we slowly sink, with no surprise

[sorry this is taking so long. and excuse the weird title. its from the song that sparked my inspiration to write. i hope this is okay. :\ im a bit of a mess right now and yeah. enjoy?]

I’m just a driver.

The thought keeps drifting through my head like a broken record, over and over and over. It’s starting to drive me mad, but I’m not sure what to do. I throw my head back against the cement wall and stare at the ceiling (with its leaky ceiling and single, flickering light), fingers clenched into tight, neat little fists, and instead of thinking about a way out of this, all I can think about is how unfair it all is. I’m just a fucking driver, I spent all my life driving taxis. When I got the job chauffeuring for Mr. Gallo, I just figured it was a step up in the right direction. Then again, perhaps I should have questioned the job a little more; my cousin was the one who found it for me, and God only knows how sketchy he can be. Too late now, though. Now I’m stuck here and all I can think is:

I’m just a driver. Just a normal Joe. I’ve never even held a gun. Why me?

I stare around the room, and its emptiness makes me feel even more confused, even more pitiful. I pull my legs up under my chin and hug myself, watching the door on the other side of the room. There’s a man on the other side, probably older then me (and I’m sure he’s done more then just hold a gun, a lot more) and he’s the reason I’m here. Not here like ‘stuck living in a shitty apartment down town, driving a mobster around and going home every night smelling like old cigar smoke’ stuck, but stuck here like ‘held hostage in a dank, smelly cold room’ stuck. With a sniff (I get a runny nose when I’m stressed), I’m yet again reminded of just how ‘smelly’ this place it. It reminds me of my grandmothers house, back when I was little. Musty, dusty and definitely moldy. I shudder and press my nose against my shirt sleeve, sleepy eyes continuing to stare obsessively at that door.

I keep imagining that Mr. Gallo and some of his big, all-muscle-no-brains hired hands are going to come bursting in, guns blazing, and save my scrawny, sorry ass. But so far, it’s been little more then a dream. The guy who brought me here (in my own damn car, too) has barely come in. Mainly he’s just left me alone. Scared and cold, sure, but definitely alone.

Which leaves me with more time to reflect on the whole ‘how could this have happened to me’ thing. And while I try to make it sound like it isn’t fair and shouldn’t happen to me, I figure that working for a mobster probably comes with these kinds of problems. I close my eyes slowly, because I keep thinking that, at any moment, he’s gunna come back. I don’t want to have my eyes closed when he comes back. That man is creepy with a capital ‘C’. But my eyes are heavy from stress and lack of proper sleep, so in the end I close them and just, kind of, drift back in my memories.

It was warmer during the day, and when I woke up my coffee was a little too strong and my toast a little too burnt. It was definitely, at the time, a normal day (I never could make proper coffee). I put on my -new- suit that Mr. Gallo insisted I get, because he didn’t want everyone to see that his driver was a ‘scraggly little bastard’ (so affectionate, that Mr. Gallo) and grabbed the keys to my ‘business car’ (yet another thing Mr. Gallo bought and insisted I use) before heading to work.

Work used to be smelly, sweaty business men and overly perfumed women with scarecrow bodies crammed in the back of a yellow taxi, but for the last couple of months (since I started working for Mr. G. ) it had been fine ladies with handsome faces, men that are questionably more tank then human and Mr. Gallo with his nasty cigars. As I drove to work, I had thought over how pleasant a change it was. No more rude insults, just lots of laughter or music (for when Mr. Gallo needed to talk business). Nothing ever felt serious in Mr. Gallo’s car, even when his men came in smelling of copper and using their neat little handkerchiefs to wipe off their hands and faces. I would look my self in the mirror at every stop light and say, “Jamie, you lucky bastard, you.” And then I’d smirk, trying to make my brown eyes look more aloof and cocky and less like those of an twenty-three year old loser, or I’d push my hair away from my face, or ruffle it until stringy blond strands hang every which way and shake my head.

Okay, so maybe I’ve got a bit of an ego, and I’m overly proud, but after getting paid in change and shitty taxed checks for so long, a nice roll of hundreds tucked neatly into my breast pocket just makes my inner child jump for joy. I talk to my self a little when I’m proud about something.

At Mr. Gallo’s, there was a huge fuss. I had come in, and was nearly run over by Tommy, Mr. G’s closest friend. The slim, dark-eyed man was rushing about the house, yelling at his subordinates, who were watching me from the sitting room. I think I remember one of them picking their teeth with a knife. Either way, I had moved from the door way because they wouldn’t stop staring (and I hadn’t had enough coffee to deal with their antics yet) and was heading towards Mr. Gallo’s rooms when Marsha, his wife, had informed me that I wouldn’t be taking Mr. G to the party. Something about me taking some of his friends while he rode with her in their personal car. I’d just stood there with my mouth open, because not once since I started working here had Mr. G ever driven himself any where. It was just plain weird.

