Pigs. Rotten wood from a defunct barn. A crisp, tangy, pungent smell of barbeque hung in the air. He felt hot and sticky opening his eyes, looking out into the world. Wet. Uck. Blinking a few times, Brad saw the Sun partly blocked by clouds. Before he blacked out, the sky was clear. Midwest summers were often warm and sticky, but Brad never passed out. Rubbing the back of his head, he looked up again, two shadows blocking the sunlight moments earlier covered by the clouds.

               “Wakey wakey,” a voice said. Hovering above him was an older man dressed in a sharp black suit. Suits and ties weren’t the typical attire for the pig farm. Brad immediately knew who they were. Vinnie stood above him, wearing the black Ray-Bans, black Italian leather shoes, and smoking a black cigarette. The other guy Brad assumed was a bodyguard or enforcer. The big guy hauled Brad to his feet, picking him up by his shoulders. Brad wasn’t a big guy but a little pudgy for his five-foot-four-inch tall body. His BMI said he was overweight. So did his doctor and cardiologist, but Brad refused to give up the nitrates and high cholesterol. And he wasn’t about to give up bacon or any pork product.

                “Yo! Bradly, my friend, we’s need to talk.” Something about his speech told Brad he needed to do as he was told. “Do me a favor, will you, big guy? Don’t knock his ass out before I ask the questions, yeah?” Brad kept thinking the accent Vinnie pretended he had was from watching too many movies, like The Godfather and Goodfellas. “You owe Mrs. Ranchelleti a whole lot of green, know what I mean?” Brad almost laughed, thinking immediately of Jim Varney. He stopped himself when his head started throbbing from the thump it got a few seconds earlier. “Mrs. Ranchelleti, she don’t like no one who don’t pay up.”

               Brad wasn’t the brightest crayon in the box. Even so, he did manage to graduate from college with a degree in animal husbandry, which meant running a pig farm, at least for him, was a snap. Even so, his neighbors, the closest one living more than five miles away, never spoke like that. Even the standard Midwest colloquialisms, terms like yous, y’all, and them thar, weren’t used here. It was a bit unusual for Oklahoma, to be sure. But most up-and-coming farmers were highly educated, many with master’s degrees from accredited colleges. And no one talked like that anymore because it sounded uneducated. Correcting Vinnie’s grammar wasn’t something Brad would risk his life for. Instead, he chose to reply to Vinnie with, “I do not know Mrs. Ranchelleti, Vinnie.”

               “Oh, you don’t know Mrs. Ranchelleti, does you? Yo, big guy. Why don’t yous jog up his memory a bit?” The big guy held tightly onto Brad’s shoulders, not an easy feat for an average person. But a guy built like a linebacker? Not a problem. Not at all. Brad couldn’t move, so the big guy spun him around, facing Brad and ready to punch him again. His fist alone was the size of a bowling ball. That was scary enough, but the knuckles on that fist were scarred over, maybe from hitting bone or walls. Either didn’t matter much to Brad. Not at the moment. One hit from the oversized fist would land him back on the field. “You owe her a hundred G’s, tough guy. You think yous a tough guy, huh? Standing up to me? Thinkin’ I don’t remember yous? Or yous brother, Harper?” Harper was the family’s black sheep, leaving home for college and never coming home unless something was wrong. The last time Brad saw his brother was at Christmas in 1995. He mentioned a business deal that would net him a small fortune.

“And, let me tell you, Bradly? I make that kind of money? And I’m outta here! Goodbye, Oklahoma, forever! I ain’t never comin’ back here.” When it was just Brad and Harper, Harper’s Midwest farmboy came out. Otherwise, he rarely used terms like ain’t and youns. 

               “What about your business partner? What was her name?”

               “Oh, you mean Mrs. Ranchelleti? Heather?”

               “Her name is Heather? Bro, what did you get yourself involved in?”

               “Will you stop being a protective older brother for once?”

               “Nope. That’s not going to change. Ever.” Brad leaned back in the booth as Harper lit a cigarette.

                “I thought you were going quit.”

               Harper glared at him. “I am.” He snuffed out the smoke in the clean ashtray. “Tomorrow.” He lit a second one, blowing the smoke away from his older brother. Hanna’s Diner was the last one, at least that Brad knew of, where you could actually smoke in the building. In the last few years, smoking bans were enacted in so many public spaces that he was shocked Hanna didn’t roll over too. She was a firm advocate for nonsmoking after quitting both cigarettes and alcohol. “Stop worrying about me. I’m fine.”

               Harper took another drag from his smoke when a professional-looking gentleman stepped through the Diner’s front door. A stylish black suit, pristine white shirt, adorned with a sky blue tie hung from the neck of the gentlemen with slicked black hair. His sunglasses came off only after he was inside. His smile was pleasant but fake. Brad dealt with his fair share of Frat boys in college. None were too bright, but most were wealthy. That meant they typically did as they liked, within reason. The guy walking through the door reminded Brad of those Frat boys.

               “Yo, Harper. Howyadoin’?” He smiled at Harper while at the same time keeping his eyes off Brad. “This must be your brother, Brad, yeah?” The suit stuck out his hand, waiting for Brad to shake it. Standing up, Brad grabbed his hand and shook it firmly. If their Dad taught the brothers one thing, it was how to shake a man’s hand. Firm, but not hard. It was a farmer thing.

               “Good to see you, Vinnie!” Harper stood up, embracing the suit. “Nice threads. When did you get this?”

               “Yous like it? Yeah. It fell off a truck,” he said, winking at Brad. “I got twenty more. What size yous need,” he asked, poking Harper in the chest, not hard. He was simply emphasizing his point.

