Post by CM Poor on Dec 17, 2011 7:52:23 GMT -5
End Of Days
"Get you anything else?"
"Just keep 'em coming...."
Nodding, the old bartender pours another whiskey, neat over ice, and slides it across the bar. Slapping his money down on the polished, wooden bar in front of him, the run down looking man eagerly takes the glass, tilts his head back, and downs the drink in one fell swoop. Most people would cringe at the whiskey's bitter, slightly burnt tinge, but he simply wipes his mouth with his arm, places the glass down on the bar, and makes a hurried signal with his hand to the bartender to keep up the flow of drinks.
Walking in to the bar, a stranger might not recognize David Brennan these days. The most immediate facet to his unintentional disguise is his hair - the casual viewer can tell you already that up until recently, Brennan had none. He'd always had to keep up with it - maybe it was the Irish in him, but his hair had always grown at an alarming rate - but appearances would tell that these past few weeks, he hasn't bothered. His chiseled, intense facial features, now seemed weathered and worn, stretched out from one too many sleepless nights.
Finally, his uniform. The proud, sharp uniform that identified him as a skinhead, tough, upstanding, and true, had fallen to shambles. He hadn't even bothered with a collar anymore. In its place, an untucked, black shirt emblazoned with some obscure, underground punk band's logo, the sleeves both torn off at the shoulders. His jeans remained the same - so much the same, in fact, that it seems he'd been wearing them now for some time. Where they were normally rolled neatly to the cusp of his black Doc Martens, only one still held position, the right leg having unfurled over the rise of his boots. It can be presumed that the right boot, much like the visible left, is also loose fitting, the laces either torn, or missing altogether. No, a stranger walking into this bar tonight would be very pressed to tell David Brennan apart from the broken, ruined man sitting at the bar downing streams of whiskey.
Imagine, then, his surprise to hear an unfamiliar voice from behind calling him by name.
"Thought you didn't drink anymore, Davey."
Turning his head toward the voice, David has to squint through the static to even make out the man's face. He's big - not tall like, but around. Wide. No hair, but not one of the skins. Glasses? It looks like he's wearing glasses. Definitely a goatee. Black collared shirt. Maybe a collar. Maybe it belongs to the leather coat he's wearing. God, it must be nice to have a coat. The drink had done a fine job of making him forget, but dammit, eventually this place is gonna close, and he's gonna have to leave, and you'd better believe it's gonna be cold out there tonight.
"You don't recognize me, do you?"
The big man takes the stool next to David. He doesn't take off his coat. Dammit, would David like to try and somehow swipe that coat from him. Seeing a new customer at the bar, the old bartender steps over, drops another whiskey on the rocks in front of David, and silently acknowledges the man, inquiring facially if there was anything he could prepare for him.
"Just a water, please. Thanks."
The two men sit, for what feels like hours, in silence. David puts away four more whiskeys as he nervously eyes the man sitting to his right. Something doesn't sit well with him. This guy knows his name. Knew his name before ever seeing his face. He can't be friendly - David doesn't have friends anymore. He's too big to be family. Way too big. Dammit. He used to be so good with faces and names. He's such a mess. At least he can't feel, anymore. There's always that. Such a mess. Big guy. Big mess....big...mess....
...oh no....
Mark "Big Messy" Messina. One of Jack Brennan's top enforcers. Like a brother to him. David never let himself get too involved in his father's business, but he knew enough to know that early on, this man proved that he'd put his own life on the line in order to maintain Jack's. Him being here tonight is not a good thing. David puts the next two whiskeys away like water. He doesn't blink, doesn't take his eyes off of Big Messy as he starts in on another.
"Finish it up, son."
Almost instinctively, David does as he's ordered, and knocks the drink in his hands back in one swift motion, then downs the one that had appeared in front of him quickly, almost hoping Big Messy hadn't seen that one.
"Atta boy. Let's take a step outside, shall we? Drinks are on us."
The big man slaps a wad of cash down on the bar, and rises from his seat, making way towards the door. Stopping, just before the coat check, he turns back to see David still seated at the bar, watching him, frozen in place, his eyes wide open. Such an unusual characteristic for a lousy drunk.
"Come on, Davey. We don't want to keep your father waiting."
His father? Not good. Not good at all. David uses the bar as leverage to lift himself from his seat. Feeling his feet connect with the ground, he lets go of his grip on the bar - and crashes straight to the ground. No surprise. Catching an arbritrary wall clock out of the corner of his eye, its about a quarter to midnight, and he'd been sitting here since somewhere around...well, all day.
