I can hear them comin'. The sound of their heels clicking on the cold tile. It's one of the ways I measure time in here. Click Click Click Each one is an eternity. I never knew how long forever could be.
And then they stop outside my door. The footsteps. I wonder who it'll be this time. Her? One of the nurses? Or maybe one of those gorilla type orderlies they got here? There don't seem to be any pattern to these visits. And I still can't figure out if her visits are supposed to be a reward or a punishment. Sometimes those things are one and the same.
There's a lot I ain't figured out. Like why you can never escape your past, no matter how hard you try. And why sometimes you don't even try. I ain't figured out why some deaths are harder than others. Or why livin' is so much harder to do than dyin'. And I still don't know what happened to Chris and the others.
I try not to think about 'em. Any of 'em. But all that tryin' is no better than pissin' in the wind. I think about it constantly. What I did. What I didn't do. How I've failed everyone in my life one way or another. Some might say myself, most of all.
I guess if I were to say somethin', it would be along the lines of serving more than one master at a time. You can't. There's some sort of sayin' about it, but I can't recollect exactly what it was. I just know it's true. It's why I'm here in this place. Because I forgot who my true master was and I made the mistake of thinkin' it was something I could choose. But you don't choose your master in this life. It chooses you. If you're lucky, it's a kind master. You don't hardly know it's there. If you're not lucky, well then, you wind up like me.
I started mainlinin' heroin when I was twelve. I figured if it had been good enough for Mom, then it was good enough for me. At five, I'd been too young and too stupid to know that's what she was doin' with the needle. But it didn't take me long after she died before I figured it out. She'd always seemed happy enough to me and I'd loved her. And by the time I was twelve I was sick and fucking tired of not bein' happy.
I was seventeen when he came along. He picked me up out of the gutter, dried me out enough so that smack wasn't my master anymore. He was. Then he sent me into the Army. The Rangers. Turned me into a killing machine. But it was all in a good cause. Changing the world one dead politician at a time. I believed everything he told me.
And then I met Chris and the others. And I saw how they were changin' the world in their own way. By doin' what they thought was right. Tryin' to punish the guilty. But not at the expense of the innocent. Not like I'd been taught. Been trained. And I thought maybe friendship and justice, rather than revolution and death, might make a better master. I thought wrong. No matter how many trees a dog's master lets him piss on during a walk, in the end there's still the collar and leash.
I always knew the man I thought of as my savior was a powerful man, but I'd never realized how powerful until the day he sent her to me and she gave me what I still wanted - would always want - but thought I could never have again. Once a junkie always a junkie. Couldn't prove that saying wrong by me. How could I say no to her? She made it sound so right. So reasonable. Not a big deal at all. If I'd looked closer, I would've seen the truth of it in her eyes. She's as much a slave as I am. Not to that. Not the heroin. To somethin' even worse maybe. She's got a hostage to fortune. Someone to lose. I'm just glad I never had no kids.
It was her that told me what I had to do. To prove I was still loyal to the cause. She was cryin' when she said the words. She'd always liked JD. But that didn't make no difference. The cause above all, right? Her cause was keepin' little Billy alive and well and her only crime had been to fall in love with the wrong man. One who'd been full of ideals. One who'd dabbled in causes. Causes that had killed him. Course, he couldn't help it. It ran in the family. Just look at his father.
I'd had a cause too, back in the beginning. I'd wanted life to be fair. I'd wanted to change the way things were to the way they ought to be. Guess you'd call it a lost cause. It's what my master specialized in. Lost causes can make you rich as sin if you get other people to fight them for ya.
I didn't want to kill JD. He was my friend. Sometimes I ain't even sure it wasn't all a dream. That this whole place ain't a dream. That I'll wake up in my bed in my apartment in Purgatorio and call Chris. Then I'll go drag Ez out of his bed in his hi falutin' condo and we'll drive out to Chris's ranch. Nate and Josiah will already be there and Buck and JD will wander in halfway through the bacon and eggs. Then we'll ride, all of us.
I've tried, but I haven't woken up yet.
She told me JD was getting too close to somethin' he wasn't supposed to know about. Kill him and prove my loyalty. Don't kill him and they'd all die, me included. I knew that was the truth. And with my background I counted one death far better than seven. So I made sure I was nice and hopped up on some good smack and I did it.
It was harder killin' JD than I'd thought it would be, though. Even the drugs didn't help none. And then Ezra came in. Southern bastard always did have timing. Just wasn't always good timing. I knew right then I'd made the wrong choice. But what other choice did I have? I don't know. Sometimes everything seems so clear to me and I know what I should've done. But the memory of it always fades away before I can do more than snatch at it with phantom fingers. And then I just remember that it's almost time for my next fix. And I worry that one day they'll forget. And I hope that one day they'll forget. And then I start listening for the footsteps. Which brings us full circle.
The door is opening. It's her. Mary Travis. And she has AD Travis with her. That's only happened once before. When they first brought me here. Maybe this will be the last time I hear their footsteps. Maybe it's finally time for this to be over with. I try not to get my hopes up, though. Because even death needs permission from the master before it's allowed in these hallowed halls.
I welcome the two of 'em to my little corner of hell. And then I hold out my arm and wait. I don't have to bother with tryin' to hide the marks anymore.
I close my eyes when I feel the needle. I can see so clearly now. But I know when I open my eyes, that'll vanish like a puff of smoke. Maybe this time I won't open them. Even cruel masters can sometimes be kind.
The End
