How Did I Get Here?

The sound of the rain drumming on the roof of my sixteen-year-old, rusty, black Camry is nearly soothing, as I sit in the parking lot of the warehouse. The grey light of the coming dawn is softened by the overcast skies. It’s almost too dark to see…almost.

There is no one else in the lot; though any minute now someone else will be. I have never met this person before. I am both excited and terrified by the possibilities this meeting brings. Excited, because my life could change dramatically for the better. Terrified, because, given the events of the last twelve hours, it could also end right here.

How did I get here?

I have asked myself that question so many times since last night that I cannot recall the number. I am not a gangster. I am no drug dealer. I am an account auditor for a minor pharmaceutical company. Yet, here I am, about to trade an object of dubious origin and purpose for a large sum of cash.

My heart beings to race; the anticipation of what is coming making me more nervous than I have ever been in my life. I try to calm down by reminding myself of all the things I had survived just to be here. Police inquisition. Drugs. Gunfire. A high-speed chase. All the hallmarks of a classic action movie, but painfully real. It does not work.

I try a different tactic to calm myself. I envision the money. I think of all the things I could do with it. An engagement ring for my girlfriend. We have not spoken much of marriage, but I know it’s something we both want. A more frivolous honeymoon than I could ever have afforded before. Maybe even a new car. The possibilities flow through my mind, eventually having the desired effect of reducing my mounting anxiety. But the question continues to nag me.

How did I get here?

It was a series of decisions that brought it all to be. It started when I came in the door, just getting home from work. It was just after six;usually my roommate would still be cloistered in his room. He generally stayed there when he was home, coming and going at odd hours. But today, the bathroom door was ajar, the light was on, and something felt wrong.

I remember vividly the scene I stumbled on in that bathroom. The white power strewn across the counter top. The splayed, boneless form of my roommate upon the floor; twin rivulets of blood running from his nose. They were already dry, no longer dripping onto the tiled floor. His eyes stared up at me, empty and lifeless. I stood frozen for I do not even know how long, just staring at his person I thought I knew; at least a little.

Two other things caught my attention. One was the phone, which began to ring almost as soon as I entered the room. It was sitting on the floor by my roommate’s empty hand. It was an older model; a flip phone that would be considered almost ancient by today’s standards. Eventually, the ringing stopped. The second thing that I noticed, was It. It sat on the counter, not far from the mess of powder that could be any number of things to my inexperienced mind. Dark and square, it stood out sharply against the light patterns of white paint and porcelain that ornamented our bathroom.

The phone began to ring again as I considered this graphic scene. I do not know what force of fate or perhaps, inherent weakness in myself, led me to answer it, but I did. The voice on the other end was gruff and impatient. I found myself telling this stranger the truth. The man he was looking for was dead. My answers came almost automatically, as if pulled from me by force. The truth is I was probably too deep in shock for my natural instincts to kick in.

It was only when he asked about It that I began to think almost clearly again. He described It perfectly. He said it belonged to him and that I would be doing him a great favor if I could bring it to him. I balked at that. I was not fool enough to agree to something like that with a stranger whom I met calling a dead man’s phone. No way would I meet this man.

Then, he made his offer. It was more than enough of a temptation for me. I quickly agreed. How dangerous could it be to simply deliver such a small package? He instructed me on how to proceed and I could find no logical flaw in his plan. And so, when he hung up, I called the police.

They arrived quickly. I withstood almost two hours of questions before they let me go. Questions about his job, his hobbies, or and other inquiries into how he spent his time. Whether he had friends that I knew of. Or enemies. I was unable to provide a lot of helpful information for them, although they did not seem to find that suspicious.

It was nearly nine o’clock at this point and the meeting was not until six-thirty the next morning. But something else nagged at me. The police asked me about a place called the Red Derby Club. I had never heard of it and could not confirm whether my roommate had ever been there; though I did explain to them that he had always been private and kept odd hours.

A sudden sweep of headlights distracts me. A dark car comes into view and my nerves rattle harder than ever. I exhale slowly, as the vehicle moves past the turn in and continues down the road. My mind turns back to the question.

How did I get here?

