"Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die.
Into the valley of Death
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell!"   

The Charge of the Light Brigade ~ Alfred, Lord Tennyson 

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With the radio back blasting bagpipe beats, we make the deadly drive back down and around Half Moon Harbour again. Making the turn into the Meadowlands, Chuckie rolls the big black tank right through the open front gate like he owns the place. The security guard at the gate doesn't even glance at us once. Instead, he just suddenly finds something else to do that isn't stop and talk to us. So I'm guessing that Chuckie probably has some sort of prior understanding with the gate guy. One where this dude knows to mind his own business, or else. Like maybe he owed Chuckie money once upon time, and never ever wants to make that mistake again?

Chuckie treats the high Himalayan speedbumps like they are mere suggestions as the big black Suburban tank just bounces over them. Practically, daring some stupid sheep kid to strap on a bicycle helmet and charge the massive impact bumper on this monster machine. Instead of heading back to his house, Chuckie slides right past his cul-de-sac and around the corner to long greenbelt park. Which I am now hoping is "The Green" he was talking about earlier on the phone. 

We finally pull up across the way from a pretty nice little fake lake fountain thing, with some rather dirty looking ducks floating around feeling safe. I have to admit that at a glance, the long green lawn seems like a pretty nice park. Gracie would love this place, with lots of open space to run and play, slay dragons or whatnot.

"Okay, so a couple of things to keep in mind before we do this thing." Even before the engine dies all the way, Chuckie starts giving me the drift on his next grift.

"You see that girl over there on the park on that bench? The sorta skinny looking one in the leather bomber jacket with the straight black-blood hair?" He nods me over at the girl sitting by herself on the park bench. "Looks like she is probably doodling some shit?"

I take a long look over at the bomber jacket girl in question. I take it Chuckie means by "doodling some shit" he is referring to the art sketch pad she is currently balancing on her knee. Her dark red hair is halfway down in her pale face as she sketches away the day, so I can't clearly see her features. She is a slender girl bordering on the skinny, if her long leggings are anything to go off of. Her leather jacket is pretty much obscuring getting a good look at what lies beneath.  Every so often she brushes her hair back out of her face with her pencil. Just based on what I can glimpse, she appears to be roughly about my age, maybe a year or two younger than me at the most?

"Yeah okay, I've clocked her." I agree to see what he is seeing.

"Yeah, that's part two." Chuckie nods intently.

"Part two of...?" I blink back like this makes any sense to me whatsoever.

"That's Siobhan, but everyone calls her Sio." He informs evenly, pronouncing her name as See-oh. 

My first thought is, "Oh holy hell, is this chick my secret stirppery second cousin from Chuckie's long lost child bride, Chastity?"

"Sio is my old friend Dead Mickey's daughter. Mick's been dead now a couple for years ...from the cancer." He has to casually add at the end, just in case I was confused on the actual cause of death for this so-called "old friend".

Okay, so part two of this insanity of his has something to do with the Dead Mickey's daughter? As if this girl and her dead dad drama somehow explains all Chuckie's evil master machinations? And since when the hell does Chuckie have any friends, old or otherwise?

"See Sio's a real good girl. Sure she's kind of artsy and shit, but still kind of nice too?" Chuckie scowls out at the lone girl and sighs sadly for effect.

This sudden sad sighing shit he is now rocking is seriously starting to weird me out a little. Chuckie does not normally do sighing ...cause sighing implies that there is an emotion that would require this expression? The kind of sadness emotion that he does not normally possess. It's kind of like watching a killer whale sigh sadly for eating a baby seal or some shit. Something that definitely should not be happening in the natural order of things. So either this is a new thing for him to show me, or this display is all for my manipulation. Either way that does not bode well for me or this poor Part Two girl in the mix, nice or not.

"See lately, Sio's been having some trouble over at that St. Andrews spot we were just at. So I'm gonna need you to handle that for her while you're there." Chuckie starts to explain his insane. 

"Oh yeah?" What, and I go there now too? Well, what a strange coincidence, right? Yeah wrong! I'm thinking the reason I go there now has a lot to do with this girl and her troubles. 

