Ten Pickett Bowling was the only bowling alley in the entire county. Chew had vague memories of having visited once as a child. It was a few years before Michelle had been born and their mother had taken them with one of his many “uncles” as it was a special occasion. Someone’s birthday or something. They’d even let him take Marcus with him. He didn’t remember much else other than forgetting to wear his socks that day and the way the inside of the shoes they’d given him felt against his bare skin. The thought of it still made him uncomfortable.

It seemed like a lifetime ago. Heck, it was a lifetime ago. Yet here Chew Lewis was sat interviewing for a job at Ten Pickett Bowling like he hadn’t damn near ran this county once upon a time. How the might had fallen, he thought, as he watched the skinny middle-aged man opposite the desk in front of him look him up and down. He knew he wasn’t in with a chance before he’d even walked into the room but not interviewing despite knowing that wasn’t an option. He wasn’t a banger anymore. That wasn’t him.

The interview came to an end and Chew shook the man’s hand as he was reassured they’d be in touch. He couldn’t even maintain eye contact with him. So much for that.

Chew made his way towards Dante’s busted old pickup truck parked outside and sat down wordlessly. He drummed his fingers along the frame of the window as he glanced back at the bowling alley with a scornful look.

From beside him he heard Dante’s shrill, invasive voice pipe up. “How’d it go?”

He could tell from the look on his face that Dante was willing it not to go well. At every turn Dante had tried to talk him out of going straight, including the drive here. He didn’t understand, he’d not done hard time like Chew had, this gangsta bullshit still seemed to have some appeal to him. That wasn’t going to change until he was behind bars or in the ground, but he’d be damned if he’d let Dante take him down with him. 

Chew shrugged nonchalantly and indicated to Dante to start the car, “Let’s just say I doubt I’ll be hearing back from them anytime soon.”

A broad smile appeared on Dante’s face.

“What’d I tell you? You’re wasting your fucking time. It’s hard enough finding work out here without a criminal record. The whole state’s full of kids with degrees working in coffee shops and shopping malls, man. Why the fuck would they employ you?”

It stung. In another life Chew would have been minded to lay hands on someone for talking to him like that. Not this one though, he’d changed, he was done with that. He bit his tongue instead and said through a scowl, “I’ll find something.”

They drove aimlessly for a time, talking sparingly, until Dante’s rumbling stomach led them to stop at Hobie’s Diner for something to eat. For a small man Dante could really pack away his food. Chew watched in shock as he scarfed down more grits and collard greens than any human he’d ever seen before. His appetite was tame by comparison, though prison would do that to you.

Eventually Dante’s seemingly endless appetite was sated and he sat back in his chair with a satisfied sigh. They sat in silence for a moment but the look on Dante’s face told Chew he had something he wanted to get off his chest. He started to speak, only to be interrupted by Gillian clearing up the plates. Chew smiled at her as she piled the plates up high and waddled away, balancing them precariously as she went. 

Dante tapped the brim of his lemonade before clearing his throat and finally talking, “You remember DJ? Works for Billy Brown?”

“No.”

Chew knew Billy Brown. It was impossible not to know Billy Brown in Pickett. The man was an institution. You’d never know it from the look of him, in fact Chew’d never seen a man that looked less like a criminal mastermind than Billy Brown. But the man meant business. As wild as Chew had been back in the day even he eventually had to bend to knee and pay tribute to Brown once the dust had settled and the Normans were out of the picture. This DJ character didn’t ring any bells though.

“Before your time,” Dante said with a shrug. “Well, he’s good people. A friend of his might have some work for us. Nothing too heavy, a little bit of protection at a deal from the sounds of it, I told him we’d think about it.”

We? Chew crushed the can of sweet tea in his hand.

“I told you I was done with that gangsta bullshit, Dante.”

Dante shrugged nonchalantly as he picked his teeth with a toothpick. A mangled bit of collard green fell from between two of them into his reedy goatee. “Yeah, and how’s that treating you?”

Chew thought back to the beanpole back at the bowling alley that had looked at him like trash. It hadn’t been the first time. He’d seen that look countless times over the past few days. No high school diploma, no GED, not a day’s worth of legitimate work experience, and a sheet as long as your arm to boot. They thought he was scum, something to be scraped off their boot, and as much as he tried he couldn’t see that changing anytime soon. There was a lot he could stomach but being pitied wasn’t one of them. He was Chew Lewis.

As if sensing his indecision Dante reached across the table and jabbed Chew in his chest with his finger for emphasis, “It’s only a matter of time. You know that, I know that, everyone on these streets knows it. You either come aboard now while the getting’s good, while your name still rings out around here, or you’ll be forgotten about entirely.”

He wanted to reach out and break Dante’s finger but he couldn’t help but feel like there was some truth to his words. Even if he didn’t want to believe it.

“Make a decision. Are you in or are you fucking in?”

It was only a security job, Chew thought, as he glanced up at his friend with a heavy sigh. One job to line their pockets, nothing too heavy, and then he’d get back to looking for something legit. He was done with this gangsta bullshit. He wouldn’t be one of those bums that landed back inside after five minutes on the outside. Just a little something to get him started. That’s all. 

“Fine,” Chew said with a reluctant shake of his head. “I’m in.”

