Fifty Shades of Red - Chapter Three Part I

“Shred Haven!” Sung the Hitcher

“Where we going?” Asked Alberico
Raul drove, his small eyes embedded in a chuddy old face peering sluggishly over at Alberico.
“To a Steak House” He said bluntly.
“To order a steak I thought we was ordering a hit? Alberico sighed.
“We got many affairs to be discussing; you however should be doing some shutting the fuck up”
“Why the fuck did Duilio send me along for this diplomatic shit?”
Alberico complains as he lights up a cigarette.
“Do we got to be out in the fucking desert for this shit? Can’t we just send an email?”
“We have a favor to ask our associate at the steak house alright?” “And Duilio feels the need, to extend the courtesy, to a sit down with one his most trusted friends and the monkey can come along for the ride.
In other words I got some fucking business and you watch my back, be the monkey on my back”
Alberico rolled his eyes and blow out a cloud of smoke, it filled the car.
“And crack a window, you motherless fuck”
“Shhh alright already”
They pasted flashing neon lights of casinos outside. Alberico stared out the window.
The city kept on stretching on. The sights grew stranger. Whores lined the streets, the neon signs grew wilder and more elaborate.
His eyes followed a row of pink lights lighting up a neon cowboy’s cock so it appeared to be swaying, he smiled and winked.
“You know I got old buddy out here, had fucking good times in this town” Alberico said.
Raul shook his head and frowned and says.  
“I got to make a stop to see a friend of mine”
They made a turn half a mile up and weaved through side streets. Raul knew the place. It was somewhere to go to be told what to do.
He pulled up near the house and got up.
Alberico shouted out as he paced off,
“Eh leave the keys; I wanna get something to eat”
Raul frowned and threw the keys and walked off shaking his head.
“Shake ya fat fucking head”
Alberico hopped over and stuck the key in, he glanced up at something. A dead raven, he thought it was a rat eating it but he doubled looked to see another raven sinking its beak into the flesh of its fallen brother. He caught the black eye of the raven as it pulled the guts out holding it in its beak before snapping it down and swallowing. He suddenly thought of the raven vomiting stinking glug into the screeching mouths of blind chicks in a cannibalistic feeding frenzy.  
He lit a fresh cigarette and sped off.
He needed some junk and knew his old buddy would be happy to oblige.
Knock Knock
“Hey Steve open the fuck up I’m in a hurry”
The door swung open
A shabby bearded man stood smoking a rolled smoke in his dressing gown.
“Yeah a nice how do you do to you too Al, come on in I see if I can’t get you want you need”
They walked through the house pasting a handful of people strung out on seats or on the floor. He glanced at one woman whose arm was polluted with several blackish purple holes that were spreading out, rotting the skin; a needle was impaled into the most severe wound. He knew he would never be that bad but doubt reared its ugly head as he itched a nervous itch on his arm.
“Chill out, sit down”
Said the dealer offering him a seat. He was taking out different bags and scales still puffing away at his smoke. He offered a puff to Alberico. He accepted and relaxed on the couch puffing away. He figured it was a joint but it tasted so strange like burning electricity parts. He looked around and everything looked like it was through hexagons though he couldn’t tell if he was staring at a big picture with hexagons all in front of it or a thousand tiny pictures, one in each hexagon. He accepted he could see both; he had to before he went mad. He turned to the dealer next to him.
“Is this fucking PCP man?” He asked
“No, pass that” And he pointed at the mystery joint.
Al passed it to him slowly; the dealer sat waiting looking fiendish staring at saying gimme, gimme over and over with his fingers. He took it and toked it but it was out so he relit it hit it and blew a smoke cloud.
“So?” questioned Al staring down at Steve the drug dealer.
“So what?” He returned Al’s gaze.
“What the fuck is it cafone?
The dealer got up and plucked a box from a book shelf.
“Well this bio student I sell crack to gave me this fucking weird shit said he milked a fucking toad dick took like the ugly fucker’s venom and like dried or froze it or done dry freezed it, I don’t know what the fuck he did that bitch smoke way too much crack. Can you imagine a crack head chasing a fucking toad around and jerking them off? Shit be cray!”
Steve darted around pretending he was on crack chasing frogs.
Alberico burst out into laughter; he could hear the frog’s ribert and visions of them running away from Steve. He was laughing like a maniac. Steve looked at him then started laughing and they both laughed madly together.

