by Patti Abbott
"Let's not rush into anything. Don't want to seem too eager."
Joey's tone was notably less blasé than usual though. Perhaps she was imagining it, based on what she now knew.
Joey followed her through the place the next day, delight evident on his face. "This'd be a perfect spot," he said. He looked the place over with even greater care than usual.
"You bet."
"It might really work out." He was practically beside himself with glee.
"You deserve a nice old-fashioned place like this, Joey. It has your name all over it."
It was her colleague, Todd Rumsen, who found Joey. He was showing the property to a client three days later when they noticed a smell. At first they thought it was applicant used in the renovation going on across the hall. But it was Joey. He'd been skinny enough to slide into one side of the unusual 'V' that branches midway down the chimney but not skinny enough to slip all the way through. Either the fumes or the lack of air got him. An autopsy would decide.
"Hey, you must've been the one to show the guy the place," Todd said later. "Cop said your name was on his contact list and on his outgoing calls. He was probably calling you for help. Joseph Robbins sound familiar? They found his cell on the floor. He must have dropped it."
"We dated," she admitted, stunned. "I did show him that place—among others."
"He must've been looking for a means of entry at each property," a cop told her later. "Too bad he picked this place and this weekend. That refinishing stuff is toxic. When we went in you could still smell it."
There was a hint of suspicion in his manner, but when they matched Joey up with at least three other female realtors, their suspicions disappeared. Honey-hair passed her in the hallway at the police station, in fact. A man hung from her arm protectively. Close up, the necklace, which she was wearing again, was not much like Cara's at all. Cara tried not to think about that. She tried not to think about any of it.
It wasn't what she'd intended, she told herself. She figured he'd be able to escape. The chimney had looked very large from the roof—he'd insisted on climbing up to look at it—but narrowed into that upside-down 'V' as it approached the first floor, each side servicing a different fireplace in the two separate premises. Cara never told him about the 'V', of course. She wouldn't have known about it either, but the inspector showed it to her in detail when he insisted the soot inside it must be removed to avoid fires.
She figured the longest he'd be stuck would be a few hours, and he could use his cell phone to call for help. Leave it to Joey to drop it. Or she'd imagined the people in the law office coming in and hearing his cries for help. Who knew they'd clear out for their renovation project? He'd called her, of course, several times in the period when he'd been stuck up there. She had her phone turned off, not wanting to be the one to rescue him. She erased all trace of him now. Everything except the necklace.
"You must feel kind of shitty about what happened," Todd said a few days later. "Burglar or not, he didn't deserve that."
"No, he didn't," Cara said, fingering the acorn.
"If the flue had been close, no one might ever have found him."
"Wouldn't that have been something."
Cocaine Starlight
by Isaac Kirkman
I. THE GHOST OF NICK MANABAT
Summer 2012
North Charleston, South Carolina:
I was twelve when my brother was released from prison, our reunion brief. It was only a few weeks later they found Joseph washed up on the shore of Folly Beach, his body bloated, like a brush thick with ink but with no artist to guide it. His black hair lay in a sullen wreath over his face; a single gunshot wound to the back of his head. The froth of flotsam and crabs trembled up the beach, rolling over his lifeless body decorated with plastic soda rings and outlined with yellow water. His handsome face, his Filipino features were swollen and discolored into some unrecognizable mask, abstract like the bulul statues of the Ifugao people.
I didn't understand when I was young why Joseph didn't make it as an artist, why he ended up selling drugs and going to prison. There was a part of him that seemed so alien to me at the time—how he could transform from a comic book artist into a dope boy who cooked and slung crack. And that the line between those worlds was as nebulous as falling asleep, where one moment you are awake and the next, you're dreaming and you have no memory of the transition. Where one moment you're holding a pen, the next a gun. I didn't understand who he had become or really who I was until my own back was against the wall, till I had no hope.
I did not know then, what I know now, standing here over the stove, as the cocaine evaporates, and the coke alchemizes with baking soda into crack: that I am my brother's sister.
