Well fuck.  End of the road. The GPS that could bring him home from this didn't exist and his fucking phone wasn’t smart enough to grab a signal for redemption.  Coulter knew.  And Dedham.  Shit.

shit shit shit

The air was stale, suffocating, and his head felt like it was filled with helium and concrete. He needed to think and didn’t have time to think.  He’d have to rely on adrenalin. Jack said in the old days the stink of a guy’s fear could sometimes keep him alive. He called it skunk safe. Pepe LePew and that smart pussycat...he’d have to say goodbye to Marla.... jesus christ - goddamn cartoons?  

He wasn’t sorry he skimmed the shipments, but he was sorry he got greedy with it.  Fucksake, he knew better.  But he’d wanted more and wantin’ ain’t gettin’ - like Jack always said,  the guy who showed him how to get.  Didn’t show him how to get out though, did he?  Shit.

He searched his contacts list. No one liked him enough to help him.  Maybe if he’d flashed his teeth more, joined the pissing contests, or laughed at the lame jokes, but he didn't give a damn about them and it showed.  The guy singing “My Way” always gets kicked out of the choir.

He called anyway.  Ham answered in one ring, like a fourteen year old in heat.  
                                
“Becker, how are you?

Don’t you mean “where are you?”  Cut the crap.  How bad is it?

How bad do you think it is, asshole?  Worse than that.  Why you calling me? I can’t help you.

You think I don’t know that?  I’m just trying to get the lay of the land.

The lay of the land?  Let me map it out for you: the land, buddy, is a fucking hole in the ground.  You better run fast and far in another direction.

You sound like a goddamn B gangster movie.

Yeah?  You sound like Dead Man Talking.  

Fuck you.  

Don’t mention it.  And don’t call again.”
                            

In cartoons the coyote lives even after an Acme anvil lands on his head.

He remembered his father's second wife saying she'd never met a stupider smart guy. Still, his father went down the easy way, babysat by the state until he died.  He has his father’s stupidsmart dna but not his options.  

Fuck GPS.  It was still easy to get lost.  He’d just get in the car and drive.  That thing his father taught him -  always check the rearview mirror?  Fuck the rearview mirror, too.  But that other thing his dad said, about driving at night - he said people always think they see better in the dark than they really do.