Chapters 16-20

***

CHAPTER 16

Day 3 started with a light brighter than I had ever seen, shining directly into my face.

I can't lie ... I thought at first that maybe I was proverbially "walking toward the light", and that my captors had poisoned the lunch meat, and that the little storage room below a bar into which I had been locked was to be my final resting place.

I attempted to shield my eyes from the glare, and was frightened to learn that I couldn't even move my arms. I tried to flex my lower arms to see if I could feel any restraints. As it turned out, I couldn't feel much of anything at all ... as if paralysis had set in overnight with me on my cot.

Then the voices started.

"You'll know *what* you need to know *when* you need to know it. It's just that simple."

Mario had said that to me the day before. But this wasn't Mario's voice. And this wasn't Mario.

Shadowy figures had surrounded me while I slept, and they were taking turns repeating that statement, over and over again, each one leaning in over me, temporarily blocking the light, but with their faces unrecognizable, replaced with just the glow of the light they were obstructing, like halos around their heads.

"You'll know *what* you need to know *when* you need to know it. It's just that simple."

The intensity picked up ... and the voices started taking turns with the phrasing, leaning in and out of the light over top of me with increased speed.

"You'll know ..."

"*What* you need to know ..."

"*When* you need to know it ..."

To punctuate the concluding sentiment, they all leaned in at the same time and shouted, "It's just that simple."

With *all* of them blocking out the bright light, I could finally determine why it was that I couldn't figure out exactly who it was standing over me.

The Andantes were back.

***

Yes indeed, the Andantes were back.

You remember the Andantes, don't you? The faceless mannequin-like creatures that haunted my dreams -- stand-ins for people involved in the painful memories that I took from others so that they can be free of them ... faceless because they represented people I had never actually laid eyes on yet they were key to the heartache I was absorbing from those with whom I came into literal contact.

When they tormented me in the past, they hadn't been able to speak so clearly ... it was more like muffled cries that got louder and louder as the nightmare progressed. But not this time. This time they were in full voice, although, true to form, their mouths weren't moving, seeing as how they had no mouths at all.

"You'll know *what* you need to know *when* you need to know it. It's just that simple."

Having increased their intensity, it was only natural that the light above somehow got even brighter, now burning my eyes. Then the cot started shaking.

I had no idea why they were so angry and I secretly wished that I could somehow assure them that I heard and understood their message.

But I couldn't move ... not to reply ... not even to shield my burning eyes ... and definitely not to get up and push them aside.

I was along for the ride ... and so I just accepted that this was "Andante boot camp", and I was simply being put through the paces.

It all ended as abruptly as it had begun ... when my cot tipped over and I spilled to the floor of my cell.

***

I did not stick the landing of my fall.

It was clumsy, and painful, and I was just thankful that my place of imprisonment was made for one and didn't have bunk beds AND I wasn't on the top bunk when I crashed to the floor.

The one good thing? It did awaken me from the beginning of my nightmare ... and it also explained the dreamscape in which I had found myself. The bright light? A flashlight was indeed being shined into my eyes.

"Dude. You weren't waking up. I guess I shook you too hard."

Now that *was* Mario's voice.

"Yeah. Sorry, I was deep in a dream." I replied sheepishly.

"I would say so. You didn't even hear me come in. Anyways ... I brought the light you asked for so you can use the bathroom in the dark. And some magazines that we give away at the bar. Give you something to do for a few days." Mario tossed me the magazines right where I was on the floor.

I sat there a moment a longer, processing that bit of news. A few days. That's what he had said. I was already on my third day .. how long were they planning to keep me here? I didn't have a chance to ask that question aloud.

Mario continued. "Okay. That's it. It was a quiet night, so I don't have to close. I'm heading out now, so ... you know ... be good and stuff."

We had the most awkward conversations, he and I. I couldn't quite place my finger on it, but it almost seemed like he was a prisoner of the situation as well. Obviously, not locked up as I was, but it definitely felt as if his choices were being limited by that of another.

Which, in an odd way, gave me the courage I needed to try and find a way out. I vowed then and there, before I got up to remake my cot-bedding, that I would make my escape in these early early hours of Day 3.

***

I spent some time there, sitting on the floor, with the magazines that had been thrown at me still strewn about, holding on to the flashlight that Mario had provided, just thinking through my escape options.

Part of the reason for my hesitation was the fact that I knew there was that camera in the corner. Although I couldn't state with certainty whether I was being constantly watched or if it was in use never at all, it was going to have to be a consideration as I planned.

The window was, without a doubt, the most direct way to get outside. It was also too small in size for me to squeeze through, even if I could rearrange the furniture and climb atop the mini-fridge to try to get out to the alley behind the bar.

That analysis led me to conclude that my energies were better focused on going out the way I came in. From what I could hear, that would mean I'd have to break down the door to my room, move the boxes that I was certain were blocking it AND break down a second door to get to the hallway ... AND then break down a third door to get out to the alley.

Which would be a lot of breaking doors, for someone without any tools and without any time once away from the camera view to accomplish the task.

As they say ... a journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step. Despite the fact that my excursion was to be much shorter, it still needed to begin identically.

So I shifted in my space to stare at the door, trying to determine a weakness.

The great escape attempt had official begun!

***

As I stared at the door that stood between me and my freedom (well, the first of many doors, as it were), it struck me that I might be able to remove it at the hinges, assuming I could fashion a tool to knock out the pins.

I got up and moseyed over that way, still unsure as to whether I was being watched or not.

And I was immediately disappointed ... because it didn't take too close of an inspection to determine that, since the door opened outward into that other storage room, the hinges weren't accessible for any manipulation on my part.

I had previously ruled out the window ... and now the door ... and just that quickly, I was seemingly out of options.

However, I was not to be dissuaded. The story of my great escape would only just be a "good" escape if it were so easy to orchestrate.

I turned slowly to inspect every angle of my surroundings, and that's when I got the idea to follow up on that which happened earlier that day. Namely, the unexpected visit I had gotten from that kitty cat.

She had made it "in" from the alley via something in that bathroom closet space ... so maybe it was that I could make it "out" in the same manner.

I grabbed the flashlight that I had just been given, and headed toward that little room off to the side. As excited as I was to investigate, I had other business to conduct first.

Not bathroom related business, mind you ... but business related to the bathroom, if you follow.

First things first -- I needed to make sure that there wasn't a *second* camera in this additional space.

***

It didn't take long to determine that the bathroom space in my cell was NOT outfitted with a camera after all.

I used my newly delivered flashlight and checked in every corner from floor to ceiling and found nothing ... which made sense seeing as how the "closet" didn't have power (hence my need for a flashlight in the first place) and how it was positioned in the overall layout of the rooms. From what I had determined, the camera out in the main space was powered via a connection through that inner wall into the storage room next door. This add-on space didn't offer any such convenience.

Additionally, it was a relief to conclude that my captors weren't perverted.

Feeling more secure that I could seek an escape route without being watched, I attempted to determine exactly how it was that the kitty cat had made it in from the alley. I recalled the "claws-on-metal" sound back when I thought the surprise guest was a rat instead, and, armed with that clue, I searched for and located a vent near the ceiling that was missing a cover.

Other than satisfying my curiosity, however, it wasn't any actionable lead in my pursuit of freedom. It was tiny enough for a cat and was thus even smaller than the window I had already removed from the list of escape possibilities.

I sat down on the old commode, determined to turn it into the thinking throne that it deserved to be (and maybe once was). From that perspective, I did discover something tucked away in the corner underneath the dirty janitor style sink.

I let the light of the flashlight shine from its top to its bottom and, still thinking and still on the throne, I contemplated how I could possibly make use of it in my plans.

***

What to do with a broom?

Sure ... the obvious answer would be to *clean* the storage room in which I had been imprisoned.

But I wasn't trying to tidy up my surroundings ... I was trying to escape from them.

As I sat there thinking on the dirty commode, safe from the prying lens of the camera out in the main space, and convinced that *this* space on the side had once been a janitor's closet of sorts (easily explaining the broom that had been left behind), it was precisely that theme of janitorial service that became my big idea.

Mario, when he had dropped off the flashlight that had woken me up in the early hours of my third day of captivity, had told me that he was leaving early because it wasn't busy. But surely someone had stayed behind to clean up the bar, and if I could just get his or her attention, then maybe I could get some stranger to let me out.

I was already more than certain that there was a whole extra room between my location and the hall outside, so tapping on the door wouldn't make any sense, but I was just as certain that there wouldn't have been a whole extra *floor* between my ceiling and the bar above me.

Perhaps ... if I was lucky ... I could tap on IT and make a friend that I could force to investigate my situation.

Now if only I could remember ... was it dot-dot-dot, dash-dash-dash, dot-dot-dot or dash-dash-dash, dot-dot-dot, dash-dash-dash?

Unsure, I armed myself with my new tool, and decided I'd just pound it out non-stop until someone responded, dots and dashes be damned.

***

Tap. Tap. Tap.

To pass the time, I imagined that there was a person above the ceiling on which I was tapping (after all, this attempt of mine was based on an *idea* that someone stayed behind at the bar to clean up after Mario's shift had ended) ... and that said person was finding himself in the midst of a scene reminiscent of Edgar Allan Poe's 'The Raven'.

You know ... "once upon a midnight dreary ... suddenly there came a tapping, as of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door ... and so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door" and the like.

Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.

Hopefully, after a few more of the taps, said person was to the point of the "all my soul within me burning ... soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before" and was going to investigate.

Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.

Of course, I couldn't fly in to the space like the raven did and was heavily relying on the fact that my tapping would draw that person to investigate the lower hallway and identify that the source of the sound was behind the two sets of locked doors.

Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.

Locked doors. That could be a problem that I hadn't considered. When I had been dropped off, I felt certain that the outer door was padlocked. If my theoretical-janitor-riding-a-white-horse was a theoretical-janitor-riding-a-white-horse-without-keys, my plan might just begin to unravel.

Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.

***

Nurture or nature ... it's the unsettled debate that has fired many an argument.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

For instance, the fact that I had committed to this plan to use the handle end of the broom to relentlessly pound it on the ceiling above my prison cell in the basement of the bar, and that I was unrelenting in the execution of said plan was not the first time that I demonstrated an extremely stubborn streak.

Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.

A stubborn streak, I might add, that had served me very well in my life up until then ... a stubborn streak about which I was tremendously proud.

Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.

The question I considered, amidst all the tapping: was I so stubborn because of the way my life had played out, shuttled from foster home to foster home and from family to family, knowing that the thickest skin and the strongest will belonged to those who survived the loneliest of situations?

Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.

Or was I this way because my forefathers and foremothers had honed their stubborn gene as a people who faced down certain circumstances? If so, it was a genetic past about which I was unaware, seeing as how I had only come to know the names of my immediate family shortly before my ill-fated plans to take a trip to find out more about them.

Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.

The opportunity to continue this line of thought was cut short, not because I was all tapped out ... but because, in a pause in the tapping action, I could hear what I was sure was someone in the outer hallway.

***

"I'm in here!"

"Hey!"

"Yo!"

My tapping had drawn someone in ... and now, like some marshaller at the airport, I just needed to use my voice to guide him or her in. Sadly, I had no orange jacket or light sticks to use as they did on the tarmac.

It looked like my fear that this janitor-person might not have a key to get past that first locked door was unfounded ... although, let's face it, one would kind of expect a janitor-person to have keys as part of his or her uniform, come to think of it ... and it also seemed that the oddity of the situation had created a sense of urgency, because those boxes on the other side of the inner door weren't gingerly moved out of the way. Instead, I heard them all crash to the ground.

I turned off the flashlight and sat down on the cot, not wanting to scare whomever was riding in on a white horse to save me from my imprisonment.

The door flew open, and an outline of a body filled the doorway, with the light from the hallway temporarily blinding me.

I raised my hands to my face and squinted but the only thing I could confirm for certain was that the body before me was *not* Mario ... this person was definitely smaller.

And louder.

"No! MORE! *TAPPING!*" he yelled.

Then -- my early morning on my third day of captivity took a turn for the worse.

***

It stands to reason that it was only a matter of time before I came into contact again with he-whom-I-had-once-referred-to-as-angry-texter.

True to form, this, the third time, and the man was still angry.

Except this time, he wasn't perturbed at the ex-girlfriend that was leaving him because she suspected that he was the father of her sister's baby-to-be (as he was when I granted him his nickname that night at the bar in Florida during my vacation before the service project kicked off), nor was he upset with the guy with whom he had executed his plan to kidnap the freak with special powers for his own yet-to-be-known nefarious purposes as he was in the van ride down the coast (i.e. Mario and me, respectively), but he was ticked off at the exercise in tapping I had just undertaken to try to draw attention to my unfortunate circumstance.

Said another way, with fewer words ... Albert (aka angry texter) was pissed.

"Mario assured me that you would NOT be trouble. But I should have known better."

He glared at me. I was still holding the broom I had found, my tapping implement, and I briefly thought about trying my hand at some good old fashioned martial arts style stick fighting, but I didn't have any such skills. "Know your limits", I thought to myself.

"Give me that."

He grabbed the broom and threw it through the doorway, and then slammed that door shut.

Turning to me and getting right in my face, he yelled threateningly, "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

I could smell the alcohol immediately. Albert wasn't only pissed. He was also drunk.

And that's a bad combination in *any* dynamic, let alone between captor and captive.

***

"You need to learn your place, boy."

Drunk and angry. And threatening. Ugh.

"And that place is *waiting* here until we need you ... and keeping your mouth shut. We went to a lot of trouble to make sure that the conditions were acceptable ... and we aren't about to let some little ingrate ruin our plans for the future."

I knew better than to debate a drunk. So I didn't engage in a dialogue about his twisted logic in thinking that a cot and some food and drinks justified the fact that I had been kidnapped and was being held against my will.

Albert took it up a notch.

"Do. You. Understand. Me?!"

Each word was indeed its own sentence, building one upon the other to an angry crescendo at its conclusion.

I didn't pick up on the clue that an answer was expected. And so I paid the price.

Before I could react, he had reared up and backhanded me across the face.

I felt the sting on my cheek. And then I froze in place as I realized that Albert had recognized that the contact he made with me, even as brief as it was, was sufficient to initiate my special skill. He had experienced the jolt that came with the transfer of his pain to me ... and he decided to come back for more.

***

"I forgot how good this feels," he groaned.

It was somewhat unclear to me as to whether Albert was talking about the troubled memory download that happened when anyone came into direct physical contact with me that left the other person relieved of their pain ... or if he was simply commenting on the fact that he sure did like to hit people.

Regardless, I did my best to shield the blows that were coming my way.

As each one landed, I was stunned not by the sting of them, but by the concurrent assault on my mind. Flush with the blood racing to each bruise he left on my body, but even more so overwhelmed by the response of each of my body's systems, highly attuned to his worries and deep seated fears being implanted in me.

Any hope that I could make sense of what I was absorbing was quickly dashed, because not only was his drunkenness interfering with the coherence of the memories, but so was the fact that the firing of them was in fits, starting every time he made contact with me and then immediately fading as he pulled back his fist for the next hit.

This was different than any of the other times I had been in this situation ... under attack from all sides ... my spirit ... my mind ... my body ... all besieged by the beating unfolding and by the consequences of the repeated direct contact.

There was an amusement park ride I remembered from my youth ... it went around in a circle of small hills, faster and faster such that you were thrown to the side of the car, crushing anyone that was sitting next to you, while strobe lights and loud music and puffs of air buffeted your senses as you spun around and around in circles.

As a ride at an amusement park ... it was, well ... quite amusing -- despite being disorienting by design. As the only way to relate to the experience I was having in my place of imprisonment, it was debilitating.

***

A sage man once said, "I guess it was the beatings that made me wise ..."

In those early hours after the bar had closed and before the sun had risen, I was finally wisening up ... because as Albert continued to provide me with a beating because I had broken the unspoken rule that I wasn't supposed to have tried to escape, his attack on me had shifted.

At this point, I had fallen to the floor ... which didn't necessarily stop him ... but which did cause him to take a different approach. He straddled my chest, pinning my arms down with his knees, and focused on hitting my face.

And *that's* why things finally went in my favor, so to speak -- because his new strategy changed the way that my "condition" was responding. Instead of the unintelligible and indecipherable flashes of his memories that made no sense to me because they were such lightning bolts of activity, now the constant point of contact meant that I could ignore my pain and focus on what was driving him to lash out.

I found myself touring his recent stressful conversations with Mario ... about me. It was eye-opening to say the least, as I got to experience the back and forth dialogue between the two of them similar to the dynamic I had lived through on the van ride down here ... with Mario interjecting any time Albert's ideas were too extreme.

