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"A Day in the Life"Mafia story I wrote a while back and never really polished it. A basic intro into how life goes in the manor with the old Don, narrated by Patrick.
-----
I’m never the first one up. It’s always Virgil, or Annabelle. They get up as soon as it’s light outside and go for a run on a trail through the woods behind the house. Ann got Virgil going on runs with her almost as soon as he joined us. It’s a good way to stay in shape, she said, and she read online that exercise is really good for anxiety. I think it helps him.
Virgil is a cold-blooded, calculating hitman capable of some really messed up stuff, but he can also have a panic attack in the living room on a sunny afternoon with nothing in the world to actually panic about. It’s weird, and I don’t judge because he’s fucking scary when he has a mind to be. So is Ann. I think you have to be that type of person to be a hitman in the first place. I’m not a hitman, I’m the one who launders money and keeps all of our shenanigans looking legal when tax season comes.
But anyway. I get out of bed, and yay, my head doesn’t hurt. Sometimes it does. Virgil and Ann are back from their run and at the kitchen table eating cereal and drinking coffee. The Don gets up sometime after them but before me, and he’s there too. Breakfast time. I might eat breakfast or just get coffee depending on how I’m feeling. Today I want toast, so I make toast.
We have a fancy k-cup machine that makes delicious fresh coffee whenever you want it. I like something sweet unless I’m hungover, and the Don and Ann take black coffee. Virgil does de-caf or nothing at all. We sit down together and go over anything that needs doing today.
Virgil, someone’s keeping protection money for themselves when they collect it. Go convince them to not do that ever again.
Ann, we found the identity of the guy who killed one of ours last week. You know what to do.
Patrick, I need a hundred grand to transform into many, many gift cards. Off you go.
And so we go about our day. Ann leaves with a cello case but she doesn’t play the cello. Virgil takes a handgun for backup but he’ll usually get by with his brass knuckles. And I just need a suitcase full to bursting with bills. I don’t know where they go or (precisely) what they do. If we run into each other in public, we can’t see or hear each other. It’s just safer that way, even with our fake jobs at the mansion. So I do my thing and they do theirs, and of course I stop for lunch somewhere in between. If I’m really good and don’t lollygag or get sidetracked, I might even have time to take some of my own cash into Rose’s Garden Gentleman’s Club and watch the dancers for a while. I have time today, so I go in. It’s one place I’m guaranteed to not run into Ann or Virgil. Ann turns her nose up at places like the Garden, and Virgil’s...Virgil. I actually brought him there once before, as an attempt to get to know him and bring him out of his shell when he was new to the Family. And honestly, he spent the whole time looking uncomfortable and confused. Like if the most gorgeous woman in the world were to strip right in front of him, I seriously don’t know if he’d even know what to do with her. Seriously.
I come back with my work finished and I’m ready to hand over anything I need to to the Don. Virgil’s taking up the couch with his book and a little bowl of cheese crackers. The knuckles of his left hand are scraped up and I know if I ask what happened, he’ll smile and feed me some line about how he was grating carrots and got hurt while helping with dinner yesterday. It’s what he’d tell anyone outside the Family, because to the outside world he’s our butler. He just likes messing with me sometimes.
Ann’s in the recliner watching her tablet, and neither of them gives me more than a glance. Her cello case will be up in her room, and there’s no evidence on her to suggest what she’s been up to. So I go straight to the Don’s office and we talk a little about what I’d done and how I’d done it. He’s happy, I get a compliment. I thank him and leave the office, stopping by the kitchen for a beer. Back in the living room, I sit down followed by the Don who takes the end of the couch from Virgil, who would have happily sat on the floor if the Don had asked him to but just curls up a bit to free a cushion. The Don turns the TV on at a low volume and I dick around on my phone and we all exist in that modern way of being together but with our attention on separate things.
