Shelton Family Saga

Chapter 64

Alex Callie, 2021 - 74 yrs old

I am uncertain how far the jet descended down before it leveled out and we were flying in a solid straight flight pattern again. Although, it was nighttime, the city lights were way too close. We were still shooting through the sky; but, at a dangerously low elevation. At first I thought it was the stars I was seeing, until I realized our jet was actually upside down. I looked over toward my brother Juntas; he was out cold, sleeping like a baby; so, I looked over in Lenka's direction, but he wasn't there. I looked around the cabin space thinking maybe the turbulence had uprooted him from his seat, but still no Lenka. The noise level was atrocious and the atmosphere was cold as ice. Still, I yelled up to the pilot, "Hey man, we're missing a passenger!" No response. Unbuckling my seatbelt, I was forcefully thrust toward the pilots chair landing hard on the ceiling as we were still flying upside down. My whole body began to pang; but, that's when I realized what was going on. To confirm my suspicion, I hoisted myself up on my knees as best as I could and tried with all my might to crawl to the cockpit, but, the gravitational pressure immobilized me making it nearly impossible to continue; so, I laid down an stretched my body as far forward as I could, craning my neck in the process to see up ahead of me. Sure enough, just as I thought, we had been ghosted. Lenka and the pilot had both flown the coop, literally. The door they parachuted from, closer to the back of the jet, was still open which is why it was so frigid inside. Again, looking over in Juntas direction he was still sleeping. He had a gallon of whisky that was half empty tucked in the seat beside him underneath the seatbelt. I hoped he hadn't drank all that, cause he was probably dead if so; but, as I inched my aching body across the ceiling getting closer to him, I could see his chest slightly rising and falling. Although I had to concentrate with an intense stare at him, I was able to make out he was still alive and breathing. Or maybe, I was just hallucinating, seeing how we were still torpedoing through the sky inverted at dangerously low elevation and break neck speed. Whatever the case, I had to get to my brother Juntas who was upside down and still buckled into his seat. I started.....

SPLOOSH!

There we went spiraling though the water. I went tumbling again, this time hitting my head. I remember the water forcefully rushing inside my head, through my nose and I started to gag. Then I blacked out.

*****

By the time I came to, I didn't know where I was, what happened or who the uniformed people around me were. Were they cops? It seemed like they were, but they were trying to help. They were extremely organized and worked in unison with one another. It wasn't until many hours later I realized they were military personnel, U.S. Coast Guard to be exact. They had all kinds of questions, firing them off in rapid succession. They wanted to know my name, how old I was, what my country of citizenship was along with my country of origin from traveling. Once I mentioned I was traveling abroad for leisure, they asked about my passport and who I knew overseas. A brief mention of Lenka and that wrapped up everything. Next thing I knew, I was surrounded by federal Marshalls and in handcuffs, which brings me to ten years ago. They had arraigned Juntas on some bullshit racketeering charges, but because he had a team of attorneys on standby, they had to turn him loose, and he left the country with Aniya choosing to vacation in The Maldives; so they moved on to the next convenient thing, which was me. Of course they waited until Juntas was long gone on his vacation, otherwise he'd have been right there making certain I was set free, too. I ended up in the federal penitentiary and was there for eight months before I bumped into none other than Lenka. I didn't even get a chance to talk to him before they shipped him out to some maximum security place, while I remained in medium custody. I met quite a many interesting fellas in that place. All of them were well to do high society figures connected to some of the world's most infamous scandals; and, undoubtedly, they all had the same story. They were just hustling hard in an effort to live a successful life. They'd all done something on a grand scale that warranted them a regrettable fate. The way in which it was all done, the scheming, smuggling, embezzling, was all in different manners, but the same ol' way. A way that had been ingrained in all of us over the course of the years throughout our lifetime. It was a way that had been emphasized as the ideal dream for anyone and everyone wanting to be deemed successful in their life. It was the way so many of us spend our days, superficially chasing the good life. It was none other than, the American way.