Chương 8: Feed Boba

Ch. 8: Feed Boba The quest log simply said: ' Feed Boba.' It offered me 5 xp to do the thing I was going to do anyway. I walked along Wilshire, MacArthur Park coming into view. It was the strangest thing, like I had been given a sidequest by my own sister. It was a helpful reminder at least. Before I could do anything, I needed my trusty car, which held the dog food I'd bought safely in its trunk. With the hellmouth now closed (you're welcome, LA) people had repopulated the park quickly.

Filling it with families, the unhoused, and paleta men trying to cash in on both. I made it to MacArthur park and there it was, the parking space where my car had been was now completely empty. A sign put up by Island Towing told me that it would snatch my car if I had dared to let it park overnight after 9 pm. I yelled at the sign, trying to get it to understand that I had to park it because I was in the hospital for closing the tar pit. All that shouting did it no good. The sign's words were final.

I caught the quest log create words that wrote: Retrieve Car From Island Towing. I waved the screen away, tired of it bossing me around, and typed the towing company's name into my gps. I knocked on the thick bullet proof glass of Island Towing. A tired woman was clacking on her keyboard with her long press on nails. She never addressed me so eventually I had to say, "Do you have my car?:"What's the vin number, sir?"

"Vin? I have the make and model. I have the license plate."

"Going to need that vin, sir." I dug through my photos, found the vin, verified who I was and she handed me a bill. Overnight fee: 100 dollars. Late check out: 20 dollars Labor: 200 dollars Processing fees: 160 dollars. Total bill: 480 dollars.

"Is there some kind of mistake?"

"No, sir. Will that be cash, credit, or check?"

"Why is there an overnight fee? That's your job, right? To tow it and keep it overnight?"

"My job is not to tow it sir. I process the paperwork."

"Yeah, I know… but your company's job. Also, shouldn't the city pay for it? They're the ones who wanted it towed."

"I don't make the rules, sir."

"The late check in? I was in the hospital, gravely infirmed from my time as a champion."

"I'm sorry to hear that sir. We do offer a discount for champions if you can produce your Champ's card."

"Perfect, thank you." I said. I handed it to her but she said, "We do not extend the discount to NPCs sir."

"Awesome. Just awesome. So… I have to come up with 480 dollars? I don't get paid for this gig until the end of the week. Okay, so I go without a car for a week, then I pay the 400 hundred. That leaves me around 400 left."

"It would be 320, sir."

"320, right. That's not a lot, I could potentially work a champ's gig. Get Nelo to pick me up. I guess that wouldn't be so bad."

"But it wouldn't be 480 at the end of the week, sir."

"What do you mean?"

"That overnight fee is every night it's here."

"What!? But you don't have to do anything! It's already here!" She shrugged her shoulders.

"So… it'll be five more days… it'll be 980 dollars!?"

"I'm sorry, sir. If your friend is a champ, they could get you a discount."

"How much is the discount?"

"10%. But the higher the bill is, the higher the discount. So… in a way it's more savings."

I sat in the Church's Chicken across the way from Island Towing. I had bought a drink and a single wing so I could just stare at the lot. Taking in the gaudy, peeling cyan blue paint. Other people's cars hostaged behind a rusting wrought iron fence, braced together by a spool of chains and masterlocks. What was the worst part about the car was not that they had it captive. Not that they made me pay money for my own car, it was that in the back there was the answer to one of my other problems.

It had Boba's dog food.

"Casing the joint?" A voice said behind me. You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version. I turned. It was the janitor. A man too old to be doing such hard labor. He was sweeping up some trash on the ground and leaned on his broom when he talked to me.

"I guess so," I responded.

"Yeeeeah. I knew it. But, you don't want to do it. Beto, that's the owner, he's got the meanest dogs. I mean, the meanest. Someone who sat on that chair, young buck same as you. He did the same thing. Bought something on the menu and just waited for everyone to leave. Once he did, he hopped over. He didn't make it past the tiki statue. The dogs was on him like he was bacon. Tore him up and down. Ain't much left of him when the ambulance came.

"I once asked Beto, I said, 'How you get those dogs so mean?' he tells me, "I keep them hungry. Every day, I underfeed them. So they're nice and hungry when I send them out.' But that's not all. Beto's got a shotgun under his bed, and he sleeps in a room behind the office. No one's making it past the dogs; but no one, no one, is making past the dogs and the shot gun. You hear? So don't go getting any smart ideas. Smart ideas get you killed."

"I hear you," I said, getting up.

"I ain't telling you this because I don't understand. I'm telling you this because I do. And you're a young man and money or cars ain't a good reason to lose your life."

"Thank you!" I said to him. He waved at me as I walked away.

"You're making the right choice, son." As I closed the door behind me I said, "No, I mean thank you for telling me exactly what I'm dealing with." He shook his head, returning to cleaning. He thought about all the other young men in his life that gave up their life for a stupid reason. But I would not be one of them. I walked around the Church's Chicken where the ladder had one of those metal cases that prevented you from getting up the first six rungs. I leapt up eight feet and grabbed the seventh rung.

