El Uno.

I wake up and the world is swimming around me, dark spots buzzing around like annoying gnats you walk into without warning. I wait for the world to drift into focus, but it doesn’t. I realize – my glasses are missing. What the hell happened? My friends and I went on a road trip, there were drinks, and…

My thoughts are cut off when an intimidating man with an angry snarl walks towards me. I flinch instinctively, but I realize my arms do not move. I try jerking them up again, but they stay glued to my sides. I look down. I’m tied to my chair, hands bound behind me. I grow hot and begin to sweat, realizing things are much worse than they seem.

The man, now mere inches from my face, speaks. “You thought you could just waltz into this bar, of all places, and walk away scot free?” My brain is a fog of confusion. “Wh-what are you talking about?” I stammer. A hard slap, I lurch to the right. My new tormentor continues. “You enter rival gang territory, hit on the leader’s girl, and you expect to get away with it?”

“Rival…gang? I don’t belong to any gang,” I stutter, confusion and fear growing. The man smirks, unbelieving. “You said you were ‘El Uno” last night, right? The One – the leader of the largest cartel in Mexico.” At this point I can’t contain my laughter. Yeah, right – me, at 135 pounds soaking wet, pasty-faced, nerd glasses and all, head of a cartel? This guy can’t be serious. But the backhand to my other cheek shows he is dead serious. And that’s when it comes rushing back to me – the unending round of shots with my friends, the impossibly beautiful girl in the back corner, all of it. I vaguely remember counting out the shots in Spanish, “Uno…uno…” I couldn’t remember any more Spanish before I blacked out at my friends’ feet.

And that’s when it hits me. “Wait!” I yell, even though there is no other noise in the now-deserted building. “My friends! They’ll vouch for me! They know I’m no cartel leader. I’m just a tech support guy from Scranton. We’re on vacation, and –

My new nemesis cuts me off. “Your friends are dead.” A new wave of dizziness, accompanied by nausea, swell up in me. The man, either unaware or uncaring of my condition, rambles on. “They were resistant. They gave us no valuable information. We did what needed to be done.”

Tears brimmed my eyes as I thought of the only three friends I had in my life, now gone. Ronnie, who helped me cheat my way through sophomore chemistry. Todd, the fun-loving frat boy who I managed to prank by driving his motorcycle into his ex-girlfriend’s apartment, where she was living with her new beau. And Billy, my best friend since third grade. We played video games together, went camping…everything, now just a memory. Unashamed, I sob out loud now.

My captor feels no compassion. I am aware of his hot breath on my face as he speaks. “Now you join them. You will know what it means to disrespect us on our own turf. We will send a message to your people.” My eyes, swollen shut by tears and despair, fly open as I heard a click on my left side.

My own personal grim reaper stands there, pointing his gun at me, staring stoically. “Before you die, you need to know your friend’s last words to me.” I am wailing at this point, not sure I want to know the last utterances of my friends, who no doubt were bathed in fear and regret. This is it. I am about to die at the hands of a Scott Baio lookalike with anger issues.

The man bends down slowly, his face grazing my ear. “Gotcha.”

It takes me a minute to register what he’s said. “Huh?” Gotcha? What does he mean? I didn't realize my eyes were squeezed shut until I open them to see the man has backed off, gun pointed upward, face grinning. He waves in my direction. “My name is Jeff, and I’m a third-year theater major at the college nearby. Todd said to tell you ‘gotcha’ for that stunt you pulled with his motorcycle last year.”

Complete and utter confusion, mixed with relief, wash over me as my friends, one by one, emerge from the back kitchen, slapping me on the back and untying my hands. Jeff introduces Anita, the impossibly beautiful girl, who is an actress when she isn’t waiting tables at this same bar. After a round of expletives towards my friends, we dissolve into roaring laughter. This was all payback. Sweet, infuriating, clever-as-hell payback. As we climb into the Jeep to head back to the border, radio blaring, I think to myself, “Todd won this one. This time.”