Severance Package

Fiction by Virgo Kevonté

I was dabbing antiseptic on the side of LaShauna’s head when I heard a knock on the bedroom door. It was her mother. She’d bought some chips and juice from the liquor store down the street and asked if she could bring them in. As she spoke, I could feel her daughter’s eyes on me in a gaze both pleading and indifferent.

“If you enter this room,” I said toward the direction of the door, “you’ll contaminate our operating space.”

The mother gasped, stuttered through an apology, and told me that she’d leave everything on the living room coffee table. 

In actuality, “skill ripping” isn’t nearly invasive enough to be compromised by an open door, but I couldn’t have a ClientOne’s mother gawking at the bedroom-turned operating room. My connect, Tom, told me years ago that my makeshift OR looked “less like a family photographer’s studio and more like a serial killer’s workshop.” Although Tom and I argued often, he wasn’t wrong. LED lights propped up in every corner gave the room an eerie, sterilized feeling. Various scalpels lay in an unrolled pack on a tray next to me. White sheets covered every inch of furniture as well as the appropriated dinner table on which my current ClientOne lies. In those surroundings, the sight of a six-foot-one, two-hundred-pound man in a surgical mask holding a bone drill would give any parent doubts about the procedure. 

A couple of blocks away, a police siren blared. I knew they weren’t for me, but it still gave me a scare. The nightly news declared skill rippers such as myself as “the most dangerous threat to public safety” on a weekly basis–as if we were the ones running around Oakland shooting twenty-two-year-olds on metro platforms and freezing kids in detention centers.

“They’re probably for the shooting last night,” LaShauna said, referring to the sirens.

She sat up, threads of her worn jeans stretched against her knees as she pulled them to her chest. 

 “It was right here, but we were at Bible Study,” she said. “You been to Greater Light Ministries on 75th?”

“Can’t say I have,” I said. “Lie back down for me?”

LaShauna complied but continued prattling about the shooting. She’d been a jittery mess ever since she’d seen the syringe I’d use to administer the local anesthesia. All that rambling certainly wasn’t to educate me. My brother and I were from the roughest part of Fruitvale, a mere fifteen-minute drive from LaShauna’s apartment complex. “Fruitvale” was the most dangerous misnomer in my vocabulary; there was nothing sweet about a place where many store clerks kept a loaded pump-action shotgun under the counter, a place where the lead poisoning rate for children was five times the average for white kids up in the Oakland hills.

I was searching around for my bone drill when LaShauna asked if we’d finished the skill rip. I turned around and stared at her. Her naive questions, the expressive eyes, her skinny frame, inability to lie still, there was no way she was anywhere near the age Tom had told me. Indignation burned so hot inside my chest I began to perspire. Even in illegal markets, there are some lines that shouldn’t be crossed. 

With my best manufactured smile, I explained to LaShauna that since no single part of the brain is alone responsible for music creation, her procedure would be longer than the usual basketball or boxing rip—a lot longer. 

“We still get the full four stacks, though, right?”

I nodded. “I counted the money myself.”

By then, I had lugged the NFH machine out of its case and was calibrating it on the nightstand beside me. This lithium battery-powered amalgamation of circuitry and synthetic brain matter processed neurological information at quantum computing speeds. It could store neurological content five times the duration of its predecessors: that’s a whopping twelve hours before necrosis. With the NFH, I could rip a virtuoso pianist in New York City before breakfast and enjoy a private rooftop concert in Oakland by the skill’s recipient, or ClientTwo, just after dinner.

Once I hooked LaShauna up to the NFH, I slid the portable fMRI— another heinously expensive machine the size and shape of a lampshade— over her head and latched it closed. I connected more wires from the fMRI shade to the NFH until the room looked like it was being prepped for an intimate rock concert.

“Sing Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” I said, swiping open the brain mapping application on my tablet. 

“What?”

“Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” I repeated. “Just the first part of the chorus.”

