The Winner: Part Ten

Paranoia sets in around New Year's Eve. Weeks ago, I'd been planning on hiring three of Sergei's whores for the night, having them hang out with me in a VIP room of some cheesy nightclub, then taking them home and fucking them all while my new digital camera records the experience. A decadent way to break in the new year of the new Poopy.

Instead, I spend the night home along, jerking off to some squid and scat porn DVDs that I ordered online from Japan last week. So far, I've used almost an entire box of Kleenex to catch my spunk and my dick is raw and bleeding from the pounding its taken. Some people exercise or drink or take up a hobby to deal with stress; I mastrubate and get anti-social.

The last few days were spent gathering the photos and the money for Sergei to arrange the hit. I thought about calling a private detective to get the information, but figured it wasn't a good idea to have too many people in on this so I staked out Luke and Apple's trailer myself. I knew my Mercedes would look conspicuous, so I bought a beat up old Accord for a thousand bucks off Craigslist and parked it where I couldn't easily be seen. Being white, no one paid me much mind as I sat around in the trailer park for hours. I was there almost all day, waiting for Luke to show up.

I was ready to say fuck it and try again the next day when he rolled into the trailer park on his dusty, chopped Harley. I recorded him in video instead of just stills, and when I got home, I selected the frames that gave the best unblurred angles, printed them to hard copy, and then deleted the file and reformatted my drive. I forgot the fifty gigabytes worth of porn I had stashed on there when I did it, but oh well; it wasn't on the forefront of my mind right then.

Getting the money was more of an ordeal than I thought it would be. I thought I had it all figured out: the plan was to withdraw all the money at once, go to an Indian casino and buy a ton of chips. Then, I would give the chips to this one fellow I met through a Gamblers Anonymous message board and have him cash them so all the IRS paperwork would go under his name. For his trouble (and to offset the taxes on his winnings he would have to pay) I'd let him keep the balance of about four grand. This way, if anyone asked, I could say I just lost all my money gambling.

As I drove out to the reservation, the holes in my plan suddenly became glaring. For one, it would only take a cursory check of the casino's security tapes to realize I didn't lose my money playing there. Secondly, why would this gambling degenerate settle for four thousand dollar when he could keep the whole forty-thousand he was going to cash.

My fears were not allayed when I met the guy at a run down cafe on the reservation. His name was Buck and he had the jaundiced yellow-skin of a person who has been drunk non-stop for decades. He stomach was so torn up with alcohol, he could barely eat the meal I bought him (to be fair though, that plate of greasy fry-bread and buffalo meat made me kinda nauesous as well). I made up some story about how I would have "associates" watching him every step of the way and that if there was any trouble, he'd end up with his throat cut behind a dumpster in some urine-stinking alley.

My threats didn't seem to phase Buck, and to be fair, that portion of the plan went through just as I planned it. Half an hour after I passed my chips to Buck, he met me at the pre-arranged area with a manila bag filled with hundred dollar bills. After briefly checking them, I gave him his cut and he turned around and went right back inside to lose it all playing blackjack or something. At that point, I was thinking all this work was unnecessary. It was unlikely my name would ever turn up in a murder investigation, especially an investigation of biker gang member who could have been killed for any number of reasons that have nothing to do with me. I drove back from the reservation feeling like the hard part was over.

However, breaking the bills into twenties proved to be the bigger challenge. Of course, it would be just as conspicuous to go to a bank and have them change thirty-six thousand dollars into small denominations, so I did it in little amounts at different banks and check-cashing joints around town. A few of them required ID, so I made some dumb excuse and left those. Without an account, some places charged a fee to change just a couple hundred dollars. After running around town for two days morning to midnight, I finally had my small bills, even though I had to pay about five-hundred dollars worth of the principal to pay for those retarded fees, as well as a couple huge duffel bags to transport them in.

The next day, I called Sergei and said I was good to go. We met in the same parking garage, and after lugging the duffel bags from my Mercedes into his Pinto, I handed him the photos of Luke and said, "Are we good to go?"

"Yes, Poopy. We are good," Sergei said. He held up the pictures. "Now, you understand that as soon as I give my man his fee--which I plan to do by the end of the day--this is a done deal. There is no turning back."

I nodded. "I won't be changing my mind about this."

