It was a mustard yellow with intricate detail woven in black and brown. The outline of it was more like a blue that you see on a neon sign outside of the only bar left open. It wasn’t very fitting for an oriental rug, but hey, neither was the blood that was beginning to stain it. Mark turned to me with just fear in his eyes as we both just stood there on that expensive ass rug.
“Dude, you fucked up.”
“What? No, we. We fucked up,” My voice still raspy from sleep and a night of drinking.
“I didn’t think I even pushed him that hard. He’s the one who came at me with the damn sword!” exclaimed Mark.
“Okay so, let me get this straight. Did he think you were the one that fucked Esra?”
“Well, that’s the thing. It kind of slipped out. I knew that they weren’t like together and I said to him that she came over to see you while he was away and then he just… walked off.”
“Where the hell was I?”
“Dude, you’ve been upstairs knocked out for like… 16 hours now. I don’t know what he thought would come from him coming in with a sword. Where do you even find one at this time of night?” So, somehow I managed to sleep for 16 hours and didn’t wake up until I heard someone yell, “Not the rug.”
I ran my fingers through my hair, just trying to think of a way to get this whole thing fixed. Okay, so, Dane is dead. He came in with a fucking sword in a fit of rage looking for me, got pushed by Mark, fell onto the sword and still managed to choke out a “fuck you” to me and this was all because his, on again-off again, girlfriend wanted a fun time two weeks ago. Nice. So, now, I have to get rid of my favorite fucking custom rug, clean the shit out of my living room, and manage to get rid of one of my childhood friends body.
“Wren? What are we gonna do?”
“I’ll tell you what, go shower because you reek from last night. You smell like you slept in a pile of donkey shit. Then, when you come back down we can go put our mess somewhere.” Mark ran up to take his shower in the room that I set aside just for my best buddy. Just some of the perks you get when being my best friend since diapers. You know, being a part of an underground crime ring isn’t so bad, but don’t get your panties in a twist. We sell pirated movies and we’re fucking great at it. We’re not really bad criminals aside from somehow maybe killing someone and now disposing of the body.
I stood over my now stained rug trying to sort out some sort of plan. We could always tell Mrs. P that Dane went out to the store and didn’t come back, but then she would want to go to the store and try to look for him. Maybe we could be honest with her, she is like a mom to us all and she does understand what we do, you know just not that it’s illegal. I kept trying to formulate a plan while I went back upstairs to freshen up. By the time I had straighten up my room, freshened myself up and found a decent outfit, Mark was finally out of his shower. Now it’ll be another 30 minutes before he’s even done which gives my fat ass time to eat. Seriously, trying to figure out what I can do to save my rug is hard and of course, thinking of what to do about Dane. I mean, we were great friends, but he was starting to change.
As I was sitting at the kitchen island enjoying my well toasted turkey, banana pepper, spinach and mustard sub, I could hear Mark approaching. In fact, I could taste the fucking cologne on him. He was about to grab the stool next to me when I scooted it away.
“I can taste your Versace cologne,” I spat out along with a piece of turkey and pepper. Mark gave me a very obvious eye roll and shuffled his way to the pantry and fridge.
“So, what are we gonna do about Dane? Shit. His mom,,” muffled Mark as he shoved chips into his mouth and laid his head down on the counter in defeat, “that was her baby boy.”
I really didn’t have much to say and for some reason all my mind thought to do was twitch my mouth into a somewhat concerned frown. Then we heard a sneeze followed by a soft damn it. Mark and I exchanged glances before slowly getting up to investigate. Of course if I was about to die, I brought my sandwich so I could at least die with a full stomach. As we turned the corner to peer into the living room, we didn’t expect to see Dane’s mother somehow managing to clean my rug.
“Boys,” she said with a now Russian accent, “how did this happen?”
“Mrs. P, we can explain…” I managed to choke out while shifting uncomfortably.
“Wren, I know what happened. I’m wanting to know how you managed to keep this mess here for this long. It is a bitch to clean an hour later,” she brought her arm to her face to push back her glasses, “anyway, you boys finish this up. I’m taking Dane to the family doctor. I’ll be back in a few hours with some dinner for you boys.” And with that she got up, threw Dane’s 210 pound, 5’11” body over her 5’4”, 130 pound frame and walked out the front door. At the click of the door shutting Mark and I dropped to our knees and finished what she left for us. We even got in such a frenzy that we managed to clean the entire first floor and like she said, a few hours later, she was back with food from Wendy’s.
She came in, walked to the dinner table and began to pull out her food. She motioned for us to join and we did.
“Wren, I have known you all for a very long time and to be frank, I thought Dane would be the one to kill you first,” she finished with a bite out of a burger.
Mark swallowed his fries to speak first, “Mrs. P, with all due respect, what the fuck?”
She placed her now barely three bites burger on her spread out wrapper, “How do you boys think you got away with things, hm? You thought you were great criminals? While you boys were good, you just had a helping hand from some… Family in Russia who may or may not know how to cover tracks.”
“So, you’re not upset?” I spoke before taking a sip out of my drink.
“I am, but I come from a place where it has become normal and besides, you boys are like my children,” she winked at us both, “Wren, I hope your rug is fine. I know it was your favorite.”
“I think you saved it enough. Whatever you did, it worked.”
We finished our food in comfortable silence then minutes after we walked her out. Before leaving she gave us both a hug and quietly and now in a Midwest American accent, “Good night, boys. Go to bed at a reasonable time.” We shut the door and collapsed on the couch exhausted. Two weeks later we were at Dane’s funeral, he died from an armed robbery gone wrong that took place in my home and all over the fact that my rug is such a rarity.
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