If you missed last week’s read, be sure to read that first. Now, we continue with the conclusion of Uncle Paulie.
Uncle Paulie
“Hey, you know your grandpa was in deeper than us even?” Uncle Paulie ask wanting conversation to break his mind away from the coke.
“What do you mean?” Anson asked.
“My old man rolled with hard dudes. None of the stuff we’re into. He rolled internationally.”
“Like Mexico?” Anson asked.
“Mexico’s international, yeah? Fuck yeah Mexico. He crossed the border every couple weeks.”
Uncle Paulie stared at the white lines on the road ahead. They seemed to begin wiggling side to side like a snake that was always a step ahead of them.
“That’s what got him killed, though,” Uncle Paulie finally said.
“Thought so,” Anson sighed.
“That’s part of why I’m so careful with it all, you know?” Uncle Paulie asked, not looking for a response.
Anson laughed. “You’re careful?”
“Fifteen years out is fucking careful, boy,” he said.
“No, that’s lucky,” Anson shot back.
Pride swelled in Uncle Paulie’s chest and he banged happily on the dashboard, ignoring Anson’s suggestion that it was all luck. “Think what you want, but I built a damn empire. We run a hundred-k every month, and you know how many of us got popped last year?”
Uncle Paulie knew Anson had the answer already, but he didn’t let him reply. “Fucking two!” Uncle Paulie said.
“Counting me, right?” Anson said sarcastically.
A long time ago, Uncle Paulie felt like the weight of everything he was doing would crush him. He’d wake up in the middle of the night covered in sweat. The first time it happened, he thought he pissed the bed it was so wet. Those nights, he’d feel his chest shrinking. He expected it to crush his lungs, his heart. He expected to be found dead, a disgusting pile of smashed bones and organs. The feeling always passed, but it made him wonder too much.
He finally found solace in the sins of others. Anytime he felt guilt or remorse creeping in, he reminded himself there was always someone worse. Eventually, he stopped waking up at night. Eventually, he didn’t have to remind himself of the evils of other people. He became content in what he did. No, he became happy in it again.
“We’ve got a big deal coming up, so what’s it gonna be?” Uncle Paulie asked. “You got enough rope to roll on it?”
Anson nodded, “Yeah, no one’s on me. I just have to check in weekly for the next thirteen months.”
Uncle Paulie laughed. “Fuck, that’s a good deal! You should be happy, kid.” A star-shaped splash of water hit the windshield. “You know when I went in the first time, I begged for a deal. Would’ve taken anything. But you know what they were giving? Shit. They were giving fucking nothing.”
The sky spit two more drops onto the windshield.
“’Bout time,” Uncle Paulie said. “So, this deal. I can’t trust anyone else to lead it, so you’ll run it straight right? None of that righteous, ‘oh we hurt someone,’ or ‘I don’t wanna go back to jail’ shit, right?”
Anson looked Uncle Paulie in the eye, “I might be pissed, but I’m not a bitch. Have I ever fucked you?”
Uncle Paulie pursed his lips and raised his hands in mock defense. “Alright then.”
“Alright,” Anson said.
There wasn’t another drop of rain for the next ten miles. Uncle Paulie and Anson seemed bound to the silence of the car while they waited for the sky to explode. But it never did. Finally, Anson pulled out another cigarette from the glove box, and spoke.
“Details now or later?” Anson asked.
Uncle Paulie shrugged. “Whatever. You can remember it, I’ll run it down now if you want.”
Anson rubbed the bridge of his nose and nodded. It reminded Uncle Paulie of the fight the kid got in when he was sixteen. Anson saw some fucking black kid getting the shit kicked out of him in the street. Was for nothing more than being black, or something. Anson had this sense of duty that served him well as part of Uncle Paulie’s crew. That sense of duty got him into shit where he shouldn’t have been when he was younger, though.
The fight unfolded on the street in front of Uncle Paulie’s house. Anson and a kid six inches taller going at it. Rolling around on the black tar street, punches flying. Neither kid won. They eventually just got tired of beating on each other. Anson walked away with a broken nose. The other kid had to watch his back with one eye for a week straight while waiting for the swelling to subside in his left eye.
Uncle Paulie chuckled to himself. All that shit just for a kid Anson didn’t even know. He hoped Anson didn’t have any of that shit left in him. It’d get him killed one day on some random job.
“You take two of the guys — probably Juan and Joe-Joe — and head down to Abilene. You aren’t going to meet anyone there, but you’ll have some shit to do. Count on that,” Uncle Paulie began.
Anson adjusted himself in the seat, listening as far as Uncle Paulie could tell.
“There’s an old Pizza Hut down there. It’s just a shell now. Boarded up windows, but you’ll know it from that God damn hut-roof they have on all their joints,” Uncle Paulie took both hands and held them up in the shape of a roof. “I’m gonna let you figure out positioning, but I don’t want you going in. You send fucking Joe-Joe for that shit.”
“Any heat to worry about?” Ansons asked.
Uncle Paulie shook his head, “Not from the cops, no. But this here is a bigger deal than we’ve done. Heat will come from elsewhere if it comes.”
“Another crew?”
“Or bigger. But don’t worry about that. Just be prepared. Guns, exit plan. You know the drill.” Uncle Paulie stuck his left arm out the window to feel the warm, wet air. “Is it ever going to fucking dump on us or what?”
“How much are we pulling from the Pizza Hut?”
“Three barrels. You’ll have to unload them into something else though. I fucking told ‘em barrels are too conspicuous, but they insisted the drop be in barrels,” Uncle Paulie said.
That was nice. The conversation echoed the desolation of the West Texas environment. Good naturalistic dialog. Thanks for the fun read.