Jay *Boss* Dawson is not a hero. Broke and beaten down, he half-works a shitty government job while drowning himself in whiskey and chasing tail to pass the time. But when a fully-loaded Mexican cartel cargo drone crashes in the backyard of his little blue rental home, everything changes.

Waco, Texas

Tuesday, August 8, 2023

8:06 a.m.

Pick up the fucking pace, Boss.

Wait!

I remembered the cocaine in my shirt pocket. I put the Gideon Bible from the room on top of the coffee table, smashed it up into a powder with my driver’s license, lined it up and killed it in two snorts. Uncut shit, and euphoria made me fly.

Invincible.

See, decisions are like stones chucked into a lake. They ripple. Taking the drone cargo meant the cartel would come after me… which meant I had to leave Laredo in a hurry… which meant I had to leave my stuff behind… which meant I had to wear the same blue suit and shirt I had on the day before. Other dumb shit in the ripples but you get the idea.

Embrace it, Jay Boss. Become one with the suit. You’re on the run. Comfort can come later.

I marched out to my Chevy, holding the container in front of me. Stashed it in the trunk and sat in the driver’s seat when my cell phone rang. Who the fuck is calling?

For a second, I thought my boss was calling. Now they’re going to start missing me? I did the quick math in my head. I had worked there for around 8 weeks, and missed at least 27 workdays, all unexcused. All without a single call from them checking on my whereabouts.

I fished my phone out of my back pocket — the phone I needed to get rid of — and looked at caller ID. Shit. It was Evelyn Bennett, my landlady, calling. What the fuck does she want? Rent is not due for three weeks. One more ring, then I answered.

‘Hi Evvy, what’s up?’ I mustered. I heard crying on the other end of the line, then the caller spoke.

‘It’s… not Evvy. This is Sally, Evvy’s daughter—’ She trailed off again and all I could hear was crying. I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t.

‘They’re going to kill me… they killed mom…’

Sally screamed and hyperventilated, hysterical. She had reason to be. Those guys were going to slit her throat and gut her, just to take a witness off the table. Just to lash out since they lost their shit that was in my trunk. This lady had zero chance of survival, and she didn’t even know it yet.

I sat stunned, silent.

Someone else came onto the line, a male with a Mexican accent. ‘Dass right homie, wee keelled her mom. And shee’s next. Wee made it fast though, wee slice her throat. She bleed out fast, homie. And if you don’t give us our stuff back wee going to skeen you alive.’

‘You’re not gonna do shit, Paco. I already flew out of the country—’

Sally screamed, ‘Jay-Boss, just tell them where you are! If you give them what they want nothing will happen.’

I grabbed the Beam off the motel nightstand and took a swig.

‘Can’t do that, Sally. I’m sorry. That will mean they just kill both of us. Instead of only you. I’m sorry this happened to you. But there is nothing I can do about it. You need to keep asking them to let you go. You didn’t do anything. Say that over and over.’

‘Just tell them where you are!’

‘You’re going to have to wear this one, Sally. I’m sorry, but it doesn’t do us any good to let those guys kill both of us. Lean into it, Sally. Tell them you didn’t do anything.’

The comment upset Sally. Like I owed her something. Except I didn’t. I could hear her screaming at me as the cartel guy took the phone back.

I shrugged. Maybe if your fucking mom wasn’t such a greedy pig, gouging me for thousands of dollars to sleep in a trashbox.

Cartel guy again, ‘You weell give us our sheet back, Jay Dawson, one way or other…’

His accent made me laugh.

‘Nah. Not getting’ any shit back, bro. That’s not gonna happen for you. Time to move on. And by the way, you can call me Boss.’ I laughed again at the end, this time out loud.

Still with the strong Mexican accent, ‘Homee, we weel cut off your balls and feed them to you for deener.’

There it is! Why did the cartel always use that one? It seemed so… over the top.

‘Jay Boss’ balls don’t come off you dumb Spic. They’re solid steel. You’re gonna have to catch a dick the usual way, you faggot.’ I laughed again, cracking myself up.

