I was in and out of the hospital in two weeks, including a dramatic and an anticlimactic surgery. Therapy took at least three months, but my doctor-a nice looking woman with extreme maternal attributes-decided for a long term plan for me.

Whoopee.

So therapy was going to be at least nine months; both physical and psychological. The surgeons did a very good job patching up my chest; I was able to move my fingers and slightly raise my elbow. But even though the doctors claimed my surgery practically miracle, I was lucky to be alive-all that jazz-they said I sustained a large amount of trauma on my left pectoral muscle. In other words, I wouldn't be getting a ripped chest anytime soon, but I didn't care. I wasn't the kind that would spend even an hour in the gym, 'cause I was just too dang busy working in my pub.

When I was left alone from the obsessive doctor lady and a few unassuming relatives that could care less about my well being, I was back at the Corelli Tavern. I liked to work. Work helped me get my mind of real world problems. It got me through mass shootings, crazy elections, and even Arab Spring. Once I got my mind focused on one of the glasses in my bar, the world disappeared with the smudges on the surfaces crystal glass cups. My mind had felt like liquid sloshing around in a half full thermos the first few days I had been let out of the hospital, but now that I was finally released from that white prison my brain reconnected itself into its usual muddled fashion.

It was Sheep that visited me first.

I was cleaning the counter-like I always do-when she came in. She was in full jogging gear, with yellow neon Nike shoes and a gray pull over with matching logo pasted on the front. Her hair was back in a simple ponytail, so it looked like there was a stream of gold trailing after her wherever she walked. We didn't talk for very long, and we didn't bring up anything about the shooting. She talked about her day and I talked about mine. She related her story of almost being run over by some drunk driver, and I could see in her eyes as she talked she was more interested about what happened to me than what had happened to her that day.

But yet she still didn't mention the shooting. We exchanged a few awkward sentences that I supposed were goodbyes, and then she was gone out the bar door, golden light pouring out from behind her as she went. After I was finished pounding my head on the bar, I got back to meticulously cleaning the already shining glasses and wiping the pristine looking bar.

"How's the arm?"

I looked up to the speaker, expecting Carlo's ugly mug trudging through the doorway, but I stifled a cough when I noticed who it was. The door swung shut and I looked into the eyes of my favorite protagonist. He was dressed in hoodlum whacking fashion: black trousers, navy blue jacket, and dark green combat boots. A dirt ridden Yankees cap was pulled over his eyes, and I wondered how he ever saw under the bridge when I couldn't even see his eyes. I set down my rag on the counter and felt the burning pain in my chest.

"It wasn't the arm." I said plainly, staring at the Guy. He didn't sit down, but instead he stood halfway from the door and the bar. I knew whenever he was in this mood he was on edge, but this afternoon...

"In technicality," the Guy began, standing still as an oak tree. "You took a bullet for me."

"In technicality I was in the way." I corrected, rubbing the area above my wound. The Guy shrugged and nonchalantly stuck a thumb into his belt loop.

"I came back to thank you. If you and your friend hadn't been there..."

I waved off his praise with my good arm. "Yeah, yeah, your days of justice would've been over, yaddah yaddah yaddah."

The Guy went stiff, his back straightening. I kept going, wiping absently at the counter, not looking him in the eyes. I looked at everything but the guy in front of me.

"I don't even know who you are, what you do at night, or even if you do say what you do."

I wiped away a fly on the bar.

"It doesn't matter that I don't know who you are, because I could possibly care less. I want to know what you do at night."

The Guy stepped forward; the bill of his cap raised high enough that I could see his sun burnt eyes.

His words were steady and sure. "I told you, I'm-"

"Saving the world?" I countered, rubbing away a beer stain that I had missed. "Yeah, I've heard all that and more from superhero movies and comic books."

I threw the rag into its bucket underneath the counter and put both hands on the bar, staring at the Guy.

"I want to know what you're really doing. Are you really keeping the criminals at bay?" I pounded my finger into the marble bar, punctuating every word that came past my lips.

"What. Are. You. Doing?"

The Guy sighed, put his hands in the air, clearly disappointed.

"I've been trying to tell you, and you don't seem to get it." The Guy stepped forward up to the bar and put his hand on the counter. "I've been keeping this town out of the gutter by spanking it senseless. I've wiped its butt countless times before it could even find its own rear end. I've been rooting out moles and cleaning out bugs in the police department and city council."

The closer he was, now I could see the very familiar burning savagery that was being constantly kindled in the depth of his dark irises. A feverish fire stirred; never ending in the two pits of his cornea. He pounded his fist on the bar, countering my finger gestures.

"You ask me what I'm doing." The Guy pulled out a piece of paper from behind his back pocket and slapped it forcefully down on the marble bar. It echoed loudly; the sound reverberating around the bar and in my ear canals.

"This is what I've been doing."

I picked up the piece of paper, looking at the row of names carefully sketched in neat lines, covering the entire paper.

"Don't you dare compare me to those fictional idiots in the movies or comic books." The Guy's voice rasped harshly, his eyes following mine as I flipped and twisted the thin paper in my fingers. It was delicate, and I knew it had to be important. Very important.

