The Love of Danny Eriks

Danny Eriks loved many things, but at the top of that list were girls. His mother had given birth to two gorgeous baby girls before she had squeezed Danny from her womb, and it only took a year for his father to leave the three squabbling children to their poor mother. Since that moment, Danny had never gotten the hang of making friends with the boys in his classes and resorted to following his two sisters around like a flock of chickens chasing seed. That choice turned habit, and throughout the twenty years that followed, Danny still found himself surrounded by his sisters and their friends.

The thing Danny Eriks loved second to most was drugs. It started when he was young and grew into a rampage that turned his life inside out. School made it easy for Danny to get his hands on whatever the other students were smoking, but where most kids stopped there, Danny found himself upgrading, and soon discovered the substance that really did it for him, his prize pig, cocaine.

At the start, his mother wanted nothing more than to help him, but after a decade of interventions and rehabilitation vacations, she gave up and cast him aside, just as Danny’s father had done to her. His sisters were a little more forgiving. In no way did they encourage his addiction, but they were understanding, an understanding that, in reality, only worsened Danny’s love for the line. He was around these two women constantly, and their tolerance for his poison seemed more of an acceptance than anything else.

This practice brought Danny to the modest mansion off Mason Street on that fateful Friday evening. His feet stumbled over the cement path that walked its way to the front door, and the doorbell howled as Danny pressed the button. A creak that did not belong on a door of that high quality escaped from the hinges as an elephant, who lived disguised as an extremely large man, opened the entrance. The man’s eyes bore into Danny’s, and he straightened his shoulders with a wave of false courage, giving him a shield of imaginary confidence.

An animalistic grunt shook the confidence out of Danny, but he still kept the facade of his shoulders as he stepped past the man. Danny waddled through the open living room and towards a staircase that swirled up into the ceiling. As he moved up the stairs, he could feel a nasal gust crash onto the back of his neck, and he became uncomfortably aware of the ten pounds of cocaine that hung strapped to his legs and chest. Although, that wasn’t all he had on him. The 9mm Springfield made a light clanking as Danny walked, bouncing against the buckle of his belt, and another ounce of coke hid in an area of Danny that was usually a stranger to the sun.

Danny’s heart pounded against his chest. He had met Darren Toro a handful of times (every one of them Danny had found several pounds of cocaine hidden somewhere on his body) but no matter what, he always let his heart reach a beat so fast it would have clocked in at a thousand miles per hour. The man was not something to scoff at. A reckless storm that could never be correctly forecasted, Danny heard enough stories of him snapping on his suppliers, to move with caution around the land mine.

By the time he reached the top floor, Danny had run through every outcome he could imagine, and not many were pleasant. He just wanted to drop off the packages and be on his merry way. He had already bumped a bit of his personal (arguably a little too personal) supply, but he could already feel his body itching for some more. The stress was getting to him.

At the top of the stairs, the elephant led Danny to a room that battled with an aggressive wind. The grease in Danny’s hair grinned as it was shown off in the gale, and Danny had to hold onto his coat to keep it from whipping open. In front of him, a circular room looped onto itself like the ancient coliseums Danny had used to see in his school books. The center of the room dropped into a large arena of dirt where two raging bulls crashed in a stampede of dust. The wind chilled Danny’s bones, but he was thankful for the powerful coolant as he looked down upon the bulls, whose hides dripped with sweat.

Toro sat in one of a dozen chairs that looked into the pit where the horns of the beasts clattered against each other. On his left sat another large man who resembled Danny’s guide, and a man, who Danny knew as James Houghie, watched the fight from the right.

Dust was kicked up, then slowly settled down, not before another plume burst into the air, creating an endless recycled cloud. Toro gazed as the bulls collided in a mess of muscle, sweat, blood, and bone before he stood to look at Danny. The two men on Darren Toro’s side followed their head and walked alongside the man as he approached.

Toro wore a suit that covered himself in three pieces. Its fabric flowed like water over his body, and he stood eye to eye with Danny, yet the man towered over him. An audible gulp played in Danny’s mind, but he was unable to swallow through his worry choked throat.

The group watched each other, waiting for the first move, although they all knew who had to make it. “So, you have the money?”

Danny glanced at James Houghie, who shook his head. He had known the scrawny man for years now and had always had a soft spot for the guy. James reciprocated that feeling and had been the guy to first get Danny a meeting with Darren Toro. That meeting, and the half dozen to follow, had managed to collect Danny a decent handful of cash, and because of this, Danny was grateful.

“I- I mean, I’ve got the stuff. I’ve got your stuff.”