Twelve hours ago, I was a simple, boring man with a simple, boring life. But, in the last twelve hours, I had done so many things I could never have predicted. Most troubling of all was watching someone die for the first time. Her blood was still on my shirt.

It’s a hard thing to acknowledge. That someone who was alive just eight hours ago, is now dead. That I spoke to her beforehand, held her during, and left her after. I still have not fully processed that. The dying. Maybe I never will.

A quick search on my phone revealed that the Red Derby was an exclusive gentlemen’s club downtown. I do not know what possessed me to go there. I suppose I wanted to learn more about my roommate and what he had been doing. I wanted to know why he had in his possession something someone was willing to pay a large amount of money for.

I got in my car and drove away at about nine-thirty, headed for the Red Derby. I found the club and dropped my roommate’s name a few times before I was introduced to a girl of about twenty who worked there as a waitress. She claimed that my roommate was one of her best customers. I danced around my questions, trying not to get too obvious that I was fishing for anything sordid. She was friendly, but coy. I could tell she was holding back; though what it was she was concealing I could not guess. Everything she told me about my roommate seemed to fit the man I knew, albeit with far expendable cash than I would have assumed.

It was after nearly an hour into my conversation with this girl that the gunfire began. It started out of nowhere. Just a hail of bullets; shattering lights and ricocheting of steel poles. The sounds were deafening. I found myself on the floor with the waitress in my lap. Blood flowed from her throat in a scarlet river. She was dead soon after and I was fleeing for my life.

Again, my attention is wrenched back to the present by the sudden illumination of headlights. Except, this car does not pass by the turn-in. In seconds, it is parked about fifty feet away from me; headlights glowing in the hazy morning grey. It is some sort of dark SUV, an intimidating sort of vehicle. All is still as I recall the last, terror-filled portion of the night.

How did I get here?

I cannot clearly recall how I got to my car and I barely remember the frantic drive that followed. I cannot even clearly remember how I decided where to hide. However, I did recall a dark sedan that seemed to be following me for a long time from the club. It was only after running through a red light that I lost my pursuer. After another hour and a half of driving haphazardly across the city, I wound up in a sparsely populated parking garage. And there I curled up in the back seat, shaking with fear.

I waited, watching the clock on the dash, willing the numbers to change more quickly. I found myself constantly reaching into my jacket pocket to touch It; my hand drawn to it like magnet. I wondered how something so small could be worth such an exorbitant sum of money. It was well-made; smooth, finely-tooled Italian leather covered its rectangular shape. Once again, I found myself questioning what insanity had led to my decision tonight, as my fingers ran over the smooth, soft surface of It. This was not me. I was brandy by the fire with a good book, not guns at midnight and clandestine meetings with unsavory people. After what felt like years, it was time to go. Following the directions, I had received hours earlier, I made my way to the rendezvous.

So, that’s how I got here. Sitting by an old warehouse staring at an SUV waiting for the signal that would determine my future. At exactly six-thirty, the lights of the SUV flashed and then went out.

I followed the directions that had been given to me so many hours earlier. I got out and approached the vehicle. A man exited from the passenger side. He was dressed all in black, with a black baseball cap, and dark aviator sunglasses, despite the sun still not having risen.

“Do you have it?” he asked simply.

“Y-yes.” I said, nodding in a way that I hoped was confident, but more likely made me seem like an overeager chicken, bobbing for seed. He nodded in return and held up two bundles of cash. I guess movies had given me an unrealistic expectation of deals such as this, but I found myself weirdly disappointed in how small twenty thousand dollars looks in reality. In answer, I reached into my jacket pocket and pulled It out. He beckoned and I tossed it to him. As soon as he caught it, he tossed the bundled cash to me. Somehow, I managed to catch them despite my shaking hands.

He turned and got back in the car without any further comment. I watched as the car drove away, somewhat amazed that I was still alive. I returned to my crappy Camry and left the lot. I turned toward the eastern side of the city. The sun had finally peaked over the horizon and I felt good for the first time in twelve hours. I had twenty thousand dollars in my pocket and I was free from the burden of It.

Still, I could not help my mind from asking one final question. All of that, just for one little black book?