Stevie Nicks

‘What the fuck are you here for?!’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about???’
‘Bullshit!’
And then he punched me again, this time breaking my nose.


Samantha and I tipped the taxi driver for getting us to our motel in a relative short amount of time. He amused us with his blatantly racist remarks towards his fellow taxi driver comrades. He thought we were laughing with him. It was a nice way to forget about what we had to attend to later in the afternoon.


‘PLEASE STOP. I don’t know anything!’
‘Where is the fucking money!’
‘What?!’
This time his punch opened a cut to the top of my eyebrow, my face now a palette of bright red under a black and blue canvas.


We put our bags down next to the bed and lay down. We set the alarm clock to wake us in a couple of hours. It was siesta time for Samantha and I. It was what we liked to do when we were together in the mid afternoon. You might call it boring. We called it nice.


‘So are you going to tell us where the money is you filthy fucking cunt.’
I had lost the ability to speak by this stage. His last hit was with the blunt end of his revolver breaking most of my teeth on the left side of my mouth.


When the alarm went off we woke up face to face, only centremetres apart. We gazed into each other’s eyes for a long, long time.


They had tied me back up onto the chair. How many of them were there? Three, maybe four. No, there was a fifth person to the side watching but not moving. I couldn’t make him or anyone out. Only silhouettes to my eyes.


We had an hour before we had to attend the evening funeral. The will stated that his funeral was to be held just as the sun had set. It was approaching five pm so we still had another hour before we had to head off. I kissed Samantha as I started to cry.


What could I hear? A radio? Stevie Nicks? I’m going to die whilst listening to Stevie Nicks? Where the fuck am I?!


Samantha told me that it was going to be OK. I told her that I wasn’t crying because of my friend. Something had changed in me during my nap. Is there such a thing as The One? Your perfect soulmate after all? Is this the feeling that they always talk about? I lost my friend. I couldn’t lose Samantha. Never. Knowing this brought meaning back into my life. I smiled and told her that I loved her. She started crying. She didn’t have to say anything back. She didn’t have to.


I started spitting blood from my mouth. That blood wasn’t from my mouth. Internal?? Oh fuck!


We made love. It was the first time it meant anything. It was the first time it meant everything.


The last thing I heard before blacking out was a female voice telling the statue figure in the corner that I was unquestionably the guy with my friend at the bar that night.