They use force to make you do ...
what the deciders
have decided you must do!

Killing in the name of ~
Rage Against The Machine

♣♣♣

After about two minutes of standing around with Chuckie, behind the back gate of a place that neither one of us belongs being caught at. I finally give up even guessing at what the hell I am supposed to be seeing here. Maybe this is some sort of strange reconnaissance mission for some score he wants to take down? Or maybe the student union has a new strip joint downstairs, to help teachers pay off their student loan debt, one dirty dollar at a time? So Chuckie just wants to scope the talent, sample the breakfast buffet and check the sports scores? Or maybe he's even searching for a portal to hell to open up, so his insane Laughing Gods can send him back his long lost soul to sacrifice? The possibilities are endless when it comes to the crazy crap my uncle thinks is cool?

"So what do you know about this place here?" Chuckie finally nods over through ornate wrought-iron bars to Hogwarts High.

"Nothing, other than that name on the gate?" I shrug. "Why?"

"Good private school with a halfway decent football team, and lots and lots of big rich boosters." Chuckie nudges at the massive gate with the toe of his heavy construction-combat boot. "And it's got a seriously strong gate to boot? So use your head, what does all that tell you about this place here?"

Translation: This is a possible potential fertile hunting ground of people stupid enough to bet on high school football games?

"Tells me that people with a lot of money send their kids here, cause it looks safe?" I speculate, playing along with whatever game he is running in his head.

"Anything else?" He eyes me almost curiously. 

"Naw, not so much. Why, what's it telling you?" I shake him off slowly, I give up trying to guess the answers at whatever strange guessing game he is going on with the insane voices in his head.  

"Tells me that this is a serious sports school right here, with a ton of money to spend. The way I hear it, they are in contention to take a shot at a state title in their division. And all they need now is a big defensive star in the middle to anchor their defense around." He smiles widely to show off all his sharp teeth. "That sound about right to you?"

"Okay, if you say it's so?" I nod along.

"Okay, good to go." Chuckie hums along to the insane song in his own head. 

But something strikes me as wrong about this last exchange, cause Chuckie seems way too pleased for some strange reason. So I resist agreeing again by reflex, instead I ask for the obvious clarification. 

"Hold up a sec, Uncle Chuck?" I start off slowly, trying to cautiously navigate the dangerous waters of Chuckies crazy mindstream. "So right then when I just said 'Okay, if you say it's so', I was agreeing with you on your take on this place, right? But when you said 'Okay, good to go' that sounded a lot like I was agreeing to something else?" 

"That's 'cause you're a smart kid, Jackie boy." Chuckie smiles slightly psychotically. "So I knew you'd get it."

Get what now, you complete cuckoo for coco-puffs freaking nutter?

"Okay, but just to be on the safe side? Maybe you can spell it out for me a little longer? You know, just in case I missed something in the mix?" Like maybe the entire freaking point of this exercise in insanity, you psycho?

"Okay then, let me spell it out for you. So you need to go to this school here next year. In fact, your gonna transfer here right after Christmas break is over for next semester. In order to ensure your eligibility for next season. Okay, all spelled out enough now?" He juts out his heavy jaw out, just waiting for me to disagree with him.  

Whaaaaat theeee actuaaaal fuuuuuuuck, Chuck! 

The world axis slightly tilts under my feet and my mind is spinning a thousand miles a minute, trying to wrap my head around what the hell he is talking about. Does he want me to fix football games for him, and maybe blow my chance at a full ride to a decent college? Or does he have something even crazier in mind for this insane ask? Like maybe set up a high-end Adderal drug ring just in time for the S.A.T. tests? Take advantage of all the rich overachievers trying to get into a good school? 

"So that's your ask? I switch schools from Sparta to this place, in order to play football here next year?" I look back over Hogwarts continuation school for the magically challenged, trying to figure out what the hell is happening here.

"Yeah." He scowls over at me, waiting for me to start bitching up a storm over this bullshit.

But I can already hear the implied guilt trip starting up in my head. What, suddenly you got a problem with that kid? After all the shit I've done for you and yours? Now you wanna bust my balls, over an easy ask like this shit? Did you not just hear me say you were "good to go" on this, or not? So say something stupid to me ...I fucking dare you, Chum!

"Okay, but I don't live in this district or even in this state? So commuting up here is going to be a major problem for me?" I point out the obvious flaw in this new master plan of his. 

Because no offense to the insane voices in your head telling you this is cool? But can you kindly tell them that I don't really want to be a Golden Snitch? That I would much prefer to stay a Spartan. So I'm gonna go with thanks but no thanks, if its all the same to you?    

"Don't worry about all that, I got you covered." He reassures me of his insanity. "Yeah, you're gonna move over into my house."

Oh shit, screw me sideways with a chainsaw! The strings magically appear out of thin air and attach themselves to my dumb puppet ass. Now I know that this isn't some sort of hypothetical, just to see what I would do before he asks me the real favor. He's already thought ahead of every angle on this, so the fix is in. This is a thing for him now.

