Bewilderness

by Karen Tucker

  We were out by the buffet table at this point, me walking backward, trying not to topple over in my stupid Payless wedges, Mrs. Rowland bearing down fast. “Just let me find Luce and we’ll leave right this second.”

  “You let him die alone in his car! What kind of monster does that?” Her voice spiraled into a frightening new register.

  “I’m so sorry.” I held up my hands. “I mean it.”

  “I’m calling the police,” she said.

  I spun around, tripping over a case of wine sitting next to the bar, and went down hard on my knee, twisting it in a complicated angle. Pain zinged from one end of my leg to the other. When I looked back, Mrs. Rowland was on her phone. With Luce and me being on probation, the last thing we needed was to get arrested. I pulled myself to my feet as best I could and scanned the room in a panic. Luce and Wilky Senior were still by the piano, flipping through what looked like a photo album. I hobbled over and told her in a low voice that there’d been a tiny incident and we should probably get going.

  “There you are,” Luce said. “You’re missing all the best stories. Oh my god, check out this picture of Wilky in a sailor suit. How old was he here, Mr. Rowland? Three? Four?”

  Wilky Senior leaned back from the album, squinting stiffly at the photo. You could tell when it came into focus because his face went loose with grief. “My sweet baby. My poor sweet baby.” He lowered his head, weeping.

  I took the album out of Luce’s hands and put it on top of the piano. “We need to go. Now.” I tried to steer her to the front door despite the grinding pain in my kneecap.

  “Hold on. I still haven’t met his mother.”

  “I’m right here,” Mrs. Rowland said, striding over. She planted herself in front of Luce. “You have a lot of nerve coming here today. You druggie garbage.”

  “Oh my god,” Luce said.

  I remember telling Luce the police were on their way and we needed to leave that instant. I remember Wilky Senior looking at us in teary confusion, clutching the photo album to his chest. Meanwhile Mrs. Rowland kept saying how Luce and I were nothing but a pair of lowlife sluts and junkies and she hoped the police would throw us in jail and flush the key down the toilet. It wasn’t long before a crowd gathered.

  “Sweetheart, I don’t understand,” Wilky Senior said to Mrs. Rowland.

  “Come on,” I said to Luce. “Before the cops get here.”

  “You worthless trash,” Mrs. Rowland said to me.

  I managed to pull Luce up the steps and to the front door and for a moment it looked like we were going to get away without any more trouble. Wilky Senior had his arm around his wife, who’d begun blubbering into his shoulder. Wilky’s sister, Kit, stood in the doorway of the kitchen, her face scooped out and empty, uncorking another bottle of wine. Then Aunt Nora, she of the fancy purses, took a step forward. “I hope you two are happy ruining my nephew’s memorial!”

  I reached for Luce’s arm, but it was pointless.

  “Yeah?” Luce said. “Where the shit were you when he got clean? He was the most amazing man ever and you cut him off when he needed you most. Fuck you and your fucking tough-love bullshit.” She pulled a fur-trimmed parka off the coatrack and strode out the door and down the path to the sidewalk. I helped myself to a black leather jacket and limped after her.

  We got in the car, headed back toward the mountains. Luce wasn’t doing so hot. If she’d been blowing through lights in a rage and zooming around corners I would have felt a lot better, despite the risk of us getting pulled over. Instead her face had a scary far-off expression and she was driving slow as a zombie. Worse, every few seconds she’d squeeze her right hand into a fist and then splay her fingers. Her old tell for wanting to use. As for me, my knee was throbbing so bad it felt like it had its own heartbeat. For the briefest of moments I saw myself eating a couple of 30s—just to knock the pain down a little—but that only made me more disgusted with myself than usual. I pushed the thought away and turned to Luce to see if she wanted me to put on some music. There went her hand again.

  We were maybe halfway to Anklewood when she asked me to keep my eyes out for a gas station. “Need to make a pit stop.”

  My insides rolled over. Back when we were using, gas stations had been prime real estate when it came to cold-copping. You’d be hard-pressed to find one anywhere nearby where we hadn’t scored at least a few blues from randos—and often a lot more than that. “You think you can hold it till the meeting? You know how Greenie gets when folks miss the announcements.”

