Nights in Southern California could be a religious experience. The way the breeze swept in from the coast and turned the heat into something comfortable and soul-soothing. But there was nothing soothing about the night that Aaron was dropped off as a baby-bundle on the doorstep of the local San Diego orphanage. A young girl departing with a wild mess of wind-blown black hair that covered her beautiful face in a form of disassociated shame-- her blue eyes cold and detached from the sick sensation in her stomach that walking away inspired, ignoring the way her breath became shaky and harder to come by with every step out of her child's life.

Sister Abigail Murray was the one who gave him a name. She was a very religious and devout woman who named him Aaron (the biblical representation of the older brother of Moses and keeper by God's command). The Hebrew meaning of the name; exhalted; high mountain-- to be held in high regard, so close yet so distant from the surrounding plains that he was a part of. She wanted to give him an esteemed name to counteract the manner in which he was left so unceremoniously on their doorstep like discarded trash, in hopes that maybe one day he would have no choice but to live up to it.

Aaron was a loner even at an early age, always separating himself from the pack. He stubbornly didn't speak a word out loud until he was five years old. A small lanky child with caramel skin, disheveled short black hair and haunting blue eyes-- and yet even then in the earliest years of his life, he carried with him the aura of an old spirit; as if he'd seen it all and was unimpressed by what life had to offer even though he'd never set foot outside a twenty-mile radius of the orphanage. And his detached and unenthusiastic demeanor did not bode well or seem appetizing to foster-parents when they came shopping for family additions. Often times they would attempt to make Aaron marketable, but no one was overly eager to welcome a disinterested and detached boy into their home.

When he was old enough, Sister Abigail decided to leave the orphanage and become Aaron's permanent care-giver. So her and her brother Dominic took Aaron in as their own, and Aaron spent his teenage years growing up in a small town just outside of San Diego. After Abigail (Abby) left the orphanage, she and her brother Dom decided to open up a half 'convenience store'-- half 'antique shop' (jokingly coined 'Convenient Antiques') together that doubled as their home, where they resided on the second floor. She was a no bull**** type of woman that never candy-coated the ways of life, righteous and unforgiving with an undeniably protective soft-spot for Aaron. Dominic-- her shameless, alcoholic younger brother, worked as a personal handy-man for her when he wasn't too busy being hungover.

It takes a village. Aaron would spend his days surrounded by the aroma of freshly baked loafs of bread, blueberry muffins, apple strudels dressed in powdered white sugar; along with anything else that Abby felt in the mood to prepare for customers that stumbled upon her shop. Listening to Drunken-Dom reminisce on his vile and perverse adventures from the night before while he hammered away on stuff and tried his best to appear busy. Sitting outside on lawn chairs on the corner with Alton and Joe-- the old black comedy-duo who's gas station hardly ever saw any business, chain-smoking and making fun of each other all day. Stealing glances at Abby's friend Jenny, who was always dressed in fancy-floral little short dresses-- the promiscuous lady (according to Dom) who loved gossip almost as much as spreading her legs.

It may not have been a very conventional up-bringing, and Aaron was never quite sure what family really meant, but one thing that became increasingly clear to him over the years as he got older; was that it was all quite subjective.

And it was the closest thing he ever had to a home.

?So we gonna do this sh*it or what?..?

?Like you got a hot date or somethin?? Aaron broke balls with the man in the passenger seat of the car. They sat parked in a white Honda looking out over the calmly thrashing waters of the Hudson river. Water always represented life to Aaron, a life-source, how the tides rolled in and then flushed back out to sea in dependable rhythms. Which was darkly ironic considering the reason why they were here-- him and this man he had only met a few times before. At night, a hour past last call. Inside a car consumed mostly by darkness and shadows. Illuminated by the skyline of New York City that they were looking across the river at, like some kind of massive land of Oz. Bright and beautiful and intimidating, cloud-stretching skyscrapers conceived by dreams and ego and man-made ingenuity. There on display the same way Kings hung enemies outside the castle gates to warn off unwanted visitors. Advanced civilization ahead, enter at your own risk.

The interior of the car glowed when Aaron ignited his zippo lighter with a bold black 7 printed on the side of it. Holding the flame under a spoonful of heroin that boiled and liquefied like brown lava, and as if by candlelight, Aaron took this moment to peek over at the man sitting shotgun. A man with slicked back dirty-looking brown hair and a drunk look in his eyes while he stared out the window, wearing the stench of whiskey like over-used cologne. This man under a spell of hiccups who suddenly found himself unwittingly filling the role of a vital rung on Aaron?s climb to...

?Well? one man?s heaven is another man?s hell.

