Bill Sessions: a "Winner" Who Didn't Use Drugs, But Probably Other Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms

 

How Could You?

Ross Maynard sipped his iced tea and read his newspaper as nonchalantly as he could. Even with a nearly deserted Denny’s like this one, he still had to keep his secret in the public eye. Wouldn’t want a nosy waitress making too much small talk with him. In between reading various stories in the paper, Ross would sneak a quick peek at the front entrance. He knew he had to keep calm at a time like this, but his racing nerves wouldn’t slow down for even a moment.

And then the Mexican bombshell Fatima Ruiz entered the establishment with a frilly red cocktail dress on and a heat-seeking glare. Normally she glided across the room with the grace of an angel. But even in high heels, she pulled off the perfect angry stomp with both fists at her side. Ross took another sip of iced tea to settle himself for the shit sandwich he was about to eat (not because he was dining at Denny’s).

Fatima sat across the booth from Ross and spent the first few seconds staring icicles into her former lover. She tapped on the table with her manicured fingernails and fidgeted with her long black hair, but never once taking that ice cold stare off of Ross. The guilty-looking gentleman took another sip of tea and maintained his silence. This lengthy moment of discomfort melted Ross’s heart like butter on an English muffin. He knew why she was here. He knew he was screwed.

Fatima gazed down at her engagement ring with even more ice cold bitchiness before ripping it off and waving it in front of the smart phone she pulled out of her purse. The sounds of popping and crackling echoed in Ross’s ears while a siren going off in his head told him to get the fuck out of there.

“When were you planning on telling me you were a cop?” asked the stone cold Fatima Ruiz. “Did you think I was stupid? Did you think I would never find out? Do you think this shit is going to end now that my father is in jail? This shit’s not over until I say it is.”

Ross fluffed his jacket and wiped his wet hands on his jeans to buy time. When he had enough of it, he folded his hands across the table and looked seriously into his lover’s eyes. “Your father was the leader of the Ruiz Cartel. He was responsible for too many deaths in this city. He had politicians and policemen alike in his back pocket. Not this time. A lifetime in the hole is where he’s headed. I make no apologies for my detective work, Fatima. It’s my job.”

“No apologies, huh?” asked Fatima rhetorically while nodding. “That’s your job: breaking women’s hearts? I trusted you, Ross. I let you into my home. We made love together. And now you’re telling me that doesn’t mean shit to you?” When Ross refused to show remorse for his actions, Fatima swatted the newspaper off the table and yelled, “What do you have to say for yourself?!”

“Nothing,” said Ross with a frosty tone. His confidence returned and he showed it with furrowed eyebrows. “I’m an FBI agent. It’s what I do. You were an easy target. You were my golden ticket into the Ruiz Compound. That’s how these investigations work, Fatima. I’m sorry you got your heart broken, but it is what it is. None of it was real. It was all business.”

Ross’s stony expression countered Fatima’s criminal rage to where the Latina beauty hung her head and allowed tears to flow softly from her eyes. Agent Maynard slowly reached his hand over to comfort his now ex-lover and she jerked away while shouting, “Don’t touch me!”

The agent allowed the tension between them to simmer down before asking, “So what did you come here for? To let me know that you’re on to me? To deliver some veiled threat? To kill me? Your entire cartel is being rounded up even as we speak. There’s nobody left to help you, Fatima. Your empire is gone. Gone!”

The Latina sobbed some more while gently saying, “I could kill you right now…” When Ross snapped at her to speak up, she snapped back with, “I could kill you right now! I don’t need a gun or a knife. I want to strangle you with my bare hands. I want to rip your balls off. I want to rip out your tongue for all of the lies you’ve told me!”

“If you’re so eager to join your empire behind bars, I’d say go for it. Go ahead. Slap me. Punch me. Do whatever it is you want to do. I don’t give a shit. I’ve got the cuffs in my jacket pocket. You want some new jewelry, be my guest,” said Ross in his increasingly icy tone.

Fatima wiped the tears from her eyes and gingerly picked her head up to meet her ex-lover’s hateful gaze. Her own heartless expression turned into a sadistic smile, but Ross remained undeterred. “Like I said,” she started with. “This isn’t over until I say it is. You think you’ve got the upper hand because you put my family in jail? You think you’re the only one who can play games with people’s emotions? I’m pregnant!”

Ross scoffed, “Bullshit!” and Fatima smiled even harder. She even threw in a few giggles. The detective’s solemn expression grew even darker as he contemplated the potential reality of what his lover just said. “Please tell me you’re bullshitting. This is all a joke, isn’t it?”

