The Rabbit Hole by J.D. Murray

Somehow I knew it was going to end this way. One way or another all paths led to this very spot of my life. My mother used to say it was the journey, not the destination that mattered. Well, in my case, it was both. The destination just wasn’t what I expected.

A stomach full of alcohol, snorting cocaine and Xanax, in the swampy backwaters of Florida, I found myself all alone. Back where I started. I had blood on my hands, literally and otherwise. I’d bought a gun from my now ex-buddy, Jacky, about two months ago, before I left the club for good. I left so I could maybe go home to Illinois and reconnect with my family and friends, only to find that they really didn’t need me anymore. I had turned my back on them and they were returning the favor. Life is a bitch sometimes.

Jacky was the real problem, though. When I decided to leave my hometown of River Grove Illinois, I found myself down in New Orleans. I always thought it was the perfect place that you travel to when you want to die. You can die. You can be reborn. But mostly I went there to die.  Instead I met Jacky while playing poker and burning the last of my cash on coke and hookers. Jacky was more than happy to join in on my little game of self-destruction and loathing. He was quite good at it actually; he must’ve had a lot of practice back where he was from. He claimed he was born in New Orleans but I knew better. I just never told him so. The mystery surrounding the guy intrigued me, to be honest. I felt like I was sort of looking in a mirror most times we hung out. Fact is: we hit it off almost immediately and that was that. Friendship forged in decay. I should have known it might end up like this.

He introduced me to a world that I’d secretly wished I could be a part of. He always wore designer shirts and slacks, almost always with a suit coat. He had a seemingly endless supply of cash that he kept in some military-grade money clip at all times. Not to mention the women that swirled around this guy, always robust and beautiful, always willing to please.

One night we were holed up in some shithole excuse for a strip joint and I asked him what he thought about opening one himself.

Almost without hesitation, he said that I should stop being a pussy and open one myself.

“Does it look like I have the money for that kind of thing, man?” I asked him in a drunken coked-out haze.

He looked at me dead in the eye, digging around to see what was swimming around my head. “I’ll help you.”

I told him he was a bullshitter but deep down I knew he wasn’t kidding. I probably could’ve asked him to open up a fucking museum and he’d have agreed. It was just that kind of intense friendship that we found.

And that was how I came to own my own club in New Orleans. The beginning of the end of my life. I’m not sure how things got so fucked up but they did, and in a hurry.

Because here’s the thing with self-destruction: it’s cumulative. Once you start yourself on that mudslide, there’s no turning back. That’s the simple fact of it. So there was no trying to deny the things that Jacky and I got ourselves into.

It happened like this. The club, which we named The Rabbit Hole, was in its third month of business and doing extremely well already. I was making more money than I’d ever dreamed of back home. Instead of flipping burgers or cleaning up someone else’s shit, I was handling the day to day operations of the club and managing the girls who worked for me; answering phones, ordering things we needed and keeping an eye on the books. Not to mention keeping a bigger eye on all the cash Jacky and I were making. Things grew from there. Girls were coming from as far as New York to work for me. How they heard of us so quickly, I’ll never know. I always thought Jacky had something to do with our new influx of talent but I never said anything. I figured it didn’t matter. Business was good and our wallets had never been fatter.

The drugs were a different animal. Some nights Jacky would open up the back door and three guys would get out of a van and haul in a few duffel bags of shit. I’d never seen that much cocaine in one place before. It didn’t shock me, however, that Jacky was in the middle of it and using the club to move the shit. Once a week it was the same thing. Only the shipments kept getting larger each time. And to tell you the truth, I didn’t mind at all. I welcomed it. It was part of what we were doing here. I felt alive, like I was finally doing something exciting and worthwhile. I felt like finally I’d got what I had been waiting for my entire life.

How wrong I was. Or perhaps I was exactly right.

It was like any other night, I guess. The night was dark and rainy, the sights and dark lights of New Orleans filtering through the door. People came and went. The girls danced the night away, teasing and pleasing in the shadows. Through the thick fog of smoke and debauchery, Jacky and I moved from the main floor to the network of back rooms that led to an old dining hall that served as our office. And before you cry foul, yes, we did allow smoking in our club. And no, no one reported us or said a word about it. The customers loved it and I’d bet more than my final dollar that my ex-best was indeed paying someone to turn a blind eye on the fact. Have you ever tried to drink, pay strippers and snort coke without a good smoke? Wasn’t the same was it? Which is why we decided to say “fuck it” to the smoke-free bullshit and bring back the good old times.

