Bewilderness

by Karen Tucker

  This is for those

  who are no longer with us

  Contents

  Part 1

  Part 2

  Acknowledgments

  Part 1

  AS SOON AS LUCE’S GOING-AWAY PARTY WOUND down enough for me to slip off unnoticed, I went outside and sat on the little wooden bench across from the restaurant. I guess I’d always known she was going to leave. Even before that first instant-release summer, when she was nothing more to me than a fellow cocktail server, alone and drifting, you could tell she was the kind of person who needed to scrape more out of life than most.

  But Luce was also someone who liked to drag stuff out as long as possible, so of course she wanted to give one final hug to every last co-worker, from the waiters who always skipped out on their closing duties to the hosts who made sure to give you all the worst customers until you snuck them a coffee mug of wine. I figured I had time for a cigarette before she came out and caught me. I hadn’t smoked in months but the past couple days had been more stressful than usual and in a moment of panic I’d bought a pack off one of the dishwashers. It wasn’t my brand, but that didn’t matter. Times like this were when all the old urges came swooping back in. I dug around in my bag for my lighter and though it took a few tries, I got the flame going. Once that first hit of nicotine roared into my bloodstream it felt like some broken-off part of me finally righted itself and slid into place.

  By the time Luce came outside, all bundled up in her giant green parka, I’d burned through three Marb Reds and part of a fourth and my head was swimming way up above me. She called to me from the door. “He’s still not answering. You didn’t hear from him, did you?”

  I dropped my cigarette in the snow before she could see it. “Wilky?”

  She ran her eyes over me. “Who else? Said he’d pick us up by eleven at the latest.”

  I hoisted my purse over my shoulder and trudged back toward her. “He’s just caught up in his own going-away deal. Bet he’s standing on a chair and making a big speech or something. You know how he is.”

  That earned me a faint smile, but you could tell by the stiffness in Luce’s jaw that she didn’t believe it. She got out her phone and called him again. When Wilky still didn’t answer, her cheeks went splotchy with anger. “Dude better have a good explanation.”

  “It’s okay. I don’t mind walking,” I said.

  Luce and I rented a tiny clapboard bungalow a little less than a mile from the restaurant. Neither of us had a car. Or actually Luce did: an old Chevy Impala that needed at least a thousand bucks in repairs before she could drive it and which was busy decomposing in the side lot, next to the skeletal remains of a tractor the previous tenants had wisely abandoned. When the weather was halfway decent we rode bikes to work. But it had been snowing on and off since morning, so even if we’d been able to make it uphill to Broad Street during daylight, biking back down on slick roads wasn’t our idea of a choice evening, not after the night last winter when Luce hit a patch of ice, tumbled over her handlebars, and fractured her elbow. She lost almost a month of shifts and even then she had to learn how to carry trays left-handed.

  At least she had Wilky. They’d been together over two years and lately he’d been working nights at a nearby bar, the kind with painted-over windows and the stink of urinal cakes wafting out of the bathroom. Although me and Luce always started our shifts a couple hours before him, if it was raining or snowing or we just didn’t feel like biking, all we had to do was shoot him a quick text and he’d come give us a lift. Wilky was a sweet, low-key guy who’d gotten himself bounced out of the army for an incident that wasn’t his fault, not really. Which is to say that in some ways he was also incredibly dumb. Don’t get me wrong, Wilky had a head packed full of brains and a college education to go along with it and that’s more than you can say for anyone else in our circle, myself included. But at the same time he was someone who always went around trusting everybody on the planet—no matter how little they might have deserved it.

  “Maybe we should check on him,” Luce said, looking over her shoulder. Wilky’s bar sat way down at the south end of Broad, past even the sketchy 24-hour laundromat and the motel that had been shut down after being declared a public nuisance. Even on the clearest of nights you could barely make out the neon sign in the distance.

  “Forget it. We’re not walking anywhere extra. Will you listen to yourself?” Already Luce’s breath was struggling out of her in soft little wheezes. Her asthma liked to flare up in cold weather.

