#he also looks like a fuckin mafioso like this but WHATEVER

[purpleflamingosarelife]

Dear Shawn. [3]

Just a note before you start: I pulled these cities/towns out of my ass lol none of them exist and whatever state I mention them to be in-- just go with it I didn’t study a map for this

“Two college boys, identified to be lead singer of the band InkFleet Rodham Aaron Michael Christopher Shears and Shawn Wade Davis, have been found burned to death in their dorms,” a female reporter’s voice plainly informed us through the radio in the car. “The FBI has ruled these suicides, but no further statement has been made on the two boys’ deaths. The organization has promised to come out with a statement later this week. For now, I’m Katy Pescher with Frameton Local News. Thank you for tuning in.” I punched the ‘tune’ button on the small radio.

“It’s fuckin’ Rod,” I grumbled as I pushed down on the accelerator pedal. Shawn remained silent. Maybe he was asleep. The station that I’d turned to blared a familiar tune— one that my voice accompanied. I pushed and held the button, turning the radio off. 

We had stolen this car from the parking lot of the hotel this morning, and it wouldn’t be long before we would need another. I let Shawn put on some of the spare clothes I had in the hotel room, which was a pair of blue jeans, a white t-shirt and a forest green windbreaker. Those were the only things small enough to fit him, and even the jacket was a little baggy on him. I was tall. 6’2” is fucking tall. I was wearing relatively plain clothes as well- the only difference from his being that I donned a blue and white baseball shirt. I’d covered my unusually shaggy hair with a backwards cap.

The desert was fairly comforting in the fact that there was nobody out there. However, I knew we’d be reaching Cartalene, the city where my Uncle resided. It wasn’t big, but it wasn’t small, either. I decided it wouldn’t be best to show up unexpected. I pulled out the tracfone I’d bought from a small Walmart nearby the hotel.

“This is Angelo Luco speaking.”

“Uncle Ange. It’s Rod. I’m in some trouble.”

“Who would’ve known Mr. Hot-Shot Rod would be in trouble. What do you need old Uncle Luco to do for you?”

“I need two identities made. One for a Rodham J. Harrison and one for a Shawn Blacke. I also need alternates made for those two with completely different names. And I need a car and some money.” He chuckled.

“Anything for you, kid. I’ll figure you something out.”

“Thanks, Uncle Ange,” I said as I looked at the stretch of cracked road before me. “I should be getting into town in a few hours. I crossed the state line not too long ago.” 

“Alright kid. See you then.” I hung up the phone and wiped some sweat from my hairline. Uncle Angelo was like a father to me. After the one who gave me my surname walked out on my mom and I got taken away because she spent more money on alcohol that her own kid, Angelo took me in. It wasn’t one of those see-you-at-the-orphanage-and-make-you-into-the-newest-Capone thing. He was actually my mother’s brother, and he’d been in my life since I’d been born. He not only took me in without hesitation, but he also treated me like the world.

In fact, he never, ever exposed me to his dirty work in the mafia as a kid. Ever. And he would’ve killed every single one of his men had I been hurt over it. I didn’t find out about it until I was fourteen, and even then I was kept far away from it. He didn’t bring any women into it, either. It was really just him and I, and the rest of the guys were like my older brothers. And if I wanted it, he made sure it happened but he made sure I never got greedy about it. 

To say the least, Angelo Luco was a good man. He may have killed people, he may have laundered money, and his specialty definitely was making people disappear. But he was a better father than anyone ever could ask for and he would have killed an army of men to protect me. So there. 

I finally got brave enough to turn the radio back on. I listened to the Elvis channel all the way into Cartalene. 

_

I stopped a little outside of town by a ravine and told Shawn to get out of the car. Before pushing it in, I released the parking brake and took the suitcase that was in the back of it, compliments of the owners. We called a cab for the rest of the way. 

A nice looking woman greeted us with a smile once we entered the car. 