“I make no apologies for my detective work, Agent Maynard,” said Fatima. “I’m keeping this baby and I’m going to raise him as my own. You and I are going to have a family together, Ross. Oh wait, you already have a family, don’t you? A wife and daughter of your own. I wonder what they’ll think when they find out daddy impregnated a gangster chick. What will your coworkers think? What will the judge think when I demand child support from you?”

“You don’t know shit about being a mother!” belted Ross.

“And you don’t know shit about being in love. It’s all fake to you, right? I bet your own family doesn’t get to see the side of you that you’ve shown me all this time. All those expensive gifts. All of those happy moments. All of the love we shared. The whole world will know and you can do nothing about it,” grinned Fatima.

“So what are you going to do with that little runt, anyways?” asked Ross hastily. “You’re going to raise him to be a gangster just like every other member of your sick family? You’re going to teach him to murder and steal? You’re not a mother. You’re a damn fool! You’re going to march over to that abortion clinic and…”

“And what? Give you the satisfaction of fucking me over one more time? I don’t think so, honey. We’ve done things your way for the past couple of months. Now we’re going to do them my way. Here’s what’s going to happen: I’m going to rebuild my empire from the ground up and you’re going to help me. That means getting my peeps out of jail and recruiting new members. I don’t want just some hoods and thugs running around here. I want top brass motherfuckers on my payroll. I want cops, politicians, and other cartel factions. And who knows? Maybe if you do all these lovely things for me, I’ll show you what true love really is. That’s what you seem to be lacking these days,” said Fatima with a red-hot smile and villainous eyes.

“Give me some time to think about it, Fatima,” said Ross.

“Take all the time you need, baby cakes. It’s not like this little guy is going to pop out anytime soon,” said Fatima. She mockingly waved goodbye to her ex-lover and blew him a kiss before turning heel and model-walking out of the restaurant.

Ross tried to keep up his emotionless stature, but he couldn’t help holding his head in his hands and wondering how the hell Fatima Ruiz got the best of him. He thought of his own wife and daughter and all of the happy days at the beach they had. The little lady would run across the sand and bounce in the water like a little froggy. He would hold hands with his wife and shower her in kisses despite the disgust of those around them. He loved his family and he didn’t care what anybody thought.

He cared what his fellow FBI agents thought, however. They were going to tear him limb from limb, rip his badge away along with his heart and soul, and leave him homeless and alone. What kind of life was that for a soon-to-be former detective and his family? They’d have to do illegal, disgusting things just to get by, much like how the Ruiz Cartel got started. Ruiz Cartel…Fatima Ruiz…that bitch!

Ross pulled out a six shooter and fully loaded every chamber. One bullet for her. One bullet for him. Four bullets for anybody who disagreed with his dark logic. He kissed the barrel of his weapon and angrily whispered, “I’ll show you what love is, Fatima, you fucking bitch. I’ll kiss you with a bullet!” He knew he looked insane to the waitresses and waiters, but he didn’t give two shits and a flying fuck. In fact, he loved the bloodlust in his bulging eyes.

"The Blood Guard" by Carter Roy

BOOK TITLE: The Blood Guard
AUTHOR: Carter Roy
YEAR: 2014
GENRE: Fiction
SUBGENRE: Urban Fantasy
GRADE: Pass


Ronan Truelove is a 13-year-old boy who spent his whole life taking martial arts and athletic classes on the orders of his mother. One day after school, those skills could very well come in handy. His mother loads him into the car and speeds away from evil-looking agents in suits and ties. After the mother and son manage to get away, Ronan is sent to the nearest train station to Washington, DC, to meet up with other people who are just as deadly with a sword as Mrs. Truelove. From that moment on, Ronan is accosted by other evil minions in suits without further explanation as to why all of this is happening. As the novel progresses, the mystery unravels and Ronan Truelove gets closer and closer to proving his worth to a world about to be thrown into chaos.

To say that this book is a little fast-paced would be like saying sumo wrestlers are just a little heavy. The action is hot and heavy. The breaks in said action are few and far between. It’s a nonstop sword slinging, laser beam shooting, acrobatic dive from one chapter to the next. The only idiom I can use to describe such a breakneck pace is, “No rest for the weary.” And it’s true: Ronan Truelove nor his companions can even tie their shoes before another group of suited minions tries to kill them. It all seems like random action at first, but that’s the nature of mysteries: all will be revealed in due time. Until then, kick back, buckle in, and hold on tightly. It’s a bumpy ride all the way to the end.

