Hell Money

This was a complete waste of time! This guy is a total asshole! LOL. Crissy texts her best friend, Jennifer.

Crissy, a plain looking, 28 year old blonde wearing a casual white dress, puts her phone back into her pocketbook. As her date, Matt, a 34 year old chiseled man, comes walking back to the table. He has a semi-muscular build and thick-styled beard. He’s covered in tattoos strategically obfuscated with a designer brand sweater and skinny jeans contrasting his bad boy demeanor

“This is the last time I come here,” Matt picks up a fortune cookie that is on top of a worn out yet fancy black bill holder.

“You’ve never been here before?” Crissy feigns shock.

“No, I've driven by a few times,” Matt says while chewing on the fortune cookie.

“What made you pick this place?” Crissy is casting pearls amongst swine, she has too much experience acting interested and her talent is wasted on her date who has about as much empathy as a piece of junk mail.

“I have a hobby of going to different restaurants to try out their Wagyu and sake. I wanted to check out what top-shelf whiskey they had.”

Matt rolls up the sleeves of his sweater, revealing his tattoo sleeves. His tattoos all seem shallow and impersonal. His left arm has something nautical on it, it looks like a compass rose like you would find on an old pirate map. His other arm has part of a skull showing.

“What’s Wagyu?” Crissy asks.

Crissy’s attention slips away from Matt who is giving what sounds like a rehearsed explanation, a wiki-type site’s definition of what Wagyu is. She focuses on her surroundings, attempting to find a mental escape. After only an hour and a half of knowing him, hearing him talk was much like what Crissy imagined an endoscopy with a tree branch felt like. In situations like these, she would find a focal point and retreat into her mind.

There is no way in hell he could have expected anything expensive in this dive. We’re sitting in an unfinished basement with dollar store Chinese decorations, Crissy thinks.

Matt continues, “... and because I’m an alpha male-”

BUZZ BUZZ!

“Oh! I gotta check that! Sorry!” Crissy reconsiders her atheistic views for a split second, the interruption is like a divine miracle. She can’t camouflage the excitement of being rescued.

So no second date? Jennifer finally texts back.

Fuck no!!! Crissy replies and puts her phone back in her pocket book.

“Sorry. Just wanted to make sure it wasn’t the kids,” Crissy always used her kids as an excuse, it was quite convenient, “you were saying?”

“I was saying I’m an alpha male,” Matt acts like he’s anal about keeping his area clean as he picks up pieces of rice and puts them on his empty plate, now pushed to the side of the table where the check holder sits.

After Matt repeats his delusion, he remembers to appear like the dominant male he needs to be and sits back in his chair, relaxing like he doesn’t care about anything.

“I’ve always been dangerous, always been a risk taker,” Matt reveals.

“But there is no such thing as an ‘alpha male,’” Crissy says with a smirk.

“What do you mean? Yes there is! Hence the tattoos… the beard… Look it up!” For the first time in the date Matt loses his poker face.

“The guy who coined the term ‘Alpha Male’ was studying a pack of wolves and he came up with the whole alpha/beta male thing. After he published his work he realized he was wrong. What he thought was an alpha male being dominant was actually just a wounded wolf that the group was taking care of only until he was better.”

Matt laughs condescendingly, “I’m sorry Crissy, that is not accurate at all. I mean, you got to have dinner with me, what would you call a guy like me?”

An Asshole. Crissy thinks, she shrugs her shoulders.

“Can I take your bill?” The waitress appears out of nowhere and asks.

Matt takes the second and only remaining fortune cookie and bites off a piece as he reaches for his wallet. Crissy reaches for her purse expecting Matt to stop her and demand he pays for it, but that obviously wasn’t happening.

“What’s this?” Matt pulls out a mini-flyer that was in the bill holder.

“As a customer you are eligible to enter a contest we are holding downstairs for couples,” the Waitress answers.

“We are not a couple,” Crissy blurts out before she has the chance to dress up her statement and make it sound a little less cold.

“It’s our first date, we met on a dating app,” Crissy confesses.

“Well, you can come downstairs right now and win twenty-thousand dollars! Are you guys interested?”

Matt turns to Crissy and mouths, “twenty-thousand dollars?”

The waitress leans in, “we separate you both into separate rooms and ask you each one question. If you answer correctly, you win.”

Matt looks at Crissy like a child psychically begging his mother to jump into a ball pit after eating a value meal at a fast food restaurant.

“Sure. Why not?” Crissy grabs her jacket and pocket book.

The restaurant was already underground, how it had another level closer to hell was beyond Crissy. But, here it was and it even more dank than the restaurant above it. There were two rooms with doors which were probably used for storage of some sort.

“Ok, what are your names?” the woman asks.

“I’m Matt.”

“Ok Matt, Please go have a seat in that room,” The woman directs Matt to one of the rooms.

“And your name?”

“Crissy.”

“And you, please have a seat in this room,” The woman directs Crissy into the other.

The woman goes into the room with Matt and hands him a few papers that are stapled together.

“Please sign on the ‘X’,” Matt signs without reading any of the pages.

