by Shay Savage
*****
Work was good, despite my short time away. I was going to have some bruising on my side and around my ribs but nothing serious. I felt good on the way home even though I was tired, and it was late. I finished a cigarette and looked up to the fire escape to see Krazy Katie slumped against the wall of the building, puffing away. I headed up the stairs quickly as I fished in my pocket for the key.
When I opened the door, Tria was on the couch with a book propped up on her chest and her eyes closed. I quietly placed my gym bag on the floor next to the door and tiptoed past her to the shower. She was still asleep when I got back out, and I gently slipped the book from her fingers and placed it on the coffee table.
She rolled a little then and mumbled something, but I couldn’t understand what she was trying to say. I tucked my arms under her shoulders and legs and hauled her up. Her head dropped to my shoulder, and she mumbled again.
“Don’t want to stay with them…” she said quietly.
“You’re with me, babe,” I told her. I carried her into the bedroom and laid her down on the bed. She gripped my neck with her arms, and I had to untangle them before I could stand up.
“Don’t go,” she muttered as her eyes fluttered open.
“I was just going to grab something to eat,” I said quietly. “I’ll eat, smoke, and then be right back.”
“I made you dinner,” she said. “It’s in the fridge.”
Yolanda’s words echoed through my brain, and I reached down to tuck her hair behind her ear.
“You’re awesome,” I told her with a quick kiss on her temple.
“I know,” she said. She smiled and rolled over, grasping the edge of the blanket tightly in her fist as she fell back asleep.
In the refrigerator I found a bunch of stir-fried vegetables and rice in some tangy sauce of some sort. Even cold it was tasty. I finished off the meal with a big glass of ice water before heading back to the bedroom. Tria was out cold, so I climbed out the window for a smoke on the fire escape.
“What’s up, fruitcake?” I asked as Krazy Katie fumbled around in her bra for a lighter.
“Stings like a bitch,” she said.
“What does?” I said. She didn’t answer; she just poked her arm with the end of a jagged fingernail. The imagery made me uncomfortable, so I didn’t wait for an answer. “Did ya miss me?”
She didn’t say anything.
“We went to the place where Tria is from,” I told her. “There are people there who make you look fucking normal.”
Krazy Katie didn’t respond. She seemed fixated on something in her hand.
“What’s that?” I asked. I stuck my cigarette in my mouth and sat down beside her. When I looked over at her hands, there was a crumpled photograph clutched in her fingers. “Can I see it?”
She took her thumbs and smoothed it out a bit. It was a picture of a black haired girl with wide, dark eyes and a woman who was obviously her mother.
“Is that you?”
“They said she had to go away,” Krazy Katie whispered into the cold night air. “I knew she was dead though. They just didn’t want to tell me.”
A single tear fell from her eyelashes and rolled down her cheek.
“I’m sorry,” I told her. I wondered if it was her mom’s birthday or the anniversary of her death or something. “Were you just a kid then?”
She didn’t say anything else, and she didn’t shed any more tears. I sat with her for a while and smoked a couple more cigarettes while she looked at the picture.
“Maybe you should sleep inside tonight,” I suggested. “It’s cold out.”
Again, she didn’t say anything, but she did get up and crawl through her open window. I followed her inside the almost empty apartment with the bare twin mattress on the floor and went into her kitchen. There was exactly zero food in the refrigerator, so I grabbed a bowl from the cabinet, went back to my place, and filled it up with some of the rice and veggies.
“Eat,” I told her. I checked her garbage can and found a couple of those microwavable single servings of soup and macaroni and cheese, so she must have eaten something while we were gone.
“You don’t cook,” she said as she eyed the bowl.
“Tria made it,” I told her. “It’s good.”
She took a cautious bite and then quickly finished it all. I made a mental note to bring her some of Tria’s cooking more often. Maybe she’d stop looking like a poster child for anorexia.