  “I started my period this morning. Don’t want to bleed all over this shitty yellow upholstery.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Sure.”

  But by some stroke of luck, there wasn’t anything for three miles, five miles, eight, and counting. Luce squirmed around her seat. “I’m serious. Things are about to get ugly.”

  “Let me check the glove box,” I said. “Might be some fast food napkins you can stick in your undies.”

  When she perked up at my suggestion, I felt bad for thinking she was lying. I popped the latch but all I found was one of those stupid one-hitters meant to look like a cigarette and an unopened pack of condoms.

  “Once a tool, always a tool,” Luce said. She scooped them out of my hand, flung them out the window, and we both started laughing. I felt better after that.

  We were about fifteen minutes from Anklewood when we saw an Exxon sign ahead in the distance. Luce sped up so fast I whacked the back of my head on the headrest and soon we were pulling into the station. She put the car in park, threw the door open. “Want anything? A fruit pie maybe?” Again I felt bad for not believing her. I told her I was good and thanks for asking.

  “Back in a flash,” she said, taking her purse.

  I wanted to follow her in and keep an eye out, but I knew it would make her angry, so I told myself if she wasn’t back in two minutes I’d go in and pretend I needed to pee, buy some chips or candy. At least the parking lot didn’t look too bad. I had a hazy memory of copping at this particular Exxon on more than one occasion, but back then it had been littered with burnt squares of foil and spent lighters, with any number of sketchy characters lounging around in the shadows. Maybe the place had gotten new management.

  The only person in sight was a ponytailed blond pumping gas into a giant white Yukon, wearing nothing but yoga gear with a bunch of mesh cutouts. While she waited for her tank to fill, she launched into some stupid pose: one leg down, the other kicked out behind her, arms stretching forward like they were making a grab for something. Once she finished pumping, she made a big deal out of rubbing sanitizer into her hands as if she thought she was going to catch a disease from all the poors who also got gas there. At last she climbed back in her car and drove off, revealing a bumper sticker that read Namaste Y’all! in hot-pink letters. Good Lord.

  Luce still wasn’t out. How long had it been? The dumb yoga chick had gotten me pissed off and distracted. I grabbed my purse and hauled myself out of the car, which set off a whole new round of fireworks in my knee region. While I was hopping around in agony, it struck me I could tell Luce I came in to buy ibuprofen. She couldn’t argue with that. Inside she wasn’t anywhere, but I did see the restroom back by the coolers. No one else was in the store, which made me feel better, since there was no one she could have copped anything from. I found a travel-size pack of Excedrin in a rack by the energy drinks and brought it up to the clerk, a weathered old dude who looked to be somewhere in his fifties. He was watching a portable TV and eating pistachios. The shells were piled on the counter in a neat little mound. “Excuse me, sir? You see my friend come in here? Short blond hair, black dress?”

  He didn’t so much as glance over. “In the can.”

  A weight I hadn’t been aware of slid off my back and shoulders. I put the box of Excedrin on the counter and pushed it toward him.

  “Anything else?”

  “Two Scratch-offs. Triple Winning 7s.” I hardly ever bought lottery tickets, but all at once I
was feeling lucky. Almost as good as if I was scoring real painkillers. Maybe Luce and I would hit the jackpot and we could quit our jobs and fix her car and move out of our crappy rental and into our own house. Not in Anklewood either, but an actual city. We could even relocate to Florida if she wanted. Buy a sweet beachfront cottage where you could hear seagulls and smell the ocean. Open our own restaurant—a cozy breakfast spot with amazing coffee and homemade doughnuts, the kind of place that had a line of locals out the door every morning and closed at noon or one at the latest. After that, Luce and I would have the rest of the day to ourselves.

  The clerk took his sweet time tearing off the tickets. He rang me up, told me what I owed him. As I stuck my debit card in the reader, I felt his eyes crawling all over me like a couple of dung beetles. You can always sense when a guy is being a perv. I lifted my head and stared back, figuring he’d glance away in embarrassment. Instead he smiled like he knew something about me. Something personal.

