MR. ED CHRONICLES - talk three with Michelle

Mr. Ed had watched the ice melt and he saw the debris that had come undone when it came floating up. It was all in the past and for that reason it was more like watching a late news report come in, rather than a drama that unfolds before a person’s eyes. There was a certain fascination though, because it was almost as if there was something there at the bottom of the sea that had a part in all of it. 

Mr. Ed had come of the opinion that Martossa wasn’t just a peculiar town, but that it was one of those towns that dragged a certain history with it. It was the kind of history that’s more subtle than the words of recorded facts and the stories that people told each other to try to make sense of what was happening all around them. But at the same time, it was more like those ancient stories, it was more of an oral history —the story changed over time and a lot of it had been washed away.

The town had gotten a hold on Mr. Ed and with each passing day this idea of the day that he would return to his old life became less pressing. It was almost as if some part of Mr. Ed’s mind had made up this history of Mr. Ed’s Frozen Pizza and it was slowly catching up on itself. It was almost as if it had come floating up when the ice melted and at some point it would either decay or go back down again.

It were the two women though that Mr. Ed found most interesting, much in the same way that it’s usually women that can both drive men to the brink of madness and to definite greatness. On some level both Phyllis and Michelle could have been Mr. Ed’s daughters: Phyllis was the kind of daddy’s girl with boyish interests, while Michelle harbored the kind of spunk of the kind of person that harbors something dark deep inside, which may violently lash out at some point —this made her very interesting, and also very relatable for Mr. Ed. 

1

The VR had become comfortable like an old leather jacket. At some point Mr. Ed asked himself whether it hadn’t augmented his sense of reality. He had started questioning things that had happened —bigger things than he might have otherwise.

Mr. Ed had never been much for conspiracies, but there was a part of him that was willing to believe that experiences in VR were more than an escape or an enrichment of reality. VR could very well be used for mental programming, since the total immersion would – in theory – make it easier to add subliminal messages, because there’s literally no escape, no chance to look away and for that very simple reason it might be very effective for indoctrination of any kind. 

There were these stories dating from the 90s, that this was done through tv, and that certain mind altering chemicals were added to food and drinking water. These conspiracies usually ended with the government wanting full control, turning people numb in that they no longer had any will, turning them into empty vessels that could be subjected to any will and whose minds could be filled with just about anything. 

Mr. Ed had always doubted that these stories were true to that extent, but in a way there was a similarity: both altered our sense of perception and our sense of reality. But it’s only VR that’s so immersive that it makes us want to forget about our condition and our predicament. 

2

Michelle’ssense of reality was definitely augmented by VR: she is in fullimmersion since she learned about a dark horror web in VR. It has scary AI-creatures running wild and it has the kind of interactive movies that were classified as too violent for regular media. There’s one in particular that’s called The Butcherof which it’s rumored that whole flocks of people have gone crazy after watching that channel. Murders, suicides, lapses into schizophrenia; all those short circuits were caused by it.

The Butcher is violent and vivid to such an extent that it becomes painful to watch and you start asking yourself what sick mind had come up with the fiction —and possibly worse, what kind of mind had turned it into a visual horror-fest. For the avid viewer it was hard to imagine that most of it was scripted and staged in such a way that itwould result in the maximum shock, which obviously meant crossing boundaries that were spiraling inwards until things became too shocking and causing an overload. 

For some this threshold was low, even though these were also the kind of videos that were blocked in the conventional media. The first video that Michelle watched was one of those, but instead of turning her away it kept her coming back for more. This video was under two minutes and it started with a group of guys fooling around with martial arts. There was a bit of kick-boxing, Thai-boxing, k3. It started with the guys kicking each other, but then they moved on to objects, until in the final scene they moved on to a wall. 

This wall was made of 6 horizontal concrete slabs that were held in place by two vertical concrete rails. In this scene, one of the boys kicked the second slab in half. He succeeded, but what he probably didn’t expect was that the four remaining slabs came down and amputated the guys foot. You could hear the guy scream. The camera went to the guy and zoomed in on the stump, and then it ran to the other side of the wall to zoom in with all the connecting parts sticking out: bones, tendons, blood vessels, lymph vessels, nerves, skin, fat, skin. The whole lot. 

