Bewilderness

by Karen Tucker

  Luce folded her arms over her chest. She was sensitive about that particular topic. “Where’d you hear that bullshit?”

  “You shared about it, remember? The sheet of 10s, the water wings.”

  Luce gave her a grudging smile. “Right. I forgot I told that one.”

  “It’s a classic. One of the best war stories ever.” Carla squirted more toilet bowl cleaner onto the dick. “Listen, they been real strict here lately, but since it’s you, I don’t mind helping.” Moments later she was opening the gate to the pool with a swipe card and waving us in. “Just be careful. We don’t have a lifeguard on duty.”

  “Always,” said Luce.

  We strolled in giddy as schoolchildren. Kicked off our sandals, did a few stretches. Luce was going to dangle her feet in the shallow end, maybe work up to wading, and I was excited to practice my dives. Good thing I didn’t take a running leap into the water. The pool was empty. Drained for the winter.

  “Fucking cunt,” Luce said.

  If it had been just me, I would have slunk away in embarrassment, but one of the best things about Luce was she would never accept defeat, no matter how brutal. She dragged two deck chairs out of the nearby storage tent and set them up poolside like this was exactly what we wanted. No towels or anything close to lemon water, but at least the clerk had some decent music loaded onto his phone. For the next half hour we lay by that concrete abyss—Luce examining her waitress calluses, me messing around on Reddit—and listened to some of the doomiest doom metal you can possibly imagine. We’re talking stuff like Pallbearer, Coffinworm, Witch Mountain. I’m not sure why no one came to shoo us away, but my guess is management decided a couple wrung-out-looking chicks sitting by an empty pool in winter was a pretty good joke.

  We were between tracks on Electric Wizard’s latest when Luce let out a sigh and rested a hand on her belly. “You know I like being clean and all, but the one bad thing is the weight gain makes me look preggo.”

  “Shut up,” I said. “You’re hot and you know it.”

  “You would say that. You and Wilky. Sometimes he’d talk to my pooch like it was hiding a baby. Played it lullabies on his guitar, told it stories. Dude loved kids more than anyone.” She gave her belly a wistful pat. “We were even talking about trying for one, once we got to Florida.”

  “A kid.” I hit pause on the music. “You and Wilky?”

  “Well who else would I have a baby with?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, flustered. “I never thought about it.”

  “Nobody ever thinks anymore. And now look at me. Fucking roofie-victim needle-using can’t-even-swim junky-ass waitress. Closest I’ll ever come to having a kid is this pooched-out belly.” She picked up our remaining laundry money, gripping the sack of coins by its neck. “Guess I better go feed it. You want something? Vending machine’s around the corner.”

  “Don’t worry about the kid stuff,” I said. “I’m serious.”

  She slid her feet into her sandals. “We could split one of those honey buns. Twizzlers if they have them.”

  “Get both,” I said. “But just grab a couple bucks and leave the rest. For safekeeping.”

  She dug out a handful of quarters and dropped the bag onto my stomach. “Fine.”

  Once she was gone I restarted the music, lay back, and tried to picture Luce as a mother. I had to admit she’d be pretty amazing. She was smart, funny, and everyone loved her. Not to mention she had the kind of resourcefulness that could get you out of any situation, which was probably the number-one important quality for a parent. As long as Luce was around, you knew you’d be all right. Sure she had a couple of issues, but who didn’t? She was working on them and getting better on a daily basis. Everyone slips sometimes. And okay, yes, the day before we’d probably set some new records in the slippage department, but already things were edging back to normal: Luce was on the hunt for sugar, the sun was shining safely out of reach above us, and even our doom metal soundtrack had veered from its typical growls and high-decibel rantings into some seriously blackened sludge—as if someone, somewhere, knew the exact medicine I needed. It wasn’t long before I found myself growing drowsy.

  A goblin scream, courtesy of Electric Wizard’s lead vocalist, jerked me back from wherever I’d drifted. I looked around, blinking and groggy. Where was Luce? I couldn’t have been out for more than a few minutes. If she was off eating all our Twizzlers, I was going to be pissed. I struggled to my feet and hurried around the corner thinking I’d catch her red-handed. No Luce anywhere. There wasn’t even the vending machine she’d promised, just one of those industrial cigarette urns, its steel smoker pole watching me closely. Some days, the dicks won’t let you alone. Annoyed, I tried to think what a resourceful person like Luce might do in this situation. Moments later I was sprinting across the lobby, past the elevators, and into the women’s restroom. The only occupied stall had four legs in it.