Then it’s close to dinner time and Virgil and Don team up to cook. They’re good cooks and there’s a logic in preparing your own food when you’re a Don. Annabelle and I just stay out of their way, and we all sit at the table to eat when they’re done. The food’s delicious, it always is. We try and keep the conversation light, not only to at least pretend to be normal but because any talk of gore over dinner bugs the Don and puts him off his meal. I don't love it either.
So we eat and then Ann and I get the dishes into the dishwasher because if we’re not actually butlers or maids, we do try and be useful around the house. It makes less work for the actual cleaners when they come if we handle little things and pick up after ourselves. After that, we do our own thing. I disappear into my room to play a video game and drink. Ann goes about taking a bath and her whole beauty ritual.
After everyone’s teeth are brushed and nightly rituals are done, bedroom doors close for the night. I can knock on the Don’s door if it’s an emergency. For a non-emergency I can usually go to Virgil without angering him. I do not knock on Ann’s door.
Tonight, I just make one last bathroom trip and then to bed where I fall asleep almost instantly. If I wake up to pee in the middle of the night, I run a tiny chance of seeing someone else up for a similar reason. But otherwise, everything’s quiet until tomorrow, and I won’t be the first one up.
This story goes with the next one and was an experiment in writing in more than one POV. In the story, Virgil and Patrick go together to repossess an car for the Family, and chaos ensues.Crash (Patrick's POV)
I caught my balance and straightened my jacket. Virgil coughed twice and pulled a handful of hair out of his face. “You said you could drive the car.” And the problem with that statement is that it came from Virgil. If he yelled when he got mad, threw things and cussed, I’d be able to tell ‘calm’ from ‘simmering rage’. But they can look and sound really similar with him. And knowing Virgil he could be feeling either right now.
“I can drive the car. I drove the car.” My voice was shaky where his was steadier than most people’s would have been. The crash had scared him, without a doubt. It scared the shit out of me. But he was a lot sturdier. Hitmen are like that. Virgil looked back at the car, licked his lips, but said nothing. There wasn’t much to say.
“You hurt?” I asked. It was dark and Virgil had had the wherewithal to yank the keys from the ignition before we bailed so even the headlights were gone now. But he was standing up okay.
“Well,” Virgil sighed, “I’m not in pain and I’m not going into shock which would be the main thing to stop me feeling pain, so nope.” He shrugged. “I think I’m good. You?”
And Virgil would actually know what shock was like, so I trusted him when he said that. Again, he’s pretty tough. “I’m okay, I think. Just a little rattled.” We were probably both lucky in that.
Virgil looked back towards the car and I did too. No smell of gas, and the motor would get cooler instead of warmer. It was safe enough to be near, just not drivable. Believe it or not that wasn’t a huge problem, but being stuck in the middle of nowhere was. “Do we, eh, call Ann or maybe the Don?” I said Virgil’s a hitman. He’s in a Family, so to speak. So am I, we’re in the same Family. I’m a bookkeeper and money launderer. And the guy who convinced a skeptical Virgil that I could totally drive this beast of a car that I’d put into a tree sideways, endangering us both.
“Well we can’t exactly call Triple-A, can we?” Virgil fished his phone out of his pocket and the screen lit up his face a little. No blood, just tangled blond hair and his classic neutral, hard to read expression. But if he’s joking then he’s not going to kill me. My phone, on the other hand, had gone flying into the windshield and wouldn’t come on even after several tries. “Goddammit.”
“I’ve got it, don’t worry.” Virgil hit a button and combed his hair with the hand that wasn't holding the phone while it rang. After a few rings he dropped his hand.
"Hey Ann. We, um, need some help.” He glanced in my direction for a split second, brows creasing.
“He did, actually. Yeah." Wait, what?
"Oh no it’s not on its roof or anything. Yeah. No, I'm okay." Virgil looked down at himself as if checking for damage and I tried to figure out if I was hearing what I thought I was hearing.
"And I'm okay too, incidentally." In case anyone cares.