While she finished up the food, I reached over and touched her greasy, stringy hair, which made her tense up. She was in serious need of some personal hygiene, but that was definitely not my department.
“Your worker come over this week?” I asked, but she wasn’t inclined to tell me. It was too late to call the office, so I’d have to remember to do it on Monday while Tria was in class. I went over to the little chart she had on the wall, which normally contained her list of doctors and medicines, but the pieces of paper that were usually hanging right above the phone were gone. I asked her about it, but she was no longer in the talking mood. I thought I had the social worker’s number at my place somewhere, but it was weird for the whole chart to be blank.
“I’m gonna call them,” I told her. “Sleep inside tonight, okay?”
She didn’t answer, but she didn’t head right back to the window either, so I thought she’d be okay. I went back to my own apartment and crawled into bed with Tria. I wrestled with the blanket a little, gave up, and then pulled her up against my chest for warmth instead.
*****
I hear the chiming of the seashells hanging from ribbons in the trees as Tria walks around the large circle. Nikki lies on a medical exam table with her feet up in stirrups in the center of the circle, and Brandon stands between her legs, fucking her with quick, rough strokes.
He grunts and withdraws as another man comes up and takes his place. Brandon comes to stand by me and smoke a cigarette.
“There she is,” he says as Tria walks up to me and smiles.
When I glance back to the center of the circle, I see Keith moving up to take his position to fuck Nikki.
“What the hell?” I ask.
“It’s tradition,” Brandon says with a shrug.
Keith’s hands move up the insides of Nikki’s legs, pushing them farther apart before he reaches down to release his dick from his pants. He steps up closer to position himself, and his head turns to look at me. As his eyes lock with mine, a cruel smile crosses his face. His hips shove forward, and I hear Tria cry out.
When I look to my left, she’s no longer standing beside me.
“You wouldn’t give her one,” Brandon says as he lights another cigarette and hands it to Nikki. “Always know what’s best for her, don’t you?”
“I didn’t…I don’t want…” I look over to the circle again and see Tria on her back with her feet in the air. Keith’s eyes are still on mine as he thrusts into her repeatedly. He wiggles his eyebrows and laughs, but I can’t move. I can’t even speak up.
“Try this. It will make it stop hurting,” an old woman says as she holds a cup up to my lips.
I reach out to take the cup and drink the liquid, but it is gone. Instead, my outstretched arm is wrapped with a piece of tubing at the crook of my arm. I watch the old woman slap at the inside of my elbow to bring the vein into view.
The sting of the needle is familiar, welcome, and comforting. I look up from the dusty floor where I’m sitting in the middle of an abandoned apartment building, the walls of which are half burned up. The girl off to my right is banging for the third time in an hour. It seems like too much, but she’s been doing it a lot longer than me. She’s gotta get some just to stay straight.
My head swims, and the pain is gone. My mind spins and swirls in majestic arcs, and for the first time in as long as I can remember, the past has just disappeared. It’s gone, and it doesn’t hurt. The images leave me as I float and swim inside of myself.
As soon as I start to fall,
there is another needle. Another prick. Another high.
The girl to my right lies down on her side. Her face is a strange, unnatural color, but she’s still beautiful. I move over her, push up her skirt, and bury myself inside of her. The feeling is overwhelming and nearly spiritual, but I can’t come in her. I just keep fucking her until I’m too tired to move anymore, and I have to roll over on my side…
I knew the entire time that I had been dreaming, but I still felt sick to my stomach when I woke up. I swallowed back bile and tightened the hold I had on Tria. I was glad to be back in our bed again; no uncomfortable couches or outlandish hotel rooms. Just our place and just us. Tomorrow was Saturday, and I would be able to get in a quick workout, and then spend the rest of the day just hanging out and watching her study.
Wait, no. I needed to take her out on a date.
I extracted myself from her arms and the bed as my mind started racing, trying to figure out what I could do for an actual date with Tria. Feet First was totally out of the question, and so was Fin’s. There were a few other substandard eateries and a waffle place down the main drag, but none of those were a good place for a date.