When Michelle had first seen that video she had dreamed about it. She wasn’t a hundred percent whether it was real, but the scene started to haunt her: guy kicking, slab coming down, stump, foot. It was just that she didn’t feel what any ordinary person would feel: she didn’t feel pain in her own limbs and pain in her belly. What she felt was a definite fascination that had more to do with precisely executing a task than by acting or responding in any emotional way. 

Michelle came back for more and thatwas how she ended up on the channel of The Butcher. In the first video a guy was tied in ropes on a table and The Butcher appeared and he saidI have been ordered to remove the hand of a thief. The guy was clamped in what looked like a medieval instrument which made it impossible for him to move. 

The camera zoomed in on the hand that was clamped in. The Butcher started with a swift incision around the wrist. Blood started sprouting, but what was more unsettling was the way in which the guy started screaming. It wasn’t just a scream of pain, but was agony mixed with a loss of hope and a loss of faith. The Butcher put the knife to the side and continued with a bone saw that did the rest of the job. After this The Butcher started pointing out the same parts that Michelle had observed in that first video: bones, tendons, blood vessels, lymph vessels, nerves, skin, fat, skin. The whole lot. 

The Butcher took a hot iron plate and grilled the stump to stop the bleeding. It was the first and the mildest recording and after that it all started spiraling out of control and into insanity. The Butcher continued with more limbs, arms, legs, separating the meat. 

Michelle watched with increasing fascination: there was something about the act of butchering. It was the kind of fascination that some young kids have when they are finished playing with their toys and they then decide to dissect them to see how they work on the inside. It was just that she wasn’t sure where her fascination would end. 

3

This time the setting is a modern lobby in a dark hotel: black, grey and silver. The light has the feel of a cold winter moon. Mr. Ed picked the location, because he thought it would be appropriate —if he wanted a real shot at figuring out what goes on below the surface, it might help to emulate a place where bad things happen just around the corner, and where few questions are asked. 

Michelle walks up to the bar and orders two drinks. She casually hangs around and for a split second she’s unsure why she wanted to meet again.(the thrill).

“Why did you pick this location?” Michelle asks.

“It might be conducive,” Mr. Ed says, “A more public space.”

“Where is this place?” she asks, “I mean, if it was any place real?”

“This here is the dead of winter,” Mr. Ed says, cryptically, “A farawaytown in Alaska, Iceland, Green Land —you name it.”

“Such a town….” she says, “A good place to hide.”

“I know….” Mr. Ed says, and he can’t suppress a grin, “Who in his right mind will hunt a criminal to this far end of the earth?”

Michelle thinks: he’s still fishing for the extent of my badness.

“You’d be surprised,” she says.

“Where will it all end?” Mr. Ed says when Michelle has settled down, “How will it end for you?”

“What do you mean?”

“When should you fold?”

Michelle thinks: he thought about me.

“Only when it’s the best play,” she says, leaning forward and softeningher voice, “Roll dem bones.”

Mr. Ed thinks: she’s calculating and plotting right now.

“Never come clean,” Mr. Ed says, “That’s what my old man used to say.”

“Your prime directive,” Michelle says, trying to cornerMr. Ed, “Are you talking about you or me now?”

“Let me tell you a little story,” Mr. Ed says, “Let’s say there’s this guy and he has this really bad day —it simply couldn’t be any worse. He gets fired, he finds out that his wife is cheating, one of his best friends has suddenly died. If it was just one of these things, then it would mess us up pretty good, but this guy experiences all at once.”

“It’s shit to the max.”

“Right,” Mr. Ed says, “Now generally speaking different people respond differently to stress: some crumble up, while others fight to get from under it…. Now this guy, he was the latter: he literally lost everything and in his mind things couldn’t get any worse, ever.”

“So this guy flipped.”

“To say the least,” Mr. Ed says, “He went to a few crummy bars in a bad neighborhood, looking for a fight. In the first two bars they just laughed at him and told him to go home and sleep it off. In the second and third bar it was the same story: he was thrown out. The fourth bar was what he was after: He got into a fight with a guy who was playing pool. He was about to beat the guy and then another guysteppedin, then one of his friends, then another. In all his fury this guy who had lost everything won this fight. His fury burned so bright that he simply couldn’t be stopped.”

Mr. Ed takes a sip from his drink.