Before he can begin to pull himself up, he feels Big Messy's big hands connect with the back of his neck, and he's hoisted to his feet by the back of his shirt. Tossing one arm over Messy's shoulder, he's dragged across the barroom and out the door into the freezing December night. Y'know, maybe its all the drink in him, but its really not that bad out. He can't see the stars, but the distant hum of the city night must mean that they've been dimmed by an excess of light pollution. Must be a big city. Y'know, he hadn't even thought about it, but now that he did, he wasn't even quite sure where he is, or he how he......
OW!
His stream of conciousness is interrupted by the cold, unforgiving smack of concrete. Whether he went down, or the sidewalk rose up to greet him, he wasn't quite sure. Things were starting to fade in and out. It sure would be nice to find a bed. Acting on that though, he begins to pull himself up, but can only get to his knees when the artificial warmth of the liquor inside of him is washed all away by a chilling, familiar voice.
"Thank you, Mark."
"Anytime, Jacky."
Forcing open his eyes and once again searching through the static, David is finally able to get a clear fix on the figure in front of him. There he is, seated in a folding wheelchair, in his favorite gray blazer, looking no worse or better than he did the last time David saw his conciously, save for the bandage wrapped around his left temple, was Jack Brennan.
".....you look good, Jack."
It happens so fast, that David is hardly able to process it. Jack effortlessly rises from the wheelchair, circles around to the back of it, and after hoisting it off the ground by the rear handles, brings the chair, still fully unfolded, down on David's head. God, that's an awkward hit. A chair shot is one thing, but compound the blunt force of whatever end hits you on the head with the rest of the chair going all out on whatever other body surfaces make contact, and, well, you get the idea.
David goes down hard. Before he can even become accustomed to the cold pavement, Messy's fat hand is on him again. He's hoisted back to his knees, and for just a split second, he catches a gleam of hate and fury sparkling from Jack's eye before he's cracked across the face with one of the wheelchair's metal footrests, which had come unhinged upon the initial impact. This cuts, and it cuts deep. David falls backwards this time, and through his one eye that is not swollen shut, he can see through the haze Jack circling him, Big Messy standing close by, arms crossed, not moving.
"You got sack, kid, I'll give you that. It must have taken more balls off of you to come at me like that than anything you've even brought to the ring thus far. To be honest, I didn't think you had it in you. And I owe you for it."
Jack, a man of many voices to fit his many moods, speaks dry and deadpan. There's a dry, unwavering scratch to his voice as he continues to circle, talking, of course, about the night of Superbrawl. Of all the concious thoughts that had escaped David in the weeks following, that night still replays vividly in his mind. The intensity. The long walk to the ring. The boos. The cheers. Drakz. 1...2...3. The bell. The long walk back. Swiping the bottle from catering. His first career loss. His first drink in four years. Jack. The chair. The baseball bat. The lockers.
When all was said and done, Jack lay crumpled, unconcious, in a heap against a row of damaged lockers backstage, and David disappeared into the night. How ironic that it was now he who lay broken, beaten. Except Jack wasn't disappearing. And he wasn't done yet.
Jack comes down to eye level with David, bending at the kness and resting on his haunches. He pulls David up by the scruff of his shirt, now inches away from his face.
"You see, Davey, if it weren't for you coming at me like that, my eyes would have never been opened. When I met up with you a month and a half ago, I saw invigoration in your eyes. A fighting spirit I hadn't seen in you since the day you were born. Why, you'd overcome the odds. Beaten the disease. Ready to face the world. Now, here, here was a son. A son I could be proud of. Well, we all make mistakes."
David’s view is even hazier now. Through swollen eyes, he’s just barely able to glance Jack walking away from him for the moment, caught in a brief conversation with Big Messy. Rolling over to his side, he’s able to pull himself up slightly, resting now on his right elbow. To an unknowing passerby, he may have looked almost relaxed lying there on the sidewalk – that is, if not for the cuts and bruises now adorning his already rugged looking face. Catching Big Messy’s eye over his father’s shoulder, he smiles a crooked smile, wincing in pain as he does it.
”Is that right? Bet on the wrong horse, did you?”