I saw no point in continuing the conversation with this annoying cartel prick, so I ended the call with a beep. Seconds later I ripped out of the parking lot. I had the fucking Malibu on a permanent redline. Jumped on the highway, heading north. I must have smoked six cigarettes in ten minutes, just ripping heaters and rolling. The Beam and Reds and coke had me feeling good. But I kept looking for a spot where I could get some caffeine.

I still had my fucking car and my phone. Both trackable. And no fake ID. I ditched my bank card with that guy, that was a positive. Plus, I was confident there was no transmitter in the container. Also good news.

Boss, you got to get with the fucking program dude. These cartel guys are not fucking around. Laugh all you want but if they find you and you’re not ready it’s all over.

First things first. I found a café and ordered a large black coffee from a hot little brunette number named Emily. Green-gray eyes. Button nose. B-cups, but very nicely shaped. And a sour look on her face.

What crawled up your ass?

My dead landlady’s phone called me back. It’s either that fucking Mexican or the whiny daughter. I had enough of their bullshit, so I dumped the call into voicemail.

Emily wasn’t chatty, a real sourpuss. But I was distracted by the cartel call anyway, so I didn’t worry about Emily and her bitchiness. While they were pouring the coffee behind the counter, the voicemail notification popped up on my phone. I played it, and it was from the same guy I talked to:

‘Mother fucker, you know you are a peece of shit? You theenk you’re cool, right? Jay Dawson. Pffft. Asshole from Laredo. You know you’re gonna have a bad day? Mother fucker, you know wee are everywhere? Fuck you Jay Dawson, die. You better hope I never see your fuckin’ face. Fuck you. Fuckin’ American. Yankee. I want your balls smash. Eet shit, bastard. You peece of shit, you son of a beetch. Die, you peece of shit. And go sucking deek. Right in your face. You theenk you’re cool.’

Not gonna lie, the Mexican’s delivery had me laughing. The guy was off-the-charts pissed, and his Mexican accent made his angry message sound hilarious to me. ‘Fuck You. Fucking American. Yankee.’ I kept smiling at the thought of that idiot leaving his angry message. But no matter how funny it sounded, I had to admit the cartel knew my name and, let’s face it, they were coming after my gringo ass.

Let’s hope they didn’t get it.

Coffee in hand, I jumped back in the Malibu and floored that shit, heading north again. The Beam bottle became an extension of my right hand, the Marlboro Red my left. The Ziploc bag of coke in my shirt pocket also got put to use every couple hours. My motor was running. I was out on the highway. Looking for adventure, or whatever comes my way.

I pulled off the highway in Muskogee, Oklahoma. Have to make some things happen. That hour of sleep started to wear off, even with all the stimulants. And a few things started to wear on me, all at the same time.

One, I was still driving my own car.

Two, I still had my own phone, pinging every fresh cell tower I drove past.

Those first two were clear cut.

Time was coming where I would have to get rid of both of them or I was risking a bad death. Bad beyond imagination. Very bad. Stabbed and shot and chopped up and skinned and castrated and beheaded and spit on and whipped and beaten and who the fuck knows what else.

I hate the fucking cartel.

Third, and more nebulous, was Rosa Negra, the Black Rose. I obsessed. On the last hour of the drive, no matter how loud I turned up the music, no matter how much Beam I drank, Rosa Negra just rattled around in my head, over and over.

Rosa Negra

Rosa Negra

RosaNegra

RosaNegra RosaNegra

I had to do something to find out what that meant, what it involved. I stood at a crossroads. Escape, action, retribution, safety, darkness, light, rebirth. Thoughts on all of it and everything in-between and beyond rattled around in my head. Spinning. I had to get my feet underneath me, stabilize things. At the same time, I had to keep moving, or else I was dead. Move or die. There were still multiple ways for the cartel to track me, the only one I had taken out of the equation was my fucking bank card.

But what if Rosa Negra demands action?

What does it mean?

Are there lives at stake?

If there are, do I even care? My own life is on the fucking line.

What if we were talking about a Mexican Jeffrey Epstein program… one done purely for money instead of political blackmail for Israel.

Selling kids outright.

Little girls, little boys… lives on the line, getting pimped out to the worst of the worst, for evil purposes, for buggery, for sodomy, for anal and vaginal obliteration… unspeakable horrors… unfathomable abuse… before they were shot in the head and dumped in a shallow grave.