[center]*****[/center]
Dante knew Chew would change his mind. That working man shit? That wasn’t the man he’d grown up with. The kind of dog Chew had to him? No amount of prison could take that out of a person. Shit, it was hard enough to believe he’d applied for that crap down at Ten Pickett Bowling, but at least he’d come to his senses eventually and agreed to come to the meet. At least Dante wouldn’t have to turn up with nothing but his dick in his hand.

They were meeting Topher at Club 56 at eight and were running late. By the time they walked through the door it twenty-five to nine and Topher was sat in a booth with a curvy black woman sat beside him. Topher was a good-looking dude, Italian-American with a swimmer’s build and a penchant for black women. Liked to say that was what brought him to Norman. Dante knew better than that though.

“Sorry we’re late,” Dante said as the pair slid into the booth opposite Topher and the woman with her nose nuzzled into his neck. “This is my man Chew Lewis.”

Topher waved the woman away without a word and she strode away with a contemptuous look back at Chew and Dante, it brought a smile to Topher’s face before he looked back at them. “The Chew Lewis?”

“As he lives and breathes, motherfucker.”

“I heard about the job you did on those Georgia boys,” Topher said with a wry smile. “Is that thing about the cement blocks true?”

Dante smiled as he saw a confused look appear on Chew’s face. Yeah, he’d heard the one about the cement blocks too, almost as far fetched as the one with the blowtorch. None of them were true but that didn’t stop people from talking about it. There’d been times over the years that Dante had resented Chew’s legend, thought maybe he deserved a little bit more love, especially given how things really went down in Georgia. That was done though. Georgia was in the past and Marcus was with it.

Chew stared at Topher without a hint of recognition, as if trying to summon up an inkling of understanding. “Cement blocks?”

“No matter,” Topher shrugged. “Has Dante told you the setup?”

“A little.”

Here goes. He had explained to Chew what the deal was on the way over but had left out some of the more juicy details. Well, maybe all of all the juicy details. It wasn’t as straightforward as he’d made out at Hobie’s or in the car on the way there but there was no way Chew would have agreed if he’d known. He needed to get him in the room first and that meant lying to him. Once he knew how much they were set to make he’d get past the deception, Dante was sure.

“We’ve been using the same Dominican crew to run packages across the county line for close to five years. Operation’s been smooth as for the duration. Few months ago, word comes back to us that the Dominicans have turned up dead down in Florida. You know the funniest part? Not only do the guy's responsible make no attempt to hide the fact it was them, they come to us saying they’ll fulfil the Dominican’s obligations. Turns out they’re ex-Cuban military or something.”

Dante noticed Chew’s ears prick up at the words “ex-Cuban military” but to his credit he shrugged and simply asked, “What’s the problem then?”

“Nearly two hundred thousand in guns and crystal went missing when they took the Dominicans out.”

There it was. Two hundred thousand. Topher had promised Dante a cut of whatever they got back, before Brown took what was his in taxes, and something a little extra if they got it done without catching too much heat. Dante glanced over at Chew who stared impassively over at Topher as he took a sip from the glass of Jack Daniels in front of him.

“You think they’re holding out on you?”

“Here’s the thing,” Topher said with a knowing point in Dante and Chew’s direction. “They want to set up a meet to give us it back.”

“Sounds like a trap to me.”

“That’s why we need good men like you and Dante there. If that Georgia thing went down how they tell it, you’re the right men for the job.”

Suddenly Chew sprang up from his seat and shook his head, “I’m not interested.”

Dante looked round, mouth agape, and grabbed Chew by his sleeve as if to pull him back down into his seat. Chew tugged his arm free from Dante’s hand and pushed his leg against Dante’s as if to motion for him to let him out of the booth. Dante kept his legs tensed.

Topher looked up at Chew bemused, as if he’d slapped him in the face with a wet fish. “What?”

“You heard me.”

Chew stepped over Dante’s legs and made his way to the exit and Dante sat in silence for a few moments, his face red with embarrassment. He made his apologies to Topher and then pushed through the crowds towards the exit and after his friend. Dante found him loitering by his truck with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. It took every part of him not to shake the fuck out of him.

“What the fuck? You don’t get to up and walk out on a meet like that, man. You know who that guy is around here?”

Chew laughed dismissively before puffing a smoke ring into the night’s sky. “From the sounds of it, nobody after he walks into the trap those Cubans are setting for him. What happened to this not being heavy, man? You can’t afford to be this stupid. Marcus isn’t around to wipe our asses for us no more.”

“Yeah, and whose fucking fault is that?” The words came out of Dante’s mouth before he had a chance to catch himself and contain his annoyance. The second they left his mouth he realised he’d fucked up, but it was too late, they were out. “I shouldn’t have s-”

Before he had a chance to finish Chew’s hand were on him. He threw him against the pickup truck hard and stood over him threateningly, his fist raised above his head as if about to strike. Dante held his side as he looked up at his him expectedly.

“Fuck you, man." Chew lowered his hand and shook his head. "Fuck you.”

Slowly Dante climbed to his feet and watched as Chew stormed off into the darkness on foot. There was a slight twitch beneath his eye as he considered going after him and apologizing for what he’d said, but it passed as soon as it had came and he sauntered towards Club 56 instead. Fuck him, if he didn’t have the stones for this life it was on him, not Dante.