wish you had

Kale slightly remembered the obligations now. It was easy in the beginning. Knocking off liquor stores and fast food places. Taking care of business, like the time Sal got jilted with his two front gold teeth. Yeah, there was a lot of slime out there that needed to be taken care of. It was good. Really good.

1. shooting at tires.
2. fight'n with each other to see who was the strongest.
3. going the distance.

"Actually, we're pretty amazing at this," Evan had told Kale. God, Evan couldn't get that stupid grin off his face. It was as if this was better than sex.

Funny, they'd made the best friends in the bunch. If something was going down, Evan always wanted Kale with him. He had it covered. And not to say they had robbed that many banks or even created that much mayhem, still they were the best of friends.

Kale found it all so hard to believe. He came from a nice neighborhood. Good parents. He'd never wanted for anything, and he'd just joined a gang. What was it that he wanted so badly? It just was. He was part of something. And yet he always felt there was just one more thing to do to make it in. He was never sure what Sal might ask of him.

"I just don't think he likes me," Kale had said one night when he and Evan were on a run in a black sports car they'd never seen before. They were looking to find the most unlikely who might turn their lights on and off while driving on the road as a sign to beware of the cops. That was their sign to do them in. It didn't matter who they were. Just do it.

Of course, Kale always thought this was some gang myth of some kind. Perhaps an Internet hoax. But Sal was serious. All crazy-eyed. "JUST DO IT!" No questions asked. Get it done and save your ass. That simple.

"Maybe it would just be easier for you if you sucked him off." Evan had laughed about it as if it were something funny. Kale hadn't found the joke hilarious at all. It just made him dwell on spite more, and when they'd found their innocent victim that night, he'd sought the venom to take him out in just one hit. All right, he beat the old man to a pulp and then some.

Suddenly, though, Kale had found themselves somewhere else. Not of this world. But one just as cold or colder. Dark and barren on a winter's night in the middle of nowhere.

"Where did he go!" Kale looked around. It was just Evan in the car with the headlights on. "Do you think I killed him?"

"Dude, hell if I know, he was an old fucker, anyhow, probably had the same boring job forever Don't worry about it." Evan told him to get in the car.