“Hi, boys. Where can I take you today?” I gave her the address of my uncle’s house before handing over a $100 bill. My eyes ached from driving since four in the morning and my neck needed a good popping.

An hour later, we were there. I thanked the driver and began leading Shawn up the long walkway of the large craftsman home that my uncle resided in. It was decorated with dark brown paint and cherry-wood accents. The lawn and landscaping that occupied the front of the lot was now even more brightly colored than it’d been when I last saw it and it was more neatly kept than the president’s reputation. 

His black BMW sat neatly parked under the cherry tree where he liked it, and a car sat parked under the overhang. As we came closer to the house, I saw Nina washing one of the living room windows. She had tears running down her face, and I knew that wasn’t Angelo’s doing. He respected women. Just because he was a big bad mafioso didn’t automatically mark him as someone who disrespected people, especially not women or children. You had his most basic level of respect until you did something to up that respect or lower it. Lowering his respect wasn’t a good thing. 

I knocked on the door and backed up a bit. After a few seconds, Nina answered the door with something along the lines of, “I’m sorry. I’m a bit of a mess.” Her eyes shot open when she saw me.

“Rodham!” she shouted as she launched herself into my arms. I smiled but rolled my eyes when she said my full name. “Oh my goodness. I didn’t know you were coming back! Oh my goodness...” I patted her back. She looked at Shawn before stepping toward him, continuing. “And your friend here-- I’ve never seen him before.”

“This is Shawn,” I greeted. “He’s a very close friend that I made at school, but Nina. I really need you to do something for me.” She wiped her eyes.

“Oh, anything, honey.”

“I need you to pretend we were never even here, alright? Shawn and I are in a bit of trouble. And, Nina,” I said, leaning in a bit. “Why are you crying?” She stepped back. She was frail and old, much older than my Uncle, but she was in good shape. And she was a good, strong woman. She really never did cry, one time I could remember being when she’d found that my mother had died of alcohol poisoning. She was like a grandmother to me, really. She'd been around ever since I could speak. And, as far as I knew, nothing serious had happened in the family.

“Oh, honey, don’t worry about it. It’s nothing. Please, please come in.” She pulled us in and quickly closed the door behind us. I looked around for the first time in a while. It was just like I’d remembered- every photo was hung straight and every plank of the mahogany floors were shiny and clean. There wasn’t a speck of dust anywhere. Not in Uncle Angelo’s house. Nina would never allow it. If the house was not orderly, she worked to make it that way again.

“It looks lovely, Miss,” Shawn complimented quietly. “You do excellent work.” She patted his back with a thankful nod. I pointed down the entry hallway, where a large pair of wooden doors sat, closed.

“Is Uncle free?” I inquired, gesturing to the doors. She nodded no. He must’ve been in a meeting. We went and stood to wait by the doors. Nina, who’d been crying this whole time, returned to cleaning. She seemed to be scrubbing at a scuff on the floor. Well- wait. What the hell was that? What she’d been crying over ate at me. She didn’t cry over small things. She didn’t cry when yelled at, she didn’t cry when someone with muddy shoes walked over her freshly mopped floors, she didn’t just cry. 

My thoughts were interrupted when two large men burst out of my uncle’s office. Nina popped her head out from the kitchen. 

“Would you two boys like a brownie?” The two men looked over at her. They had to be working under my uncle, I could tell by the sleek suits and neat haircuts. Not many people didn’t work under him, though. One man, the presumably younger one, walked over to her as he pointed a finger.

“Listen here, lady,” he growled as he stormed into the kitchen, “we don’t want a fuckin’ brownie and we don’t got time for you to be interrupting us. Stay out of our business.” Nina nodded, scared. 

