Post by Church on Jan 26, 2021 22:30:53 GMT -6
12/21/20
The pavement laid before him like the invitation of an open palm. The sand of the desert rode the air into this outskirt of Las Vegas; a particularly windy day.
A quarter mile down the way, architecture stops and the road takes you off into that desert to the East. Church sat on his Harley-Davidson Sportster, one arm resting forward over a handlebar as the other hand held a lit cigarette by his thigh. Sunglasses pushed up into his hair, his eyes peer forward. He inhaled a deep drag from the smoke as he assessed the obstacle ahead.
Lined up in a physical roadblock, at the end of that architecture, was armed security. Protecting the lock down of Las Vegas, the human barrier was either Jabberwock or the local P.D. that stuck around. Church couldn’t tell quite yet from this distance. He didn’t know who they were but he knew their purpose.
“Mother fuckers, you want to stop me? You think you can stop me?” Church mutters to himself, words disappearing with the grains of sand on the breeze. The corner of his mouth twitches upward in a sneer. He takes one more puff from the cigarette before tossing it to the curb beside him.
Church slid his sunglasses down and put his helmet on, all the while maintaining a fiery glare forward at what awaits him. He tugged forward on his leather jacket, looking down at a pouch held against his right ribcage by an over-the-shoulder strap. He checks its tightness quickly, giving the zipper a pull of certain closure.
He fired up the bike, pistons like horses rearin’ at the gates. Giving it a rev for good warming measure, he slowly removed the kickstand with his boot and rested the bike slightly towards his right leg. His exhales carried a bit of sound with them, small growls escalating as Church begins to move forward.
He wasn’t sure what their protocol would be. Open fire? They were all armed for a reason. Was he about to be that reason? Would they even move? Maybe they’d play chicken with the charging motorcycle in an attempt to tug him off his bike.
It didn’t matter. Church was ready.
He’d take 20 bullets here and now if he had to, what he had to do was worth that risk.
The bike launched forward and quickly got itself up to about 45 mph.
“GIVE ME SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE” Church yelled out in an angry, nonsensical taunt from about 40 yards away, approaching quickly. The line of armed security are all facing him, a perfect line across the street. A couple vehicles were there to aid them off to the sides of the street, but nothing directly down the middle of the single yellow line.
Church’s bike stormed in and, in the moment of make or break...security stepped aside.
The men that were lined up in formation split like the red sea for Moses.
A moment of confusion hits and passes as Church glances over his shoulder towards the men still watching him. No guns drawn, nothing but a drawbridge.
A smirk sneaks through the beard as even a laugh of surprise slips between his lips. Church turns his head to face forward towards the desert outstretched before him; still as a painting. He knew once he got past the Colorado River, he was home free.
BFFT,
BFFT.
The front tire, followed immediately by the back tire, get blown flat by a spike strip that didn’t make the cut into that vision of freedom. The bike shoots off to the left and as hard as Church tries to control it, it’s an impossible mission with shredded tires, the front of the bike meeting a roadside rock that sends Church up and over the handlebars, crashing to smaller rocks and hard Earth below.
From the unseating off the bike, the pouch that was secured within Church’s jacket catches a rock and rips open, bills of cash flying upward into the air from within.
Church was motionless for a couple moments, internally processing what just happened. He rolls over with a groan, his leather jacket, needless to say, covered in sand. His hair, his face, his jeans, his boots. He had become, unwillingly, one with the desert.
He muttered swear words on his breath as his eyes rolled around to see that he was sitting in a desert of cash, the bills from the pouch coming to a restful lay surrounding their owner.
Church manages to pull himself up to his elbows to assess the damage, but as he does, the muzzle of a gun takes his focus instead. Various members of the security team are now at Church’s feet, only one holding a gun towards the downed monster of a man. Church groans again as he sees his bike against the rock nearby. The state of the tires tell him exactly what took him off the road. His eyes come back to the man holding the gun on him.
“...well played...Jabberfucks,” Church says from the desert floor. The man holding the gun on him lifts it up and leans forward, about to introduce the steel upside the head of the downed escapee. Another member of security that had just stepped up, however, grabs the elbow of his team member to stop him.
“Don’t. That’s Church. He’s one of ‘em.” The man with the gun in his hand looks down angrily at Church, who meets his eye contact and slowly reveals bloody teeth with a smile.
“BPW?”
“Yup, that’s him alright. Don’t risk being the man to hurt one of these guys in the tournament. Let’s just get him back in town, we’ll let Brandt know that this went down. He’ll know to keep a closer eye on him when things get started”
Church simply listens to these guys talk before speaking up.
“Hey…” He reaches over and lifts a 20 dollar bill off the ground and raises it up in between two fingers. “I’ll give you boys 20 bucks if you just let me come and go.”
1/25/21
Aria Hotel and Casino
“And you run this little gambit?” The man, mid-20’s, asks.
“I do.” Church answers plainly. He seems to not mind the guest, but his eyes are also distant; his mind elsewhere.
“While wrestling in the BPW tournament?”
“We’ve been locked down in Las Vegas for a month now...something like a man doing two different things within the city is gonna shock you? I’m lookin to get my kicks and get my money. It turns out both my casino here and fightin’ for BPW check both of those boxes.”
“Oh yeah? And how does BPW check those boxes?”
Church breaks away from his distant gaze and looks suspiciously over to this man beside him at the round bar.
“Why the fuck are you askin’ so many questions?”
“Ope...sorry, sorry. Just genuinely curious, Mr. Church, sorry. No ill intent, I swear.”
Church sizes him up a bit. Didn’t seem to be lying. No eye contact being made with anybody playing a game, doesn’t seem like a distraction. Seemed like it was just two guys drinking a beer at a bar in Vegas lockdown.
“...Well, ya see…?”
“Brad”
“Well, ya see, Brad, I’m a very violent person.” Church’s deep voice takes a heavy, serious tone as he begins to answer, freezing ‘Brad’ upward immediately.
“And i implement some very...old school methods when it comes to security around these parts. Legal. But old school. Part of who I am, just how it is. So gettin’ to take part in a fighting tournament for some serious money? Yeah, that checks the boxes. My kicks are getting to lay IN the kicks to people like Zombie McMorris. People like L.A. Blackwater. And that money?”
Church leans in closer to Brad and puts a large hand on his shoulder.
“Is mine...and ain’t nobody gonna steal it from me.”
He speaks so viciously that Brad excuses himself from the bar with a nod, leaving Church in a single hearty laugh. He takes a swig from a beer with a wink to Lynn, who is tending the bar for him.
“I’ve made a career out of loss prevention...I ain’t losin’ now.” He washes his own words down with Miller Lite.