Life Lesson #214: Running Away Never Solves your Problems

By Joy Papadopoulos









My name is
Joy Papadopoulos. Actually, my given name is Efrosyni, which I fucking love to
pieces. Dumbest. Name. Ever. No one can pronounce or spell it and when I say
it, they sort of blink and smile like an ass. It’s pronounced ef-ro-SEE-nee, if
you’re curious. Apparently it’s Greek for “joy and mirth.” How fucking
ridiculous considering I’m completely lacking in both things. My big brother
couldn’t pronounce it, so my mother just started calling me Joy to make life
simple for him. My parents were all about making life simple for my brother. Wait
till you see where that got them.



Ironically,
our last name means “son of the priest” or some shit like that. It’s ironic
considering my father is not even close to priestly. Tony Papadopoulos is a
cutthroat businessman, and if you cross him, well you won’t have much time to
ponder the consequences.


My story
isn’t “officially” written yet. Renee’s still pissing around with her outline,
thinking about me while she finishes up with that pussy marine she stuck up on
a mountain. She’s also trying to rewrite a bunch of shit she lost because she’s
too stupid to save her work now and then. Basic rule of writing: Save your shit
before you walk away from the computer. You’d think she’d have learned by now.
I’m writing her blog post for her because she has all these good intentions of
updating it regularly. Yeah, you all know how that’s going to turn out, right?
Girl has the attention span of a two year old hopped up on  cherry Kool-Aid and crack.



Anyway, more
about me. My father and I have an unusual relationship. It’s not terrible. I
know he loves me, but the problem is he’s just so fucking old fashioned. Well
that and he makes me kill people. More on that later.




Tony
Papadopoulos moved to America when he was six. His father, the late and much
quoted (to my utter agony) Niko Papadopoulos arrived in New York with nothing. His
wife had been murdered, and all they had was each other. Well, that’s the story
my father gives everyone. I checked it out when I was a teenager. It’s a bunch
of bullshit. My grandfather came from a rich family. A family that sent him off
to America with a fat bank account to avoid tarnishing the family name after
Niko caught his wife, my grandmother, in bed with his cousin Stavros. He killed
them both, and tried to kill my uncle Dimitri, who was suspected to be
the illegitimate child of Niko’s brother. Dimitri died a couple of years ago.
He’s the one that told me the truth, and before he died he was able to meet
with my father. You know, I suspect that’s probably why he died… The point is my
grandfather was a rich nobody when he got to America. By the time my father was
sixteen old, just ten short years, Niko had built the foundations for one of
the largest crime families to never be discovered by the feds. I’d say that’s
pretty fucking impressive.



Another
irony is my father’s “motto,” which is that you never run away from a fight.
Considering his father, the man he idolized, ran from everything, it’s a
strange motto to have.



My dad and
I got along great for most of my life. Even after my mother left and I found
out my dad had been banging a woman with huge fake tits and a tattoo of a
monkey on her ass on the side, we managed to stay close. He doted on me, called
me his princess, bought me everything I wanted—until he realized he had the
perfect assassin under his roof for eighteen years. I didn’t mind killing
people. Actually, I kind of liked the challenge of stalking my prey. I loved
that every dipshit crime boss in the country assumed I was a man. Idiots. What
I didn’t like was my father’s need to keep me as close to him as possible. I
think he worried I might come for him if I was allowed to think for myself.
Paranoid freak.



I started
looking for my own place, but dear old Dad would have none of that shit. He arranged
a marriage for me…with his second in command. First off, an arranged marriage?
Who even does that anymore? Second, as if I’d ever marry that arrogant,
illiterate prick. He’s so hooked on steroids and himself I’m sure the honeymoon
would be gloriously underwhelming.



I said no.
My father said it was for the good of the family. I said no again. He said if I
didn’t marry the guy, I was not allowed to move out. At first I was like, “Oh
no, you didn’t!” But I realized very fast that, oh yes, he certainly did. A
woman had no place living by herself. It was dangerous out there in the big bad
world.



Dangerous.
Yeah, makes total sense. He sent me to kill people for him and he’s worried getting
my own place would attract the psychos? Fucksakes. I was the psycho.


So I ran
away, and my father was livid. He searched relentlessly. I swear I felt him
breathing down my neck at every shithole I stopped in during my first weeks on
the run. Oh, I could afford a nice place. Hell, I had a ton of cash on me—taken
from Dad’s safe an hour before I ran—but he’d expect his princess to go for the
luxury she was accustomed to. Instead I sucked up my horror and OCD, and I slept
with cockroaches, mystery stains and, in one lovely establishment, a rat I
named Giles.




Once the
heat was off, I snuck back to get my dog, and I’ve been on the run since. I was
doing pretty well at evading him too, until my asshole brother revealed to the
fucking world (okay, mostly just the crime world) just who was the “muscle”
behind the mighty Papadopoulos family. Then the attempts on my life started. True,
if I’d just went back to my dad, I’d have been safe and hidden until he could
throttle my brother and convince folks I was not an assassin, but that would be
quitting and admitting he was right about running away. I’m no quitter, and I
refuse to be wrong.



So I moved,
and moved again, and finally, I lost the amateur hit men, my besotted canceled fiancé,
and my father’s buffoons. Turns out the key to cutting the apron strings when
the wearer of said apron is a master at finding people who don’t want to be
found, is to hide in plain sight. It took me a while to figure that out, but
when I learn something, I become the master. I lived thirty minutes from my
father’s estate for six months, snuck in a few times to top up my cash and to
pick up clothes I decided I couldn’t live without, and he had no fucking clue.