Vengeance.

or

Self-preservation.

Pick one, Jay Boss. Or, on a long enough timeline, are they both the same thing?

Take a stand? Try to find the path to anonymity? A righteous fire burned inside me, right along the pragmatic whisper telling me, over and over, to run.

Just get the fuck away from them. You’re no hero Jay Boss Dawson. You never were. You’re not the good guy. You’re not even sober. You don’t respect people. You’re not going to save anyone. Except maybe yourself, if you’re lucky. And, besides, you have no clue what Rosa Negra is. You don’t know it’s murder or sex slavery or any of that other shit. Rosa Negra could be a fucking taco truck on the side of the road in fucking El Paso.

Rosa Negra tacos.

Just drop it. Be done with it.

 

Muskogee, Oklahoma

Tuesday, August 8, 2023

3:12 p.m.

Hunger stopped fucking with me. It became a distant memory, even though I hadn’t eaten since Sunday morning.

I had a generalized memory of what eating meant, but beyond that nothing. I couldn’t feel any hunger pangs, I had achieved an equilibrium based on alcohol, nicotine, caffeine and uncut cocaine. Food didn’t even enter the equation. The thought of eating food felt abstract, foreign. If I thought too long about the word food, if I spelled it out, it would have seemed like it didn’t exist. F-o-o-d. F-o-o-o-o-d. It wasn’t real.

I had taken on a different form. My usual one-meal-a-day, gone. The trio of Jim Beam, coffee, and nicotine became my sustenance. With the occasional Red Bull. Plus cocaine, of course.

My edge.

As I drove, the burn of whiskey down the throat reminded me that my senses existed. That I was alive. A burning, liquid sensation that transcended the void left by hunger.

Caffeine and nicotine were stimulants that danced circles around exhaustion, their effects weaving alertness and detachment together and handing them back to me. The cocaine helped spice things up. By mid-day, I was doing a bump every hour. Racing.

I steered myself to the parking lot of the Walmart. Fifteen minutes later, I was in and out with a shitty Samsung Android phone, the bottom of the line, a SIM card, and a $30 prepaid plan activation card, all paid with cash. Also bought a hammer I could use to smash my old phone. That would have to happen when I was ready. I decided to stay in Muskogee for the rest of the day, catch my breath chill out. Have some whiskey and some cigs. After a quick search on my old phone I backtracked to the Motel 6 right off of Highway 64.

I parked right in front of the motel office so I could keep an eye on the Malibu’s trunk while I rented my room.

Paid the Pajeet in cash and minutes later I parked in front of my room, backing in. First run in I brought a fresh bottle of Beam and six packs of Marlboro Reds, both my phones and the new Chinese-made hammer. Next trip, the drone cargo container, breaking a heavy sweat as I huffed that bitch inside. I turned the deadbolt and closed the shades.

On my second trip in I was disappointed to see through the next-door-window a couple of niggers were occupying the room.

It’s a problem here too, I guess. In Oklahoma. This was frontier country! But they seemed impossible to escape. You move away from them and they show up a couple years later. Move again, same thing. No end in sight, and I knew they were a problem even in Indiana. I knew that Gary had been totally destroyed. Can’t relax around them… not even for a second. Around blacks, never relax.

I didn’t need anyone causing any mischief, trying to rob me or any bullshit like that. Or even just doing dumb nigger shit, fighting or shooting each other or playing loud, annoying music. Shit like that attracts cops. Even in the decline… there are still plenty of cops around to fuck with you. People need a paycheck, I guess.

I can’t have any of that shit. Maybe I should just get back on the road and get a room further north?

I decided against it. Partly because the two of ‘em next door looked like a pretty complacent breed. Skinny fat, stringy, ashy. Dopey. Just a couple dipshits with that jutted-out-jaw leading up to a small cranial compartment. These ones may have even been fags or low-functioning junkies, I don’t know. I didn’t worry myself on them for long.

On the little motel desk in my room, I set out all the burner phone stuff. The phone itself, the SIM, the prepaid card. Just had to pop the SIM in and activate the plan with a text message entering a sixteen-digit code. Before I did that, though, I wanted to charge the phone and turn it on to de-activate as many of the Android location settings as I could.