LaShauna’s deep contralto voice breathed a maturity I hadn’t thought possible for such a light-hearted tune. Tom had been wrong about her age and level of talent: LaShauna wasn’t just talented; she had the kind of voice that could define a whole generation of singers. And here I was, yet again, ripping an invaluable skill for a ClientTwo who probably only wanted it to entertain at cocktail parties and for bragging rites. I tucked the morality of the procedure under the mental pictures of bills on my nightstand at home.

On my tablet, the map of LaShauna’s brain, initially dark blue with inactivity, began warming in several regions. Unfortunately, the auditory cortex, which tracks pitch and volume, was still a frigid indigo. We worked through several jingles, riffs, and ditties until the necessary brain regions were red. 

“Great, now a song you love. I heard you love 90’s R&B.” I swiped up a new rendering model of her brain on the tablet. “How about some Whitney Houston or Brandy? Something you know well.”

Her voice and song choice worked like magic, mentally transporting me to my earliest childhood memories long before I’d dropped out of med school, before the incident that would leave my brother with severely limited mobility and a permanent scowl. Before life had stopped pulling its punches. I winked the tears away.

When I was sure my voice wasn’t going to waver, I told LaShauna that her brain was fully mapped and primed for skill transfer.

“We just need one full song,” I said. “Any song.”

This would be the last song LaShauna would ever truly sing. Post-procedure, she’d remember song lyrics, but perfect pitch, tone control, her vibrato—even her ability to tap her foot with a song’s syncopated elements—would be gone. The procedure would destroy the neurological connections she’d relied on to perform those actions as it had been copied to the NFH.

“LaShauna?”

No response came from the fMRI hat.  I’d seen it before: aspiring boxers melting into a sniveling mess. Local hoop stars, aware that they’d sold their only source of respect, were reduced to stammering basketcases. 

“I—I want to speak with my mom first,” she said.

“It’s too late for that,” I said softly.

When no song came, I prodded.

“Look, we’ve already synced with the synthetic brain device. If we halt the procedure now, the intracranial pressure from the reversing tide of cerebral fluid could damage your language centers— you might never be able to speak again.”

Actually, neural scarring, aphasia, and everything else the nightly news loved to scare grandmothers with were far more common for repeat ClientOnes: people talented and desperate enough to be skill-ripped twice. I hated myself for lying to LaShauna, but I had no choice. The ripping industry was filled with powerful players and movers, the kinds of people you don’t tell no without a plane ticket in your pocket or witness protection. Nonetheless, the lie served its purpose. Soon, a haunting acapella filled the room with the lyrics of a Marvin Gaye song I’d heard a thousand times.

I moved from screen to screen, adjusting markers as needed, keeping the sync stable, and sliding digital markers open and closed. In a way, I was creating my own harmony between the NFH and LaShauna, altering the cadences of neurotransmitters and migrating cerebrospinal fluid.

Nonetheless, the irony of her music selection wasn’t lost on me. Like LaShauna, Marvin Gaye was born in housing projects and had honed his musical talents in the church. Fun fact: a mere eleven hours before his forty-fifth birthday, a Los Angeles hospital pronounced the soul crooner dead. Here I was, in the same state, no less, snuffing out talent prematurely. 

I’d tell myself my usual rationalizations. That “a deal was a deal.” That I had a reputation and a brother to look after—none of it made me feel any better.

After I finished the procedure, I left Tom a voice recording. 

“Of all the bullshit you’ve pulled,” I growled into the phone, “lying about a ClientOne’s age is just…” I stared at the table where LaShauna had been moments earlier, trying to coalesce raw indignation into words. I failed, though probably for the better. I’d already said too much for a recorded phone conversation anyway.

“So, as of today, I’m done, Tom,” I said. “Do you hear me? ‘Reg the Ripper’ is cashing out.”

#

At home, in the shower, I stood under jets of hot water until my fingers pruned. The bathroom air was thick with humidity and the acid rap playing from my phone. LaShauna’s face remained in my mind in a kind of guilt montage of ClientOnes I’d ripped over the years. These procedures had cost me my self-respect and the respect of my kid brother.

“You’re no different from these white folk out here exploiting the hood,” he’d said. “Dad taught you better.”