“Sorry, si-”

“Did I say to speak?” He shouted angrily as he picked up the plate of brownies, which I’d looked forward to eating, and threw it at her feet. He then spat on the floor and rubbed his heel over it, creating a mark that was rather similar to the one she’d been working at, confirming my thoughts that he was the reason for Nina’s tears. This angered me to say the least. I’d seen many men disrespect Nina behind my uncle’s back, disrespect me, and even threaten to harm me when I’d gotten in their ways, but I was no longer a fourteen year old boy. I had no submissiveness anymore. 

“Hey!” I shouted sharply as I speed walked into the kitchen. He turned his head to look at me. “What the fuck was that, man? What the hell is wrong with you? Do you see her? She’s heartbroken. That was uncalled for.”

“And who are you?”

“I’m Ro- I’m Danny Luco. Angelo’s nephew. So not only do you work under my uncle, you work under me. You’ve made my grandma here cry, you just ruined the brownies that I was gonna eat later, you spat all over her freshly mopped floors and you are ugly as fuck. And if I ever, ever see you treat her like that again, you’ll be swimming with the fish. Capiche, Mr. Macho Mafioso? This is her fucking house, and you don’t ever, ever fuck with the queen when you’re in her court. That is absolutely disgraceful.” Getting closer to his face, I pointed to the door as I continued,”Now get the fuck out of my sight. And, while you’re at it, hang your head in shame.” His partner grabbed his arm and dragged him out. Nina said nothing, just sort of stood there in shock before beginning to clean his mess.. I motioned for Shawn to follow me to my uncle’s office. I knocked in the ‘shave and a haircut’ pattern.

A gruff voice shouted a response from inside.

“Two bits!” I pushed the doors open. Once Shawn entered, I closed the doors behind us. Behind a large antique desk sat my uncle, a graying man with a slight stubble growing on his gaunt face. He smoked a cigar as he browsed his phone. He looked up at me with hazel eyes and immediately smiled, thickening the wrinkles on his cherry cheeks. He stood to hug me and shake hands with Shawn. Once introductions were over, he invited us to take a seat. We made a bit of small talk before his expression turned serious at my eventual mention of trouble.

“What kind of trouble?” He asked, leaning onto the desk. “Serious trouble?” Shawn and I looked at each other. We couldn’t tell him. I slowly looked back at him, overcome with nervousness. I’d never felt nervous around my uncle except for the time when I was five that I’d crept down the stairs and seen him stuffing my presents under the tree. 

“We need to disappear,” I responded gruffly. “You wouldn’t believe the reason why if we told you, Uncle Ange. Everyone in Frameton thinks we’re dead. The FBI and god fuckin’ knows who the fuck else is after us. Please. You have to help.” He nodded his head solemnly. 

“I see.” I almost had tears in my eyes. I hated being this way. “Rodham,” he said after a long silence, the word weighing heavily on my shoulders. He never addressed me by my full name. “I’d like to have a word with you privately.” 

Shawn left the room. I was sure Nina would keep him busy. Once I heard the door close, I looked up at my uncle. He stared back with concern in his eyes. 

“Uncle Angelo--”

“What’d you do, son? Did you kill someone? Did you burn a building down?” I stayed silent. I was guilty of something and he knew it. “Listen, kid. I love you, and you’ve grown into such a good young man. And I can help you, whatever you need, I just need to know what happened.” I shook my head and rested my eyes in my palms. 

“You don’t understand, Uncle Angelo. I can’t tell you. You’ll think I’m fuckin’ crazy. It’s impossible what I’ve done, and they want me. They want Shawn, too, and they’re gonna kill us if they catch us,” I sobbed. “And if they come knocking, you have to deny that we were here with everything in your being.” He grabbed my hand. 

“Rod. Look at me. Look at me right now.” I looked up at him, a harsh blurry image against his beige wall. “I love you more than anything in this world, and I need you to tell me what the hell happened to you, son. I’ll do my damnedest to believe you.” 

I took my time calming myself. After a long, long silence, I wiped my eyes. 

“When do you want to go back to?”

