chapter 5

plan

Whenever God decided to hatch my plan, he must’ve been drunk. I’ve gone from taking beatings to giving them out, and still - the colors are never too different from each other. The walls here still crawl with dirt, and that’s when I figure out why I’m here.

Chavez tells me that the reason I’m here is because a fucking idiot named Mitch was on the run from the cops. He says - through mouthfuls of a sandwich - that Mitch was carrying about $500k worth of coke in the back of the minivan, and Chavez says he was in the passenger’s seat giving his slow ass directions. The goal was to take the minivan as far as they could, or more specifically, out two states over, with stops in between. Chavez says he thought the idea was fucking stupid, but that’s besides the point. They were supposed to deliver these drugs to a location, leave the van there, and call for a cab about a few miles away from it. That’s all they had to do. It’s so easy, he could probably get his 12 year old daughter to do it.

That’s besides that. Chavez says that when he told him, "¡Gira a la izquierda, puto!", he panicked at the wheel and swerved right into me. In a panic, they both sat there with a fucked up car at a four-way intersection. Chavez says he beat the shit out of him, until Mitch’s stupid ass says to just take the guy and he’ll drive the other car to a parking lot and just leave it there. Chavez says that they’re fucked already ‘cause all traffic lights got cameras, but Mitch argues that if they just get somebody to wipe the footage, then they’re fine. And then they start arguing about that.

I tell him to get to the point.

With a mouthful of tomato, Chavez explains that my Freddy Kreuger ass looked dead as hell, but I sure was breathing, and that his boss would’ve found me interesting. He did. I was the reason they weren’t dead yet, and he explains that him beating me over the head all those times weren’t personal - just had to get his frustrations out. Plus, everything was handled.

I tell him I understand, and it’s no trouble, while I fwip the switchblade in my hand. Of course I’d get it, because if I was him, I’d do the same thing. Besides, I’m not the guy to hold grudges.

Yet I sit and I think about how it only really takes three strikes total to completely fuck someone over. I look at him as he laughs, and he’s laughing alright - when all I can see is muscle, nerves, and bone.

I wait until he’s out of the room. Then I check if I’ve got any cigarettes on me - to which I do. I check if I’ve got a lighter, with fluid, and I most certainly do. And that’s when I have an idea.

It should come with no surprise that I don’t enjoy anyone here. By no means am I stuck, not for long at least, but I am cautious - because one wrong move, and then I’m down again. So the plan is simple:

I’m burning this place until it looks like Hell.

That’s when I tell Chavez, who’s licking his fingers outside of the room, that I’m gonna go check my car and I’d be back in a few. He tells me that I’m all good with a thumbs up. I feel around my pocket for my keys. I scratch the side of my face - or what I can, with the burlap sack around my head, and I unlock the trunk.

There sits a whole lot of gas.

And I blink - and I’ve got Chavez’s wheezing body coated in gasoline. In my other hand sits a hammer.

I’m being shot at, and somehow, the adrenaline of everything makes it feel like I’m being poked with BB gun pellets.

I smash the gas can over one of their heads - I jam the gun into his mouth, I tell him to eat shit and I smash my skull into his. I elbow the other, I start beating them both - and my chest is pounding. I feel like I can’t breathe. Simultaneously, funnily enough, this is the most alive I’ve felt all my life. l’m whistling a tune to myself myself in the meantime, if you, the reader, want to sing it with me.

I'm brutalizing all these fuckin' men, and I'm bleeding like a motherfucker, but I'll be honest - I feel like the belle of the ball. I'm keeping the gas can in my hand as untouched as I can, but once a substantial amount of the place is covered in gas, well. It's time for that second part.

It's really easy to make a bomb these days, almost a bit embarrassing. Anyone can do it because there's just that much available to you - your average grocery store has almost every ingredient you need. Just a little bit of mineral oil, a little bit of dioctyl sebacate (used as plastic around some of your pills), a little bit of polyisobutylene rubber (used in your chewing gum), and a lot of RDX. Use too much, you're getting a mass of goo. Use too little, you're getting brittle nothingness. Blend it to make a rubbery paste. The key during this step is to make sure the blending process you're using doesn't heat it up - because if it does, well. Then you got a little too trigger-happy, there. From there-on, it's just covering it up, strapping whatever you fuckin' need to the top - and, you've got yourself your own homemade C4.

Or, you can just go and buy one with the right people in mind. I personally didn't.

So when I see Chavez limp, I push my boot to his shoulder, and I put my finger to my lips. I tell him, "Hold onto this for me," as I give him the bomb.

Then I hold my arms out.

And I see my childhood lights - twinkling to me again.

It's strange how easy structure is just that easy to destroy. I'm laughing - my chest feels light.

For the first time, I don't see yellow tinting the world.

The flag waves ahead of me, taunting, and I laugh -

"¡Torro, Torro!"

My horns swing downward, and I launch towards Heaven.