*


“Raul”
An ancient gangster with sun burnt brown skin lounging poolside calls out his name as Raul walks over.
He smiles and kisses Raul cheeks as though Raul were a child in cheeky deliberately demeaning manner.
Although ancient this man was even fatter than Raul. His neck donned a preposterous amount of gold, as did his chubby fingers. The gold made him sparkle in the sun. He tapped out a tune with his chubby finger on his vast bare belly.  
“How is your brother?”
“He is well, what of your son?”
“He is here, wait” The old gangster whistled out to a man chatting with some girls that were swimming in the pool.
He walked over and shook hands with Raul
“Raul it’s been a long time and listen you know me and my dad love you but this is a delicate situation we are in”
Raul wrinkled up his own fat face and probed
“As I see it this little cock sucker betrayed everything we stand for and a lot of my people and a lot of other people say let his body rot wherever it lay”
He paused then concluded,
“I hope he’s not dead I hope those cannibal fucks we hired to kill that little shit stain are still keepin him alive. Raping him and eating him slowly”
“Raul” The younger man went to speak but stopped at a hand gesture made by his father, the old gangster sat straight in his deck chair and explained clearly to Raul.
“I don’t give a fuck get the body these are orders”
Raul sits furious.
“Look Raul the body is important, the blood the heart”
“Who gives a fuck what they do with the guts? Feed them to the maggots”
“I fucking do, some of those old bedside stories you’re pa told you weren’t all bullshit. What we do goes back a long way back to time where blood meant something. His blood means something Raul. Get it.”
Raul bowed his head then rose slowly, he walked over and kissed both men on either sides of their faces and left promptly.
He went outside and walked down the street. He knew Alberico would take his sweet time.
He walked troubled, not knowing how to take what he had just heard.
Bosses talking about ghosts, had they all gone mad?
*
Steve was slumped into the couch looking over at Alberico as he pushed the needle in. He felt relaxed like a big fluffy pillow was in-between him and the real world and all the problems that come with life. He could sense the trouble but couldn’t focus on the details, which he now supposed were all meaningless fragments lost for these moments.
Alberico watched the hexagons fade as he sunk into the couch. He felt too cool, too eager to drift off.
“Yo Steve hit us up a fat pipe of gear I gotta get my head and ship out, got shit to do”
A slightly fiendish girl appeared from the groups of freaks around the house with a glass pipe and offered it to Alberico.
“Thanks, I need a booster and coffee just don’t cut it”
The girl chuckled,
“Please do you know how many
chemicals they put in that brown shit they pass off as coffee these days, it makes me fucking depressed all the time. Now take a flaming whiff of that glass barbeque and get going I want this bad boy to myself” She climbed on top of Steve but Steve appeared discontent.
“Bitch don’t be rubben my dick, you gotsa finger my ass. Finger it good before you touch my dick, lick it, rub some drugs on it”
“What drugs?”
“Bitch I don’t know, alls I know is I wants some kind of drugs rubbed on my ass. A shit load right in the ass, up the ass. Go to my cupboard get something don’t tell me what it is”
She got up as Alberico was holding the smoke in, deep in his lungs. He felt his whole body awakening, he felt powerful and ready.
He got up and left quickly, after finishing a cigarette and watching that crazy bitch shove a massively oversized bud up his old buddy’s ass. Motherfucker swore he was higher than he’d ever been; now Alberico was questioning what he really thought of reality and it was getting scary.
He drove tracing his way back through the dark streets. The car felt like a great beast, he patted the dashboard and feel the beast rumbling.
He drove past to house and spotted Raul ahead sitting on a bench so he pulled up beside him.
Raul opened the car and sat in the passenger seat.
“What took you so long?”
He looked at Alberico and before he answered Raul sneered.
“Drive you junkie fuck”
They drove in silence for a while then Raul spoke.
“You know I can tell if someone is on drugs”
“Get the fuck out of here I’m fucking straight”
“When I was younger I sold crack to all the mulinyan fuckups, sold a fuck load of x a bit later” He paused.
“Smack, fucking worst of all of em and you’re a dumb fuck”
“I never touched no fucking needles”
“Bullshit always wearing long gay ass fucking sweaters let me see those arms you junkie cunt!” And Raul grabbed at Alberico trying to pull his sleeves down. The wheel was turned suddenly and the car flipped and rolled and crashed and stopped upside down in the middle of the road.
After they climbed out Raul called for a cab.
They waited in silence.
Before they got into the cab Alberico looked at Raul and told him.
“I’m a bit fucked up but I love this family, it nothing about the amount I would put on the line”
Raul smiled a toothless smile.
“You have to put it all the line kid”
They got in the cab and sat down.
“Where to gentlemen?”
Raul glared at the driver and said.
“42 Nile St, in North Shred Haven”  
Alberico stared out the window. The city was darkened by now and appeared more ominous to him.
“You fellas looking for any action round this parts?” Asked the taxi driver.
Raul didn’t smile,
“What possible action could you offer a man like me, you look like a fucking bum”
There was a silence, Raul stared at the rearview mirror straight at the guy, like don’t fuck with me.
“Just drive the fucking cab” Alberico said elbowing Raul to stop staring.

