Neon Nights Chapter 9

“Ladies, meet the legend, the great Avery Bass!" Ryan Daniels yelled to a group of girls sprawled out in the VIP cabana overlooking the main stage.

The sun descended over the western sky, and brightly colored lights began to claw their way into the clouds. Theywere on the doorstep of the night, ready to be fueled by flashing lights and darkness—a place to escape your sins or create new ones.

Ryan hugged Avery tightly.

"You ready for this shit tonight or what?"

"Born ready," Avery said in the most serious voice he could conjure up.

The only other guy in the tent, a dead ringer for JFK, nodded his head toward Avery and refocused his attention on the gorgeous blond who ground up against him so tight they could have been mistaken for a single person. The other girls in the tent danced wildly as sweat shimmered off their painted skin, their eyes like glass marbles, opaque and vacant.

Avery sat down next to Ryan and pointed at Jameson Yates.

"Has he been doing anything for us except rubbing up on that chick?"

Ryan shook his head.

"Chill out, man. He always comes through." Avery glared at him.

"I'm tired of the money going three ways. I'm doing all the work and taking all the risk. If you two want to sit here and reap the rewards, we need a new arrangement. You're my boy, but I'm done with him."

Ryan shook his hands in a calming motion as one of the girls climbed up next to him and whispered in his ear.

"Make us some drinks, please, baby. We got a little business to attend to."

The girl clearly had never been denied a physical advance in her life, so she shrugged and shimmied toward the minibar.

"C'mon out there with me real quick," Ryan said.

"You gonna do some work, J?!” Avery shouted to Jameson.

The young man's middle finger went up as a smirk rolled across his face, and he kissed the girl's neck. Avery's facereddened, and his jaw clenched tight as Ryan pulled him by the arm to the outside of the tent.

"I'm done with him. I won't take him eating into my money anymore!”

Avery pulled a cigarette and a pill from his pocket. His hands, shaking with anger, made it difficult to connect the lighter to the end of the menthol, so he took a Prism out of his pocket and popped it in his mouth, then grabbed Ryan'sbottle of water to wash it down. He finally settled down enough to connect the flame to the tip of the tobacco and inhale deeply, his fingers clutching the filter like a hawk.

"I get it, man, but we gotta be cool. You know who his dad is. It's just not that easy," Ryan replied, a sway starting toform in his step.

"Everyone's dad is someone; mine is, and yours damn sure is, too," Avery snapped, then shook the baggie of pills in Ryan’s face. "I'm going to make some money and get shit done. You coming or what?"

Ryan peeked back inside as the girl who had approached him crooked her finger seductively and flashed him a wicked smile.

"Bro, give me like an hour. Let's have fun and go back to the RV with these chicks. Then we can get to work."

Disgusted, Avery shook his head, turned his back on his friend, and stormed away.

While most kids dreamt of becoming professional athletes or doctors, Avery Bass had always wanted to be an entrepreneur. His dad had been married so many times, Avery didn't know his current stepmother's name or any others in the lineage for that matter. His real mom had left early on after it turned out that she preferred the nightlife to thejob of being a housewife. Incapable of raising a child

on his own, Brad Bass had used his largesse to bring in the best team of au pairs from all over the world to raise his only spawn.

With his oversight limited to paid help, Avery quickly learned that someone who did something exclusively for money was bound to look the other way if offered more money. So, the aspiring entrepreneur started getting kids in school to part with their easily earned allowance for anything and everything he could get his hands on. Baseball cards, liquor stolen from the cabinets of unsuspecting parents, and fake bud ground from the finest oregano, all fueledhis desire for more power. Then he would kick his caretakers a little bonus to not report to his father what he had been up to.

Prisms were no different, except he could finally make some real money in the process. The margins were enormous, and the likelihood of running out of a potential market at events like this was less than zero.

Kids loved to go to shows. Kids loved to get high.

The parents of the kids here had tripped themselves into psychedelic freedom with mushrooms and LSD. Prisms were just nature's evolutionary instinct to find a better, faster, and stronger solution to any problem.

Avery wasn't a chemist and didn't need to be. He had people who handled that part. He just had to sell. That was it.

And he was born for sales.

If Ryan didn't want to work, that was fine by him; but that spoiled little shit Jameson, Avery wasn't spending anotherminute with him.

His phone vibrated in his pocket, and he checked his messages. Sale, sale, sale.

Problem, problem, problem. Solved, solved, solved.

He was the great connector, the GOAT of the high life.

Avery wandered down the walkway of the venue feeling lighter, his eyes staying sharp for anyone needing a little boost to help them through the long night ahead. It didn't take long to find as he saw two kids from his school sweating out their tailgate party by one of the beer stands.

"Avery, what's up, man? Ain't seen you in like a month, bro,” a stocky kid said, wrapping him in a hug. "You got anything to perk us up? We've been going since last night, and I'm not gonna lie, I'm starting to fade."

Avery perked up like a used car salesman when someone walked onto his lot.

“Give me a little credit.”

The kids high-fived each other.

"How much?" said the smaller, more muscular one, who wore a motorcycle back brace with no shirt, riding goggleson his head, and camouflage shorts.

"$100."

"Bullshit," the kid responded.

The bigger kid interjected quickly, having seen Avery's penchant for flying off the handle several times at parties.

"Dude, he's not out to cheat us. That's my boy. If that's what it is, that's what it is. Avery, listen, man, I got $100. Can we do that for two?"

