Chapter 2: In The Morning
I awoke the next day to the feeling of knives being stabbed into my right ankle; the knives of course were actually the teeth of my 52 pound red tick hound dog. "Luara, my foot is not your chew toy!" Now let me take a second to explain something to you: there is only one thing worse then a dog chewing on your foot in the morning, and that is a very large startled dog chewing on your foot in the morning. Apparently yelling at Luara scared her awake to the point where she felt necessary to jump onto to my bed and sit on my chest panting in my face.
"Okay, I love you too, girl," I said, scratching behind Luara's ears. "Now down, girl!" I said sharply, snapping my fingers at the floor and sure enough like the well trained dog she is, she hopped down off my bed and trotted out into the kitchen and started baying for me to come and feed her. I guess that meant it's time for me to drag myself from my comfy twin size bed I didn't even bother to put sheets on. I stumbled out into hallway, grabbed the dog food and filled up Luara's bowls. At the same time, I turned on the coffee maker. While I waited for the coffee to finish being made, I grabbed the day's newspaper.
So the accident at the raceway made the front page. Seeing the scowl on my face, Luara stopped eating and nuzzled my leg that was propping me up on the counter. I scratched her head has I stared out of my kitchen window, out over the city. "What a pitiful state we're in, Luara." This city is decaying more as each day passes; it's pathetic. I was distracted from my less then happy train of thought when my cellphone buzzed on the table, where I tossed it last night before I collapsed onto my bed. I hopped off the counter and picked up my phone.
"Hello?" I said, yawning into the microphone.
"Sobe? It's good you're up; it's Shaundi."
"Shaundi, there is such a thing as caller ID, you know?"
"Yeah, I know. Anyway, I was thinking we could hang out until we know if we won or not."
"Okay, Shaundi. Where do you want to meet up?"
"Well, I actually don't have a car, so could you pick me up from my house? You do know the address, right?"
"Yeah, I remember, you told me. Okay, Shaundi, I'll pick you up about twelve-ish, okay? Bye," I said as I ended the call and slipped the phone into the pocket on my black levi jeans. I poured myself a cup of black coffee before I got ready to go.
About half an hour before twelve-ish, I took my Camaro Z28 out to get Shaundi instead of my motorcycle; I figured she would enjoy a seat in a car instead of holding on for the sake of continued existence. Jumping in, I slammed the door shut and revved the engine. Within moments, I was racing down the street, past the alleys where the drug-addicts huddled over dustbin fires, past the rundown stores where odd trinkets were aimlessly being displayed in musty windows, through the catacombs of the decaying underworld of the city.
I can't believe I live in this muck of a town.
Well, it's not exactly much of a choice to live in a rundown establishment like this. I twisted the wheel of the Camaro down the side street, leading up to the series of apartment blocks where Shaundi had told me she lived. What was her apartment number again? 14C, that was the one.
I shove my Camaro in the first available parking space and got out, shutting and locking the door rather carefully behind me, and headed up into the apartment. I took the elevator up to Level 14, the topmost floor, where the air seemed to be the stalest. Gods, what a run-down mess, I thought to myself, as I climbed out of the elevator and the strong stench of cigarette smoke greeted me. Crumpled and leaking booze cans littered the once-clean lino. It was sticky beneath my boots, and I shuddered to think who had the happy task of cleaning up here.
How can a girl as nice as Shaundi live up here? Well, Shaundi wasn't exactly the nicest of all girls that I could hope to meet, but she was okay.
I came up to the door. 14C, it declared in scratched and peeling letters. Charming.
I knocked lightly on the door, and almost at once a feminine voice called out, "Who is it?"
"Who do you think it is?" I inquired.
"Oh, Sobe, thank God it's you." I heard the lock to the door handle shift and click, and then the door was flung open, and a hand grabbed the front of my shirt and pulled me insistently into the room.
"Make yourself comfortable," invited Shaundi, shutting the door behind me.
I stared. Her apartment was nothing like the interior of the corridors outside. The carpet was clean, not sticky, and smelled as though it was vacuumed regularly. The window was flung wide open, and fresh air (that's something new to this place) came flooding into the apartment. What I recognized to be a genuine leather sofa, facing a wide-screen Plasma TV, sat in the centre of the room. A table was set up just beneath the open window. The walls were painted pink.
"Nice place," I said feebly. If she saw the state of mine...
"Yeah, let's just say that I'm sort of rich," grinned Shaundi, as she threw herself casually onto the sofa.
"You never told me you were rich," I said to her, not moving from my place, resisting to go back to my apartment and wash my hair. I was partially afraid that, though it were a proven fact it was physically impossible, mushrooms were growing amongst the follicles.
Shaundi shrugged. "You didn't need to know, and I didn't need to say," she said simply.
"No, I mean, if you're so bloody rich, then why don't you go and get yourself a proper house - hell, a mansion?" I asked incredulously. "Instead of living in a dump of an apartment building? And betting on the lottery? I mean, what's the point? You've already got enough wealth to last you comfortably for the rest of your life."
"Hell, I don't want to be a pampered pet," snapped Shaundi.
I shrugged. "I wouldn't mind."
"Is that a hopeful glance my way?" Shaundi cocked an eyebrow. "Well, tough luck, boozer, you'll have to try your luck with another rich gal."
I sighed wearily. "I thought I was to take you out someplace?"
"Yes, you are." Shaundi picked herself up off the luxurious sofa. "Let me - "
Whatever she had been about to say next was lost when the door suddenly banged open.
