by Ginger Scott
“At noon, take more of the apple cider vinegar and garlic,” she says, shoving keys, tissues, her phone, and a few random papers from the coffee table into her purse. That’s how she cleans up—her equivalent to sweeping things under the rug. It’s so appropriate right now.
The door closes and I stare at it for a long while, watching the thin line of light that shines along the seam where the wall and door don’t touch. I should get up and lock it, but I can’t. I’m dizzy.
I hope Riley isn’t sick. I felt fine when I saw her last night…better than fine. I held her until we heard Lauren’s keys at the door around three in the morning. I sat with her tucked to my side and just stared at my fingers running up and down her arm. I did this for hours. We didn’t talk much, but when we did…it was so fucking free.
Nobody knows my entire story. Riley is now the closest. In ten days she has gone from interesting to necessary, and I don’t know what I’m going to do.
Nothing I said made her want to run, or at least if it did, she masked it well. I told her about being held down and gagged in the middle of the night while grown men tattooed my arm. I shared the time I hid in a ditch for six hours after burying myself with mud and sludge just to hide from cops who were chasing me after they raided Dub’s cousin’s house looking for drugs. I told her about the time Dub was so high he forced heroine up my noise so I could see why my mom had liked it so much. I was fourteen.
Not once did she ask to go home. She never baulked. She wouldn’t run. She sees something that isn’t there, but I don’t have the strength to tell her. I like this lie, and the strangest part is that all I’m doing now is telling the truth.
My phone buzzes above my head and I poke my hands around sheets and my pillow case, searching for it. I bring it into my hands and rub my fist in my eyes, trying to focus. It’s not a number I recognize, and that makes my heart race.
Joker.
“Yeah,” I say into the phone after answering.
There’s a second or two of silence and I start to hold my breath, ready to question the person on the other end.
“Tristan?”
Riley’s voice washes over me, my body growing warm again. She’s a danger to my fever.
“Hey,” I say, my voice soft. I close my eyes, roll to my back and smile. She broke me so quickly, but damn does she soothe me right now.
“I hope it’s okay that I called. I got your number from Lauren. You weren’t in class and I was worried.”
Her words tumble out quiet but fast. She was worried about me, the second time in forty-eight hours.
“I’m sorry, yeah. I got home from Lauren’s and woke up an hour later so sick. How are you feeling?” I ask.
I think about how I feel—mentally and physically. I feel like garbage on both accounts. My best friend is still missing, our “boss” is charged with all kinds of motives, and I am weak for a girl who has no idea how dangerous I am. Add in my growling, yet nauseated, stomach—and I’m pretty much a ten.
“I feel fine,” she says, unable to hide the heavy exhale that comes with her words.
“I’m sorry I worried you. I didn’t even think, but with Joker gone and everything I get it…I should have called Lauren and had her tell you,” I say.
“It’s fine, it’s…fine.” She’s coming down from the height of anxiety and it’s zapping her energy.
“I’m sure updating me on your attendance was not high on your mind,” she says, a nervous laugh following.
“You were high on my mind,” I say, scrunching one eye and bracing myself for her to laugh at my cheese. That was cheese, and I have no idea why I said it, but it’s also true. All I’ve done is think about her—even at my lowest, my cheek resting on the tile floor and a wet wash cloth on my neck.
“I can come see you at lunch. Maybe bring you something?” I can hear the blush in her voice.
I’ve never had a girl want to take care of me that wasn’t obligated by blood. I’ve had girls that were both friends and…more. Sometimes we had sex. Sometimes I took them out to parties, to Dub’s house or out to the river for drinking. Mostly they just wanted to use me to get to our dealers, or to get to Dub. I was a stepping stone on the boyfriend climb.
“I like soup,” I say, wincing even though she can’t see me.
She giggles and the sound somehow makes me feel just a little better.
“I can bring you soup,” she says.
We’re both quiet and it’s nice. I can hear people in the background and I wonder if she’s hiding somewhere in a corner to call or if anyone notices at all. I feel like she should hide that she’s talking to me…maybe for her own safety or her reputation. But then, who really cares?
