by Karen Tucker
He told her to go stand by his squad car and zip it.
“But officer—”
“You hear me?” Junior took a menacing step forward. “One more word and I’m shutting you in the back.” He had a blond buzz cut and the puffed-out physique of someone who spent all his free time pumping weights alone in his basement.
Luce, who knew that type a lot better than I did, gave him a look of pity. “Whatever, guy,” she said, backing away.
Still, you could tell by the way Luce kept watching Wilky that she was worried. When the sniffer hound showed up a few minutes later, she tried to get in the Subaru one more time, claiming she’d left her inhaler in the center console. Again she was warned to stay back or else. Soon the dog was alerting and the K-9 handler was holding up an envelope of pills in triumph. They handcuffed Wilky and folded him into the senior trooper’s car, while Luce shouted that the pills were hers and she was the one who should be arrested.
“You’d be willing to swear they’re yours?” said Junior.
I hurried over to Luce and told her to keep quiet. The sniffer dog turned to look at me, his head cocked in suspicion. He must have gotten a whiff of the presses I’d stuffed in my pants. “I mean it. They’ll twist whatever you say against you.”
Luce just put her wrists behind her back and demanded they cuff her. “Do it, motherfuckers. I’m serious.”
They were all too happy to oblige.
After they recited Luce’s rights to her, the senior trooper went on to say that even if the pills were hers, them being in Wilky’s car still counted for possession. “Class 1 felony,” Junior said. He took Luce by the arm and steered her into the back of his cruiser.
I tried to signal to Luce that I’d meet her at County, but either she couldn’t see me from inside the car or else she ignored me. I went up to Nogales and pleaded with him to stop what was happening, but he held his hands up and said there was nothing he could do. Soon both Wilky and Luce were taken away. I watched until their taillights vanished.
Nogales drove me home in silence.
It wasn’t until we were turning into the driveway that he finally glanced over. He said Natalia was from his meeting.
“What meeting.”
He pulled in behind Luce’s Impala, put his car in park. “I told you before, on the way to the party. I knew you weren’t listening.”
“You spent the whole time blabbing about music!”
“I also said I’ve been going to Al-Anon. That’s where I met Natalia. You know, the nurse? We’d never spoken until I saw her drinking ginger ale in the kitchen, but it turns out we have a lot in common. Her mom’s just as much of a mess as ours are.”
He kept talking but my head was roaring so loud I couldn’t understand what he was saying. When he tried to take my hand, I pulled it away and tucked it under my leg. I didn’t even try to hide how disgusted I was with him.
“Irene,” he said. “I didn’t have a choice back there. You know that.”
“Why the shit are you going to Al-Anon,” I said.
It took some time for him to explain, but I guess what it came down to is Nogales wanted me to quit using. Said it hadn’t been so bad at first, but lately it had been making him pretty unhappy. He’d been going to meetings to try and figure things out. When the state trooper asked him about the car accident and if there was a chance drugs were involved, Nogales insisted the word yes fell right out of his mouth before he could stop it.
“Or maybe not,” he said. “Maybe part of me thought if the cops scared you and Luce bad enough, things would change. Let’s be real, you’re never going to get clean as long as she’s using.”
“Yeah? Guess what.” I pulled out my pillbox and chewed up a Soma right in front of him. “You and your know-it-all bullshit only make me want to use even more.”
Nogales gave me a stricken look, like I’d stuck a knife into his chest and carved out something important. He lowered his eyes and gazed into his lap. It took a solid half minute or longer before he recovered enough to speak and even then his voice had a drained sort of quality. “All I want is for us to have a normal relationship.”
I gave him the sweetest, most tender smile I could summon. “Problem is, we don’t have any kind of relationship at all.”