I pulled myself up and sat on an air vent while the day turned to night. The receptionist with the press on nails finally left around nine o'clock. She waited at the bus stop for fifteen minutes and disappeared into the bus. I could hear when the door to the lot opened and he had let the dogs out. The dogs' barks echoed in the cold air as they galloped around the lot. They whimpered from the empty stomach that made them so irritable. In the lot's corner closest to the Church's was an RV still on the flatbed.

I bounced on the balls of my feet and talked myself up. How hard could this be? It's just jumping. Across a busy street, and potentially landing on some murderous dogs. I had done it before in the battle. Wildly, with little regard for my target. I ran and kicked off the roof of the restaurant. My body hurled through the air, my legs kicking as I made it over the street. My body landed on the RV, moving a little farther than I would have liked. I grabbed edge of the RV as I fell over.

The thump of my body on the metal roof caused the dogs to go on high alert. This got Beto's attention, so he opened the door to his office and came out with a shotgun. I pulled myself up and laid flat against the roof of the RV. I peeked over the edge. This gave me a pretty decent ariel view of the car lot. Beto gave a quick search but gave up looking, yelled at the dogs to shut up, returned to his office inside. I scanned the lot.

I would occasionally see the lithe body of the german shepherds but would often lose them in the dark. My eyes finally fell on my shitty cabrio. It was at the far end of a populated lot. I could probably jump but I might land on the cars and damage them. Namely, mine. I scooted off the edge of the RV. I let go and rolled on the ground. I kept my head low and snaked my way between the cars. The dogs barked closer and closer to me. It took me a minute to realize that they were circling.

That was when I remembered a crucial detail. I smelled like fried chicken. I changed my strategy. I booked it to around the roadway bumpered by cars. I leapt over a sedan and just slid along the ground. My front wheel stopped me. I fumbled for my keys. It gave one of the shepherds just enough time to jump on the hood of my car. He stared down at me, the moon bouncing off his nocturnal vision. In that moment, it was as scary as any monster I'd seen in the tar pits.

It growled at me, and a much lower growl occurred behind me. The other German Shepherd had found me.

"Let's not do anything I'm going to regret." The dog opened his jaw and attacked. I stuck my hand up to protect myself, but the dog just saw that as a target. It clamped down on my right arm. While that happened, the dog behind me jumped at my calf. They both closed their teeth on me. I opened my eyes. I looked at the dog growling as he jerked his head back and forth with my arm. The bite had had no effect on me.

"Huh." I said, "I guess I should have expected that." I dragged my body, and them with it to the back of my car. I used my free hand to unlock my trunk. I grabbed the bag of dog food and poured it on the ground in front of me. The dogs both abandoned their fruitless efforts on me and started munching on my offering. I started petting their heads and rubbing their backs.

"Good boys. You all are just hungry, huh? Just wanted to eat? There you go." I scratched the more blonde one behind the ears. A gun shot took out a chunk of my taillight. I ducked behind my car as the dogs scattered. When I looked through the sideview mirror, I saw Beto's old figure against the lamplight from his floodlights. He was cocking his shotgun.

"You wave the white flag and go and there'll be no harm done. But don't you think you can get your car. That business is over," Beto yelled. A dog might not have had the piercing power to bleed my skin. But a shotgun bullet? That could do some damage. I crawled toward the backseat. I silently unlocked the door and opened it just enough to crawl in. I worked my way inch by inch to the driver's seat where I stayed low.

"A crappy car ain't worth your life! And it sure as hell won't be worth mine," Beto bellowed.

"Feed your dogs, asshole," I whispered to myself before turning the engine on. My car lights came on and I floored it. My wimpy four engined begged for death before its wheels turned and powered me along. Another shot from the shotgun took my passenger window out. I closed my eyes as the glass sprinkled onto me. My car gave out the random horn sound it did after turning on. I raced through the open canal with cars on either sides as walls. I made a sharp turn and my lights caught him dead on.

The old man dove out of the way. V ery spry! I suppose you had to learn to be spry in this business. I thought to myself. I just passed the tiki statue and was about to make it to the gate. I heard him yell through my now permanently opened window.

"That there's wrought iron! Just you try to smash that! Your car's going to lose that fight. I tell you!" I slammed the brakes before that did any damage to my car. I got out and stood in front of my headlights, gazing at the cage.

"That's right!" he said as he reloaded his double barrel. I stuck my leg up and kicked it with all my might. The chains splintered like a buckshot onto the streets. The gate burst open like batwing doors at a western saloon.

"What!?" He screamed incredulously. I placed my fingers in my mouth and whistled loudly. The dogs barked as they approached me. I got in my car and began driving. Through the busted window, I tapped my passenger seat.

"Get in!" I said. The first dog jumped in. The second one followed the first. Beto was reloading his double barrel but I peeled out of there quickly. I only heard one last shot before I took a turn and made it onto the freeway. I threw my hand out the window and went, "Woooh!" I parked in the subterranean garage and approached my sister's apartment. I had the dog food in one hand and the two dogs following in the other. As I opened the door, I called out to Boba.

"Hey, girl! I brought you some temporary new brothers. Come-" I dropped the bag. I stared in shock. There was a kirin in my living room, and when he spoke… Spiros voice.

"About time you bloody made it!"