"Oh Patrick says that he's okay t- no, no I'm listening. Sorry to interrupt." I scowled. Yes, Virgil’s scary as hell when he’s mad. But I can get mad too, and I was getting there. My nerves were shot.
"I probably should have driven." Virgil nodded slowly. "You're right. Patrick was just being -- Patrick -- about it." Okay, this has gone far enough. Virgil held his phone out for a second and then back to his ear. "My location's on, yeah. Thank you. We'll be right here. Yeah." He hung up.
"I feel the love radiating from both of you. I could be bleeding internally you know." I mean I’m pretty sure I’m not, but still.
"Eh, that's where the blood's supposed to be." And at this point I must have looked ready to scream, because Virgil held up a hand. "You look fine. Your balance looks good and you make sense when you talk. Those are good signs.” And I pretty much had to let it go at that. I had technically created the whole situation. So instead I said, “How mad’s the Don gonna be about this?”
Virgil shook his head. “He won’t be. The car’s not important. Knowing him he’ll be glad we’re alright.” He sat down in the grass a couple steps further from the car and rested his arms on his knees. I almost asked him if he wasn't worried about his clothes sitting in grass and dirt, but that was the least of our worries. Instead, I sat down beside him. He took a pack of cigarettes and a lighter out of his shirt pocket and was kind enough to pass both to me after lighting his own. I thanked him and handed them back after I got one lit. My hands were shaking. His were not.
“Let me rephrase. How mad’s Ann about this? She’s picking us up or sending someone?” Please, please say sending someone. Ann’s the second in command to the Don and a hitman herself. She doesn’t kill people as often as Virgil, but she’s just as lethal and a little more volatile. She’s technically forbidden to kill me, same as Virgil is unless I do something so awful the Don orders it, but she’s gonna yell at me a lot and I know it.
“She’s coming herself.” I could hear Virgil smirking, thinking the same as me. “And she was pissed.” Goddammit.
*
For the next little bit I felt like somebody tied to a chair waiting for torture, execution, or torture and then execution. But because I wasn’t tied down I got up, paced, and took a quick piss on a tree. Virgil stayed where he was on the ground. When I came back from the tree, he was actually lying on his back and not moving. I ran over in a panic and was about to try shaking him awake when he turned his head and calmly looked at me.
“I’m not dead.” He said wryly. “Just looking at the stars.” He sat up, pulled a twig from his hair and stared off into the distance, where two tiny headlights were barely visible. “I think that might be her.”
*
“What the hell!?” She was out of her car immediately and found me in the dark like a missile. I’d hoped maybe she’d fuss over Virgil a little and be distracted but he actually stepped behind me as she stormed up to us, so she met me first.
“What the hell nothing, it went out of control!”
I shouldn’t argue with her, I know. She’s right, she’s tougher than me, and I could’ve killed myself and Virgil. But I was mad. So after some back and forth, she held her hand up and said, “You know what, the Don can decide what to you. I’m over it.”
She led the way back to her car and I was just about to get in when I saw that the back seats were taken up by junk from some previous work. “Where am I gonna sit? I don't have any room.”
Ann stopped short and looked into the backseat, thinking. Virgil waited by the front passenger door. Ann smiled suddenly.
“I know where you can sit, Patrick.” And she opened her door, leaned over and pulled the lever to open the trunk. Was she serious. “Are you serious!?”
“I’ll think he’ll fit, don’t you think, Virgil?” Virgil was smiling from the other side of the car. Not a good smile, either. “I think so.” Before I could do anything against the two of them, Virgil was around the car again and he slung me over one shoulder like a sack of potatoes. I hit my shoulder on something when I was dumped into the trunk, and the last thing I saw before they shut the lid was both of their smiling faces.
“He’ll be fine.” Virgil’s muffled voice. “He’ll only be in there for a little while.”
“Actually,” Ann’s answer. “I was thinking we should stop on the way and get something to eat, you and me. Are you hungry at all?”
“Starving.”
Goddammit.