I got out of his car, went inside, and listened at the door until I heard the crunch of tires pulling out of the driveway. I got the spare key for Luce’s Impala from the junk drawer in the kitchen. My body felt like a giant sandbag I was being forced to lug behind me, but I needed to go spring her and Wilky. I knew from the whole Mom-getting-arrested experience that bail bondspeople took Visa. If Wilky didn’t have enough savings, maybe he had room on one of his credit cards. I would have made it there too if the extra Soma I’d eaten during my fight with Nogales hadn’t decided to get all cozy with the extra Norco I’d chewed up at the party. Muscle relaxers and hydrocodone are amazing together right up until they turn into a complete horror show. I woke up in the hospital with a broken collarbone and my own possession charge after nodding off and steering the Impala headfirst into a drainage ditch a few blocks from the sheriff’s.
It took a few months for our court dates to arrive, thanks to a public defender shortage, but in the end Luce and I both got suspended licenses, thousand-dollar fines, and two hundred hours each of picking up trash on the highway. Even that last part wasn’t so bad, since she was right there beside me with her state-issued grabber, bagging up used condoms, used pads, used diapers, and other assorted grossness. If we hadn’t been a couple of white chicks, no doubt our punishment would have been way worse. I’ve heard it said the system is fucked, but the way I see it, it’s working the exact terrible way they planned all along.
Only Wilky took any real hit. Though he passed his BAC field test like a champ, the arrest was reported to the bigwigs at Bragg, triggering an investigation. Along with the sixty percs the army medical center signed off on every month, a little digging revealed that Wilky had gotten scripts from at least seven different pill-millers in the Fayetteville area at one time or another. Things escalated fast. He did all he could to fight it—self-reported to the army’s substance abuse program, hired a fancy lawyer to represent him at the hearing—but it didn’t matter. Wilky found himself chaptered out with a Big Chicken Dinner, a.k.a. Bad Conduct Discharge. The post-separation benefits he’d been counting on went up in smoke.
While this ended the whole Florida scheme, at least for the moment, it didn’t break him and Luce up the way it did me and Nogales. If anything, it brought them closer, and in more ways than one. Before long Wilky was moving to Anklewood and getting a job not far from where we waited tables. And though it took a few more months for them to make the commitment, at their next Valentine’s Day dinner they agreed it was time to get clean. Started going to meetings, working the steps, doing service. It wasn’t easy, but it wasn’t nearly as hard as the other—at least most days. As for me, I was right there beside them, racking up time and sharing stories and being the best little recoverer you could possibly imagine. I had to if I ever wanted to see Luce.
AND THEN JUST LIKE THAT IT’S THE FOLLOWING year, as if time has looped around and tied itself off all nice and efficient. Wilky is gone forever and Luce has run off in a filthy white coal-roller with a University of Margaritaville sticker on the rear panel. According to the clerk’s phone it’s already midmorning. Maybe Teena is awake.
Half an hour later she was driving me to the bank in her smoked-out Mercury Cougar so I could get a new debit card and some cash from my car fund. Once that was finished, I bought some supplies. It wasn’t like I was sick or even close to withdrawals, and thanks to my little two-bagger the night before, my knee felt almost normal. I just wanted to turn my brain down a couple of notches. After that, I’d go find Luce. Maybe some time apart had made her realize how lucky she was to have me.
So after I copped a bun from Teena and she fixed me up, we drove out to Wilky’s old bar at the far end of Broad Street. I felt alm
ost cheerful on the way over, but once we pulled into the parking lot the day took on a deflated quality I hadn’t expected. Even the air felt all sucked out and empty, like there wasn’t any air there. I guess I had it in my head we’d find Luce waiting for us on that saggy green sofa, like in the old days. No such luck. My chest got so tight it was painful and even after I undid my seat belt I had a hard time breathing. I looked over to find Teena watching me closely.
“You better not start punching my car again,” she said.
We went and sat on the couch and this time she fixed herself up. I paid attention to how she did it. “Number one thing to remember,” said Teena, laying her works on the cushion between us, “is take care of your needles. I’m not saying you can’t reuse them, but keep them clean as possible. Bottled water when you can, fresh cottons. And if it hurts going in, pull that puppy out. Means you hit a nerve or a muscle and not only will it waste your shot, it can mess you up something awful.”