I found myself pretty fucked up by the time the crowd was thinning out and the girls were getting ready to finish up. I hadn’t been able to close the deal with a girl I was working heavily the entire night, which was more than a downer, but I decided there’d be more opportunities. So I took a couple drinks and headed to the back office.

I opened the door to find Jacky plugging away at some broad on the pool table, very much enjoying himself and dripping with the coke sweats. I turned to leave but thought better of it and took a seat on the couch instead. After all, it was my office too. And Jacky didn’t seem to mind the company at all.

The girl groaned and moaned under Jacky’s thrusts, bucking her hips in violent upward motions and clawing at his shoulders with vicious red fingernails.

I took a drink of my beer and walked over to my desk. The coke was waiting for me tucked away in the top drawer. I took two healthy hits, one to each nostril and returned to my beer and the couch. Figured maybe I’d be a pervert and watch Jacky finish up but he had better ideas.

“Help me fuck her.”

I almost spit my beer out but the girl seemed to be excited by the idea; she turned to me and mouthed the words “fuck me.”

My dick was instantly solid and my heart was pounding faster than the chemicals I just put in my body would allow it. Fuck it, I figured. Why not?

Jacky smiled wickedly. I look back on the memory now and that crooked, broken excuse for a smile haunts me.

I approached the table as Jacky immediately pulls out of her and repositions her on her knees and bent over one of the corners. She masterfully pulls me closer to her and undoes my pants, taking me in her mouth like it was the last thing she was going to do. My head rolls back and my eyes close, head swimming in yet another chemical haze. But goddamn does it feel good. I almost lose my balance and Jacky laughs as he jackhammers away from the girl’s backside. He stops for a minute, cuts himself a line of coke on the desk and returns to work on the girl. She moans against the muffling factor of my dick in her mouth. I almost came right then and there but something held me back. Maybe I didn’t want to seem like a pussy to Jacky. Always with the big brother complex, that guy. He punches me on the shoulder, wakes me up from my thoughts and tells me to switch, which I do without even thinking about it.

It doesn’t take much longer after that from what I remember. I came inside her hard and fast, forcefully and with anger. She seemed to love it. I’m covered in sweat and lust. So are Jacky and the girl. Jacky laughs and gets another hit of the stuff. The girl lies on the table exhausted and laughing with pleasure. “You guys really know how to please a girl.” She says, out of breath.

I hear Jacky shuffling around for something inside my desk. I’m putting my pants back on and helping the girl with finding the rest of her clothes when Jacky walks between us with my gun in his right hand.

“What the fuck?” I utter.

He pushes me out of the way and puts two into the girl’s chest. The shots deafen me for a moment, the muzzle flash hurting my eyes. She falls to the ground in a heap and writhes in pain. Jacky stalks over her and fires another shot into her skull. It covers the floor in blood and brains with quite a bit blowing back onto our clothes.

“Jacky!” I scream this time. “What the fuck did you do that for, man?” I’m sober. I’m wired. I’m about to have a fucking panic attack. The room is spinning and I feel like I’m going to puke at any moment. Jacky’s laughing in the background but I can barely hear it over the drumming of my heart and the adrenaline searing through my veins.

Jacky grabs me hard, shakes me and slaps me in the face. “Get a grip, man. Sit down and I’ll let you in on a little secret.”

I almost register what he’s saying but he throws me down onto the couch anyway. I feel like I’m outside of myself, floating somewhere in a world that might exist beyond my own, looking down at the events that are unfolding. But deep down I know that this is really happening. Jacky just killed a girl. Jacky just shot a girl with my semen inside of her. The implications of that have yet to soak. Right now I’m just trying to breath at a normal rate, trying to remind my heart that if it drums any faster or harder that it just may explode inside my chest. So I throw up all over the couch and my jeans. It makes me feel a little better – physically anyway.