So I was
doing okay. I don’t like people in general, so friends weren’t an issue. I’m a
lone wolf. Friends require too much energy, especially the women. Well, I
managed to avoid everyone except this fucknut Amy from my job, but we’re not
talking about her today. I wanted to just cut her throat at first, but Renee’s trying
to make me relatable and says she won’t
allow that, but I always get what I want in the end.



Anyway, I
came home from work one day, just wanting to sit and chill with Bubba Nugget,
my slobbery and loyal English mastiff, and Harvey, the stray ball of fluffy feline
fury that refused to leave my apartment once he’d snuck past my ankles and conquered
his tiny kingdom. I’d wanted to talk to Bubba about moving again, because that
fucknut from my job was really annoying and I’d almost run out of patience with
her bullshit, and instead I found a bigass man sitting on my couch. Not bigass
fat, but bigass tall and muscular and reeking of beefcake deliciousness. His
name? Turns out he’s also a bigass moron. He called himself the “Collector.” You
see, he collects people for other people. Why? Various reasons. Some of them
are political contracts, some are mob related, others are for reasons he wouldn’t
elaborate on. I called him a hit man, he laughed. You know, he never did say if
he’d killed anyone. I think he has. He’s got that “Don’t fuck with me or I’ll
kill you.” look about him.



Not that I’m
in any position to judge such things, but at least I took out lowlifes, he just
took out whoever had the biggest price on their head. He won’t tell me who sent
him. He says he doesn’t have a name, but swears it’s not my father. Apparently
whoever wants to collect me plans to dangle me in front of my dad for some kind
of trade off. I do know one thing though; the person or people behind my
collection have no fucking clue about my family. A trade? Pffft. They’d put a
bullet in my head before they’d deal with anyone.



The
Collector thinks I underestimate my value. I think I want to nail him every
which way but right, but I don’t say this out loud. He’s kind of serious and
professional, and I doubt that’s the way to charm such a fellow anyway. I think
a thorough fuck would really improve his temperament. I promised myself I’d get
him drunk  and take advantage of him, but
I’m not allowed to tell you about that either.



Where was I?
Oh yes, the deal and whatnot. So I’m a little pissed that my guard dog is like,
not guarding me in the least, and the cat is…well Harvey isn’t exactly loyal. I
didn’t expect him to be. He’s a cat after all. Little bastard pissed in my new Manolo’s
once because I forgot to feed him. He’s so fat, two days of fasting did him
good. I’m a softy for animals though. They’re so much better than humans.



Tangent
again. Sorry. I got over my anger with Bubba Nugget because the Collector
showed me the hole in his pants that proved my dog tried to be vicious. There
it was, right below his fine ass—the Collector’s not Bubba’s. Bubba’s ass is
all balls and fart. Not fine at all. The Collector had done his homework though
and brought the one thing that could win the slobbery fool’s undying devotion:
Golden Oreos. I’d been betrayed for subpar cookies.



After we
established that Bubba Nugget would have to travel with us until I could sneak
him back home or something (I was NOT putting him in a kennel), he realized
just how difficult an item I would be to keep. You see, we weren’t even 24
hours into the charade when he got this call from some government agency. They
wanted to hire him to collect me, and they definitely don’t want me to go back
to my family. They didn’t say why they wanted me. If they thought I’d turn on
my family to stay out of jail or something, they’re dumber than they look. If
they thought I’d work for them…now that proposal has its merits. Not that I
could consider such a thing anyway. I mean, now that the word was out that I’d…shit.
Look, you’ll have to wait until Renee writes the story to see what they wanted with
me. She’s got that marked as top secret.



Anyway the
government asshats had no idea about this other shithead—the first contract
given on my head—so they were all like “What’s the problem dude? Just bring her
to such and such a place at such and such a time on this date and you will be
compensated handsomely.” Okay, I don’t know what they said exactly, but I
imagined they’d say something like that. The feds have no idea that the world does not revolve around them and not everyone cares about helping them catch the bad guys. The Collector was like, “How did you
get this number?” He paused as I was sure they explained their cunning ways,
and he was all like, “I am not looking for work currently. I’m on another
assignment. I will contact you soon,” because this is a conflict for him, being
that the last people he wants contacting him are probably the feds. True, he’d
done government jobs before, but it’d been through someone else. No direct
link.



The
Collector thought that my brother was behind the whole shebang. I tried to tell
him that although Mickey was a class-A twat, he just was not that smart. Wait
till you see what happened to that fool. My brother, not the Collector.



Up to this
point, my abductor has no idea that I’m an assassin. I really want to tell him,
but then there’s the whole trust issue. If he knows I can kill him in his
sleep, he won’t let me snuggle up next to him under the pretence of not letting
me get away anymore. I really like snuggling with him. Plus, he’d probably
assume I meant I was a hit man…woman…person. Fucking PC bullshit. The point is
that a hit man is small time. I’m not small time. I take out major names, not
some anonymous dope who can’t pay for his shit or some five and dime boss who’s
trespassed on Papadopoulos territory. The Collector has no idea that I can
escape his “clutches” any time I want. He thinks I’m just a spoiled brat, and I’m
okay with that. Until I figure out what the fuck is going on, I need him to
believe I’m harmless and helpless. Also, he’s really good at hiding. The man
has remained anonymous since he left wherever it is he came from twenty years
before. I’d say that’s as expert as you get at hiding.



The point
of this ramble? Jesus, impatient much? I’m getting to it. I should have stood
up to my father, or at least just moved the hell out and cut my canceled fiancé’s
throat. End of story. But no, I ran away and what happened? My problems
multiplied. True, it brought the Collector to me, but what good is a hot piece
of man candy if I can’t stop running from my life long enough to taste it?
Exactly. Running away from your problems only creates more problems. Don’t worry
though. I’ll get out of this.



Or I’ll die
trying.