“In stories like these it might end up with the person getting over all his fears and achieving what they had only dreamed of until that point in time. It happened, but just a little different. This guy got stuck in this violence mode and slowly but surely this violence became the only way that he could function,” Mr. Ed says, “Scratch deep enough and you’ll find the true measure of a man.”

“So what did he do exactly?”

“He became a war tourist,” Mr. Ed says, “He would get the closest flight to war-zones that he could get, hang around, get guns and gear and set off. And this is where it became a beginning and the end: this guy didn’t go there to secure peace, or even for the thrills. This guy purely went there for the thrill.”

“To summarize: he found a way to tweak the system —he found a way to murder and butcher and not be caught or held responsible,” Michelle says, “So what are you saying? This guy was a dormant murderer all along?”

“Maybe,” Mr. Ed says, “And it links up with my premise: we’re violent by nature. Scratch deep enough and that’s all that we resort to.”

“That’s a grimview.”

“It’s the truth.”

“There’s one distinction though,” Michelle says, “A guy like that is a lone wolf. In a society violence serves the purpose of securing position and hierarchy.”

Mr. Ed leans back and there’s one thought on his mind: but that’s not what you think….

“You’re assuming that it’s always a means to an end….” Mr. Ed says. 

“When you get off on something….” Michelle says, leaning forward, “There’s an end….”

“What did you come here for exactly?” Mr. Ed asks. 

“I’m not sure,” Michelle says, “Maybe I came here to figure out what’s below the surface.” (the thrill of almostgetting caught!).

“….”

“It’s like a war by proxy: does funding a distant war make you guilty?”

“You’re in a position to prevent.”

“My point.”

“If I get my kicks out of watching other people do bad stuff, does that make me part of it.”

“Were you physically there?”

“….”

Mr. Ed thinks: did she see me? 

“What did you see?”

“It doesn’t matter….” Michelle says, “It’s a highly complex something and there’s no simple answer: there is a yesand a no, but it’s like telling a junkie that he shouldn’t drink.”

“….”

“It’s like anything else,” Michelle says, “There’s this outward appearance of sociability, society, human relations, art, and all that, but at the end of the day it’s all perception. It’s all individual. We can only grasp at straws when it comes to understanding what goes on in the mind of another person.”

“You want to know motive….” Mr. Ed states.

“It’s like this old story: there’s a man and a woman, they fall in love and live happily ever after,” Michelle says, “But that’s not how it works. There’s this vast undercurrent of human needs and emotions that’s like a hunger that doesn’t end.”

Mr. Ed thinks: she didn’t see me —she’s rambling about herself. This is all her, amigo! Brilliant and crazy and [BLEEP!]

THE DEBT COLLECTOR PART 2 - The side hustle

In Martossa the time was gone when a man could just work for a few hours and guzzle beer and fart in front of the tv at night. Jobs have become scarce these days and more often than not, a number of jobs are needed to stay afloat. 

Victor Vaughn was struggling to make ends meet and it had forced him to be creative.

1

It took three days for the kids of Karla Doyle to notice that she was gone. This in itself was a very sad fact, because it meant that a woman had died and that at first she was sorely missed. Victor Vaughn didn’t know much more about her than the impression that she had given during those three days on stake-out: cold, screaming, mean, vindictive, lazy, no ambition, no talent and a burden on those around her and the system. 

Karla Doyle hadn’t invested in her kids to begin with and to Victor Vaughn it seemed that they were destined to repeat the cycle. He wouldn’t be surprised that the youngest daughter that was now 13 would become the same kind of screaming fish wife a few years from now. If Victor Vaughn wasn’t a man that was principled to stick to his job, he might have taken matters into his own hands for the greater good. Victor Vaughn was certain: what had happened was no accident on his part, it was fate and most likely pre-ordained. 

There were three more visits on the list for the week and all of them had been easy. Patrick Peterson had been the first. A debt of 3000 dollar. He told Victor Vaughn that he would come up with the money the next day and he did. He struck Victor Vaughn as someone that had some savings, since the house and his kids hadn’t looked unkempt.

Mellissa Torres was a single mother and she owed 1200 dollar. She lived in a small house. A rental, most likely and it looked to Victor Vaughn like she didn’t have a dollar to her name. The lady almost fainted and Victor Vaughn thought that he would let this one go if the same kind of kid with moxie and a shotgun showed up. Instead the neighbor came over, an elderly lady who seemed much better off and who wrote a check on the spot. 