The rest of the time I spent sitting awkwardly in the living room with those knife-in-tooth men and wishing I could just sink into the floor.

When it came time to drive, Mr. G did indeed drive his own car with Marsha, and I took two ugly mugs in the business car.

The first guy was a fat man in a suit made for someone two or three sizes smaller then himself, and he smoked these little cigarettes that disappeared between his sausage fingers. They smelled like bad weed and old beer, but I didn’t complain (you just don’t complain to a man who could eat you in one bite). He could’ve smoke baby kittens and I would be just fine, as long as he didn’t attempt to talk to me.

The other man was more like a hawk then a man. His eyes were sharp and shifted constantly from left to right. He had a beak for a nose and lips that seemed to lack proper form or shape, just a jagged line across hi narrow face. With eye cheek bones and a pointy chin, he was far more dangerous looking then the fat man, and I attempted to stay on his good side by keeping my mouth shut.


The two of them didn’t seem very important, and would barely talk to me, preferring, instead, to talk amongst themselves while I drove.

The party ended up being sub-par. A bunch of pretty faces that drifted past me, lost in their own little worlds while I drank fruit punch and nibbled on crackers. Mr. G was visiting with some older men and Marsha was off with one of her friends; I just sat off to the side, watching and wondering when it would be over. I ended up waiting until there was no one left. My boss was laughing loosely by the time he left, and his wife was hanging off his arm, her legs barely useful after all she drank. I waved at them when Mr. G insured me he could drive, and I prayed he was correct (I didn’t want to be out of a job) before heading to my own car.

I never really understood that feeling. The one people constantly try to explain, where you can feel eyes bore into you; like someone is watching you constantly. Well, I truly never understood until I left that party. The whole drive home, I kept glancing over my shoulder, but never saw anything. Sometimes I swore I heard breathing, and other times I was certain that I saw someone in the review mirror. It never occurred to me that I should look in the back seat.

That was a dumb move.

I had felt the cold metal even before it touched my scalp, and by the time he said ‘Don’t move’ I had already started pulling all my money and possession out of my pockets. I was babbling like a nervous baby and he just sat there, with a gun to my head, listening. Then he asked why he shouldn’t kill me. It was like someone threw a monkey-wrench in my brain. I couldn’t say anything, I just sat there with my hands in the air, opening and shutting my mouth like a fish. Then he did something and the gun clicked. The next bullet had my name on it, and I could tell he was serious. So I said the first thing that came to mind.

“Mr. Gallo is my boss.”

He knew that, I knew he knew that. But I could tell he was thinking now, and not because the gun was gone, but because the silence seemed to grow in pressure. Then he grunted and pushed the gun back against my head and said one word.

“Drive.”

So I drove, and drove and drove some more. I drove until my foot felt like it was going to fall off and my low fuel symbol blinked furiously at me, and then he told me to stop.

Everything from there went blank, and I woke up in this room. This smelly, moldy little room.

I hear a clank, as if a car door is opening not far away from here , and I stumble to my feet, blinking the sleep from my eyes. I hear people laughing and I swallow my fear, glance at the door, and then rush to the only window. It’s a nasty little thing with foggy glass and yellow tinge, but I’m sure someone would see me if I scream loud enough. So I start screaming. I scream till my lungs are burning and I bang my fists against the glass, which shudders under each impact. I see them, little ant-people a couple stories down on the ground level, and I call them every dirty name in the book. I tell them I’m dying, that I need them to call 911, and they just walk on, oblivious. I pound on the glass until my arms burn and my fists feel like they’re bruising from the impact.

Then I cry, giant hiccupping sobs, as I slide down the wall and pull my legs back up to my chest. I’m just a driver, why does this have to happen to me? I tug on my hair and slowly catch my breath before the panic settles in. I’m going to die here, aren’t I? He’s just going to kill me in the end and there’s nothing I can do to change that.

“You mother fucker,” I whisper, tugging on my stringy hair, and then I scream it again at the top of my lungs.

“MOTHER FUCKER.”

I’m just a driver.

Last thing I remember about a few nights ago was a fist. A large hairy fist coming at me and crashing into my skull. There were more fists after that one but with the force behind that one, I was already out on the floor. I woke up later with bruises caked on my skin like make up, blood drooling from cuts drawn over my face. The bitter taste of blood filled my mouth, almost choking me as I shivered myself awake. I found the ground to be the one they allowed me to get friendly with before, they knocked me out and left me there. Expecting more from them would have been something stupid.