  “Fine,” she said.

  We picked our way downhill. The sky had that weird purple color it sometimes took on right before midnight and every so often you could hear the territorial hiss of a barn owl or the cranky honk of a tree frog. On a nearby mountaintop, the abandoned Anklewood Mill rose out of the fog like some low-rent haunted castle that was more depressing than scary. As always, I tried not to look. It wasn’t until we rounded the bend that a pale blue moon appeared above us like a giant 30 just waiting for someone to reach up and snatch it. A bit freaky, yes, but not surprising. One of the biggest battles you face when you’re using is the constant shortage of goodies—and yet the moment you swear them off forever, pills start materializing all around you like some kind of sick joke.

  The exact same thing had happened a couple nights earlier. Luce and I were out by the woods that pressed against the rear of our house, shooting BBs at a row of empty Monster Energy cans I’d strung up with clothesline. It was a good way to relax after a rough shift of waiting tables, especially now that our old stress-relief method was no longer an option. When I pointed out the 30mg moon dangling above us, she gave me a sour laugh of recognition.

  “What’s so funny?” Wilky said. He’d stopped by after work like always.

  Luce lifted the air rifle and squeezed a shot off. “Just Irene being Irene.” She reached for the box of pellets, started reloading.

  “I’m serious,” I said. “You can even see the numbers. Nice and tight. Purdue quality.”

  “Sounds like somebody needs a meeting,” Luce said. She snapped the barrel back in position and passed the rifle to Wilky.

  “Having some bad thoughts?” Wilky said to me. “Maybe you should hit up Greenie. She won’t be mad you skipped her 1:30 and you’ll feel a lot better once you tell her what’s happening.”

  I told him I could miss our stupid home group every once in a while if I wanted and besides that, I felt amazing. To prove it, I took the rifle out of Wilky’s hands and nailed one two three cans in a row. I pushed the gun back toward him. “Your turn,” I said, smiling. Despite his time overseas, I’d always been a better shot than he was.

  Wilky looked from me to Luce and back again. “Actually I think I’m done for the night. I still have a lot of packing left. Probably should get to bed early.”

  “You’re kidding,” I said. “We’re just getting started.”

  “And anyway, I want to be up for the 8 a.m.” He swung around and headed back to the dumpy little house Luce and I rented. Secretly, I was glad. I was pretty tired of him and Luce going on and on about their big move to Florida. Now me and her could hang out a little. Just the two of us, like old times. I should have known she’d go hurrying after Wilky, leaving me alone in the dark with nothing but a plastic gun and a dollar-store flashlight.

  Wilky. He won that round.

  Which is why I decided not to revisit the whole pill-in-the-sky situation. I didn’t want Luce thinking about Wilky any more than she had to. Besides, the two of them had plans to load the truck first thing in the morning and hit the road right after, and his no-show had gotten her all worked up and jumpy. The added stress didn’t do her asthma any favors and even in the short time we’d been outside her breathing had turned harsh and ragg
ed. I wanted to tell her it would be okay, that everything would work itself out like always. No matter what happened we’d get through it, her and me. I pictured the two of us somewhere up ahead in our future, sitting at our kitchen table, maybe eating cake with our fingers and drinking huge mugs of hot sugary coffee and laughing about all the stuff we’d gone through since we first met each other. Not just the guys, but also the string of restaurant jobs, the side hustles, all the trouble we’d managed to kick up before we got clean.

  “Yo, check it.” Luce’s voice came out of nowhere. She was stopped in the middle of the road, squinting up into the dark. It wasn’t the moon that had caught her attention, but a bunch of bats zigzagging above us. They seemed confused, panicked even, as if their radar systems had gotten jammed and needed rebooting.

  I looked at her. “I thought they hibernated in winter.”

  “Exactly,” she said. “Remember all those dead ladybug husks we found? The box turtle? I’m telling you, Nature’s in serious trouble.” She hesitated. “You don’t think it’s a sign, do you? What if something happened to Wilky.”