  “You looking too?” he said.

  Next thing I knew I was pounding on the bathroom door, yelling for Luce to stop whatever she was doing. Pinpricks of light spun before my eyes and my ears were roaring. “I mean it, open up!” When she didn’t answer, I kicked the door with all the force I could summon. It was like Greenie had taken her famous tire iron to my knee. Pain screamed through me like nothing I’d ever experienced and for a moment I thought I was going to pass out right there by the coolers. Then Luce opened the door, smiling and holding a carton of tampons.

  “What’s up?” she said.

  Although I didn’t find out exactly what she’d done until later (bought a bun, sniffed a bag, stashed the rest), I had no doubt she’d used. I told her we were going straight to our meeting and I didn’t want any argument either. I tried to lead her outside but my knee hurt so bad I had to stop for a second.

  “Whoa there,” she said. “Put your arm around me. That’s it, I got you.”

  As she helped me out of the store, the clerk didn’t so much as lift his head. Instead he kept eating pistachios and watching his little TV program, as though he’d seen dramas like ours a hundred times over. If it hadn’t been for Luce I’d never have made it back to the car.

  She wanted to drive, but I convinced her to let me take the wheel, saying if she got pulled over the way she was, we’d be in real trouble.

  “Yeah but your knee,” she said. “You have anything in your purse? Some Advil maybe?”

  Only then did I realize I’d left the packet of Excedrin next to the register, along with our lucky Scratch-offs.

  My stick shift skills were even more herky-jerky than I remembered, but as long as I went slow and stayed in first, it wasn’t unbearable. We’d be a little late to the 1:30, but Greenie would understand, considering the situation. People showed up loaded at meetings on occasion and as long as they weren’t too disruptive, she never asked them to leave the circle. Slips happen. They’re part of recovery. It’s fine, it’s fine. I believed it too, until I saw flashing lights in the rearview. It didn’t help that Luce started laughing as if me getting popped was the funniest thing ever.

  “Joke’s on you,” she said.

  My hands shook so bad I had a hard time steering, but I managed to pull onto the shoulder. I cut the engine and asked Luce to please put on her seat belt and try and act normal. When a set of knuckles rapped on my window, I rolled it down, chest scudding with panic.

  “Hello ladies.”

  It was Nogales.

  Luce let out another delighted yelp of laughter. “Told you,” she said to me.

  He rested his hands on the door. “Last I heard you two weren’t getting your licenses back till March at the earliest. Mind telling me why you’re driving?”

  “Officer Manuel Nogales,” Luce said. “Will you please fuck off? We just came from Wilky’s memorial.”

  He gave her a startled look. “Right. That was today. You know I would have taken time off and driven you up there. I’ve got plenty of sick leave.”

  “Who you calling sick?” Luce said.

  Nogales could be a pain in the dick sometimes, but he wasn’t stupid. He saw in about two seconds that Luce was loaded. He turned to me, his face tight with worry. “You okay, Irene?”

  I told him we were fine and we were on our way to a meeting.

  “Yeah man,” Luce said. “Give us a break for once. Come on, you owe us.”

  I suggested to Luce that she might want to be quiet for the next few minutes.

  “Why? It’s not like we have anything. Not this time.” She opened the glove box and gestured inside like a game show hostess. “See? Just this lovely box of Playtex. Check it out if you want.” She pushed the carton at him. “Isn’t it gorgeous?”

  “Keep it,” he said, looking uncomfortable.

  “Happy to,” Luce said. She smiled down at the box, cradling it in her arms like a baby—and all at once I knew where she’d hidden her stash. I put my hands on the wheel to steady myself, but I felt shakier than ever.

  “Hey did you hear me?” said Nogales.

  I looked up at him.

  “I said I’ll let you two off. Even give you a police escort to your meeting.” He nodded at Luce. “Looks like she needs one.”

  “Ireeeeeene.” Already Luce was growing drowsy. “You heard him. Let’s get a move on.”

  “Thanks,” I said to Nogales. “I owe you.”