“Just asking, shit” says the driver brushing it off.
“I hook the occasion clientele up with services, ladies, drugs”
Alberico smiled.
“I need no help in getting”
He pauses and Raul raised an eyebrow.
“Woman”
“I was going to say to woman”
He reassures Raul.
“What about you old timer?”
Raul looking displeased tells him.
“I would think googling whores would much more informative than you”
Raul looked like he might say something else; Alberico assumed it would be a threat so avoid tension he butted in.
“What you got the fucking number you use to get whores and you think you’re a pimp?”
“Ease the tension” He thought. “I’m so on the ball, I can see ten steps ahead. Must be that crack pipe”
“Fuck I love crack”
“Hey I don’t need any whore bud” This driver fuck says.
“This ugly fucking driver” Alberico thought.
“Yeah I bet you pull in all the ladies”
“Yeah but I got no pick up lines, they just get in my cab.
Then I can do what I want to them”
He laughs.
“A real gentlemen this one” snarls Raul.
Alberico gave a weak laugh and turns to Raul to say,
“È meglio stare in silenzio e dare l'impressione di essere stupidi”
Raul’s old flabby face leaned over to Alberico.
“Che aprire la bocca e togliere ogni dubbio”
Raul nodded with a solemn shake and a grim frown.
The driver was uneasy, he was sure the young guinea had spoken about him and suspected something sinister.
Were they business men?
His eye darted to the rear view mirror and narrowed,
Or criminal’s
He eyes snapped open wide and his heart raced. He could see a gun in the young one’s jacket. He remained calm he thought would stay quiet to be safe but his stupidity caused him to speak forgetting the fear.
“You know some whack job came in this cab the other day. He said the pope, get this. The pope. The fucking protestant pope”
“The protestant pope?”
“Yeah it’s the class, you know like Jew or spick, anyway he says the pope is a fucking lizard man”  
He paused and waited for a reaction, any mild gesture of acknowledgement but he received none.
“Yep a lizard man”
He sniffs up some phlegm.
“Half lizard, half man”
He spat out the window.
“All evil”
Raul gripped his pants and gritted his teeth.
Alberico store out his window, into the hexagon stain glass midnight atmosphere of this electric wonderland. He could see psycho tropical frogs giving smoke ring blowjobs out his stain glass car window. The street lights loomed over them floating like giant beetles night flies passing above them as they zoomed down the chrome slicked red radiance ambiance speedway. The giant frogs shoot out tentacle like purple tongues to eat the fire fly street lamps.
Or am I just blinking?
Alberico was in the deep end as far as a psychoactive brain swells go. His mind was brewing and bubbling in the currents of the ancient ones.
Feeling dizzy he jumped out the cab as soon as it stopped.
A car horn rang and the bustle of the sidewalk erupted into his senses.
He looked up to see a restaurant, modern and dark, sinister with vogue touch. Raul walked by him and towards the restaurant.
The sign out front read,    
“Lamia’s Steak House”