Jim just could not believe it.
He kept saying to himself: 'How could this happen?' Again and again until he started to go mad with it:
'It's not possible. This can't be happening. No. One man cannot be this unlucky. I have to be missing something. One minute I am signing a lucrative business deal that is going to forge the road to my retirement, and then the next I am in the middle of war with the Brazilian Cartel. In two days I go from success to colossal failure. NO! This is not a failure. I am underestimating the situation. NO! This is a disaster.'
'Indeed it is all those things,' Rod replied. 'But it is also the reality of the situation that we are currently in. We are living right in the middle of what I think we definitely turn out to be a catastrophe!'
'Well this is fabulous,' Jim returned, sarcastically of course. 'Talk about being stuck between a rock and a hard place! Our present position is the definition of such a thing. I mean we might as well be stuck in a drain pipe. I mean we are in that much of a jam!'
Jim was waiting for his friends to say something positive to calm him down, but they both remained highly quiet.
Butch was sitting down playing a game of cards with himself, not caring much about the situation at all, and Rod was in such a panicky state that he was as about as useful as a chainsaw without a chain.
'I don't know how I manage to do it,' Jim continued. All he could do right then was moan, and so that is wha the proceeded to do! 'Every time something good happens I throw it away! That's always been my way! I deserve a medal for the biggest cockup in history. My whole life has been a cockup so was my birth, my mother needed a caesarean for bloody hells sake! That's proof right there on a silver plater that I just wasn't meant to be born. But I was, and here I am. Ever since my mother threw me it of home I have lived my whole life as a drifter. Plodding from one job to the other. It's been completely miserable. I have only ever been happy when I am drunk. Alcohol is the best thing in my life! Actually, I will go one step further, it is the ONLY thing in my life! I have got nothing but booze. It is my rock. It is the only thing in life that has ever really truly understood me as a man. There is no humanity in life without booze. I realised this truth from a very young age. For a long time whiskey was my muse and I thought the only thing I would ever care about. And then one day I found G-Juice. It changed my life. It made me realise that there is more to life than a single malt. There is a drink out there that is stronger and better. A drink that can literally change your life. You know a story? Oscar Wilde used to talk about absinthe and seeing fairies. I used to think what tosh that was! No drink can do that! Ha! But now a I know the truth. There was one night when I drank so much G-Juice I actually met, sat down with, and had a conversation with a giant talking frog. He talked nonsense for hours; followed me around for days like my shadow, like a ghost. Haunting me of my failings. So what did I do you ask? You are not going to ask but I am going to tell you anyway - I just drank him away! Yeah. That's the hyper boring end to my story. I drank him up and I drank him away. That's when I learned the secret power of G-Juice. The first three drinks get you to a good place. The fourth is when you start seeing things, talking frogs, fairies... well I wish I saw fairies but I only ever saw frogs - but on the fifth and then after that NOTHING. Everything gets washed away. And in the morning, NOTHING. Every problem you ever had is gone, because it no longer exists inside of your brain. So I guess the point I am trying to make is this: If you have a problem then wipe it from your brain. And that is exactly what I am going to do right now. There is a bottle of G-Juice in the basement and I am going to go down there and drink all of it.'
'I advise against that, indeed, very strongly in fact,' Rod finally found his voice again and spoke up. 'We are all going to need our wits to deal with this situation. If the cartel find us drunk we might not be able to react appropriately...'
'Who said anything about you getting drunk?' Jim replied. 'I am the one who is going to pour. One bottle one hand one throat. You are not getting involved with this business. I am the one who needs a wiped brain right now.'
'This is an undrinkable problem,' Rod continued. 'Your brain might say no, but the cartel are going to say yes. And then they are going to wipe your brain permanently with a bullet.'
Hearing this made Jim's blood boil.
There was Rod lecturing him about what he should and should not do, when he himself was the catalyst of all their woes. It was his dodgy connections, his borrowing from dangerous lenders that had put them in the boiling pot of doom.