The comment is almost immediately responded to by Jack’s modest size 9.5 foot catching him square in the chin. He’s knocked backwards, finding himself once again flat on his back. As he recoils from the hit, he’s entirely unable to see Jack nodding fiercely at Messy, and so it comes as quite a bit of a shock when Messy’s steel toed, nothing modest about ‘em size thirteens come crashing down on his midsection. And again. And again. And again. The blows keep coming, and it seems like hours before the big man takes a rest. David can feel his insides churning. Something got knocked loose in there. The alcohol definitely isn’t helping things. Rolling to his side, he pulls his head up, looks to vomit, and instead coughs. He coughs again. He can feel the phlegm coming up, and coughing once more, he goes to spit it out, and is even taken aback himself when he sees the puddle of blood land where he expected a pile of mucous. He’ll probably need that looked at.
”Hedging my bets on you was the biggest mistake I’ve made since bedding that whore of a creature you called a mother. A man of more sound mind would have had you taken care of the minute she broke the news about you. Call it a brief moment of sentimentality – the prospect of an heir. In hindsight, I’d just as soon leave it all to that wreck of a human being you’re up against next, Phil Schneider. Come to think of it, if he can manage to finish what I should have started 28 years ago, and put you out of my misery, I might just consider it.”
Philip Schneider. The second opponent David has forgotten about in just as many weeks. At this point, Jack was following David’s career better than he was. David had gone in and somehow taken out Thunder last week, filled to the eyeballs with rum and cokes. He’d probably be bursting at the seams this week with shots of whiskey (and probably a couple ounces of his own blood, to boot). Jack was right. Schneider had become a dangerous man, and David had grown weak. It would be a small miracle if he was able to leave Loaded walking, let alone alive.
Couldn’t let Jack know that, though
Mustering all his strength, he reaches out with his right arm, and grabs Jack by the ankle. Pulling with all his might, he makes to trip the old bastard, bringing him down and hopefully cracking his skull open in the process.
Instead what he gets is Messy’s thunderous footprint coming down hard in his wrist. He breaks his hold on Jack’s ankle. Using David’s already outstretched arm, Messy pulls David to his feet. He releases him, and for a moment, David marvels at his own ability to stand of his own volition. His astonishment is quickly broken (and likely, his nose as well) by the resounding crack of Messy’s giant, hammy fist meeting the center of his face. This one does him in bad. He goes down hard. Harder than before. He’d taken most of the hits up until this point with a sort of stoic silence, but this one was bad. Hitting the ground, he yells out in agony. He groans as he rolls on the cold concrete. In between his coughing and puking up a torrid mixture of whiskey and his own blood, he’s able to muster some decipherable words.
”…..kill you. Kill Schneider, then I’ll kill you……bastard son of a bitch….ack….beat Thunder, can beat anyone!....you….f*ck…..do I have insurance?”
”Would you shut him up, please?”
David only hears the command, but he’s able to piece together the details by what happens next. He feels Messy’s meaty hands pulling him up by the back of his shirt. He’s still wailing all the while as he feels himself hoisted up, high. His wailing continues until he feels Messy release him, fast, through the cold night air, and he collides full on with what he can only assume was the brick wall of the bar’s divey exterior, followed by the now familiar collision with that unforgiving, cold concrete. He lays for what feels like hours. He can’t move, and he doesn’t think he would if he could. He doesn’t speak, and
probably wouldn’t for the same reasons. God, this really hurts.
”Kill Schneider? Look at yourself – you couldn’t even bring down your old man. I’ll tell you what I think David – I think our paths were destined to cross. Your life was a mistake. Throughout all twenty eight years of your pitiful, sorry excuse for an existence, you’ve born all the tell-tale signs, and now, through the strokes and mysteries of destiny, its finally come to an end. You’re back at the end of your rope, the rope you cheated for four solid years by getting sober, but your time has finally come. Schneider’s going to kill you at Loaded – there won’t be any stopping him. And if, for some strange reason, he doesn’t, then I’ll be waiting in the wings, and when he’s finally chewed you up and spit you out, I’ll finish the job. Get some sleep, David. You’ll want to be rested for your end of days.”
That’s one piece of the equation David hadn’t considered in days. Sleep sounds like just the thing he needs at this point. He stops to consider the notion for a moment, face down there on the sidewalk. He knows that Jack and Big Messy are gone – he heard them walk away. For all intents and purposes now, he’s alone, aside from the occasional passerby making their way down the sidewalk. It’s actually rather quiet here – and the cold is almost kind of sobering. Get some sleep, he said. Full of ideas, that Jack Brennan. No time like the present. It’d hurt too much to move at this point. He’ll figure out exactly where ‘here’ is in the morning. Or tomorrow. Or next week. Whenever, or if ever, he decides to wake up.