Toro nodded and looked to the second elephant, who stepped forward and gripped Danny by the shoulders. Danny winced as he felt his bones pop, and the man began to pat him down.

“Hey-hey-hey, I’ve got all ten, just chill out, an’ I’ll get it for you.” Danny made a pumping motion at his crotch before opening his jacket to reveal the milky blocks that hung from him. There wasn’t a second of hesitation before the big man began to tear the blocks from Danny’s body, who winced in pain as the tape ripped from his pink skin. “Ow, calm yourself! You’re not trynna wax your bitch here. Now nice and easy- yeah, there you go, no need to take my skin off.”

The bags made a thumping sound as Toro took them and began to turn them over in his hands. He inspected each bag in-depth, staring intently at the powder inside, and Danny chuckled as he felt his anxiety catapult to a peak.

“He-he-ha, nice place you got here.” He spoke through the heavy silence that was accented by the clash of horns below. “I say this every time, but this whole-” Danny gestured to the surrounding room, “it just takes my breath away.”

Without a response, Toro handed the last of the bags to the man and looked at Danny, who continued to ramble. “It's kinda a relief being here, ya know? I spend so much time with my sisters and their girlfriends I get kinda clogged up with estrogen. ‘He’s so cute,’ ‘let's go shopping,’ all that shit… ” Danny trailed off as he took another glance around the room. “I just need some testosterone shoved down my throat from time to time.” He looked back up at Darren, whose face hadn’t moved an inch. “N-not like that. I just- you know- that’s not what I meant… where the fuck’s the money?”

Toro motioned to James, who stepped forward and pulled several wads of hundreds out of his coat pocket, shoving them into Danny’s hand. Danny counted the bills with a shaky grip and looked up to Darren with disgust. “There’s only ninety-thousand here. The price was a hundred.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Danny could see James shake his head as he placed a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t,” he whispered. “Please just take the money; it’ll be better for all of us.”

Danny shrugged the soothing hand off and moved towards Toro, who refused to flinch. “We said a hundred thousand, so I want a hundred thousand!” Danny’s voice growled, a rebel to the way his heart ached with panic, and as he moved closer, the elephant in front of him stuck out a solid trunk of an arm. Danny pushed against the sturdy barrier, ignoring the snarls bounced off his closed ears.

“One more warning: back the fuck up!” A voice came from behind him, but Danny was too focused on the money to pay it any heed. He kept pushing forward, his mind set on its goal.

In an instant, that goal was shattered as an explosion rocked Danny’s ears. A blinding flash of light blasted in front of Danny’s eyes, and his instincts took over, throwing his body to the ground. The marbled floor crushed his ribs, but the warmth of the drops that sprayed from the man told Danny that he should prefer the ground. The elephant behind him dropped, his face now a mess of red shards, and Danny scrambled inside his waistband for the cold lick of steel. From the floor, Danny squeezed the trigger, and the big man who was now holding a gun dropped like his compatriot.

One moment the room was quiet and full; the next, it was empty and flooded with explosions. Danny crawled on his stomach as bullets flew above him. Behind him, cries of pain spilled from the man whose leg dangled from his splintered knee. Somewhere around him, Danny knew James and Darren hid behind cover, sending bullets blindly into the room, but there was no way in hell Danny would raise his head to look.

He kept crawling, making his way towards the pit where only one bull remained, standing above its vanquished enemy. Danny dropped several feet down into the row of chairs that circled the arena and peaked his eyes out into the open. His heart was lightning as it moved, seeing the thin body of James sprinting towards him, and Danny managed to take several shots before his acquaintance was on top of him.

For a moment, Danny was confident he could win, but that confidence was fleeting as another body struck him from his flank. The force was too great, and together Darren, Danny, and James tumbled down into the bull pit.

The men were primal as they fought in the arena that was now filled with four bulls. Danny kicked and punched blindly as the dirt covered his eyes, and the second his vision cleared, it was immediately blocked by a spray of blood.

Danny felt his own blood escape from his stomach as the horns of the bull tore into his abdomen. His vision became splotchy, and at that moment, he knew his chances had begun to slip through his hands. Suddenly, he was aware of the bag that sat burrowed up inside him, and his mind focused on the sweet feeling the powder could give him.

All around Danny, the dirt grew wet as the life in the room melted to liquid. The pain’s reaching claws pulled Danny's mind into an abyss of black, but not before he looked unto the arena. The dust had become heavy, no longer sifting freely through the air, and the circle battlefield that once held a blazing war was now empty except for the single bull who pawed enviously at the ground.