Leave it to the Professionals

This is what it looks like when any average Joe tries to write a Hollywood story, and also how I learned that some things are better left to the professionals...

Life As We Know It

The tires squealed, but his heart rate remained the same. Marty was always sort of thrown into leadership, and it was because he could handle it. The street lights whizzed by faster and the sirens faded away like they had so many nights before.

Marty and his best buddy Dom had gotten away again. Dom glanced at Marty but knew he shouldn’t talk right now. It worried Dom that his best pal might leave soon. The whole crew looked up to him, even though he was the same age as them.

The lines on Marty’s face made him seem wise, but he had only ever finished Grade 11. Both him and Dom hadn’t seen their families in years. They sort of adopted each other, and together they had stolen hundreds of cars.

They had a tight knit ring of dealers they could go to in the city. Once in a while the Pikes would hassle their deals – they were the other big players in the city. Rawlins is big, but the Pikes didn’t care.

It was the usual routine on this Thursday night. The crew would follow a well-off University student to the bar, and when he was inside having a good time, rip off his mid-sized sedan that daddy bought. Turn around and sell it that night, and in the morning the University brats’ car would already be on a truck somewhere in Colorado. The crew, and that was what people know them as, was getting better at their job and expanding their area. But this was getting the Pikes attention.

Outside the clubhouse, two rival gang members lingered. The heat of conflict was in the air and so was the smell of paint. The warm Wyoming wind swept through the city streets as it pushed the garbage into the gutters. It was dusk – the time when the city folk go inside but the nightlife wakes up.

There he was, the leader of the Pikes, Brad Bruno. He came to the crew’s clubhouse to give Marty a message – stay away from the west side. And he did it the only way he knew how, with spray paint on the front door.

Marty’s eyes panned the crew; they were all ready to do whatever he said. But he didn’t really know what to do. Things were heating up when he finally wanted to get out.The crew got back around 4 am and saw the message. Dom immediately looked at Marty and so did the rest of the crew, but he was preoccupied, only thinking of the massive treasure embezzled in the west end – the state’s biggest BMW dealership.

Marty had different plans, as he was going to take his money and move to west for a fresh start. He dreamed of getting away from this lifestyle, and wondered if he ever could.

* * *

Jesse was violently awoken to a stuffy classroom where Mrs. Lumgear was about to go off the handle. She was two inches from his face when she yelled Jesse in her 50 year-old teacher voice. The whole algebra class chuckled and snickered as if it was the first time.

At lunch Jesse hoped to find part of the chess club or a few unpopular kids to eat with him. School days usually went by without too much trouble. He kind of wished that he would have the guts to punch someone in the face or something, just to see what it’s like. But he couldn’t do it; he never had been like that.

His chronic sleep disorder is the most exciting thing that happens to him. And it usually embarrasses him, especially in Mrs. Lumgear’s math class. For a decent student, Jesse never was good at math.

Jesse dreamed of having friends and being popular – some sort of control. It would feel so good to have people listen to him or even care what he said. He was going to take speech lessons to get over his fear of social situations and new people.

Most of the kids at his high school weren’t willing to talk to him because he was so shy. It was hard to burst into the popular bubble because everyone had a group of friends already. In small towns there aren’t too many new kids anyway.

The social standing in the high school had already been determined by about grade five. That’s how it works in small places. There aren’t a lot of new situations or concerns that come about, so from a young age, kids’ futures are fairly clear. The social kids, and the athletes, and the losers had all been decided long ago.

School projects were the worst for Jesse, as he was so nervous he couldn’t do any work on them until he got home. But he dreamed of being a leader. Maybe this was just a dream, but Jesse thought about his dream and where it would go. He thought about the places it would take him. He thought about the kind of life he would experience.

“You want to make some cash?”

“What?”

“Take this bag to this guy after school – no problem – you’ll be a hero.”

Drugs? Alcohol? Answers to tests? Jesse’s mind was racing – should he do it? A senior on the basketball team had just asked him. It would mean instant fame at school, but what kind of risk would it be? He had a lot to think about.

He awoke to the sound of Mrs. Lumgear’s heavyset figure pounding across the classroom. Dang – two days in a row. He had been up late.

* * *

The red spray paint on the crew’s front door brought him to a different place. He thought about what it was like when he was a kid. He thought about the choices he had made in his life. He wondered how he ended up here, and why he wasn’t happier. Back in high school, this was exactly what he wanted, popularity, friends, and leadership. But he didn’t want crime.

The next day, to Dom’s disappointment, Marty took off. He got up early and took his share of the money. He was leaving his unsatisfied, illegitimate life behind for his dream.

Marty remembered what it was like where he grew up – peaceful, nothing ever happened, no one ever went anywhere. It gave him a feeling of satisfaction to recount the days of high school, however lonely they were. It crossed his mind that you don’t know what you got, til it’s gone, but that’s stupid and cliché, so he forgot it.

He was thinking all of this while the gas light in his Porsche came on. He had been driving for eight hours. Marty pulled into a dumpy motel at the side of the road. He didn’t really know where he was going, but he wasn’t going back.

As he was eating at the dinner attached to the motel, he saw a boy who looked about high school age working in the kitchen. Marty thought the boy must have a pretty good life in this small town. He probably went to school where he had friends, lived a peaceful life, and had no problems.

The boy looked out from the kitchen, and he saw a man with a hard look on his face with a hot car outside sitting by himself. He thought the man must be a movie star because he was definitely not from around here. He thought that anyone with a car like that must have a pretty exciting life with all their money and success.

The boy walked out from the kitchen and accidentally made eye contact with the man. Out of sheer nerves, he blurted out, “Uh, nice car.”

The man looked at the boy and said, “It’s not what you think.”