A Little Bit Ninja

15: Ponderings Over a Pickled Coke

If these records ever went public, I’m sure that my mother would be a shoe in for whatever bookkeeping awards they bestow upon the supernal record keepers of this world. She had catalogued the horrific details of these people’s lives so faithfully, that while reading the lists she’d made of “Obstacles To Be Dealt With” in the planning stages of her files, I found myself crying—twice.  And not because I got weepy about Mom’s organizational skills.  

Then there was the file about Abe.

“Because I was the first, so I get a discount.”

“No, Jay’s right. Price is two bucks per item, so give me six, not five.”

I only looked at the forged birth certificate for long enough to realize whose documents I was looking at, and then slammed the folder shut. I didn’t even open the corresponding file. I couldn’t do it. It seemed like such an invasion of privacy when it was someone I knew. Much worse than breaking into his room and stealing a journal written in Arabic, which I couldn’t even understand.

I’ve come to a decision though. It was when I was reading about a close call my mother had with a machete brandishing drug lord in Columbia. In her notes about the occasion she never mentioned having doubts about the rightness of what she was doing, or even being scared that the bush-whacking tool might part her pretty head from her shoulders. She only expressed her satisfaction that her “family” had made a clean break.

“No I don’t, ‘cause you already agreed to five before you set the price. You have to respect our bargain,” Lan shot back at him.

 “Well I’m not drinking anything unless I get a referee to make sure you guys play by the rules,” Jackson said as he folded his long arms across his chest. 

“I’ll do it,” Abe raised his hand.

After reading those files full of desperate people searching for an out to the life of crime and danger in which they were imprisoned, I realized there’s no way I could choose to enter that kind of life, the kind my mother fought so hard against. If it comes down to it, I would rather die than go to The Boss.   

“You can’t Abe. You’re in on it. It has to be someone with nothing invested,” Jackson announced looking pointedly at Me, Erica, and Millie.

“Fine. I’ll ref,” Millie said with a martyred expression.  “Nobody adds anything without handing me money first.”  Jackson was then forced to put his jacket over his face while his friends all gathered random condiments and salad toppings from around the table.

And I learned something else of upmost importance. I am not the spawn of a nut job. But even knowing that, I was still concerned about how the psychopath would interpret the paternity test results with the limited information he has. Since he doesn’t know what I know, there’s no telling what he might think it means.

For a moment a happy fuzzy feeling filled my chest at the thought that Anton was fair game. Then I remembered Machete Man, and I realized that Anton is neck deep in a mafia scheme to pull me into their circle. The man he calls god-step-father—or something along those lines—probably hires men crazier than the Columbian drug lord. I cannot allow myself to be intrigued with, or interested in Anton—in any way whatsoever.

Anton changes his emotional masks like I do accessories. How could I ever know when he is being real? Himself? Was he being himself when he acted like a Thriller Girl fan, who was kind enough to risk his life in order to give me a chance of escaping the fate The Boss demanded?  Is he really on my side? Or is that an act? What if he’s just trying to get inside information before he forces me into going with him?