“What?”

“Give me a time and a place and I will take you there.” He took a puff of his cigar with a strange face. 

“Rod--”

“Anywhere, anytime.” I grabbed his hand. “And I need you to stay as calm as possible no matter what, understand?” He nodded.

“Alright then, kid. How about, let’s see. April twenty-fifth, nineteen fifty-nine. Hillshire Hospital.” I smirked at his choice. 

“Ok, Uncle Angelo. Hold on tight, ok? You’re palm’s gonna get real hot, and then you’re gonna get head rush. When it clears up, keep calm.” I held his hand with all of my strength and closed my eyes. I felt my chest beginning to burn. That was my sign to think of when and where I wanted to go. 

April twenty-fifth, nineteen fifty-nine, Hillshire Hospital, I repeated in my head. The burning got more intense. It wasn’t like a fire, really, like the burning you get when you run a lot. Then, I got dizzy. 

When the dizziness cleared, we were standing in the middle of a bustling hospital. There were nicely dressed people everywhere, old fashioned nurses with pin-up hair and thin eyebrows. Uncle Angelo looked nearly shocked. 

“Here it is, nineteen fifty-nine, Uncle Ange,” I casually stated. “Keep calm.” A very nice looking nurse approached us. 

“Excuse me, gentlemen,” she politely greeted. “I apologize, but I’m going to have to ask you to move out of the center of the hallway.” My uncle looked at her, examining her beauty.

“Of course, ma’am,” I replied as I pulled him towards the birth ward. We walked right in, getting strange stares the whole time. Of course, I understood. We were quite the odd pair- I was wearing clothing that was deemed for children and not grown men, and Uncle Angelo looked like he’d stepped straight out of LA Noir.  Uncle Ange didn’t say a word. We walked to room 113, where painful screams quietly drifted through the heavy door. 

His eyes were wide. 

“What the hell?” I heard him mutter. “That’s-- this whole fuckin’ thing is insane. Rod, Rod. Please tell me that this is actually happening, you don’t have me on some sort of goddamn drugs or something?” I shook my head.

“I told you that you wouldn’t believe me, Uncle. And they want this, this power of mine, and I don’t fucking know why. And I’m scared to fucking death, you hear me? I don’t wanna fucking die, Ange.” I pointed to a nurse. “You need validation? Go ask that lovely lady over there what year it is.” 

“Ma’am, ma’am. I’m terribly sorry,” he shakily said, approaching her. “What year is it?” She smiled awkwardly and shook her head slightly. 

“Why, sir, it’s nineteen fifty-nine.” 

“Thank you, Miss. You’re a lovely gal,” he shouted as he jogged back over to me and grabbed my hand. “I believe you.” 

--

After taking him back, he sat at his desk and lit yet another cigar. The whole time, he mumbled “I believe you, I believe you,” while crying. He looked like he was under cardiac arrest. 

“So that, Uncle Angelo, is why we gotta disappear. And, hey, don’t worry. I’ll be around. I ain’t cutting you and Nina out of my life because some douchecanoes are trying to kill my buddy and I. It might be a bit before I set foot in your house again, but I will be the fuck around. Hear?” he nodded yes. 

We invited Shawn back in and got down to business. 

“I’m gonna set you boys up with two hundred grand, cash. I’m also gonna get my friend Tony’s wife, Charlotte, to come and give you two fashion disasters some makeovers, and you’re getting new clothes and identifications as well. Now, if you really wanna disappear, I advise you get the hell out of the country, so I’m hookin’ you boys up with some passports, too.” He put out his cigar and sipped his whiskey. I took a swig of my beer. “And you are gonna go to Canada, land of the maple fuckin’ syrup. You’re gonna lie low there with my friend Mikey for a year and then you can come back here and get your shit together. I want to hear from you when you two boys are safe, hear?” 