The comment stung, but Fredrick never had much respect for anyone to begin with. The family had thought he was determined to show life as much contempt as it had shown us. He’d always been a contrarian, but he’d gotten worse after his incident. Nonetheless, when he discovered I’d resorted to ripping to pay bills, our daily conversations went from elusive to extinct.

After I’d dressed, I returned to the living room. Fredrick was playing some first-person shooter, a bag of potato chips in his lap. I tapped Fredrick’s shoulder and motioned for him to take his headphones off. He slipped one headphone from his ear but didn’t angle his wheelchair toward me.

“I just wanted you to know that I’ve decided to stop ripping,” I said over the sound of controller buttons clicking. I hesitated before adding, “for good.” 

I expected his stone-faced expression to break into a smile or even a smug “it’s about time” jab. A hostile silence followed before Fredrick blinked slowly and sighed.

“Anything else?”

“Anything else?” I echoed. “I thought you’d be ecstatic. I’m done ripping. You’re always going on about starting classes in D.C. This is your chance.”

“Yeah, well, you talk about quitting every month, but you don’t really do it.”

That was no language to use toward the guy paying the rent for the two-hundred-square-foot luxury apartment where we lived, but I let it go. I told him that he was mistaken.

“Please,” Fredrick said haughtily, “You don’t follow through on anything. I’ve got friends with alcoholic stepdads more reliable than you—”

“Oh?” I said, feigning surprise. “Am I supposed to believe that you have friends now?”

Fredrick dropped the controller in his lap. Jaw set, he pivoted his wheelchair toward me. I don’t remember the argument that followed, but I do remember slamming the front door and cursing loudly in the elevator headed down to the lobby of the apartment building.

Even though I’d just showered, I took off jogging. It was a typical December night in Oakland, with brisk air and thick clouds obstructing the moon. The city swelled around me in squealing brakes and glowing store lights. After twenty minutes of jogging, I doubled over, exhausted. MacArthur Freeway roared in my ears like I was listening to ocean waves in a conch. I’d stopped on International Boulevard, the street I’d grown up calling East 14th.

Though few people know it, the Black Panther Party Headquarters had once been on that very street. Growing up, my father worked hard to instill in us an appreciation for Oakland’s history. While our classmates were playing basketball or watching Saturday morning cartoons, Fredrick and I would be in the backseat of his ’81 wood-paneled station wagon on one of his educational drives. He’d beam with pride after pointing out local historical landmarks.

“The first all-black union? The Black Panthers?” He’d say, grinning. “Mark Curry from that sitcom you boys like? All Oakland, boys.” 

But where he pointed at the corners where Black Panthers handed out free school lunches to poor children, I saw strung-out addicts in soiled clothes. Vagrants with patchy beards carted around stuffed bags just a couple of blocks from Bobby Seale’s former residence. FBI, CIA, whomever the Panthers had been fighting, they’d clearly lost.

When my father died years after that, I’d been in medical school in D.C. I returned to settle his affairs and found a different Oakland. Bistros and cafes served prosciutto and lattes where my favorite taquerias and sandwich shops had been. All my childhood friends now lived on the edges of the Bay Area. The city had weaponized rents and gentrified the very communities my father loved. Suddenly, my planned, quiet exit seemed more like shameful self-deportation. I couldn’t leave; I wouldn’t give the city the satisfaction. Unfortunately, my current life wasn’t giving me any satisfaction, either.

Beneath the overpass ahead of me was a scattering of tarp tents. They were everywhere—a stern reminder for those feeling weak on the treadmill of exploitative work and bills. With so many of California’s urban homeless being from other states, I couldn’t help but wonder if returning to D.C. with Fredrick would eventually lead us to the same life. As frightening as the thought was, I owed it to Fredrick, LaShauna, and the countless others like her to try. 

#

The afternoon after LaShauna’s procedure, Tom and I met at the usual burger joint in downtown Oakland. It used to be a BBQ restaurant that had the whole block smelling like hickory-smoked meat, but an artisan sandwich shop had since replaced it. Now, it was just another Bay Area eatery where venue parking costs as much as the meal.