I was consumed by his intense sense of apprehension as he interacted with the person called Jorge. Just as in the past during these encounters, since I had never met Jorge, he appeared in these transferred memories as one of the faceless beings that haunted my nightmares that I had named andantes, but I still got to see the discussions that Albert had had with him. Through it all, I was able to discern that Jorge was the owner of this bar, and that it was *his* vacation, about which I had eavesdropped in the van ride, that was the impetus for executing their plan to involve me when they did.

I fought as hard as I could to stay right there in that moment ... stuck between the proverbial rock and the hard place -- the rock being my fading consciousness as I absorbed more blows to my face ... and the hard place being that, if I could just hold on a little bit longer, I might finally uncover more about said plan.

I struggled to locate the last little bit of whatever I had left in my soul's reservoir ...

***

Thomas Edison gave me what I needed, although I should probably give credit where credit is due and give props to my sixth grade teacher, who gave me Thomas Edison.

Well, he gave me Thomas Edison's quote to present to the class, and I had never forgotten it:

“The three great essentials to achieve anything worthwhile are, first, hard work; second, stick-to-itiveness; third, common sense.”

Despite my circumstance (that is, being beaten senseless), I knew that the hard work of trying to stay conscious just a touch longer would pay off if I could just harness the stick-to-itiveness that I had honed in my youth. Try as Albert might, he couldn't beat the common sense out of me ... nor could he stop the sensory-overload I was going through from his continued physical contact with me. Memory after memory of his continued to transfer through to me.

The payoff ... I was finally picking up on this master plan of his ... and I was absorbing the anger he had apparently recently displayed in a meeting with Mario. It was as if I was there, fly on the wall style, as he pounded his fist against the table and yelled at ... wait a minute ... there was a third person in the memory ... a woman.

"How are you going to trick Papa Kalfu!"

In this interaction, Albert wasn't yelling at Mario, although he was there. He was yelling at that woman ... who suddenly came into view, and, to my surprise, wasn't a faceless andante as I expected. I *knew* the woman. I had *met* the woman. Because that was the only way I could see her face during this download. That's the way my gift worked.

"What about Papa Kalfu!"

More fist pounding. More anger mixed with fear. More yelling. All directed at this woman.

*How* did I know this woman? *Who* was she to me?

"When will Papa Kalfu's money be there?!"

I couldn't hold on any longer ... I could feel everything going dark ... just like had happened to me that night in the parking lot of the bar when I had taken on too much. I was losing the scene in the shadows of my mind ... going .. going ...

***

Going ... going ... but not quite gone.

The fact that I was fading so fast must have finally alarmed Albert, because I felt the release of pressure around my midsection as he stood up and stopped hitting me.

Of course, with his movement away from me, my ability to get inside his head also abruptly ended.

I'm sure, due to my injuries, I was moaning. But internally, I was playing and replaying the bits and pieces I had just gleaned about "Papa Kalfu and his money" ... and the reappearance of that female face that I couldn't quite place.

I rolled over and knew that I couldn't stay awake much longer ... if not due to the pain, then from sheer exhaustion over the mental energy I had expended.

I couldn't see Albert's face, but I had been through this enough times to know that he would probably be standing there with a glazed look, feeling the tendrils of euphoria wrap around his mind and soul ... having ridden himself of fear and doubt and anger.

Except it turns out that the glazed look without a response was for first-timers. And this was the *second* time that he and I had gone through this tactile tete-a-tete.

This guy wasn't glazed over ... he was keyed up.

I literally heard him whoop. Or hoot. Or holler. Whatever the noise, it was one of exhilaration.

"Now 'that's' what I'm talking about!", he yelled, pacing about like he had just put away an opponent in the ring.

As I lay there processing all of *his* fears, I had one of my own.

What if that which I could do could get someone addicted to the high that came after ... turning me into a drug ... a drug of unknown supply ...

***

"Let that be a lesson to you. Don't *make* me return with cuffs and a hood."

Albert used his foot to roll my body to its side ... probably also checking to make sure I could move on my own despite the beating I had just endured.

"Peace, out!" he offered as concluding remarks.

The irony that his violent outburst was the opposite of peace was not lost on me.

I listened as he took his leave in a departure process to which I had now become accustomed. He locked the inner door, dragged and stacked whatever boxes of bottles blocked it from view in that *other* storage room, and locked the outer door into the hallway.

I discovered that if lay there perfectly still, I could almost avoid the pangs of physical pain that were striking my nerve endings on a repetitive cycle with each pump of blood from my heart through my body.

I had to distract myself any way possible. So again, I focused on that female face from the memories I had absorbed. Clearly she had some connection to either Albert or Mario, seeing as how it was the three of them that had been heatedly discussing Papa Kalfu's money -- which was, in and of itself, another riddle to unravel.

From my first interaction with Albert, when I had only known him as "angry texter", there was his girlfriend who showed up at the bar on the way to becoming his ex-girlfriend ... but that wasn't who I
had seen. The only other main interaction I had had with him was the phone call in the van on which I had eavesdropped. But those names were all male ... and they remained faceless to me ... prime candidates to be those andantes in my upcoming nightmares.

Thus, I had ruled out Albert as the connection ... but it had taken too much effort. I closed my eyes and tried my best to force my mind to take a rest as well.

Darkness and silence became my source of comfort ...

***

Darkness and silence.

Never before had those two things been such good friends of mine. Who am I kidding ... BEST friends of mine.

Like if I were getting married and needed to make a decision, I'd likely have to make darkness and silence *co*-best-men in the ceremony.

Like if either darkness or silence woke me up in the middle of the night with *that* phone call, I'd make the store run to buy the shovel and the tarp to bury the bodies, no questions asked.

Like if darkness and silence had little darknesses and little silences, *I'd* be the one saving money to help them go to college.

Like if darkness and silence ... "Ow. My head."

In the end, I was the one that chased away my good buddy silence ... and it was because darkness had already deserted me.

The light from the window was shining right on to my broken face, aggravating my discomfort .. but also illuminating the cot just a few feet away from where I had apparently passed out for most of the night.

I summoned up my strength and painfully inched my way toward it, knowing that it didn't represent a luxury amenity ... but that it *was* a slight upgrade in comfort.

And so ended my third full day in captivity ...

***

CHAPTER 17

Except ... that wasn't the end of my third day of captivity after all.

What did I know? At the time, I wasn't exactly in any condition to keep track of what day of the week it was or how many days I had been locked in the storage room ... and any ability of mine to think straight was lessened by the attack I had undergone in the earliest hours of that third day of my captivity.

I was just lucky to have made it to my cot, and to have shielded my eyes from the sunlight shining in through that one window up near the ceiling that looked out on to the back alley behind the bar, and to have rested for a little bit.

Or a "lot" bit ... again ... I really had no sense of time at the time.

I just knew pain.

I breathed in, and felt a sharp stabbing in my side. I held my breath, and felt a pounding throb in my head. I breathed out, and felt a cut on my lip reopen and start to bleed again.

Assuming Albert's goal was to teach me a lesson for having tried to draw attention to myself as part of an escape plan, my aches and pains spoke to the fact that he was an excellent teacher and I wasn't so bad of a learner.

I thought about eating. Or drinking. Or going to the bathroom. But I did none of those things. They each seemed like too gargantuan a task for me to execute.

I thought about resting. Resting sounded just swell.

I thought about aspirin too. Or something stronger. Like what the pharmacist keeps behind the counter and only shares with his friends ... a scheduled substance. Or two.

Forget sugarplums ... oxycodone and the like were the visions that danced in *my* head.

***

During my bouts with consciousness that followed my bout with Albert, I also thought about a cool washcloth on my forehead, it's temperature providing a calming effect for all that had gone wrong with regards to my situation.

A cool washcloth that would serve to clean up the dried blood and spittle on my face, and to offer comfort to my head while the bulk of my body still coped with being bruised and battered.

A cool washcloth that someone would gently move from spot to spot to spot, with the fact that someone took the time to care serving to ignite the healing process, at least psychologically.

A cool washcloth that would be so damp, that occasionally a drop or two would stream down my face, following the trail of my recent tears, until it reached my neck and tickled me.

I couldn't take that tickling any longer and I reached up to wipe the excess water away ... which is when I heard the soft voice and when I realized that somehow my wishing for it to be so had made the cool washcloth materialize.

"Hey guys ... he's waking up."

A soft voice ... a gentle voice ... a calming voice ... a female voice.

I slowly opened my eyes, unsure if I was squinting because the sunlight fueled my headache or if it was because one or both of my eyes were swollen.

Regardless ... I had materialized more than just a cool washcloth ... I had somehow made the woman from Albert's memories appear right there in my room of imprisonment.

***

It wasn't a dream ... a trick .. a memory (mine or someone else's) ...

It was real.

She was real. She was *really* moving a cool damp washcloth over my facial wounds, and I was *really* needing to wipe away the excess water that was trickling and tickling me on my neck.

And she had *really* just said, "Hey guys ... he's waking up" to more people that were in my room.

I looked her in the eyes and offered up my thanks.

"Thank you. Sorry I didn't know you were stopping by, or I would have cleaned up a little ..."

I started to motion with my arm to accompany my apology, but winced in pain and drew it back in close to my body.

Washcloth woman winced as well. She was clearly uncomfortable about my condition. Leaving the cloth over my forehead, she got up from her crouched position next to my cot and spun around to the "guys" she had referenced.

"Was this really necessary?"

Even I knew from her tone that the question wasn't to be answered. It was rhetorical and judgmental and should have been handled with silence and a downward glaze from those being asked.

I looked beyond her to the others. Mario knew what to do, and he shuffled his feet, inspecting his shoelaces instead of attempting a response.

Albert, on the other hand ... glared back at her, seemingly insulted that his handiwork was being called into question. He dared to answer.

"Yes. The answer is yes. Definitely. Emphatically. Yes. The little shit was trying to cause trouble."

Washcloth Woman shook her head in disagreement. "There are other ways to contain such a threat to our plan. Lest you forget, *I* am the brains of this operation."

***

"I am the brains ... HE is the brawn ... and you ... well you ..."

Washcloth Woman was reaffirming her status in the group, having pointed to Mario when she referenced the muscle and then getting stuck for words when it came to Albert's place in the operation.

But not for long. "You. You are the *lackey*."

She didn't accompany that word with any physical movement, but the way she said it was as if she were delivering a slap across his face.

"And let me tell you exactly *what* it is you are lacking. You are lacking in common sense ... in decency ... in the ability to consider how your little drunken episode this morning might affect our plans to get a hold of that money."

Albert held her gaze, but also held his tongue -- the first smart move I had seen him perform.

Her tirade was only just beginning.

"I went along with your idea to bring HIM down here based on the ridiculous story that you BOTH had told me about what happened to you in his presence ..."

She paused to look at Mario, who was somehow *still* managing to be shuffling his feet and staring intently at his shoelaces.

"But I am putting you on notice ... the BOTH of you ... that violence will NOT be tolerated. I will not have HIS blood ..." She motioned to me this time, and I attempted a wan smile through my injuries, which was actually kind of easy to pull of seeing as how I was enjoying watching this tongue-lashing of my captors.

"I will not have HIS blood on MY hands."

She stopped abruptly, and stared at her hands, which did indeed have my blood on them. And then she let out a little scream of exasperation and headed to the bathroom closet space, presumably to wash them.

***

"She's not the boss of me."

Like children determined to still fight after getting in trouble, Albert turned to Mario and made his announcement, controlling the volume in his voice so it was audible where we were, but so that Washcloth Woman couldn't hear it while she rinsed my blood off her hands.

Mario was not interested in engaging. He pursed his lips, shook his head and motioned with his hands to push the energy away from him.

But Albert was still going, the perpetual instigator that he was proving to be. "You best start controlling your woman."

Washcloth Woman -- strike that -- Mario's Washcloth Woman called out from the bathroom closet space to the two of them, "Do you guys have any first aid kits in this dump?"

Mario quickly answered back, "We do. Behind the bar upstairs."

Washcloth Woman walked out, flinging the water off of her hands. "Albert -- go get it and bring it to me. And how about some paper towels for the bathroom too. I thought you boys planned ahead for someone to stay here for a few weeks."

Albert toyed with the thought of pushing back regarding the command, but decided against a new fight. He turned to Mario before heading out, and muttered under his breath, "Just because I'm doing this doesn't mean that she's my boss. I'm doing this because *I* want to. Yeah -- because I want to limit the amount of time I have to be around her."

True to form, he stomped his feet petulantly as he left, just like a child at the tail end of a brat's temper tantrum.

Mario's Washcloth Woman stopped right in front of Mario, and tilted his head up with her now clean finger so that they were looking in each other eyes.

"You best start controlling your friend, you understand me?"

***

"Look, honey. We knew he was a bit of a hot-head. But we need this place as a home base, and he's the manager. There's *no* way we could have pulled this off without this as our cover. We shouldn't even be seen at your bar until the night we grab the cash."

Mario was doing his best to diffuse the conflict between "his woman" and his friend, taking full advantage of the fact that only one of them was in the room while the other went upstairs to get the first aid kit.

Washcloth Woman had a response ready.

"Yes, I know we knew he might be trouble. But you and I also know that there's a line and he crossed it. So unless you're prepared to risk the payout that we need for your sister's treatments, then I strongly encourage you to latch on to him for the next few days before he does something even more stupid and puts our whole plan at risk."

It was like I wasn't in the room ... as if I wasn't on the cot, waiting for what sounded like some kind of treatment that would be coming my way. I was witness to a tender moment ... and I was taking it all in, happy to finally get any sense of what was ahead ... snippets though they were.

"I will take care of it," Mario offered as a plea for peace, kissing her on her forehead to punctuate his statement. He was smooth ... which wasn't necessarily a bad thing for someone in the bartending field ... and clearly knew how to calm her down.

Now if I could only figure out how it was that *I* knew this woman, then I could put more of the puzzle pieces together.

Albert returned with a first aid kit in hand, interrupting their tender moment. She took it from him without a word of thanks, opened it up and located a few cotton balls, a small bottle of hydrogen peroxide and a couple of band-aids.

She turned her attention in my direction and warned me, "This is gonna sting a little ..."

***

It wasn't my intent to make her a believer.

It was purely a coincidence that only moments before, she had scoffed at my talents when she was chastising Albert and Mario.

But there was absolutely nothing I could do to keep myself from engaging in the way that only I could, once Mario's Washcloth Woman tended to my wounds. It was only a matter of time, with her actions involving cotton balls and band-aids and the like, until she touched me without the barrier of something like the washcloth that had previously prevented skin to skin contact.

And when she touched me ... it happened ... just as it had so many times before. I was ready ... she was not.

I absorbed her anxiety and her apprehension and her anger, all different memories from different times replaying in my brain as they downloaded to my mind. The very first scenes were the ones I had just observed, but now relived with her emotions front and center ... her frustration with Albert ... her disbelief over what had happened to me ... her rage that her plan was put at risk.

In just those few moments I was able to take on her recall of what seemed like endless meetings between the three of them, discussing details of what they intended to do ... which quickly materialized as a scheme to rob her boss, the owner of the bar where she worked, of piles of money. I saw, through her eyes, the *first* time she stumbled upon the cache of cash and I felt the adrenaline that she felt when she discovered it.

I also noticed that, more than Albert, it was Mario who kept on appearing in memory after memory, and I swept away by a sorrow that took me to a whole new place in her soul. I had been through this enough times now to have begun to try to hone my skill and to focus in on the exchange, and so I desperately sought out the source of the sadness but couldn't locate its origin.

In the process, though, I did finally solve the riddle of how it was that I knew her. There in the middle of the memories of her with Mario, I saw her framed in the doorway of the bar I had frequented during my spring break trip to Florida ... at the moment just after she had suspended Mario for what he said was over-serving the angry texter during the night of the bar brawl ... but which I knew was because he was stealing from her, his boss at that bar.

For whatever reason, she hadn't yet let go of my face ... I guess because she was still nursing my wounds ... and so the onslaught of her feelings continued ... and I was able to see, beyond the sadness, a new emotion ... stronger than any of the others that were ripe for the picking at the surface ... a deep seated fear of something ... or someone ... a fear that rose up and took over every synapse in my being, such that, outside of my control, I actually started to quiver.

***

It was different with a woman than it had been with the guys.

To be fair, Mario's Washcloth Woman wasn't the *first* time I had had this type of exchange with a female ... but it was hard to remember that time with Laura, seeing as it how it was at the wrap party in the bar. Besides the fact that alcohol had been involved, there was also the reality that our interaction was the last of three that were practically back-to-back that evening.

I mean, after all, I ended up in the hospital shortly after we touched that night in the parking lot ... so it wasn't exactly a situation where I sat back and reflected afterwards, taking time to evaluate and create a compare and contrast list.

