In my short time away, a rumor started circulating about me. As manager Steve, Greg, and I were having a conversation in the kitchen, Steve mentioned the rumor, and I told him it means nothing if he didn’t hear it from me.

“Don’t hurt yourself,” he said as we both stared at each other for a moment, and then I went on with my duties, but it was definitely a “Shields up” moment. After no more than 30 seconds, Steve left the kitchen.

“You know Steve don’t be pulling his punches, right?”

I told Greg that I was prepared mentally if Steve wanted to try anything.

Steve had begun to shift his laser vision fully towards me. There was always some level of tension and mistrust between us, but things were now moving into dangerous territory. After boldly issuing a barely intelligible threat towards me in the dining area, calling him on it, to which he didn’t have anything real to offer, and him threatening me again with a gun in the parking lot after I called him on another very inappropriate comment he made towards me, I was finally beginning to understand the full picture now. As I mentioned, my first instinct was that he would try to kill me someday. That premonition looked to be coming true, and that wouldn’t have happened if I didn’t come back. When he appeared in my dream and I didn’t get an answer from him about my question, it basically told me some things aren’t supposed to be known right away and the situation is almost set up to happen a certain way. I could only guess that might happen for something important to occur.

On my second to last day at Ryan’s, Steve and I finally got into it after months of buildup. He made his move at last. He was right. He came at me with a fury I didn’t understand, but since I was aware of the possible consequences in this situation, I was able to step into unknown territory myself. Being fueled by a bottomless pit of rage, I was able to get Steve to back down just before it came to blows. It was more a match of willpower than anything else. He was sneaky about it, so although he backed down and pretended everything was alright, I couldn’t respect him at all for what he did, and preferred that he would’ve fought instead.

I came to work one more day, which I did not see Steve on at all. By now I was so full of rage that I couldn’t bring myself to show up anymore. My mind shifted towards revenge, and in an atmosphere like this, making the decision was too easy. I wanted to end Steve for everything he ever put me through.

After thinking about it seriously for a couple of days, thinking of exactly how I’d do it and what I’d use, I finally came to the decision that it wasn’t worth sacrificing my future for. If I didn’t take that time to think first, I might’ve acted impulsively and made a decision that I couldn’t undo in one lifetime. Forgiving Steve was the decision, but the road to forgiveness was not a short or an easy one. I had never before in my life come to the decision that I thought it was on me to decide someone was no longer worthy of living. There was no way to pretend it didn’t happen this way.

I had left Lakeland only to turn right back once before, but that wouldn’t happen this time, I was sure. My final days in Lakeland were drawing nearer. I knew what the next destination would be already, but I wasn't sure how I’d get there. The southwest skies were calling.

Miss Caroline, Jimmy’s woman and my next door neighbor, borrowed some money from me, and told me not to tell Jimmy or he’d jump on her. After a while, it seemed like she wasn’t ever planning on paying me back, and was depending on me leaving first, so I told Jimmy about it. He paid me back right away and didn’t seem too upset about it, but he looked off into the distance as he was paying me back as though his mind was somewhere else.

That evening, I heard loud voices and loud noises next door. The police were called, and what sounded like five police were at his front door ready to haul him away. I wasn’t sure how he did it, but he was able to talk all of them into leaving him alone. Afterwards, Jimmy started calling out everyone in the apartment to find out who snitched on him from the balcony. When Jared got home, I told him what was happening, and he relayed his concern to Jimmy right away.

“I don’t wanna hear that! You probably the m******** who did it!”

Jared was pretty disappointed he’d say something like that, but it wasn’t personal. Everyone was on his suspect list.

