A phone and a duffel bag stuffed with a hundred and forty thousand dollars in cash is all he had in his possession. Not too bad for most, but to him, it meant next to nothing. Luis looked down at his phone, it read 10:38 PM, as the private jet finally descended to an altitude where service was reachable. Time had been irrelevant for the last four to five weeks as he had crossed every time zone through some of the most luxurious cities across the world. Daytime and nighttime. Those were his two time zones. Jet lag is for the weak, he thought to himself, as he took another swig of Armand de Brignac straight from the bottle. He had become somewhat of a champagne enthusiast in that time traveling and was on his 2nd bottle this flight. 

Aboard the Gulfstream jet he rented just a few hours earlier from Las Vegas, he could finally see the coastline out of the small window to his left as it was lighted by massive beach houses on one side and by the moonlight reflecting off the ocean water on the other. “About time,” he scoffed as his patience began to wear thin and his anxiety continued to rise. He looked inside his Louis Vuitton duffel bag which he had stuffed with his recent earnings at the blackjack table. Fourteen racks of ten thousand dollars each. He tossed the bag across the aisle in disgust. The flight attendant approached from the back of the plane carefully and asked, “Is everything alright, Mr. Diaz?” He flinched as he’d been momentarily startled by her and bluntly told her, “I’m fine! I specifically requested no flight attendant!” 

“Sorry. Company policy. We’re preparing to land, anything else I can get for you, sir?” He shooed her away as she collected the empty bottle and disappeared to the back of the jet. His paranoia was running rampant since returning to the United States. “Why me?!,” he asked himself before assuring himself, “I’m the man. I’ll always be the fucking man.” He checked his surroundings again to make sure the inquisitive flight attendant was not creeping on him. He took out his ID card to prepare his next fix and made two neat lines. “Cleared for takeoff,” he whispered to himself as he picked up the rolled hundred dollar bill and snorted both lines of cocaine from the tray table. “Wooooh!”, he yelled sharply, instantly followed by a head shake and a one-two punch combination to the air.

The jet made a smooth landing at the Fernandina Beach airport near his home. He chuckled to himself as he thought back to all the times it would take him at least an hour from the plane touching down to then waiting for his luggage and finally getting to his parked car. In the economy lot. What a loser. I’ll never go back to that life. EVER! He finished off the bottle, chucked it to the side, grabbed his duffel bag and walked off the jet. 

Once he located his red Ferrari F8 Spider, he sighed a breath of relief. “I missed you, baby! Papi’s home.” He reached inside the rear wheel well to grab his key. His car being stolen didn’t really concern him since only the affluent flew into this airport. Besides, if somebody had stolen it, he wouldn’t have even cared, he’d just go out and buy another one and wish the thief well. After jumping in the car, he pushed the button to start the car. The rush of adrenaline he thought had already peaked, due to his drug and alcohol consumption, just burst through the next threshold. He growled in sync with the motor. Grrrrrrrr. As he clutched the steering wheel and massaged the leather on it, he felt one with the car. All that raw horsepower surged through his body and he felt powerful, invincible.

Minutes later, he was speeding down the highway at over 110 MPH with the top down and Latin trap music blasting. He sang along to the lyrics and acted them out as if it were him they were rapping about. Luckily for him, cops weren’t normally on this side of town this late. It was a small town with little police presence. Besides, he was on their good side since he had made a very generous donation to one of the cops not long ago. A good deed he’d hope to cash in later. 

His phone buzzed and he looked down at it. UNKNOWN. He doesn’t answer but he gripped the phone tightly and yelled at it in a fit of rage. “Leave me the fuck alone!” Then he tossed the phone up in the air and let the force of the wind take it until gravity took over and crashed it back down to Earth. Nobody mattered to him anymore, he was here for one thing and one thing only.

 He reached over and checked his glove box. “There you are,” he marveled at the Smith and Wesson revolver he’d purchased for protection. It was a beautiful piece depending on which end you were looking at. He knew close to nothing about guns, but it looked cool, so that’s why he’d bought it. Then he looked inside his center console to find a fifth of Blue Label he must not have finished the last time he was in town, cracked it open and took a long swig. He didn’t grimace, it was like water to him. Luis swerved lane to lane as if the dashed lines served no purpose to him, then reached under his seat. “Aha!” He kissed the gold plated tin he kept stashed which contained some of the purest cocaine known to man, unlike that trash he had been resorting to the last couple days. He opened it and brought it up to his nose. A sudden gust of wind blew most of the cocaine onto his face. “Fuck!”, he yelled in a fit of rage, but a good bit managed to enter his nostrils and was now releasing vast amounts of dopamine into his brain. He clenched his jaw, gripped the steering wheel tighter, pounded the pedal to the floor and was laser focused on the road, driving straight as an arrow. 

As he rounded the corner to his neighborhood, his house became visible in the distance. He squinted his eyes for a clearer view to confirm what he thought he was seeing. A large moving truck and red Lamborghini Gallardo were parked in the driveway. The same one he’d gifted one of his life long best friends, Victor, not long ago. “That fucking asshole!”, he yelled. “I’m gonna kill him!” He sped up on the driveway and slammed the brakes. Then reached in his glove compartment for the revolver, which he’d only planned on using as a scare tactic, but now things had changed. Voices in his head kept replaying. You gave them everything. They’re nothing without you. You’re the fucking man. As those last word slipped out of his mouth, he realized the words weren’t in his head anymore. He was speaking them. He shook his head to regain focus and beelined to the front door. He rang the doorbell, secretly wishing his best friend would have the balls to open the front door to his house. The door opened slowly. Not the first person he was expecting to see, as his frightened little daughter looked up hesitantly at the broken shell of his former self.

“Daddy?”