  “Get out here,” I said. “Now.”

  Silence. The buzz of a zipper. The stall door whined open and a guy with a stringy half ponytail pushed past me and out into the lobby. Seconds later, Luce emerged. She went to the faucet, started rinsing her mouth out.

  “I don’t care what you did,” I said. “Just hand it over.”

  She spit in the sink. “Hand what over?”

  We watched each other in the mirror. With a wheezy insuck of breath, she reached into her shirt, pulled two bags out of her bra, and flung them in my direction. They bounced off me and landed next to the hand dryers.

  “You’re a cunt too,” she said on her way out the door.

  I scooped up the bags and hurried after her, but my body must have finally flushed out all the numbing poison seltzer because I hadn’t gone more than a few steps when a hatchet-like pain drove itself into my kneecap. My leg collapsed and I tumbled face-first onto the lobby carpet. By the time I managed to pull myself up and limp outside, Luce was already flagging down a dirty white pickup. One of those coal-roller types with jacked-up tires. The truck stopped, she climbed in front, and though I called out for her to wait and that I was sorry, the truck went roaring down Broad Street and vanished into the distance, leaving me in a mushroom cloud of exhaust.

  Biking back home with my knee was impossible. It was Carla, of all people, who agreed to help. Briskly she loaded me and Luce’s bikes into the rear of her Honda. Drove me home, got me up the porch steps, eased me onto the sofa. Fixed me up with a baggie of ice and some ibuprofen before heading back to scrub more peen off the pavement. All afternoon I waited for Luce. I still had the clerk’s phone, but with hers stolen, it wasn’t like I could call or text her. She wouldn’t have answered anyway.

  It was dark out by the time I decided to make a quick post on Reddit. I only wanted some advice, maybe a little support in the process, but the responses that came in got me even more freaked out and angry. I hobbled into the kitchen and ate Luce’s gummy vitamins by the handful. Chased them with another dose of ibuprofen, fought my way back into the main room, and got into it with a few more idiot Redditors until at last I gave up and turned on the TV. The only thing on was a bunch of game shows. The contestants looked queasy with panic, as if their big-money question had them thoroughly baffled, and the studio audiences kept yelling all the wrong answers—or was it all the wrong questions. I remember shouting, “Who is Pythagoras?” at the screen. It would have won me five thousand bucks if I’d been the one standing at the buzzer, enough to turn me and Luce’s lives around and get us started in a different direction. But we were about a zillion miles away from that.

  And even though my liver was soaked full of Advil, my knee wouldn’t stop screaming. The area between my legs felt shameful and raw. At last I got out one of Luce’s bags and tapped out a sloppy line of powder. It only took a couple sniffs before my mood lifted, but it still wasn’t anywhere as good as IV.

  Which is why I got into the second bag once the first one turned up empty. It’s not like this particular Day 1 was working out the way I want
ed. I’d start fresh the next morning. Soon a thick pudding-like warmth began oozing through my bloodstream and I gazed around the room with renewed pleasure. This was how life ought to be. One final sniff and my head got so heavy it toppled onto my shoulder. I tried to lift it but all the old opiate dreams were already loaded up and whirring. Super bright and saturated with pigment, sort of like those Technicolor movies Luce watched on weekends, except all the plotlines were completely mixed up.

  I woke to find Wilky sitting in the BarcaLounger. He had on head-to-toe camouflage, like the day Luce and I first met him at the county fairgrounds, and a few lingering streaks of the Halloween makeup he’d worn the night he got busted. His acoustic guitar was lying across his lap. It was just an old roadhouse beater—I think he got it on Craigslist for a hundred bucks maybe—but the thing was pure beauty. Solid spruce top with a dark glossy finish, rosewood fingerboard, back and sides made out of wild cherry, and a neck crafted from silver leaf maple. It’s amazing what you can build out of trees. Even someone like me, who had no musical skills whatsoever, could strum a chord and it would sound almost impressive. But Wilky, who had genuine talent, could pluck out the simplest of notes and have you all weepy before you knew what happened. If the stars had aligned for him a little bit differently, he might have had a whole other existence—one that took him far away from our unhappy mountain and all the bad luck that went along with it. Which is to say he might still be alive.

