A Losing Hand

“It’s a bomb,” Tony said.

Rodney rolled his eyes. “It’s not a bomb.”

Tony picked up the package from the dining table and juggled it in his arms, feeling the weight shift inside.

“Don’t shake it!” Rodney yelled, leaping back.

Tony gave his older brother a look but set the box down. “If it’s not a bomb, then why can’t I shake it?”

Rodney glanced at the box nervously. “I mean, I don’t think it’s a bomb.” He took a step closer, bending down to better inspect the mysterious delivery. “It’s definitely from the mob though. No return address, no stamp. I doubt it even went through the mail; they probably just had some thug leave it on the step.”

Tony peered around his brother. “So what do we do?”

Rodney gulped. “We’ll have to open it, carefully, in case it is a bomb.” He looked around the room for something to protect himself with. “Hand me those oven mitts.”

Rodney held a large pot lid in front of his face a shield and using the oven mitts and a pair of tongs he carefully tore the brown wrapping paper and opened the package.

Tony leaned over to look inside, then recoiled from the smell.

“Ugh, it’s a rat!” he yelled, crawling away from the box.

Rodney pulled his shirt over his nose and glanced into the package. Inside was a dead rodent wrapped in newspaper.

“It’s a weasel, you idiot!” he said, smacking his sibling in the back of his head.

Tony looked up reproachfully, rubbing the knot starting on his skull. “Well, what’s it mean anyway?”

Rodney folded his arms. “They’re saying you can’t weasel your way out of paying them, or they’ll kill you.”

“Kill me?” Tony asked, his face white, “over five grand?”

Rodney turned away from the weasel. “Most of those guys would kill you over five bucks.” Rodney sighed. “Tony, it’s not about the money, it’s about principle. You disrespected those guys when you didn’t pay them.”

“It’s not my fault!” Tony said indignantly. “They were cheating!”

“They weren’t cheating you moron! You just don’t know how to play poker.”

Tony spread his arms. “In my defense, I thought it was blackjack.”

Rodney ran his hands over his face and tugged on his hair. “Christ, Tony, I told you don’t go running around with the mob!”

“Aw, c’mon,” Tony argued, “they called him Bad-hand Bruno. With a name like that, I thought he always had a bad hand.”

“Tony,” Rodney started. “They called him Bad-hand because when someone pisses him off, he breaks their hands.”

“Oh c’mon, that’s a little tactless.”

“Tony!” his brother screamed.

The boy raised his hands.

“Alright, alright,” Tony said. “so what are we going to do to come up with the money.”

“We?” Rodney asked. “We did not get five-thousand dollars in debt with the mob.”

Tony cleared his throat. “True, but when mom said I could spend the summer down here with you, she said it was your responsibility to protect me. If the mob kills me, she kills you.”

“Don’t bring ma into this.”

“Help me get the five grand and I won’t have to,” Tony replied. He paused for a moment and pulled out his phone. “Actually, I got an idea.”

He searched through a few pages, then handed his phone over to Rodney, showing him a surgical procedure.

“Yeah, says right here I could sell a kidney for thirty thousand. I got two of them, plus I’ll throw in a gallbladder for interest. Altogether I could cover the debt and still walk away with over twenty thousand. Sounds like a win-win if you think about it.”

Rodney rolled his eyes. “So you’re just going to politely ask for a few extra days to schedule a procedure, get a kidney removed, find a buyer, and hope for the best.”

Tony scratched his head. “I kinda thought we could play rock-paper-scissors for the kidney, but other than that, yeah.”

Rodney threw his hands into the air. “C’mon Tony, give me something to work with.”

Tony shrugged. “I got one hundred and thirty-seven dollars in the bank, maybe we can pawn some stuff?” He looked around the room. “Our phones, the tv, we gotta have enough stuff around here to make it work.”

Rodney shook his head. “Maybe we could pull two grand if we cleaned this place out, we need something better.”

The younger brother looked out the window. “What about the car?”

“We are not selling the car!”