But this time was different and I was more in control of my special skill, so I could begin to appreciate the nuances.

The male memories were all angular and compartmentalized and hit me like a series of punches that landed individually, each rattling me uniquely ... until the aggregate damage was felt.

The female emotions were rolling and interconnected and assaulted me in never ending waves, each building on the one before it, until it was overwhelming and all-consuming.

With the men, it was a power-washer strength stream of emotion aimed at the gut ... with the women, it was a non-stop water boarding experience akin to drowning.

With guys, it was more like a hook in a song that wouldn't leave your head ... with girls, it was a well crafted symphony, rising and falling, with repetitive themes and crescendos, until it enveloped all of the senses.

So as we reached the last movement of *this* particular symphony, the one between Washcloth Woman and I, that extreme fear I was absorbing kept on building and building, with a repetitive theme I had actually heard before rising once again to the surface ... that of the dreaded Papa Kalfu.

***

All roads led to Papa Kalfu.

It was *his* name that seemed to be the root cause of the strongest emotions I had absorbed from both Mario and his Washcloth Woman.

As a matter of fact, this Papa guy was the driving force behind the fear that was the undercurrent of just about everything I had taken from this woman while she cleaned me up and dressed my wounds.

I felt it so strongly that I couldn't help myself. I exhaled and said his name aloud.

"Papa Kalfu."

Which was enough to stop Mario's Washcloth Woman dead in her tracks. Her nursing session with me was over ... as was my direct connection to access all of her feelings.

She turned to the two guys, who were still standing there watching her work.

"You already told him about him?" she asked the both of them.

Albert shook his head no. "I didn't ... but who knows what your boyfriend's done ..."

Mario stepped up and grabbed her hands and looked into her eyes. "No baby. Don't you see? Can't you feel it? He just did his thing to you ... he got that just from touching you. It's what he does."

She turned slowly and stared at me intently.

"Just like that, huh? So now I see why you're here. It all sounded so fantastical when they described it ... I was sure they were just drunk."

She cocked her head and continued. "And now ... now I know it's true. I feel ... relieved ... lightened ... relaxed ... clear-headed. Amazing."

In her current zen like state, she decided to share even more.

"Papa Kalfu is the Haitian drug lord who owns my bar ... and you're going to help us steal the money he launders through it."

She held out her hand for me to shake as she said, "Welcome to the team!"

***

Mario leaped forward and knocked away her hand before I could grab it to shake.

"Mria ... no! Don't touch him or it will happen again!"

I tried not to take it personally. That was the life that lay ahead of me ... a life without handshakes or fist bumps. I'd have to prepare myself for a future of nods, nods and more nods.

But I wasn't about to let this opening pass me by.

"Thanks for the welcome all the same. So if I'm on the team ... and since I now understand that the end game here is a cash grab ... should we start negotiating my share of the haul?"

Mario's Washcloth Woman smiled. Well -- Mria smiled (I finally knew her actual name). Well -- really this Mria smirked.

"Oh no, sweetheart," she replied. "You would have had to have gotten in on the ground floor for a percentage. You are going to get a paid bus ticket back to wherever it was you came from and we're not going to charge you anything for these fine accommodations during your stay with us. And *that's* your deal, honey. Well -- as soon as we're done with you that is."

I was having a hard time reading this woman, even with the benefit of having just downloaded all of her troubled emotions. She was the queen of mixed messages ... sprinkling her authoritative statements with some sweethearts and honeys ... taking the time to clean my wounds as if she cared yet clearly in charge and ready to execute a criminal endeavor.

"Here's what I promise you darling. Moving forward, I will keep you informed about what you need to know to do what you need to do. And I will keep *them* away from you. Right now ... you should just get some rest and recover from the beating that I couldn't prevent."

Oh this Mria. What to think ... what to think.

"Okay boys." She beckoned to Mario and Albert to follow her .. and follow her they did, the minions that they were ...

***

I was used to the sounds that were created when people left the storage room in which I was being kept captive.

The inner door being locked, followed by the boxes being stacked against it to hide that door from view, after which the outer door to the hallway was locked.

Today was different, though ... because it wasn't one person leaving. It was all three of my visitors that afternoon -- Albert, Mario and, the newly named (to me) Mria.

And whereas a person all alone would execute that task silently, a group of three would be more likely to talk ... and talk they did.

I got up off my cot and gingerly made my way to the door, eager to eavesdrop and possibly learn even more than I had already done.

"So Jorge will be back in two weeks?"

That was Mria's voice, still planning the upcoming event.

"Just over. So this will all have to go away before then."

Through the door, I actually wasn't sure if that was Mario or Albert answering. But it was Albert who had talked to Jorge in the van on the ride down here, so I felt it highly likely that he was the one confirming the schedule.

"And what about your gym buddy? Are you still sure you can get him to join us? You and I can't be there that night, to keep our cover story clean with Papa K. We're too close."

Gym buddy. That had to be directed to Mario. Albert didn't seem like the gym type.

"We can trust Rodney. But we need to get him out of here afterwards. He's working tonight with me so I can lock him down."

She had one more comment before the meeting was adjourned. "We need leverage on him. Find out something from his past that we can use against him ... I don't want any loose ends."

***

"Hey ... are you guys down here?"

While eavesdropping at *my* door -- well my locked-in storage room door -- I could hear a fourth new voice in the distance.

From the sounds I heard, the triumvirate in charge of my captivity were just as surprised as I was to have someone else in the basement of the bar. For the briefest of moments, I considered whether I should up my escape game and yell out, despite the beating I had taken for trying to draw attention to myself by tapping on the ceiling.

True to her form, to which I had only just become accustomed, Mria was taking charge. In a lowered voice almost so quiet I couldn't make it out from behind my door, she directed the unfolding scene. "Go intercept him before he sees me and I'll sneak out the back."

Mario countered, "But that's Rodney. He's the guy that's going to help us."

"Not yet!" she hissed back at him. "Too soon!"

Mario yelled out into what I assumed to be the hallway, "Yo! I'm down here. But I'm coming up. Hey, I need you to go fill up the ice for tonight!"

With that, I could tell that Mario was gone, leaving just Mria and Albert.

"Why are you always checking your phone?" she chastised the only guy left in the room with her.

I didn't hear Albert's reply, so I assumed that he was ignoring her. Well, at least that was my assumption until I heard her say, "You deal with that. I'm going out into the back alley."

To my surprise, the boxes that had just been stacked up against my door were being moved away again.

I heard one last comment from Mria. "And Albert ... you deal with that the *right* way, you hear? No more funny business from you."

***

I could hardly move away from the door where I had been eavesdropping fast enough.

They were supposed to have left. They were not supposed to be coming back so quickly.

Well, not so much "they", as "he". With Mario upstairs dealing with his co-worker Rodney, whom I now understood to soon be a part of our plan, and with Mria having left surreptitiously out of the back door of the bar, it was only Albert who was returning.

He stood in the doorway as I scrambled back to my cot and flashed his cell phone at me.

"Hey dummy. Did you forget about the camera? I can see you on my phone, you idiot. And it's not polite to listen in to conversations that other people are having."-

I didn't reply. That seemed like the prudent thing not to do. But if I had, I would have commented that I had NOT forgotten about the camera in the corner of my "cell" and that I had only erred in thinking that the planning that they were doing would have been too all-important and all-encompassing and all-engrossing for him to have bothered to be checking his phone. Had I only stopped to think that his "brand" was of the rude variety, then I might have acted differently.

"They won't let me touch you ... for now ... and I'm not allowed to bring back the cuffs or the hood ... but I swear to you on all that is holy that I will not tolerate any more acting out from you. You don't want to piss me off any more than you already have."

I decided it may be best to diffuse this situation. "Sorry", I mumbled in his direction.

"You want to know why?"

I thought the question to be rhetorical. Until he asked a second time, more pointedly.

"I said .. do you want to know why?"

"No. Why?" I answered too quickly. I immediately realized that I should have said "Yes. Why?" and that "No. Why?" was actually an illogical reply.

It didn't matter though. Logic was not Albert's strong suit.

"Because you shouldn't put too much stock in what she said about bus tickets home when we're done with you. I intend to move you from them and from here and keep you as a freak I pull out to do party tricks whenever I want. So you best start behaving ... and maybe ... just maybe ... I won't take it out on you when they can't intervene and I'm your sole caretaker."

***

There were no words needed in reply to Albert's threat.

I stared at him through my swollen blackened eye -- damage *he* had done -- and did my best to show that I was not afraid of the secret plans for me that he had just shared.

Once again, he flashed his cell phone at me, with the live feed of us showing on the display courtesy of the corner camera.

"And remember ... I'm watching you. Always."

He backed out of the room, maintaining eye contact the whole time, finally slamming the door, locking it and stacking those boxes against in on the other side.

It was an odd sensation. For the first time since my ordeal had started, I actually felt like it was safer for me to be locked in -- away from all of them.

As I continued to lay on my cot and contemplate, I considered whether I had lost some of my resolve to escape due to the activities of the day. However, the only feeling I had as he departed was to double down on my intent to get out of my imprisonment situation as soon as I possibly could. And I decided in that moment that if no opportunity presented itself in the days ahead as this "cash grab" plan began to move forward, then I would most certainly make my own before Albert could claim me as his "freak", as he called me.

I knew I needed to be ever ready to take advantage of any weakness I came across ... and I knew I needed to get creative if I was to successfully take matters into my own hands.

Complicating things one additional layer ... I had to prepare in such a way that it could not be seen on Albert's little cell phone.

Cell phone.

That's what *I* needed ... I had to get my hands on a cell phone as soon as possible.

***

How could I get my hands on a cell phone?

That was my challenge ... and what I used to occupy my mind as I settled in to rest for an afternoon nap.

Of course, even if I could get one, I wasn't sure exactly what I'd do with it.

I mean ... make a phone call, yes. That was somewhat obvious.

But I wasn't so sure that dialing 911 would be the best plan, hypothetically speaking ... on this theoretical cell phone. I didn't know for certain that I could explain exactly where I was ... and I wasn't sure if a random call to 911 would lead to some kind of triangulation of the signal like I had always seen on those TV shows.

I also was hard pressed to remember any specific phone numbers ... a penalty for not having any family to speak of ... and for being at that transition spot in my life having just graduated from college ... AND for just plugging numbers of those I did call on occasion directly into my own cell phone such that I didn't keep any actual digits in my memory.

The curse of technology ...

There was an actual flash of lightning outside that I could see through the window up by the ceiling that could have served as the proverbial light bulb moment in my head.

There was one number that I knew FOR SURE. One number I could easily call ... or text ... once I had my hypothetical theoretical technological wonder in my possession.

Of course, there was no guarantee that anyone would pick up MY phone ... back home ... on the counter of my apartment ... left there when I was kidnapped just a few days earlier ... but it would be worth a shot.

Assuming I could overcome the bigger obstacle of getting access to a phone in the first place ...

***

Lightning.

Thunder.

Torrential Rain.

Also known as just another afternoon in Florida.

Except for me ... for the second day in a row ... I had company during the storm.

Not company of the human kind ... I had had enough of humans visiting me and was only too happy to take a break from that kind of contact.

Instead, I was sharing my afternoon with my kitty companion, who had returned down the vent into the bathroom closet space, chased from the storm to the warmth and comfort of my cot.

This being our second encounter, and me not being asleep for the majority of our time together, I had more time to inspect the tiny creature. It was then that I noticed she had a collar, which made me happy to know that she wasn't just some feral alley cat, left alone to fend for herself. Someone, at some time, had loved her enough to add that accoutrement.

She was a tiny thing, though, so she was either very young ... or else the runt of the litter ... I guessed the last to be adopted.

I curled up with her, letting the constant purr unjangle my nerves and calm my thoughts.

I considered that she had been chased away the day before by the unexpected sounds of someone stopping by my cell. I wondered if there were no such sudden noises, how long could I get her to stay.

Knowing what I knew from my own puppy back at home, I decided that one way to quickly seal our bond was through food. And so I found myself sharing some lunch meat with my cuddle buddy, all but ensuring that she'd return again.

Confident that we were now fast friends, I decided it was time to name her.

***

With gravitas befitting the naming ceremony I was about to undertake, I raised my head and declared, "I shall call you ..."

In the beat I took to pause for dramatic effect as I was about to name the kitty that I was trying to turn into a return visitor, another voice, distant that it was, filled in my blank for me.

"Jinx?! Jinxie?! Here girl. Here kitty!"

The kitten apparently already *had* a name ... and already knew it. She froze, looked around, and bounded away to make her way back to the alley through her special passageway in the bathroom closet space.

I heard the voice getting closer, yet still it was somewhat muffled.

"Jinx! THERE you are! Good girl ... good girl ..."

I looked out the only window I had, and saw a reunion of the kitty ... of Jinx ... with the owner of the voice. I saw the feet come into view, and then the body to which they were attached bend over and scoop up the little creature.

Without a doubt, I was looking at a child, probably of elementary school age ... a child so distracted that it had no interest in peering in a basement window to see me watching the scene unfold.

It all happened too quickly for me to make a move ... and it was fresh in my mind that I was likely being watched so I didn't want to draw attention of any kind to that which was happening.

Just like that ... Jinx and the child were gone ... but I had a new mission ... and a new potential helper when it came to my hoped-for escape.

***

You know ... you'd have thought it had been a holiday what with all the visitors I had on my third day of captivity.

Let's see ... there was Albert in the early am to administer my beating ... and the cash-grab-gang triumvirate of Mario, Albert (again) and Mria (aka Washcloth Woman, aka Mario's girlfriend) ... and then Albert a *third* time when he returned to threaten me ... and the kitty (whom I now knew to be named Jinx) ... and the kitty's kiddie owner (who shouldn't really count as a visitor, seeing as how that boy in the alley didn't even know that I had seen him).

As dusk arrived, and with the benefit of having had three days of experience under my belt, I could pick up on the telltale sounds of the increased traffic above me, and I realized that the bar in whose basement I was imprisoned was starting to come to life.

And it was during this beginning-of-shift phase that I was visited for the *fifth* time that day.

As I listened to the locks get unlocked and the boxes get unboxed ... well, get moved from in front of that inner door ... I chuckled to myself that I now had more visitors than Ebeneezer Scrooge had had that fateful fictional night ... a calculation that took into account Marley's ghost as the first of the spectral company he entertained.

In light of all that happened, I was grateful that it was Mario who was stopping by -- with a tote bag in hand.

"Hey. Here you go. My girlfriend wanted me to drop these off for you."

I sat up and rummaged through the supplies ... some more first aid stuff, a small mirror and some puzzle books and pens resting on top. I held up the mirror and threw him an inquisitive glance.

"Yeah ... she can't come back to take care of your face. So ... you should do it. You don't want any scarring."

I nodded my head to convey that I understood, and pulled out the puzzle books, glancing through my choices ... happy to have something I had specifically requested to help me pass the time. To my surprise, one of the booklets made me laugh out loud.

"What's so funny?" he shot my way.

"Really? Mad libs!? You kind of need a *second* person to do those right ... a bit of an ironic choice for someone basically in isolation, no?"

***

"So what I'm hearing is that you don't *want* the little care package she made?"

I shook my head in disagreement with Mario's statement, and replied, "No, no. Not what I'm saying at all. Just commenting on the Mad Libs."

With that, I dug a little deeper in the bag to see what was filling the bottom ...

... and a found a change of clothes and a bar of soap.

"So ... heads up. I'm coming back to get you after my shift so I recommend a nap. And maybe you can change clothes and ... uh ... wash up. I mean, dude ... it's been three days. Albert said you were starting to smell."

"How rude!", I thought to myself. It was bad enough he had beat me ... now he was smack-talking my aroma?! Instead of commenting on that, I asked, "So ... where are we going? Am I leaving this room for good?"

My mind wandered back to Albert's threat that he had plans for me after the cash-grab scheme was executed, and so I feared that he was acting sooner ... and that Mario was in on it.

"We're going to an after-hours party. But you'll be back by the morning," was Mario's reply that put me in as much ease as I could be in light of my situation. "And I'll fill you in on the way over. Gotta go ... my shift is starting."

"Hey -- before you go ..."

Mario paused.

I knew what I knew about what was ahead for me from cobbling together the bits and pieces I had overheard or directly absorbed along the way ... but there was a common thread interwoven through most of those flashes of details. And I felt like it was time to push on that one particular issue.

"Since I met you and we had our ... well ... " I still struggled with the vernacular to describe what happened when I came into direct physical contact with people. "Our ... *moments* together ... there's one person who has always been in the shadows of *your* memories and *your* pain whom I haven't met."

Mario clenched his jaw and narrowed his eyes. It's like he was hoping that I was picking up on the nonverbal signals he was sending ... and that I wouldn't continue.