"Get you anything else?"
"Just keep 'em coming...."
Nodding, the old bartender pours another whiskey, neat over ice, and slides it across the bar. Slapping his money down on the polished, wooden bar in front of him, the run down looking man eagerly takes the glass, tilts his head back, and downs the drink in one fell swoop. Most people would cringe at the whiskey's bitter, slightly burnt tinge, but he simply wipes his mouth with his arm, places the glass down on the bar, and makes a hurried signal with his hand to the bartender to keep up the flow of drinks.
Walking in to the bar, a stranger might not recognize David Brennan these days. The most immediate facet to his unintentional disguise is his hair - the casual viewer can tell you already that up until recently, Brennan had none. He'd always had to keep up with it - maybe it was the Irish in him, but his hair had always grown at an alarming rate - but appearances would tell that these past few weeks, he hasn't bothered. His chiseled, intense facial features, now seemed weathered and worn, stretched out from one too many sleepless nights.
Finally, his uniform. The proud, sharp uniform that identified him as a skinhead, tough, upstanding, and true, had fallen to shambles. He hadn't even bothered with a collar anymore. In its place, an untucked, black shirt emblazoned with some obscure, underground punk band's logo, the sleeves both torn off at the shoulders. His jeans remained the same - so much the same, in fact, that it seems he'd been wearing them now for some time. Where they were normally rolled neatly to the cusp of his black Doc Martens, only one still held position, the right leg having unfurled over the rise of his boots. It can be presumed that the right boot, much like the visible left, is also loose fitting, the laces either torn, or missing altogether. No, a stranger walking into this bar tonight would be very pressed to tell David Brennan apart from the broken, ruined man sitting at the bar downing streams of whiskey.
Imagine, then, his surprise to hear an unfamiliar voice from behind calling him by name.
"Thought you didn't drink anymore, Davey."
Turning his head toward the voice, David has to squint through the static to even make out the man's face. He's big - not tall like, but around. Wide. No hair, but not one of the skins. Glasses? It looks like he's wearing glasses. Definitely a goatee. Black collared shirt. Maybe a collar. Maybe it belongs to the leather coat he's wearing. God, it must be nice to have a coat. The drink had done a fine job of making him forget, but dammit, eventually this place is gonna close, and he's gonna have to leave, and you'd better believe it's gonna be cold out there tonight.
"You don't recognize me, do you?"
The big man takes the stool next to David. He doesn't take off his coat. Dammit, would David like to try and somehow swipe that coat from him. Seeing a new customer at the bar, the old bartender steps over, drops another whiskey on the rocks in front of David, and silently acknowledges the man, inquiring facially if there was anything he could prepare for him.
"Just a water, please. Thanks."
The two men sit, for what feels like hours, in silence. David puts away four more whiskeys as he nervously eyes the man sitting to his right. Something doesn't sit well with him. This guy knows his name. Knew his name before ever seeing his face. He can't be friendly - David doesn't have friends anymore. He's too big to be family. Way too big. Dammit. He used to be so good with faces and names. He's such a mess. At least he can't feel, anymore. There's always that. Such a mess. Big guy. Big mess....big...mess....
...oh no....
Mark "Big Messy" Messina. One of Jack Brennan's top enforcers. Like a brother to him. David never let himself get too involved in his father's business, but he knew enough to know that early on, this man proved that he'd put his own life on the line in order to maintain Jack's. Him being here tonight is not a good thing. David puts the next two whiskeys away like water. He doesn't blink, doesn't take his eyes off of Big Messy as he starts in on another.
"Finish it up, son."
Almost instinctively, David does as he's ordered, and knocks the drink in his hands back in one swift motion, then downs the one that had appeared in front of him quickly, almost hoping Big Messy hadn't seen that one.
"Atta boy. Let's take a step outside, shall we? Drinks are on us."
The big man slaps a wad of cash down on the bar, and rises from his seat, making way towards the door. Stopping, just before the coat check, he turns back to see David still seated at the bar, watching him, frozen in place, his eyes wide open. Such an unusual characteristic for a lousy drunk.
"Come on, Davey. We don't want to keep your father waiting."
His father? Not good. Not good at all. David uses the bar as leverage to lift himself from his seat. Feeling his feet connect with the ground, he lets go of his grip on the bar - and crashes straight to the ground. No surprise. Catching an arbritrary wall clock out of the corner of his eye, its about a quarter to midnight, and he'd been sitting here since somewhere around...well, all day.