With a fork I stir, and the cocaine simmers in the pan. My eyes trace over the sealed baggies filled with crack, each like breadcrumbs for the addicts who will flock like birds. I turn off the stove's flame, and set down the fork, the prongs enameled with cocaine residue. My hands are numb. They are ghosts haunting an Artic landscape. The light of the rising sun spreads its solemn dust through the kitchen window. With the morning cooking done I make my way to the kitchen table with my 9mm. Carrying it with me has become a natural part of my rhythm, as natural as putting on suntan lotion when I'm at the beach or locking the door when I leave. The gun under my pillow is more effective than Ambien when I need to sleep.
As I sit down at the table, gun beside me, I twist the top off the drug jar with glaciered fingers. I slide a nug of weed out, break it up, separate the stems, and roll it up while a mix of The Weeknd, FlyLo, and Clams Casino vibrates softly though the speakers. I light the blunt, inhale, and pull the smoke into my lungs like water into soil, and blow out a flower of smoke. My head nods as Clams Casino's instrumental "I'm God" repeats in dreamy loops. I roll several more blunts and put them in the side pocket of my pants.
On the table is my Mom's mail. Since I share her name, Luna Castillo, the mail is often sent to me. Which is fine because I pay her bills anyway. It makes it easier than having to track her down or track the bills down. I go through the stack, flip through envelopes demanding rent, and payments for her rehab, and hospital bills; the medical world has been brutal without insurance. Mom has been on and off with her dialysis treatment from Lupus. Now, currently off. Mostly her own self-destructive tendencies make her abandon the treatment at each critical juncture. Sometimes she stays here, but most days she is drunk at one of her boyfriends'. Nothing was the same for her once my brother passed. It all fell apart after that. And when our father left I had no choice but to step up. I inhale, and the smoke encircles me. Now, it's all just raindrops on the rearview. A moment mourning is a moment not hustling.
I return to the kitchen and weigh each bag on the scales, put them each in a large ceramic teakettle, clean up, and check my texts. I don't fuck with Facebook. I see there's a pic of Hardees food from my homegirl Nicki, who we call Honey-Vivid, with the words:
on my way chica <3 <3 <3.
I go to my bedroom, damo smoke from the blunt trailing me, place the teakettle to the side, roll the Bakunawa dragon tapestry-styled rug back, and jostle the wood floorboards till they loosen up. I remove the boards, take the leftover cocaine and equipment, and put them down in the hole next to my fireproof safety boxes.
The first box contains my passport, and naturalization forms, baby photos, and photocopies of my brother's art. The other contains my money. I turn the combination, and open the box with my personal items. For a moment the blunt hangs from my mouth, smoke spinning upwards as I flip through the photos. Even when my brother was a dope boy, slinging on the corner, he remained an aspiring comic book artist. He wanted to be like the great Filipino comic-book legends—cats like Whilce Portacio, cats like Leinil Francis Yu, Gerry Alanguilan and his favorite, the late Nick Manabat. He loved Manabat's dark, brutal vision and his own life and art reflected it. My brother even went to The Savannah School of Art and Design for a semester.
My eyes t
race the photocopied images, pages of heroes battling villains across the cosmos. Cross-hatched bursts of anatomy, speed-lines coursing behind each figure. In another panel, constellations formed from flicking white paint with a toothbrush across the Windsor-Newton black cosmos.
Between prison letters and my brother's original art are studies of Nestor Redondo's supernatural comic-book pages. Joseph's lines replicating Redondo's lines, with a slight turbulence, as his own vision began to awaken. Brutal bursts, then silence.
In between the art is a baby photo of my niece Alizarin, Joseph's daughter. When Ali was born, Joseph left art school to go pro, and while he was waiting to hear back from Marvel and Image, he started selling dope to pay the bills. His girlfriend, Simone, Ali's mama, came from a really strict Catholic family, and when her mother found out Simone wasn't married (and Joseph went to prison), she flew to the US and took Simone and Ali back to the Philippines to live with her in Quezon City. I only know of this from going through Joseph's letters after he passed. None of us saw Ali again. Like my brother tracing Redondo's lines, I see my brother's features in Ali's face, and I wonder if her original lines are awakening or if she still traces Joseph.