"Good," Sergei said, folding up the pictures and putting them in his jumpsuit. "I will call you in a few days when the deed is finished and I have the video you requested. Do not speak specifically about this over the phone. I will contact you regarding this using payphones, rather than my cellphone. Then we can talk of a...bonus."

I didn't think much of the whole transaction when I drove out of the garage, having for all intents and purposes signed a man's death warrant. I didn't think it would affect me until that night when I couldn't fall asleep. The next day, I only left the house to buy some panini sandwiches and expensive bleu cheese stuffed olives from Whole Foods. I hadn't left the house since. A little over a month ago, I was making eight-fifty an hour on the graveyard shift. Now, I was ordering a man's death. I couldn't help but think this would end badly. I couldn't go back to jail. My last jump had been a mere six months and I ended up as some Mexican's fuck toy with my mouth nearly blown apart in a riot. I would get at the minimum a life sentence for the things I was setting into motion now. If I have to go back to jail again, I'll stick a gun in my mouth and pull the trigger, and this time I'll make sure the bullet goes dead center through my brainstem.

As I'm laying on the couch in my own spunk, bizarrely contemplating suicide, the phone rings. As I pick up the cordless, I wonder if it's my Sergei telling me its all over. "Hello," I answer.
"Poooppppy! I'm so glad I can finally talk to you."

It sounds like my mother, only with something in her mouth. After she gets out this first sentence, her voice breaks into a pathetic sob.

"It's me mom. What's wrong?"

"I need help..." she groans. "I need to get out of here. This place is Hell."

I sit up. "Mom...quiet down. What's going on? I got a postcard from you last week saying how much you loved the place."

"They told me what to write on that, but it's lies. Filthy godless lies!" she sobbed. "I'm in pain all the time from the surgery. They drug us, and they don't give us anything to eat. I'm soo hungry..."

"Well, mom...it's a weight loss resort. I'd expect you to be a little hungry."

"They don't allow prayer here," she says. "One of them caught me praying, so they withheld my lunch for the day and told me that God doesn't exist, praise be..."

"What's wrong with that? God doesn't exist," I say and immediately realize that's a mistake because mother starts bawling again. "Listen, can't you just tough it out some? You know, do your praying thing when everyone's asleep or something?"

"I can't," she says. "They said if they caught me doing it again, they'd send me to the behavior changer room. One woman here was caught with a Twinkie she'd smuggled in to the resort. They put her in the behavior changer room and when she came out, she wasn't the same person. I hear they do things to you in there..."

"Mom, sometimes change is good..."

"Poopy, I want to leave!" she yells. "Please get me out of here."

I was afraid this was gonna happen. I already spent a fuckton of money to send my mom to a glorified fat camp and she wanted to puss out when things got hard. Besides, I didn't want her in town while I was in the middle of arranging a murder.

"Listen Mom, you're gonna have to tough it out for a few more weeks. You don't just lose two hundred pounds overnight. You'll thank me when it's over."

"But Poopy..." she starts, but she stops and I hear her drop the receiver. There's an indistinct voice in the background. Then my mom starts stammering, "No, I wasn't talking to anyone. I was just looking at the phone. No...HELP!"

Some woman picks up the receiver and says in a curt voice, "Who is this?"

"Poopy Peanutz, bitch. Who the fuck is this?"

She coughs and I can hear the shift in her tone. "I'm sorry sir. I'm one of the counselors here at The Body Eternal Spa. My apologies. It's just that, as per the terms of our contract, our patients are not permitted contact with the outside world during their duration of their stay."

"What are you doing with my mom out there? She sounds like shit."

"Please don't worry Mr. Peanutz," the woman on the phone says. "Our process of body transformation is very complex, as well as somewhat stressful. We try to provide counseling to alleviate this stress, but sometimes it manifests itself inappropriately. That is why we discourage contact with the outside world during the process. Remember, weight loss isn't just physical--it's mental."

"Whatever," I say. "Just make sure she loses the weight. I've paid you motherfuckers a lot of money."

"I assure you, our success rate is nearly one-hundred percent..."

"Great," I say, then click the cordless off. I sit on my couch and feel numb. I think about watching another one of those jap porn movies, but I don't know if that will help. Nothing feels good any more. Nothing matters. Fuck, I'm turning into an emo.

I end up watching some more porn and try to mastrubate the pain away.