Chapter 1

A Chapter by tbone78flag

Logan sees an old friend from his childhood and he learns something that will change his life.

The ice clinked so nicely in my scotch. Clamoring men played games and swore at each other. I held myself up at the bar, gently nursing my drink. This place was a quiet dump. The kind of place that one went to when in a state of depression. Those who came played sketchy things with their friends to get drunk enough to face their pathetic lives. What I was doing here, I couldn’t remember. I only remember trudging in, sitting down, and murmuring at the bartender for a scotch on the rocks. I didn’t even like scotch.

“Need a refresher on that drink?” The man behind the bar set the palms of his hands on the counter. He leaned toward me and I felt compelled to grip my glass tighter.

“Sure, why not?”

“I’ll bring that to you in just a minute.” He walked to the far opposite side of the bar from me and started checking bottles for my brand. Why did I order another one? I never was much of a drinker and the first one was already starting to burn. Maybe a glass of wine with friends; otherwise, only when I could feel myself struggling in my mind’s ocean. It only seemed fitting to completely drown myself in alcohol. But why did I feel this way now?

“Here you go.” The bartender hit the fresh glass onto the counter, bringing me back to the present. “I’ll just charge it to your tab. Pay when you’re ready.” He walked off before I could form a proper ‘thank you.’ He ducked out a door behind the bar to some back storage area.

I quickly tossed back my drink and let it slide down my throat. It burned, still I grabbed the other glass and did the same. I could feel my face clench uncomfortably, trying to convince myself to hold the bile down.

The bartender hadn’t come back yet and this place was starting to disgust me. I fished in my right jacket pocket, only to pull out some dirty tissues. I hadn’t had a cold in weeks. My hands trailed over to my left pocket, finding some crumpled up bills. One, one, one, oh thank god, a ten. I unrolled some of the bills and threw them onto the counter. Standing, I pulled out some of the used tissues and cleared my throat. I could feel some of the scotch coming back up my throat, making me choke.

“Hey buddy, you alright?” One of the drunken fools behind me called. I wave my hand towards him and his pals as I grumble in response. I kept my head low and avoided eye contact. Whether they saw that as rude or not, I cared very little. My feet shuffle outside. As the bar door closed behind me, the warmth inside died and the chill night air hit my face. The street was almost abandoned except for a few sketchy people walking down the street. To my left, across the street a scantily dressed woman was negotiating with a creep sitting in his Junker. How was she not freezing in those shorts? More like underwear I thought. I chuckled under my breath at my sadly true joke. My hands cupped over my mouth, looking for the warmth of my breath. I could feel myself start down the sidewalk. Two men, dressed in large, sagging jeans and jerseys meant for people three times their size, walk past me. I keep myself looking down and hold my arms tight against my chest. Less because of the cold and more to get ready for a mugging. I turn my head back to make sure the men are far enough from me. They continued to chat with one another, completely ignoring my existence as they kept down the street.

The wind’s chill snapped at my cheeks and I presumed that they were becoming rosy. I hurried my pace to escape the cold and wretched neighborhood. Almost every building had been tagged with gang symbol and swear words. Both the brick and cement structured seemed ill. They were dull and should have been torn down years earlier. I turned a corner. The sidewalk sloped down on this street and from the top I could see the beautiful place in the valley that I called home. My feet shuffled with anticipation. The lights down below gave off an illumination that once I got down there, this icy ghetto would melt away.

Several minutes passed and I had safely made it into the city. My apartment was just a couple blocks in. I passed by new cars just surfing the roads, crowds of people rushing to who knows where at this time of night. What time was it anyways? I looked down at the Rolex I bought a month ago; finally, I actually decided to use it. 9:30 pm. I checked the time again. How could I not remember anything before this? The whole day had passed by and I had no clue to where it had gone. I brought my head back up and the brightly colored advertisement signs struck a headache into me. I tried to skint my eyes and continue down the street; however, the noises of the big city slapped me in all directions. I could see why I had stumbled out to the slums, for some peace and quiet.

The colors started to blur together the further I walked. The talking became mumbles that meshed into the honks of cars and hum of electronic business signs. The world began spinning and I stopped walking, only for everything to start spinning faster. My brain tried to wrap around what was happening to me. It spiralled in an attempt to understand my condition, to fix it. But it increased my headache tenfold. I put one hand up to my head and the other held out to keep me from falling. People pushed past me, swearing at me to get out of the way. The assault of human bodies and angry, mumbled yelling disturbed my balance. I fell to my knees. “Logan?” I could see someone coming towards me, pushing people away, but my vision started to fade the more I stared forward. “Logan!” My head became heavy and started falling to the side. I let it. “LOGAN!” My body hit the cement and my eyes closed.

Who was that? I opened my eyes to find myself in my living room. I sat up on my couch and scanned the room. It was a pretty nice apartment. The small kitchen opened up into the living room. The tile floor in the kitchen stretched out and had become home to my quaint four-chair dining table. My couch sat in the middle of the room and faced to the side of the dining area. My 32-inch hung on the wall while it flashed a Popeye’s Chicken commercial. I’m almost certain I hadn’t left that on when I left. I never did. CLICK. I could hear my front door close and I looked over the couch into the hallway.

“Hey, you’re awake.” A tall brunette clicked her heels against the hallway tile until it became muffled across my living room carpet. She came around the couch and sat herself down into one of the two adjacent arm chairs . “How are you feeling?”

“Who the hell are you?” I backed myself up to the far opposite side of the couch from her seat. I stared at her wide-eyed, intent on tracing my memory for her face.

"Come on Logan, it's Madison. Remember? Little Maddie? God, I always hated it when you called me that."