I cracked a fresh bottle of Beam and lit up a Red. Got on my old phone — I brought the hammer in for that — and tried to log on to my old Discord account, the one I used in my crypto days. There was one guy, an old friend, I knew who could help me open that fucking Ledger… and I felt like the only way I could get anywhere on decoding Rosa Negra was by going through that device.

But I had no way to reach him other than Discord.

I hadn’t been on Discord since May of last year. Since a week or two after UST crashed and my 125,000 Luna tokens dumped from fifteen million dollars all the way to zero. Through the ‘Steady Lads,’ through the deployment of capital to try to save the peg.

The craziest roller-coaster ride of my roller-coaster life.

And I’m not exaggerating, the fifteen million was gone in a flash. But even with all the time that passed, I never deleted my Discord account, and if I could remember the login details I could get on and see if I could find my friend from the old days.

LunaRider was Jackson Foster’s Discord name.

I won’t bore with details, but after over an hour of wrestling with passwords and emails and two-factor identification, I got into my Discord account. I wondered if LunaRider was still living in that world. Sniping tokens. Botting NFTs. Trying to make it all back, one trade at a time. He was a contradiction, a resilient spirit. My guess is that he would have stayed on after the crash, tried to pick up the pieces, tried to catch lightning in a bottle for a second time. But I had no way of knowing for sure… other than looking.

I logged on.

Crazy as it may seem, LunaRider still had his account on Discord. Right there, in my Discord friend group, with that little green circle next to his name. As if I never left.

Memories of good times rushed back over me, our chats about moonshots and financial freedom, my move to Puerto Rico to get out of paying my homosexual-Uncle-Sam any portion of my gainz. The Puerto Rican shore, a golden coast where I found solace. The most peaceful time of my life, at least for the months it lasted. Not a single worry in the world.

Each Puerto Rican tide I enjoyed carried with it the tales of fierce pirates, of adventure, of time travel. Freedom, above all. During those days, as I stood upon the edge of the sand, it felt like home. The warm sun, the trade winds, and the beautiful sound of crashing waves.

I pictured Jackson, LunaRider, sitting in front of his monitors in some dim room, lit only by the glow from the screens. Checking charts. Trading some new shitcoin with unhealthy leverage. Something I’d never heard of, since I got out and hadn’t touched crypto in well over a year. Staking, Minting, Lending, Borrowing, Swapping… all behind his VPN, mixing and storing on a cold wallet to build his nest egg back up from the collapse. Not dwelling on the gazillions he lost, more than me in fact, his fingers tap dancing on the keys, clicking and clacking.

Hope, eternal.

Punching, scrolling, longing, shorting. Anticipating, scheming, calculating, buying and selling, thousands of new internet coins rolling in with every click.

I wondered if LunaRider was mad at me for dipping out. We used to chat all the time, and then I went ghost on him.

Nah, he would understand. He’s a good dude, that LunaRider.

I typed a message to him on Discord: ‘Long time no see, old friend. I hate to come back on after more than a year and ask you for a favor but here I am.’ I attached a few of the Discord emoji to the end of my message.

I could see from the indicator on my screen that LunaRider had started typing his response right away. MFer is online, ha! You crazy bastard!

‘What the fuck, is it really you J-Boss? It’s good to hear from you brother! What do you have going on? I can’t believe you’re back on!’

I breathed out a sigh of relief, Jackson didn’t hold my disappearance against me. Far from it, he embraced me as the prodigal brother I was.

I wrote him back, ‘Gonna leave out all the excuses. It’s good to see you on here, brother. Long story short, I have a Ledger that I need to get into. And you know I’m not good at the technical shit.’

‘Ledgers use a PIN. If you don’t have it, you need the seed phrase to restore the wallet and set a new PIN. After those two things, there might be options but they are harder.’

‘I don’t have it. And I don’t have the seed. Can you brute force the PIN? Come on, I want this to be like the movies.’

‘This must be a good story, brother. Can you call me?’

I clacked away at the keys, typing fast.

‘Not this second, I got to get a burner up and running. I’m not even being dramatic when I say calling from my old phone could put you in physical danger. I’m going to smash it as soon as I can. But I don’t want to put you on blast by calling from that line.’

