Drive Part Two

So as I was saying, even if I’m out of the running for the million buck prize I’m still fighting. BPW/Jabberwock/Ramses has been throwing my business crumbs; hiring my cars to drive their employees around. Sometimes they ask for me to come along for the ride. The theory is that I’m acting as their roving master of ceremonies; to entertain by telling tales of old Las Vegas while showing off the sights that only a man who helped build this city would know about.

But really, it’s just another flex: a chance for these scrotes to remind me I’m their frigging “Prank Monkey” right down to the suit.

And I take it, because what the hell else am I supposed to do? AAApex Livery Service is dying, and when that goes me and my people join the rest of Las Vegas that aren’t seeing any income because of the Executive Directive 51 ‘quarantine’.

We become victims.

So, yeah, I got no choice.

There was another gig lined up for me after my match with L-7. It’s a whole crew of Jabberwock goons, me, and a driver in one of AAAPex’s party buses. I give them a grand tour of the city, and run through my by now well-rehearsed spiel while they drink and eat and talk about getting laid.

They really want to get laid; which isn’t hard to do in this city, especially now. Prostitution has become the go to side hustle in Las Vegas with the economy drying up, creating a buyer’s market. Where before ED 51 one could find almost anything to scratch your itch in the city if you were willing to pay; now you could find absolutely everything on the cheap.

And that’s what these dudes are after. They want the real strange; not the usual pros. Which, again, is another flex. What’s that thing that pisses off Braveheart so much he rebels against the English? It’s Latin for “First Dibs”. Yeah, same idea with these Jabberwock chodes.

Normally I’d tell them to go fuck themselves or at least steer them in the direction of the more legitimate workers in the sex trade, but right now my situation is not that much different than the folks selling their bodies because they got no other choice. So I take them to one of North Las Vegas’s many ‘pop-up’ brothels, which before the lockdown was a youth hostel.

I go in with them to make some introductions. It’s the usual cattle call in the lobby, a ritual that is always depressing. You keep expecting the prospective Johns to ask to check their teeth.

Things are dull until one kid gets singled out. A couple of the Jabberwockers recognize him; they claim. He’s part of the Fly Guise, those rabble rousing Antifa expies that give them trouble from time to time. The same group that showed up at my gym to protest my involvement in the tournament back when it looked like me being there mattered.

Before BPW broke me.

The kid denies it; he tries laughing it off but these Jabberwock guys aren’t convinced. Despite being drunk and high and horny as goats their training takes over. They round everybody up in the hostel. They take the kid away for questioning. They tell me to go wait in the bus.

Like the fucking coward I am I go. I don’t want to be a witness to what could happen next. I do the bare minimum to help my own people by sending the bus driver home. I debate taking off myself but again, I’m a pussy who fears the repercussions of leaving this scene. So I park it in the driver’s seat and wait.

About an hour later the group comes out. They got the kid with him. He looks no worse for wear but by the way he’s walking and holding his sides I’m guessing they gave the boy the old ‘oranges in the pillow case’ treatment.

The lead Jabberwock plops him in the first seat in the bus, zip ties his hands, and tells me to drive back to the Luxor.

“Sure,” I mumble, and turn the key in the ignition.

I look over to the kid. He’s pale. His eyes are wide. He’s breathing heavy.

He looks at me.

I stare back.

Does he recognize me? I don’t know. I like to think I’m a big deal in this town but this kid is probably a UNLV transplant from WhoKnowsWhereVille, America. He might not know he’s being driven to his execution by the one the only Tuxedo Max. I could just be another Jabberwock minion to him.

That’s when I realize right now that’s exactly what I am.

And that’s when “Evidently, Chickentown” starts to play in my head.

Maybe you heard it?

If you’re a “Sopranos” fan you’d recognize it instantly. It’s the song that goes with the scene when Phil Leotardo is in the bar after his little brother’s wake and he decides he’s done taking shit with those ‘pygmies in New Jersey’ and he’s about to rain a mother-fucking shit-storm on Tony and his crew.

It’s the 21st Century equivalent of Popeye’s “That’s all I can stand and I can’t stand no more.”

I do stand, though: I lurch out of my seat at the kid. I grab him by the neck, call him a homophobic slur and hit him with an S-Tier level worked slap.

Meanwhile I surreptitiously slip him the envelope containing the $1200 in tips I earned tonight and, more importantly, I fasten his seat belt.

The Jabberwock goons ask what’s up and I make up the lie that the kid said some shit. They laugh and go back to their carousing in the rear of the bus.

I get back in my seat and slip on my safety belt.

I get on the highway.

I drive.

I wait until we’re going at a good clip down I-15 and there’s no real traffic.

I swerve the bus and hit the brakes.

It fishtails and smashes through the guardrail.

The rear end of the bus slams into the concrete foundation of a cantilever highway sign, shearing it half.

The bus rolls over three times before coming to a stop in the median.

I’m definitely fucked up. Glass from the smashed windshield has punctured my face and chest. The multiple impacts from the crash and rollover and the airbags have done some real damage to my innards.

But I’m alive.

I look to the kid.

He’s alive too.

With a groan I unfasten my seatbelt and lurch over to him.

I undo his seat belt.

I snip off his zip tie with the bolt cutter feature on my handy-dandy Leatherman tool (didn’t know old Max was a former Boy Scout didja?)

I glance back at the carnage in what’s left of the bus, then to the kid.

“Go,” I tell him as I pull the lever that opens the bus door.

The kid looks at me, and he runs.

That’s at least One, I tell myself hopefully before passing out.


“Hey, Blackwater, nothing personal, but when I get you in that ring tomorrow night I’m going to kill you.”

“Heh. I guess that is kind of personal, huh?”

“See, I finally figured out what I’m fighting for in this tournament. And it ain’t money, or pride, or even self-respect.”

“It’s revenge.”

“I want the people who are doing what they’re doing to MY CITY to suffer, but since I can’t really get to them you’re going to have to do.”

So when we square off in the last round of this tourney, when we come face to face, I’m going to pretend you’re not a Captain Ron look-a-like with a limey accent.”

“I’m going to imagine you’re Corey Bull.”

“You’re Von Brandt.”

“You’re Conrad Dukes.”

“And I am going to beat you and beat you and beat you until you don’t look like anybody ever did ever.”

“Is that fair? I think so. You’re part of this; you’re complicit in this tourney, here to profit off of Las Vegas’s misery.”

“Plus you blew up the Graceland Chapel which man, I can’t believe I let slide for this long.”

“I’ve gotten married there. Twice.”

“So yeah, I think you’re due some rough justice as well.”

“But even if you weren’t, even if your sins are more venal than moral, I’m still going to annihilate you, Blackwater.”

“Because, hey, if life were fair, and all odds were even, Las Vegas wouldn’t exist in the first place.”