"So exactly what kind of trouble are we talking about here?" I ask for the sake of clarification. Because clearly, they're the kind of trouble that can get you killed, or else Chuckie wouldn't be involved.  

"Yeah, so there's this kid who's been causing Sio some problems at school. A real scum bag piece of shit name Robert-motherfucking-Collins. He's like the outgoing quarterback, big star on the rise golden boy bullshit. Thinks he's a big shit from some real rich family, or whatever?" He glowers over at the girl.

"So this scum bag Collins kid has been up on Sio for a while, right? Pushy and cajoling, and basically being an all-around douche bag piece of shit. Somehow or another, he convinces her to go to one of those school dance things together, like Homecoming or some shit? But like as friends?" He snorts in disbelief. "But you know ...and I know ...that fuck was not thinking about being friends, but being friendly. If you get my drift?"

"Got it." Okay, sounds almost logical so far.  

"But even better, it turns out this scumbag piece of shit was bragging to all his fucking butt-buddies in the locker room. That he can get up on Sio this year and take her ...you know what?" The side of his mouth twists up into a slight snarl to express his thoughts on this issue. "So Sio somehow found out about that from a friend of a friend, and got her feelings real hurt by this shit."

"Okay, that sucks." I have to agree on the shitty state of all things scumbag.  

Just by the way that Chuckies is describing this scenario, I am thinking that going from scum to chum is one very short boat ride away for old Robby MF-ing whatever the hell his name was? Which begs the question of why the hell is he bringing me into the mix? Instead of Chuckie just doing what he clearly wants to do? Which is obviously kill this kid so dead, not even the sharks will find him.

"Thing is Sio's not that kind of girl, not even a little bit." He intones with dark foreboding of chum to come. "No, Sio's the other kind of girl? The good girl kind, that doesn't really know what to do with assholes like that. Not like us, because you and me we know different, right?"

"Right." I agree for no other reason than Chuckie clearly needs to hear me agree with him.

"So now that Sio knows the deal, she ain't giving this piece of shit Collins kid the time of day. But this scumfuck kid is starting to get real unhappy now, cause he lost that bet like a bitch. So maybe he starts thinking things he shouldn't think. Things like a girl who got no one in the world, so who gives a shit about her? Maybe he starts thinking that means he can take whatever he wants, whether or not she wants, right?"

"No! Fucking-A wrong again motherfucker!" Chuckie answers this particular piece of stupidity for me with his homicidal rage. As if somehow the string of threats and curses that came before weren't quite clear enough already. 

Rule #13 ~ Psychopaths do not normally get emotional, but they always have to get even.

[As a general rule psychopaths tend not to get emotional the same way everyone else does. But they do always have to get even or else. Getting even for some perceived slight is like an imperative for them, but on a very primal level. But on those rare occasions where a psychopath does actually get an emotion like say ...anger or rage? Then everyone else better watch the hell out, cause that shit is going to explode in a fiery blood-red rage like Krakatoa!]

"So this scumbag needs to not think that anymore, and I need that not to happen that way." Chuckie finally intones coldly. "So you're gonna be like Sio's new boyfriend slash bodyguard for the rest of fuckall to whenever. And this little scumbag piece of shit Collins kid is gonna go away forever ...before I put him away for-fucking-ever. Or you need me to spell that out for you too?"

"No need, I think got it." I nod through the scenario that he is spieling at me.

All the extra added verbiage aside I am getting the point. That Chuckie wants me to make this guy go away nicely, or else he will turn scum into chum. Or even worse, he will make me do the dark deed myself, to earn "my bones" the old fashion way.

"Good, cause it's very important to me Jackie, that you clearly understand what's what with this thing. So I know that everything and everyone will be taken care of the way they should be. Or fucking else." He finishes his last thought with cracking neck noise to emphasize all his unhappy. "So we're all clear on this score so far, right?"

"Crystal clear," I assure him that understand completely the consequences of an O.F.E ending, should things not happen his way.