Crash (Virgil's POV)The door opened with a little more force than it should have taken and I stumbled out of the car, coughing. My hair was all over my face and I tried to move it enough to see. “You said you could drive the car.” He had said he could drive the car. He had crashed the car, and both of us with it.
“I can drive the car. I drove the car.” Not only was it absurd for him to say that after what just happened, but he sounded ready to faint. Well, he deserved it. My mind was still processing it, and I couldn’t think of what to say.
“You hurt?” He asked. It was a good question. I took a moment to just pay attention to how I felt. “Well, I’m not in pain and I’m not going into shock which would be the main thing to stop me feeling pain, so nope. I think I’m good. You?” “I’m okay, I think. Just a little rattled.” So good news there. Looking back at the car, I wondered if maybe it was drivable yet and we might get out of here with me behind the wheel. The keys were in the seat currently. But no, it was basically totalled. We needed help. Patrick had the same idea.
“Do we, eh, call Ann or maybe the Don?” I bit my lip. The Don, no. No need to involve him. But Annabelle, the second in command? “Well we can’t exactly call Triple-A, can we?” I muttered. The car is, as they say, hot. Stolen. Not technically ours from a legal perspective. But ours by rights nonetheless. I took my phone out and breathed a sigh of relief when I found it undamaged. Patrick was not so lucky. He had crashed partially because one eye had been on the GPS after we made our getaway in the wrong direction and into the middle of nowhere. It had gone flying, and he didn’t seem to be able to turn it on now. He swore.
“I’ve got it, don’t worry.” Ann was in my contacts list, and must have been paying attention to her phone because she picked up after just a few rings.
“Virgil. Hey, how’s the pickup going?”
"Hey Ann. We, um, need some help.”
“Don’t tell me you let Patrick wreck the car.” Her tone was joking but I glanced at Patrick anyway, startled by the words.
“He did, actually. Yeah." And then Patrick was staring back at me. “Oh my god I was just joking. Tell me it isn’t on its roof or anything. Wait--are you okay?”
"Oh no it’s not on its roof or anything. Yeah. No, I'm okay." I tried to look at my clothes in the darkness but it was useless.
"And I'm okay too, incidentally." Having Patrick in my left ear and Ann in my right was not helping my nerves settle. I focused on breathing.
“Oh Patrick says that he’s okay t-”
“That’s great Virg but I need you to listen.” She would hear no argument, I could tell.
“No, no I’m listening. Sorry to interrupt.” I turned away from Patrick to focus on Ann.
“You probably should have drove, you’re a better driver. But I’ll come get you guys.”
Thank God. "I probably should have drove." I agreed. "You're right. Patrick was just being -- Patrick -- about it." I lowered my voice for that part, but I was sure he could hear. “Is your location on so I can track you?” I checked. It was. "My location's on, yeah. Thank you. We'll be right here. Yeah." I hung up.
"I feel the love radiating from both of you,” Patrick was talking, whining some might say. “I could be bleeding internally you know." And this is why he gets punched. Not by me or even Ann, the Don doesn’t like it when us higher ups fight each other. But he gets punched.
"Eh, that's where the blood's supposed to be." I shot back weakly. He looked livid and I held up a hand because truly I was too tired to fight, though I knew I could kill him one on one. The reason we had a stolen car in the first place was we’re both in a Family. And the reason I knew I could kill him is that I’m a hitman who has been through shit he’d never survive and he is a book balancer that almost cries when he stubs his toe. Although he does take punches well. "You look fine.” I told him. “Your balance looks good and you make sense when you talk.” As much as you ever do. “Those are good signs.”
He seemed okay with peace after that. “How mad’s the Don gonna be about this?” He asked. I shook my head. Least of our worries. The Don, despite being a Don, is a kind man to his people. “He won’t be. The car’s not important. Knowing him he’ll be glad we’re alright.” And because there is no reason to stand when you can sit and Ann was a ways out, I took a seat in the somewhat soft grass. He sat beside me. I lit a cigarette for myself and handed him the pack and lighter before he asked for it because of course he was going to ask. “Thank you.” He said. I nodded.