Dragging myself up, I spat out the rest of the blood in my mouth. Dirt and grime from the floor settled in the new creases in my suit, I did my best to clean myself up. From the conditions as they were, it wasn't much. Carrying a limp with me, I crawled out of the dirty room and fell out into the throng of the crowd marching on the sidewalks. I caught the looks on different faces, I'm sure that the blood and the limp wasn't something to be seen everyday. However, as they turned away and forgot about me - it wasn't something that would cause the kindness left in them to help.

I made a mistake. That was all I did but making mistakes in my line of work is just something you can not do. The beating of the night before was the physically way to showing that I had been demoted. The cuts and bruises a reminder of what I did and why I shouldn't do it again. The fact that I was still alive only gave out the fact that I had one more chance to prove that I wasn't just a big mistake myself. By the time I swerved into a gas station's bathroom, I already had the idea pulsing in my head.

Looking into the mirror, I almost wanted to punch myself. I had the face of someone who couldn't do their fucking job. Swallowing the sour bathroom air, I scrubbed silently at the cuts and bruises that littered my face like strings of candy. My nose was crusted with the dirty blood, my eye throbbing with pain and swelling over my cheeks. My hair was even darker than it's normal dark brown with dirt and sweat. I took a few moments to glare at the person in the mirror, the failure who had the guts to back at me. After I had enough of myself, I quickly hurried away - showing the door no mercy.

"Where are you?" My voice surprised me, it was crackly and old. I thought little about it as the phone woke up with another voice. It was too fuzzy for me to get an actual word out of it. I waited until it finished buzzing for me to snap something to the guy on the other side. "I don't care what the fuck you're doing, come and get me. What? Oh, sixty-eighth." Turning the phone off, I slumped into the hard back of the wooden benches. It did not take long for the voice to become a person with my car ready for me. I hurried to get it, giving the command for him to step on it and away we went leaving the dry dusty lines of traffic to the others.

"What happened to ya?" My driver asked as he rounded several corners. I didn't have to answer him and I didn't, just telling him that he needed to mind his own fucking business. I got out of the car just as he pulled into a parking position, limping my way to the current area of living. The room was lit with the dim glow of the lamp I left on before leaving, it was comforting and soft and onto the bed I fell.

It was dark again when I got up. The screech of tires and different languages woke me up which I found much better than blood or pain. I had but a few moments as my clock told me and after hurrying to get dressed - I booked it down stairs to my car and driver and away we sped off. He was quiet most of the way there until the gun came out of it's holster. I could feel the nerves he had, his eyes glancing to the metal and copper in my hands.

"What's that for?" He asked but the 'what' was really a 'who'.

"Business." I replied shortly and called for him to drop me off only a few sidewalks away from the showdown in a fancy building. He screeched as he pulled away and zoomed down the busy way of traffic. I shoved the gun back into it's place, pulling my jacket over it and doing my best to hide the limp in my leg as I went to the extravagant party and made way for my 'redemption'.

Sometimes, however, Life just likes to pull your leg.

He was a driver.
A fucking driver, not at all who I wanted to be on the other end of the gun. He sounded like an idiot, babbling about whatever came to mind but not bothering to make it cohesive. My question was very simple but apparently he couldn't do simple without a little push and into his skull, I pressed the gun deeper.

"Mr. Gallo is my boss."

Maybe but he still wasn't Gallo. It was Gallo that I need on the barrel end of the gun. Not a scared shitless driver. Still, he might prove useful to me in one way or another. I told him to drive and he did, pressing the gas down and he kept going until the order came for him to stop. With the edge of my gun, my frustration came over on the top of his head and with the help of my driver, I drug him up the stairs into the barely used cubbyholes. Of course they were large enough to be called room but they were disgusting pig pens.

We tossed him into a room and I left.

Looking into the mirror this morning, the swelling had gone down but the black eye still left it's mark. A few smudges of make up and I would have looked good as new but I wasn't the kind of guy to hide scars. The black eye would vanish in a few days, this wasn't the first one I had. Reaching into my jacket, I feel the cold metal of the gun. A smile here and a limp there, I went up the rusty stairs of the cubby building. The smelly dank rooms where I last left the driver. I hoped that since he was awake, I might get something more that baby talk from him.

The language of cursing was not new, at all, to my ears but to hear it from someone like the driver was new. The old knob twisted open and with the shove on the door, I entered. He was on the floor like an upset child, crying to himself as the fact that I wasn't about to let him go settled in. I waited there in the doorway as he grew silent and with a bang, I closed us both in.

In the corner of the room, there was an old cot and a bucket. A small stool rotted beside the cot and the disgusting smell of mold filled the room. It was not the ideal living place but he wasn't about to keep on living unless he gave me what I was looking for. I cocked the gun to get his attention and pointed the barrel at his forehead. One good shot and he could be out.

"Gallo's your boss, so you know where he would be right now wouldn't you?"