The Pushers

By Adam E. Morrison

Choices. We make them every day. But what if one last choice determined your fate? And you didn't know it?

All it might take is a push in the right direction. Or the wrong one.

The Pushers’ unique premise involves troubled characters whose existences are altered so that they may fulfil a role never before carried out by humans. The differences between them may determine the fates of many, including themselves.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Adam E. Morrison
• Release date: Nov 16, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310245893

Adam E. Morrison

Born, bred, and still living in the Greater Toronto Area, writer AdamMorrison studied radio broadcasting at Seneca College, learning amongother things how to communicate on a personal level with many peopleat once. He also created, operated, and wrote for a music review sitededicated to indie releases by Canadian artists, maintained a blog onradio station 102.1 the Edge’s website, and wrote articles, conductedinterviews, and participated in an audio podcast for a project calledExploreMusic with Alan Cross. While he never gave up music-relatedwriting, Adam was inspired to start writing his first fiction story in2012. It began with an image that popped into his head one day at workand morphed into his first self-published story, "The Pushers" (2014).Adam has also written a number of other short stories, including"Dreaming of Rest," which he plans to publish in the near future.Some of Adam’s inspirations include Stephen King’s and Clive Barker’sways of focusing on the humanity in tales that involve the paranormal;Steven Erikson’s method of painting a massive, kaleidoscopic picturevia the experiences and observations of a variety of fleshed out,relatable individuals; William Shakespeare’s ability to create aconclusion that’s affecting and devastating no matter how foregone;Jennifer Egan’s demonstrations of how it is both cataclysmic androutine events that shape characters’ personalities and points ofview; and many other authors following stories to their naturalconclusions no matter how dark or strange the path might get.Adam cares about the people he creates, and he hopes that people findhis stories as interesting and cathartic to read as he finds them towrite.

Book preview

The Pushers

Adam E. Morrison

Published by Adam Morrison

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2015 Adam Morrison

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

How many fates turn around in the overtime? – Tori Amos

Part One: Junkies

Do we really want to be rid of our resentments, our anger, our fear? Many of us cling to our fears, doubts, self-loathing or hatred because there is a certain distorted security in familiar pain. It seems safer to embrace what we know than to let go of it for fear of the unknown. 

(Narcotics Anonymous, page 33)

Prologue

How do you think this’ll go? he asked her as he exhaled smoke and tapped his cigarette with his index finger.

They were sitting in the old chairs that had been in his room what seemed like a lifetime ago—what really was, more accurately, an existence ago—but the chairs weren’t really there, of course.

Nevertheless, he was sitting forward in his big armchair. She was in the smaller one, her back perfectly straight. And his room, with the sickly greenish carpet, the white walls, and the black desk unit holding his computer and the stereo with the massive speakers, was around them. That’s how he saw it, at least, although the real place, if you could even call it a place, sometimes crept in and seemed to make the detailed images a little foggy.

He had no idea, and didn’t care, how she saw it.

She had very long black hair, bloodshot blue eyes, an unusually symmetrical, doll-like face, and an hourglass figure. She came up a few inches shorter than his own height of five foot ten. Even her pale skin was rich in colour. She was somehow too perfect looking. She was stunning, angelic, but the image had a strange effect; it was as if her face was an idea for a drawing of a beautiful young woman. If an artist painted a picture of her, capturing every detail, no one who saw the painting would guess that it was an accurate representation of a real person. He found her appearance distracting, and even after all the time they’d spent together, he still found himself staring at her during silences. Thankfully, she’d never had any reaction to being stared at, at least that he’d ever noticed. Besides, she frequently scrutinized him without the slightest hint of self-consciousness. Like her beauty, all of her gestures and expressions were pure to the point of seeming exaggerated.

Currently, she was staring at him as if trying to figure out if he was joking or if he was as stupid as his question implied. Eventually, she seemed to reach a conclusion, but she turned away instead of sharing it with him.

Geez, just making conversation, he thought. Although he did feel a twinge of embarrassment at the realization of just how pointless, if not stupid, his question was.

He shut his eyes behind the lenses of his glasses, which were no more real or necessary than the cigarette, took one last drag while letting the classical music being projected by the speakers wash over him, and pushed play on the movie he was entering as an important secondary character in the final act.

Chapter One: The Pushers

Cal’s head was pounding.

He had gotten used to being in this state, and headaches like this weren’t nearly strong enough to make him consider giving up the binges that had become a nightly occurrence some time ago. He always drank after he’d finished everything he’d had to do, and it always ended with him all but passing out in his bed, except for the times when he actually passed out there or somewhere else in his apartment.

That was all right. He always got done what needed getting done the next day. His body and mind could handle it, and both looked forward to the next night’s indulgences.

It was a bright day, but the alley was mercifully shady, being tucked between two tall buildings—an empty warehouse and an empty office building.