As I approached Tom in the outdoor seating area, he stood to greet me, buttoning his blazer. He sported a style Fredrick called “Ted-Talk casual”: Hilfiger moccasins, jeans, white polo, and dinner jacket. He pulled me close as we shook hands.

“Reggie, I had no idea that ClientOne was that young,” he whispered. “You have to believe me.”

I waved the comment away as we sat. At the table behind us sat a young couple who’d obviously used the shaded terrace for a date. 

A server approached us and introduced herself. She didn’t wear long acrylic nails like so many servers at that restaurant, and I wondered if she had any talents worth ripping. As soon as I realized what I was thinking, I shook the idea out of my head. When you’ve been ripping as long as I have, talent assessment is second nature. 

The server dropped two lunch menus on the table, and I handed her one back.

“I don’t think I’ll be long,” I said.  

“What?” Tom said, gawking at me. “I—come on.”

The young woman, whom I’d suspected was a volleyball player, glanced between Tom and me a couple of times.

“You know what?” Tom said, waggling his eyebrows. “I think we need a minute.”

If anyone else had done that, it would have been overly-familiar, but Tom possessed an infallible charm that he used like a teenager with their parents’ limitless credit card.

“I meant what I said earlier,” I said, reclining in the fabric chair. “I’m done. I’m only here because you mentioned a severance package of sorts a while back.”

Tom nodded and exhaled deeply, exhaling some of his characteristic cool with it.  I’d always suspected this cool came from the Tesla Roadsters parked in the garage of his five-bedroom castle in Rockridge. It’s a fact of society that you can determine how rich an area in California is by seeing how many bus routes it has. Rockridge has so few bus routes that most people don’t even know it exists. That level of privacy and affluence had always given Tom a perennial chill. However, at the mention of the severance package, I saw lines on his ageless face.

“Have you booked any flights?” Tom asked.

“No.”

“Got a job lined up on the East Coast?”

“No.”

“Okay, so then these ideas of yours aren’t even in the infancy stage,” Tom said.

My face burned at his casual condescension, mainly because he was right. I hadn’t bought any tickets or saved up nearly enough to plan the life that Fredrick had wanted.

“Look,” Tom began. “I know that our work isn’t easy, and at first glance, it might even look like exploitation, 

but—”

“—Look like?” I sputtered, my eyes widening. “Our work?”

My jaw almost hit the table. We weren’t operating south of 73rd and lying to children’s faces. I was. I was drilling into skulls and measuring spinal fluid. I calculated body weight, assessed allergies, and a host of other factors to determine how much anesthesia a procedure required, and when I transferred everything to the NFH. I drove myself to the ClientTwo’s house to transplant the skill. If the cops caught me at any point during the skill-ripping or transplanting process, my prison sentence would be best measured in presidential election cycles, not years. I was the talent and bore the majority of the risk. Tom simply connected people with dates and ripping talent. He was a salesman and an overpaid secretary, nothing more.

Yet, according to Tom’s ensuing rant, our services provided the only real chance for upward mobility for our ClientOnes, a consolation prize for the American dream. He rapped his knuckles on the table as he argued his points, even saying at one point that “ripping saves lives.”

“You’re so wrong, I don’t know where even to begin,” I said, rubbing my eyes.

“Is that so?” Tom cocked his head to the side. “What is most likely to appear in a ClientOne’s future if they don’t get that money: a stray bullet in the spine or a multi-million dollar contract?”

It was Tom doing what he did best: lying with the truth. Yet, the answer to his question was obvious, unlike my non-existent plan to escape the gilded cage that was my life. When I sucked my teeth, Tom dialed down his sophistry.

“Okay, then let me speak honestly.” Tom leaned in again, his tone conspiratorial. “Reggie, you are irreplaceable. No one can map, code, and transfer skills as efficiently as you, especially when it comes to music.” Tom leaned back, adding forlornly, “I mean, did you hear about that operation in San José?”