Tony looked back at his brother. “Actually, I was thinking we could crash it, you know, fake our deaths?”

Rodney gave his brother a dark glare.

Tony sighed. “Alright, I’ll buy a hundred and thirty-seven scratch-off tickets, there’s got to be some winners in there.”

Rodney sank down into his chair. “Million to one odds, but at least it’s realistic.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “None of these get rich quick things ever work out.”

Tony took a seat across from his brother. “Maybe we take another loan out. From a bank, or at least someone that won’t break our legs. It’ll cost more, but we’ll have enough time to pay it off.”

His sibling nodded along slowly. “Alright, that’s not a bad idea. I don’t have the credit for the bank, but I bet we could find someone. Maybe one of our dad’s old friends.”

Tony spread his hands. “Uncle Jay is doing well for himself, plus he only talks to dad at Christmas. He sends us nice gifts though so I’m sure he’d spot us the cash, given the circumstances.”

Rodney pulled out his phone. “Yeah, yeah that might work. What’s his number?”

Tony paused. “I’ll need to ask dad.”

Rodney dropped his phone. “Alright, so Uncle Jay is out.”

Tony jumped up from his seat. “What about the university’s writing challenge?”

“What about it?”

“The grand prize is five grand and it ends in two days. If we win we’d have the money by the end of the week.”

Rodney stared at his brother. “You failed English, twice.”

Tony lifted a finger. “Ok, I failed it once, then Ms. Green gave me a C if promised to never write again. But you, you’re not bad. You wrote some stuff for the school newspaper.”

Rodney rolled his eyes. “Please, that’s not going to work.”

Tony shrugged. “The mob has your address, not mine.”

Rodney nodded and opened his laptop, typing a few words as he went. “What’s the prompt?”

Tony slid his phone over. “Write a story about an old barn between six hundred to two thousand words. That’s all.”

“Really?” Rodney asked. “Alright, uh, throw some ideas at me.”

Tony drummed his fingers against the table. “Old barn- there was one of those in chainsaw massacre so we could do a horror story. Or maybe there’s something cool inside, it could be a hideout, or someone finds an old chest inside and it leads to a treasure hunt.”

Rodney stared at his laptop. “No, Tone, we need something more. Something that stands out and seals the deal.”

Tony tapped his foot against the leg of the table. “Um, what about using the barn as a safe house? It could be a place where those thirties gangsters stored some booze. We could do a cops and robbers story.”

Rodney hammered out a few lines. “What if… what if we put it all together. Al Capone or someone uses the barn as a hideout, but there’s a shootout and it ends up haunted. Then one day someone finds a box or a letter or something from the gangsters, and needs to help the ghost with their unfinished business.”

Tony jumped up. “Yeah! We could have a car chase, maybe even a little side story about the gangster’s home life, you know, give him a sad backstory about how he ended up in the gang.”

Rodney's fingers glided over his keyboard. “He was a brewer, then when prohibition hit he had to get the mob to move his stuff.”

“I like that!” Tony answered. “Now what gets left behind after the shoot-out?”

“How about he leaves a map to the place where we buried all the money he was hiding from the cops?” Rodney asked. “Maybe it even has the recipe for a new drink he wanted to make but never got the chance. That could be his unfinished business. Whoever finds the map has to brew his drink.”

Tony pointed at his brother. “See? I told you we could pull it off. Can you get down in two thousand words?”

Rodney took a breath. “Maybe, if not I’ll just pick out the best parts.”

The brothers spent their evening writing and editing, polishing a short story that was meant to be for everyone. As day gave way to night, Rodney sat his laptop down and rubbed his tired eyes.

“Are we done?” Tony asked.

Rodney nodded. “I just submitted it. I don’t think we could have done anything else to it.”

Tony’s hands began to shake. “So, what do we do now?”

Rodney clasped his hands together and hunched over. “We pray Tony. We pray that somehow this half-assed story catches the judge's eye. We pray like our kneecaps depend on it.”