As I fold the photocopies back up and close the box, I feel a warm, weight blossoming inside my chest. I miss my brother, I miss my Joseph. I rise up, return the wood planks, and roll the rug back down. I pick up the teakettle with the bags of crack, and walk across the dragon's stitched-smoke. I inhale deep from the blunt, the smoke from my mouth rising up in parallel to the dragon, Bakunawa's exhalation.
II. THE KALEIDOSCOPIC DESTRUCTION
I tap ash into the bowl by my bed, slide the 9mm into my pants, and make my way to the front door, teakettle of crack baggies in hand. I unlock the door, and step out into the morning light. The warmth of the sun feels good on my skin. Each cell opening like a morning flower. I yawn and stretch, and the smoke traces my hands and movement. I put the blunt to my lips and inhale the ghost of the plant. All down the block, palm trees lean with the wind and sunfire saddened yellowgrass reaches towards the sprinklers. The scent of the ocean is hallucinatory on the breeze. Old ladies take position on their porches for the day's narrative. Tired bodies sleepily get in cars, taking their kids to the YMCA while others collect at the corner bus-stop on their way to cash their unemployment checks. As I exhale smoke I see my home girl Honey-Vivid turn the corner on her bicycle. The morning light gives her an aura.
She rides up on the lawn, gets off the bike, and leans it against the brick wall. I hand her the blunt with my greeting. "Hey girl."
Honey-Vivid is all tits and tats, Mexican-Vietnamese with a Suicide Girl swagger. She inhales deep, and hands me a breakfast burrito. As she exhales, the sunlight reflects off of her gold-grill crowned teeth. The effect celestial, as each diamond ignites through the smoke like a star in the Milky Way. As I reach for my soda secured in her bike's front basket, she pantomimes for me to grab the other one. My hand feels sticky as I switch to the second cup. I take a sip, and smell the dissolved jolly ranchers on my fingers. I eye her cup suspiciously, but say nothing. I look up; her eyes are codeine-coated nebulas. She's fucking with the syrup again. Her eyes meet my eyes, and she smiles. I return the smile with sad softness. I don't know what I'd do without her. There are few humans with who I don't feel like an eel moving through Arctic-currents—she is one of the few.
When people meet us they think we are sisters. Close. We were both born April 19th, 1994, the same day Nas dropped Illmatic. And we have been friends since the first grade.
"So what's up home-girl?"
"Shit my sister be tripping…can I crash here for a few nights?" Honey-Vivid brushes her hair from her eyes, rolls the smoke with her tongue and blows out a ring. The smoke casts an ethereal haze over her owl throat tattoo.
"Couch is all yours."
She hands me back the blunt as her other hand reaches for her drink and backpack. The smoke spirals around the sugar skull tattooed on her hand, her fingers gilded with rings. She sits down on the chair beside me and sets her bag on the oval iron garden table by the thermometer. I take a hit and finish up my burrito. As my mind shifts to work, Honey-Vivid sips the promethazine and Sprite from her Styrofoam cup, backpack open beside her, her Glock partially concealed inside. Her eyes are fogged-out lasers. It worries me, but I say nothing. It's not the time. We shared birthdays together, grew up together, skipped school, and fell in love with boys together. We lost loved ones together—my brother, her mother and father. We've sold lemonade together, ran from the cops together. We survive together. And today, like every day, we sling crack together.
On the porch we set up perch as the addicts descend like crows. I inhale deep from the blunt then dash it out. Around the corner I hear my name called from a regular on a bicycle.
"Cocaine-Starlight! What's popping?!"
Pete pulls up with the tired joyful jitteriness of a crackhead who has the cash to score. He is one of the harmless ones. He is thin and has the scabbed look of a bird in mid-molt. His feathers traded for breadcrumbs; the ones in my palm.
Cocaine-Starlight is the name they gave me. I guess because I am the North Star and I sling the God product. Crackhead logic.
His hand slaps my hand. Cash slides into my palm, and a crack baggie slides into his. Honey-Vivid, eyes him like a tiger eyes a pigeon. She is the lookout, the cobra in the grass, the sniper in the blind. Her fingers always inches from her gun. As quickly as the transaction is complete the crackhead is gone, busying off on his bike, a honey-bee with his thimble of pollen. And all he left behind was a half-a-wing.
