Cracking Grim | Teen Ink

Cracking Grim

January 19, 2024
By Anonymous

It was my 5th year teaching at Old Wood High School, and I hated every second of it. The student’s showed no respect towards me, and I made no money whatsoever. 

“So today in class we will be learning about the Positive and Negative charges of an atom. When an atom loses or gains ele-” I say while I look at the two students in the back of my class who seem to be passing notes. “Hey Jared, what are you guys doing?” 

“Nothing Mr. Brown,” while Jared is saying this, I see a paper drop out of his pocket. 

“Let me see that, bring it on up,” I say in a stern tone. Jared walks up to the front of the class with the paper, grinning while looking at his friend Walter in the back of the class. “Okay now lets see what this is.”

 I look and I see a big fat woman written on the paper who seemed to look like a clown, I then read on the top of the paper as it said in big letters, “Mr. Brown's wife.” I looked up from the paper with disbelief. I got made fun of when I was a student, and I’m still getting made fun of when I am a teacher. For me, it goes back to when I was 10 years old. Every day kids would come up to me and call me “four eyes.” It was practically my name. One day at school, this kid named Michael was really getting on my nerves when he was calling me every name in the book. “Hey booger boy,” “Whats up fatty,” anything you could think of really. So I went up to Mike and I said “Hey Mike, why don’t you shut your mouth for once?” After that day, I never talked back to anybody ever again. Back in elementary school kids called him big Mike, most likely because of the fact he was standing at 5 foot 7 140 pounds at 10 years old. Mike hit me with the hardest hitting punch ever known to man. It was so hard I couldn't even feel it hit me. It felt like the second his knuckle touched my jaw, I was knocked out cold. I don’t remember anything that happened after that, but I can remember feeling so incredibly embarrassed. They moved Mike out of my class after that incident, and I never talked to him again. At Least after that the kids stopped making fun of me as much, people actually started calling me by my real name. After looking back up at the class, I decided to throw the paper away and keep going on with my lesson. I’ve had it up to here with these kids and all I wanted to do was talk back or send Jared and his friend to the principles, but I didn’t want to show the class how I felt about the drawing. Later that day, I went to the car wash where I worked after school hours. I always assumed when I was younger I would grow up to be wealthy. I had a 4.5 gpa, I got a 1500 on my SAT, and I went to Brown university. Everyone knew how bright I was, but I just couldn’t find the right thing to do. I could do chemistry with my eyes closed, it came like a second nature to me. But now, I am working two jobs daily, and I still barely make enough money to put a roof over my family's head. I worked at the lowest paying school in the state, but I couldn’t afford to move or work anywhere else. I was thinking about all of this and I wasn’t paying attention to the car that I was cleaning. 

“Hey, Mr. Brown, say cheese!” It was Jared with one of his friends and they took a picture of me under one of the cars cleaning it. I didn’t know what to say or think when I saw this. Should I smile, should I seem mad, I really didn’t know, all I could feel was the embarrassment take over my entire body. “We’ll see ya later Mr. Brown, have a good day washing cars!” Jared says this as he and his friend walk away. Once this happened, I knew it was time to change. I’ve had enough of all this and I needed to find a way to make more money so that I didn’t have to work at a gas station everyday on top of teaching. 

5 DAYS LATER

I am sitting on my coach with my brother in law Jerry, He’s a cop, actually in the DEA. DEA stands for drug enforcement administration, meaning he works on cases involving people involving selling, taking, and doing whatever they can with illegal substances. While we are watching TV, an ad pops up saying in big letters, “WANTED DRUG KINGPIN IN ALBUQUERQUE, NEW MEXICO” 

That’s where I live, I thought to myself. I look at Jerry and he looks at me. 

“You know what that means Walter.” Jerry says to me with a smile on his face. “

I think I do.” I exclaim trying my hardest not to smile 

“Alright let's go, no time to waste baby!” Jerry and I get up and run to his car. I've never gone on one of these missions before with him, but I've always wanted to. I was nervous, excited, scared, happy, sad, I couldn't even name all the emotions that were going through my head. Jerry got the address and we began to drive to the destination. As we get closer and closer I can feel my adrenaline getting higher and higher. 

“Hey Jerry, how much do you think these druggies make a year?” I ask this keeping in mind that I only make around $40,000 a year, I pretty much just wanted to know to see if a drug dealer makes more than me. 

“Well, the one we are going for is a kingpin, and from all of the big ones I've seen, I'd say he's making anywhere between 700,000 to 900,000 a year, maybe over a million but I'm not completely sure.” I look at Jerry in utter disbelief. Holy, moly. I think to myself. I was baffled by what my two ears had just heard. These drug dealers are making more than 20 times more than I make in one year. How hard could it really be to make these drugs, I mean, I’m a chemist. I bet if I tried this I could make it 100 times better than what these dealers are making who couldn’t graduate highschool. I look out the window and we have arrived at the house. 