"Any more questions on this score?" He eyes me coldly, waiting for me to make my next mistake.

"Ah..." I try to come up with any logical reason for this to not happen this way, but my brain is screaming things about leaving my sister all alone!

"Only that Gracie is going to have a huge issue with me gone? Not to mention, that my mother might have a thing or two to say on that subject?" I offer weakly.

"Oh, of course your sister and your mom are coming with? We don't want Grace getting any more of that separation anxiety stuff at her age? You know, cause we want the girl to be happy and healthy here, right?" He flashes his second-most insincere smile. 

"Right?" I agree by rote.

"Oh, and just tell your mom don't worry so much about the money stuff. I already got her a new nursing job over at this doctor's office guy I know. So they are gonna pay her more than she makes as is. They even got decent daycare preschool place right down the way for your sister, at least until she starts school next year."

Oh, and double fuck me, he has actually thought of everything. 

Rule # 7 ~ Psychopaths will always think of everything all the through, way before you do. 

[Psychopaths will have all the answers worked out ahead of time in order to get what they want, just the way they want it. That whole thing about the devil is in the details? Yeah ...that devil is a real serious deal for them.]

"Okay, Uncle Chuck, whatever you need me to do." I grudgingly agree, only because it's pretty clear that I have no choice in the matter at the moment, so the deal is done.

I know now without a doubt in my mind, it's my time to give the devil his due, one way or another. I made this deal with this particular devil years ago to save my sister. So I always knew the butcher bill was going to come sooner or later. Ergo there's no use at all fighting this moment. So if this is the favor he wants to make sure that Gracie and my mom are healthy happy and well fed? Fine, fuck it ...why the hell not? So I guess I go here to Hogwarts High now,

"Okay, I'll need to talk to mom then and let her know what's what." On whatever the hell he thinks he is doing to us.

"Yeah, you should probably definitely do that." He shrugs this off like it's little more than a minor concern to him.

Which if I am being honest, talking to my mother is sorta only a minor concern to him. I know that Chuckie is okay with my mom, more or less? More because she is me and Gracie's mother, less so because she made the mistake of marrying my father. Because I know if she wasn't our mother, he probably wouldn't give her the time of day.

Rule #12 ~ Psychopaths have odd attachments and strange relationships with the real people around them.

[Something else you learn about after spending enough time with psychopaths is that they don't really have personal relationships with anyone. Not unless those people fit precisely into their place and stay there. In Chuckie's case, the thing that matters to him the most is blood. Chuckie, me and Grace are blood-related, which is a very serious thing to him. My mother is the incubator for that blood tie, therefore, she is in the loop, but not in the circle of trust. My deadbeat dad Dick fell out of his circle of trust a couple of years ago with Chuckie... so fuck him. So now dear old deadbeat dad is in another category called people who haven't given me a reason to kill them yet, also known as the rest of the planet. Welcome to Chuckie Logic 101.]

"Yeah, just let your mom know I gotta move somewhere else for a minute. So, I'm gonna need you to watch the house for a while. That should solve an issues she might have with that." He answers the unasked question of why the hell he is suddenly pulling this insane ask on me.

I resist asking the obvious answer of where he is going? Prison for the criminally insane would be my first choice. All though I'm pretty sure I would have heard if he caught a case already, let alone a conviction?

"Uncle Chuckie, is everything okay with you?" I frown down at my ratty Converse sneakers. "I mean, you're gonna be okay here, right?"

"Who me?" He almost acts surprised by the question. As if he is suddenly shocked that anyone ever would ever care about him for a minute.

"Yeah, don't worry about me, I'm fucking aces. I just got to take care of some things somewhere elsewhere for a while. So in the meantime, you and yours gotta move here take care of the house and handle a couple of things around the way for me. You know, like feed my fucking dog and shit?" He shrugs me off. "But you don't worry about the details. I just gotta do what I gotta do, and you just do what you gotta do, okay?"

"Okay." I nod slowly through this, still trying to wrap my mind around the massive upheaval in our lives that is about to happen. "So when is this all supposed to happen again?" 

"This weekend my stuff gets moved over to a new spot somewhere else." I catch that he is being vague on wherever this new shady spot of his is at, and file it away as a do-not-need-to-know.

"Then I am gonna have the cleaners come in and do their thing." He lays out the schedule of screwing up our lives. "Cause we need to make sure everything is clean as a whistle for the girls. So the week in between Christmas and New Year's you can start moving your stuff in. But I want your driver's licensed address changed over no later than the 20th of this month. That way they can't screw with your eligibility next year. Got it?"

"Got it. Change of address no later than the twentieth of this month." I file that away on my new insane to-do list.

"Oh yeah, that reminds me. See these people here?" He hands me over a sheet of paper with a couple of old Irish names I vaguely recognize scrawled on it. "Starting next month, they're gonna rent your old place at two G's a month, while you watch my house. Okay?"

"They are what now?" I blink back.