“I’ve gotta go. We’re making rockets today,” she says.
“Seriously? The one thing I can probably do and get a decent grade on and I’m home sick?”
She laughs, and I bite at my lower lip at the sound. I’d probably fail this project too, because I’m sure there’s more to it than just lighting up some MDF tubes and shooting them in the air, but I know that whatever Ms. Forte hands me for makeup work isn’t going to get done, so at least the other way I’d be ahead a little.
“I guess I’ll see you around noon,” I say, resting the phone on my bed and laying my head on it, my body starting to feel the heavy waves of sleep. I didn’t get much, if any at all, and my body craves that almost more than it growls for soup.
“I’ll stop at home first to heat it up, so expect me a few minutes later,” she says, her voice gravelly and tired, too. She was up late with me, just not quite as late as I was.
She says something more, and I can tell by the sound that it’s kind, but I don’t know what it is. I don’t say goodbye because my body doesn’t give me a choice. It takes me under and rocks me until I’m numb, and for the next two hours, I dream I run an ice cream truck and Joker has to pedal to make it run.
I’m smiling when I wake up. My friend was alive and fine and funny as hell in my dream. My mental movie was spot on in all things Joker, even though what we were doing was ridiculous. For some reason, in my sleep, the faster Joker pedaled our ice cream truck, the less likely our chocolate-covered bananas were to melt. We didn’t sell anything someone could find on a normal ice cream truck, but everything was frozen. Flautas and tamales. Posole! I remember the posole, and in my dream, I liked it—even frozen.
My hands move to my lips to feel for remnants on my mouth, half expecting sticky. I smile under my fingertips when nothing is there. It was a seriously vivid dream.
The pounding comes again at my front door. It’s the reason I woke up in the first place, I think. I roll to my side to look at the time on my phone, and it takes my mind a few extra seconds to catch up and do the math.
It’s not quite noon.
It’s early.
That’s not Riley.
I kick away my blanket and shove my feet in my shoes, thankful I fell asleep in shorts and a T-shirt. The beating in my chest is like a battle cry, and I’m having a hard time balancing on my weak legs. A night of losing every calorie taken in has sapped my muscles.
My heart knows it’s Joker. That’s what my dream was about. It was a premonition, like somehow, I knew he was coming. I drag my palm along the hallway wall to keep myself from falling into it and I nearly tumble my way to the front door, doing the one thing I never do. I open the door without checking.
I would have been prepared.
He wouldn’t have had the advantage.
This would have just been a conversation because he’d know that I was armed. He’d know because he always knows. Just like he knows when I’m not.
“Aww, look who’s taking a sick day.”
Dub’s words slur a little, and I can’t tell yet if it’s because he’s drunk or high. There’s a difference. When he’s drunk, he’s still kind. When he’s high, though—that’s where his evil lives.
He pushes through my doorway, feeling the resistance I put up as my hand still grips the knob. His eyes
go right to my hold. Again, I would have been prepared for this and been as emotionless as Dub is used to seeing me.
I cough, and it hurts my torn-up throat and sore belly. My head throbs because my mom uses witchcraft voodoo medicine instead of real decongestants and shit.
“I think it’s the flu,” I say, playing up my grip on the door, acting as if I need it to stand. Dub doesn’t even notice, though, so once he’s inside I let the door swing closed and I follow him into the kitchen.
“Car’s gone, so I figured Lani must be out,” he says, passing off his nickname for my mom. He’s called her that for short my entire life. She hates it, which is exactly why he does it.
“Remember when she got back from rehab that last time?” Dub circles my kitchen a few times, flipping through cabinets until he finds a mug. He fills it with water then sets it on the counter, pulling a small packet from his pocket and pouring the contents—a blueish powder—into the water. He stirs it with his finger then gulps the drink down. It’s for a hangover, which means he’s drunk. He could be high, too, though, so I keep my guard up. I wish I had my knife on me. It’s under my mattress, so if Dub tries to tuck me in, I’ll be set.