I squinted as a looked at her. She was very beautiful. Her long brown hair produced miraculous curls down to her breasts. She had bangs going straight along her forehead, her bright green eyes peeking out below. They only seemed to shine brighter against her soft, pale skin. She wore long black pants and a grey leather jacket over a dark purple sweater. I traced my eyes up from her open-toed three, maybe four, inch heels to her smiling eyes. When my eyes met hers, all I could see was Little Maddie, with her spiralling pigtails that I use to love pulling as a kid.

“Madison. Madison Lamron, I haven’t seen you since college.” I moved myself slightly closer to her. “You look different. Grown up.”

“Yeah, well ten years can change a person. You’re looking the same as always, as I expected you would.”

I honestly don’t know how much of a compliment that may have been. My dirty blonde hair was tousled as if I had just gotten out of bed. I had the slight appearance of stubble creeping over my chin, around my mouth, and up my jawline. My brown eyes must have looked dark from my tire, though they were usually quite chocolatey. I had at least accumulated a little hint of a tan from the heat wave that had come a few weeks ago and I had kept the muscle tone from my college days. If anything she probably saw a more mature looking version of her college, and childhood, buddy. I doubt I was much more mature internally.

“Well did you ever know me to be a changer?” I gave her a flirty smile and she laughed, putting her hand down on my knee. Interesting.

“No, never. You even kept that dumb smile. I know, you know that that never worked on me. Other girls, sure. But I know you too well Logan.” Her eyes slowly grew sad and she took her hand off of my leg. She let her eyes drift away from mine. “Yet not always well enough.”

I could feel my heart drop. She had the same sad look on her face the last time I saw her. It hurt just as much then. “Maddy…”

“Don’t Logan. I’d rather not open that again. When you told me to go, I went and made myself into something. It was easy when I kept myself from becoming too trusting of any one person. ‘Take everything with a grain of salt,’ as the saying goes. I got a job at a mortgage company as I had wanted. I do alright for myself now and I don’t need old wounds to be filled with the salts of my past.”

“Sounds like it worked out for you then. Better than it did for me at least.” I looked to her hand to see a ring grasping snuggly to her left ring finger. Her eyes followed to where I was looking. When she caught where my focus was, she grasped her ring finger with her right hand and appeared to be pulling off the ring.

“Oh, I keep forgetting to stop putting it back on. He and I decided to call it off. About a week ago in fact. That’s why I came back to the city. I felt like returning to my roots might help me clear my head.”

I could tell that she was extremely uncomfortable. Her legs were pushed closer together and she was looking down at her fidgeting hands in her lap. She looked like a child in a room full of adults, while she twirled the ring around her fingers. I thought I should cut the growing awkward silence.

“What was his name?”

“Kyle Larson. We went to highschool with him, remember?”

Yeah, I could remember that dumb a*s. He had never quite reached a 3.0 GPA ever and spent his time getting drunk off wine coolers and having sex with the girls I now assume are grocery bagger at Walmart or on Welfare.

“Seriously? Kyle Larson?”

“Don’t look at me like that. He had changed. After high school he got a mortgage license too. We reconnected about two and a half years ago at my mortgage firm.” She sighed, “My old mortgage firm.”

“Don’t tell me you resigned for him.”

Madison stood up quickly and held a very defensive stance. She pointed her finger at me like my mother would have done. God, she use to do this all the time when we were younger. Just one more lecture, I use to find it adorable.

“Don’t you dare judge me Logan. After college… after you…” She hesitated, her eyes softening. She folded her arms shyly. “I was vulnerable with other guys. Kyle was sweet to me. At least until after I caught him doing some w***e in our garage.”

“He cheated on you? That was what ended things?”

Madison fell into her original seat, keeping her arms folded and eyes away from mine.

“Technically, the third time I caught him was what got me. I sound pathetic.” She looked at me, begging for some comfort. I tried to give it using my own gaze.

“You’re not pathetic Maddy. He was just a bad guy. You deserve to have better than that. You deserve to have a million times better than that.”

“Thanks Logan. Still there for me after all of these years.” She gave me a friendly smile. I remember all the days I had seen that exact smile. All the days I had fallen for that exact smile. All the days after that I hurt from losing that exact smile. Her smile had always been beautiful to me, she had always been beautiful to me. Even when we had first met at the age of six. I remember when my family had moved in to the house next to hers. I was unhappy with our move and only sat on the front porch crying to go back as my parents carried the moving boxes into the new house. But Little Maddy saw me in the front lawn sulking from next door. She sat next to me and tried to make me feel better. “It’ll be ok. I’ll be your friend. My name’s Madison.” She had said. When I saw that same smile I knew everything would be ok. It was my fault I had lost her and that smile.

“Are you going to answer that?”

I widened my eyes, realizing that I had been starring in thought. My cellphone was ringing from in my pant pocket. I fumbled with my hands, trying to quickly pull out my buzzing phone. I didn’t recognize the number. It appeared to have one of those state facility area code numbers. I reluctantly answered.

“Hello?”

“Hello, this is the Los Angeles Police Department. We are looking for a Logan Sal…”

“This is he.” I interrupted. What the hell was the Los Angeles Police Department calling me for? I hadn’t been to L.A. since my father had died a year ago.

“We are calling to inform you that we received an anonymous call this afternoon regarding your mother. We had officers dispatched to your mother’s home and… I’m very sorry to say that she was found dead in her living room late this afternoon. The police currently suspect a burglary gone wrong, but we are taking careful precautions to look into this. The LAPD would appreciate you coming down to the station for some information to help our investigation. We are very sorry for your loss Mr. Sal..”

I hang up quickly. I could feel my heart beating out my ears as it sat as a clump in my throat.

“Are you ok Logan?” Madison, concern on her face, questioned. I look at her, confused and unable to form a thought.

“My mother…. was murdered.” I choke.