Of course, I did. Some idiot taxidermist moonlighting as a ripper had used a cobalt and steel alloy bit on an industrial drill— a combination suited for boring holes through cast iron manhole covers, not the brain’s six-and-a-half millimeter bone defense. His victim was a twenty-year-old Laotian-American cashier trying to scrounge up enough money for his last year at UC Berkeley. 

“Tell me, Reggie,” Tom said. “How many teenagers go blind in the first year from botched procedures that you weren’t there to perform? How many paralyzed?”

I burned with indignation at his thinly veiled reference to Fredrick’s situation.

“Unstable coke-heads with revoked medical licenses, alcoholic ex-surgeons,” Tom continued. “That taxidermist in San José, I have to call them to go to the same communities you worked in— and do you think they’ll care as much as you?”

I scowled.

“That’s a bit much, Tom.”

“You’re a bit much, Christ,” Tom said, exploding into laughter. He ran his fingers through his auburn hair. “I wanted a sourdough turkey melt with a friend, and you serve me socio-political quandaries. I love you, but you’re so goddamn intense sometimes.” 

 I sighed and reclined in my chair. The outdoor area was now filled with patrons, most likely an after-work rush. Young professionals in dark business casual who completed W-4s and other tax documents for legally employed people. The freeway would be choked with commuters and carpoolers eager for two-hour drives to the eventless suburbs on the fringes of the Bay Area.

“I really didn’t know she was that young,” Tom said, after a while. “But you have my word that I will never send you to someone that young again.”

I folded my arms. Tom’s presumption was that he’d talked me out of quitting. He’d failed, but he’d made some good points early on because the fact was I wasn’t ready. Worse, we’d been renting our luxury flat from Tom himself. If I were to really make an honest break out of the life, I’d need another month of work— or that severance package Tom had cleverly avoided discussing.

When the server returned to the table and asked if we were ready to order, Tom shrugged.

“I don’t know,” he said, turning to me. “Are we?”

#

The following day, I got two memorable voice messages. The first was some guy named Mohammed. He’d gotten my number from a “mutual friend” and wanted to know if I could rip him some basketball skills.

“Lost it after college and never got the touch back, you know?”

I appreciated the unsolicited call even less than its incriminating language. The caller was either an idiot or a cop; I blocked the number. 

The voice message after that was from a giddy Tom. He claimed to have lined something up with a real shot-caller. 

I winced. Knowing Tom, he could only get that excited for someone with some real connections. I wondered what cartel member was in town. 

“This is going to be big,” the message said. “For everyone. After that, if you really want to go, you’ll have my blessing and more.”

Due to the sensitive nature of our agreements, I could only assume blessing referred to the money I’d asked about days prior. I felt a grin spread on my face. A severance package and more sounded like exactly what I needed for a fresh start. I looked up and saw Fredrick glaring at me. Mumbling to himself, he wheeled himself around and went back into his room.  

#

For my last procedure, the ClientOne had chosen the third floor of an abandoned hotel in downtown Oakland, the lobby of which had obviously been part of a drug encampment. Used syringes and God-knows-what-else crunched underfoot and the wheels of my cases as Tom and I navigated around the mounds of clothes matted to the floor from years of weather exposure. What little light there was came through the bullet holes in the plywood over the doors and windows. Much of it didn’t reach the staircase. Tom explained that, although the ClientTwo had the building connected to city water and electricity, it was only available on the third floor.

We trudged up the stairs, lugging cases up the whole way. By the time we reached the mezzanine, bits of details of the hotel’s former life shone through the decrepitness. Streams of flowery wallpaper stubbornly clung to the wall. Morning light shone through unboarded windows.

 To my surprise, my OR on the third floor was a pristine space. Judging by the stainless steel washing stations, the place had probably been the hotel’s kitchen. There were men already there, vaping and talking. Though they mostly dressed like bank tellers, my ripper’s eye quickly identified the healed cuts over knuckles and tough-guy posturing. The edges of inked murals peaked out under sleeve cuffs. Polo collars half-obscured the names enshrined on skin in Gothic calligraphy.

The shortest man among them, a bald man with tattoos long faded, was Tom’s age. Tom introduced him as our “ClientTwo.” I could feel the eyes of the corridor on me when we spoke.

