kept overlapping two things: cops and drugs.
"Of what the Asian guy was saying, they came barging into the doors and threatened everyone to get down. Both of them were Vietnamese, maybe illegal immigrants I don't know." The officer put his fat fingers on the cigar and lifted it out of his mouth, he blew out a cloud of smoke and put the thing back into his mouth where he went to clench-town. He reached his hand out, expecting a handshake. "'Name is Sergeant Dalton, and my partner is Officer Matthews."
I reached out and gave him a handshake, his hands were sweaty and hot. Dalton looked at me with bothered eyes as we let go.
"I'm Jack Mercer, a businessman for a company back in Vegas, I'm taking a vacation."
Without any hesitation or any thought in mind, Dalton asked: "Why were you behind or near the building, isn't it a coincidence that you appeared at the right moment the robbers were walking out?"
I felt like I was sweating, and my body felt needles poking me.
"I had to make a phone call, there's a phone booth and it was quiet back there, so I attempted to make a phone call until I heard screaming." Dalton's eyes eased and he blew out another cloud of smoke.
"It's really quiet back there, I make phone calls time-to-time to check up on Mama. So It makes sense, sorry for disturbing you in any way."
After he said that he patted me on the shoulder and began walking off, saying things to the Asian man and Dalton's companion trying to put the dude's body in a body bag.
I turned around and began walking off, I felt the pouch in my pocket and felt the bulge. Now there was only one thing to do, get high.