The last on the list was Sherri Craig and she was one of the ten percent. She send the dog out for him as soon as he had entered her yard. The cattle prong took only a few seconds before the dog was paralyzed. He asked if she was ready to pay the 2000 dollars. She said she would the next day, and she did. 

*

The commission of Victor Vaughn was 20 percent and with a total collection of 30.000 dollars in under two weeks he had earned a grand total of 6000 dollars. It wasn’t too bad, all things considered, but he had his expenses, not to mention that he needed to travel to start collecting. Victor Vaughn visited ten towns like Martossa each year, but he recently discovered that he himself started to struggle to make ends meet. 

That’s when he started looking for a side-hustle.

2

Bradley and his gang weren’t in the mood to play computer games until they would reach that point that their eyes started hurting. Something was off and they all knew what it was: Victor Vaughn was back in town. 

When they were younger they might have gone fishing, but the thing was that none of them owned a rod anymore, let alone that they knew how to catch a good deal of fish. Instead they sat around in the car junk yard at the edge of town. There were a few junked cars that they used to hang around with a fire pit in the middle. When they were younger they used to climb behind the steering wheels and pretended to drive out of Martossa. The last few years they just sat in its shade and at night they would build a fire in the pit.

They were bored in the way that only young boys can be bored: they didn’t know what to do, but at the same time they were playing games to pass the time and cracking jokes about this and that. Today was a day just like that, maybe minus the jokes.

“So none of you guys were visited, huh?” Bradley asks, while flinging a small stone at the empty cans that they had lined up at a distance of three meters. He misses, but he also didn’t put in any effort.

“Nope,” they all go. The other boys are chewing on pieces of straw.

“Family?”

“Nope,” they all go again.

“Any of your families have debts?”

“Money is tight,” Brandon says.

“Your momma is too busy making babies,” Tommie-Lee says.

Bobby jumps up and starts wagging like Brandon’s mother. “Oe-la-la,” he goes.

“Give me some of that sugar, hun,” Bradley goes in a bass voice.

“At least my momma has some sugar to give,” Brandon says.

“Eight to be exact,” Bobby says, “That’sa lotof sugar.”They start laughing and rolling on the ground.

“You guys think it’s fun to live with so many people in a tiny house,” Brandon asks when they have all quieted down, “I love my brothers and sisters, but man…it’s too cramped sometimes….”

“We need to do something guys,” Bradley says, “To take our mind off of all of this.”

“Like what?” Brandon asks.

“Howabout we go andpractice our aim,” Bradley says, “Like the Indians.”

“Like slingshots and bows and arrows?” Brandon asks.

“Like, exactly like that,” Bradley says. 

“How come you guys never wanted to do that before?” Bobby asks, and the disappointment sounds through.

“My dad always says that a man needs the proper motivation,” Bradley says. 

“As in some bad element to fight off….”

They pool their resources (Bradley and Tommie-Lee each chip in 1 dollar, Bobby 50 cents and Brandon 10 cents) and they go off to the store to buy thick rubber bands. They can only find the ones that are used by the mail man and for two dollars they are able to buy fifty. The sixty cents they spend on a bottle of juice that they split four ways. 

*

Bradley and Brandon always walk with their Swiss army knife. They sharpen the blade on a stone and this is what they use to sharpen the tip of thin straight twigs. They pass by Bobby’s and Bradley’s to pick up some more tools to make a bow and a slingshot. Bradley’s father tells them that they need to use twine for a bow and this is what they take from there.

They spend most of the afternoon building four bows and four slingshots. By the time they are finished with these it’s already getting dark.

After dinner they allradio in: coast clear.

3

Victor Vaughn’s budget had gotten tight, just over two years ago. This was also the time thathe started looking for a side-hustle. A few years prior a faction that was related to digital currencies had dabbled in tweaking democracies and matters of state. It soon proved to be one of those idealistic projects without any foothold, since it’s a big challenge to get people to root for politics and other abstract matters that don’t directly involve family members and others close of kin. It has something to do with this idea that things would be different in a perfect world.The idea itself has some appeal, since it gives people this feeling that they are better than the average citizen, or at least their neighbors, but when it comes down to it it’s all vanity and thin air. In the end, having a nice house, a nice car and not too many traffic jams is more important than more abstract matters. 