  He gave the top of the car two quick raps with his knuckles. “See you there.” He got in his cruiser, waited until we pulled out onto the road, started following.

  Seconds later, Luce’s head bobbed onto her chest.

  With one hand on the wheel and the other trying to shake Luce back into alertness, I drove to the church as fast as possible. Parked, waved goodbye to Nogales, and as soon as he left I pulled Luce out of the car. Slung her arm around my shoulder, which woke her up for the most part, and together we struggled toward the entrance. The basement stairs cleared her head even more and by the time I got her into the circle, she looked almost normal. She apologized to the group for being late, saying we’d just come from Wilky’s memorial. When Greenie asked how she was doing, Luce gave a funny little shrug. “You know. Progress, not perfection. Easy does it.”

  I don’t think even Greenie caught on.

  But in the middle of a newcomer’s share—he’d recently found Adderall XR in his daughter’s backpack and lost a hardwon month of clean time—Luce’s head started drooping. First a quick dip, and then a slow one, and then she tumbled sideways onto me. Although I got her upright in moments, it set off the newcomer in a way I hadn’t expected. He gazed around the circle, his face pale and quivering, and said he should have known these meetings were useless. The steps were a joke and our prayers were horseshit. “I never believed in a Higher Power anyway.” Soon everyone in the room was upset and angry and at last Greenie hauled herself up out of her yellow armchair, came striding over, and asked the two of us to leave.

  Later that night I made a big pot of soup and spooned it up to Luce’s mouth at our kitchen table. I sat beside her on our couch and listened to her say she had one tiny slip and I should try and relax a little. When I asked if I could hang on to her box of tampons for safekeeping, she got so mad she locked herself in her room and refused to come out no matter how hard I pleaded. Looking back, it was just another awful day in a string of awful days that not only stretched out behind us, but way out ahead of us too—so far ahead it was impossible to see where it ended.

  What I wouldn’t give to go back and live through every one of those days all over again.

  WILKY AND LUCE HAD BEEN TOGETHER A MONTH or so, maybe longer, and it was becoming clear that this wasn’t any basic hookup. Before, Luce’s relationships always started out with the guy spending every moment possible at our place, lounging around with his shirt off and eating up all our groceries while the salty funk of sex wafted out of her bedroom. Soon they’d have their first argument—usually over one of them dipping into the other’s stash
without permission—which would launch a series of fights and truces that swelled into a lung-splitting battle until at last Luce would break up with him once and for all and swear off guys forever and announce she’d be perfectly happy living with me for the rest of her life.

  With Wilky, it was different.

  For starters, she talked our manager into giving her weekends off, even though that was when the two of us made all our money, so she could spend them holed up at Wilky’s cushy off-post setup. Huge carpeted bedroom, TV with endless channels, an upstairs deck that looked out onto a lake. When she got hungry, all she had to do was nose around in his giant silver refrigerator where she’d find just about anything a person could wish for, and if she got tired of rolling around in bed all morning, she only had to smile up at Wilky and he’d take her wherever she wanted to go. It wasn’t long before she began dropping me off at our house on Fridays once our lunch shift ended and speeding out to his apartment so that she’d be there waiting when he got home from base. Anyone could see she wasn’t thinking straight and I finally told her she ought to take a time-out. Make him miss her a little. “No need to spend every second of your life over there, you know. Besides, you and me haven’t hung out in ages.”

  “Dude, I see you all day before work and all night at the restaurant. I see you more than anyone.” She put the car in reverse, started backing down the driveway.

  “Work doesn’t count,” I said, jogging after her. “Come on, wait a minute, will you?”

  It didn’t do any good.

  But the weirdest part was Luce started talking about quitting. Not the restaurant. The pills. I didn’t take her seriously at first since every user talks about getting clean someday—it’s part of the whole using ritual—but then she confided that Wilky had no idea about her habit. Not only was she sick of lying, she was scared if he ever found out, he’d break up with her no questions asked. Turned out he had his own unpleasant history with painkillers, thanks to an injury he’d gotten in Jump School, and it had taken him some serious effort to get free of its clutches. If Luce could quit before he caught her, he’d never have to know about it at all.