               “Naw. I’m good,” Harper patted him on the back. “I’m good. Really. Please. Have a seat.” Harper slid into the booth, letting Vinnie sit next to him.

               “So, Mrs. Ranchelleti says wes gonna do this thing. Yous needs to be back in Dallas tomorrow to settle the details. So? Can yous do that?”

               “Of course, Vinnie. Let Heather,” Vinnie held up a finger, “sorry. Let Mrs. Ranchelleti know I will be there.”

               “Good to go.” Vinnie stood up, straightened his suit, and glanced in the window, checking his reflection. “See ya.” He saluted Harper with two fingers and whipped out his sunglasses from the inside pocket of the suit. Before he walked out the door, the sunglasses adorned his face. He smiled and shot Harper with a finger gun before laughing and walking outside.

               Brad watched as the rear door of a Lincoln Towncar was opened for him by a massive giant of a man. He stood almost seven feet tall and was muscular under his suit, dressed like his boss, Vinnie. The tight-fitting suit looked like it would rip if the bulk of a man twisted wrong. If Brad had to guess, the dude was a former football player, weightlifter, or wrestler. None of those occupations would’ve surprised him. He might have been a bouncer for a prestigious, high-end strip club. Whatever he once was, he was Vinnie’s driver, at least for now.

               Harper lit another cigarette, sucking hard on it, causing the cherry at the end to burst into a small, brief flame. “Well. I guess I need to get going.”

               “Harper, level with me.” Brad snatched the smoke away from his younger brother, crushing it out. “What are you into? That guy,” he thumbed out the window of the Diner, “is bad news waiting to happen! Everything about him screams bad guy. Hell, even Hanna can see it.” Hanna wandered over to the table, holding a pot of coffee. 

               “See what? That mob guy? Yeah. Harper? He’s bad news.”

               Brad gave Harper the ‘I told you so’ look of a big brother.

               “It’ll be fine,” Harper said, standing up. “But I need to go. It’s a four-hour drive to Dallas, and I need to be ready for meeting in the morning.”

               “What are you into, Harper?”

               Harper smiled at Brad. “Three million for a few hours of work. And all I have to do,” he said, winking at Brad, “is drive a car.”

               “Vinnie, I met you once. I don’t know Mrs. Ranchelleti. Even if I did, I don’t know what Harper was into.”

               “What was he into? He’s into about tree mill, give or take. And I need you to tell me where he is.”

               “I don’t know. I haven’t seen Harper since 1995.”

               “Brothers. Am I right?” Vinnie said, laughing at the big guy. “So yous ain’t seen each other in, what? Five years now?”

               Brad nodded. “He told me about some deal with Mrs. Ranchelleti. Never told me the details. Never told me what he was doing.”

               “Is that a fact?”

               “Yes. I swear, Vinnie. Not a word.”

               Vinnie scratched his head, then ran his hands through his slick hair. “Let him go, big guy.” The linebacker muscle-head let go of Brad. Brad didn’t know he was holding him so tightly until he let go. Then Brad’s lungs filled with air, and he coughed a few times. Squeezed from his shoulders, his arms ached. Brad rolled his shoulders a few times, thinking another appointment with his chiropractor would be a good plan. “If you see him?” Vinnie asked Brad.

               “I’ll let you know. What’s your number?”

               Vinnie grinned. “Oh, don’t worry, Brad. We know how to find you. We’ll be in touch.”

               The pigs rutted on the other side of the fence from Brad. “You warn me about the squirrels and the rats. But two Italian guys in a Lincoln? You couldn’t warn me that they were coming?” he shouted at the pigs. “Dumber than rocks!”

               Brad rubbed the back of his head. He could feel a nice lump forming above where his spine attached to his head. “What the hell did you do, Harper?”

               “They gone now?” Harper whispered. The barn wasn’t far from the pigpen, and Harper hid behind some square hay bales.

               “Not quite,” Brad said, still admonishing the pigs or at least trying to look like that was what he was doing. “I can still see the dust cloud of the car on the gravel. Give it a few more minutes. Then you’ll be okay.”

               “You ain’t gonna tell ‘em I was here, would you, Brad?”

               The dust from the gravel road vanished like mist. “Of course not! Sheesh, Harper. I tell them where you are, and then they get rid of me. See how this works? You drag me into this nonsense? For crying out loud, your dumbass is gettin’ me into a heap of trouble! All of which I didn’t ask for!”

                “You gotta help me, bro.”

               “I ain’t gotta do shit!” Brad rubbed his head. “Your business partners thumped me on the head because they thought I knew where you was! Damn it, Harper! Why can’t you, for once in your life, stay out of trouble?”

               Harper slinked out of the barn, keeping his head down low. “Sorry, Brad.”

               “What would Dad say if you brought this shit down on him?”

               “I dunno.”

               “Yeah, you do!” Brad shouted. “He’d thump you on the head, tell you it was your problem, and to go fix it. Not that there’s a way to fix this. Three million dollars, Harper? Seriously? Where the hell is the money?”

               Harper sighed. “There never was any money. They duped me into thinking that there was cash in the car. I was supposed to deliver it, pick up a second car, and drive it back to Dallas. Only the bad guys checked the car – empty as it was, and I barely got away. You gotta believe me, Brad. I had no idea Vinnie set me up!”

               “Wait. This was all Vinnie’s deal?”

               “Sorta. I mean, Mrs. Ranchelleti was the investor.”

               “So Vinnie knows where the cash is, and you? You are the fall guy, as it were.”

               Harper nodded. “Apparently, so.”

               “You are a moron.”

“Thanks,” Harper replied. “Love you too, bro.”