FicWad

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For someone who lived a life as chaotic as I did, I had a very hard time accepting major change. My life was messy and unkempt, but things were familiar and organized in a strange way.

Adjusting to an even more structured and dangerous life was going to take some time. By that point I had began feeling more suspicious of people and my trust was beginning to wane. Our army was all I had at that point, and it had to be protected at all costs.

I would be sent down a whirlwind of unknown dangers and confusion if it wasn't.
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Sunday November 1, 1985
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John and Janice had just finished up their breakfast and were cleaning up their garbage when the basement door had flung open. The loud sound subconsciously made both kids jump; they were used to loud noises being associated with a very angry father. Both of their heads shot to the stairs just in time to see their older brother stumbling down them.

"Where the fuck have you been, you dick!" John cursed at him as he quickly stood to his feet. It had been almost seventeen hours since James had gotten into Mad Dog's car, and going that long without contact definitely unsettled John.

James only gave him a lazy smile and shook his messy hair from his face. "Man...I had a crazy night!" He approached the coffee table clumsily, which earned him quite a glare from Janice.

"What is wrong with you?" She asked him in a concerned tone. She looked him up and down, and turned him towards her so that she could see his face. "What are you on?!"

John looked at James as well; he had dark bags under his eyes -which were extremely wide and bloodshot, and he was rubbing at his face a lot. He could tell right off the bat that he was high on crack, and Janice was not going to be too happy about that at all.

"Look, girl, I'm fine, okay?" James laughed; he waved his hand and dropped back down onto the couch and clutched a suitcase that he had carried in with him. "In fact, I've never felt happier in my whole fuckin' life."

Janice looked to John for help, but he could only shrug at her. She sat down on the table in front of James and tried to grab his hand - which was unsuccessful because he was not letting go of that briefcase. "James, what happened to you? Did that scary guy hurt you?"

James gave her an amused look. "Scary guy? There is no scary guy...except for maybe that Tooth Fairy; she kinda creeps me out a bit."

Janice raised her eyebrows and stood from the table. "Are you on acid again? I told you that that stuff makes you retarded, James!"

James only cracked up at that, which made Janice even more upset. "Little girl, I'm way too happy to be retarded! I'm tellin' ya, that acid was at a low point in my life!"

"So this is not a low point in your life?" She demanded. "And stop calling me 'girl'!"

"What do you mean by 'this'?" James asked dumbly with a big grin on his face.

"Whatever the fuck it is that you're on that's making you act like a stupid little kid! You know, every time that I think you're getting better you just do something stupid like this to make me think otherwise! When are you going to grow up?" She was yelling now, which made John feel bad for both of them. He knew that Janice didn't like when he or James were messed up, but he had thought that he made it perfectly clear to her that James had a plan for them.

James' face fell at that point and he frowned. "What do you mean 'grow up'?"

"You heard me!" She accused, pointing a finger in his face. James smacked it off to the side and glared at her.

"I'm doing this for you, you brat! Everything I do is for you and you always fuckin' yell at me! Stop fuckin' yelling!" He looked completely agitated, which was strange for James. John had never seen him act that way towards their sister.

"Don't yell at me! I care about you, but you're just as selfish as dad is for acting this way!"

John knew that Janice had crossed way over the wrong line with that one.

James jumped to his feet and tried to get into her face, and it was then that John made his move to butt in between them. He stood in front of Janice and knocked James back down to the couch roughly. "That's enough! Janice, get the fuck outta here, okay?"

She glared at John with tears in her eyes and nodded her head. "I'm sorry; I didn't mean to say that."

John nodded. "Whatever, just let me talk to him, okay?"

She nodded. "I really am sorry. I just hate it when he's like this!" She protested.

John nodded and sighed. "I know you do, but you have to trust him, okay? He's a fuckin' idiot right now, but it'll work out, 'kay?"

She nodded her head and turned on her heel, running up the stairs quickly. She stopped right before she reached the door and looked at John. "Would you make sure that he gets the breakfast that I bought him? I don't want him to be hungry."

"Breakfast? Where?" James asked. John rolled his eyes and stared back up at Janice.

"He'll get it, don't worry."