“Are you back with me?” I hear him ask calmly, as if he didn’t just take another person’s life.

I think I manage to manufacture some sort of nod. I cough a little. Tastes like bile and liquor and cocaine. It makes my nose burn with a wretched smell.

I look him in the eyes. His face sickens me. “Explain to me what the fuck just happened, Jack?”

“What… did I tell you about calling me Jack? Huh?”

I stay silent. I wipe my nose and cough a little more stomach acid. There’s blood all over the floor. There’s bits of flesh, my puke and all manner of things crawling all over this room. I try not to think about it. My head feels like it might float away again. Right now I need to know what the fuck happened.

“Listen,” Jacky says, “that girl we just fucked was Paul’s fiancée.” He smiles and takes the gun he used to shoot her and lays it on the pool table.

“Who the hell is Paul?” I ask, “and why in the fuck did you just kill her? This isn’t making any sense, man.”

The fucker actually laughs again. “Well, they weren’t really engaged. Not the point, though. The guy owes me money… a lot of money, man.”

“But—“

“And now he’s paid the price. Well, some of it. I still want my fucking money. But now he’ll get the message.”

I put my head in my hands and shake my head, hoping to mix some sense up into this thing. “What are we going to do with the body?” I hear myself ask. My voice sounds strangely focused and calm. I think back on it now and I’m sure I was in some sort of shock. “I came inside her, man.”

“Don’t worry. The cops aren’t ever going to find her. You can trust me on that.”

“I don’t have a fucking choice at this point. You walked me right into that without so much as a warning. What the hell, Jacky?”

He walks over and kneels down to get eye level with me, putting his hands on my shoulders. “Look at me.”

I look at him.

“Go in the back and clean yourself up. Leave the clothes you are wearing on the floor. I’ll get you some new stuff in a couple of minutes. Then I want you to go home and try and get some rest. Forget this ever happened and I’ll take care of everything. Got it?”

I nod.

He shakes me hard. “Tell me you got it. I want to hear it. Look me in the eyes.”

“I got it, Jacky. I got it.”

And that was the original plan. It really was.

Jacky left the room and I was left alone with a room that smelled of blood and sin. The girl’s body lay there, broken and beyond identification – Jacky’s marksmanship stole most of her face. She was a tattered mess of bloody limbs and pale skin. I couldn’t look for too long as I almost found myself ready to throw up yet again. My head swam in a sickening rush of reality. I punched a hole in one of the walls on my way to the bathroom.  I thought I might be sick again. The sight of the dead girl flashed in my mind like a revenant.

I closed and locked the door behind me.

I remember wanting to punch the mirror too, but ended up taking a good long look at myself instead. I looked like shit. My eyes were wide and dark with large bags of fatigue like half-moons under them and my hair was slick with sweat. I looked like someone else, not myself. Not the guy I remembered from a few short months ago. And now I was an accessory to murder thanks to Jacky and his drugs.

“Fuck this.” I said to myself.

I took about as deep as a breath as I could to steady myself, remind myself that shit was still going on around me. And then I started moving. I don’t remember consciously telling myself to move and do the next few things I did but it happened that way. It was like something in my mind snapped and decided to take action for itself whether I was listening or not. My body was moving of its own accord now, sifting through Jacky’s desk like a madman in search of something. I swiped a couple of bottles off the desk, opened and slammed drawers and cursed to myself. On the pool table something caught my eye. It was a big black leather bag that was full and shaped. And the gun.  I went over to the table, making sure not to step on the body, and slung the bag over my shoulder. Fuck, it was heavy. I knew almost immediately it was filled with Jacky’s drug money. How much I wasn’t sure but it felt like quite a bit.

Just then, Jacky entered the room.

“What are you doing?” He asked, dropping the new set of clothes on the couch. His expression had changed from determined to something more akin to concerned. “I thought I told you to get cleaned up?”

I raised the gun and pointed at Jacky’s face. My aim was steady, much to my amazement. Jacky took a step back and smiled. I had a feeling this wasn’t the first time someone close to him had pointed a gun to him. “I’m going to the cops.”

“Really? Have you thought this through?”

“I’m going to the fucking cops! You killed someone, Jack. It’s the right thing to do. I don’t care about the jail time.”