‘How long ‘till you have the burner? Fuck Discord, too hard to take you through it. Call me at 602-414-8879 when you have the burner going. Call anytime, I’ll be up. I’m fucking around on Injective.’

‘Gimme twenty minutes, brother.’

I hit the Beam and my Red and stuck the SIM in the burner (still charging). I disabled as many of the Google settings for Android as I could find. I did a sloppy job, but it would have to do.

I can always smash this burner too.

Then I activated the phone using the prepaid card. A minute after that, after a restart, I called LunaRider.

‘So where is this Ledger from? Like, who did you get it from?’

‘The cartel.’

‘The cartel?…’

‘Yeah, a Mexican drug cartel. Don’t even ask. I mean, if I told you what happened you’d think I was lying.’

‘So you have no idea what’s on it?’

I took him through everything I had, the notepad, the Ledger, the cash. He was in the middle of telling me I would have to run back to Walmart and buy a laptop to brute force the PIN on the ledger, and it could take us a year, when a swig of Beam pulled a thought right out of my brain.

The notepad had those fucking numbers written in it!

‘Wait a second!’ I hollered into the phone. ‘There are some fuckin’ numbers in the notepad. The PIN is four digits, right?’

‘Yeah, man.’

‘That could be it, then.’

‘Uhh, Boss? Why don’t you just check it out? Load it up and punch in the PIN.’

‘I don’t have a laptop, remember?’

‘Boss, what the fuck is wrong with you?’

‘A lot of things, man. But I had to leave in a hurry, bro. You can’t hold that against me.’

‘Call me back when you have a laptop. And don’t forget a VPN.’

I sat there for a second, thinking about making a run back to that same Walmart to get a computer. I took a drag from my Marlboro and tipped the Beam. Amber fire followed by the kiss.

Wait…

Niggers… there were two niggers next door.

Dopey ones, but still. They saw me carrying my shit in.

The second they see me leave they will bust in and take it. Kick that door right down. What do they have to lose?

Come to think of it, I need a gun.

Fuck it. I’m out.

I loaded everything back up in the Malibu. Phones. Hammer. Cargo pack. Everything I own, in the fucking Chevy Malibu.

Walked away from the rest, more than once.

I left the empty bottle of Beam and a bunch of spent Marlboros in the room.

They can clean it up, I fucking paid ‘em. I’m not coming back to this fucking shit-hole. I’ll check the Ledger and connect with LunaRider on my next stop.

It’s not like I blamed the motel niggers for existing. I’m sure they were broke, getting by on EBT and petty theft. Hustling, scamming. Pimping and robbing. Just scrapping for places to stay, for food to eat. Trying to get by as best they could, doing what they knew how. Lookin’ for a sucker to take down.

If they weren’t a rapper or a basketball player, did they have a fair chance? They’re gonna be accountants, dentists, airline pilots? Doctors, lawyers? Businessmen? Politicians? Administrators? What a joke.

It happened, of course, but based on a different set of standards. In through the back door. The back, back door. It required people to look the other way, to hold their nose. Different capacities, natures. Inability to maintain function. Things ended up like Jackson, Mississippi, because everyone else just left. Collapse, or at least decline, crime, disorder, dysfunction, inability to provide basic services and keep infrastructure maintained… followed them around, examples were everywhere, so many neighborhoods and cities lost. So many people unwilling or unable to even discuss the problem.

People are different. Them’re different than us on every level. And that’s just a fact. No emotion, no judgment, not how I wanted it to be. There’s nothing that can be done about it, Boss. Just get the fuck away from them with your shit intact. Intact and un-fucked with. You didn’t come this far to have that cargo stolen by two dumb niggers.

 

Muskogee, Oklahoma

Tuesday August 8, 2023

4:44 p.m.

I fucking floored the Malibu out of the motel parking lot. Fuck this shit. There’s one word that explains I need a gun and everyone knows what it is. I’m tired of pretending that they don’t. Okay, maybe two. Gun, then laptop, Jay Boss.

Gun first.

I smashed the gas pedal all the way to Dunham’s, swigging a fresh bottle of Beam and chain-smoking Marlboros while knocking off a couple bumps of coke from my left thumb. Blasting my music. Driving like a maniac. Practically, bouncing off the doors and windshield.