One of the last things Jared and I did was go back to Ybor City for their Guavaween Festival. There were waves of people dressed up on October 31st coming down the strip at us. When you see that many people in one place, you have a good opportunity to notice trends, and what people seem to be aspiring to be like. One common theme that repeated itself was a heavy young man with a shaved head wearing a jersey and possessing a gangster vibe, but all these guys were enjoying themselves. Despite the large crowd, the atmosphere of adventure wasn’t present like the first time we came. I think the both of us knew it was a good idea to be more discreet this time. We went back to the same bar where it all started and didn’t encounter anything worth mentioning. The next day, we heard on the news that two people were victims of a drive-by just outside of the Ybor City district. It made me recall our last visit and how these two people could’ve easily been us when that car rolled up on us before. I was grateful to still be here.

Finally, after months of dangerous trials, I left Lakeland for good. After stopping at my grandmother’s home in Jackson for a few weeks, unable to find any good temp. jobs, I took my chances heading back to Wisconsin shortly after Thanksgiving to see if there was anything I had previously missed. To foreshadow a bit, there certainly was.

After getting settled back into Wisconsin life, my friend Ed from the retirement home wanted to catch up with me. At his apartment, he introduced to me an astrology program on his computer called an astro relocation chart. It’s supposed to track the changes and possible influences in the new area, and how a person fits into these new influences. It was a multi page report highlighting new astrological aspects formed by the individual when moving to a new area.

The most interesting part was when he read to me about a new aspect that formed called Pluto (the planet of power, death and rebirth, the god of the underworld) opposition the ascendant(the physical body, first impressions, initiative). He described it as a high-intensity zone where there would be many power struggles with “intensity junkies.” Many people I worked with did have those eyes, the same ones a few claimed I had, and there would be someone highly influential who was supposed to model some kind of qualities I was supposed to harness. The only thing I could think of was Steve constantly saying, “You wanna be like me.”

This section finished with a chilling revelation.

“During your time in this high-intensity zone, you may discover that anyone is capable of killing when pushed too far, including yourself.”

Until now, I thought killers were a certain type of human being you’d just see on the television screen. After my stay in Florida, I realized it could be potentially anyone. Sometimes it’s environmental, but even further beyond that, the environment was just the feedback mechanism for the self. As much as I hated Steve, he is what I would have become if I made different choices, which I was very close to making. I also remembered a joke he made in my earlier days at Ryan’s when he joked about me giving him a chance when I came in there someday with a gun. This was long before he and I ever had any sour interactions. It’s possible then that he had the same first impression of me, that he thought someday I would try to kill him. If so, that would truly make us equals in the situation. Maybe he thought he would strike first instead of waiting. I was tested, and I wasn’t sure if I had passed or not. Someday I would also have to deal with this emotional beast within me, to fully understand that it is a part of me that can’t be forgotten and must be integrated somehow. For now, I didn’t have the tools to be able to do that. I continued on suppressing it as I had before.

Two Years Later

I decided that on my trip around the U.S. that Florida would be on my list of destinations. I had plans first to explore the northeast, and specifically New York City for the first time. On my way out east, a hurricane hit the Tampa Bay area, dissipated, and became a tropical storm that intersected my path in Pennsylvania. After deciding to stay in a motel in Harrisburg for safety reasons, I eventually made it to New York City, and then down to Florida. Oddly, the tropical storm that was following me headed back south down towards Florida again, then broke off just before reaching Florida and headed west along the coast. The strange thing to me was that it was the exact path I was traveling on. My final destination was New Mexico.

While in Florida, I absolutely had to visit Ryan’s to see if anyone was still around. A few servers, a mega bar cook, and Bruno were still working here. I talked with each of them. Marina, one of the old servers, told me that Steve left only two months earlier and headed to Jacksonville. She also told me there was a rumor that Steve robbed the place before he left. Someone of his height and build was seen on the security cameras the night the safe was robbed. Whoever did it had access to the cameras because the face was blotted out. That dirty dog! If I was ever to catch up to him, today would not be the day.

A couple of days after I left Florida, another hurricane had hit the Jacksonville area, where Steve just moved to. Perhaps he did reap the whirlwind in a literal sense. We both had.