Because now Chuckie is starting to show a little of his true self, the monster that lives behind the mask. His icy eyes are growing a little more frosty than usual cold-blooded murdery. And if the eye twitching thing he starting to do is any indication? I'd have to guess that he is about as angry as I've seen him since my dad bailed on us. And that is saying something for a guy with arctic ice water in his veins.  

"See something you probably don't know about me, Jackie." Chuckie pauses as if searching for some big words that explain all this lunacy.

I'm a total freaking psychopath who collects debts owed to the Irish mob. So sometimes I kill people who piss me off and turn them into chum for fun. Probably cause I just can't get enough of that shark week shit? Oh, and I am also secretly raising an alligator down in my basement to feed those deadbeat cancer fucks to. So don't make the direction this conversation any more difficult, or I will start having to use my big words. And trust me when I tell you kid, you do not want me mispronouncing big words like "murderize" to make my point across at you, okay? Cause at some point I will give up on all that wordy shit ...and just hit you in the head with my magic hammer-hatchet and turn your ass into chum too. Except for your skull? Which I will probably use as a planter for my prize purple begonia's ...like with earthworms crawling in your eyes and shit. So there, I bet you didn't even know I had prize-winning purple begonias, huh?

After what seems like a very long argument with all the other voices in his head, Chuckie finally starts speaking for himself again.

"See I didn't have a lot of friends growing up as a kid, not like you do? I had maybe five fucking friends in my whole life? And Micks was one of them ...the first of five." Chuckie frowns down at his huge hands before sharing his big secret shame with me. "Truth is Mickey was a lot more than just a friend to me, he was better than a brother. Hell, he even saved my miserable prick life once back in the bad days in the Old Neighboorhood, for no other reason than because."

So now I have every answer I ever needed to know about this ask of his and more. This thing isn't about money or football or friendship or fuck all. This is all about an old blood debt that Chuckie is gonna do for his dead friend's daughter. No wonder he is moving mountains to make this all happen. Chuckie actually owes someone else a debt?

So now this whole thing has all come full circle for me. Because Chuckie thinks he owes this girl's dead dad a blood debt, and I owe Chuckie? So now her problems have suddenly become my problems, in order that these two debts will cancel each other out in the end. So this is the real reason for all this sudden insanity, and the rest of the bullshit was just the window dressing. Yeah, I can already see that this thing is already shaping up to be trouble with a big fat capital T. 

"So you understand what I'm saying here right now, right?" Chuckie stares right into my soul looking for some sign of recognition.

"Yeah, we owe blood or bullets. So it's a done deal with the devil from day one." I intone the ancient Irish blood oaths. 

"Oh yeah, and then some Jackie Boy." Chuckie almost agrees with my take. "Okay, so now that we understand each other, let's go meet Sio and her mother Moira? But just let me do the talking for now, until we seal the deal, okay?" 

Chuckie tilts his head for a second to check his crazy ass to-do list, for that one last elusive thing. I glance back over at the girl in the middle of this thing. I really have to wonder if she has any clue just how bad this will be for her going forward? Something else I file away under my exponentially increasing do-not-need-to-know list.

"Oh by the by, I should probably warn you that Sio is probably not going to be happy about any of this shit? So just be charming and talk around whatever she says, like you can do. Worst case scenario, if she decides to throw a shit fit over whatever? Then you can just put that whatever right back on me and her mother if you have to? Got it?"

"Got it." I agree with what is clearly an agreeable issue for him. I just hope to hell we are agreeing about the same thing this time.

"Good, I knew you would." Chuckie nods and drops out of the driver's seat. "Now let's go get the hard part over with, then we can grab something to eat. Cause I don't know about you, but all this talking time is making me hungry enough to kill a cow?"

And I'm pretty sure it's eat a cow, you psycho? But I'm sure you like yours better. I sigh internally and follow in the wake of the great white Irish killer whale. As he wanders off to meet his next victims, this poor girl in the mix and her mother.

♥♥♥

~ Authors Notes ~

This chapter is dedicated to TheGirlInRedKurti who is a long time friend and a very cool girl in my humble opine.