Drillmington:The Lone Trafficker

Late at night, Sate made sure he was by himself. He possessed an array of rusty guns. Their serial numbers had been scratched off and they misfired most of the time, but that’s how he liked it. The failure. The sense of accomplishing nothing. Possibly hurting his team or innocent bystanders. It didn’t matter. Just as long as he created as much mayhem as possible.

He moved closer to the desk and inscribed another tally mark on the “work.” He had processed two more women since the day had begun. He sent them into the inner cities amongst the gangster scramblers and marks. He spotted the johns.

“We must make this quick. There is enough time for us to all eat off of this work. We’re going to go deeper and deeper into these depressed towns in Delaware. Low rent thugs will do our bidding. We must have it this way,” Sate finished his sermonette and walked past his staff.

“Go!” They scattered like ants from a foot crushing a loaf of sugar. Sate grinned but he sliced his arm again and let little drops of blade cascade onto the desk. He smeared it and grinned some more. In his head, he was doing these women a favor. He was giving them the chance to see what it’s like to be alone in the world but together with him. In his leather chair he sunk and cracked off the dry blood.

When he squirmed in his seat from the heroin he injected into his arm, he wanted the needle to inject into his thoughts. He wanted the needle to puncture his ideas and make him feel powerful, at least make him feel.

Anything he thought to assuage his feeling of decrepitude eating away at his soul. After the drugs were done, he felt drained and complete at the same time. Like some bizarre carnival ride, he had taken a dose of the brown stuff and felt like in a dream state but wide awake. He staggered to the bathroom. He saw what he had become. The mirror image was strong and depressing. The strength remained in his fair skin and wavy hair and it was depressing that he had to cut himself and shoot himself up with smack just to get a sense of things. He felt like he was fifty-three. He had just turned thirty-six.

In his mind, he felt like he was sitting on top of the world but still pushing a rock up Sisyphean style. He had business sense from the streets and two semesters at First State Community College. What he didn’t anticipate in all of his run-ins with the law and the lifestyle of not a pimp, but a trafficker, was how draining it all seemed. It drained his finances. Yes he could make fifty thousand dollars in a night. But he had to upkeep his operation, move around, fuel up his vehicles, and pay his staff. The sentiment of the lone trafficker set into his bones. He remembered the days when he tried to work a daily grind as a supervisor at a bank. Those days were fraught with his fraudulent activities running up accounts and setting people’s financial lives awry. He kept looking for work but with the charges against him, even though they were cleaned up and he just ended up doing community service, it was like every business said no because they still remained on his permanent record.

Sate laughed in the mirror inaudibly. He was like a goofy, malnourished Santa Claus. He stopped laughing and bandaged his arm. He shut off the light and met with his soldiers.