Of course, the bigger issue was that I couldn’t afford to take her anywhere else. Even if I did take her out, it wasn’t like I was going to get any when we got back home. Damn! I had to stop thinking like that. Tria deserves better.
Inside the bathroom, I took a piss and then looked in the mirror. I looked a little rough, no doubt. There was a decent black and blue mark over my left cheek, which I didn’t even realize I had. I rubbed at it for a minute before splashing my face with cold water.
I shook my head. It wasn’t about getting into her pants—it really wasn’t. I still wanted it though. I had meant what I said when I told her I would wait as long as she wanted, and I would. I just hoped it didn’t take too long. Like, more than an hour.
Fuck.
I was being a total ass, and I couldn’t help it. At least it was all inside my head, where such things probably ought to stay since I hoped to introduce Tria to the moody little bastard between my legs. And by introduction, I meant getting inside her and spending the majority of the night poking around in there and listening to her moan my name a few hundred times.
The linoleum floor in the kitchen was cold on my feet, and I had to smile a bit at how there always seemed to be a clean cup in the cupboard whenever I looked for one now. I used to just rinse one out from the sink.
I heard a slight noise behind me, and I turned to see Tria shuffle out of the bedroom with her hair looking like it was straight out of a Billy Idol music video. She yawned and stumbled a bit in her early morning drowsiness, and whatever chill the cold floor had brought over my body vanished in a wave of warmth when I looked at her. She rubbed her eyes, and I felt the corners of my mouth turn up.
I was never one to exercise patience, but for her I would wait.
Chapter 5—Help the Neighbor
“Could you give me your name again, please?”
“Liam Teague,” I said for the tenth time. “I’m calling about Katie Took. Her worker’s supposed to be here every Tuesday or Wednesday or something, but she hasn’t been coming.”
“Your social security number?”
“Lady, this ain’t for me!” By now, I was practically growling into the phone. “She’s my neighbor. I just want to find out what’s up with her worker.”
“Is Miss Took a relative of yours?”
“No,” I said, seething, “like I already fucking told you, she’s my neighbor.”
“I’m sorry, sir,” the moronic bitch on the phone replied, “but I can’t discuss any client cases unless you are a member of the family.”
“I don’t want to discuss her case,” I said. “I just want to find out why her worker hasn’t been here.”
“The name of her case worker, please?”
Now she says please. I was about to march over to the Family Foundations building and please myself by tearing her tongue out of her mouth.
“Her name is Meredith.”
“Last name?”
“I have no fucking idea,” I snapped, “and as you might recall from twenty minutes ago, this is where this whole conversation started!”
“There’s no reason to yell at me!”
“Other than your incompetence?” I was way past civil, and I knew that wasn’t going to get me far. I took a deep breath and tried to calm myself down. Perhaps patronizing her would work better, so I started all over again from the beginning. “Her name is Meredith. She’s Katie Took’s social worker and has been for the last three years. She gave me her number in case Katie ever needed anything, and when I try to call it, the phone rings busy. I don’t think anyone’s been to see Katie in a couple of weeks at least. She’s not cashing her checks, and there’s no food in the apartment.”
“Oh, that’s just terrible!”
I rolled my eyes.
“So, if you could just tell me how I can get hold of Meredith, I’m sure she’d figure everything out.”
“Meredith is a client receiving services?”
“No, she works there.”
“And the client’s name?”
I sighed deeply, banged my head against the receiver end of the phone a couple of times, and then put it back to my ear.
“Katie Took.”
“I’m sorry, but we don’t have a Katie Took registered. Perhaps another agency?”
“You are the only agency in town!”
“We are?”
I slammed the phone down. Then I picked it back up and slammed it down a couple more times just for good measure. I stopped when I managed to catch my thumb in the middle.
“Shit!” I rubbed it a couple times before sticking it in my mouth. Why does biting down on something make it feel better?