“You probably don’t remember meeting me,” he said, stroking the sides of his handlebar mustache. “Motel in Torrence, a couple years back? You spliced two skills into the same person at the same time.” He chuckled to himself. It was a dry, non-infectious laugh, but the others smiled around him. “I told Tom, if I’m ever in Oakland, I need this guy.”

He’d remembered the experience for the kind of procedural innovation that’d made me famous in certain circles, but I remembered Torrance as yet another risky situation that Tom had thrown me into without my knowledge. 

Something told me to wait for ClientOne, but I started setting up anyway, unpacking the cases and swiveling the LED heads on tripods. My “fans” had bought actual surgical linen, though they’d hoisted none of it up. I asked a couple of them to help me out, and they were more than happy to oblige. I pointed out places I’d use, keeping an eye on the ClientTwo, the real shot-caller in the room.

As they were throwing linen over tables, a guy three years too young for the teardrop tattoos under his left eye approached me.

“Ay, you Reggie the Ripper?”

I sighed. 

“Not after this procedure.”

“Did you know Logan Weinberg?”

I looked around. The whole room was looking at me expectantly—except Tom. He was engrossed in a long text, a wolf’s grin wide across his face. I nodded in Tom’s direction.

“This asshole tell you I got Logan into the NBA?”

The kid nodded, and a knowing grin spread underneath his tear tat. 

I shook my head.

“Five AM jump shot practices, a frame built for athleticism, and professional coaching got him there.”

“But you gave him the skill, right?” 

His grin matched Tom’s as I realized that there was no way out of admitting it. I put up a hand to stop the deluge of questions that was sure to come. 

“Look, I’ll just say this,” I said. “You know the advice ‘never meet your heroes?’” I sighed. “Well, you should never make them either.”

“Wait, I’m confused,” the kid said, his brow furrowed, his grin turning mischievous. “Did you make Weinberg, or did hard work and discipline make him?”

Everyone whistled and jeered. I rolled my eyes. 

“Ay, he got you, bro,” someone from behind him jeered. 

As more laughter rang out, the double doors at the far end of the corridor opened. A man in grey sweats hopped in the corridor on crutches. Light skin, lighter eyes, and the horns of what looked to be a full-body tattoo of something demonic poked out above his collar. Inadvertently, I thought of Frederick’s first wheelchair, a thrift store buy with wheels that never stayed inflated for long. 

There were reverent greetings and handshakes before the young man on crutches hobbled up to me and introduced himself. I immediately recognized the scars just behind his ear as the work of an amateur ripper.

“Y-you, T-tom’s f-f-friend?”

The stutter, the scars, and the crutches revealed what no one needed to say. I ignored his question and asked him the only question that mattered.

“How many times have you been ripped?”

His left hand released the crutches’ foam handle and, shakily, held up what would have been a peace sign in any other context.

“Baseball,” he explained, grinning triumphantly. “After I s-sold it, I hit the range, did the w-work.” He grinned haughtily. “Taught m-myself again. Sold it ag-g-gain.”

His tenacity would have been impressive if it weren’t overshadowed by the hack job he’d obviously experienced. Even through his long, black hair, I could make out the ends of the web of interlocking scars, likely part of a larger matrix that arced around his head’s whole left hemisphere. He looked as if he’d been literally ripped apart, and yet this was my ClientOne.

I invited him to lie on the operating table for some preliminary work, but I didn’t need a brain scan to tell me what I already knew. When the tablet finished rendering the brain images, I approached Tom and shoved the tablet into his chest. Tom didn’t need a day of medical school to know what the dark spots on the image were. 

“I go through with this,” I said, not bothering to strain my indignation from my tone, “and best case scenario, he never walks again.”

“They know,” Tom said.

I blinked. “What?”

“It’s okay.” The kid said, hobbling up to me. “Let’s d-d-do this.”