“And what about your cum that’s sitting inside of that dead whore, huh? What about all that money you have with you? And what about the murder weapon in your hand? You stop to think about any of that too? Or are you just a fuckup?”

I looked to the money, to the gun, to the dead girl. As much as I hated to admit it, he was right. I was fucked. Jacky always seemed to play the right cards somehow. Or maybe I just wasn’t thinking clearly, I don’t know.

“Just get the fucking gun out of my face and we’ll work this all out. You’re right, I shouldn’t have dragged you into this. But you gotta admit she was a good fuck.”

“I’m going.” I said. But not to the cops. I was going to run. Take the money, the gun and run.

“The fuck you are. You think I’m going to let you walk out of here with half a million? Just like that? You’re crazier than me.”

“I’m the one with the gun, remember? You’ll sit the fuck down and stay there until I’m gone.” I commanded him.

He laughed but he sat down. “You’re making a mistake, man. We can do this together. We can work this out. You don’t want to do this. After all we’ve been through.”

I kept the gun pointed at him and started towards the back door of our place. He didn’t move except to smile. Fuck, the guy gave me chills. How could he be so calm in a situation like this?

I was at the door. My brand new Mustang was waiting for me just outside. I could throw the money and the gun in the trunk and be on my way in seconds.

“You walk through that door and you’re dead, brother. That, I promise.” Jacky said.

I came to New Orleans to die. I came to New Orleans to be reborn.

So I walked out that door and into the uncertainty of the sticky, gloomy night.

I could’ve gone anywhere. I could have hid anywhere. But here I am in Florida, a week later, not very far from New Orleans in the grand scope of things. Maybe I knew Jacky would find me no matter how fast and how far I ran. I could’ve switched cars a dozen times, shaken tails, dumped the money and the gun somewhere safe so I’d have some leverage when he found me. But I didn’t. I’m here in the swamps of a peninsula state, waiting.

I snort the last pill and chase it with a swallow of rum and collapse to a sitting position, listening to the trees rustle and bugs chant around me. I let it surround me and envelope me. I throw the bottle of rum as far as I can. It hits a tree stump and breaks into a thousand shards.

“Where’s the money?” A voice asks from somewhere behind me. I don’t even turn around to see who it is. I already know.

I laugh a little to myself. “I have it.”

“Stand up.” The voice says.

I sniff back the burning in my nostrils and I smell the sweet wet scents of the damp earth beneath me.

I stand up on unstable legs and almost fall down in the process but somehow manage to stay upright. I simply point in the direction of my car.

“Good. Now give me the gun.”

I turn around and hand him the gun that was tucked away in my belt. And I realize when I look at him that Paul looks exactly like a man who just had his life taken away from him, his most prized possession. His hair is a wild unkempt disaster of blonde and his eyes speak of anguish and revenge. This guy is all business standing here in the middle of Florida’s nowhere. Somehow, I can relate. I’m back to being nobody, reduced to less than zero.

In the distance I hear another vehicle pulling into the area. I have no doubt it’s Jacky’s. It didn’t take him long to find me at all. Just as I planned.

For a second I think Paul’s going to shoot me. His hatred is burning through his eyes and dripping from his mouth. You can almost smell it coming off of the guy.

“Kill me.” I say.

He smirks as if entertained by the idea of someone else experiencing inner-turmoil at the moment and raises his gun at me. “Is this the gun he shot her with?” He asks.

I nod. “Do it.”

He lowers the gun and shakes his head in apparent disgust.

“Get the hell out of here. Now. You already paid for your survival.”

“How do you know the money is actually in the car?”

“I’ll find you just as easily as he did if it’s not. And you won’t be so lucky to get shot in the face.”

Footsteps approaching cautiously from nearby.

Jacky shows himself and looks completely surprised that Paul is there with me. I enjoy the moment.

“The fuck?” Jacky asks.

Before Jacky can react, Paul closes the distance between them and lays him flat on the ground with a pistol whipping to the face.

“Jacky, I think you two have met.” I say.

And I walk in the direction where the clouds are gathered and swollen. The night was just beginning.

I hear two gunshots, one succeeding the other, cry out into the night.

visit J.D. Murray at www.lonelywords.com