Post 1: Pages 1-2 Released 10/24/10

Chapter 1: The Story Begins

I am a gigantic lump of wasted talent. That's the way I always start this story, the story of me and Jimmy XXXXX and how on that fateful day in his basement everything changed but really didn't. Why I ended up in Jimmy XXXXXX's basement was easy to figure and at that point I thought it might have been the last place I ever saw. Of course it wouldn't even be possible for me to tell this story if I hadn't been able to escape after picking myself up off the floor, left for dead I'd presumed. With two limbs dangling I stumbled out the front door which had surprisingly been left open. Maybe Jimmy let me go for some strange reason, to see if I could do it or maybe he just wanted to prolong my torture. At that point I didn't give a shit and hobbled away as fast as I could.
His Goons had picked me up on XXX  Street earlier in the day while I was on my way down to XXXX Delicatessen to pick up a Pastrami on Rye, my monthly pilgrimage to eat my favorite sandwich. You see there are only two things in life that I am really good at, eating and fucking up, the latter being my expertise. The two always seemed to go hand in hand, one leading to the other. It was a constant stream of greasy food and catastrophe, which for the most part I had been able to avoid up until then.
XXXXX XXXX XXXXXX X XXXX. The Goons, as I liked to call them, had given me a pretty good knock on my head so forgive me if I have forgotten some of the details. For instance, like what kind of vehicle they had thrown me into. I wasn't sure if it was a truck or van, all I remember is that the floor was very hard and didn't taste very good. Being that it wasn't my first time being abducted I understood that it was in my best interest to remain silent and still. There was no point in taking any additional punishment before what was sure to be more punishment later. At that point I had yet to figure out who it was that had grabbed me so abruptly, or why for that matter when they simply could have just asked me to go. It wasn't until I smelled the cologne that I knew it had been Jimmy who'd ordered the pick-up. Great, I thought, he must've figured out what I had done. Jimmy liked to wear a lot of cologne, so much so I could always smell him when he was around.
"Hey buttercup, got any sandwiches for me today...No?" He said with a laugh and yanked me by my arm out onto the sidewalk. That was really hard too.

"I could have had a nice pastrami sandwich for you but your Goons never let me get to XXXX,  besides was it really necessary for them to give me such a hard whack on my head, was that really necessary?"

Jimmy looked at me with a shit eating grin. "I'm sorry buttercup, we wasn't sure you would come so easily, better that way, you know?"

"What's better about it?" I said. "By the way, why are you calling me buttercup?" He didn't answer and that's when Jimmy and the Goons dragged me down into the dreaded basement.

Everyone had heard the rumors I guess. I was only familiar with the one that said there was dried blood splattered all over the walls and there was a hole in the floor where he threw all the bodies. Jimmy's basement was known by most as The Roach Motel, you know like the commercial...'roaches check in but they don't check out' sort of thing. All I knew was that there wasn't anything good about them bringing me there. So you could imagine my surprise when it was nothing like what I had heard, it was actually nice. The floor was smooth concrete and had been painted a dark speckled grey that matched the walls, all except one that I assumed had been intentionally left bare to expose the bricks. Nice touch. There was a faint smell of Pine-Sol in the air but I couldn't figure out if that had recently been used to scrub the place down or not, so I just pushed that thought aside. In the middle of the room was single wooden chair that to me looked like a vintage piece from the fifties, maybe an Eames chair, but I noticed it was all rusted and chipped. Too bad, no re-sale value. Opposite that was a smallish green sofa with a tweedy fabric that you might find in the waiting room of a doctors office, that was in fine shape however. Somehow I felt comforted by the simplicity of it all. Just then Jimmy motioned to one of his Goons and whispered loud enough so that I could hear. "Go get me the plastic tarp, we gonna need it." I no longer felt comforted and barfed all over the green sofa.

There are two reasons why I knew Jimmy and his band of merry men.

One: he was my bookie.

Two: I am a complete dumbass.

If you are not sure what a bookie is exactly it means that he takes sports bets for the mob (yeah that mob) from shitheads like me who actually think they could win some money. Football, Basketball, Baseball, Hockey, Horse Racing and even the English Premier League across the pond. Whatever sport you wanted to bet on you could do that through Jimmy and he was more than happy to take your money. Why was he happy you say? Because he knew full well he wouldn't be giving any of it back. You see when someone actually won from Jimmy he would say something like..."Let it ride." Or "I'll just hold onto the money for you until you really need it." We had no choice at that point because it was already too late, his hooks were already deep into our backs. There was no easy way to ask for the money either, anyone who ever had now walked with a limp or even disappeared completely. After that Jimmy would use us for favors, or I should say we were forced to do things like XXXXX XXXX XXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXX XXXX. Sickening I know but Jimmy did throw us, I mean me, a bone every once in a while. The first time we met was a rather memorable experience since he almost shot me dead outside of XXXXXXXXXXX after I had walked over to XXXXXXXXXX, to pick up a Roast Beef sandwich for lunch.