My thoughts returned to Fredrick’s first months in a wheelchair. The gallons of sanitizing wipes we’d bought years before COVID culture normalized it. The callouses that made it look as though his palms were growing a second set of knuckles. Helping him up after falls. The hours of phone calls and follow-up emails to make sure restaurants and hotels were wheelchair accessible. Then there was his ire, which blazed at our unsanctioned intimacy with his vulnerabilities. The thought of voluntarily inflicting that on someone else filled me with such anger my body was trembling.

“Reggie,” Tom said, his tone rising in an attempt to pacify my indignation. He rested a hand on my shoulder, and I violently shrugged it off.

“A three-peat?” I snapped hoarsely. “I agree to one last job, and you ambush me with a three-peat?”

“I admit the ClientOne’s situation isn’t optimal,” Tom said. “But I have to respect the clients’ wishes. They want this. And if they want this, who are we to stand in their way?”

“If they want to do this, they can,” I said. “But I’m done.”

I approached the man with the handlebar mustache and apologized.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “But given the donor’s current health, this procedure will undoubtedly make him paraplegic,” I shook my head. “I can’t, in good faith, do that.”

I wanted to blame the whole thing on Tom, but throwing my perceived business partner under the bus wouldn’t have garnered any respect, and respect was what I needed to exit the building safely. As he regarded my words, his grin faded, and the room’s climate dropped five degrees. He stroked the ends of his mustache. 

“My brother’s in a wheelchair,” I explained. “In the beginning, he was completely paralyzed, quadriplegic. We couldn’t afford a nurse, so we had to do everything for him, and he hated us for it.” I smiled sadly. “He still hates me.”  I locked eyes with him. “I’d never do that to someone or their family. Ever.”

Slowly, a smile appeared under his arctic glare. 

“Yeah, man, I feel you,” he rubbed his nose. “I got two cousins in those electronic wheelchairs, you know?” He slapped the stomach of the guy beside him.

“They’re always flying around. Zip-zip.” His hand stabbed the air on each ‘zip’. “Sometimes, we shut down a couple streets. Let ‘em race, you know?”

The men closest to him chuckled in recognition. The man whose stomach he had just slapped muttered something in Spanish, and the chuckling intensified.

Tom immediately stepped between us, his back to me. He apologized and began making his promises. 

“I’ve got a whole list of rippers in my phone who can be here within the hour,” I remember him saying. I’m not sure what happened after that because when Tom pulled out his phone, I left, walking down the tattered stairs and out of the building with nothing but the clothes on my back and feeling that, at last, I was living life again. 

# 

Three weeks later, while perusing U-Haul deals online, I got an unexpected voice message via direct message. Even though Fredrick was in the room, I put the phone on a stack of boxes and swiped it open. He’d shown a mirthful side of himself I hadn’t seen. We’d started to speak again. 

“Are you going to play that on speaker?” Fredrick said tauntingly.

“Why not?” I said. “The only thing I’m ripping these days is tape out of these dispensers.”

Fredrick grinned. I pressed play, and his grin faded when he heard Tom’s voice.

“He refused to go through with it after you left, you know.”

The voice sounded persecuted. “He said he wanted the best and I no longer have the best, do I?”

Fredrick cut his eyes to me. I turned up my palms and shrugged. The message had caught me by surprise, too.

“I want to be angry at you, but I can’t because you were right. And you’ve always been right.”

“Damn, wight!” I shouted at my phone, the bits of tape stuck to my tongue, affecting a strange accent.

“I’m… rambling now, I guess,” Tom said. He chuckled at himself. “Anyway, I’m having a get-together at my house. Tonight. To make it up to you. I promised you something, and I make good on my promises.”

When the message finished, I looked up to see Fredrick glaring at me. He scoffed.

“You’re not seriously thinking about it,” Fredrick said.

 When I grinned sheepishly, he snapped at me. We went back and forth as we packed and stacked boxes. My brother swore that Tom’s invitation was a set-up to get me killed. 

“That’s not it,” I said. “You’re concerned that Tom’s invite is an attempt to get me back in the life.”

“Is it?”