“Let me rephrase.” He blew out smoke. “How mad’s Ann about this? She’s picking us up or sending someone?”
I almost laughed. It would be a mercy to him to not have to face Ann right now. I knew it and knew he knew it. “She’s coming herself.” I assured him, hiding my smile behind my arm as I calmed down. “And she was pissed.” He hung his head.
After that it was just waiting. Patrick didn't do that very well. He was shaken by the crash and probably also afraid of Ann. She wouldn’t kill or maim him, but she wouldn’t let this go either. Patrick paced around where I sat and walked away after some time to relieve himself. As for me, I was innocent and didn’t really care if he got yelled at, so I looked for a silver lining and noticed that the stars were very visible where we’d ended up. I like looking at stars; the Don’s mansion is away from light pollution and I’ve considered buying a telescope to set up on the balcony. I should do that.
I settled down on the grass without thinking and lay using my arm as a pillow, deciding that my hair could not get messier and I’d shower when we got back. Suffice to say I hadn’t had much in the way of education growing up, but as of joining the Family I’ve become sort of a nerd. I played catch-up in my spare time learning everything about everything, including astronomy and star maps. So I was looking up at Orion, that meant off to the east was ---
Footsteps, running. I turned my head and was looking at Patrick, who was staring down at me. Oh, he thinks I’ve keeled over dead probably. “I’m not dead.” You might be. “Just looking at the stars.” I sat back up, found some random plant in my hair and then, off in the distance, one approaching vehicle. “I think that’s her.”
*
“What the hell!?” Whew, am I glad I’m not Patrick right now. I lit another cigarette as she lit into him. And it was beyond stupid for him to pick a fight here, anyway. I watched and waited until Ann called an end to it. No, the Don isn’t going to do anything to Patrick, it was technically a mistake. I was grateful to follow Ann back to her car and extinguished what was left of the cigarette. But with one hand on the front door, I was stopped again. By Patrick.
“Where am I gonna sit? I don’t have any room.” Oh. I looked over to see the backseat still full from our last adventure. That was a problem. Which Ann had the solution to.
“I know where you can sit, Patrick.” She popped the trunk. I stifled a laugh. “Are you serious?” Patrick blurted. Ann was all smiles. So was I.
“I think he’ll fit, don’t you think, Virgil?” I grinned. “I think so.”
And Patrick not being exactly muscular, he doesn’t weigh much and seemed too shocked to even put up a fight. I threw him, not gingerly, over a shoulder and set him down in the trunk. Ann shut the lid after we took a few seconds to enjoy the view of his indignity.
“He’ll be fine.” We’ve had people in our trunk before with only the obvious complaints. It was safe. “He’ll only be in there for a little while.” But Ann was still smiling, unconcerned.
“Actually,” She twirled a lock of hair. “I was thinking we should stop on the way and get something to eat, you and me. Are you hungry at all?”
I grinned. “Starving.”
The first is the most complicated and the biggest. It’s a Lovecrafitan story that deals with Nyarlathotep and the humans he’s manipulating to his own ends. It’s also inspired by the fact that I’ve played too much Dishonored. The main characters are Luther and his re-animated lover, Cassius. I plan on including more, though.
The second story is more realistic and is a dark comedy, slice of life thing. It focuses on daily life of a Mafia family where the Don and his higher ups live together in his manor where they pose as maids and butlers. The characters are:
The old Don, whose death the official story starts with but I feel like I’ll write a lot of previous stuff with.
The new Don, who joined and took over because he had no choice. Absolutely not cut out for it.
Annabelle, the second-in-command to the Don who rose through the ranks in the Family. Can be very scary.
Virgil, hitman who betrayed his previous Family to join his current one. Can be very scary. Also struggles with anxiety.
Patrick, the bookkeeper and money launderer. Pretty much a scoundrel.