Two thousand dollars a month to rent a house where we live is unheard of in my neighborhood? A grand a month is the max going rate, and that's only if you're raising more dogs than kids.

"Yeah, they kinda lost their last grow spot a while ago? So they need a place to set up shop and sleep. Your old house is perfect for that, with all those old neighbors who don't give a shit. And unlike over here, growing over there is almost legal. So win-win for everyone." Chuckie's cold eyes blaze just a little brighter than his normal dead for a second. "But don't worry about collecting the rent ...cause they know who they owe."

Oh Holy Hell, Chuckie is turning my childhood home into a grow house for one of his medical marijuana delivery business?

I probably should have mentioned that Chuckie got his hooks into the "semi-legal" medical marijuana delivery business a while back. But not for some altruistic alternative medical reason, only so he could collect money from deadbeat weed heads. I'm pretty sure the business model he was working with went something like this. All his guys were driving around doing collections anyways...so why not do M&M deliveries and collections at the same time? Kill two birds one stone and a big win/win for everyone.

Rule #6 ~ While psychopaths are absolutely insane, they are not necessarily stupid.

[One of the things about psychopaths that most people don't understand, is that they are highly cunning creatures. They are very intelligent, viciously violent, and even charming when they need to be, but rarely stupid. Psychopaths are brilliant business people in their own special crazy way. They see angles and opportunities that most other people would miss. Just like sharks can smell a drop of blood in the water a mile away ...psychopaths can smell weakness and opportunity in others.]

Hell, I can almost hear his deadhead collection spiel already: "Oh, so you can't pay what you owe cause you have cancer, Chum? Well shit, that changes everything. Now I can't turn you into chum cause the sharks might get cancer sick and shit? And we would never want to do that those lovely creatures, now would we? But don't worry Chum, I can still feed you to the alligators instead. Cause reptiles can't get cancer and AIDS, that's a thing I saw on shark week last month."

"Any problems on that score so far, Jackie?" He interrupts my mental picture of Crockodile Cancer Collections Inc.

"Not so much?" I try to come up with any other reason for this to not happen that way. "Only that Mrs. Grady next door could be an issue for that kind of set up? She's pretty old and not always all there in the head? So strangers suddenly living next door might be a scary thing for her? Maybe she even calls the cops? Which I am guessing might be a big problem for the grow guys."

"Old lady Grady?" Chuckie cocks his big bald head to the side and gives me a strange faraway stare.

I take this dead look to means there was an unforeseen error event in his thinking. Possibly even something that could turn deadly serious very easy. Sociopaths don't like unforeseen errors, because then they start obsessing about them. Which is never good for anyone, but most especially the problem party in question. Cause errors have to get corrected, and the easiest way to correct an error is to eliminate it permanently. Which I'm thinking would not be good for Mrs. Grady's continued health and well being.

"Yeah, you know she stood by us at Gracie's christening ...even though?" I shrug. "So we kind of owe."

"Right, I remember that now." Chuckie mugs his approval of all things loyalty.

"Maybe if I make the introductions ahead of time and smooth things over? I think she should be cool after a minute?" I reassure him that letting Mrs. Grady live will be better for everyone in the long run, but especially for her. "Oh, and if maybe the grow guys can cut old Mrs. Grady's lawn every couple of weeks? Shit, after a month or two she might even forget that we ever lived there?"

"Then don't give it another thought. I'll make sure those stupid shits living in your old house are gonna have her lawn looking the best on the block." Chuckie pauses thoughtfully before pronouncing his final judgment on the problem. "Besides that will give them a good place to dump all the excess fertilizer and used up hydro grow shit they'll have to get rid of anyways. So win fucking win for everyone."

Yet another Win-F'ing-Win brought to you by the kind folks at Super Pyscho Inc, keeping it crazy since 1969!

"Okay, so problem solved, moving on." He nods satisfied at whatever outcome he wanted. "Times a wasting, and we got places to go and people to see." And maybe chop them up into chum for fun?

As soon as we are back in the tank, he drops the SUV gear into drive and flips the assault vehicle back around and heads back to hell.

"So that's was part one." He adds as almost an afterthought to this evil master plan of fuck all. 

"Part one?" Which I take to mean that there is more than one moving part to this favor he wants to happen.

But unfortunately Chuckie is already long gone from this conversation to answer at the moment. Leaving me still reeling in the aftermath of his insane ask, and what it will mean to my family going forward? Leaving the only place we have ever lived, and how this sudden change is going to affect my sister? The pirate princess, who is infamous for digging in on things she doesn't want to do. Not to mention, how the hell am I going to explain all this insanity to my mother ...and not sound as crazy as Chuckie? 

♣♣♣

~ Authors Notes ~

This chapter is dedicated to DellaYung  who is a seriously nice person and a very cool writer in my humble opine. So if you're looking for an interesting take on Greek Mythos, Gods & Monsters check out her latest at:  https://www.wattpad.com/story/76659908-troy-fall-of-a-city