“Has the phone done something terrible this morning?” Tria walked around the corner with her hair all wrapped up in a towel.
I wish it had been her body wrapped up in a towel, which I could accidently make fall to the floor.
“I can’t reach Krazy Katie’s worker.”
“Why do you want to?”
“Because,” I sighed. I ran my hands through my hair. “There are two disability checks in her apartment, which means she hasn’t had cash in six weeks or so, and she’s got no food in the house at all. Her worker usually talked her into going to the store every week.”
Tria’s eyes got big as she glanced toward the bedroom and presumably toward Krazy Katie’s usual camping spot.
“Is she okay?”
“Fuck if I know,” I said with a shrug.
“I mean…is she starving or something?”
“I took her some of the leftovers from the past couple of days,” I told her.
“That’s why you haven’t been eating more than one serving all weekend? I thought Yolanda had been harassing you.”
“Nah, just saving a bit for her.” I shrugged.
“Good,” Tria said with a nod. “I can make extra today.”
“And that’s sweet and wonderful,” I said, “but not exactly pragmatic.”
“What do you mean?”
“Shit, Tria—it’s not like we have a ton to spare here.”
Tria looked glum as she sat down at the kitchen table. I got up and poured her a glass of apple juice and refilled my own. With her chin in her hand, she drank and considered what I had told her.
“You said her checks are there?” Tria suddenly piped up.
“Yeah.”
“Well, couldn’t we get them cashed?”
“Not unless you have an ID that says you’re her.”
“That’s not what I mean.” Tria shook her head. “I mean take her to some place where she can cash her checks, and then take her to the grocery store for food.”
“You want to take Krazy Katie on an outing to the store?” I raised my eyebrows at her, wondering if she had the slightest idea what she was suggesting.
“Well, if the social w
orker doesn’t get here, what else can we do?”
Tria ended up making extra breakfast, which I then delivered to Krazy Katie on the fire escape along with a fresh pack of smokes. She was more interested in the nicotine than the biscuits, but at least she ate a little bit.
After about ten more calls, I finally found out that Meredith Jones, the social worker assigned to Krazy Katie’s case, had moved out of state two weeks ago to take care of an ailing parent. She wasn’t expected to return to the agency. I also found out that Krazy Katie’s first name was actually Katherine, which was at least partially to blame for the insane amount of phone calls it took to get any answers.
All the other workers had too many caseloads, so she was on a waiting list for the next available one. I heard excuses about government cutbacks or a grant that wasn’t renewed or something—I didn’t understand what the dude was going on about. All I knew was that Tria was now completely insistent on taking Krazy Katie to the bank and grocery store.
I wasn’t so sure we’d survive the endeavor.
“I’ll go through the window and let you in,” I told Tria.
She nodded and turned to walk out to the hallway while I crawled back out on the fire escape and coaxed Krazy Katie inside the building. With her deposited at the kitchen table, I opened the door for Tria.
Tria’s eyes got pretty big when she looked around Krazy Katie’s apartment. I remembered my reaction the first time I came in and figured my face had looked about the same as hers.
Her original fervor in wanting to help seemed to wane as she walked through the doorway and saw one living room wall entirely covered with empty cigarette packs. It was a giant mosaic paying homage to the gods of Marlboro, Camel, and various other Phillip Morris affiliates. There wasn’t any discernible design or anything, but it reminded me of one of those pictures you were supposed to look at while focusing somewhere else, and then you could see other images in it. Except with Krazy Katie’s masterpiece, there wasn’t anything else to see.
There was a couch and a chair much like all the furnished apartments had in the living room but no cushions on them. They were destroyed when Krazy Katie started throwing them out the window at passing cars and buses years ago. In the kitchen, the walls were covered with those free calendars banks give out around the holidays, dating back around fifteen years. There had to be about ten for each year, so you couldn’t see any of the actual walls. Some of the calendars even seemed to be overlapping the years behind them.