The Job

Joe starts to cry, and he can’t stop.

A woman stops and asks, “You need help?”

Joe shakes his head.

He sees two police cars, and walks over to them.

Never mind that it seems crazy to Joe to do this, as he never trusted cops before in his life, or even liked cops, but, this was Mike’s life here that was on the line.

“Sir? Are you injured?” One of the cops asks.

“No, sir,” Joe says softly. “Are you here on account of what just happened? With... the shooting?”

“Yes. We are. Why are you covered in blood?”

“It’s just Mike’s... the guy who got shot, he was bleeding on me. I picked him up and was carrying him. Until the ambulance came.”

“Holy Moses, Davey, why would they leave this guy behind? He looks like Carrie on prom night.” The cop said with a light chuckle to his partner.

The other cop shrugs. “I don’t watch that American crap, Freddy.” He looks over at Joe. “What’s your name? Did you see anything?”

“Joe. Joe Delmonico. And I didn’t see what happened. Did you guys catch the men who did this?”

“We think so. He’s a serial burglar. We booked him a few minutes ago. He runs this particular part of town. He might’ve just ran into your friend here, wrong place, wrong time.” The cop eyes Joe carefully. “Uh, did you happen to say men? Like, you think more than one person did this?”

Joe feels like his heart is caught in his throat. He is still not a snitch. No matter who he wants to shack up with. Or who he falls crazy in love with.

“Oh, uh... I didn’t think it was anyone. I must’ve just accidentally said that.”

“Well, look, Davey, he’s been blubbering. He’s upset. You can’t expect him to be thinking straight,” The cop said to his partner.

“Right,” the partner says, but keeps looking at Joe.

“Look, so you wanna come with us? You’re not in trouble. We can just get a statement from you.”

Joe shakes his head. “No, thanks. I’m going to the hospital. Mike’s there.”

“Is Mike your brother?” The cop asks.

“No,” Joe replies.

“Usually they don’t allow visitors unless you’re family.” The other one says.

“He’s just a good friend,” Joe says simply.

“Alright, well, thank you. Good luck to your friend.”

Joe nods.

“So, would you like a ride?” Another cop jumps into the conversation.

“No, thank you. I’ll be alright.”

Once Joe is finally away from the cops, he wonders if it was really that “serial burglar,” and who actually shot Mike.

He goes over to where he left all of their luggage, about a half mile away from where Mike got attacked, getting all of their stuff together.

He sees Mike’s stuff, and breaks down again.

He’s lost it, and is worried he looks like a lunatic, because he’s covered in his boyfriend’s blood and crying on the side of the road with random scattered pieces of luggage around him, but he can’t take it anymore.

“God, Mike, it was supposed to me who gets plugged. Not you.” He says in a raspy whisper, his hands covering his face. “I’m the stupid, old criminal. You’re the good guy.”

He finally pulls it together.

But a lot of people are looking at him.

“Fuck ya looking at, posers?” Joe yells.

They all walk off hastily.

Joe laughs, but then feels bad. He is thinking of Mike, and how he was so excited to see him do something nice for that mom and her kids today.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean it!” Joe yells.

No one looks back.

“Ugh.” Joe takes their luggage, and as he picks everything up, he sees something out of the corner of his eye.

Diego.

Two other men.

“Hey, Joe!” Diego yells from across the street.

Joe drops all the luggage, about to have a heart attack.

“Oh... fuck,” Joe says.

“Joe, where’s your little cop buddy?” One of the other guys asks.

“We can’t seem to find him!” Diego says, a cruel grin on his face. “Let’s do lunch when you run into him!”

Joe runs.

He runs so fast and so far, he feels like he collapses a lung.

He has to stop, so instead he grabs his pistol, a Colt 1911, from the holster.

It only has seven rounds, but has an effective range of fifty meters. He only has five rounds actually in the magazine, and he knows his aim isn’t the best.

But, he sees one of the men get too close toward him brandishing a gun, and quickly, he pulls back the slide to chamber the round—-using his thumb to quickly disengage the manual flip safety position downward and then finally he cocks the hammer, pulling it back.

Aiming quickly, he turns around and shoots at the man, and the other tries to shoot first, but misses.

Joe doesn’t.

He runs again.

He knows he can’t keep this up for long.

But he needs to, has to.

For Mike.

For his mom.

For his new life.

“Hold on!”

Joe hears Diego’s voice.

Joe usually has perfect trigger discipline, but not right now.

He turns around haphazardly and points the gun directly at Diego’s head.

“Hold on, nothing! You almost got Mike killed! Fuck you!”

Diego laughs. “You just killed one of my men, and you’re lecturing me? Not to mention, you don’t even know who shot Mike.”

“Not some fuckin’ burglar!”

“Someone got to Mike before us, funnily enough, Joe. Isn’t that just ironic?”

Joe takes a step back, still pointing the gun at Diego. “No. For you, it’s mighty convenient. For Mike, who was a good person, it was incongruous with his personal path. It wasn’t right.”

“Look, Joe, you fucked with my plans, leaving with that cop, and didn’t give me the proper heads up about the busts that were going down. You should’ve known where your real loyalties were at. I don’t know why the fuck you’d choose a cop over us, over such a good pay out.”

Joe laughs almost hysterically, tears running down his cheek, making Diego cringe, but feel a bit nervous.

“Fucking pay out? You think I give a fuck about the money?” Joe laughs louder. “You wanna know the truth?”

Diego takes a few steps away, his hands in the air.

His other man is creeping behind Joe, slowly.

“Okay, I’ll bite. Why, Joe?”

“Because I’m in love with him,” Joe says with a smirk.

Diego looks at him with a mixture of disgust and disbelief.

Joe hears the man from behind and turns around.

Both shoot at the same time.

They both fall.

Diego tries to run, and Joe shoots at him.

Diego falls. His leg is hit.

Desperate to get out, Joe is crawling away, feeling dizzy and hot.

He feels like he’s been shot, but only on the side of his body.

Grazed, he thinks.

He hears police sirens.

He starts to close his eyes.

And he sees Mike, and he’s holding him.

Mike is holding him close, and they kiss so fiercely, Joe can’t breathe, but he loves it.

In, out, in, out.... his heaving breaths fall and collapse... in.... out...

In this dream, Joe doesn’t want to wake up.