Crissy does the same.

“Ok Crissy…” The woman stands in the room with Crissy and shuts the door. The woman then hands Crissy a piece of paper with the words “Hell Money” stamped on top with decayed ink.

“Ya ready?” The woman asks Crissy, nodding her head enthusiastically.

“Sure,” Crissy answers, having no idea what she’s just got herself into.

“Goooood. Ok! Now, in the room we just came from there is a duffle bag filled with twenty-thousand dollars, in cash.”

Crissy remembers taking a glance at the table just a couple of minutes earlier.

“Also, there’s a black notebook on the table. Now, in a minute I’m going to ask you which you would rather have, the money, or the notebook.”

Crissy’s brows furrow in confusion.

“...ok?”

“Here’s the catch!” The woman continues, “After you give your answer, we will ask your boyfriend the same question.”

“Ok.”

“Now, if both of you choose money, you will lose and leave with nothing. But, If one of you chooses the notebook and the other chooses the money, whoever answers ‘notebook’ wins the notebook and whoever answers ‘money’ wins the money. Ya followin me?” The woman smiles.

“Yeah.”

“Ok, and if you both say ‘notebook' both of you win the notebook and split the money! Sounds good?”

“Yeah. I got it.”

“Ok. Good. You said this is your first date?”

“Yeah.”

“How’d it go?”

Crissy is reluctant to answer.

“You can tell me. I’m a girl too ya know,” the woman winks.

“I would have rather drowned in dog piss.”

“Oh!’ The woman says loudly and begins to laugh, ”you funny! Ok. I hope that maybe you win money and don’t have to split it with him. How that sound?”

Crissy sarcastically answers, “like a dream.”

“Ok great!. I’ll give you a minute to think as I go explain the rules to your… date. Write down your answer and I’ll collect it when I come back.”

The woman enters Matt’s room and shuts the door.

Crissy concentrates. Ok, let’s think. If we both say ‘money’ that would be stupid. We would both leave with nothing. And why chance it when we can leave here splitting it? So we should both choose the notebook. But I have to consider the fact that he’s an idiot. So he might get greedy and pick money knowing I’m thinking ‘notebook’…

Crissy goes deep into thought for about twenty more seconds and finally she writes down ‘notebook.’

The woman re-enters the Crissy’s room, “ok! You done?”

Crissy hands the woman the paper. The woman reads it and looks up to Crissy with a polite smile, “ok! Come with me out here and let's see who won what.”

Crissy follows the woman back into the main room. Matt is already standing there, swinging his arms back and forth with his head tilted back. He raises his eyebrows while looking diagonally down to Crissy. They are standing about six feet apart. The woman stands in front of both of them, the table with the duffle bag and notebook behind her.

“Ok!... I’ll flip these over at the same time. Ready?”

Crissy and Matt look at each other. Crissy cracks a smile at Matt's childlike enthusiasm.

“Ok. One… Two… Three!”

The woman flips the papers over, “Matt wrote “money!”

“Yes!” Matt screams and is filled with victorious energy. “Why’d you pick ‘notebook’? You’re so stupid!”

Crissy already thought low of Matt, but she gave him the benefit of the doubt not expecting him to be that sleazy.

Matt runs over to the table, he opens the duffle bag and unzips it.

“Oh my god! Look!” Matt pulls stacks of cash out and smells them. Kisses them. Rubs them on his face. He drops all of them but one and rifles through the stack with his thumb to hear the crisp sound in his ear.

Crissy is standing there in shock realizing she just missed out on twenty-thousand dollars and this asshole just won it.

The woman walks to the table and gets the notebook and hands it to Crissy.

“Congratulations to you both!” The woman says proudly.

“Thank you!!! I can’t believe it! I never win anything!” Matt exclaims.

“Thanks,” Crissy forces herself to be polite and she accepts the notebook.

Crissy opens the notebook and finds the first page has been written on,

“Matt, do you plan to share any of your prize with Crissy?” The woman asks playfully.

“I’m sorry but I don’t think so. I think we can agree that the date wasn’t going well and this is too much money to give to someone I just met,” Matt looks passed the woman to Crissy, “I hope you understand. I mean, like I said, I’m an alpha male. Only a beta-male would simp and give a girl money on their first date. Plus, no offense, Crissy, but you’re a bit of a bitch.”

“Yeah sure,” Crissy mutters, as she reads what is written on the first page of the notebook.

The money is from a bank in Beijing that is contaminated with a flesh eating virus.

“Crissy, would you like to share your prize with Matt?”

Crissy looks at them both in equal amounts of terror and shock.

The woman gives Crissy a mischievous victorious smile.

“I can just take this?”

“It’s yours,” the Woman answers.

Matt takes the bag and walks quickly towards the stairs.

As he passes Crissy he says, “find your own way home. I-am-gone!”

The woman looks at Chrissy who is still speechless, “Last chance. Want to share?”

Crissy finally regains control over her body, “Matt, put the money down!”

“Fuck you!” he yells down the stairs.

“Matt!” Crissy yells.

“At least you tried, dear.” the woman says.