“Stay inside the car Walt, this might take a while.” Jerry gets out of the car and sprints inside of the house. “FBI OPEN UP!”I hear in the distance while sitting in the car. I couldn’t get over the size of this house, it was huge! Maybe even the biggest house I'd ever seen before, and it was owned by someone who sold and took drugs. In the back of my head I couldn’t stop thinking about how easy this must be, but I wouldn’t let it get to me. I couldn’t have this be the way I finally make money. While I am admiring this house I see somebody fall out from above, it looks like they dropped out the window. I looked to see a white male in his underwear, who seemed very familiar. Me and him make eye contact, and I realize who it is. 

“Jesse” I say out loud on accident, this was a kid who I had teached many years ago. 

“Mr. Brown?” Jesse frantically exclaims while running away from the home. I could not believe Jesse was in this home, doing who knows what with all of the drugs. It made me think even more about it, and how easy this would be to me. While Jerry came back to the car with 2 criminals, I could not stop thinking about it. A few weeks go by and I make the decision to pay Jesse a visit. All I had to do was find where he was living, which was easier than I thought. All I had to do was look up his last name and Albuquerque New Mexico on google and it popped up instantly. As I’m driving to the house, I have a hard thought on my decision. After everything I’ve been through, I really think I have nothing to lose. I purposely parked my car at the house next door in order for him to not think that I meant to go to his house. I begin to walk toward his driveway. I notice some noise coming from somewhere around his house. As I walk past the driveway looking confused, I see him. 

“Hey, hey Jesse.” I say quietly. Jesse turns around. He seemed to seem surprised, almost scared. 

“Y-y yo Mr. Brown, what’s up?” 

“I’m not here to arrest you Jesse.” 

“What are you here for then Mr. Brown?” I can see Jesse is visibly afraid, looking confused at the same time. I lower my voice to make sure nobody can hear me. 

“I-I… I want in.” I say with the most serious face I can make. 

“Wait, wait, wait a second. Mr. Brown, you came here to ask me if you can deal drugs with m-.” “SHUT UP JESSE.” I exclaim as Jesse was being way too loud, I wanted not one person to know I wanted any part of this. Jesse begins to laugh uncontrollably. 

“Mr. Brown man, you can’t do what I do not tryna be mean or nothin’ but-.” 

I cut Jesse off. “Jesse, I have taught chemistry for 20+ years and I’ve been studying for all 50 years of my life. Just, just let me show you what I could cook. I bet you my entire bank account I can cook like no other person in this industry.” 

“Alright yo, come with me.” Jesse exclaims with a grin on his face.

 I follow Jesse into his basement and I see a whole entire meth lab. Nothing like I had ever seen before. I immediately thought to myself I need to do this. It was a feeling I have never felt before, a feeling of being mischievous. It felt amazing for no reason. I could smell the methamphetamine and all of the other chemicals, it seemed like a chemist's dream. But maybe that was just how I saw it. 

“This is pretty neat Jesse” I say with a smile on my face. 

“Trust me Mr. Brown, I know baby.” Me and him get right to cooking and I feel like this is what I was meant to do. Everything is just flowing, and the recipe comes so easy to me. I finish the first batch and Jesse’s eyes light up. “Mr. Brown, this-this stuffs bomb yo! Give me some!” 

Jesse puts his hand out to give me a high five, I hesitate for a second. I put my hand out, and it is the loudest clapping sound I have ever heard. I knew this was going to turn into something amazing.

A couple months go by and things are going great with the drug empire, but not exactly with my family. My wife Skylar just found out about all this drug stuff and divorced me. My son Walt Jr. has no clue about any of this, and I truly hope he never finds out. But for the drug business, me and Jesse are now working for a man named Gus Fring. Making around 500 grand a month, more than I have ever made in my entire life, just by selling crystal meth. The best thing about all of this was that nobody knew who I was. I went by Hesienberg on the streets, and I would always wear a black sombrero. The one thing that I was worried about was my ex-wife telling Jerry about this. Because if he finds out, it’s over for me. Even though everything may sound great right now, things can easily take a turn for the worse. Me and Jesse aren’t on the best terms right now, since Jesse like’s doing drugs more than selling them. I think it would be better for me to go solo, but I couldn’t do that to him. Today, me and him are giving some crystal to a man named Todd and the rest of his crew. 

“You ready Jesse?” I ask knowing he’s not. 

“Of course I am yo, I was born ready!” 

“Alright Jesse, come to the car.” 

We began driving and what felt like an eternity, we had finally arrived. This place seems sketchy, it didn’t seem right. No place like I have been to before. I looked and Jesse and he looked at me, we both had that feeling in your stomach where you just know something’s going to go wrong. “Yo Mr. Brown, are you sure about this?” 

