I was feeling fairly well healed up from the two bullet wounds when I got hauled before the fucking Judge. Hell, I knew my ass was grass, so I hung my head in shame as he read off the long list of charges and asked me how I wanted to plead.
Shit, they had me cold, I had the money from the goddam bank, there must have been a dozen fucking Cops there when I ran out of places to go.
Good thing they were piss poor shots or my ass would be dead, as it was they fucked me up pretty good.
"Guilty, your Honor, Sir." I said, looking up at him and speaking as clearly as I could.
"Twenty years!" he looked at me in scorn and banged the gavel, then got up and left.
Just fuck! I vowed next time they wouldn't take me alive, as the two fat goons they called gaurds hauled me off.
I was hoping for one of the nice country club prisons but sure as fucking hell I got one with stacks of cells, noisy, dirty, cold, just a fucking miserable hellhole. The staff were pricks, too, they delighted in yelling at us and finding some reason to show us how tough they were.
Keep us all in control, I guess.
I kept my mouth shut, did what I was told.
It was 18 months later they led me out the door and handed me $20, the cheap clothes I had on and that $20 were it. They hauled me off to a little halfway house, the skinny black P/O gave me a talk. He sure had a lot of fucking rules.
They next day I was taken to my new job as a mechanic, I expected it to be a shitty little rathole place but I was surprised to walk in and find a large well lit shop clean as a whistle and quality equipment everywhere.
I got introduced to Jim, the owner. He was a big fucker, his hands were so thick I didn't see how he could even work his fingers, his grip was like steel. He put me to work taking apart engines, something I knew exactly how to do.
I worked hard, too. I made damn good and sure that I was standing there waiting for him when he arrived, without fail. I skipped breaks, ate my lunch in 30 minutes instead of taking the full hour, and then back at it. The fact is, I liked what I was doing, some of it was special high performance stuff.
In just a couple of months Jim figured out that I knew what to do, next thing I know I am porting heads and putting in special valves, things like that and he took me off the government pays half of my wages shit and put me on a full payroll.
One day I spotted a beat up old Plymouth Duster for sale, I had the three hunded bucks saved so I bought it. Jim let me drag it back with the shop tow truck and park it out back.
I had the little V-8 engine out and apart in no time. I used the shop equipment to bore it out and square everything up, then I started buying up parts as I could afford to.
Jim was paying me fairly well but I knew it was going to take me ten years at the rate things were going. So I asked Jim for a day off, told him a cock and bull story about my Aunt Ellen passing away, hell, I even managed to squeeze a little tear out of one eye.
He handed me the keys to one of the shop vans, and I drove off.
I was a couple hundred miles away when I drove the van down a little dirt road and parked. I walked the couple of miles to a store parking lot, waited until a little old lady and a younger guy pulled in. As soon as they were inside the store, I was inside their car and gone.
I pulled in behind a Credit Union that I knew of, parked.
I was in and out in 5 minutes, back to the van in another 5, hiding the piece of shit car in some bushes. The fat lady had smiled at me when I sat down, then her eyes widened as I leaned forward and quietly told her to hand over the fucking money or I would kill her and everyone in sight and take the fucking money anyway.
She just reached in the drawer and handed it over, her hands shaking in fear as she did it.
Out on the freeway, I peeled off the fake moustache and goatee, then wiped the dark coloring off my face and neck with some damp towels. I drove right on by the town where I worked, then turned off the freeway and took the side road back to the shop.
I waited a couple of months before I started spending some of the money, telling Jim a few small details about the inheritence I got from my poor Aunt Ellen.
It was about a year later when I started the Duster up and drove it for the first time. The engine was quiet, no hint of what she could do.
Jim told me I could have my choice of tires and wheels as a bonus for working so hard. He did look at me oddly when I bolted on a set of heavy duty steel ones, and some nice wide performance radials. I carefully cut off the raised white lettering and used some blacking to cover the marks.