  I told her he was just screwing around with his stupid work buddies. “I was you, I wouldn’t be worried, I’d be pissed. You have a lot to do tomorrow. Get the U-Haul, load the U-Haul, realize you can’t leave me stranded here all by my lonesome, unload the U-Haul.”

  “Haha,” Luce said. She snuck an embarrassed look in my direction. “What if he’s changed his mind about Florida and he’s too scared to tell me.”

  “You mean like runaway-briding you?”

  She nodded and let the air out of her lungs with a spooky rasp.

  “Yeah, no,” I said. “I mean he’s got his issues, but that’s not one of them. Now for real, where’s your medicine?”

  She stared at me as though she wasn’t sure what kind of medicine I meant exactly and then she lowered her head and began scrabbling through her purse. At last she found her inhaler, and she shook it up, put it in her mouth, sucked in chemicals. Like some kind of magic trick, her lungs opened and she gulped in air. I’d seen her do it hundreds of times, but it always made me nervous. What if one day the trick stopped working?

  “Much better,” she said with effort.

  We were pretty quiet the rest of the way home.

  Once we got ourselves tucked safe inside, things mostly went back to normal. I cranked up the thermostat the way Luce liked and the heat started roaring. We changed out of our uniforms and into T-shirts and sweatpants. While she microwaved a plate full of tater tots and shredded cheese and mixed up her special blend of ketchup and hot sauce, I turned on the TV, boosted the volume, and messed around with the rabbit ears. Living on the outskirts of civilization like we did—even in its heyday, Anklewood only had a few thousand residents—there weren’t but a couple channels that didn’t come in all blurred and distorted. Still we took what we could get and while a boozy late-night host sweated his way through an interview with some factory-issue blond we’d never heard of, we sat on our couch and tore through a mound of potatoes and melted cheddar. Our nightly routine. The one good thing about getting your driver’s license suspended and having to walk everywhere is you can eat whatever you want.

  All in all it wasn’t completely terrible, especially when you consider that Luce and Wilky were leaving the next morning. Only bad part was she kept checking her phone to see if she’d missed a call from him, a text, something. Made me edgy. Got on my nerves too, I have to admit. They were this close to moving away so they could spend their whole entire life together, so you’d think she could put him out of her mind for half a second and pay attention to the person sitting right there beside her. But you can’t ever say anything like that.

  After the tater tots came giant bowls of ice cream. Chocolate syrup, Cool Whip, rainbow sprinkles. The blond had been replaced with something billed as “The Lip Sync Battle for the Ages,” which featured a couple actors who kept smirking at the camera and the host who’d clearly been powdered down during the commercials. It didn’t look too promising but the music they chose was a lot of old-school stuff we used to listen to back when we were baby waitresses. Soon we were singing along despite ourselves. Of course as soon as the music ended, she just had to text Wilky. No answer.

  “Relax, will you?” I said. “He’ll get here when he gets here.”

  She went and retrieved the bottle of Hershey’s and wordlessly topped us off.

  It wasn’t until around one or so, maybe later, when headlights raked our front window. “Finally,” Luce said. She hurried to the door, looked through the peephole, swung back to face me. “It’s Nogales.”

  I stared at her in confusion. Nogales never stopped by, not since the two of us called it quits the year before. “Is he alone?”

  “Yeah, but he’s in uniform.”

  Out of habit I gave the room a quick once-over. “Probably heard you were leaving. Wants to say goodbye or something.”

  “It’s just an excuse so he can see you. Want me to give you some privacy?”

  “Very funny,” I said.

  She opened the door and invited him in, smiling in that Luce way of hers, all sweet and friendly as if she’d been hoping Nogales would decide to show up on our doorstep. Behind her, I gave him the finger.

  “Irene. Nice to see you too,” he said. His voice sounded odd, like he’d tried to swallow something and it had gotten stuck in his windpipe. He coughed a little. “Sorry, I think one of those moths that are always swirling around your porch lamp might have flown in my mouth. Mind if I have a glass of water?”