“She tried to talk you into an exorcism,” I say, my laugh faint but genuine. My mom was convinced Dub was possessed, so she hired a pastor and convinced him to come to our home. Dub laughed in both of their faces, and the pastor took off with about a grand of Mom’s money.
Voodoo. More like con games.
“Listen, Baby…” He says my name like that to disarm me. My brain automatically clicks over to use its subservient side. Even if he speaks the entire nickname—Cry Baby—I don’t react like I do now, when he says it just like that.
I nod. I hate myself. I wish I had my knife. My mind plays a mental reel of me cutting Dub open from navel to throat, stabbing him over and over again. He finishes the rest of his doctored water and sets the mug down unevenly so it rattles loudly against the counter.
“This Joker thing is a serious problem. I need to know where he is. If he’s being handled, then he isn’t safe. You know how they work in the FBI—informants never get what they’re promised. I’m worried about him. He’s being played.”
My face remains flat and emotionless, and even though I can feel my pulse in my throat, I remain calm at the surface. Dub is feeding me nothing but bullshit, and he knows I know. The trick is how do I respond to this without raising a flag, because I’m quickly getting the sense that he thinks I’m involved in this shit, too. I don’t know if he thinks I’m hiding my friend or that I’m informing, too. Whatever it is, though, my tattoo and years of history are no match for Dub Lewis’s paranoia.
“Cut the shit, Dub. You want me to kill him?”
My tongue burns as the words leave my lips, so I close my mouth and hold the fire inside. Dub turns his head slightly, looking at me sideways, an affectation he picked up from my dad. He used to exaggerate the act of studying someone. He said making a person think that they’re being tested is enough to get them to spill their guts. I saw it so much I know how to defeat it, though. I got beat enough for taking shit that wasn’t mine from the wrong person—from my dad—then I learned how to hide my tells.
I hide mine very, very well.
Dub finally scratches under his left eye then stands.
“You think you got that in you?”
I nod at him. Just like I always do. It’s complete shit, but that’s not what matters. All that matters is that he thinks I have the balls to go through with murder…of my best friend.
He chuckles, and the more he walks around my kitchen, the heavier the laughter becomes. I don’t laugh with him, but I never really do. Dub finds a lot of things entertaining that I just don’t get. That power he yielded when I was a kid wore off with puberty I guess. I see it for all it is now. He isn’t brave at all. Brave men could get their way without cutting into someone’s guts to make all others fall in line.
He picks up the mug again, and he’s staring into it as he gets closer to me. The outside reads with nursery rhymes and is colored with blue and yellow dots. It was a present someone got my mom when she was in rehab, as if some childish poetry and bright pastels and coffee swag would make it easier to stay clean.
People are fucking idiots.
Dub sets the mug down on the counter, but he keeps it in his hand as he slides it closer to me along the surface. It’s empty, so I’m not sure what point he’s trying to make until he picks it up about a foot off the counter and brings it down hard along the edge, shattering every bit but the handle. The sharp edge presses against the thinnest skin on my neck as the weight of his body holds me flat against the counter. I’ve seen this play out. This is usually when people shit themselves. Sometimes they cry. They always shake.
I do none of it. It’s how I’m built, this concrete being that doesn’t hear or feel. Dub presses harder, and I feel my skin tear. His mouth curls, the stench of pot and whiskey coming from behind his yellowed teeth.
The chuckle from before creeps in again, and after sliding the ceramic across my skin with enough force to leave a line, he lets up the pressure and tosses the handle into the sink, as if I’m going to wash it and save it for next time.
“You see Joker, you call me first.”
He doesn’t say another word, and he doesn’t stick around for my response. He saunters through my house back to the front door and leaves. I stare at the closed door for a few minutes, my ears sensitive to every sound until I hear the familiar one of his car’s rumble. I touch my neck and hold my palm in front of me when I’m sure he’s gone. The blood isn’t as bad as I thought it would be, but I think it will leave a scar. The cut stings when I touch it, and there’s a rift of skin—my body open.