Who wants to fuck with me now?

Parked and clicked the auto-lock on the Malibu. Speed-walked into the store, checking back over my left shoulder to make sure nobody tried to get in my trunk.

I went straight to the gun counter and asked the worker to show me a Sig Sauer 1911, compact, in .45 caliber. The guy eyed me up and down. After a few seconds handed me the pistol. All black, the model hadn’t changed noticeably since I bought my last one.

‘Good to go, I’ll take it.’

‘Ammo? We got some in the aisle over there or I can just grab some for you.’

‘Five boxes.’

‘Brand?’

‘Hornady.’

‘And you got any conceal carry holsters? Somethin’ small.’

‘Does a pig like to fuck around in shit?’

‘For real? How am I—’

He pointed.

‘Holster’s’r right over there. Holler at me if you have any questions.’

Two minutes later I had a small holster in my hand, perfect fit.

I glided up to the front register.

‘Ya’ll find everything you need?’ The cashier’s smiled. Warm but fleeting, her attention scripted and stiff. She didn’t want to be at Dunham’s. Bitch probably has a struggling Only Fans with six subscribers, can’t just quit.

A second later, she seemed to turn negative as she eyed me. Perhaps she sensed I was inebriated. I handled my Beam, my coke, my Reds, like a champ, undetectable. In control. But every so often, for whatever reason, a person here or there could tell I was buzzing my ass off. I remembered that I had the bottle of Beam jammed into my waistband, but it didn’t make me nervous. It made me smirk. She’s not gonna do shit.

Is there some rule in Oklahoma against buying a gun while you’re hammered? Maybe. Fuck that, what a dumb rule.

‘Sir, I’m going to need to see your ID.’

‘Why?’

‘It’s standard for all firearm purchases, sir. We run the ID through the system. Background and all. I dunno.’

This bitch is so stupid. And I can’t keep leaving ID trails everywhere I’m going. Cartel’s gonna catch on to that shit real fuckin’ quick.

‘I’ve got my card right here. You can have this.’

Bitch.

I forced a smile and handed her one of my personal cards. Jay Boss Dawson. Fire eater. She gave me a dirty look and marched off, presumably to get a manager to come try to fuck with me. But she made a crazy mistake, leaving the gun, ammo, and holster on the checkout counter, just in front of the register. I reached around and grabbed all of it and started hauling ass for the front exit.

Stride after stride. One foot in front of the other. About six seconds later I burst out the front door, three more and I put twenty yards of distance between myself and the door. Pap, pap, pap. Onto the parking lot pavement. The gun, the ammo, the holster, all secure in my arms. Five more seconds and I covered another thirty yards.

Sweat kicked in immediately, my body sweltering under the harsh sunlight and swimming in the Oklahoma humidity. This place sucks more ass than Texas. Move. Move. Move.

Somehow, my bottle of Beam stayed put for the whole run. I went flat out all the way to the Malibu. I dumped all the stolen shit on the passenger seat, along with the half-full bottle I ripped from my waist. I dove into the driver seat, fired up the engine and threw that bitch in reverse while slamming the fuck out of the pedal. Took a second to turn the music up.

Chaos. Squealing tires. Acceleration. Reckless abandon, kept flooring the pedal, never letting up. I surged backward, somehow avoiding the other cars and obstacles.

Jammed her into drive with the pedal on the floor and the Malibu snapped forward, tires gripping and smoking and burning out on the hot asphalt. Swig of Beam.

The Chevy gave me everything she had and more. I tore down the road, leaving all those mfers in Dunham’s behind. Safe passageway, mine. Acceleration. Adrenaline. Audacity. Abra-fucking-cadabra. And a little bit of luck. See?

Another minute down the road and I lit up a Red and swigged back more Beam. Shit’s like water now.

All good. Except that dumb cunt had my card. Fuck. Oh well, whole thing got recorded on camera anyway. Not like they weren’t going to figure out who I am if they want to. Whole thing’s pretty fucking dumb, Jay Boss. But I got the shit.

I took another rip off my Red. Couldn’t get enough Beam, either. That little sprint made me thirsty. Turned up the stereo. Then, there was me and there was the gas pedal. We worked together.

Bump of coke. Next stop, Walmart.