Forgive Me For My Synapses

[Latin For Dragula]

((EW1: Gabriel Munez Start))

After he tied the bandana around his head, he didn't move for awhile when he woke up. He just laid in the row of slot machines, blinking up at the ceiling. This went on long enough that when he finally got up, he felt sort of stiff. Not that it mattered. His movements were halting, firm, and robotic already, no matter how he felt physically. For once, he found himself emotionally paralyzed. No one knee-jerk reaction could fully encompass how he felt right now.

So he waited. He sat up. He dug through his bag without any real recognition, just pawing through the mechanical movements to make himself active. After a few moments of contemplation, he scanned the room until he noted the blinking eye of a camera. With that, he sprung to his feet.

"Hey. Hey you. Yeah, I'm talking to you, whoever's running that shit. Eyes on me, motherfucker. I've got somethin' to say."

There had been a pistol in his bag, so he started waving it for effect. This was getting through.

"You picked up yet? You better have. I got a message to deliver."

He paused in the camera's field of view and took a deep breath. "Frank? I know you're watchin', or Aunt Maria is, or one of the kids, or somebody, fuckin' somebody is watchin' this, and I...I don't, I need, I...fuck."

Silence.

"Mom's real fucked up, Frank. She ain't talkin' about it, but she is. And if I'm not there, if she sees me here all alone in that goddamn apartment..." The sentence was cut-off by his throat closing up. Tears were starting to form in his eyes, stinging, angry drops of moisture that burned across his face as the dropped. "G-get her, and watch her. Get with the people at work. Make her stay with you, make sure she's not alone even when she's driving, make her stay out of the bottle, make her...make her live..."

The tirade slowed as he tried to hold in the sobs. She's gonna die. She's gonna drink herself to death and it's going to be your fault because you weren't fucking there.

He sniffed hard and drew back up into the camera. "I'm comin' home, Frank. I'm not stayin' here. I'm givin' you a real simple job that I've been runnin' for years, and you better promise yourself right now that you'll take care of it. Promise me, Frank. 'Cuz I promise if you don't..."

There was no verbal conclusion to the thought. Without a word, he strode back towards his bag, and hefted it up on his shoulder. Then he turned back to the camera and stared into it as he slid the safety off of the pistol, pressed it to the nearest slot machine, and fired, repressing a wince as echo tore through the room like the bullet through thin metal.

He gave an unquestioning nod, and stormed out along the lines of tables, pushing his way through the doors into the soft breeze.

((Gabriel Munez Continued in I like my ladies like my coffee))