It doesn’t hurt to try though and that’s pretty much what that faction did: they had tried to reinvent democracy and matters of state for the digital age, but they ultimately hadn’t succeeded. One of the remnants of that ideology was that of the bounty hunter as they saw fit. They must have figured that instead of having civil servants doing the policing, it could be privatized by setting up bounties for known bad guys and to simply execute the law as such. The goal that they kept in mind was to make things as cheap as possible. It quickly became very clear that things weren’t as simple though: those with money were effectively controlling law and order. 

This made very clear that the job of a bounty hunter wasn’t a replacement of the police force, but an addition. They had already set up the framework though for anonymously submitting bounty’s. Victor Vaughn had become one of the bounty hunters and pretty much anyone who had a bone to pick with anyone could order his services – no questions asked. There must have been some faction that pulled the strings that saw some benefit in this type of operation. 

Victor Vaughn checks online, but there are no bounties in Martossa. He figures that the community is too small to have an outsider solve their problems. Then again, his work as a debt collector wasn’t that much different from working for bounties.

*

That night Victor Vaughn is in need to liquor up and he opts to visit the most crummy bar in Martossa: the Tittle Tattle Room. It’s an unlikely name, especially for a bar that attracts the most questionable characters that are in shady business of all kinds. Victor Vaughn takes a seat on the bar. There’s an old hooker on the far end, or by the looks of it, she might be the madam. The bar is sticky, the beer cheap and old school music plays all night: it reminds Victor Vaughn of a time when men were men, women were women and bad guys were just bad. In a way, this past as a state of mind was a complete fabrication: a mix between the 1980s as in music and culture, but also the 1880s when times were much simpler and all a man needed was a gun, a horse and woman from time to time. 

Mr. Ed enters the bar at midnight and takes a seat next to Victor Vaughn. Mr. Ed immediately sees him for what he is: bad news(much like himself). They share a few whiskeys and it turns out that they both needed a break from their line of work. Mr. Ed has been in Martossa for ten weeks, Victor Vaughn for ten days.

“Why did you stay here that long?” Victor Vaughn asks. 

Mr. Ed sizes him up, “What’s it to you?” 

“You don’t seem the type to just sit around and abide your time in a sleepy little town by the sea.” 

Mr. Ed takes a sip of his drink, “Let’s just say that I needed a change of scenery.” 

“In my experience there’s only one of two reasons why a person feels the need to skip town for an extended period of time,” Victor Vaughn says, leaning in, “Money problems or they have some rattling skeletons someplace.” 

“And you’re telling me that I don’t strike you as the kind of guy who’s short on cash.” 

“Your words, not mine.” 

Mr. Ed thinks: this ain’t your business.

“You know what they say, right?” Mr. Ed says, attempting to get a response, “It takes one to know one.” 

Victor Vaughn doesn’t show his cards that easily and he thinks: I got you cornered, fucker!

“I have business here,” he says. 

“As have I,” Mr. Ed says. Maybe Mr. Ed is more bored than he realized, or maybe he’s in need of something to make him feel alive, like the rush of adrenaline when he lets go of all his inhibitions, like he does when he needs to come on strong in his business. 

Mr. Ed can’t keep himself from prying, even though he realizes that it will probably backfire sooner rather than later. 

“What would it take?” Mr. Ed asks, while studying Victor Vaughn, “What do you like to use(name your poison)?” 

Mr. Ed is fully aware that he can’t ask him directly. Mr. Ed realizes that they’re are more alike than either of them likes to admit: if it was him though, he would deny everything, at any level, but he has this feeling that he will be able to manipulate and control Victor Vaughn. 

“You mean my poison?” Victor Vaughn asks. 

“Every man has at least one,” Mr. Ed says, “Unless you’re the kind of man who’s going to tell me that a poison is just a poison.” 

Victor Vaughn thinks: my trunk.

“I like to carry it around with me,” Victor Vaughn says after a few moments, “Or at least carry it in some sort of proximity.” 

“Is that a fact?”

Victor Vaughn’s pupils narrow microscopically. It’s too little of an effect to really notice, but Mr. Ed has this feeling that Victor Vaughn told him more than he wanted: what he’s getting at is too big to carry in a pocket. 