?You still *** that blonde bitch with the big tits? I thought I reme-- *hiccup*-mbered seeing you with her.. the last time you came by the bar..? The man had a vile voice, rough gravel around the edges. He could make ?have a nice day? sound like a filthy insult. Aaron knew him only by his bar nickname, Owen. Because the man had a fierce gambling habit and was always owe?n money, so overtime it stuck. When Aaron looked over again, Owen was wearing the thought-constipated look that some drunks get when they?re well over their limit. A look that suggests they?re trying to summon what brain power they have left to force-focus themselves into a tolerable level of sobriety. But it was sidelined quickly by another hiccup.

Aaron had no idea who he was talking about. ?Naa, she started talkin ?bout settling down and *** so I had to run for it..? It made Owen wheeze out a husky good ol? boy laugh. Aaron knew his audience. Owen?s question about the blonde was equivalent to a doorman at Club Masculinity asking for the secret password, and love and respect had no place here. Womanizer?s only. Any kinda bullsh*it bar-talk about feelings or genuine compassion would have men eyeing you like you had a pussy growing from your forehead.

?Fuc*kin women right? Can?t live with em, can?t nut without em..? Owen exclaimed with another hearty drunken laugh, finding himself hilarious. Aaron grinned and handed over a prepared dope needle to the man. ?I?ll give you the honors, Romeo.? Aaron said, as Owen took it from him and then promptly slouched lower and deeper into the passenger seat to escape the possibility of prying eyes out here in the middle of nowhere. Aaron lit a cigarette with his zippo and let the man do his business in silence, rolling his window down halfway to provide his smoke an escape. He glanced up at the night sky through the windshield when he heard the far-off noise of a plane flying by overhead, heading over the city skyline. Like some kind of mammoth metallic angel with a flickering light on it?s belly, a soaring depiction of Jesus on the cross with his arms forcefully stretched backwards by the sheer volume and velocity of deviance in the air at that altitude, rising off the city like pollution. Aaron was about to add to it.

?Good stuff??, he asked after a long silence.

Owen mumbled something incoherent, like ?I could die happy? as he melted into the overwhelming euphoria of his inebriated high. With a dozen beers in his system and a fresh hit of heroin, him remaining lucid or coherent was quickly becoming increasingly unlikely. And out of nowhere, as Owen began to nod off, came a sudden and violently bright strobe flash. Like a Polaroid being snapped, and the shutter still-frame of vibrant red blood splatter-exploding against the passenger car window.

It dripped, as Owen?s now lifeless head lolled back against the car seat. His expression suddenly ghastly blank, cold, void of everything.

Aaron sat there for a few moments, assessing what he?d done in a state of surprising numbness. It didn?t really hit him until he opened his driver-side door and stood up. The gun-metal piping hot when he stuffed it halfway down the front of his jeans and covered it with his shirt. Like a sudden case of sickness, he felt himself submit to a shaky breath-- an exhale that forced it?s way past his lips and made them vibrate just enough to be considered a tremble. Aaron Murray was no killer. Cold? Sure, but no murderer. He clenched his fists to keep from shaking, like when he was a kid. Then he took a deep breath and waited for it to pass. And it did, eventually.

Everything changed on the Hudson river.

The lean, dark silhouette of Aaron Murray stood there as a motionless shadow looking out over the calmly thrashing waters of the Hudson river, watching the rear-end of the Honda tip somewhat vertically up out of the water, like those last farewell moments of a sinking ship. A cresting whale surfacing just to sink back under. The tail went last.

Later-- as he walked down the shoulder of a city street, he noticed a tunnel up ahead. Headlights from passing cars coming and going like prison spotlights, or perhaps memories. Those moments that head straight for you. Happen. And then you have to look over a shoulder just to see them as their brake-lights stop somewhere else. Might as well be another planet. Photographs. Places you can no longer visit. He can see the light at the end of the tunnel ahead and it makes him think of Owen.

Of Uncle Dom withering away on a hospital bed, of the quote on Abby?s gravestone, of his mystery of a mother, of Lia and her stinging opinions. Of the feeling of disappointment sometimes when he looked in the mirror. Of being an unmotivated addict, not rising to his potential, not giving a sh*it.

Alright, so his lack of empathy made him speculate maybe he still didn?t give a sh*it?

But, eventually? just maybe?
That no-good junkie in the back of the room who breathes cigarette smoke,
And only seems to come alive when his libido?s being stroked.
The two-timing nothing with heroin heavy blue eyes,
And a sly tongue that?s allowed him to lazily move through mine-fields.
That drug-distracted fu*ck-up with a penchant for saving his own skin,
The one you?d least expect?

Maybe one day he?ll come and take what?s his.

And you?ll never see it coming.