“Possibly,” I said. “But the fact is, I booked one-way tickets to D.C. and got us a room with a kitchenette for a month. After that, we’ve got no plan. No job offers. Nothing. So if there’s even a chance that I can pick up that severance package, what choice do I have?”

Fredrick shook his head in understanding, but I watched his old anger set his jaw and narrow his eyes. He finished packing the room in silence with his chair’s back to me.

#

The party’s non-existent decor and somber mood were disappointing, but all things considered, its dour energy did befit the man who’d derailed the gravy train. A couple of wallflowers I couldn't put names to quietly sipped drinks while others padded around the house, sniffed at the bowls of corn chips and popcorn. I espied one particular man who’d long considered himself to be my understudy nursing a virgin cocktail of all things, leaning against the dishwasher while Tom cut some mint in a white apron. A mix of 80’s electric funk and 70’s soul blared over the house’s smart audio system.

I caught one of Tom’s associates leaning against the wall, his head bobbing. He greeted me but didn’t shake my hand. Clearly, a lot of people were obviously still upset about me walking out on my last job. Though I’d promised Fredrick to “take the money and run,” I found myself explaining my position while he sipped his drink and stared ahead.

“—but really, when am I supposed to retire?” I all but yelled over the music. “After I botch a procedure? Get arrested? People need to understand that the only good time to retire is too soon.” 

I went to the kitchen, where Tom was still preparing drinks. I grabbed a bottle of champagne out of the ice bucket, and Tom slapped my hand so hard that I dropped it. 

“Not yet,” he snapped. He handed me something unnaturally purple in a flute. I tilted the wine glass under my nose. It was juice.

My retirement party was the most somber event I’d ever attended, funerals included. No alcohol, low spirits, and no one had fired up the grill yet. Judging by the bags of marinated meat in the fridge, we were at least an hour away from eating.

By the time I’d finished my grape-flavored drink, everybody was seated at the dining room table with me. They looked like a group of guys who’d just lost everything at an underground casino, but that changed when Tom came to the table. He presented me with a thick yellow envelope, a word of thanks for my years of infallible work, and an apology.

I unfolded the envelope’s metal wings, opened it, and gawked. Thumbing through the bills, a rough count put it north of fifteen thousand dollars. My future instantly began to look a lot brighter. It wasn’t retirement money, but it was certainly enough for months of groceries, a security deposit, a real fresh start. 

“This is, wow,” I paused to catch my words. “Thank you, Tom.”

I looked around the table at the dispirited faces. No one was willing to meet my eye.

“Look,” I began, now in lighter spirits. “I know you still have hard feelings about my departure from the industry, but we had some fat years, guys. There’s no need to buy saaad.” 

I paused. What had I just said? I cleared my throat.

Still holding the envelope, I peered inside it to see if it was still as much as I’d thought. It was. With some effort, I folded it and slid it into my back pocket. 

“Aw, man,” I said. “Dis shanj-jes ebery-ding.” 

I stopped speaking. Whose voice was that? I tapped my lips with my fingers, and what I felt pulled my stomach into my throat.

Nothing. 

I felt nothing. My hand felt my slack-jawed face, but my cheek did not feel my hand. I moved both hands on my face, prodding and patting. The dissociation was like feeling someone else’s head on top of my neck.

“I really am sorry,” Tom said, his voice just above a whisper.

I exploded up, nearly knocking the table over. I turned to bolt it out of there, but whatever Tom had given me had already seized up much of my motor function. I stumbled over the chair I’d sat in moments earlier, my legs and the chair’s legs all twisted together as my face slammed to the floor.

“Stay calm, Reggie!” Tom shouted, rushing around the table. “You’ll hurt yourself.”

“Tomp,” I cried. “Tomp. Ha cu-chu?”

“Get out here!” Tom shouted to someone behind him. Someone knelt on my knees as men in white shoe covers knelt on my back and arms to stop me from thrashing. All the while, Tom continued to sip his drink over me, his face severe. A single tear slid down my left cheek.  

Between Tom’s legs, I could see into the guest bedroom at the end of the hall. Despite being well-lit, the LED lighting failed to lend the white sheets draped over the upholstery the slightest touch of warmth.