Gavin Barone: A Short Story

Jason was strong. I wasn’t sure how he got that way. Maybe because he had to handle everything by himself, but that wouldn’t make sense. He never learned how to be strong. He just was. Always. Gavin Barone was my first lesson, a sheen-haired, stocky investment of his wasp masters. On TV they tell you bullies are supposed to be dumb; rough and rowdy, but with IQs lower than room temperature. But what if they’re smarter than you? What if you have nothing on them?
Gavin had the pleasure of being in all my classes. Every A he received that I didn’t was followed by condescending, intellectual degradation, as well as a pommeling during recess. And the jumping wasn’t like the movies either, with a crowd cheering as the underdog got knocked-out.

About everything…
1.
…life is just conscious death.
0.
The sound hadn’t been a gunshot, although I thought it for a moment. My fingernails dug so deeply into my palms that red ribbons began to flow from the gashes.
“What the – Jay, let’s scram!”
Footsteps thundered upon the floorboard as the intruders made their escape. I doubled over, freeing a heavy breath I hadn’t known I was holding. “Chase?” A shaky voice echoed from the foyer.
I bolted through the doors. A familiar cloud of golden hair stood encircled by a ring of shattered glass, cerulean irises pulsing with masked tension. My eyes quickly caught the hole in the window above the liquor counter and the misshapen rock resting beneath the bar stools. I didn’t look at Mr. Thurman, who was lying motionless behind a table.
“Chase.” Jason’s brows furrowed like wings. “Are you alright?”
I nodded. “We should leave soon.”
He blinked in agreement and began to walk out the door. The unsettling pit in my stomach only worsened at the pink stripes on his left wrist, but I didn’t say anything. I just followed him. Like always.
Jay Rizzo and Robert Bruno had been mobsters from a neo-Sicily liquor mafia reigning downtown, and would be released two months later on a unanimous