Chapter 1 - Part 3

Part 3
Curtis hit the heavy bag with all his might, and it felt as though he were being hit.
"What wrong with you today Curt? Your only three days away from the biggest fight of your career and you look like you are about to fall over",said his coach Tony with an air of disgust.
"I am about to fall over" Curtis replied, taking a seat on the bench and putting his head in his hands.
Tony tossed a towel over Curtis back begrudgingly. 'Boy' he thought "it was real mistake going out with Jeff last night' Curtis already felt that way every time he went out with Jeff.
"Alright, knock off for today, but I want you back in the gym tomorrow morning and....and No excuses. Chamberland ain't gonna have any excuses on Saturday. Stay away from the Jeff character too...he's nothing but trouble."
Curtis grabbed his gym bag and left without changing. Without even saying a word.
He knew more than anybody what a parasite that Jeff was, but he had a hard time saying no to pushy people and Jeff defined pushy.
........
Jeff awoke on the motel bed drenched in sweat. 'Damn the hotel for having air conditioning that worked about as regularly as he did' he thought, feeling disgusted with his own sweat.
The sweat rolled down his forehead as he sat staring up at the drop ceiling....Finding patterns in the dark notchs of each of the panels.
His chest ached terribly as breathed in and out on the bed. He had to cut down on his smoking. It was killing him and he could feel it take a little peace of him every single day.
He sat up and lit a cigarette taking a long deep puff that sent both pain and relief coarsing through his chest. He got up off the bed and wearily made his way to the coke machine just outside his motel room door.
His pulse thudded roefully in his skull as his eyes became awash with the noon day sun.
Just a little coke and some jack and he'd be back on track. He knew that wasn't true, but that is what he would have to tell himself to get through the next hour or so. In fact it was going to take a lot more than the hair of the dog to shake this hang over...He may need the entire coat of the dog before all was said and done, and then he might only back be to square one.
He took a sip of the jack and coke and held back a shudder of nausia...His mouth filling with warm salivia he took another drink and held on. His stomache was doing monkey flips as he sat hanging half way off the unmade bed.
Just than his stomache rejected the liqour as though it was a disease and he ran to the waste bucket just ten feet away. His head swam in an unforgivable sea whose waves only sought to punish him further.
This was not a good start to a day. No this was not a good start at all.
.........
Jessica opened the letter, her fingers trembled so much it made the letter almost unreadable.
'Hey baby,
I'll be in town soon. Maybe I can see you. You know I love you.
We need to discuss the situation before we can pull this off.
You'll know when I'm in town, so no need to try and find me, and baby, how's bout we leave the police out of it this time. You know what you need to do to make things right and it ain't got nothing to do with the fucking police.
Love you baby
Jeff
The letter fell from her hands as though she had lost all strength to hold onto it. In fact she did lose all strength. A sickening dread she thought she left behind in Texas returned like a thunderbolt. One more time and it would all be over. Just one more time.
She crossed her arms on the table, put her head down and began to weep.
.................
The man in white went to put his hand on the door knob of the cabin. He imagined turing the knob as though it were real, but before he could, a shadow caught the corner of his eye. He looked up into the cloudless sky to find a buzzard circling overhead. In a moment it was joined by another, and than another. Until the sky was filled with them.
He looked down again and turned the brass knob.
The interior of the cabin was dark and unforgiving to his sky gazing eyes. It took only a few moments and the darkness came into focus and he enter the small one room cabin.
He knew this place although he had never been, and he knew what lay inside. It was as if he knew everything that was going to happen in the next few moments, but had only to live it.
Everything in this life had lead to this moment as though it was written. Even as a young boy he knew there was a bigger picture and that there was going to be a time in his life when everything would have complete clarity and meaning.
He entered and sat at a big, smooth, wooden table. The table didn't seem to fit the rustic cabin. It was smooth, very smooth. Almost so smooth that it looked as though it was wet to the touch. He looked across the table and there sat another man. His face draped in the shadow of the cabin obscuring the features, but not the piercing gray eyes. The same piercing gray eyes that he had become accustomed to seeing staring back at him through the mirror. A man dressed completely in black.
It was then that the clarity of the moment hit him. There was a connection made in the darkness of that cabin that shed more light on the past 30 years of his life than any moment before it.
He knew at that moment that he was longer in control of his destiny or of anybody else, but instead was only in control of the pendulum when it swung his way.