Charlie.... Part 3....

Okay, at this point you may be questioning the type of person I am. Being involved in fraud is one thing, now I've thrown drugs in the mix. I can feel my stock plummet as I write. All I can tell you is to read this story to the end, and draw your own conclusions. When writing about my unsavory past, I made myself a promise to just put it out there. I'll change names, leave out certain details, etc., all in the interest of covering my own ass. Aside from that, I'm not going to lie or try to make myself sound like a Hollywood version of a good bad guy. This ain't Oceans 11, that Robin Hood-esque criminal life doesn't exist. I've got a long list of things I wish I could do over, but that's not an option. So what you get is what it was. No sugar added.


Charlie Part 3...........................

Charlie was buying his way out of a major maiming at the very least. He was given a certain amount of money and was to bring back a certain amount of product. Charlie already had a connection through his mother. And just for the record it wasn't the white trash slim fast that his mommy dearest was slinging from her cracker condo, I would have smelled it, and really it doesn't matter what brand of poison he was getting, it's all bad anyway. I never touched it or in anyway came in contact with it. The original plan was for me to pick Charlie up in Oildale after I went to Los Angeles. At some point on the drive down, midway through Colorado, Charlie had informed me that he was going to fly back. Prior to 9/11, and this was way way prior, it wasn't hard to conceal something and carry it to wherever you were going. To be honest, I thought it was a bad idea, bad for him, but good for me, I thought it was a better idea to remain mute.

I picked Charlie up at his sisters house. Lets call her Lena. Though I have known her from her diaper wearing, pre-peeled onion days, I cannot for the life of me recall her first name. So we will call her Lena. Being dragged under that truck, not only peeled her cap down to the bone, it broke a bunch of shit as well. The end result was that Lena's wig tilted one direction, and the other side of her body was tilted the other direction. Her stance reminded me of a mime doing his blowing in the wind shtick. She always looked like she was leaning,.... thus Lena. When Lena answered the door I tried to focus my vision over her shoulder. I always felt uncomfortable when I had to talk to her. If I looked at her face, I was afraid she would think I was staring at her fucked up wig, if I looked down from her face, I couldn't see past her crazy, clown car milk cannons. The last thing I wanted to do was give her mixed signals. I stared at the giant framed Wolf/Dream Catcher picture on the far wall. I mumbled something about telling her crack head brother to bring his ass on, and went to wait in the car.

When Charley high stepped and twitched his way out to my car, I almost drove off without him. The only thing worse than chauffeuring a semi retard to his deal, was chauffeuring a high, completely sprung, semi retard to same. But I just wanted to get it over with, probably the same thing many of you are feeling regarding this mini series. Anyway, he directs me outside of town to some Almond orchard. They grow almonds in that area by the ass load. Where you have California farms, you have Mexican workers, and not all of them are making their money ensuring you don't run out of blue diamond smoked almonds.

We pulled down a long road that ran alongside an Almond grove, until we finally came to a little cluster of crappy looking houses. Charlie went inside, while I sat in my car, marvelling at all the aftermarket shit these guys had bolted on their new pickup trucks. Not for nothing, but I also kept my engine running and my eyes glancing up to the rear view. Had anything gone wrong, charlie would have been ass out and on his own. Loyalty and friendship don't extend to getting shot or killed. Surprisingly, all went well. Charley reappeared and we headed back to my motel. From there Charley had his sister, the lovely Lena pick him and his shit up, I wanted neither of them near me until we left for LAX the next morning.

***** That's it for this installment. I'll be back Monday with another installment. By Tuesday we should be putting this thing to bed.***