Thank You For The Venom

Stan keeps an insane weapon control. I think it could be some form of paranoia because he insists you leave your weapons in plain view when you’re around him. One time Jay forgot about one, a small not even very sharp knife in his belt and Stan refused to pay him for a week and constantly muttered about trust. If they weren’t pretty good friends I’m sure he would have beat him up or got someone else to, only Jay was the one that usually bet people up for Stan.
I never had a weapon anyway, what would the mixing guy need with anything more than a knife really. This hit Ryan and Ronnie hard though. Their line of work, which was dealing normally but is now dealing to dealers, requires persuasion. They get threatened more than anyone really so having a revolver and being able to use it is always helpful. They’ve never killed anyone I don’t think.
I’m just finished packaging the cocaine now and I think I’ll check over the stocks of pills. So many are just anti-depressants and other prescription drugs people can’t get. I don’t know how we get them but it seems to be our biggest profit. I think we stole them but I don’t know. I watch the money for us but I’m still kept in the dark about where the money comes from. When I’m finished mixing and packaging I sit on the couch and open the big money book.
They make me look over the fucking “ledgers” which is just ruled pages where I write in sales.
The door bursts open and Ryan and Ronnie come in with Jay carried between them. His trouser leg has been ripped away and a bullet wound goes right through his calf. His blood is trickling down his leg. “Fuck,” I gasp jumping up. “What happened?!” There’s also a patch of blood on his shoulder and a dark circle. He’s been shot twice, I think he’s passed out.
“Some fucking addict shot him with a fucking double barrel rifle. Who has a rifle in suburbia?!” Ronnie grunts and between them, he and Ryan lower Jay onto the floor.
“Put him on the couch!” I say running to find bandages or something to stop the bleeding.
“And have him stain it in blood?! Anyway his wounds would hurt too badly, they’d be rubbing off everything.”
“Where were you when this happened?” I groan getting water for the wound. I think cleaning it might but what do I know. Where the fuck is Chubs, he deals with this shit.
“We were meeting with a college kid when he called us. Stan confiscated his big gun, with two bullets in him he manages to kill the fucker with a knife. Then he lay bleeding in the guy’s hall until we got there! He passed out in the car. Where is chubs?!”
“I don’t know,” I say unsure what to do, we all crouch around Jay as his uneven breathing makes us all more and more worried.
Chubs arrives about half an hour later after running all the way from New York. He is so out of breath by the time he gets here. He removes the bullets from Jay, cursing as blood squirts out of his leg. He cleans the wounds, wraps them up and when Jay wakes for a minute he feeds him a pill, one of the prescription painkillers we have.
Chubs is no doctor but he’s good enough. He learned how to stop the rest of us from dying. None of us can afford medical bills and worse; a medical history. We just try our hardest to not exist as far as anyone else can know. Adopting a nickname is a good way to do this, I think only the old boss knew Chubs’ real name.
“Will he be okay?” Ryan asks, stretching his legs.
“I think so. If those wounds don’t get fucking infected. They’ve been exposed for so fucking long. Hours like.”
“There was nothing we could do!” Ryan groans defensively. They could have took him to the doctors. I laugh at my own joke. “We have to get rid of the fucking car now, people might have seen it drive away from the house where there is now a dead guy.”
“We’ll burn it out in New York somewhere,” Ronnie sighs. It was his car, one of the few things he owns. The only thing he got legally.

Stan is insanely angry with Jay. As soon as he gained consciousness, Stan went on a characteristic rage. This seems to be an attribute of leaders; they can get very pissed off.
And very aggressive. When Jay protests saying, “But you done take my fucking gun, what was I s’posed to do. My job that you fucking gave me was to get the money an’ I did,” Stan punched him, causing his nose to bleed but not breaking the big tough bone.
Jay got very angry at this but did nothing. What could he do? He just sat and brewed over the wrongs he’s been done. The rest of us just stood around awkwardly.
“Come Frank,” Stan gestures me over. Shivers run through me and it takes all my strength to see. Black at the edge of my vision threatens to take over as the Boss’ voice rings through my head, muttering the same words. I stumble toward him. Suddenly Ryan’s at my elbow, walking me steadily over murmuring “It’s Stan, it’s okay,” over and over.
I push the black from my vision but I can feel my eyes watering with effort.
“Pay everyone as due. Dock Jay the price of the pills he’s taking for his fucking injuries,” Stan says, pretending not to notice my shaking.
“Yea sure,” I croak.
“When you’re paid get the fuck out unless you’re sleeping here,” Stan declares and walks into his bedroom. That horrible, horrible room. Why did he even decide he’d continue to live here? I can’t imagine anyone voluntarily sleeping in that disgusting place. Every time the door opens and I see inside it makes me want to puke up my guts.
When he’s gone I begin paying everyone. I leave Jay, Ronnie, Ryan, and myself till the end. Ronnie is going to burn the car out somewhere and I coming with him to buy a new one. “Here,” I say to Jay putting the money in his hand. Howard who is sleeping here turns away, “This is your normal pay, I’ll fix the books so Stan never notices. He probably wouldn’t anyway. It’s not your fault you were fucking shot.”
“Thanks,” he smiles. He’s not exactly smart, Jay, and no one can say any of us are “good people”, but Jay is loyal and I’m hoping to build up his loyalties to me rather than Stan.

