SIMPSON

He threw smoke and mowed down batters. Even in junior high Stan Simpson bore himself with a whorled ferocity and a surly sneer that terrified batters and raised the eyebrows of adults. 

His first real fight was in seventh grade. Donnie Lawson had looked at him wrong in gym class. As Donnie returned from the mandatory shower, Stan pushed him into a locker with his right forearm and delivered a devastating gut shot with his dominant left. The boy slumped, losing his towel and his breath. Stan kneed the naked boy square in the nose for good measure. 

About every two months Stan would decide on whose ass he was going to kick next. News of this poor fuck spread through local schools. Wherever they seemed to go - sporting event, teen club, or house party - the young men targeted heard slight variations on, “Man, Simpson wants a piece of you.” Stan rarely acted on such threats, but he was tickled by the dread he provoked. He would later joke with the intended victims that he was just messin.’ 

 On the mound Stan wore a caterpillar mustache and a scowl, and he would routinely throw inside on 0-2 counts. He was good enough to garner interest from a few junior colleges, signed with one, and spent a semester drinking beer, not going to class, and getting into scrapes with the football players. By spring he was back at his mom’s in Salina. He kicked around with fellow roughnecks who half-assed worked half-assed construction jobs and had a taste for whatever substance du jour could be afforded on the weekend. 

Stan and his friends used Bennie, a mulatto kid from Northtown who lucked into a contact through his cousin. Bennie now cleared $700 a week doing the people’s business. The 20-year-old cut an unimpressive swath, and had a mouth that didn’t match his physique. Bennie would make buyers listen to the same bullshit stories before they got drugs that they did not know might be cut with acetone or boric acid. 

Stan got one of those bags and after a particularly rough night, he pounded on Bennie’s door holding an 18-inch two by four and a hunting knife. Bennie never even got the door all the way open. Stan was atop of him, legs on Bennie’s shoulders. Stan bent back Bennie’s fingers,  flicked the knife down Bennie’s sideburns, and took a few teeth with repeated lefts. With the two by four pressed into his throat by a boot, Bennie signaled surrender. Stan took the weight off his boot. Bennie pointed to a closet and said his stash and cash and business were all now in Stan’s hands. Stan gathered the contraband and kicked Bennie in the head on his way out the door.

Bennie’s connection, Larry the fast-talking tractor salesman, had little problem with the new arrangement, especially when Stan asked to double the weekly deliveries.   

Stan was warier than most about ever holding product at all, so he gave the owner of Blue Lounge, Chris, a cut of every sale. The meth would come to the bar in one-gram packs taped into the bottom of Olympia tall boys. When a customer would ask for Olympia, Chris waited for the nod from Stan. Payment was always the same - two dollar bills on top of two twenties. 

For the better part of a decade Stan planted himself at the corner seat at the far end of the bar. He held court about the bar’s softball team, had a private handle of Beam behind the bar, and would nod Chris’s way a few dozen times a week.  

And no one said a fucking word about it. 

Larry the fast-talking tractor salesman got collared in a multi-state bust, and there was tension and no supply while Stan waited to hear if and what Larry would spill. Larry didn’t talk and went away for ten long. 

Stan worked the local bars for weeks in search of a new source and eventually got an introduction to cat who went by Willie Williamson, who agreed to meet Stan in the Gibson’s parking lot. There Willie, backed with three wispy young bloods, laid out how this was going to work - Stan would move product from them and pay a franchise fee of fifteen percent on every sale. And the money would be fronted by Stan before any supply would be available. Stan got 5K from his basement stash and hit up Chris for the rest. They dropped it by Willie's. In three days, Willie’s kid Isaiah walked in front door of the bar with a gym bag. 

On the next visit, Isaiah wasn’t carrying the bag even though Stan had paid his ten large.  

“I thought you were bringing it.” 

“No, man, it’s back at Willie’s crib.” 

“That’s not how this works.” 

“I’m not playing.” 

“Neither am I.” 

“Come by the crib at 2:00.” 

Stan slammed Beam and started simmering. He beefed on Willie’s glad-handing style, the lack of quality in this new product, and being out 5K.  He needled Chris and Fetu, the angry Samoan, until they agreed to accompany Stan to go recover the drugs. 

 They trio sat in the dark car just down from Willie's for 10 minutes, passing a pint of Old Crow and popping a few bennies. 

“Let’s go.” 

They got out of the car as Willie led his boys out of the house. 

They came out hot, but it wasn’t nothing Stan hadn’t witnessed nor handled before. He planted his back foot like he used to on the rubber, ready to unleash the left. The answer, though, was a .38 snub-nose that threw smoke and mowed Stan down onto the cold bricks of Seventh Street.