With that she turned the knob at the top of the stairs and exited the basement. James was already snooping around the bags on the table to look for some munchies, so John didn't bother handing it to him. He just sat back on his chair and stared at his older brother. It bothered him that he waited around all night worried that his brother had been stabbed, or beaten, or worse, and all he had really been doing was sitting around with some big time import guy getting stoned. John wasn't like Roger, who was against all hard drugs and people who abused them, and nor was he like Ricky who just drooled at the word 'drug'. John was okay with anything as long as people used it in moderation and weren't fucking idiots about it; right now James was being a big fucking idiot.

John had never used cocaine before in any of its forms. He knew very well that Jake, Cody, Tom, and Ricky all did. Cocaine was one of those tricky drugs; it wasn't something that made your body physically dependent on it, yet it made people mentally crave it for hours and even days. Cocaine was not about the use, and it wasn't about the dependency (completely), but it was more about the euphoric feeling that it caused. He wasn't all that smart when it came to chemical and anatomical terms, but he knew that it through the brain off balance making people depressed when they didn't have it, and extremely happy when they did have it.

He didn't want to become a crack head, and he didn't want his brother or his friends to be that way either. John knew deep down inside that this little project that they were getting themselves into could easily backfire on them at any time, but he knew what he was risking. They wanted - they needed - to get out of their house and get themselves their own place, and soon. John was in his last year of high school and James had already finished, it was no big deal if they left. Janice was a different story, however. They were not about to leave her behind when they left. Who knows what kind of crap she would have to put up with, and both James and John wouldn't be able to live with themselves knowing that she had to fend for herself with their parents.

Dealing the cocaine would allow them to get out quick and be able to have the rent paid off until John was out of school and able to work full time. James only had a job as a pizza delivery boy and they didn't even pay his gas for him. Any tip that he did get went to gas and vehicle maintenance and his actual wage was below minimum (somehow). Pushing weed would never get them enough money to live off of, and cocaine was the safest choice. It was expensive, and it wouldn't bring the same kind of crazy people around as PCP, ice, or heroin would.

John was still weary however, and his brother's behavior at that particular moment wasn't helping to persuade him any more.

John watched as James returned from a brown paper bag triumphantly with a bagel in his hand. "So what did you do last night, man?"

James watched him as he licked a glob of cream cheese from his finger. "Oh yeah, me and Jakey went to some super secret lair."

John snorted. "Was it Mad Dog's house?"

James shook his head. "No, we were told to never go there ever. It was like some warehouse thing. It was weird. I dunno, anyhow we had a real long talk with that guy." He took a large bite of his bagel and tossed the rest of it back down into the wrapper. "Did you see that guy!?" He laughed out loud. "He looks like a fuckin' midget or something! He's not very tough looking at all!"

John rolled his eyes at that. "No, not really. What did he say to you guys?"

James took the last bite of his bagel and wiped the crumbs from his hands. "We got two ounces. If we can push all that in a couple of days then we can get more on spot." He drank about half of his coffee in a few gulps and set the cup down. "He's pretty weird...kinda like a leprechaun."

John snorted at him. "Well just don't tell him that."

"Oh, I don't think I will," James replied. "This should be pretty easy. I'm gonna send you guys to school with most of it."

John furrowed his eyebrows. "To school?! Man, do you know what the fuck'll happen to us if we get caught with all that? That's pretty risky..."

"Since when are you such a fuckin' chicken shit, Johnny?" James cut him off incredulously. "That's where we'll have to start to get our connections, bro. You know that..." James balled up all of the garbage and shoved it into the largest paper bag. "It's not that bad."

John snorted. "Says you and Jake 'cause you don't have to do anything! You're gonna stick me with Tom and Cody - the two fuckin' doucebags - to get rid of this stuff!?"

James gave him a strange look. "Well you got Reg too; he's a smart kid...and Lux..."

John glared at him. "Roger doesn't fuckin' do this shit!" He gestured to the briefcase. "What makes you think he wants to get involved in this shit?"

"He needs a cut, and you know it," James stated simply. He placed the briefcase on the table and stared at it. "I hate getting Lux involved in this shit too, but you know damn well that he could benefit more from this than even we can. He won't do anything stupid."

John felt his anger boiling in his chest, but knew better than to let it out. Roger had been his best friend for so long that he felt almost guilty pulling him into that mess, but James was so right when he said that Rog could benefit from the funds. It just bothered him to no end that Rog would have go against what he believed in in order to get there. "Whatever just tell me what we're dealin' with here."