I jump at the next knock. This one’s softer, and my heart sinks when I hear it for lots of reasons. I know it’s Riley. The time is right. I also know that she saw Dub out front. There’s no way she didn’t, and they likely talked because it took him a while to start his car to leave. Mostly my heart squeezes though, because I don’t have time to hide any of this from her. She’ll see my neck. She’ll read into things and be mostly right. I’ll have to lie to her.
Unless…unless I tell her the truth. The question is can she handle it all?
Her knock sounds a little heavier the second time, so I adjust my shirt and twist my sweatpants straight again after being assaulted by my surrogate dad. I open the door quickly and move right into life as normal. It lasts for a breath.
“I brought your soup, and I think I met your uncle outside…” She stops talking when her eyes settle on my neck. Dub and I have a few similarities, but standing next to one another, it’s easy to see we aren’t related. We went through a lot of trouble to cover up our differences when I was a kid and we’d meet up at the movies to sell to the rich guys.
“He hurt you.”
Riley sets my soup down on the same table my mom keeps her Bible on near the front door. She steps close to me and pushes up my chin.
“What did he say to you?” I ask, peering down at her the best I can as she tilts my head away. She tentatively touches the skin, testing to see how old the wound is. I cringe because it’s fresh.
“Sorry,” she says, dropping her hand and waiting for my gaze to become level with hers again. When it does, I spend nearly a minute just looking into the blue of her, wishing I could get lost there for good. As always, though, I’m just visiting.
“He asked who I was, then he told me you were home and I could go in if I wanted to,” she says, her face falling as the pieces come together.
I bring in my lips and replay what she heard him say over and over in my head. What matters is who he thinks she is to me—a classmate, a friend, or something more.
“What did you tell him? When he asked who you were, what did you say?” I try to keep my voice calm but I know I’m making her nervous with the urgency.
“I don’t know, I think I just said I’m a friend. Or maybe I didn’t.
I don’t remember, but it was fast…and…”
I force a smile and wave lightly.
“It’s fine,” I say, taking my soup and moving into the kitchen with it. I peel off the lid from the Tupperware and breathe in the steam. “I love the alphabet noodles, too. It’s a nice touch.”
She offers me a short laugh, and I know it isn’t genuine. I get a spoon from our drawer and move to the place I was just before Dub left, my eyes seeing the shattered pieces of the mug. I stare at it briefly then shift my gaze to Riley, who’s looking down at it too.
Truth is what matters here. I can feel it, even though I don’t want to dive into it. And I’ll only give what she can handle. No more—more would be a burden.
“That was Dub,” I say, the sound of my voice bringing her eyes back up to mine. I touch my neck then point to the ground before turning my arm over and showing her the X on my wrist. Her eyes fall, and I can read it in her expression; she sees this all as abuse. To me it’s always been hierarchy, but I see now that it’s not.
“It’s all right really,” I say, leaning over my soup and resting a hand on either side. My stomach rolls and I can’t tell if it’s because I’m hungry or because I’m sick.
“Why would he cut you?” she asks, her voice full of confidence. She isn’t afraid of this world and my place in it, and when she asks her questions so bluntly, it rattles me. I laugh a little, which makes me seem crazy. Maybe I’m that, too.
I blow on a spoonful of soup and glance up at her through the steam. Her eyebrow lifts in expectation.
“To keep me in line, just in case I’m thinking of stepping out of it,” I say, putting the spoon in my mouth and holding the warm broth in my mouth for a few seconds before letting the noodles slide down my throat.
The saltiness is delicious. I know it came from a can, but running on empty has made it gourmet.
“This is delicious. Thank you,” I say, holding the next spoonful up to her like a toast. She smirks, but it dims quickly. I eat my next bite and prepare myself for her next question.
“He threatened you.” She doesn’t ask, so I just nod to affirm. I eat a few more bites while she moves to the sink and wets a few paper towels before bringing them over to me.