She passed me her cooker—a bent spoon with a bunch of flowery swirls on the handle. “Hold this. My ex once got an abscess on her thigh the size of a Granny Smith apple. Thing stunk so bad I thought they were going to have to chop her leg off. Okay, steady now.” She tapped in powder, a dribble of water. “And no sharing your spike or you’re asking for trouble. That’s how my ex got hep C. Watch your fingers.” She held a lighter under the spoon. “I like 31 shorts with a 1cc syringe, but I’ll use one of those 23 harpoons if I have to.” When the stuff bubbled, she unwrapped a tampon, pinched off some cotton, added it to the mixture. “For filtering.”
After tying herself off with her phone charger, she got out her needle and held it up to the light to show me. “Easiest way to get your spikes is online, long as you don’t mind the government or whoever having your info. You want to buy them in person, avoid the mom-and-pop pharms cause they’ll give you a harder time than places like Walmart who could care less if you live or die. Or adopt yourself a diabetic cat so you can get a needle prescription. Maybe one of these days we’ll get an exchange around here but I doubt it. Now remember, eye down when you draw it up, eye up when it goes in. Like so. Oh and don’t forget to untie yourself first to help with the bruising.”
She pulled back on the plunger a little and red swirled in the barrel. “You don’t see any blood, it means you missed your shot and you need to redo it. Spurting blood means you hit an artery and you better stop fast or else. You with me?” She glanced over to make sure I was still watching and when I nodded yes, she pushed the plunger down. A moment passed and she withdrew the needle nice and steady. Held a finger to the crook of her arm. A few more seconds and she closed her eyes and leaned her head back. “There.”
And afterward, she wasn’t so chatty. We did talk a little, though. Music. Our favorite drug movies, crime dramas. She told me some stuff about prison, which would have been pretty depressing if I hadn’t been loaded. All the violence. The inside prices. Making rigs out of ballpoint pens, paper clips, those little eye-drop bottles. Being on lockdown for weeks on end. What it was like having a control freak for a parole officer back when she was still on paper. “Bitch had me doing UAs on the weekly.”
“You mean you had to stay clean after they let you out?”
Teena gave me a disappointed look. “You don’t know shit about shit, do you?”
That was when I learned about buying fake piss in head shops, buying clean piss from your friends’ kids, detoxifiers, dilution methods, and other urine-based hustles. When she brought up the Female Whizzinator, I laughed so hard I almost wet my pants. Turns out it’s this contraption that lets you hide synthetic pee in your undies and release it into the cup as needed. Even includes heating pads to make the temperature more authentic.
“Wow,” I said. “That’s one scam I bet even Luce hasn’t heard of.”
“Luce Luce Luce,” Teena said. “You sure you don’t got a thing for that girl? You only talk about her every other second.”
I informed Teena that Luce was my best friend and I’d do anything for her, but it must have come out a little hotter than I wanted.
“Chill, guy,” Teena said. “No need to get all up in anyone’s face.”
We didn’t say much after that, just enjoyed the warm cuddle of afghan brown flowing all through us. It lasted longer than I thought it would. The sun was practically resting on the ground when I asked Teena if she’d rig up another shot for me.
“You paid for it,” she said. “But try fixing yourself this time. Anything happens, I’ll be right beside you.”
The only thing she had to show me was how to tie a slipknot one-handed. Otherwise, I did it all on my own.
The smell of vinegar. The prick of the needle. I swear, you can feel the warmth travel from your arm on up to your chest. And then when it gets there, my god.
“Well?” said Teena.
“It’s beautiful,” I heard myself say.
By the time we were ready for round three, it was full-on dark out. The bar had opened and a few customers had come out for a smoke break, so Teena suggested we relocate, find a more private place to duck into. Out on Broad Street, folks were already nodding in doorways and on the sidewalk, though I knew from walking home after dinner shifts that it wouldn’t hit peak junky for a few more hours. Every once in a while you’d glimpse the flare of a lighter, the bright orange of a syringe cap. Up above, the sky was this deep velvet blue with just a few pricks in the fabric where the stars had once been.