Before he can begin to pull himself up, he feels Big Messy's big hands connect with the back of his neck, and he's hoisted to his feet by the back of his shirt. Tossing one arm over Messy's shoulder, he's dragged across the barroom and out the door into the freezing December night. Y'know, maybe its all the drink in him, but its really not that bad out. He can't see the stars, but the distant hum of the city night must mean that they've been dimmed by an excess of light pollution. Must be a big city. Y'know, he hadn't even thought about it, but now that he did, he wasn't even quite sure where he is, or he how he......
OW!
His stream of conciousness is interrupted by the cold, unforgiving smack of concrete. Whether he went down, or the sidewalk rose up to greet him, he wasn't quite sure. Things were starting to fade in and out. It sure would be nice to find a bed. Acting on that though, he begins to pull himself up, but can only get to his knees when the artificial warmth of the liquor inside of him is washed all away by a chilling, familiar voice.
"Thank you, Mark."
"Anytime, Jacky."
Forcing open his eyes and once again searching through the static, David is finally able to get a clear fix on the figure in front of him. There he is, seated in a folding wheelchair, in his favorite gray blazer, looking no worse or better than he did the last time David saw his conciously, save for the bandage wrapped around his left temple, was Jack Brennan.
".....you look good, Jack."
It happens so fast, that David is hardly able to process it. Jack effortlessly rises from the wheelchair, circles around to the back of it, and after hoisting it off the ground by the rear handles, brings the chair, still fully unfolded, down on David's head. God, that's an awkward hit. A chair shot is one thing, but compound the blunt force of whatever end hits you on the head with the rest of the chair going all out on whatever other body surfaces make contact, and, well, you get the idea.
David goes down hard. Before he can even become accustomed to the cold pavement, Messy's fat hand is on him again. He's hoisted back to his knees, and for just a split second, he catches a gleam of hate and fury sparkling from Jack's eye before he's cracked across the face with one of the wheelchair's metal footrests, which had come unhinged upon the initial impact. This cuts, and it cuts deep. David falls backwards this time, and through his one eye that is not swollen shut, he can see through the haze Jack circling him, Big Messy standing close by, arms crossed, not moving.
"You got sack, kid, I'll give you that. It must have taken more balls off of you to come at me like that than anything you've even brought to the ring thus far. To be honest, I didn't think you had it in you. And I owe you for it."
Jack, a man of many voices to fit his many moods, speaks dry and deadpan. There's a dry, unwavering scratch to his voice as he continues to circle, talking, of course, about the night of Superbrawl. Of all the concious thoughts that had escaped David in the weeks following, that night still replays vividly in his mind. The intensity. The long walk to the ring. The boos. The cheers. Drakz. 1...2...3. The bell. The long walk back. Swiping the bottle from catering. His first career loss. His first drink in four years. Jack. The chair. The baseball bat. The lockers.
When all was said and done, Jack lay crumpled, unconcious, in a heap against a row of damaged lockers backstage, and David disappeared into the night. How ironic that it was now he who lay broken, beaten. Except Jack wasn't disappearing. And he wasn't done yet.
Jack comes down to eye level with David, bending at the kness and resting on his haunches. He pulls David up by the scruff of his shirt, now inches away from his face.
"You see, Davey, if it weren't for you coming at me like that, my eyes would have never been opened. When I met up with you a month and a half ago, I saw invigoration in your eyes. A fighting spirit I hadn't seen in you since the day you were born. Why, you'd overcome the odds. Beaten the disease. Ready to face the world. Now, here, here was a son. A son I could be proud of. Well, we all make mistakes."
David’s view is even hazier now. Through swollen eyes, he’s just barely able to glance Jack walking away from him for the moment, caught in a brief conversation with Big Messy. Rolling over to his side, he’s able to pull himself up slightly, resting now on his right elbow. To an unknowing passerby, he may have looked almost relaxed lying there on the sidewalk – that is, if not for the cuts and bruises now adorning his already rugged looking face. Catching Big Messy’s eye over his father’s shoulder, he smiles a crooked smile, wincing in pain as he does it.
”Is that right? Bet on the wrong horse, did you?”