  I met his eyes. “You know where to find it.”

  “It’s okay, I got you,” Luce said.

  She headed into the kitchen and he moved toward the sofa. At least he didn’t try to sit down and instead he stood there, hands jammed in his pockets. Except for the cop outfit, he looked pretty much the same as the last time I’d seen him. Cropped black hair, clean-shaven, friendly paunch on his belly. The kind of guy you’re sure you can trust completely until it’s way too late. When Luce came back with his water, he drank it with a loud greedy gulping.

  “There something you want?” I said at last.

  “Actually.” He wiped his mouth. “You don’t have a cigarette, do you? I could use one.”

  “She quit ages ago,” Luce said. “You remember.”

  Nogales gave me one of his classic know-it-all looks, like he understood everything about me and then some. “Sure she did.”

  “All right,” I said. “You have a big farewell speech planned for Luce, go ahead and make it. Otherwise, why don’t you get back in your little cruiser and be on your way. It’s late, we’re tired, and no one’s in the mood for your special brand of horseshit.”

  A moment passed between me and Nogales and soon the smug little grin he liked to cart around with him fizzled out altogether. He looked flustered. Scared, even. As if he’d gone from knowing everything on the planet to knowing nothing at all. “Thing is, something happened.”

  “Okay,” Luce said. “What is it.”

  Nogales turned a funny greenish color.

  My stomach flopped over. “Where is he,” I said.

  In a strangled voice, Nogales managed to say that someone had found Wilky slumped over his steering wheel a little before midnight. He was in the rear lot of his bar, parked next to the dumpster. ODd.

  “Oh my god,” Luce said, all wheezy.

  “They called 911 right?” I said. “Where’d they take him? First Memorial?”

  “EMS got there in minutes,” said Nogales. “Hit him with Narcan a bunch of times, gave him oxygen.”

  “Long as they didn’t take him to the VA,” I said. “So where’s he now? Poor guy must be hurting.”

  Nogales hesitated. Carefully he rested his hand on his stomach. “You don’t understand. He didn’t make it.”

  “Oh my god,” Luce said again. Her jaw hung slack like it had broken off at the hinges.

  I didn’t know what to say.

&nbs
p; It wasn’t unheard of for someone in Anklewood to fall out on a fent press or a hidden hot spot. The way things had been going I’d figured it wouldn’t be long before someone we loved went down for the count and never got up. And yet now that it had actually happened, it felt like nothing I’d ever expected. A sucker punch out of nowhere.

  “Irene.” Nogales’s voice drifted over.

  “What is it.”

  He jerked his chin in Luce’s direction. “She okay?”

  While he got her onto the couch, I ransacked her purse for her inhaler. Her lips were a scary blue color and her gaze was fixed on a spot somewhere above her—but the worst part was her wheezing had stopped completely. Nothing going in or out. At last I found the thing zipped up in an inside pocket and I hurried over, got it into her mouth, pumped. Though she managed to inhale a tiny bit, no more than a shudder, she wasn’t getting anywhere near the air she needed. I’ve never been someone who buys into all the Higher Power junk they’re always pushing in meetings, but you better believe I was praying my face off.

  At least Nogales had the brains to radio for assistance and it wasn’t long before two paramedics had Luce laid out on a stretcher. While one of them fitted her with an oxygen mask, the other rigged up a spike and slid it into the back of her hand. Ketamine hydrochloride, he said when I asked him.

  “As in K?” I said. “She can’t. She’s sober.”

  “Reduces anxiety. Helps with bronchodilation.” He leveled an insinuating gaze at me. “It actually has a medical use.”

  It didn’t take long for them to get her stabilized, though she was pretty loopy afterward. “It feels like I’m floating,” she kept saying over and over. When they informed her she ought to go to the hospital and get checked out further, she nodded yes with a dreamy smile. “Tell Wilky where I am. I don’t want him to worry.”

  Nogales coughed into his fist. “Luce—”

  “Of course I will,” I said. “I’ll text him right this second.”