Shoes On A Wire

Stella

It hurt so much to see him. I wanted to take him in my arms and tell him I was sorry for being scared and that I wanted hjm back. But the way he spat my name out like it was poison made me realise he hated me.

With good reason.
I left him all alone in new york

I was scared and weak and couldnt handle it.

Or at least thats what I had to tell him. The ball of Pain that was in my stomach was snowballng as I opened my car door. The scene of me telling Grant as he was getting stitched up from his gun wounds years ago.

"Im sorry I love you and I cant do this because you could have died" I say this in machine gun english because im crying and I never cry. The worst part was not saying it. It was watching him hear it.

Process the words and reject them with a boyish shake of his head. His forehead wrinkles in pain as he tries to catch my eye but I cant lie to him. He is to good to look in the eye and lie to.

"Stella what is going on"

"Oh god"

"Stella dont do this I love you"

And that was when I left the hospital room to hear him struggle against a nurse that came in and told him to calm down before she called security.

Grant was always a big kid. Towering 6'5 complete with broad shoulders and a scar that made bouncers nervous but he was just a really big kid with a heart of god damn gold. And he's kind oh god he has a really big heart that is simultaneously gold and I dont know how he can carry something that big and heavy and... metallic?

I dont deserve him. Never did.

I look through my purse for a cigarette at a red light. Strange for the first time Im grateful for the traffic that buys me some time to root around my bag. Searching amongst old lipsticks and gum packages without gum in them. Yahtzee found the damn things.

Grant wouldve told me to stop killing myself. I wouldve told him to shove his kale smoothie up his ass. I have my fair share of flaws. But Grant was so good at making me forget that flaws exist.

You dont exactly think about winter when you're on the beach. Oh god I'm in the poetic stage of the breakup. How unfortunate.

I blow out a bit of smoke and relax into my super old Subaru. Ironically nick-named "super new" ...

By Grant. Gosh Im just a broken record.

A good coping mechanism was to immerse myself in work and try not to think about brushing the hair away from his eyes.

I remind myself that Grant is why Im going through with this whole ordeal. When Grant was finally released from the mafia I got a phonecall that said if I ever talked to Grant again he would die. And if I ever told anyone about this call I would too. I recognized the voice.

God damn Marcello. Normally someone would be scared out of their mind but I was just angry- No furious. Seething with a rage so cold it burned. But I used this as fuel. I'm going to take down Marcello. I couldn't do it in New York, too many prying eyes, too many connections, I have to start at the roots , the new era al capones of Chicago. And the research I've collected is a little unsettling. So many corrupt cops. And it all starts here in the Windy City .

The thing about the drugs is that long ago when they were introduced by the fbi into the black ghettos to sort of destroy them from the inside out, it back fired on them. They thrived by making heroin and cocaine a hot commodity and the cash flow of the business was enormous. Literally an addictive product, a corporations dream. It's not the problem of finding out who has the drugs. Everyone knows. It's the problem of shutting it down. You bust one place another two grow in their spot. Like that dragon with a bunch of heads.