But I did.

"Your sister. What's *her* story?"

***

"I really don't want to talk about my sister. I gotta get upstairs and get to work and start my shift."

Mario's verbal reply most definitely matched the nonverbal signals he had given when I asked the question in the first place.

I thought I'd try the classic approach to getting the information I wanted -- the guilt trip.

"Well, I really don't want to be stuck in this room, either ... but I am."

"Yeah, well. That's not my problem." He successfully deflected my guilt-trip attack. But I had one more strategy up my sleeve -- one that only I could play.

"Hey -- don't forget what I can do. You can tell me the story ... and then I can immediately wipe away the pain. No risk to you ... if anything, it would guarantee you'd be in a good mood for the rest of the night."

Make my skill work for me. I was still getting used to treating my abilities more like a super-power -- by being PROactive instead of REactive to the scenarios in which I found myself.

He let out a sigh and then responded to my offer. "True. But your 'relief' doesn't last forever you know. It wears off. Pretty quickly when it comes to things like my sister's brain cancer. Because no matter what little mind trick you pull on me, I have to go home each morning and check in on her while she's fitfully sleeping ... and then the reality sets in again about how her damn disease is stealing the very life out of her. Day. By. Day. And how I can't do a SINGLE thing to stop it from happening. And how I can't even do a BASIC thing to keep it at bay because WE can't afford the experimental treatment because we live paycheck to paycheck, serving these rich tourist jack-douches, hoping that they get extra generous with a tip at the end of the night ... or extra drunk so that they get looser with their money ... on the off chance that I can scrounge together enough scratch to take time OFF of work so that I can drive her five hours across the state to the other coast ... just to beg and plead at a research hospital to throw us some scraps of paperwork that always lead to NOWHERE."

He only stopped because he was out of breath.

I sat silently, unsure as to whether he was finished.

***

Ask and ye shall receive.

Although, admittedly, it was a bit more than I thought I'd be receiving when I did the asking.

As Mario stopped to gather his thoughts, I had a sudden case of déjà vu.

I had been through this experience before ... pausing while staring down the angriest of angry ... waiting while someone who wasn't use to letting anyone see his emotion deal with the fact that he had just shared more than he had expected to.

Even the physical manifestations were the same ... the clenched jaw making his cheeks twitch and his teeth grind ... the tensed muscles making his frame contract like a wild animal preparing to pounce ... the closed fists with the fingertips pressed so tightly against his palm that it would undoubtedly draw blood if his nails were of any degree of sharpness.

He was even tilted slightly in my direction, having closed the distance between us during his tirade.

There was something animal ... something primal ... as he struggled to decide whether words or actions were to be his next step.

Yes, I had been through all of this before.

But not with Mario ... that which I was recalling via déjà vu has been my experiences with Joey ... but it was nearly identical.

I stared into his eyes, burning with rage that they were, and did my best to communicate without speaking that I understood his pain.

Whether it was the fact that we had already interacted multiple times and that I was already carrying many of his emotions with me ... or whether it was just that the pain he was describing was so real, I felt my own eyes welling up with tears.

And *that* response must have been unexpected for him. The jaw unclenched, the muscles untensed and the fists relaxed.

I reached out to grab his arm, knowing that I could take away all of this emotion that I had brought front and center with my insistence on asking him about his sister.

***

"Don't you touch me. You freak."

Mario knew all too well what happened when I came into contact with someone who had just poured his heart out to me.

I tried to save some face. I explained my motivation in a small voice. "I just want to help ..."

"You *can* help," he quickly replied. "You can *help* -- by doing what you're told, and by not causing any more disturbances, and by executing your part in the plan to steal the money off the damn drug dealer so that I can use my share to get my sister into the experimental drug program. It's just that simple."

He headed out the door, but not after giving me one more instruction.

"And you can *help* by being ready when I come and get you after we close down the place in the morning. So rest up ... and wash up ... and dress up ... and shut up."

As I listened to the all too familiar sound of being locked into the room, I sat there with my bag of goodies and, for the first time since being kidnapped, I was grateful that at least I understood more about the motivation for what was to come.

Even though exactly what I was to do wasn't known to me, I also had a chance to weigh my expected participation in my conscience. If the end result was that a drug dealer lost some ill-gotten gains and that a sick person got some medical help she couldn't afford ... was what we were about to do a noble cause?

These were the things I thought about as I followed Mario's direction and started to "rest up".

And so ended my third full day in captivity ... for real this time.

***

CHAPTER 18

Day 4 (of my captivity) was looking up ...

Well ... to the extent that I had been promised by Mario that I would be leaving the space in which I had been confined to go to a party.

Reflecting on *that* fact made me giggle a little bit, seeing as how it was probably the rare prisoner who gets invited to an after hours shindig ... but, then again, my situation wasn't exactly the normal prisoner scenario.

Giggling a little bit made me remember that my face was still rather bruised from the beating I had endured just 24 hours before I was waking up on Day 4 in the wee hours of the morning.

There wasn't an alarm clock in that new bag of supplies that Mria had sent ... and I still didn't have the cell phone that I needed to execute my second attempt at an escape plan (seeing as how the first attempt is what had caused the aforementioned beatdown) ... so it was a good thing that I was a very fitful sleeper.

What I *did* have in that bag of supplies was a bar of soap and a set of clothes ... so I set about using the janitorial sink to freshen up in the style of a whore's bath, and doing my best to prepare for my "date night" ... although I had no idea what the exact plans were for the promised activities.

Other than that my special skill set was finally being put to use in this master plan to steal money from a drug dealer ... the apparent primary reason for my having been kidnapped in the first place four days before ...

I was very careful cleaning up around my wounds ... and I checked one extra time to make sure that there wasn't some kind of makeup -- or at least a pair of sunglasses -- for my blackened eye.

Ah well ... I was just going to have to accept the fact that I wasn't going to be looking my prettiest for my night out ...

***

All dressed up and nowhere to go ...

In clothes that were *way* too big for me I might add.

My guess was that Mria hadn't gone looking for an outfit that fit my frame, and so I was likely swimming in sweats that belonged to Mario.

Mario, who was all but double my size, and who seemed to visit the gym twice a day instead of twice in a lifetime, as was my running total.

I did my best to listen to the sounds above me to gauge whether the night at the bar overhead was winding down, as we wouldn't be able to leave to go to this after-party to which I was headed until the establishment closed.

Although I didn't know *all* of the details, they were promised to me on the way to the soiree ... so it was only a matter of time.

I could barely contain my excitement that *something* was about to happen ... the first real *something* since my arrival.

Patience ...

Waiting ...

Counting to ten ... ten times over ...

Come to think of it ... I was all dressed up with *somewhere* to go ... if I could just wait for it to happen.

***

Wearing new threads. Check.

It didn't matter to me that they were someone else's sweats ... and that they didn't fit me.

Smelling good. Check.

It didn't matter to me that the extent of my ability to bathe was limited to what could be done with a bar of soap and a sink.

Smiling and styling. Check.

It didn't matter to me that if I smiled too hard, it would crack the scab on my busted lip ... and that my styling basically featured that black eye.

Pre-gaming underway. Check.

It didn't matter to me that the min-frig in the room in which I was imprisoned only had water and soda in it and that I had no alcohol (and, this being only the *fourth* day of my captivity, I hadn't yet considered any kind of toilet wine like in all the prison shows).

Bottom line ... nothing was going to get me down about my situation. I was being purposefully busted out to attend an after-hours party ... and I was going to party.

Like a rock star. Like it was 1999. Like I was a rock star in 1999.

Which, I guess, kind of made me Creed for the night.

And which, I guess, is why I was singing "can you take me higher?" when Mario unlocked the doors to claim me for the night's event.

***

"You seem awfully smiley ..."

Mario smirked at me, having caught me singing a tune as I waited to be released for this party I had been promised.

"You ready?" He motioned for me to leave this room in which I had been confined for four days.

Indeed I was ready. Ready for whatever was planned. Ready for any kind of explanation as to why I was being sprung ... even if only for a few hours, as I had been informed the night before.

Still, I stalled. I think I was suspecting the old hood and cuffs to be whipped out, but that didn't happen. Maybe he was tired from having closed the bar ... or maybe he wasn't thinking about the implications ... or maybe I was being trusted to be a part of the "team".

I left the space that I thought of as mine, with him right behind me, and waited in the outer room, assuming he'd be stacking the boxes up to block the door.

Except ... he kept right on walking, out into the hallway and starting up the stairs.

"Let's go!" he shouted back to me.

So I did. I went, following him up to the landing with the door that went out to the back alley ... the same way I had come in just a few days earlier.

Except ... he *still* kept right on walking, disappearing around the corner and up the second half of the stairway.

For the briefest of moments, I considered abusing all of this apparent good will, and thought about running away into the dark alley and toward my freedom.

I hesitated ...

***

I would have thought it way too soon to diagnose myself with Stockholm Syndrome at that stage of my captivity.

But it is true that, as Mario rounded the corner and headed to a different place in the bar, leaving me on the landing by the back exit into the alley, I hesitated as I considered whether I should just make a run for it.

Two things stopped me.

I thought about his sick sister ... and how he had shared with me that he was involved in this caper precisely because he had no other way to get funds to get her into the experimental drug treatment that she needed as a last hope to combat her cancer. In the mixed-up world of right and wrong in which I was now engaged, I had all but convinced myself that this plan to steal money from a drug dealer was a noble cause.

The other thing that stopped me was even more of an obstacle to my breaking free. Because it didn't take long for me to see that the back exit had been chained shut. Even if I had decided to roll the dice and break away, it wasn't possible to do so through this portal.

It struck me that it was probably a fire hazard to lock those doors that way ... but before I could think more about it, Mario yelled again for me to catch up to him.

"Get a move on!"

I decided that it was in my best interest to go along with the flow -- especially since it was Mario that was in charge of me at that moment. Knowing that Mria's plans were to send me back as soon as she was done with me ... and that Albert's plans were to keep me as a pet to show off at parties ... it made a lot of sense to do what I could to make Mario my ally.

"Be right there!" I yelled into the darkness of the hallway that I presumed led to the bar.

***

It was just one surprise after another.

All this time I assumed that the bar whose basement was the location of the room in which I was locked up had been the bar I frequented (well .. visited ... twice) back when I had been in town for my senior spring break community service project (which seemed like years before even though it had only been a few months).

The bar I had found that night before everyone else in our group joined me.

The bar that was my goldilocks bar since it was my "just right" fit after having driven around looking for a drinking establishment that fit my style.

The bar where I had first been served by Mario ... and where I had first clashed with "angry texter" (whom I now knew as Albert).

The bar where the whole group of us celebrated the completion of our time working on rebuilding houses that had been destroyed by the storm ... providing a nice bar-booked to my spring break "vacation".

The bar where I had actually seen Mria for the first time ... the night she fired Mario ... the night I ducked out to escape "angry texter", who had been looking for me even way back then ... for purposes I now understood all too well.

The bar where I collapsed in the parking lot after having absorbed the painful memories of Mario .. and Joey ... and Laura ... in too quick a succession.

That was the bar I *thought* I was in.

But as I bounded up the rest of the stairs and through the hallway into the customer area of this bar, I was disoriented to discover that this -- *this* was a different bar completely.

***

So if I wasn't there, where was I ?

I mean I was here, clearly ... but I just didn't know where *here* was.

And I wasn't to be *here* for long, ... I mean, I was told I'd be coming *back* here soon enough ... well here *underneath* here, seeing as how I was staying in the basement level ... but not here *up top* here ... in the *actual bar* here, the bar that I thought all along was *there* and *not* here here.

My head hurt just thinking about it.

Thankfully, I was put out of my misery because my dawdling was not appreciated by Mario, who was already outside the front door, holding it open for me to follow ... and there I was, just taking in the new location.

"Here boy. Come on boy. Let's go."

He literally jingled his keys in my direction, trying to get my attention as one would a baby ... or a dog ... or a baby dog (more commonly known as a puppy).

At least he was in good spirits.

I did my best to take as many mental pictures as I could of the establishment, thinking that one day I might need to know what was where, when it came to what was here.

But I couldn't postpone this any longer ... and so a broke into a jog to make up the distance between me and the front door.

When I got there, I saw Mario turn his head to a jeep parked out front, and I took advantage of that moment to grab a flyer that was sitting by the exit. I crumpled it up and put it into the pocket of my borrowed sweats.

***

And away we went.

It was a pleasant change to be in a vehicle and not be hooded or cuffed as we drove through the streets of this southern Florida town ... Mario and I ... in his jeep.

The clock in the dashboard clued me in that it was just after 3am ... a fact confirmed by the pretty empty streets that we navigated in the dark. As someone who had only visited once before, nothing was jumping out at me as being overly familiar ... especially since I had only just learned that the bar we left wasn't the bar I knew from that earlier trip.

Although I had given a fleeting thought to trying to memorize our path in case it was data that came in handy at a later point in my adventure, there was no way for me to capture what I would have needed to know where I was going if I ever got out or to direct someone to me if I ever made contact with someone to come and get me.

So I sat there in silence. Watching the unfamiliar pass by in the blackness of night, waiting to hear or see or learn more about why I was a part of this mission.

Should I try small talk? Attempt to make a joke? How exactly could I initiate dialogue under these conditions?

If only I had not retreated so far within my own thoughts in my head (as was my pattern) ... then maybe I would have been more focused on what was going on on our drive ... and then I could have been the hero and started a conversation by shouting something like "Hey! Look out! That's a red light!!"

Alas ... such was not the case. Instead, what broke the silence was the sound of my forehead cracking against the windshield as he slammed on the brakes and slid into the car in the intersection.

***

I don't actually know which it was that stirred me -- more blood trickling down my face (yet again) ... or the flash and unmistakable "click" of the cell phone photograph being taken outside the window of Mario's jeep.

Fearing at first that it was those police-adjacent folks who take pictures of dead people at the scene of accidents, I raised my arm to make sure that anyone within view of the crash that had just happened knew that I wasn't dead yet.

I heard a scream of surprise ... definitely not in the tone or voice of a professional ... more like a squeal from a girl ... a girl whose face I couldn't quite make out in the haze of having just "come to" after having had my head smacked into the windshield when Mario had slammed on the brakes after running the red light.

I could make out the sounds though ... and the girl most certainly jumped back into her car, and *that* car sped away.

I turned my head, grimaced in pain, and saw that Mario was slumped over the steering wheel.

Within moments, I realized that we were alone in the intersection -- even the car we had hit was gone. It was just us, in the blackness of the night, and, with it being shortly after 3am, not even any bystanders had gathered.

Well -- not counting that girl with the cell phone -- but she was standing by no longer.

For what seemed like the umpteenth time since being locked up, I considered whether *this* was my chance to sneak away ... to just disappear into the black Floridian night.

***

Run away.

Get out of the car ... wipe the blood off my face ... and run, not walk, into the night ... and away from everything.

From the jeep ... from the accident ... from Florida ... from Mario and Albert and Mria ... from my locked room in the basement of the bar ... from this plan to use my new special skill in some way to steal money from a drug dealer ... from the mysterious and not yet seen Papa Kalfu (said drug dealer) ... from Mria's promise to put me back on a bus when it was all over ... from Albert's threats to continue to abuse me instead ... from Mario's dying sister in need of his share of the cash grab.

Damn that dying sister. She always appeared in my thoughts at precisely the moment I didn't want her to do so.

Run away.

I couldn't.

I shouldn't.

I wouldn't.

I didn't.

With the sound of sirens off in the distance getting louder as they headed to our location, I decided that I was going "all in".

I turned again to Mario in the driver's seat and did my best to rouse him ...

***

Nothing.

I couldn't get Mario to stir.

And those sirens in the distance weren't sounding too distant any longer.

So I climbed out of the slightly damaged jeep, and walked around to the driver's side, and did my best to haul him out of that space. Seeing as how he was twice my size, it was more than a bit awkward, but I persevered and somehow maneuvered him into the back seat, where he crumpled into a heap.

Luckily for me, he was still knocked out from the crash, and so I didn't have to interrupt my urgent task to deal with any transfer of memories and absorption of emotions.

"Lucky", seeing as how my only goal at that moment was to drive away before the police arrived.

To succeed, Mario's jeep would have to start up. The key was still in the ignition, and so, on a wing and a prayer, I turned it.

Actually -- just a prayer. There were no wings around ... no angels swooping in to save me ... I mean, to save us.

Come to think of it -- I'm not even sure there was a prayer. At that point, it was more like I was running on auto-pilot.

Something else there wasn't ... the sound I so desperately wanted to hear of the engine turning over.

I adjusted the rear view mirror that had gone askew in the accident and saw the red and blue flash of the police car, approaching a nearby intersection ... about to turn the corner on to the main road where Mario's jeep was stalled.