Avery put on an award-worthy production of contemplating his answer and finally nodded, no longer acknowledgingthe presence of the other kid.

The larger one continued his hero worship.

"We gotta party when we get back to school this fall. I know you guys throw the sickest parties on campus."

Avery loved praise.

It was the fuel that ran his engine.

"Yeah, let's do that for sure. I'll hit you up over at your house, and we'll set up a night."

The kid couldn't stop smiling as he handed over the cash, and Avery handed him two pills. Suddenly, over the crowd's screams and the thump of the bass, the three kids could make out a few words clearly shouted in their general direction.

"Police! Get on the ground!"

The two kids froze in place, unsure what to do with themselves.

Avery needed no such pause.

Like a startled rabbit who heard the dog coming before he saw it, he bolted to his left and down an embankment withno thought beyond self-preservation.

He had been the fastest kid in his class since grade school. No challenger could best him, though one came close in seventh grade, which caused Avery to "accidentally" tangle his legs with the other boy as they got close to the finish line in a well-publicized after- school race. It was a painful fall onto the concrete, but the other kid had fared significantly worse. At least the kid had never wanted to race him again, so the streak had continued.

Even though his exercise regimen now was simply lifting substances to his mouth to consume, he still possessed that quickness and was happy to dig down deep to employ it, especially since he was about to be arrested.

"Stop!" the voice yelled from behind him.

Avery darted through the bodies on the hill and made his way to a straightaway that ran along the souvenir trailers at the bottom of it. If he could reach that, there was no way the cop could keep up.

But the cop behind him was faster than Avery gave him credit for, and he told himself not to look back and keep running. His side started to get a stitch in it, and as he slowed for the briefest of moments, a strong hand latched onto his shoulder. He managed to shake the hand loose and took a sharp left. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw at leasttwo other cops headed in his direction and pushed himself hard to get back up the hill.

He cut his eyes to the left and saw a woman now sprinting into view. She was much faster than her counterparts, and he needed to decide fast. Before he could decide, he felt someone crash into him, causing them both to tumble down the hill out of control, narrowly missing a group of three kids who had chosen the middle of the hill as their hangout for the night.

Both were disoriented when they reached the bottom, but Avery recovered a fraction faster and took off deeper into the belly of the show. He knew the layout by heart and figured his best chance for survival was on the west side of the grounds where the performer's trailers were. It would be easy to get lost down there, grab some new clothes, and walk right out.

The stitch was gone now, and his adrenaline helped kick him into another gear. He stole a glance over his shoulder and grinned when he didn't see anyone behind him.

No sooner had he thrown his shoulder out patting himself on the back, than he felt something very hard hit him, like someone in a cartoon had moved a brick wall in his way. Suddenly he was on his back, looking up at the electric palm fronds lining the area. The flashing lights wreaked havoc on his brain as he tried to figure out what happened. He craned his neck to the left, his head screaming in protest, and saw a ten-foot-tall elephant head being wheeled to the main stage for DJ Tusk's set.

"Why did you run when the officer told you to stop?" Marc asked Avery, who sat on the steps of an ambulance inhandcuffs, as an

EMT treated a giant bruise taking up a large section of real estate on the right side of his face.

"These handcuffs hurt like shit. I want my lawyer. Call my dad now," the kid instructed.

"Do you think I'm Siri or something? You are under arrest for possession and distribution of a Schedule 1 substance and resisting arrest," Marc shot back.

Avery still appeared woozy from the collision but was as indignant and combative as a rattlesnake.

"My dad is my lawyer. Call my dad."

Marc looked at Carly, who shook her head and mouthed the word "fun" to him.

Back at the station, Marc walked into the interrogation room where a very different-looking Avery Bass sat in a metal-legged chair. His face was flushed, and he fidgeted in the chair as if his insides were being harassed by some sort of intestinal demon. The sound of grating teeth filled the confined space, the friction so intense he could havestarted a fire in his brain, while his foot stamped to a beat that no drummer could keep time with.

"Avery, you look like shit," Marc said as he pulled up the chair across from him and sat down.

"How do you know my name?" the kid asked as if the entire exchange at the fairgrounds an hour before had beenwiped from his memory bank.

Marc laid out a plastic bag on the table and emptied the contents of it.

In addition to a small plastic baggie of rainbow-colored pills, there was a money clip with a driver's license, aPlatinum Amex Card, and

$1,275 in cash. Stuffed in the back was a picture of an olive-skinned brunette, a business card from the Flamingo Shores Campground, and a tattered gift card to a burger place.

"Wasn't rocket science," Marc replied.

The kid's mouth curled up in a pained expression.

"You feel like a god on the way up, but like the Devil on the way down," he said to Marc.

"How many times have you used it?” Marc asked. "Lost count."

Marc shook his head to clear the cobwebs of insanity from his brain. "Where are you getting it from?"

"Lawyer, man. I told you that from the start. I ain't saying shit else." Marc stood up and paced back and forth near the door.

"You know we have several kids in the hospital from this drug, right? That means you are on the hook if something happens to them."

Avery's face shed some of its confidence. Marc seized onto the weakness and dug in harder.

"That means every charge times the number of kids you hurt. You won't see freedom again until you're far too old toenjoy festivals like this."

Avery started to say something and stopped himself before the first word could leave his mouth. Marc stood up andpushed the chair in, its feet screeching across the ancient white vinyl floor. Then he left, satisfied that some of the ego that had walked into that room wouldn't walk out.