“We don’t have a choice, let's go.” Me and Jesse walk into the house and it smells like straight up garbage. We walk around the corner and we see Todd and his crew. 

“Hey, Heisenberg, you got the goods?” Todd exclaims with a smile on his face. 

“Oh yes I do, pound for pound, exactly what you asked for.” 

I begin to walk up to Todd and I see the guns in the crew's hands. Right as I begin to hand the meth to him, we hear cars pulling into the driveway. I freeze for a second. We all look over to the window and see red and blue lights flashing.

 “What in god's name?” I say out loud. The crew point their guns straight at me and Jesse’s heads. 

“Hold on hold on now guys, Me and Jesse had nothing to do with this. I-I seriously have no idea what’s going on.” 

“You really think you can set me up, Heisenberg? well think twi-.” Todd exclaims before the police come knocking the door down. 

“DEA EVERYBODY HANDS IN THE AIR NOW.” We all looked in their direction and everybody put their guns on the floor and hands in the air. I took a close look at these police officers as there were only 3 of them. Is that, J-J-Jerry? I think to myself. The room was now bright as day and I could visibly make out who one of them was. It was Jerry, my ex-wife's sister's husband. 

“If it isn’t Walter. I had a feeling something was wrong ever since you and Skylar split apart, you were the Heisenberg all along. My own brother in law. How could you?” 

“Jerry I-I can explain, this is all bad timing I swea-.” 

“No Walt, this is not bad timing, there is no explanation, come here now!” As I am accepting my fate the unthinkable happens. Something I would have never expected. I heard the loudest bang that I had ever heard in my life. It felt like it shook the entire earth. Todd shot my brother in law, including the rest of the crew. He shot Jerry. 

“What-what have you done!” I exclaim while my voice is shaking, tears trickling down the front of my face, my knees weak, arms heavy. 

“What the heck is going on yo! I just wanna go home man.” The crew looks at me and Jesse after we say these things. 

“You two set us up, you think we are stupid or something? There’s no getting away from this now boys!” While Todd is making this remark I realize what I must do. I stand up tall, take a deep breath, and make my statement. 

“I have 500 kilos of blue crystal meth out in the desert dug up 6 feet into the ground. Unless I tell and show you, you would never be able to find it. Please, please, please! Just don’t do anything to me and Jesse and it will all be yours to keep.” 

“Well, to be honest with you Heisenberg, I could care less about that meth. For all I know is that you’re lying to me. How about we do something fun here?” Todd pulls out a coin from his back pocket. 

“Jesse, pick a side.” 

“H-h-heads.” I can see Jesse visibly trembling. 

“Walt, are you good with tails?” 

“Well hold on here what the heck do you think your-” I say before getting cut off by Todd.

“SHUT UP AND ANSWER MY DANG QUESTION SON!” 

I caught myself frozen again. “Y-y-yes, tails is f-f-fine.” I can barely speak at this point and I feel like this is the end of everything. Like I have no say in anything right at this moment. I felt as if all hope was lost, and I just wanted to give up. 

“Sounds good, Hesienberg! Or should I call you Walter?” The crew laughs at Todd’s remark and he throws up the coin. “DINK.” The coin hits the ground. The coin seemed to spin 1000 times before it stopped. We all look over the coin to see what it landed on. 

“Looks like it’s tails, congratulations Heisenberg.” Todd says.

“Well, what does this mean?” Jesse asks. The crew point their guns at Jesse’s head. 

“NO, DON’T KILL HIM. KILL ME NOT HIM DON’T DO THIS YOU GUYS.” I scream with mixed emotions at the crew. 

“Well looks like it’s too late now, Walt. See ya later Jesse!” I heard the bullet come out from the gun, I felt like everything was in slow motion. I can feel my body moving, but I am not trying to do so. I look to see the bullet in front of me, as it hits me straight in the chest. It was a kind of burning sensation that I have never felt before and that I would wish on not even my worst enemy. I fall right down on the floor and grab my chest. I look up and I realize what I had done while everything is looking blurry. I had jumped in front of the bullet in order to save Jesse. In a faint voice I can hear screaming and crying from Jesse. 

“Mr Brown yo, you didn’t have to do that, wake up man! I’m the one who should be dead, not you!” Jesse exclaims with tears trickling down his face. I muster up all my strength to grab onto Jesse and tell him what seemed to feel like my final words. 

“You listen now and you listen hard son. Quit the drug business for me, start your own legal business. Use the money you have now to leave, go dark. Move states, maybe even countries. I like Alaska. But please Jesse, don’t forget me.” After I exclaim this using all my strength my eyes shut. I try to hear but I can’t anymore, I try to see but I can’t anymore, I try to breathe… but I can’t anymore. I feel my head hit the concrete, and I go numb.

THE END


The author's comments:

Very good!


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