“Yessir,” Shawn replied. I nodded yes. My uncle stood and motioned for us to follow, opening the door for us and motioning for us to step into the hallway with him. 

“And for a car, I’m gonna get you boys-- aye, Nina!” he shouted. She poked her head out from the kitchen, where she’d been earlier. “How long ago did you mop these floors?”

“About an hour ago, Mr. Luco.” I noticed that the spit marks were gone now.

“Beautiful, beautiful-- we ain’t gonna walk on them to shortcut to the yard, then. Come on, boys. This way.” We followed him out of the front door and into the yard as he continued speaking, making hand gestures. We Lucos tended to speak with our hands. “So, eh, for wheels, I’m givin’ ya something real shitty to start, and you’re gonna need to hop cars a few times, but up in Canada, Mikey’s got Rod’s mother’s ride. When you come back, you can bring it with you.”

“Ma’s ride?” I questioned. 

“Sally,” he answered. I immediately recognized the vehicle he was talking about, a cherry red 1971 Barracuda. I didn’t know that it’d been my mom’s, though. I guess Ange had taken custody of it when she had me. “However, I’m starting you with that piece of shit right over there,” he pointed to the tarp covered car. “It’s a fuckin’, uh, I dunno. It’s what you kids’d call a ‘mom car’. A Dodge Charger. It’ll do it’s job. Oh! And I have you a map and a list of locations where you can dump your cars and get different ones. It’ll help you out. And you just tell my contacts here that Old Ange Luco sent you.” I took the map and list of contacts, which had routes that would offer us the lowest detection highlighted with a marker, before tucking it in my back pocket. I stuck my hand out to shake.

“Thank you, Uncle Angelo,” I said, expecting him to shake. Instead, he looked at me with a stale expression. 

“Oh, so you’re gonna leave already, son? Charlotte is still comin’ to give you boys’ hairs a chopping.” I looked at Shawn, who’d been relatively quiet this whole time. “Plus, Rod, Nina’s cooking Salisbury Steak tonight.” Shawn shrugged. 

“Well, I dunno. We can stay here tonight I guess. But we have to be... We have to be careful. Who knows what they know about us.” Uncle Angelo patted my shoulder. 

“I got you, kid. You’ll be fine if you skip early in the morning.” With that, we all went back inside. By now, it was around four in the afternoon, and Nina had begun preparing for dinner. We were immediately embraced by the cool, air conditioned atmosphere of the house. Nina had the radio going quietly as the sound of the sink and various dishes clacking together echoed from the kitchen. 

__

Around six thirty, the doorbell rang. Me, being paranoid about the whole situation, immediately jumped. My uncle rushed to the door, swinging it open. 

“Ay, Tony! C’mon in,” he invited. A very tall man with a neat presentation stepped inside, along with a slightly shorter blonde woman carrying a sort of suitcase thing. I didn’t know what it was, but I could safely assume that it was her hair cutting tools. He shook Tony’s hand before doing the weird kiss-either-cheek thing with the woman. “Good to see you, good to see you. This, uh, this over here is Rod, my nephew, and this right here is my other nephew, Shawn.” We shook hands with Tony and Charlotte, each introducing ourselves. 

“So I understand you boys need cuts,” Charlotte said warmly. “Do we know what we want?” Shawn and I looked at each other. 

“Well, our beards need to go, for one,” Shawn stated. “And we’d like to be unrecognizable. So, whatever you think would be best.” Charlotte nodded and looked at me.

“He basically summed it up,” I confirmed. “We gotta look like different people after this.” She smiled and nodded.

“Well, we’ll see what we can figure out for you after dinner.” 

We all took a seat at the table, my uncle at his usual place at the head. Nina walked around, setting down plates filled with heaps of mashed potatoes, greens and steak patties covered in brown gravy, along with everyone’s requested drinks. Everyone politely thanked her before beginning to eat. The dinner was filled with Shawn and I being interrogated by Charlotte, plus terrible jokes being cranked from Uncle Angelo on occasion. After the meal was finished, Tony and my uncle disappeared somewhere and Nina, like a snake slithering back into its hole after catching a mouse, took to the kitchen to do the dishes. This left Shawn and I with Charlotte. 