Despite what our fellow users were up to, getting well out in the open isn’t the smartest move ever. After failing to get into the bathrooms at Burger Hut, Sub World, even Quik Chek (the idiot managers all refused to give us the key for some reason), I suggested we go hang at my house where we wouldn’t be messed with. Privately I was hoping Luce would be there, though I wasn’t about to admit that to Teena.
“I’m down,” she said. Her gaze shifted to the Quik Chek ATM in the corner. “You good for another dip?”
Unfortunately I could only get two hundred more dollars, but Teena assured me the daily limit would reset at midnight. My new balance wasn’t too cute. At least my knee hadn’t hurt all day, which meant I could probably get through a dinner shift with maybe a tiny bump or two for assistance. I made a mental note to call the restaurant first thing in the morning and ask Marshall if he could please forget the whole suspension business. Once I was back on the schedule, I’d be able to replace the money without too much trouble. Maybe Luce would be ready to go back to work too.
We got in Teena’s car, started driving. The idea of being home again, sitting with Luce on the couch, watching one of our shows and eating ice cream sundaes together made me feel better than anything I could have loaded into a needle. I lay back in my seat and turned my face to the window. Over and over trees rushed by. Even at night you could identify them by their silhouettes—and this too felt incredibly soothing. Oak, hickory, loblolly pine.
So when Teena zipped by the road that led to our place, I was so relaxed it took me a few seconds to understand what had happened. I struggled to sit up. “Wait, I think you passed it.”
“Yeah, I got to meet someone.” She kept her eyes on the road and her voice was hard and toneless.
How did I not see that coming. I sank back into my seat and tried to hide my disappointment. “Sounds great.”
We kept driving. Down the mountain and up over the next one. We swooped onto a ridge that looked almost pleasant—twinkling lights on porches, blooming camellias—but swooped right back out again. It wasn’t until it hit me that Teena was meeting her connect for more powder that I felt somewhat encouraged. I sat up again and tried to pay attention. If Luce and I could cut Teena out of the middle, we’d be able to get our dope for even cheaper. Then I felt the heat of Teena’s gaze on my cheek. I glanced over.
“Don’t even think about it,” she said.
We ended up in a sad dump of a town. No working streetlamps anywhere, no neon signs or lit-up billboards, just a TV flickering in
a window every so often. A flapping power line, countless potholes. The rotten-egg stink of a leaky septic tank. Teena rounded a corner and up ahead stood a woman clutching a trash bag to her chest as if it contained all her worldly possessions. As we got closer, she shifted the bag to one arm and stuck her thumb out, smiling broadly despite the painful-looking cuts on her cheek and forehead. When we sped by without stopping, she picked up a rock and hurled it at us. It hit the bumper with an angry thud.
At last we reached a small split-level cottage. The bars on the windows weren’t too comforting and neither was the handwritten Beware of Dog sign propped against the rain barrel. The kid’s tricycle parked by the front steps made me feel a little bit better, even though I knew dboys with families were often way worse than the single dudes. Teena knocked on the door and we waited. One of those baby monitor getups was mounted above our heads. It wasn’t long before a sullen-looking teenager, sixteen maybe, opened the door and stared out at us.
“Hey Brandon, how you doing?” said Teena. Suddenly she was nothing but a warm liquidy syrup.
Brandon clearly had experience with the Teenas of this world. Without bothering to acknowledge her or her question, he swung around and headed back inside, up the stairs, and soon we heard the classic start-up sound of a Sony PlayStation.
“Fucking brat,” Teena said.
We let ourselves into what turned out to be a cozy wood-paneled room with a nice blue couch and a matching armchair. Framed photos on the mantel. The distinct smell of stewed chicken hung all around us and before long a man in an apron that read Hot Stuff Coming Through walked out of the kitchen gripping a wooden spoon. After a quick glance at me, he turned to Teena. “You get my texts?”
“I told you,” she said. “It’s not happening.”
“Left you a couple voice mails too. There was some good stuff in there. Real good.”