  He began to play. Softly at first, then building to one of the rich, earthy tunes that always made me think of childhood summers. Red dirt, grass stains. The husky cries of cicadas calling out to each other. I listened so close I was hardly breathing. Like I was trying to decipher some secret message meant just for me. And though I could have listened to this part on repeat forever, somewhere along the way the music shifted, moving into something far more sad and spooky. Minor chords. Slowed-down tempo. The time signature went from a cheerful four-four to a drowsy three-quarter, like a drunken waltz or maybe even a heartbeat—if the particular heart in question was on its way out.

  I wasn’t alarmed by what was happening. Or okay, maybe I was a little, but it was more like I’d always known this other world was out there, tucked deep in the woods that had us all surrounded. On and on the music came out of Wilky’s fingers and soon I got the uncanny sense that whatever existence he’d come from was the real one, while all the rest of us were blundering around this place like a bunch of dumb ghosts. When at last his song ended (not a cheesy fade but an actual ending), Wilky placed his guitar across his knees, his gaze tired but expectant. The time had come for me to hit the buzzer and answer his question. Only problem was I had no idea what he’d asked. It was then I noticed he had red mud all over his boots, as though he’d hiked a long way through the mountains to find me. Despite the warm fizz in my bloodstream this thought made me cry, and not a few childish sniffles either. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” I heard myself saying.

  “Me too,” he said at last.

  I didn’t wake up again until the next morning. Alone in the house, still on the sofa, Luce’s afghan tucked neatly around my shoulders. If this had been a scene from a movie, a muddy boot print would have remained by the BarcaLounger to make the audience think Wilky’s visit had really happened. If you were to ask the Reddit crowd about the experience, no doubt they’d chalk the whole thing up to an overdose, saying I got lucky and woke up before my system shut down completely. I agree this explanation makes the most sense. And yet I swear on everything I believe and know to be true that Wilky really did come to see me. Not a chemical hallucination, not some dreamed-up version. He was there. For all I know he’s still out in the woods, waiting, watching—along with all the others who are no longer with us. So I guess here’s my big money question: How do we bring them back?

  LUCE AND WILKY HAD BEEN DATING A LITTLE OVER a year and six months had passed since our Chicken Feathers encounter. Wilky was still at Fort Bragg but he’d gone back to using, which meant all three of us were in the game. We’d just hit the sweet spot too: perched at the top of the arc, between all the crap you go through as a rising amateur player and the inevitable plunge that follows once you hit pro levels. What I’m trying to say is, we were happy, happy! The evening in question was Halloween.

  And that night we had plans to drop by a house party in Ribbins, where Luce had grown up and still maintained some connections. Dusk had just settled in when Luce and I decided to kick things off with the classic combo of Norcos and Somas. Responsible users, we did a cold-water extraction first. (Crush the tabs, chill the powder in water, strain out the APAP, drink down the goo.) The Somas we scored from a line cook at work who’d messed up his back unloading a Sysco delivery. The Norcos we bought from our elderly neighbor who’d fallen while trying to knock down a wasp nest, breaking her wrist and whatever they call that bone in your forearm. As soon as we caught a glimpse of that bright orange cast they gave her, Luce and I baked up some banana muffins and paid her a visit. Turned out her doctor had prescribed a month’s worth of 10/325s. After Luce worked her sweet-talk magic, our girl agreed to keep a third for herself and sell us the rest. Her price wasn’t as cheap as we wanted, but we managed to swing it thanks to our latest server hustle. If a customer ordered an iced tea or coffee and paid in cash, you just transferred those drinks to a table whose beverages you hadn’t rung up yet, closed out the check, and kept the balance. It didn’t come out to more than a few dollars a ticket, but on good days we were each walking with an extra forty, fifty bucks.

  Anyway, we were in the bathroom doing our Halloween makeup when we heard Wilky’s car turn into our driveway. Luce put her sponge down and checked the time on her phone. “Dude is always late. I told him eight thirty. It’s ten after seven!”

  “Um.” I tilted my head. “I think that means he’s early?”