“A briefcase?” Mr. Ed asks and he thinks: a kill kit.

“I do like to travel light,” Victor Vaughn says and it’s at that moment that Victor Vaughn sees Mr. Ed as a potential threat. Usually he isn’t the kind of guy who scares away from things too easily, but there’s something about this Mr. Ed guy that seems off. For one, Victor Vaughn told him things, although indirectly, that he wouldn’t disclose under ordinary circumstances (even though there still isn’t anything that he could be pinned on). 

*

That night they are among the last ones to leave the bar. Both of them are pretty liquored up, but it did little to soften the subtle mistrust that there was between the two of them from the start. 

Outside they shake hands. Mr. Ed walks off around the corner. From there it’s easy to keep an eye on Victor Vaughn: his old Mercedes has trouble starting and by the way the car bends through it’s back axes it’s obvious to Mr. Ed that it’s more than just a briefcase that’s in there. Mr. Ed writes down the number plate.

Mr. Ed tells himself that he shouldn’t pry in another man’s business when it doesn’t concern him or when there’s not money or leverage to be gained. The crickets and tree frogs are all Mr. Ed hears while he thinks about it. 

The two tail lights of the Mercedes disappear intothe night, along with the sound of the struggling engine. The oil must be as black as tar, or more grim than a fistful of black holes at the darkest hour of the night. If that means anything, then it’s this: better back off.

4

The next day the boys are bored and they bike around town. After a good half hour they are still bored and go for drinks in a store that’s close to the Martossa Inn. 

*

Mr. Ed rents a car that same day, determined to get to the bottom of things. In his own way Mr. Ed feels like he’s doing the right thing and that he almost is a changed man. He travels around town looking for the crummy Mercedes. It wasn’t as easy as he expected, since it turned out that there were a lot of crappy cars.

Mr. Ed finally found the Mercedes of Victor Vaughn in a back street close to the Martossa Inn. That guy might be strapped for cash, Mr. Ed thinks. He throws a burner phone through the cracked back window to track the car later that night, just in case.

*

“What’s with that guy in that car over there?” Tommie-Lee asks. 

“Yeah,” Brandon says, “Something is going on there.”

“Maybe it’s a stake-out just like we guys are doing,” Tommie-Lee says.

“That stuff isn’t illegal?” Bobby asks.

“Well, technically,” Bradley says, “Just like your mother, technically.”

“Wooow,” the other boys go and they start laughing.

“That one was too easy,” Bradley says, still laughing.

“It doesn’t even make sense,” Bobby says, “My mother is a very sweet woman.”

“Aha.”

“How can you talk bad about my mother?”

“Wait a minute,” Bradley says, “That’s the shrink that I talked withfor the last few weeks.”

They knew about the therapy, but still it isn’t something they regularly talk about. 

“He doesn’t look the part,” Brandon says.

“I thought the exact same thing,” Bradley says, “But that guy is different though: he’s more street smart than any other kind of smart.”

“Then what is that guy doing over here?” Bobby asks, “The Debt Collector has it out for him?”

“Looks more like the other way round,” Brandon says, “The car that he’s keeping tabs on: it’s that old Mercedes.”

“I thought that guy was some kind of vigilante,” Tommie-Lee says, “What is your shrink up to?”

“No idea,” Bradley says, “No friggin’ idea.”

*

Victor Vaughn is sleeping off the whiskey of the night before. Unlike Mr. Ed, he doesn’t drink whiskey on a daily basis and when he does it really kicks in. He had a dull headache that wouldn’t budge, a dry throat and he felt like he literally couldn’t move. He ordered room service: scrambled eggs for two and a jug of coffee. 

*

Mr. Ed stayed in his car on stake out for a few hours. When it’s pitch dark, he sneaks out to crank the trunk of the Mercedes. He figures that by that hour he will not be disturbed by nosy neighbors or Victor Vaughn. It takes a while since he had last picked a lock and that’s most of the reason why he didn’t see someone walk down the street. 

It wasn’t Victor Vaughn though, but some skinny guy that walks his shitty little dog. This guy keeps ranting that it’s not right to break into cars and that it seems to him that all that’s bad has finally descended to Martossa. He tells Mr. Ed a few times that he will call the police in his high self-righteous voice. Mr. Ed realizes that this guy might actually cause him some very real problems. 

