Darren’s fingers tapped out some vaguely familiar rhythm on his steering wheel. The tremors in his hands made him double tap every third beat or so and it threw the entire tune off. It probably would have pissed him off more if his attention wasn’t lazer-focused on the giant, luxurious house that his shitty Camry was parked in front of. A great behemoth of a house - at what point did the word ‘mansion’ become acceptable? - that stood high and mighty next to all of the equally unnecessarily large houses. The neighborhood was so rich and white it was like he had driven into a giant fucking cheesecake. Not nearly as delicious as it sounded.<br/><br/>The low red glow of the car’s shitty clockface ticked over to 4:34, and somehow he just felt like it was time. One hand popped open the glove box and removed its sole content, and the other hand went for the door. The walk to the house wasn’t a very long one, but it gave Darren a lot of time to think about a lot of things. Nothing really existential, but his mind was in a hyperactive rush and thoughts bounced in his head back to back to keep himself occupied. What was he going to do after this? Maybe grab some food? What kind of food? Could he even eat after this? Eventually the questions would reach a stopping point and repeat again on a continuous loop, over and over and over again until he looked back and he was 50 feet from his car and on the front porch of the unfamiliar household.<br/><br/>Too late to turn back now.<br/><br/>The gun was tucked down the back of his pants, fully loaded, safety on. And it would probably stay on, too; he wouldn’t be needing it. He never needed it, he just had to wave it around a bit. As it turned out, people were a lot more willing to do what you told them to when they thought they were going to get hurt. So far, he had a pretty good track record of getting people to work with him before it got to that point, but there was always a first time for everything.<br/><br/>Darren pounded on the door, giving it three solid and forceful knocks before standing back and waiting. “Hey,” he said, just loud enough to make it through the door while hopefully still being quiet enough to not alert the neighbors. Of the two houses on either side, it looked like there was only one person that could possibly be within earshot, but the last thing he needed right now was a good Samaritan. Movement ticked his peripheral vision and his head turned in time to see the blinds snap shut again from where someone had been watching him. Once more, he laid his fist into the door, his knocks becoming slightly louder and more insistent. “Hey, I know you’re in there. I can see you, dumbass. Come out and talk to me for a sec.”<br/><br/>Ever the patient man, Darren waited. Five seconds turned to ten, turned to thirty, turned to a minute and a half before he leaned his head back and said a silent prayer to whatever gods were listening that this stupid motherfucker wouldn’t try and fight him. “Guess I’m coming in then,” he quipped, slightly exasperated from having to put forth the effort it took to make the door eat his foot and send it flying back on its hinges. From that loud sound erupted a series of similarly loud sounds. Footsteps, screaming, something decidedly glass falling to the ground. “Christ, what the fuck are you doing in there? You’re gonna make someone call the cops.”<br/><br/>“If you don’t get the fuck out of here, I’ll call the cops!” came the wavering reply from what sounded like the kitchen.<br/><br/>“No you won’t,” Darren sang back, kicking his foot out behind him to close the front door as best as it would fit back in the threshold. He took careful, quiet steps as he moved through the house. He poked his head into the living room, appraising everything he saw in search of something worth about $120. A Roku TV, a couple of consoles, a soundbar and that was pretty much it.<br/><br/>Another loud noise prompted him to look up, moving instinctively for the gun as he floated from room to room until he found Ethan hiding in the kitchen, clutching a baseball bat and surrounded by a sea of broken glass.<br/><br/>The barrel of the gun felt cool against Darren’s skin as he tapped it to his temple in agitation just to keep his hands occupied. “Your mom’s going to be pissed,” he noted, gesturing to the broken china with his gun. Waving it around no more than absolutely necessary, but very effective all in all. “Especially after she finds out you traded that TV for an eightball.” Ethan’s eyes got huge and wild and his grip on the bat whitened his knuckles. Darren smiled. “Yeah, don’t like the sound of that do you? I’m a pretty reasonable guy. If you wanted to, say, forget this whole thing ever happened, just give me the coke and I’ll be on my way.”