Mario's jeep that was in the middle of an intersection with skid marks and assorted car parts all around it ... with me in the driver's seat, bruised and bloodied ... and with an unconscious body in the back seat.

Even though I had already decided to go "all in" with regards to my participation in their plan ... I knew that there was no way anyway that I would fare well being caught in this predicament.

What came next ... no wings ... no prayers ... maybe a curse word or two ... and definitely a second attempt at turning the key in the ignition.

***

"WeeeoooooWeeeeoooooWeeeeoooooWeeeeooooo" ...

That's the sound of the siren on the cop car, in case you were wondering ... approaching from the distance and heralded by that noise AND the red and blue shadows of the lights being thrown on the buildings based in the intersection just a few blocks away.

"ClickClickClickClick ..."

And that ... that was the sound from the jeep on my second attempt at starting it. With no success, it was time to decide whether I would abandon Mario or somehow try to carry him on my shoulders and make it a short enough distance to hide.

"WEEEEoooooWEEEEoooooWEEEEoooooWEEEEooooo" ...

I was paralyzed with indecision ... which meant that if my body couldn't coordinate any movement, my mind had best be prepared with a story to explain how I came to be sitting in the middle of the road, car clearly damaged .. myself clearly damaged ... Mario clearly damaged ... and not another soul in sight.

My mind preoccupied with trying to come up with a story allowed my involuntary muscle system to kick in ... and in some kind of fight or flight parasympathetic nervous system response, my hand acted on its own accord and attempted to start the car for a third time.

And that's when I learned that "Vroom" sometimes very accurately captures the miniature roar of an engine suddenly responding ... just like "Squeal" sometimes very accurately captures the sound made by the tires of a vehicle making a fast getaway.

And just like "WEEEEOOOOOWEEEEOOOOOWEEEEOOOOOWEEEEOOOOO" sometimes very accurately depicts the siren sound of a police car pulling up to an empty intersection where we all were only moments before.

***

It wasn't quite the laugh of a madman ... but it was pretty darn close.

And ... surprise, surprise ... it was coming from me!

I chalked it up to the release of the stress ... the flow of the adrenaline ... the excitement of having evaded the police at just the last moment -- the reaction to the sheer absurdity of how this night was unfolding.

More accurately ... how this early early morning was unfolding.

Seeing as how Mario hadn't given me many details at all as to where the party was being held ... the party to which we were now most certainly late, what with the diversion we took being in and dealing with the accident ... I was uncertain of my next move.

I was in a strange town driving a strange car under the strangest of pretenses.

For those reasons, I had to settle down and come up with a plan ... and it seemed like I needed to deal with the unconscious human in the back seat as a priority.

I fiddled with the GPS device as I drove aimlessly but at a rapid speed to get away from the scene of the crash, and located a past trip and a setting called "home". I plugged it in as my destination and starting taking directions from the little lady in the dashboard computer.

Fifteen minutes away we were -- according to her.

So for the next fifteen minutes, I had a reason, a purpose and a destination.

Beyond that, though, the rest was unknown.

***

The GPS said 15 minutes until we would arrive at Mario's house.

It was around minute two that I passed the late night fast food restaurant and considered stopping for a greasy snack. After all, in the four days I had been locked up, my diet had been restricted to that which they had stocked in the mini-fridge ... mostly snacks and some lunch meat for sandwiches.

It was around minute three that I remembered that I had very little cash on me, and knowing that I couldn't even craft a meal off of the dollar menu, that it wouldn't be worth it to stop.

It was around minute five that I recalled that Mario was a bartender, and so he likely had a bankroll of some kind in his pocket if I could just get the courage to stick my hand in his pants to grab some cash.

It was around minute seven that I decided I did not have that courage ... and that it would not be the right risk for the potential reward, as he could wake up at any moment from being knocked out in the car crash.

It was around minute ten that I turned off of the main road and into a section that was clearly more residential, with nature-sounding names of developments ... cypress-this and glades-that.

It was around minute eleven that I heard a moan from the back seat where I had dumped Mario.

It was around minute twelve ... and thirteen ... and fourteen that I glanced nervously into the rear view mirror as much as, or more than, I looked at the road in front of me ... wanting to be aware at the precise moment he came to.

It was around minute fifteen that I marveled at the technology whereby the trip had been perfectly predicted as I made the turn into a parking lot.

It was around minute sixteen that I realized that, although I had gotten us "home", "home" was one of those developments ... and I had no idea which one of the apartments belonged to him.

It was around minute twenty that I had my a-ha moment, sitting there in the parking lot -- that Mario had a cell phone, and that trying to get a hold of it *would* be the right kind of reward to justify the risk of getting in his pants.

***

Sure it was awkward.

But it had to be done.

I got out of the driver's seat and gingerly opened the back door where Mario was still lying in a state of crash-induced-unconscious.

Lucky for me ... well, for both of us ... he was wearing cargo shorts and I could see his cell phone in the outer pocket.

As carefully as I could, I unsnapped the snap and cautiously slid my hand into the pocket to grab his cell phone.

More luck for me ... there was no screen lock on it.

I did my best to control my shaking ... the excitement of the moment having temporarily taken over my motor functions. But then it hit me ... the bane of modern technology ... I couldn't remember any phone numbers to call, as they were all programmed into my cell phone ... which was on the counter in my apartment charging -- exactly where I had left it the night they had grabbed me. I ruled out 911 based on how odd this whole situation was in the first place ... the same reason I hesitated the other chances I thought about bolting when the opportunity had presented itself. Hell ... if I had wanted to interact with the cops, I could have just stayed at the scene of the crash.

It then struck me that I did know my *own* phone number ... and even though it was around 3 in the morning and no one should have been at my place other than my puppy dog Gator, I decided that I had come too far to give up.

Illogical choice or not, I decided to dial my own digits ... and listened with baited breath as it rang on the other end of the call.

Maybe my dogsitter Mattie would be there ... maybe he had decided to crash at my place and he would hear the sound of my phone ringing and I could explain some of this to someone whom I could trust ...

Maybe, just maybe ...

***

In the immortal words of the character Ernestine ...

One ringy-dingy.

Two ringy-dingy.

Three ringy-dingy.

I remembered those skits as quite comical. I did not feel the same way about my situation, anxious for someone to answer despite knowing in my logical brain that no one *should* answer, since no one was expected to be back at my apartment in Pennsylvania.

Four ringy-dingy.

"You've reached Alan. I'm driving across the country for the next few days, so cell service might be spotty with my plan. And then I'll be quite busy enjoying New Orleans and Chicago ... so I apologize in advance for any delay in getting back to you. Although that doesn't mean that you shouldn't leave a message. Oh ... and I also apologize for that double negative. Talk to you soon!"

I chose to use the "beep" as the signal that I might as well hang up. This time I was going to act logically ... and it made no sense to me at that time to leave a message for myself that I couldn't possibly retrieve.

I was so sure that a cell phone was all I needed that I hadn't considered exactly what I'd do when I got it.

Mario's phone trilled and I would have sworn that his unconscious body responded to it like some modern version of Pavlov and his dogs.

I saw that a text message had arrived and read that someone at the party was urgently inquiring as to why he was running late.

And *that's* when I had my next grand idea.

***

"I've been kidnapped. Send help." Send.

I did not care that I was texting myself. My grand idea was to "blow up my phone", as the kids say, with text messages in hopes that Mattie might notice it when he was over taking care of my puppy dog Gator back home.

"Well not so much kidnapped but taken against my will. Send help." Send.

My thumbs were busy.

"I know that's pretty much the same thing. It's complicated. Send help." Send.

Oh right ... I needed to tell them where to send the help.

"I'm locked in the basement of a bar. Same town from our service trip this spring. Send help." Send.

I was on a roll.

"I borrowed this phone from an unconscious bartender but can't keep it. Send help." Send.

I checked in with Mario and he still seemed out of it, so I continued.

"Well, it's more like I stole it but I plan to give it back as soon as I'm done. Send help." Send.

Truth in texting. That was more like it.

"My captors names are Mario and Mria and Albert. Send help." Send.

Her name looked funny when I typed it out the way I had heard it pronounced.

"That's not a typo ... her name is really Mria without the A. At least that's how they say it. Send help." Send.

I felt it necessary to include an important disclaimer.

"Don't involve the cops though. Again, it's complicated. Send help." Send.

That seemed sufficient. I had enough wits about me to know that the next step was to delete all those texts that I had just sent.

Except I realized that I had just sent all those texts and *still* hadn't sent my exact location. I reached into my pocket to get that flyer I had grabbed on the way out of the bar ... and was startled by a hand that yanked at the sleeve of my sweatshirt.

***

I had watched way too many movies with zombies and TV shows with walkers to have not been completely startled when the unexpected hand tugged at my sweatshirt sleeve (well, Mario's sweatshirt sleeve, seeing as how I was actually wearing *his* outfit).

And the fact that it was Mario that had suddenly reached out, after having been unconscious since the crash (well, at least as far as I could tell) was even more alarming.

At that moment, I knew I had no chance to return the cell phone I had stolen (I mean, "borrowed") from his pocket, so I quickly put it into mine. I was now quite happy that these were Mario's clothes, since they were baggy on me and I could more easily disguise the fact that I had something unexpected in my pocket (well, two things unexpected, if I counted the flyer I had grabbed back at the bar).

Actually, after observing Mario, I probably needn't have been so worried, because he was clearly quite groggy and had no idea what was going on.

"What happened?" he asked, confirming my conclusion.

I offered up a wan smile.

"So ... there was a bit of a mix-up."

He sat up slowly and looked around.

"And why am I in the back seat?"

Before I could answer, he got distracted by the blood on his hands.

"What did I do?"

He started to physically shake as he focused in on the stains, and I heard him murmur under his breath, "Not again ..."

***

I don't know where he went ... but he wasn't there ... in that moment ... in that parking lot outside of his apartment, sitting in the back seat of his jeep, alternating his look from his bloody hands to me.

I mean he was physically there ... but he wasn't mentally there.

I thought it was just a latent response to the crash, until I realized that he didn't seem to recall that that had just happened.

I wasn't sure what to do next ... so I waited it out.

It was as if I could literally see his gears trying to engage as he attempted to make sense of his condition.

As I observed him, I started to sense an overwhelming sadness ... one I could definitely feel even without having made a tactile connection with him, which was normally a prerequisite for me absorbing someone's emotions.

He struggled for words, and he finally looked up at me and held his hands in front of him like he had stumbled on them and he was hoping they weren't his own.

I saw that his eyes had welled up and a single tear had been released and it was travelling down through the dirt that was on his cheek.

In a choked up voice, the only words that he could articulate were "Did I ..." and then silence.

His gaze was so intense that it unsettled me. I knew that he wanted me to put him out of his misery.

And lucky for him, I had the skills to do just that.

***

I reached out and grabbed him tightly by the forearm, right above the wrist.

I knew exactly what I was doing.

"Hey. Mario. It's not what you think. You didn't do anything."

Actually, that was what I intended to say, but I didn't get all the words out. Somewhere in the middle of that "It's not what you think" sentence, I froze ... because, as anticipated, I was taking on all of his sadness and his pain and his confusion.

This time was different than the other times with Mario, as the accident had clearly brought new memories to the surface. Not everything came to me with clarity ... after all, he had been drinking on his shift earlier that night, and although I was stone cold sober, I knew that alcohol played a role in jumbling up that which I could absorb from those with whom I came into direct contact.

There was also the fact that he hadn't shared very much with me ... and my past interactions had always come on the heels of someone opening up to me with their stories ... whether overheard like on the plane ride down to Florida when I first learned I had the gift or shared directly with me in conversation.

But clearly this was powerful enough and no longer buried in his psyche that the few clues I had were making a strong statement.

I was there with him in that past moment that he was recalling ... seeing him seeing his bloodied hands, pausing briefly in that other time and place, before continuing his activity.

I felt his rage and a sense of him being out of control, and it was only then that I realized the "activity" in which he had been engaged was to throw fist after fist, attacking someone he was holding down to the ground.

I couldn't make out the face of his victim ... so it appeared to me as one of the beings I had previously named an "andante" -- a shadowy figure devoid of facial features, real and alive within the other person's memory, but not transferring 100 % to me.

I held on to his arm, and although we both were shaking by that point, I didn't want to disconnect until I had taken away all of his pain at remembering this instance from his past.

***

This one was getting messier by the minute.

I had been through this transfer of emotion enough times to know that it was always unsettling ... for both me and the person with whom I was interacting ...

However, Mario's memory of the beating he had given this random person in his past was mixing with my own personal flashbacks from the beating I had been given by Albert the night before. My reality was morphing into his reality and, like a epileptic shocked into an attack by strobe lights, I was having a similar reaction.

In rapid succession, I was seeing Albert's face as he held me down ... and then Mario's ... and then the faceless nameless "andante" image ... my blood .. his blood ... everything jumbled together. I didn't think I was in as much trouble as the night I collapsed in the parking lot of the other bar when I was first in Florida ... but I could feel a dizziness coming on.

Luckily, the memory of Mario's I was reliving with him because of our tactile connection was nearing an end. Through his eyes, I saw him stand up and stop the flailing of his fists.

Then something new ... a tsunami of guilt followed quickly by a flood of shame as he stared at his bloody hands, with the motionless body just out of focus ... an image that now made all the pieces fall into place as to why Mario was sent to that particular point in his past when he regained consciousness after the accident.

I released my grip on him and he lowered his head to gather his thoughts.

When he looked up at me again, the haze of confusion had dissipated ... and he squinted his eyes and stated plainly, "People don't like it very much whey you do that to them. You know that, right. It's creepy ... and intrusive ... but I'll be damned if it doesn't feel good afterwards."

***

"Do you want to talk about it?" I asked.

"No!" was the rapid response. "I *don't* want to talk about it. I *didn't* want to remember it. And I sure as *hell* didn't want to share it with you as some special bonding moment."

I was capable of stepping outside of the situation and recognizing that getting feedback is a valuable step toward me improving "the process".

It didn't take long to be immediately brought *back* to the situation at hand when I remembered that I had his cell phone in my pocket, and since I didn't have time to return it ... or silence it, or turn it off ... I was potentially moments away from an awkward predicament.

Mario spoke next.

"So now that that's over, are you going to explain what happened, and why *you* were the one who drove me to the party?"

I took a deep breath, knowing it was to my benefit to tell the short version.

"You ran a red light and hit a car, but the car disappeared and I hit my head but was together more than you were, and so, since I heard the police in the distance, I put you in the back seat and drove us to the address I found in your GPS ... which is, ta-da, how we got to your place ... which I guess is *also* where the party is ..."

Mario just shook his head in disbelief. It seemed to take an extra moment for him to process all of the information. But then it hit him hard.

He jumped out of the seat and started to run around his vehicle excitedly ... and then let out an unexpected wail.

"MY JEEP!"

***

I learned something *else* about Mario that night.

On top of the fact that he was dealing with a sister who was dying of cancer, AND that he was complicit in a kidnapping scheme taking me across state lines and holding me against my will (well, *mostly* against my will), AND that he had gotten fired from his last job by the lady that was now his girlfriend ... the worst possible thing had apparently just happened.

Namely ... his jeep had been damaged in the accident ... and he was seeing it for the first time and wasn't happy.

He was also speechless ... just staring at the bumper with a mixture of extreme sadness and disbelief, shaking his head and covering his eyes a few times as if he was hoping that he would look one of the times and everything would be fixed as if it had never happened at all.

It was actually Mria who broke him out of the stupor ... not via his cell phone, which was a good thing seeing as how I still had that in my pocket ... but live, in person, having walked up to the parking lot space unbeknownst to either of us.

"Where have you *been*?" she asked, before stopping abruptly once she saw him and once she saw what had captured his gaze. She changed her tune pretty quickly, and followed up with, "Do I want to know?"

Mario sighed. "I'll tell you about inside."

They walked off hand in hand, seemingly as if they had momentarily forgotten about me.

Or so I thought.

He looked over his shoulder and called in my direction.

"Let's go, boy. *This* night has only just begun!"

Truer words had not been spoken ...

***

CHAPTER 19

We didn't make it very far before we hit a snag.

"Hold on ... I forgot my cell phone!"

Mario turned around and ran past me back to his damaged jeep in the parking lot of the apartment complex.

Mria and I stood there, patiently waiting, but mostly avoiding eye contact. From our limited interactions, I was guessing her to be the type that liked to be in control but didn't necessarily want to get her hands dirty. In my analysis, she was more than happy pulling Mario's strings, which included getting him to pull Albert's strings, and then slept soundly in her cocoon of her version of plausible deniability.