*****
Throughout the morning, the crackheads wind in and out; young and old, all races, and classes, all flowing around me and Honey-Vivid in this kaleidoscopic destruction. Flowing in tides as steady as the waves over my brother's body; their anatomy grows thinner, our money grows fatter, our bills get paid and our loved ones eat. It's all just Zebra bones and blood beneath the Lionesses teeth. Save, that is, for one curiosity.
All day there has been a particular group of crackheads—former neighborhood dealers turned addicts—that Honey-Vivid and I notice have been watching us from a distance, sizing us up. They sporadically pop up from around the corner, study us, and then disappear. Honey-Vivid's fingers stay near her gun. The wind rustles through the summer palms. Bass from candy-painted Cadillacs rattle the windows. Sweat forms between my palm and the plastic crack baggies. The cycle continues.
III. LIKE A RAINDROP IN THE CENTER
OF THE SUN
As the day slows and the crackheads fiend off to smoke, I drink water from the hose and think about calling it a day. Perhaps it's time to hit the studio; I've been slack on my dance routines, and got the Redbull breaking competition coming up. Maybe hit the mall first, cop some new kicks, then sharpen my footwork. But right now money comes first and break-dancing doesn't pay the bills.
Honey-Vivid's sister Angelina is always pestering me to come down to the strip-club she works at, The Mobius Strip, and try out. Fuck-to-the-no, dancing is a holy act for me, not dick aerobics for men. No matter how much money gets thrown at me, I'd rather die out here slinging—die having the world bow before me, than be naked on my knees before anyone. Pinoy power. Not pussy power.
I exhale and look over at Honey-Vivid. She's shaking her empty cup of lean, looking irritated. "How you doing chica?"
She raises her hand to block the sun from her eyes and smiles. "It's all good, just hot as fuck." Her fingers nervously pick at the Styrofoam. Her eyes flicker back and forth to her cellphone. She must be waiting for her promethazine hookup to text. Our attention shifts.
Down the street walks a disheveled gringo. Both Honey-Vivid and I turn our heads in synchronicity toward his direction. He shambles up, dirty shirt and unshaved. He pauses and turns around several times before sheepishly stepping onto our lawn. My eyes shift to Honey-Vivid; her Glock is out and clinched in her hand, out of his view. Sporadic actions are always a cause for concern. I see a
familiar face beneath his mask of stubble and dirt.
"Hey, Luna." He speaks with a quiver; his mouth blackened, his teeth resembling a pollution-eroded shore. It's a comically macabre sight. And he smells horrid, like adobo after the chicken goes bad.
Honey-Vivid's eyes ignite. She bolts up; her posture shifts from tense caution to ecstatic amusement. Her gold grill glitters bright in the sun, like a carnival game declaring a winner. "Is that Mr. Harrison? Mr. Harrison is a crackhead?" She falls over in tears, laughter bursting out of her. I remain stoic. It takes her a moment to compose herself. Mr. Harrison was our English teacher and my Drama teacher. I was one of his favorite students.
And Honey-Vivid? Well, he caught her smoking a joint one too many times and had her expelled.
"Hey, Mr. Harrison." As I speak, the words feel awkward. For a moment I am Luna Castillo speaking out of Cocaine-Starlight's lips.
Mr. Harrison stands there, his hands twitching, his head bowed down like a shame-ridden dog. He stutters out. "So how is your summer? How is the dancing going?" The words come out as if he is some abandoned factory, and by some haunted glitch, the conveyor begins churning out old conversations. His shame is palpable.
"The summer is good. The dancing is good." I turn my gaze from him to the streets. I see neighbors and old classmates pass by, laughing and pointing at the scene. At him. They know what I am; they know why he is here. This bright morning is crumbling into gray. Clouds move to obstruct the sun. The temperature on the brick-wall thermometer stretches upwards. The atmosphere is dense; the humidity makes glue of everything. My hand in my pocket feels the rocks sticking to the baggies. Mr. Harrison eyes are magnetized to the unseen bags. I feel sick.
I watch Mr. Harrison's expression sink as he turns towards the sound of his former students and parents of students laughing at him as they pass. He shuffles in place, barricaded between the passing neighbors watching him and me with the crack in my pocket.