<br/><br/>The stammering and stuttering that followed was, at best, less than reassuring. Ethan’s eyes were wide and unseeing and he was just panicked enough that Darren could pick up what was going on. He laughed in spite of himself and the situation. “You don’t have it, do you? What’d you do, snort it all? Is that why you can’t answer a simple fucking question, because you’re high as balls?”<br/><br/>“No-no-no man, we’re cool,” Ethan managed, holding one hand in front of him defensively while the other continued to white-knuckle the bat. “I-I have the stuff.”<br/><br/>“Oh yeah?”<br/><br/>“Yeah, I swear dude.”<br/><br/>A shaken, sweaty hand went for the pocket of ridiculously expensive, well-fitting jeans. Probably got them from American Eagle, or wherever the fuck these rich-types shopped. He didn’t look like the kind of kid that should end up in this situation. Clean cut, nicely dressed, didn’t wear shoes in the house. He looked like the kind of kid you’d sell a gram of oregano to for $15, and he most certainly did not look like the kind of kid that needed to be stealing coke from him.<br/><br/>The small bag made a light skiff across the floor until it came to a stop at Darren’s feet. He looked at it and sighed, making sure to fix Ethan with ‘the look’ before bending down to pick it up. “This is what you have left?” he asked, appraising the bag between his forefinger and thumb. He put it in his pocket anyway, but not before huffing about it. “I could still take your TV for this, you know that right? That’s called recooping losses. But I’m a nice guy, so all you’re going to have to explain to your mommy is why you busted the door off it’s hinges.”<br/><br/>Ethan exhaled a breath of relief, clutching his hand to his chest to feel what Darren could only assume was a horrifyingly rapid heartbeat. “I-I knew you’d understand, man, I really appreciate-”<br/><br/><br/>“Understand?” he asked, baffled at the choice of words. He shook his head slowly, much the way you would when you were trying to explain to a five-year-old that they had said something wrong. “Ethan, the only thing I understand is that you and your boys jumped me and took something that belonged to me. And when I come for it the day after, suddenly I’m coming up short?”<br/><br/>He tucked the gun back into his pants and made quick steps toward Ethan who, instead of swinging the bat at him and trying to hit him with it, chose instead to wrap himself around it like it would escape if he let go. The broken glass made a threatening crunch every time he took a step closer, but Ethan had already plastered himself back against a wall and didn’t look like he was trying to run anywhere fast. When Darren finally closed the distance between the two of them, the first thing he went for was the bat, wrenching it from Ethan’s looser, much sweatier grip and throwing it to the ground. Darren pushed him hard against the wall, his hands tangling themselves in Ethan’s shirt.<br/><br/>“Understand this,” he demanded over the sound of stammering and excuses. “Miami’s dry for you now. I will make it so that you never buy another gram in a hundred-mile radius of this place. Is that something you understand?” All Ethan managed was a pathetic nod, but it was good enough for Darren. He let him go, the gasping mess that he was. “Good. Then yeah. We’re cool.”<br/><br/>Anything else that Darren would have said was lost to the sound of his ringtone. Turning his back on Ethan, he dug around for his phone as he walked back through the house, which was otherwise entirely silent now that he’d gotten Ethan to stop making so much fucking noise. It almost made him laugh, looking back at it. Ethan Briar and his gang of rich, metrosexual coke junkies jumped him and managed to finagle a bag off him, and then this is the result - Ethan cowering against a wall and wailing that he’ll call the cops. How fucking silly.<br/><br/>He only looked at the screen for a nanosecond before answering. “Hey man, what’s up?” he asked, fumbling with his keys and figuring out what he was doing with his life if he couldn’t open a door. “I think I know the place, yeah. On Biscayne? See you then.” The call ended and the screen flickered to black, catching the sun in such a way to reflect Darren’s image perfectly, as if life was telling him to look at himself. Really look at himself.<br/><br/>“Fuck off,” he told the reflection, and peeled off of the suburban street toward the diner on Biscayne and Edgewood.