I already knew he'd return empty-handed, so I was just counting the seconds until he re-joined us -- dejectedly, if I was predicting what his attitude would be.

Sure enough, he returned and re-joined and looked awfully sad ... not as sad as when he had let out the wail after discovering his beloved jeep had been in a fender bender ... but pretty darn sad all the same.

Just as predictably, he turned to me first.

"Did you see my phone?"

It was to be my moment of truth.

I knew I had his phone in my pocket. He didn't know that I had his phone in my pocket. I had worked so hard to gain his trust over the course of the evening, hedging my bets about my future after this caper had ended.

Telling him the truth now would be the feather in my cap toward trying to become his friend on some kind of level.

So I did what I had to do ...

***

I lied.

Like it was my job and I was employee of the year.

Like I was a famous bicyclist who hadn't yet had his time with Oprah.

Like I was a modern president uncertain of what the word 'is' meant.

Like I was a Greek hiding out in the belly of a wooden horse in the middle of Troy's town square.

I lied.

I fibbed.

I stretched the truth.

I evaded the answer.

I fabricated a response.

I engaged in subterfuge.

I told a whopper.

I prevaricated something fierce.

I falsified the facts and invented a reply.

If I had been under oath, what I said would have meant I committed perjury.

When asked by Mario whether I had seen his phone, I said, "NO!"

***

Actually, I did *more* than lie. I embellished things a bit.

"Maybe it fell out back at the crash site?" I theorized.

He seemed to buy that as a distinct possibility, so I continued.

"And when I left the intersection, the cops were on their way, so ..." I let my voice trail off to give him time to reach the necessary conclusion ... namely, that we shouldn't rush back to look for his "missing" cell phone there -- at least not at this precise moment in time.

Mria cocked her head and threw me a puzzled look. "Wait a minute ... *you* drove him here?"

I met her stare, and watched her gears spinning as she processed that new information. If I hadn't already called it, seeing that would have taken me to the conclusion I had already made ... I'd have to be very very careful around her. She thought about things on multiple levels at once, and I could feel her running through various scenarios in her head to try to figure out my motives at having taken charge.

All that said, I felt comfortable in assuming that she had no way of knowing that I actually had his phone in my pocket ... but one could never be *too* careful.

Especially with what she said next.

"Well let's just get him inside, and I can grab my phone and call it to make sure it's not just somewhere in the jeep."

Note to self ... time was running out for me to turn off ... or get rid of ... that phone.

***

We rode in an elevator, enveloped by that awkward silence so frequently found in those cabins when they were occupied by strangers.

Sure, Mario and Mria knew each other ... in the biblical sense for all I knew ... and both of them had interacted with me (although Mria less so) ... but I was still the third wheel when it came to any attempt at normal conversation.

Luckily, the ride was short, and we got off at the fourth floor, which was the top floor, and headed down a hallway to an apartment door at its end.

Mario unlocked the door and had us both enter.

I had been promised a party ... but there wasn't anyone else there.

It didn't take too long to acclimate myself to my new surroundings, though, and so it also didn't take too long to pick up the vibrations of someone who liked a little bass in their music ... down below. Maybe those few days in the room of the bar basement had gotten me accustomed to party sounds separated by a floor ... but it was a slightly new perspective to be above the din instead of below it.

Mria motioned for me to sit down on the edge of a couch in what seemed to be the main room, bookended as it was with the front door through which we had just entered and the sliding glass doors on the other end leading to what I assumed was a patio.

"Well ... here we are."

Mario kicked off his welcome speech as succinctly as was to be expected.

"And ... here's the plan."

Finally ... I was about to learn the reason I had been sprung from my cell ... I was going to have a role to play in the end game of stealing that drug money from Papa Kalfu ... I was ready to engage in a task for the greater good, or for the greater bad, depending on how I was feeling about what was ahead (my thoughts were all over the place, shifting every time I stopped to devote any brainspace toward thinking about it).

"The party ... is down there." Mario pointed to the floor of his apartment. "And you ... you are going out *there*" His pointing finger changed direction to those sliding doors and the darkness just beyond them.

***

"And what am I going to do *out there*?"

"Out there" being beyond the sliding doors, in the darkness, completely NOT at the party one floor below -- which is where I thought I had been promised to go.

Mario was the one to answer, but in so doing, I caught him repeating something I had heard from Mria ... when I had eavesdropped on the conversation amongst the two of them and Albert just outside of my cell the day before.

"Your goal tonight is to use your little trick on Rodney, so that we can get leverage on him."

"Rodney. I don't know him," I countered.

It didn't matter to Mario. He clearly had a plan ... probably Mria's plan, but a plan all the same.

"Well you will before the party's over. He's downstairs drinking right now, and I'm going to make sure he's good and drunk and then bring him out to the balcony. You'll be up above, and I'll need you to listen in while I get him talking. Then, when he passes out, I'll come and get you and you can ... do your thing."

So there it was. For the first time, my special skill was being deployed as if I was in the military and my country needed me. Well, needed me to noodle through the noggin of a drunk guy who was himself being conscripted to commit a crime -- an honorable crime (maybe).

General Mario continued. "Do you see a problem with that?"

"Well it's a little vague," I replied. "Is there any more context? Anything in particular I'm supposed to be looking for?"

"Leverage. We need leverage. Get us something good that we can hold over him so that he does what we want. I don't know how else to explain it ..."

Mario shrugged his shoulders and looked toward Mria for help ... and she was ready to provide it.

***

"Here's what you need to know. And listen once, and listen well, because I'm not going to repeat it."

Ahh, Mria. So direct and to the point.

Although, at this stage of events, it was exactly what I needed. I leaned in with both ears open.

"Rodney wasn't supposed to be part of the plan. But our accomplice, shot-boy Julio, up and left with Jorge, the bar owner, when he went on his gay cruise a few days ago. That not only left us one man short on our team, but it also kind of robbed us of the leverage we had on Julio, since no one knew that he swam in the man pond, and since we were using *that* in order to keep him in line."

I remembered these names. They were all a part of what I had overheard from the phone call in the van on the ride down to southern Florida after I had been taken.

"Enter Rodney, as the shot-boy replacement at the bar ... and as our new 'hired muscle' for next week's job. Except Rodney was just Mario's gym buddy ... and so we don't have anything similar to use in our favor in order to make him leave town when this is over ... because like you and your bus ride back to whatever life you have in central Pennsylvania, we need any of our 'helpers' to get the hell out of town."

Next week. The job was next week. The job was only a few days away. The job was on the horizon.

"Enter you ... special little you ... who is going to get us what we need so that we can be back on track. Understand?"

I nodded my head to signify my agreement so far.

But then I decided it was in my best interest to be up front about two very important things.

***

"You seem pensive."

I wanted to reply to Mria with, "You seem perceptive," but decided to go with the classic response from the movies instead ...

"No, I was just thinking."

I paused to see if either of them would provide the rim shot ... or even crack a smile ... but no one seemed to get my joke, which made me think that maybe Mria wasn't as perceptive as I had thought.

Or, more likely, she probably never saw the movie.

So I continued ...

"Two things. First, you're going to have to walk a fine line with the drinking. I've learned over time these last few months, that my connection with someone can be affected if one or both of us is too inebriated. It can muddle the memories, and it can result in a less than optimal transfer."

Mria turned to Mario.

"Well that's a note for you then. You need him drunk enough that he'll start talking about his past ... but not too drunk."

Mario practically whined his response.

"But I thought he's supposed to be drunk enough to pass out?"

She was having none of his attitude. "Make it work, Mario. Make it work."

"Well that actually brings me to my second point. I can only do what I do when I am looking in that person's eyes. I have to make direct contact that way *in addition to* having a tactile connection. So if he's passed out, we're going to have to rouse him. He's going to be aware that it's happening. I can't do it to him while he's unconscious."

There was silence as they considered the implications of what I said.

And silence was bad for someone like myself who had basically stolen Mario's cell phone, knowing that it could make a noise at any moment.

***

"It was *your* job to know these things."

It seems like the news I had broken to Mario and Mria wasn't being well-received.

Mario attempted to defend himself from her just-leveled accusation.

"Look ... he's a freak. He doesn't come with a manual."

I probably should have taken offense to that characterization, but while they argued amongst themselves, I saw a potential opportunity to sneak away to deal with the problem in my pants -- namely, the cell phone that I had taken that could go off at any moment.

So I interrupted their discussion.

"Hey. Excuse me. Do you mind if I use your bathroom before you put me out on that patio? I mean, assuming you're still planning to go through with that."

Mario gestured around the corner.

"Sure ... but hurry it the hell up."

I showed that I understood the need for speed in this scenario and practically ran into a short hallway in the townhouse apartment, slipping past the first door and into a small bathroom. Closing the door behind me, I paused and looked at my reflection in the mirror.

Still bruised and battered from the beating I had endured, with fresh wounds from the accident I had been in on the way to this party ... if it could still be called a party ... I took in a few deep breaths and stared at my damaged visage.

"What have you gotten yourself into?" I queried my other self, staring back at me through one blackened eye.

My other self didn't answer ... couldn't answer ... wouldn't answer.

But I did notice one thing. Through it all ... despite the recent turn of events ... there was a twinkle ... a gleam in the one good eye, and I knew then that, in contradiction to my rational mind, the adrenaline from all the excitement was something I was starting to enjoy.

***

Like some Bizarro world version of Narcissus, I kind of lost time and place as I stared at my reflection, trying to let *it* give me clues as to how I was changing.

Mario's bellowed "Let's go in there!" snapped me out of my stupor.

And hearing him yell at me from the other side of the door of the bathroom in his apartment reminded me of the whole reason I excused myself in the first place.

I needed to turn off his phone that was in my pocket ... of his sweats that he had given me back in the room under the bar where I was being kept.

Turns out that his phone wasn't the ONLY thing in that pocket.

I had all but forgotten that I had grabbed a flyer at the bar running out the door to Mario's jeep ... and I was now in possession of the exact name and address of the establishment where I was being imprisoned. Well, "imprisoned" was starting to sound like a much harsher word in light of how I was beginning to feel about the goings on.

But now was not the time to continue with that stage of my escape plan.

Now was the time to shut off his phone before Mria called it to try to find it, as she had promised to do once we got inside.

I shut off the phone, flushed the toilet for effect, and washed my hands, splashing water on my face to get me back in the game ... the game of eavesdropping from a balcony to get dirt on a drunk.

Assuming they hadn't given up on that plan, of course.

I strode out to the living room space, and stood at attention, barely resisting the urge to throw in a salute, as I said with a smirk ...

"Reporting for duty ... if you still want me."

***

"Yes," said both of them at the exact same time.

Mria clarified. "We're running out of time to NOT try it. If it works, all the better. If it doesn't, well at least we tried."

Mario got up off the couch and guided me over to the patio doors and out on to the balcony.

I waited, half expecting to be shackled to the railing ... or tied down to a patio chair ... but either the excitement of the evening, or the trust I had succeeded in building, or the fact that it was in the wee hours of the morning and everyone was just too tired to follow protocol meant that I was able to roam freely around the area.

The fact that it was a tiny space may have also had something to do with the decision. I could have barely lie down across the length of it had I wanted to do so ... and I didn't want to do so, because it had that scratchy green turf on it that couldn't have been comfortable.

At least there *was* a patio set, so I could hang out and kick back at the same time.

Seeing as how I was promised a party, I thought about requesting a beer ... or two ... or six ... but decided that I shouldn't push my good luck so far.

He pointed to his ears and out into the dark night sky, giving me a last set of instructions.

"Listen. Especially when you hear my voice and when I say Rodney."

On the way back into his apartment, he remembered another piece of the puzzle to share with me.

"Oh ... I almost forgot. Over here, by this pipe, there's some extra space that you can actually look down below ... just to make sure you got the right people at the right time for your little eavesdropping pre-work thing."

He bent down and poked at the artificial turf to make sure that it was clear of the pipe to give me my peephole.

"Good luck."

***

Any thoughts that my attempts to gain trust had succeeded to any great level were shut down with the sound of the clicking of the lock on the sliding glass doors.

Of course, that doesn't mean that I didn't make some progress ... it was just clear that, whether in the room in the basement of the bar OR in Mario's apartment, I was still a prisoner of sorts.

I watched through the glass as he left with Mria, headed to the party one floor below in Albert's apartment. As I waited for my queue to get involved ... aka the promised appearance of Rodney with Mario on the balcony below me ... I looked out over the edge of the railing, into the dark night sky.

I could make out the lights of the neighborhood around the apartment complex, especially as reflected in a water feature of some sort. Four floors up, I knew I couldn't jump ... and I wasn't skilled enough to climb down the side of the building ... plus the reality was that I was slowly warming to the fact that I was a part of this task.

I mean ... don't get me wrong ... the whole circumstances of me being here against my will were what they were ... and I most definitely wanted to be careful and avoid the future that Albert promised me ... but I was actually getting hooked on the adrenaline of preparing for what was ahead.

***

It was a dangerous thing to leave me alone with my thoughts.

Not dangerous to any one else ... more dangerous to me and my own mental health.

Despite it being three or four in the morning by this point, I wasn't at risk for dozing off, as I had the adrenaline coursing through my veins. And that meant that I needn't have feared being haunted by any wild and crazy memories of the others that I had absorbed along the way.

So wide awake I was, sitting by myself on the patio chair on the balcony, waiting for activity below.

And thinking ... thinking ... thinking ... thinking ...

Thinking about Gator back home and how much I missed him. Sure I had a dog-sitter in Mattie since I had been planning to be on a road trip the same time I had been snatched, but little puppies grow into big dogs quickly, and I was missing key moments in that little guy's development.

Thinking about the challenge ahead -- namely how to contribute to the mission but guarantee that my exit strategy was what Mria had promised me instead of what Albert had threatened for me. That would start within the next hour, as soon as Mario got Rodney liquored up enough to share his secrets.

Thinking about the quest I was *supposed* to be on ... to find my twin that I had never known ... and my father that I had never known ... and to learn more secrets about that side of my past. And to get my missing twin brother to sign that darn check so that I could get access to the funds that my insta-aunt had provided.

Thinking about what I wanted to be when I grew up. I had been so driven to survive my foster families and to thrive in college ... and here I was a recent graduate with no specific shape for a future -- a future that now had to include understanding my ability and figuring out how to maximize my effectiveness in the world.

Thinking ... thinking ... thinking ... thinking ... interrupted by the sound of someone on the balcony below.

***

I scurried over to the peephole to try to catch a glimpse of the person making the noise on the balcony below.

If it had turned out to be Mario or Rodney ... or more on point, Mario and Rodney ... then I was prepared to begin my task of eavesdropping.

Problem was that calling it a peephole was being a bit generous ... it was more like a peepcrack, and it didn't exactly provide much of a view.

However, what it DID do was amplify the audio, so even if I didn't exactly have the front row experience I had been expecting, it was still going to be of help to me.

I didn't hear any voice, and instead listened in as someone seemed to be stumbling around, bumping into whatever furniture was down below. I bent down to see what I could at the crack, and I could make out a table and chairs, much like I had on my balcony ... I mean, on Mario's balcony.

I could see a solo cup on the table ... which was no surprise knowing the goings-on at the apartment one floor down.

To be honest, the view kind of made thirsty a bit. And a little jealous. I mean it wasn't like I was some huge partier in college or anything ... but I did like me the occasional Guinness, and the Florida environment made me think of vacation and made me want to drink.

While watching, a body did come into view. A hand grabbed the drink, and I glimpsed the long blond hair of a girl who seemed to be outside by herself.

She pounded what was left of the drink and slammed the empty solo cup on the table. But instead of heading back inside, she stepped just out of view.

And then ... courtesy of that awesome amplification effect ... I got an earful of the dulcet sounds of someone vomiting ...

***

Ugh.

Nothing like the sound of someone vomiting to put the exclamation point on a party.

And this one ... this woman with long blond hair of whom I had caught a quick glimpse through the peepcrack at the pipe running down the length of the building through the floor separating this balcony from that one ... she was all about the upchuck ... for minutes on end.

Between heaves, both wet and dry, I began to feel sorry for anyone on the balconies on the first or second floors.

At least I was above the wretched retching and not needing to witness the puke as it passed by.

But still ... listening to the regurgitation symphony playing below was NOT how I wanted to pass the time whilst waiting for Rodney to appear.

There's a part of me that wanted to reach out to the one blowing chunks, but that would have blown my cover, so I sat silently listening to she-who-was-spewing.

And eventually it ended.

Thankfully it ended.

I heard her go back into the apartment below, and could only hope that her first task was going to be stopping by the bathroom in that apartment to freshen up ... yet I somehow knew that her priority was going to be refilling that darn solo cup.