We posted up in the bathroom upstairs since it was much larger. Shawn decided to go first. His hair was relatively short, just a little on the longer side as if he hadn’t kept it trimmed. My hair, however, was kind of a blown-back, long-hair-but-not-past-the-nape-of-my-neck type of shaggy style, and that was unintentional. This whole time, my locks had been kept beneath my cap.

Charlotte began by dying Shawn’s hair dark brown with a permanent dye. While his hair was setting, she sat me in the chair. I looked once more at my auburn hair, a trait that I’d inherited from my mom. Nobody else on her side of the family had ever had that hair color naturally. And since my father’s side was Scandinavian, I didn’t get it from them. 

“What color are you going for, Rod?” I kept my eyes fixed on my reflection.

“Dark. What would you recommend?”

“For your beautiful hair color, I would say you would probably need... Well, I have to bleach your hair first. And then we can do whatever color you’d really like.”

“Whatever you gave to Shawn, I guess,” I said sadly. I had always taken pride in my hair. It’d been a large part of my public image, as well as my don’t-give-a-fuck- attitude. That’s why it had to go. Nodding, she began the process of bleaching my hair. 

After applying the lightening chemicals to my hair, she rinsed out Shawn’s hair and began snipping away with a small, sharp pair of scissors that glinted under the bathroom light. The whole time, I looked at myself in the mirror. My hair was a gross yellow color now. I looked like a less cringey version of Guy Fieri with longer hair. Shawn looked back and forth between our reflections nervously as the sound of blades cutting through hair filled the thick silence. She often brought out different tools, like what she called ‘texturing (or thinning) shears’, and used them to aid her in giving Shawn a fresh cut. 

She ended up just giving both of us the standard businessman cuts, the kind that she was probably used to giving to her husband and other men like him. Cartalene wasn’t a small town, but the presence of the mafia was known and feared by many. I was sure that Charlotte got a lot of my uncle’s guys in asking for cuts. 

Once we were all cleaned up, she looked at us once more, admiring her work. 

“Alright, boys, you’re all finished,” she cheerily said, walking out of the bathroom. 

“Thank you,” Shawn and I responded nearly in unison. After she left, we looked at each other. I could see why he kept a beard now. He looked like a fucking fourteen year old. 

We made our way downstairs where my uncle was sitting, watching TV in his favorite chair. He looked up at us. 

“Well, look at that. Now you two look less like Hell,” he said in a gravelly voice, pushing the footrest down to sit forward, “And you, Rod, I can fuckin’ recognize you now.” I nodded.

“Well at least I don’t look like some ninth grader now,” I teased as I jabbed Shawn with my elbow. “I can still buy beer and have people believe I’m twenty two.” 

“Fuck you, Rod,” Shawn said defensively, crossing his arms. His pale skin finally gained some color, his cheeks burning cherry red from embarrassment.

“Oh, I don’t think that’s a good idea. I don’t want to be labeled as the next Kevin Spacey,” I retorted. This warranted a chuckle from Uncle Angelo and a wheezy laugh from myself. Shawn was fuming. Now he really looked like an angry fourteen year old. “Oh, oh!” I continued, wiping a tear from my eye, “did I hurt the big boy’s feelings? Maybe you should go lock yourself in your room without talking to anyone for days.” My uncle and I laughed even harder. 

“No, Rod, don’t make him mad! He’ll get moody with us,” my uncle joined in. Shawn started laughing as well. 

If only that joy could last. 

If only Shawn and I didn’t have to throw our lives away. If only-- if only this bullshit wasn’t happening to us. 

If only that bullet had missed that poor, poor police officer’s head.