"I'm not one of your trivial fancies that you can day dream about in your pub. I could possibly care less what you think about me." The Guy's chest heaved, as if a heavy weight was being relieved from his body. "I'm as real as it gets to Batman. But I'm no hero. I'm classified as a vigilante. That's the worst you can be labeled in this world, and I think you know that."

The Guy turned around and looked out of the window as he left me scouring the paper with names on it.

"What's this paper for?" I asked, but I had a vague idea as to what its purpose was. Some names on the list were underlined, crossed out, and or had check marks next to them. The vigilante facing away from me spoke quietly.

"It's a list of names that I've compiled." The Guy began. "It's a hit list, Anthony."

The Guy using my name caused a sharp pain in the pit of my stomach. The idea of me holding a hit list made me feel like I was pooping bricks.

"Where did you get this list?" I questioned slowly, feeling the words crawling out of my mouth and dropping onto the floor.

"I got the names from a roster from the local mobsters, gangsters, and what-have-you all over Oakland. They're all being assimilated by a powerful godfather figure at the edge of town. The crossed out names are the people that are already dead. The names with check marks are the people that have been saved or have gotten out of reach from the mob."

I gulped, hearing the next words that came from the Guy. You could hear my heart drop alongside the pin the fell onto the floor.

"The names with lines under them are people who are being currently hunted."

The healing wound in my chest began to thump wildly.

The Guy turned to face me, his eyes no longer carrying the light of wild fire. His irises were doused by the empathy of fear, and worry.

"If you look carefully, your father and uncle's names are on there."

My eyes were burning. My heart was doing elliptical gymnastics up my throat. The whole world was tilting along with the piece of paper as I scanned line after line, row after row until I came to the name of Alphonse Antonio Drezel. His name was crossed out.

Phlegm stuck to the back of my throat as I asked, "How recent is this list?"

The Guy's face was morbidly stone like in his response.

"Yesterday."

I cursed out loud. I cursed so loud, my mother could hear me swearing in her grave, God rest her soul. No--God could hear me scream out my anxiety where he stood up in the heavens where he always stayed.

I pointed to the list and looked at the Guy. Nothing came out of my mouth but air.

My father's name was on the list.

His name had been crossed out.

My mind raced back to the image of my last moment with my father. We were on the docks, my dad and me. Mother was in the car, and I could hear her crying. I didn't know why back then, but it made sense now. My dad's lips moved and the words that I remembered told me that he was going far away from Oakland, and me, and my mother and that I was the man of the house now. I even remembered that my dad had to pry himself from my thin arms as I tried to cling to him. He waved goodbye as he boarded a large tanker and his face disappeared behind another face.

The face of my uncle.

My uncle.

My uncle and my father were on the same shipping vessel together, but only my father's brother came back home. He told me that my dad had an accident and was going to be coming back. My dad had drowned at sea.

Mother cried for days, and possibly more after my uncle took me into his home and raised me. Taught me everything he knew about business, swearing, drinking, and the basics of how to be a real man. I hated everything during that transition, but I learned. I had to, or get the end of a belt. I allowed myself to be taught, and hoped that I would see my dad in the future, although slim those chances were. I had hope, but there was something deep in the recesses of my soul that had persuaded me that I was never going to be seeing my dad ever again.

Reality came crashing back into focus as the Guy rapped on my bar. His leather tanned knuckles made a loud racking noise on the marble fixture.

"I need you here now, kid," He began, pointing at the list I held in my hands. "And you need to know more than anybody else that your uncle had better get outta the county, heck, outta the country if he wants to survive."

Reality was too much for me at that moment. My mind kept revolving about my feeling about the fact that my uncle was on a mafia hit list and there was a good possibility that he was going to get killed in the next forty-eight hours. What unsettled me more wasn't the idea of my uncle dying, but my passiveness towards his endangerment. I knew my uncle; he had practically been my dad for the remaining of my adult life. And the thought of him being in a life threatening situation didn't bother me.

At all.

It wasn't that I didn't like him- I didn't. I couldn't care less if he stubbed his pinky toe, but liking him didn't have anything to do with what I was wrestling with at that moment.

Did I care if my uncle died the next day or not?

Even if he did raise me, he did in the worst way possible. For God's sake, before I turned thirteen-the age he promised to stop beating me-I already had enough scars on my behind to rival those of a slave from the 1800's. My living conditions were just as bad. Sometimes I would have to sleep outside in the shed because uncle would get into a drunken rage.

In short, I didn't like my uncle.

But he was my flesh and blood.

"Anthony?" The Guy's voice drew me out of my memories. I set down the slip of paper and sighed. My heart was set to jump out of my chest. I put both hands on the bar to stable myself, for fear of falling over.

I inhaled shakily and said, "What do I...what do we do?"

The Guy shrugged, slapping a hand down onto the counter. When his fingers withdrew, I could see two plane tickets on the marble counter. I looked down at the two slips of blue paper and up at the Guy's face.

"You expect us to leave town? Just like that?"

"I expect you to get as far away as you possibly can and yes, you are going to New York. Rent a penthouse. Do anything." The Guy turned around and headed for the door.

I shook my head, perplexed. "What are we going to do? How are we going to survive?"

The Guy swiveled on one foot and glared at me.

"You need to take a deep breath and stop acting like a little child. Put on your big boy pants and get your uncle on the phone. You're leaving. Tonight."