A good majority of this action is being performed by a main character, Ronan, who doesn’t look anything like a typical hero. He’s a 13-year old boy. He’s skinnier than a paperclip. He’s oblivious to even the most thought out explanations. His fighting skills are nowhere near as polished as those of his enemies. He’s just as fearful as a layman watching his battles from the sidelines. And yet, he’s perfect for this kind of story, because fantasy is not about extraordinary people doing extraordinary things. It’s about every day people like you and me accomplishing the impossible. If a little beanpole like Ronan Truelove can save the day and solve the mysteries that surround his attacks, then what other doors does that open for us? Maybe the reader can feel inspired as well. Maybe that’s what Carter Roy intended.

And while I won’t go into the exact details of the Blood Guard mystery, I will say that there are a lot of twists and turns in this bumpy road to heroism. You’ll find out things you never would have imagined possible about the story arc. You’ll be surprised by everything, especially near the end of the story when the reader finds out who’s responsible for all of this chaos. I couldn’t be more silent about this plot if I had duct tape over my mouth. If you want to know what the hell is going on in this turbulent tale, you’ll have to figure it out on your own. Buy Carter Roy’s book and give him your patronage. And know that there’s plenty more mystery where that came from, especially since The Blood Guard is the first in a series of novels featuring Ronan Truelove. Then again, do you really want such an adrenaline-pumped story to end so soon? A passing grade for a badass novel.

　

***COMEDIC QUOTE OF THE DAY***

“The CIA doesn’t kill people anymore, they neutralize them or they depopulate an area. The government won’t lie to you anymore, they’ll engage in disinformation. The Pentagon actually measures nuclear radiation in something they call sunshine units. Israeli murderers are called commandos. Arab commandos are called terrorists. Contra killers are known as freedom fighters. Well, if crime fighters fight crime and firefighters fight fires, what do freedom fighters fight?”

-George Carlin-

Dennis Michaels

My mind may be a raging ocean all the time, but Dennis Michaels never saw his moment in the sun. He was originally supposed to be a part of a third act in Brawl Mart. That third act never materialized and Brawl Mart only had Occupy Wrestling and Filter Feeder to account for. That would-be third act was supposed to be called Debt of Pain and it centered around a panicky debtor named Lillian Floyd. Lillian got calls every half hour about how worthless she was and how she was going to jail if she didn’t pay what she owed. She tried calling the police on these people, but that went south in a hurry when the two detectives got their asses kicked. Instead of relying on people who waited forever to get approval from a corrupt judge, Lillian called the one man who could deliver beatings and assassinations like he was the UPS of murder. His name was Dennis Michaels and he was at one point an Army Ranger. The original plan was to have Dennis perform his duties and then at the end rip up his paycheck from Lillian before falling in love with her. Somewhere along the way, the storyline got scrambled and I couldn’t justify a lot of the action that was going on in the story. That should have been the end of Debt of Pain, but it wasn’t. I pitched this idea to Good Reads and they helped me make the modifications I needed to start anew. Starting anew meant new characters, something Dennis Michaels was not. You may see Debt of Pain on my Smash Words account someday, but not right away, and not with Dennis Michaels. The mercenary in this new idea is named Bryan Grant. The difference between Dennis and Bryan is that Dennis is a legitimate mercenary who will lay the smack down on any rude collection agent, while Bryan is a scam artist who sits around and collects paychecks from desperate debtors, who think he’s actually going to assassinate somebody rather than work for the agency himself. Bryan Grant will get his due justice somewhere down the road, but somebody else who needs justice is Dennis Michaels. Mr. Michaels had all the promise in the world to be a kick-ass character. He would have been a beefy warrior and a romantic Romeo all rolled into one. He would have used his rifle (which was for fighting) and his gun (which was for fun) over the course of one day. How exactly is he supposed to do that if he doesn’t have a story to be a part of? Ruthless mercenaries and hard lovers aren’t easy to come by. The only example I know of who fits this profile is Cloud Strife from Final Fantasy VII. Then again, Final Fantasy games always have a romantic element in them. Will Dennis Michaels be the next Cloud Strife? Hopefully, yes, but without all the emo bullcrap Mr. Strife displayed in the movie Advent Children.

　

***TELEVISION QUOTE OF THE DAY***

“That badge better be real or else my friend’s going to kick you in the FBI-balls.”

-Marty Deeks from “NCIS: Los Angeles”-