The comment is almost immediately responded to by Jack’s modest size 9.5 foot catching him square in the chin. He’s knocked backwards, finding himself once again flat on his back. As he recoils from the hit, he’s entirely unable to see Jack nodding fiercely at Messy, and so it comes as quite a bit of a shock when Messy’s steel toed, nothing modest about ‘em size thirteens come crashing down on his midsection. And again. And again. And again. The blows keep coming, and it seems like hours before the big man takes a rest. David can feel his insides churning. Something got knocked loose in there. The alcohol definitely isn’t helping things. Rolling to his side, he pulls his head up, looks to vomit, and instead coughs. He coughs again. He can feel the phlegm coming up, and coughing once more, he goes to spit it out, and is even taken aback himself when he sees the puddle of blood land where he expected a pile of mucous. He’ll probably need that looked at.
”Hedging my bets on you was the biggest mistake I’ve made since bedding that whore of a creature you called a mother. A man of more sound mind would have had you taken care of the minute she broke the news about you. Call it a brief moment of sentimentality – the prospect of an heir. In hindsight, I’d just as soon leave it all to that wreck of a human being you’re up against next, Phil Schneider. Come to think of it, if he can manage to finish what I should have started 28 years ago, and put you out of my misery, I might just consider it.”
Philip Schneider. The second opponent David has forgotten about in just as many weeks. At this point, Jack was following David’s career better than he was. David had gone in and somehow taken out Thunder last week, filled to the eyeballs with rum and cokes. He’d probably be bursting at the seams this week with shots of whiskey (and probably a couple ounces of his own blood, to boot). Jack was right. Schneider had become a dangerous man, and David had grown weak. It would be a small miracle if he was able to leave Loaded walking, let alone alive.
Couldn’t let Jack know that, though
Mustering all his strength, he reaches out with his right arm, and grabs Jack by the ankle. Pulling with all his might, he makes to trip the old bastard, bringing him down and hopefully cracking his skull open in the process.
Instead what he gets is Messy’s thunderous footprint coming down hard in his wrist. He breaks his hold on Jack’s ankle. Using David’s already outstretched arm, Messy pulls David to his feet. He releases him, and for a moment, David marvels at his own ability to stand of his own volition. His astonishment is quickly broken (and likely, his nose as well) by the resounding crack of Messy’s giant, hammy fist meeting the center of his face. This one does him in bad. He goes down hard. Harder than before. He’d taken most of the hits up until this point with a sort of stoic silence, but this one was bad. Hitting the ground, he yells out in agony. He groans as he rolls on the cold concrete. In between his coughing and puking up a torrid mixture of whiskey and his own blood, he’s able to muster some decipherable words.
”…..kill you. Kill Schneider, then I’ll kill you……bastard son of a bitch….ack….beat Thunder, can beat anyone!....you….f*ck…..do I have insurance?”
”Would you shut him up, please?”
David only hears the command, but he’s able to piece together the details by what happens next. He feels Messy’s meaty hands pulling him up by the back of his shirt. He’s still wailing all the while as he feels himself hoisted up, high. His wailing continues until he feels Messy release him, fast, through the cold night air, and he collides full on with what he can only assume was the brick wall of the bar’s divey exterior, followed by the now familiar collision with that unforgiving, cold concrete. He lays for what feels like hours. He can’t move, and he doesn’t think he would if he could. He doesn’t speak, and
probably wouldn’t for the same reasons. God, this really hurts.
”Kill Schneider? Look at yourself – you couldn’t even bring down your old man. I’ll tell you what I think David – I think our paths were destined to cross. Your life was a mistake. Throughout all twenty eight years of your pitiful, sorry excuse for an existence, you’ve born all the tell-tale signs, and now, through the strokes and mysteries of destiny, its finally come to an end. You’re back at the end of your rope, the rope you cheated for four solid years by getting sober, but your time has finally come. Schneider’s going to kill you at Loaded – there won’t be any stopping him. And if, for some strange reason, he doesn’t, then I’ll be waiting in the wings, and when he’s finally chewed you up and spit you out, I’ll finish the job. Get some sleep, David. You’ll want to be rested for your end of days.”
That’s one piece of the equation David hadn’t considered in days. Sleep sounds like just the thing he needs at this point. He stops to consider the notion for a moment, face down there on the sidewalk. He knows that Jack and Big Messy are gone – he heard them walk away. For all intents and purposes now, he’s alone, aside from the occasional passerby making their way down the sidewalk. It’s actually rather quiet here – and the cold is almost kind of sobering. Get some sleep, he said. Full of ideas, that Jack Brennan. No time like the present. It’d hurt too much to move at this point. He’ll figure out exactly where ‘here’ is in the morning. Or tomorrow. Or next week. Whenever, or if ever, he decides to wake up.