Ronnie and I take the subway to the outskirts of New York. We left his car in flames under the growing dark skies at the back of a poor neighbourhood. It’s not an uncommon sight here and no one will suspect that it was involved in a murder in Jersey.
“Where are we going?” I ask Ronnie as we climb the stairs to ground level.
“A second hand dealers. I know the guy’s cousin.” A good enough explanation. I know Ronnie didn’t take me for the company, I have access to the accounts and funds and shit. I can give Ronnie a thousand bucks toward the new car and make it look like I never did.
We walk for a while until we are in an area that isn’t quite the city or the suburbs. “Bryar’s Buys” is written in big, red metal words above the drive.
We walk past the rows of old cars to get to the building. Inside we find a guy, about four years older than me, covered in oil at the front of a car. “One sec,” he grumbles at us and ducks under the hood. I hear a cracking sound, a sizzle and a “Fuuuuuuck”.
After a four or five minutes the guy stands up straight again. He wipes his hands on a rag and then walks over to us. “Looking for a car?”
“Yea. My friend Devlin recommended you,” Ronnie says smoothly.
“Like my cousin?” the guy says rewiping his hands, this time on his pants.
“Yea,” Ronnie smiles cool.
“Bob Bryar,” the guy extends his hand, “What kind of car d’you want.”
“Ronnie Oaken,” Ronnie says, never using his real name, “nothing older than five years, not a mini, diesel too. Oh and under two grand”
Bob looks thoughtful. “I have four you might want to have a look at. This way.”
We follow him to the back of the yard. “This one,” he says gesturing to a black Honda. He and Ronnie talk specs and price. I stare off into the distance. When they’ve agreed a special price for “friends of Dev’s” Ronnie decided to take a test drive, leaving me to awkwardly converse with the car salesman.
By the time Ronnie pulls in, grinning widely, me and Bob are grinning over a common interests: Iron Maiden and the Misfits. “I’ll take it” Ronnie says without getting out of the car.
“Don’t you even want to see the other cars?” Bob asks, eyebrows raised.
Ronnie shakes his head, grinning, “Get in Frank, here you go Bob,” he passes out a wad of cash.
“Do you want a receipt?” Bob says bewildered. “Nope, I’m good.” I sit into the passenger seat and as I say goodbye, Ronnie drives us away.

“It was fucking new!” Ronnie rages. Stan stands back quietly. He can be angry but intercepting Ronnie in his rage would be suicidle. “Fucking new! To me at least! Cost me two grand! How did you not know! You must have fucking known!” he kicks an empty box against the opposite wall. “Bullshit Stan. Get your fucking shit together!”
“It’s not my fault Ronnie,” Stan says defiant and quiet.
“Yes it fucking is! If you can’t get your shit together enough to know who’s being recognized, what the fuck makes you good enough to lead us?!” Everyone in the room takes a sharp intake of breath. Dangerous ground, Ronnie.
“Calm the fuck down, Ronnie, they’ve let us all know they know who we are, what makes you the fucking master of disguise that they wouldn’t know you too? You could have guessed,” Stan says trying to gain volume and stance against Ronnie’s blind anger.
“Shut the fuck up Stan. You better pay for the fucking wheels.”
“I’ll pay Ronnie if you’d just calm down. We’ve all been singled out.”
“Not like this!”
“Howard and Lee got a rock through their window. Gavin’s girl got ambushed! And what about my fucking apartment!”
Ronnie falls silent. He’d forgotten about Gavin’s fiancé Chantel who got attacked outside a night club and had the words Hi Venom we know this one too –MG cut into her arm. The same was written on the note that accompanied the rock that went through the window. The same was scraped into the side of Ronnie’s new car when it was parked outside target. The tyres were slashed and the windows broken. We only just got it yesterday. We all know though, that Stan is the most afraid. He got his apartment set on fire. That’s the main reason he lives here now.
“Fucking bullshit. They know all of us and we know what, three of them?!” Ronnie spits.
“Maybe there’s only three,” Jay says.
Ronnie rolls his eyes. “There must be more than three. They’re the second biggest gang around,” he smirks, “other than us.”

Notes

So yea here's yet another chapter. I shall be introducing the rest of the characters very soon I promise :))