"This is powder cocaine," James popped open the briefcase and showed him the many bundles of white powder. To John it looked just like a bunch of sugar or salt.

"I thought we would be dealing with crack?" John asked.

James nodded. "I thought about it, but this stuff is a way better high and way more expensive."

John nodded and looked at the powder. "So you just...sniff it?"

James shrugged. "Usually, but if you got the right stuff you can use a needle." John scrunched his face up at that. James sighed. "It ain't all that bad you know. I took a whole bunch last night."

John glared at him. "No shit..."

James seemed to ignore that comment and continued. "You only wanna do a couple of lines at a time. If you do too much you can have like a seizure or some shit. It only takes like five or ten minutes to peak." James opened up one of the bundles and sprinkled some powder onto the table. "The high is good shit, man. You feel like you can do anything; you know, you're just happy...it must be what multiple orgasms feel like."

John snorted at that. "You're a fuckin' liar."

James shook his head. "No way, man! It's a real good high that just puts you in happy land or some shit. It lasts about an hour or so, and then you come down."

John raised an eyebrow at that. "And somehow I get the impression that comin' down is the shits?"

James shrugged. "Yeah, kinda. You just feel all irritated...like ya need to get laid real bad." He divided the small powder pile into a few lines with his bank card. "But then ya just have some more and you don't feel so bad."

John rolled his eyes. "You know, that sounds like such a smart thing to fuckin' do, you moron."

James perked an eyebrow at him. "You don't know that until you try it, little brother. If you're too much of a chicken shit to put a little bit of powder up that big, fat nose of yours, then that's your problem. How the fuck do you think you're gonna sell it if you don't know what the fuck you're talking about?" He had a point there. "If you just do it this once, and never wanna do it again, that's fine, but if you're gonna sell it at least try it."

John glared at him for calling him a coward. If there was one thing that John Bender wasn't, it was a coward. He watched James roll up a five dollar bill, and he took it from him. He leaned over the table and, as quickly as he could, snorted up three smalls lines and threw the money back down on the table. The powder felt kind of chunky in his nose, and he had to take a few good sniffs to make the feeling go away.

"There, was that so bad?" James asked as he leaned down and took two lines of his own.

John rolled his shoulders and shrugged. "I dunno, man, whatever." He had a tingling sensation in the upper half of his face that distracted him from creating coherent sentences; it was unlike anything he had felt before. He hoped more than anything that he would just end up hating the stuff so that he wouldn't have to deal with it again. At first he was open minded to it, but now that it was right in front of him - and it made his usually sharp and calm brother act like an idiot - he was more put off by the idea of using it.

James leaned back into the sofa and sighed. "You know what I want to do right now?"

John looked at him as his head rush started to creep up on him. "What?"

He smiled at John and then looked back up to the ceiling. "I wanna watch The Muppet Show." He smiled at his own comment until he started laughing his ass off. "Like, you know that weird one who sings and cooks the food...and like throws it everywhere?"

John snorted and rubbed his eyes. "The Swedish Chef."

James laughed. "Yeah, that's the one." John shook his head at his brother's antics and leaned forward to close the briefcase. James glared at him. "What do ya think you're doin' with that?"

John gave him a stern look. "We're puttin' it away. You're not getting all fucked up on this stuff before we have none left to sell. I think you had enough anyways."

James nodded. "We should get the boys over here later so I can tell 'em what to do with it."

John nodded. "I hope this is a good idea, man."

"I told ya that you can trust me, remember?" When John nodded, he continued. "This stuff will go fast, we'll get our money, and we'll pull out. I promise you that...I swear on my life."

John bit his lip and nodded, a chunk of hair falling over his forehead. "Yeah, okay."

James smiled. "Just try and think about the good stuff that's coming, okay? If you keep thinking about that, it makes everything less bad."

"Does it?" John asked him.

James nodded. "Yeah."

John grabbed the briefcase and went to the area of the wall behind the television stand where they always hid their stashes and placed the briefcase inside of the wall. The quicker the stuff was out of his sight, the better he figured he was going to feel. While the drug itself had already begun circulating through his body - and he could easily admit that it was making him feel rather hyperactive - he still had that side feeling of paranoia blasting through him.

But that could easily be blamed on the drugs...he was pretty sure it could anyways...

TBC