Contrary to my reaction, I wasn't really an old fuddy-duddy. I wasn't trying to begrudge them a good time, whatever form it ended up taking.

But come on.

Vomiting.

Ugh.

***

Like Vladimir and Estragon before me, I considered whether Rodney was going to become my Godot.

Like Sally in the pumpkin field on Halloween night, I considered whether Rodney was going to become my Great Pumpkin.

Like a broken and battered patient stuck in the ER prior to admission, I considered whether Rodney was going to become like seeing a professional doctor.

Like a disillusioned John Mayer and his buddies so sad at the state of affairs, I considered whether Rodney was the change in the world that would never come.

In other words, I waited.

And waited.

And waited.

And waited.

I fought the desire to doze and chose to not take a catnap.

But it was taxing all the same.

Who would have thought that doing nothing would be so difficult?

And who would have thought I would be so happy to finally hear Mario's voice coming from the balcony underneath. Once again, I hauled ass over to the peepcrack and ... well ... peeped through the crack ... to confirm that it *was* Mario down there ... and that he wasn't alone.

***

If only this eavesdropping mission had been better coordinated ... then we could have had a dry run and had an opportunity to troubleshoot any challenges.

For instance, with some planning in advance, we could have planted a mark on the floor of the balcony below so that Mario could have stopped at *just* the right spot so that I would have the best view from my vantage point at the peepcrack -- my slightly larger version of a peephole, dug up out of the outdoor turf rug that lined the bottom of the balcony on which I was based for the duration of the party.

Ultimately, though, this stage of the plan was all about what I could *hear* more than what I could *see*, so despite how uncomfortable and prickly that rug was, I stretched out on it and put my ear up to the pipe and the peepcrack.

I recognized Mario's voice ... and these balconies weren't big enough for too large a gathering ... so luckily there was but one other voice, which I presumed to be Rodney.

As they engaged in small talk, I replayed in my mind what I already knew about this new person. He was new to the plans to rob the drug dealer of his laundering money ... and he was new to the employ of the same bar whose basement had been my home these last few days ... and he was new to me. But I also knew that he wasn't so new to Mario in that they were "gym buddies".

Me, I had never had a gym buddy, but I had to guess that the depth of that kind of relationship was relatively limited ... someone to spot during the lifting of the weights ... someone against whom to compete for loudest grunter ... someone with whom to play a little game of ass-towel-snapping in the locker room.

But not someone in whom there was a tremendous amount of natural trust. Heck, I felt like I had demonstrated my loyalty as to why I should be trusted much better in how I handled the car accident on the way to this shindig.

What did Rodney have that I didn't?

And why was I exhibiting signs of jealousy?

***

"I don't know dude. She seemed pretty wasted."

And, just like that, I was back to being drawn in to the activities below ... overhearing a *classic* party line from Mario to Rodney.

Rodney, the new voice ... the one to which I was to be specifically attuned, didn't seem to be dissuaded.

"Things were going great ... we had *just* started to make out ... and then she ran away all sudden -like out here. And when she came back in, then she didn't want anything to do with me."

Were I present in the conversation instead of one floor up listening in intently, I would have considered sharing with Rodney that he likely dodged a bullet, seeing as how I was pretty certain that his paramour of the moment was almost definitely the long haired blond girl who had been vomiting over the edge of the balcony earlier that night.

Since I wasn't there, and since Mario hadn't been forced to be a part of that experience, instead Rodney just kept on thinking that he was close to a score instead of having dodged a "kiss-my-vomit-mouth" bullet.

Enough about her ... Mario was on a mission ... the same one I was on ... and he successfully steered the conversation away from that talk.

"So ... you ready for our ... um ... *activity* next week?"

I didn't hear Rodney's reply in the affirmative, but I knew he was ready because Mario continued.

"Good, good. You sure you don't have any questions or anything? Now's the time to get your head in the game."

The new voice replied. "Yeah. About that. There is *one* thing."

***

"It's just that my lease isn't up for another six weeks."

Rodney, the new voice, explained his problem to Mario, and I heard everything from my spot on the balcony above.

Mario asked for more details. "I don't think I understand. Why is that a problem?"

Rodney continued. "Well, you said you wanted me to head out after we were done, but I just wanted you to know that I was planning to do that ... just not exactly right away."

"No, no, no. no. That's not what we agreed on." Mario sounded like he was getting upset. "We need you out the DAY after we finish."

"But that's not going to work for me," said the new voice. "I have to pay for those weeks no matter what, so what does it matter if I hang out and wrap things up on my timeline?"

The answer, from Mario: "You don't understand about Papa Kalfu. He has connections everywhere in this town. It's for your own safety that you disappear, and that you disappear right afterwards."

"What about you? Where are you going? *When* are you going?"

I didn't know about Mario, but from what I could hear, these persistent questions amounted to a series of red flags about Rodney's participation.

Instead of answering directly, Mario took a different approach.

"Be up front with me. Are you just trying to negotiate a bigger cut? You know your share should more than cover the cost of those last six weeks of your lease. You want more money?"

Then a pause, and it was Mario who continued before Rodney replied.

"Or are you just scared?"

***

"Shiiit. I ain't scurrred."

Well that's how I heard it anyway -- the first word drawn out almost as if it were multi-syllabic ... and the last word slurred with the sound of someone familiar with the lexicon of the street.

And it was immediately followed by more of the same.

"You don't *know* me. You don't know *what* I'm capable of. This is little kiddie stuff for me."

Mario had clearly hit a nerve with Rodney. He stayed silent, allowing Rodney to continue to stew.

"I was just saying that the original plan wasn't *convenient* for me, to see if I had *options*. Don't you go twisting up my words. I'm not scared of 'nothing! You hear me?"

It was finally time for Mario to respond, only with a touch more of a conciliatory tone.

"Just checkin'. The bottom line is that you need to leave *right* after we're done, and if it helps, we can throw in a month's rent to your cut of the cash."

There was silence on the balcony below. And then confirmation of the new deal from Rodney.

"I'd be a fool to not agree to those terms. And I appreciate it."

Eavesdropping as I was, without the ability to see their body language, I had no way to decipher whether this was Rodney's intent all along ... or Mario's for that matter. What I did know is that he took advantage of one of Rodney's comments to push toward what was ultimately *my* reason for listening in.

"What do you mean this is 'kiddie stuff'? What else have you done?"

Rodney finally moved his position, walking over to the table to take a seat ... directly in my line of view from the peepcrack.

And *now* I understood why he was on our team.

***

For the first time, I caught a glimpse of the person to whom this voice belonged ... this person I already knew to be Rodney.

From the safety of my peepcrack post on the balcony above, I saw a giant of a man.

The older generation might have referred to him as "a strapping young gentleman" ... while the kids would have just gone with the more colorful phrasing of "stacked and jacked".

Regardless, there was no getting it around it. Or around him. Wearing Mario's sweats, as I was, made me understand that Mario was twice my size ... and, at least from my vantage point, I would have hazarded a guess that Rodney was twice his.

And all of this made sense, as clearly we needed the "muscle" to pull off the heist ... and as Mario had heretofore referred to Rodney as his "gym buddy". He just never said that the guy must have spent *all* of his spare time there.

Rodney the Giant took his seat at the patio table, which was in my direct line of view, and answered the question that Mario had posed to him.

"I told you this wasn't the first time that I've done something like this. Back home in Chicago ... before I moved here ... me and the crew I ran with hit up the store where my moms worked. Went in right at the end of the night when they were closing around the holidays, and we must have scored thousands of dollars just by walking in and taking it."

Mario interjected. "Well that's our plan here too. We just want to walk in ... and then walk out with all his money."

Rodney held up a giant paw of his to convey caution as he continued.

"But sometimes things don't go as planned. And you have to be *ready* ... for any outcome."

He paused to gather his thoughts ... and I understood why when he talked again, his voice all but cracking.

"Not everyone made it out alive that night."

***

"Wait a minute ... I thought you said it was *easy*?" asked Mario to Rodney on the balcony below.

Rodney clarified. "Oh yeah ... getting the money was crazy easy. What we hadn't counted on was that we'd run into someone from a rival crew who was shopping in the store when we were on the way out with the cash."

There was a pause while Rodney flashed back to the event in his mind. He eventually continued.

"And he quickly figured it out and connected the dots ... AND he was packing."

I could only see Rodney at the table through my peepcrack spot, but I *heard* Mario's sharp intake of breath at what was being shared.

"We lost two of our boys ... and a few shoppers before we got out of there."

I sensed that there was more to the story, but Rodney wasn't planning on sharing any of it. At least not as part of this conversation. This was precisely what Mario and Mria had planned for me ... to get just enough of what I needed to interact with him in the way that only I could at a later time.

Hopefully there was something buried in his thoughts as expected ... and hopefully Mario could now continue to hold up his end of the bargain which was to keep him drunk ... but not too drunk ... so that the memories I could grab from him wouldn't be too garbled.

For that, time would have to tell.

As it was, in that moment, there was to be no more looking back at that time from Rodney. He did, however, contribute a forward-focused thought.

"So ... do you have pieces lined up for us ... or am I expected to bring my own?"

***

"Look buddy. These are NOT the streets of Chiraq. Things are waaaay more laid back down here. You should feel comfortable leaving your gun at home."

Mario was responding to Rodney's question about the upcoming heist.

And now Rodney was responding to Mario's statement.

"Then you don't get the whole point of my story about what happened to me. You can't predict the unpredictable. You HAVE to be ready for anything."

"I'm telling you. We're doing things differently. We've done our homework and we've mapped it out to the minute. We can do this without bloodshed."

Mario paused in his reply, this time for effect.

"We WILL do this without bloodshed."

Up above on the balcony from my spot arranged specifically so I could eavesdrop on this very conversation, my heart grew three sizes. This caper in which I was involved was truly to be one representing the elusive concept of "honor amongst thieves".

"Besides ... what you don't know yet ... because you haven't met him ... is that we have a secret weapon of our own."

Rodney was apparently intrigued. "*Him*? Shouldn't we all have met by now?"

Turns out my heart still had room to grow some more. *I* was the secret weapon to which he was referring. What an odd twist to everything that had happened in only just a few days. I was so happy to be valued that I almost missed Mario's final statement.

"Oh, I agree. You're *going* to meet him. Tonight. I mean ... this morning ... I mean ... before this party is over. Now ... how's about another shot and a beer?"

***

CHAPTER 20

Like George Bush the junior before me, I wanted to stand on the edge of the balcony and yell out "Mission Accomplished"!

Although, admittedly, it wouldn't exactly have been the same, seeing as how George didn't do that on the fourth floor balcony of a Florida apartment complex in the middle of the night/early of the morning as was my situation.

Where we would have been similar, had I taken that action, is the fact that such an announcement would have been somewhat premature ... even if it had appropriately stated the sentiment I was feeling at that very moment.

Sprung from my cell, spirited away from the bar where I had been banished to the basement, set up on the balcony of Mario and Mria's apartment so that I could eavesdrop on the conversations below, one floor down at Albert's party ... all for the sole purpose of getting exposed to the new-ish guy Rodney in a way that I could pick his brain and get information that my captors, now starting to feel like my teammates, could use to make sure that Rodney would leave town after our heist ... *that* had all just happened.

The fact that I was technically kidnapped and being held against my will was starting to fade from the front of mind as we got closer and closer to our plan to steal the laundering money of a certain local drug lord named Papa Kalfu ... and as I started to finally understand my role in everything that was about to unfold.

At that moment, on that balcony, having just listened to Rodney talk about his street days back in his hometown of Chicago, I felt ready for the next phase -- armed with the very details that were necessary for me to use my special skill to get what I needed for the team.

So, to that end, and for that moment, I was content to think of it as, for that first step anyway ... Mission accomplished!

***

After the high comes the low.

The up, the down.

The euphoric wave, the depressing crash.

The rush of the adrenaline, the depletion of the dopamine.

The thrill of victory, the agony of defeat.

Although that last one probably took it a little too far. I wasn't defeated. I was just in a state of arrested development ... and I wasn't talking about my state of being incarcerated by the triumvirate of Mario, Mria and Albert.

The balcony below me grew quiet ... yet I knew the party raged on in the apartment one floor below because I could hear the muffled voices of laughter and yelling and other miscellaneous partying. And the incessant thump of the bass.

Boom. Boom. Boom.

It was all but hypnotizing. I sat in my seat, somewhat transfixed, swaying to the underbelly of the music like an asp responding to the swami snake charmer, starting to feel for the first time since being sprung from my cell the way I would have expected to feel at four or so in the morning as it was.

I briefly broke the trance the *first* time to wonder where the other neighbors were in the complex who should have shut down the shindig by that time. Unless, of course, these guys (and girl) were smart, and they had invited anyone with shared walls to the get-together.

I briefly broke the trance the *second* time to consider if it was safe to pull out the cell phone I had lifted from Mario at the scene of the accident, and to leave more messages ... but I ultimately decided against risking whether or not Mria was still trying to call it to find it.

I briefly broke the trance the *third* time to register the fact that Mria had made her way into the apartment on whose balcony I was sitting -- and that she was alone.

***

"Where did she go?" I asked myself.

I had just seen Mria come into the apartment from my spot on the balcony, alone ... but, on second glance, she was nowhere to be seen.

I got up from my perch on the patio furniture, and peered into the window. With my face smushed against the outside door, I likely risked getting schmutz all over my face, but I didn't care.

As quickly as she had disappeared, she re-appeared, striding quickly toward me, unlocking and opening the sliding doors and gesturing for me to come inside.

And she added an additional gesture for me to clean off my nose.

"You got something on our face," she added to the hand movements.

"Yep. Door schmutz I think," I confirmed.

"Schmutz?" She was, understandably confused, so I explained.

"It's a back home thing. Give me one moment and I'll clean up ..."

As I entered the bathroom for the second time that early morning, I could hear the sound of the toilet reservoir filling back up ... which is how I solved the mystery of Mria's brief disappearance. I looked into the mirror, grabbed a tissue and dabbed at the black dirt on my face,

Feeling pretty again, I found my way back out to the common area/living room and met Mria, who seemed a bit off of her normal game.

"It's time," she said conspiratorially, and I could smell the alcohol on her breath as she hit me with that exaggerated whisper.

"He's ready!"

***

"Not that way ... let's take the stairs!"

For a moment, I considered attempting to reason with Mria ... make that Drunk Mria ... and trying to talk her into the relative safety of standing in a box and pushing a button to get where we were going one floor down, as opposed to navigating a set of stairs with her in her condition.

But who was I to argue with the woman who was basically my lead captor.

She wasn't done giving me instructions.

"Most people are either gone or hooked up or passed out by now ... but if anyone sees you, we'll need a cover story. Tell them you're Mario's cousin, if anyone asks."

With that directive, I did decide to speak up.

"Ummm ... I'm not Latin."

She stared at me in the darkness of the stairs, before replying.

"First off, everybody's drunk. And B -- it'll be pretty dark in there."

She stumbled briefly on a stair, but then caught her balance. She spun around, well as much as her diminished faculties would allow, and hissed at me.

"And that's racist. You could be a cousin-in-law or something. You don't have to be Latino to be related to him."

I chose silence, realizing that it was in my best interests to get to Albert's apartment below, execute my task, and end this phase of my adventure, before anyone got hurt.

***

Ain't no party like a bar staff party ... 'cause a bar staff party ...

... has the hottest people (bar staff get hired based on their looks, and let's not pretend otherwise).

... has the best drinks (mixologists, by definition, know how to MIX, yo).

... has the best beats (one word made up of two letters: D. J.).

... has activity until the sun comes up (since it doesn't get started until after the establishments close).

Mind you, prior to this experience, I had never *been* to a bar staff party, but I had closed a few bars in my short drinking life up until that point.

And I liked to consider myself a very observant person, so walking into Albert's place with Mria on my way to Rodney, it didn't take me long to come to those conclusions about the soiree that was winding down.

The thumping music I had heard earlier had been swapped out for something a bit more repetitive in the trance genre, and the hosts had clearly learned a thing or two over the years, because the lights were dimmed to the point where everyone looked even more beautiful than they had been when they had started ... and they had started with the bar set pretty high.

Another sign it was the end of the event ... half empty glasses were mixed in with the beer bottles strewn about, abandoned drinks from those guests who had either had enough or had found another activity more important that imbibing to keep them busy.

I could make out a body or two in the shadows, passed out for sure.

"Let me find him," offered Mria, and so I stood there in the middle of the common room, while she worked her way back the hallway.

I was nearly knocked over by a long haired blonde racing out of the bathroom.

She shrieked drunkenly, "Heeeeey cutie. When did you get here? And what's your name?"

***

I'll admit it ... I did panic.