“You will not,” Mr. Ed says in his most threatening voice, where all his fury is concentrated in a hushed whisper. Mr. Ed realizes that this will only make this kind of guy more likely to make a phone call. If this guy was a chicken he would go cackling until its head was positioned on the cutting board.

“You gonna stop me?” the guy rants, “You gonna stop me?”

“You do what you got to do,” Mr. Ed says, while looking the guy down.

*

Mr. Ed follows the guy into a dark alley. It’s there that we see the true colors of Mr. Ed: he beats the guy to a pulp while he hums some classical melody. Mr. Ed ties him up and throws him on the back seat of the rental car. 

Mr. Ed drives out of town, smoking cigars and guzzling whiskey, his vision narrowing, not sure what to do with the poor sap. 

Roughing up and intimidating had always been part of his game, but what was required here, was something else in its entirety: this guy might need to be iced. Mr. Ed remembers his old man telling him one day when he was 12 years old that a man needs to be ready to make the tough choice when needed. 

*

“What if you don’t?” he can still hear himself asking.

“If you don’t it’s the same shit in perpetuity.” 

“What does that mean?” 

“Jesus, how can I explain this one to a 12 year old kid?” 

The words fade into those of his daughter begging him to change his life. She had always been the goodness of this earth and it was because of her that Mr. Ed had gone to Martossa to chronicle his wisdom: he spoke with the down and lowly, those that had strayed of their path and were in need of the words of a mentor – the kind of man that had succeeded in life and needed what needed to be done. The reason why he couldn’t do all this at home had to do with the fact that it helped him to stay away from temptation: in Moac he had gotten away with too many bad things.

Mr. Ed was contemplating to skip town altogether, but he might also want to be able to come back some day. There was something about Martossa that he intensely liked. Then there was his credo to never leave loose ends. It didn’t come more loose than a guy who was beat up and who would be sure to call the police once Mr. Ed turned his back on him.

*

That night Bradley had one of those nightmares: he was all alone in the middle of the jungle and he had this feeling that some presence very close to him. Usually some scary creature would show up and he would wake up in a sweat. This time it didn’t go quite like that: this time the wicked voice entered his dream: warmer, Warmer, WARMER!

5

Mr. Ed spend the night deep in the jungle and he felt sure that he would not be disturbed. He still had the guy tied up on the back seat, but he didn’t feel too good about keeping the guy tied up in there. He carried him outside and tied him to a tree. 

In a few hours the sun would come back up and Mr. Ed tried to get a little shut eye. He usually had a few men to take care of this kind of business, but over here it seemed that he knew no one. He was mentally preparing himself to do the dirty work himself.

When the sun finally came up he saw a lone figure walking up to him through the side-view mirror. He looked kind of familiar and when he was closer Mr. Ed saw who it was: Victor Vaughn. 

Mr. Ed cracks the window.

“That’s some co-incidence,” Victor Vaughn says, “There’s me taking a nice stroll out in the woods and then to run into my friend from the other night.”

“What do you want?” Mr. Ed asks, sizing up Victor Vaughn. 

Victor Vaughn does the same with Mr. Ed.

“It looks to me that you might be in some sort of predicament,” Victor Vaughn says.

“How so?”

“You’re out here in a rental with no gear,” Victor Vaughn says, “And you got a man tied to a tree.”

“What man?” Mr. Ed asks, realizing that Victor Vaughn must have seen the guy when walking up, or he might have already been exploring the grounds for a few hours.

“Let’s just say that I have a healthy dose of distrust,” Victor Vaughn says. 

“Aha.”

“I have everything on tape,” Victor Vaughn says.

“….”

“If you refuse my help, then I will send your little encounterwith this guy out.” 

“Define everything.”

“The trunk, the discussion, the beating in the alley,” Victor Vaughn says, “Camera with night vision, very handy.”

“What do you want?”

“I would like to help you out,” Victor Vaughn says, “As one visitor to another.”

“And if I do let you help me, then I will be an accomplish, because I was in a position to prevent whatever will have happened.” 

Victor Vaughn nods.

“This is a real Fuck Me Charlie.”

“As I see it, these are the only two options.” 

“I told you my credo when it comes to business,” Mr. Ed says, “Never come clean.”

*

It was all Victor Vaughn needed to hear.