Mafioso

I had the most disturbing dream last night. It was as real as they come, and yet it was so unreal. I had fallen in with the mafia, or a small-town based crime syndicate anyways, and I was just starting my ‘career’ there. So I was a grunt. I was an enforcer. I didn’t do anything important, and I held no real sway, but I had gotten to know the people, the bad people, I worked with fairly well. Nothing’s really happening that’s too bad, just rough collection and such, but then, our head boss guy gets a suspicion. He thinks his girlfriend might be betraying him, giving information to the cops or what have you. So there, in our old warehouse of an office, at the table, he accuses her. You can see every bit of life fall right out of her eyes. He takes out a knife and starts cutting her face. Big long cuts. She’s bleeding like crazy and he pulls out some scissors. Now, he takes her hands, and one by one, without any questions, without any pauses, he cuts off every one of her fingers. She’s sitting there, crying, when he leaves the room and bade her follow him. She stands up, slowly, and walks to her impending death. She knows what’s waiting for her but she’s already given up. There’s no fight. There’s no outcry. No plea. She just walks, broken, to her death.

Now me, I’m not phased by this. It has served to teach me one important lesson; don’t fuck with the boss, and don’t give him *any* reason to suspect you of *anything*. So long as I followed those simple rules, unquestionable loyalty, I would be fine. Or so I told myself. Then, the next day, to my complete and utter disbelief, both Geoff and Steph are brought into the warehouse. They’re to be executed. At first I don’t know what to think, but my mates are already getting their guns ready. I approach them, not as a friend, but as an enemy, and Geoff, in what have been a feat of utmost courage, lunges up and puts a knife to my throat, shielding himself with my rag-doll body. I know he’s not safe, because I’m not safe. My chums wouldn’t *want* to shoot me, but they wouldn’t be afraid to either.

Geoff and Steph both make it outside with me, keeping my mates at bay. As soon as we’re out onto the sidewalk of a shoddy residential area, he takes the knife from my throat and starts to run, giving me one look that just screams ‘run, or don’t run, you’re my friend.’ I start to book it after him. Not in pursuit but in escape. My ex-coworkers exit the building and see me, down the block running after Geoff and Steph. They start to book it too. I climb through a cliff-side area onto the roofs of run-down houses in an attempt to disappear, but one of the goons sees me, and bids me to join him. As far as they’re concerned, I’m still one of them. I don’t have a weapon, so I don’t have much of a choice. For my own life I *have* to go with him. Now I’m questioning myself again. Maybe they won’t find my friends and maybe I can just go back to my job, with no more run ins with my old friends. The guy I’m in the car with is older, grizzled almost, and definitely a loyal man. He knows his allegiance, and it’s not changing. There’s no reasoning. I make up my mind. I’m staying in the syndicate. It’s who I am now.

It’s darker now, and we’re trying to find Steph. I suggest she might have headed down a road to my left, but my partner explains to me that she won’t be going too far, since she has no more brakes. He had cut them the night before. I pray that she’s made if further away by now, but all of a sudden her car, a run-down, yellow el Camino, lurches around the corner and pitches into a ditch. Our car stops. Time seems to race and, without even thinking, I say ‘Let me do it.’ And ask him for the shotgun. It’s in the armrest compartment. I pull out a small, sawed-off, double-barrel shotgun. I walk towards Steph. She is in a complete panic. She can’t believe this. She fears for her life. For her life. I’m walking towards her with a shotgun. And she’s freaking out, powerless and weak in the backseat now. I reach through her open window and unlock the door. I open it and take her by the shoulder, pulling her out of the car. She’s squealing for her life and squirming. I take her to the center of the road, telling her to kneel. She won’t listen to me. I tell her again, a command, ‘Kneel!’ She does. Three more goons show up in another car. I’m holding this sawed-off shotgun at her head, her face, so many thoughts cascading through my head right now. The older goon is sitting in the car, watching. Of the three news goons, one is Kaitlyn. She’s just standing there, unwilling to do anything. If I don’t shoot her, I will be cut up and they’ll kill her anyways. If I do shoot her, I will have killed Steph, one of my best friends. I am frozen, trying desperately to think of a way out of this.

Steph is just filled with disbelief and fear. She is at the end of her life, and she isn’t ready. She knows this, she’s about to be murdered. The fear she’s feeling is overwhelming and you can see it all, pouring out of her eyes. The empathy for her alone is just destroying me inside. I turn to Kaitlyn and there’s a glimmer of hope in her eyes. If I revolted, right now, she would side with me. One of the other goons is a younger man, he would also turn. That leaves the two older men. They’re both fiercely loyal, probably questioning what I’m doing right now. Time wears thin, I have to make a decision. My own life or that of my friend? Or fight, and risk us all… I wake up.