It was his fault that Jims dreams, his perfect business plan, had been dashed into oblivion.
'Don't you dare speak to me,' Jim replied, angrily. 'I never wanted to get involved with the cartel! This is your mess! Every single inch of it belongs to you. You created this disaster, and so YOU own it. Right now I cannot bear to look at you, Rod. You make me sick and I mean physically sick. I need you to know that you have not only destroyed my life, but my dreams as well. But I am not going to get involved with this situation. Like I said, you own this mess. You started a war with the cartel, and you can end it. Goodnight.'
'It's not that easy,' Rod continued. 'And before you start shouting again listen to what I have to say. I got a message this morning. Our names were on it. We have been blacklisted. They want you as well as I.'
Jim asked why.
'Because I gave your name when I asked for the loan,' Rod explained. 'They want a portion of the business that loan created. And it is your business. Your name is on it as director. If anything they probably want you more than me!'
When Jim heard this he simply snapped.
He had reached his peak as a man of reserve and completely lost it with Rod, and proceeded beating the man half to death with his own hands.
Butch was forced to step in to pull Jim back before he killed Rod, which was something that looked very likely in the moment.
'Well that's it we are dead,' said Jim, dusting himself down.
'There is no running from this,' said Butch. 'You are either going to have to bow your head and except your fate, or fight. This is a war right now and they struck first blood! They damaged your crib, they attacked you on your own ground. Maybe what we should do next is find out where their base is and take the fight to them!'
'What are you talking about Butch?' said Jim. 'How did we take the fight to them? If you haven't noticed I am a drunk, and Rod won't be able top move properly for a long time because I just smashed his face in! We are not an army!'
'No but I can get a few lads together!' Butch replied.
'O stop being so silly,' Jim replied. 'It's alright for you, Butch. You are not blacklisted. It's me they want, me and my beloved wonderful useful happy friend Rod down there on the floor. Damn my knuckles are raw! Shouldn't have punched him so hard, but he deserved it.'
'Don't speak that way, boss,' said Butch. 'I am your friend! I am not going to abandon you now when things are going bad. I believe in you and I believe in the business as well. We are going to make money together, the three of us. Good money. Life changing money. So we are at war with the Brazilian Cartel? Who cares? We can beat them for sure. Remember this is Fenwick, our town and our home! And we are going to defend it!'
'You make it sound the Battle for Britain,' Jim replied. 'And Fenwick is your home, not mine! I got lost and stuck here, remember?'
'Well that maybe true, but Fenwick is MY home,' Butch replied. 'And I know its streets and its ways and most important of all I know its people. Let me put the word out, will find where the cartel are hiding. Then I will hit them with all we have got! We'll make them sorry the day they attack our base!'
'Or we can get the money and pay them off,' said Rod.
So the beaten man wasn't dead after all.
He could only move his lips, apparently, but the voice definitely came from his mostly defunct carcass.
'And how are we going to do that, genius? It will take weeks before we get any money back from the deal we signed with King.'
'Then we borrow the funds...'
'Another loan? Robbing Peter to pay Paul. Nice idea!' Jim said sarcastically. 'I am not the smartest man alive on planet Earth, I am willing to admit that. I mean I am at war with the cartel right now so I can't be that smart, right? But I know what a ponzi scheme is, and such business does not tend to work out very well.'
'We can do this I know we can,' Rod replied.
'Says the man covered in his blood!'
'Just give me a chance Jim,' Rod pressed on. 'There is a man in town who can help us. He has got money, oodles of it. But it will require a sacrifice. But I know he can pay the cartel off. We have to do this! He lives in the old gate house, and has connections with the Castle staff. Some says the blood of the old line of Fenwick flows through him, and his ancestry can be dated back to the age of Charlemagne. That might be cock and bull, but I know he is the only one who can bail us out right now. Give me a hand up, let me find some plasters, and then I will take you to him...'
(Remember! All spelling errors and grammatical mistakes are intentional - the author 😆)
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