At the end of a series of side streets, this was the most eastern point of town, with the traffic on the highway to the city audible, and nothing in the area but housing projects, convenience stores, fast food places, a couple of liquor stores, a few good-sized bars, a laundromat or two, and a cluster of pawn shops. No one stumbled into the alleyway by accident; anyone who ended up here had sought it out.

Cal was alone at the moment, but he’d have company soon. His most regular customer—well, other than David, whom Cal didn’t really think of as a customer, the one way in which he broke his own rules—would show up any minute, with that nervous, apologetic look, which Cal would swiftly wipe from his face.

According to Cal’s watch, the guy could have shown up as early as five minutes ago, if his usual habits could be trusted, which of course, they could be.

Habits were what Cal’s business was based upon.

The town had been hit hard economically, as had most of the country, especially the nearby city, but the buyers kept buying. Cal knew that even if they had a choice of either buying from him or paying rent to continue sleeping under a roof, he could count on their patronage nine times out of ten.

Part of that was the examples. He made examples every so often, always with a reason, and always without fear that it would scare any customers away after word got around. Quite the opposite, he thought of them as examples because he made them at least partly as reminders to everyone of who held all the cards.

Today was example day for the guy now entering the alley, looking sorrier by the second as Cal regarded him without expression.

The Hispanic—Cal made a point to never learn buyers’ names if he could avoid it—had been short a couple of times, and Cal had let it go, albeit sternly and only with the guy’s repeated promises that he’d make good on every dollar so soon. Both times it had happened, he’d explained that it was just that this week he… the excuses didn’t matter, and Cal had barely heard them at the time. Whether The Hispanic had lost his job, or he’d been robbed by some other loser, it made no difference.

Hey, hey, don’t worry, I got it now. We can settle up, he called while still ten feet away from Cal, at which point he started to slow his pace, probably subconsciously.

Five feet away, he pulled a wad of cash from his pocket, never taking his eyes off Cal, and fanned it out with both hands for Cal to see.

We’re cool now, then, ri—? The guy’s words were cut off when Cal’s big right hand closed around his throat. He took the cash with his left hand just as it was about to slip out of the guy’s grasp, pocketed it, and lowered him to his knees simply by lowering the hand around his neck.

A soon as Cal released his grip, The Hispanic coughed and said, It’s all there. More. Enough for this time. At that, his eyes flitted to his right and fixed on the green garbage can that was the only thing adorning the alley.

His gaze was longing, but not hopeful. He couldn’t have been too surprised when Cal took him by his longish, greasy hair, forced him to face straight ahead, and held on to his hair while he took a step back and kicked him in the mouth.

The junkie’s eyes welled up almost instantly as blood poured from between his lips. Cal pulled the junkie’s head down as he brought his knee up into his nose. The crunch was almost as loud as the guy’s moans.

After waiting a few seconds to let him spit out his teeth, splutter, and take stock of his injuries, Cal squatted and took the guy’s skinny right hand in his own left. They were looking each other in the face now, the Hispanic trembling as Cal grasped his index finger with his free hand. He shut his eyes and stammered some nonsense, probably attempts at either pleas, excuses, or promises, as Cal tightened his grip halfway up the digit. He bent it up backwards with a swiftness that comes with practice, then let the junkie’s shriek sound for a few seconds. He silenced the shriek with an open-handed slap. There was silence in the alley for a few seconds, and then the Hispanic started whimpering.

Cal counted the money quickly. Sure enough, it was everything he was owed, plus enough for this week. He’d have been surprised otherwise, really, but counting in front of customers was good practice.

Not that this one was paying attention; his eyes were half shut and he was clutching his hand a safe distance from the broken finger, rocking slightly and muttering. He looked at home on the filthy ground of the alleyway, which housed all manner of other trash.

Cal knew the Hispanic must be fiending particularly hard now, and while Cal’s policy was to give the customer what the customer wanted once payment was made, this situation was an exception. This extra bit of torment would drive the point home. There was no running from Cal’s examples.

Cal stopped to take the iPod out of his pocket and switch on the radio streaming app. When he put the earbuds in, he heard a man’s voice say —listening to W-ROK, the best rock in town as AC/DC’s Highway to Hell kicked in. W-ROK was actually the only real rock radio station in town, and Cal didn’t listen to anything else. They only played old stuff, but there was a decent amount of tracks in their playlist, and he liked hearing tunes he was familiar with while letting the cool-sounding jocks control which ones he heard. He thought of the classic rock they played as good driving music, although he’d never driven in his life. It kept his energy up and his mind occupied without being so in-your-face as to be distracting or to contribute to a headache. Except for commercial breaks, they only halted the flow of music to give updates on the weather, to talk about upcoming local events, and to report news stories, usually funny ones, which Cal would try to remember to tell Kate.

It was about an hour’s walk from the alley to the far west side of town where Kate lived. Cal got moving

*

Kate opened the door to let Cal in.

They embraced, the top of her head coming up to just below his chin.

It was small for a house, but Cal figured that most people in town probably lived in places one-tenth of the size, and not alone, as Kate did. There were modern appliances, entertainment sets, a lot of DVDs, and also paintings and other