And in the doorway stood the ugliest, most pathetic man I had ever seen in my life. His hair looked worse than mine, stains were all over his saggy grey shirt, his face was unshaven and there was something that looked suspiciously like vomit on his trouser leg. The smell that was coming from him was enough to make a cat sick.
"Honey...I'm home..." he slurred, half-raising a booze bottle to his lips.
" 'Honey'?" I repeated.
The man started, hearing my voice, and he turned unfocused, angry eyes onto me. "Who the 'ell is he?" he grunted, slopping beer all over the nice-smelling carpet.
"A friend, David," said Shaundi quickly, and I saw that her face looked wretched. "Look, this is - "
"I don't care who the 'ell 'e is, I want 'im out!" bellowed the drunk, angrily taking a step forward. "You've no right to be comin' into my apartment and harassing my wife!"
"Wife?" I raised an eyebrow at Shaundi.
"No, girlfriend," said Shaundi patiently. "Sobe, this is David. He's..."
"Your boyfriend," I finished in disgust. "And I thought that worms lived underground."
Maybe the idiot didn't understand. Or maybe it just took a long time for him to process what I said. In any case, he lurched unsteadily forward and jabbed his finger roughly into my chest. "Get out, you," he grunted, and the smell of stale beer washed over my face, as powerful as chloroform.
I roughly pushed his arm away and crossed my arms over my chest. "No."
I'm not sure what I'm doing now. But all I knew was that I was angry. Angrier than I had ever been in my life.
And perhaps my anger cleared the twerp's head, because he suddenly seemed to become deathly sane.
"What did you say, boy?" he growled.
"No," I repeated fearlessly.
Shaundi looked anxiously between me and her 'boyfriend'. "David - " she began.
"Shut it, Shaun!" snapped the drunk, pushing her away. He turned his attention back to me, and purposefully, he dropped the beer bottle, and all the slop within it came spilling out onto the carpet. "Now, listen, you - "
"No, you listen," I snarled. "You piss off right here and now, and I'm not going to make you eat your own teeth."
Wrong thing to say. The drunk lurched forward, and struck me a numbing blow across the head. I heard Shaundi yell in panic. I staggered backwards into the table. The lunatic was immediately on me again, but this time, I rolled, and he slammed his fist into the table.
Either this guy was a previous wrestler, or he was just insanely strong. The table buckled and splintered under the blow. I was privately relieved that my head hadn't been in the way. He'd have scrambled my brains.
"Stop it, David!" Shaundi screamed.
I lashed out, and kicked this guy right in his bloated chest. He grunted in surprise and fell backwards. Straight into a chair. And he broke it under his weight.
He sat up amidst the splintered pieces and grabbed one of the broken chair legs. Okay, this was now beginning to get serious. I flicked my eyes around for a suitable weapon.
The drunk jumped at me, randomly swinging the chair leg. I ducked, just in time. The chair leg smashed a hole in the wall.
This guy was demolishing the apartment. I picked myself off the ground and was nearly struck by the splintered chair leg. As I sped across the apartment, heading towards what looked to be a suitable defense weapon - a hatstand - I heard the drunk let out a gurgling roar. I looked over my shoulder to see the drunk randomly fling the chair leg. He was a really bad throw. It spun across the room and slammed into the corner of the TV set, which promptly fell off the wall and landed heavily on the ground. I heard the screen crack.
Okay, this was just getting ridiculous. I came here to take Shaundi out for the afternoon, not to end up demolishing her apartment with a raging drunk bull of a boyfriend. I clenched my hands into fists, and approached the boyfriend.
"Sobe, don't - " began Shaundi.
But as the drunk rather stupidly lifted his fists, and started trying to do one of those boxer-shuffles they do in the arenas, mumbling drunkenly, "Come on, whatcha got, whatcha got..."
Here's what I got. I slogged him full in the face.
And then he was on the ground, out cold. Instant KO.
I lowered my hand and stared at him, thinking that there really couldn't be someone more pathetic of a guy for Shaundi to hang out with.
"Ah...sorry about your apartment," I said to Shaundi, who was just standing speechless nearby.
She waved her hand dismissively. "Doesn't matter. I can easily repair and buy new stuff. And I'm sorry about David. He's...an aggressive-drunk."
"I noticed," I said, feeling the bruise on my jaw begin to rise. "Now that that's out of the way, what did we want to do again?"
"Go out." Shaundi looked relieved.
"And not come back here," I said to her.
She looked up in surprise. "What do you mean? This place is my home."
"I don't care. You're getting away from that idiot," I said firmly to her, giving the said man a rough kick in the ribs. "I can't even believe you're stupid enough to go out with this 'David' character."
Shaundi shook her head. "He's a pretty odd bloke. I ask that question myself a lot. But I can't leave. If we win, I'll be able to."
"Win? You could leave now. You've got a hell of money."
"Yeah, but...it's complicated," said Shaundi.
I didn't argue. I had long learned from futile attempts with my own mother as an angry adolescent that arguing with women was pointless, they always seemed to get their way in the end. "So where do you want to go?" I asked her, as she and I left the apartment.
"There's a new burger place opening up in Downtown," said Shaundi. "Ray Robertson Junior's. I hear they have jazz."
Good lord. A woman who liked burgers and jazz.
But I didn't argue with her. It'd be futile.
Ok y'all that's it for this chapter witch by the way would not have happened this year if not for ShoutFinder who helped me come up with the idea the wrote out this chapter twice, give her a round of applause everyone she earned it.
Sobe Out