And so I said the first name that came to mind. It must have been the quick conversation about Latins that I had had in the hallway with Mria, because, without thinking, I answered, "My name is Ricky."

The long blond haired girl let out another screech.

"No way. You're kidding me."

I had no idea how she knew. Before I could offer up an excuse, she continued with another high pitch scream.

"I'm Lucy!"

She reached just beyond me to an end table and grabbed a cup that I could only hope was one from which she had been drinking. I waited while she downed whatever liquid was remaining.

"Say it," she yelled into my face.

Between her and Mria's exhalations directly at me, I was evaluating whether I could get second-hand drunk on the fumes.

"Come on ... SAY it!" she pleaded at me again.

I was as confused as confused could be. I had no idea where this was headed.

"Say it ... SAY it ... *SAY* it!"

***

More drunk girl whining ensued.

"Come on. Why won't you say it?"

I couldn't have made my stare any more of a darker shade of blank had I tried. I had absolutely no idea what was expected of me by this long haired blond girl who had all but accosted me as she burst from the bathroom into the common area of the party, where I was standing waiting for Mria to return with Rodney's position.

She next spoke slowly, as if to a child getting education in kindergarten ... or a non-native speaker learning language for the first time ... or a stroke victim practicing a return to speaking.

"I'mmmmmm Luuuuuucy."

She had pointed to herself for emphasis.

"And youuuuuuuu ..."

She lifted her hand to poke me in the chest and my blank stare turned to one of alarm. If she followed through with the action, I wasn't sure if we'd connect the way that only I could connect with people. After all, I knew absolutely nothing about her ... unless ... unless she was the long blond haired girl I had observed on the balcony vomiting over the edge. I didn't want to relive any of that.

I had to stop her before we touched. Luckily, I *finally* got what it was that she wanted me to say, based on the fake name that I had provided to her moments before.

I flung my arms up and out to create space, put a big smile on my face, and, in my best faux Cuban accent, I yelled ...

"Luuuuucy ... I'm ho-oome!"

***

She smiled so big, I said it again.

"Luuuuucy ... I'm ho-oome!"

Then I realized that all of my work to avoid having the drunk long haired blond girl touch me was going to be for naught.

She was oh so happy that I had connected the dots, what with her being Lucy and me being Ricky (well, as far as she knew, Ricky was my name), that she responded by preparing to give me a gigantic hug.

Before she did, she shrieked, "You get me! You really get me!"

Lucky for me, just before she got me in her grasp, Mria came barreling down the hallway and stepped right in between us, shutting down our back and forth.

"Lucy, you're wasted. Go home."

Direct, blunt and to the point. I could see what Mario saw in his beau Mria.

I learned then that Lucy was the kind of drunk who could go through every emotion in the course of sixty seconds. Her happiness faded quickly, replaced by an unexpected stubbornness.

"I'm not leaving without my Rodney," she stated with a foot stamp for accompaniment.

More dots available for the connecting. This was for sure the girl I had seen vomit from my eavesdropping spot on the balcony above, and it was the same girl about whom Rodney had been chatting with Mario.

*And* she was the girl who now stood in the way of this phase of our plan.

***

Mria took charge.

But then again, that's what she always did, so I couldn't exactly feign surprise.

However, her tone softened, which let me see just how quick she was on her feet, despite her being so inebriated that she had literally almost fallen off of them on the way down to this apartment.

Of course, that was just yet another skill that a criminal mastermind *should* have ... so she was on point.

"I didn't know *you* liked him too!" she all but cooed.

"Too? What do you mean, 'too'? You didn't break up with Mario did you?" More emotions from Lucy ... now demonstrating how quickly she could get confused.

Before Lucy got to the stage where she took off her earrings to engage in a smackdown, Mria set her straight.

"No, no ... I meant *Rodney*! You were all he was talking about tonight!"

Lucy blushed. "Reeeeeally? I thought so, but I wasn't sure."

Mria had her eating right out of her hand. So she continued.

"Which is why it's so sad that you *just* missed him. I thought you had already gone home, and so I sent him over to your apartment a few moments ago. He's waiting for you there!"

"You are *such* a good friend to me," said Lucy through tears. I was so glad I hadn't connected with her after all because this woman had all kinds of emotions running just under the surface.

Mria guided Lucy to the door, and gave her a thumbs-up as she left.

But Mria wasn't done yet. She quickly closed the door behind her, and locked it.

"Now," she said as she turned to me, "where were we?"

***

I had to decide, and quickly decide at that, whether Mria's question was rhetorical, or literal.

Not willing to risk her wrath, I chose the latter.

"Um ... well ... *you* were supposed to find Rodney, and apparently you did, but you sent him to Lucy's apartment, and so now I'm not sure what your plan is ..."

Mria shook her held and smiled.

"Oh silly boy. That was a lie to get rid of that hussy. Rodney's passed out in the bedroom down the hall."

With that, she strode past me, and gestured with her head.

"Follow me!"

Mria -- what a trickster. As I interacted with her more and more, I was coming to the conclusion that I should not second guess her.

Here I had spent all this time trying to get in good with Mario, when I probably should have been buttering up his girlfriend instead. I still had my eye toward the end game, when she had promised to send me back home on a greyhound bus ... as compared to Albert's stated plans for me beyond the caper.

Caper. Funny how rapidly I had come to embrace this plan and to bury the fact that, in a court of law, I was kidnapped and held against my will. Yet now I was even referring to it in my own head like it was just a bunch of old friends pulling a prank. Maybe because we weren't yet in the thick of the theft of the drug money from the criminal kingpin in town ... but I was actually beginning to enjoy all of this.

We slipped into the bedroom, with me completely confident that it was my turn to shine.

***

My confidence was shaken slightly by the darkness of the room we entered.

Being in a strange place, it took my eyes just a bit to get adjusted. But once that happened, I was able to make out what definitely was a bedroom ... my hunch was that it was a guest room as it was sparsely decorated.

In a chair in the corner was Rodney, my mark, with his mouth hanging open a bit and his eyes firmly closed. This was NOT the way he was to have been delivered to me.

"Mria ... if he's passed out drunk, then this isn't going to work," I whispered.

"He's probably just napping. You can wake him up," she replied.

"Me? Wake him up? He doesn't *know* me. What do you expect *me* to do?"

Mria thought for a moment and then replied, "Wait. Right. Here."

She slipped back out into the hallway, leaving me alone in the room.

I took the time to reflect on what I had learned so far about the sleeping giant in front of me ... that he was in on the heist plans ... that he was Mario's gym buddy ... that he had a checkered past back in Chicago where he was from before moving down here ...

Those were the memories and emotions into which I was to wade in hopes of finding something specific that the triumvirate could use against him to make sure that he left immediately after the group lifted the cash from the local drug dealer.

I took a few steps toward him, and was passed on my side by Mria, who had returned to the room.

Returned WITH a cup of water, that she promptly emptied with a splash on to Rodney's face.

***

That morning, I got a new found respect for the deer who find themselves on the road facing oncoming headlights ... the ones who inspired the turn of phrase.

I also got a new found respect for the toreadors with their red capes, and how they had to stand there and stare down the charging bulls.

I wasn't done gaining respects at that moment ... I also begin to better appreciate the poor mismatched kid playing football in the line of sight of the offensive tackler three times his size.

In other words, in the moments immediately following the act of Mria throwing the glass of water on Rodney, who was, at best, napping ... and, at worst, passed out ... *I* was the one in his path as he snapped back to consciousness, launched from the chair and stampeded in my direction.

Mria screamed, suddenly shocked that this was the reaction to her action ... and that noise didn't help the Rodney-beast return to any immediate sense of understanding normalcy.

In the slow-motion view of it happening to me while I was actually in the real time of the moment, the other sounds I heard replayed over and over again were Rodney's comments that had kicked off his story that I had listened to from my eavesdrop post earlier.

"But sometimes things don't go as planned. And you have to be *ready* ... for any outcome."

*Ready* for any outcome.

*Ready* for *any* outcome.

I was the thing that didn't go as planned. And he was the one ready for any outcome.

And I was the one about to be taken down.

***

At that moment, I regretted not having taken up football at some point in my life.

Or rugby.

Or professional style wrestling.

Because if I had, then maybe I would have been somewhat more prepared for when Rodney tackled me.

But, alack and alas, I was more of a books kind of youth, and not a high-contact sports kind of kid.

My head snapped back from the hit, and my little brain jostled about in its fluid, sloshing up against the sides of my skull with enough force as to make me wonder if any pieces slipped out of my ears. I registered that motion as problematic, seeing as how I wanted to be clear-headed for my task -- instead of floating in a fog between consciousness and unconsciousness.

We crashed to the floor, and I tried to pay extra attention for the sound of anything breaking, and was happy to not hear any crackling of bones, as that would have created more troubles for me being held captive in my cell back at the basement of the bar ... uncertain whether they'd even take the time to truss me up to recover in a cast.

I had absolutely no leverage to push off of me the mountain of the man that was on top of me. Helpless, I looked up at Mria, who was still drunk and still in a state of shock that Rodney had reacted this way.

She reached down to grab him by the shirt, and tugged with all her might, without success.

Rodney twisted and turned, taking me with him, and it wasn't very long at all before I found myself in a rear naked choke hold.

***

I had been tapped.

Prodded.

Poked.

Hit.

I had had my hand shaken.

I had had my wounds tended to.

I had been fallen upon.

I had been grabbed by the wrists intentionally.

I had grabbed someone else's wrists intentionally.

But, since discovering this special talent of mine, this was the FIRST time that my contact with another was because I was in a choke hold.

I had overheard Rodney advising Mario that he needed to be ready for anything. Little did he know at the time, that he was also advising me.

My task was to connect with Rodney as only I could ... and so I needed to take advantage of the situation in which I found myself.

Except there was one problem ... for my talent to work, I needed to make eye contact. With Rodney's forearm smashed against my head and chin, I was not facing him and couldn't establish the connection I needed.

The clock was ticking ... I was struggling to breathe ... I would be blacked out within moments.

***

With all the strength I had left, I twisted my head to strain to make eye contact with Rodney.

Of course, there was risk associated with the reward I sought.

Doing so provided an opportunity for him to slide his forearm to exactly the position he needed to restrict the flow of blood to my brain even more quickly.

But the reward was the reward I needed.

With the rear naked choke already providing the type of contact that was necessary, looking directly into his eyes was the guarantee that my special skill was about to be launched.

And so his emotions tied in to his memories began to flood into my brain, short of blood that it was.

As always, it was very layered ... and very choppy due to his inebriation and the fact that he had bolted awake only moments before from his alcohol-induced nap.

The first feeling was all about the apprehension I had overheard him discuss on the balcony with Mario ... again and again, the admonition to be ready for anything echoed throughout what I was absorbing from his past.

In the fuzziness of it all, I saw a gym ... and he and Mario working out ... and I quickly realized that I was getting glimpses of the initial conversation that the two of them had had when Mario got him involved in the plans to steal the drug dealer's laundered cash.

In real time, Rodney started to release the hold he had around my neck, and I knew then that he was aware of what was happening, his mind as helpless to resist these transactions and my body was helpless to resist what he was doing to it.

That break in the action turned out to be precisely what I needed to accomplish my task.

***

Loosening .. not releasing.

That's what was happening with the choke hold that Rodney had around my neck.

But that action reset the clock with regards to my being dangerously close to passing out, and so I was able to continue to download even more memories from his past.

With this reprieve, it didn't take long for me to find myself directly in the replay of the story he had told about the robbery he had done back in his home of Chicago.

It was as if I was with him in the store as it was closing ... but since I had never seen any of the others that were part of this memory, there were those faceless mannequin type people everywhere .. the ones I had called the Andantes ... other shoppers ... other members of his crew ... and the employees of the store.

I saw him and his guys work their way back to the corner of the establishment, and push their way into the door marked office, and force the person back there to empty the safe.

Next there were shouts and then screams ... and then the memories seemed to speed up and my heart started racing to match his from that time ...

I saw racks of clothing, and then racks of clothing getting knocked over as he raced to the front door.

Then the gunshot. Multiple gunshots.

As he relived what he had experienced, I got a view of the store as he turned around to figure out this new development.

And then ... more gunshots. This time from him.

The rush of his adrenaline ... the fear of what had happened ... the anger at having been so close to getting away ... I felt all of that as if I was there, and my body tensed up as his had done, every muscle twitching.

That physical sensation, coupled with the mental attack he was under, was enough to bring him back to the real life moment, and to snap him back into what he had been doing.

So tightening was the new sensation I was feeling, as his arm went back to constricting the blood flow to my brain.

***

It was, by far, the strangest one of these that I had ever experienced.

Although, for perspective, I could still count on both hands how many times I had transferred someone's painful emotions, so it's not like I had been doing this all my young life and had hundreds of instances to which I could compare this time with Rodney.

But it *was* the first time that I was absorbing all of the goings-on of an honest-to-goodness shoot-out.

I was seeing through Rodney's eyes, and since I had never seen or met any of the other characters in the story, it was the strangest view of faceless mannequinesque bodies, those I called the andantes, reacting to the bullets flying around the clothing store.

As the memories became more and more vivid, I could start to figure out the difference between those that were in Rodney's crew ... and in the strangest twist yet, those andantes were wearing ski masks. Ski masks covering up a faceless body .. with no eyes in the spot where the eye holes were ... it was decidedly surreal.

And then there was the other guy who was at the scene, as I had heard Rodney tell the story to Mario on the balcony earlier, the one who was shooting back at him and his men once he had figured out that the robbery was underway.

Suddenly, from the back corner where the office was that they had raided, came a figure, running full speed ahead, shouting and crying and screaming, running right toward Rodney.

"Get down. GET DOWN!" shouted Rodney in the vision from the past, to no avail.

The guy across the store put up his gun to fire another shot, and Rodney tried to get to him first ... except his bullet hit the person who had been racing toward him, who had dived to try to knock the gun from his hand.

I nearly blacked out from the intensity of the feelings that overwhelmed me ... or maybe it was from the choke hold in real time that had all but completed it's purpose.

Regardless, I was not prepared for what came next.

***

They were to be my last few moments of consciousness in that situation.

Rodney knew what he was doing ... and his choke hold was more than effective.

But it didn't matter. The transfer of his most painful memories was nearly complete ... and although it would indeed stop once the blockage of blood flow through to my brain successfully put me to sleep, we had gotten to the most important moment of what was buried in his past.

I was there with him, back in time, as he fired his gun defensively against the gang member across the store, who had started firing at him and his crew in an attempt to get some of the money that Rodney had just stolen from the clothing store that was closing ... and I was there with him, back in time, as he saw the person who had just come running from the back of that store get hit with his bullet.

I was there with him, back in time, and felt every single emotion overwhelm him and me as we re-experienced it together ... and I was there with him, back in time, as he reacted to what had just happened with a hoarsely shouted single word that changed everything ...

"Mom!?!"

When he had told this story to Mario on the balcony when I was eavesdropping, he had mentioned that the store he had robbed was the one where his mother worked.

What he had neglected to say was that he had shot his own mother.

Back in real time, I could see in his eyes that he now knew that I knew his secret, and there was wonderment and puzzlement and general confusion about what was happening.

Me -- I barely had the presence of mind -- or the strength -- to keep my eyes open.

***

Had I not been choked out into a state of unconsciousness ... I would have seen Rodney's last look ... still confused overall ... but grappling with a peace that he had never gotten to experience from the tragedy that had befallen him.

Had I not been choked out into a state of unconsciousness ... I would have heard Mria yell at him for what he had done, seeing as how it made her feel so helpless because it happened so quickly.

Had I not been choked out into a state of unconsciousness ... I would have witnessed Rodney assure Mria that I'd come to soon enough, and that the damage he had done to me wasn't permanent.

Had I not been choked out into a state of unconsciousness ... I would have observed the exchange between the two of them where Mria postponed explaining my skill to Rodney until "some time they were both sober".

Had I not been choked out into a state of unconsciousness ... I would have known that Rodney gently, and easily, picked me up and placed me on the spare bed, standing over me an extra moment longer to look down at me quizzically.

Had I not been choked out into a state of unconsciousness ... I would have learned that Mria went to get Mario, and that the both of them came in to look after me ... and that the both of them decided that they'd just wait it out for me to recover ... but that they'd do so in the other room.

Had I not been choked out into a state of unconsciousness ... I would have jumped up and told them both that I had learned a key piece of Rodney's past that should prove useful to them ... accomplishing exactly what they had asked of me ...

Had I not been choked out into a state of unconsciousness ... I would have pondered the heavy burden that Rodney bore of having shot his mother back in Chicago.

But alack and alas ... I *was* choked out into a state of unconsciousness ... and so all of this was lost on me.

I was blissfully ignorant, and completely out of it.

***

[to be continued ...]