  “My point exactly. It’s fucking weird.” She went off to greet him, leaving me alone in our cruddy little bathroom surrounded by tubes of fake blood, scar wax, scab gel, and whatever else Luce had managed to cram in her pockets from the pop-up costume supply.

  I took her spot in front of the mirror and rubbed primer onto my face in brisk circles. No doubt Wilky had failed to score anything from his regular Fayettenam clinics so he’d sped over to our place to see what we had going. Lately the Feds had been cracking down on all the strip-mall pain management rackets, lowering the supply and driving prices up even further. What was once our breezy little hobby had become a full-time enterprise. Still fun, but also stressful and demanding. Wilky. Why did he have to show up early? It meant less time for me and Luce.

  He followed Luce back to the bathroom and stood in the doorway while we got ready. When I asked him how the pill mills were holding up, he claimed they were humming along like always. When I asked how he was feeling and if he needed anything extra, he said he was doing great. “Fact is, I haven’t had anything since lunchtime.”

  “Wait, what?” Luce turned to him in confusion. “As in nothing?”

  “You think you might get whiz-quizzed?” I said. As long as Wilky stuck to the meds his army docs prescribed and kept his numbers down, he could pop hot in all the random urine tests they gave him.

  “It’s not that.” He glanced at Luce. “Just taking a little time-out is all.”

  Thinking back, that was the night Wilky started edging toward the exit. The three of us had been hitting it hard since the previous summer and though Luce and I were busy setting all kinds of personal records, you could tell Wilky’s heart wasn’t in it. Jumping back into the game, once you’ve been free of its clutches, is never as great as you think it will be. There would be a few more months before Wilky was ready to stop altogether, but soon he would be running regular practice drills for his second try at quitting. He was probably also testing Luce for her reaction. I can tell you from experience that there’s plenty of shame when it comes to using—but there’s also a decent amount when it comes to getting clean.

  “Why tonight
though?” Luce said, her voice turning pouty. “You’re just going to get sick and we’ll have to leave early.”

  “We’ll stay as long as you want, I promise. I’ve got supplies in the car if things get uncomfortable.” Wilky picked up a tube of fake blood and squinted at the ingredients. “Besides, you know how Ribbins parties are. Probably a good idea for one of us to be clearheaded in case something happens.”

  Luce whisked the tube out of his hand and put it on the back of the toilet where he couldn’t reach it. “Things are most definitely happening,” she said.

  We finished getting into makeup. We were going as murdered death-metal rockers. It was all Luce’s genius idea. The black lipstick and corpse-white foundation were pretty standard, but the ghoulish scars and wounds she painted onto our faces raised things to a whole new level. She’d watched YouTube demos all week, practicing on herself in the bathroom for hours, and by the time Friday rolled around she could give you razor slashes on your neck or an oozing bullet hole in your temple so real-looking it was like she’d gone and done the actual deed. That was one thing about Luce. You never knew what was coming. Even if you didn’t like whatever surprise she flung in your direction, it was always invigorating. With Luce around, you couldn’t help but feel alive.

  Nogales, too, could fling a surprise when he wanted—but his rarely landed. Prime example: That night he showed up costumed in blue scrubs instead of the death-metal getup we’d all agreed on. This was back when the two of us were still seeing each other. I don’t think anyone would have said we were a great match. Nogales didn’t use, for starters, and while you could argue it made sense considering his place of employment, he also wouldn’t drink except maybe a beer on special occasions. Most of the time he stuck to embarrassing things like unsweet tea, ginger ale, or god forbid, cranberry and soda. About the only vice he had was the random cigarette.

  Partly this was because his mom, like mine, was a champion drinker. All his life she’d been in and out of twelve-step programs, bouncing from job to job, getting popped for shoplifting. Neither one of us had heard from our moms in over a year. In this way, me and Nogales made sense together. Sometimes we’d lie in bed, passing a smoke back and forth and comparing childhood stories, marveling at how lucky it was we’d found each other. Here’s the thing. If you grew up with an afflicted parent and the accompanying chaos, being with an actual stable person can feel almost euphoric. You can’t get enough of it. Other times though, it’s like someone snuck in and switched your zesty prescription goodies for over-the-counter duds. I don’t know. I guess the best way to describe Manny Nogales is he’s the kind of person you figure you’ll end up with eventually, but only after you’ve run through all the worst choices.