by Wendy Heard
“You know that, right? I’ll bulldoze a hole in this wall before I’ll let anything happen to you.”
He’s quiet, and then he whispers, “I don’t want the insulin, though.”
I sit up. “What?”
He sits up, too. “If I get sick, they’ll take me out of here. They’ll let me come live with you. You’re my only family.”
“Joaquin, no, they won’t. Believe me, they won’t.”
“A social worker came here,” he says, his voice rising a little.
“Shh.”
He drops his voice back down. “She said they don’t send you to a foster home if you have family who can take you.”
Fuck that social worker. “No, honey, they will. You have to trust me on this.”
“Why? Don’t you want me?”
My heart is going to break. “Of course I want you. I even have our bunk beds picked out.”
“Nerd.”
I consider my words carefully. “You know I have a record. I’m not the kind of person they give kids to.”
In the darkness, I can sense him lifting his chin stubbornly. “The social worker said. Why would she lie?”
“Because she wants you to talk to her!” I take a breath. “I’ll figure out a way to help with Carol. For now, I just need you to take care of yourself.”
“No. Let her get me sick. Then they’ll finally find out what she’s like.”
I’m frantic to make him understand. “No, dude. I know Carol’s awful, but you don’t understand what some foster homes are like. And you’re a teenage boy from East LA. They’re not sending you to the nice ones. They’ll send you to one of the homes you don’t want to go to, believe me. Please. You don’t know how bad it can be.”
“No.”
I’m stunned. “Joaquin. You could enter a diabetic coma. It’s not a gradual thing. Remember last time? You could die.”
“I don’t care.” His voice cracks. “I’m locked in this room like a prisoner. I have nothing to do. No books. No TV. No friends, no music, no—” He’s crying, I can hear it, and I reach out for him, but he pushes me away. “Don’t! You did this, too. You know she’s like this, and you left me here. How could you leave me here?”
I stare at his silhouette helplessly. My throat is tight with tears. “I’m sorry,” I whisper.
He takes a few breaths. “No. I’m sorry. That was messed up. How could I expect you to stay with the way she treated you? I’m such a dick.”
I grab his hand. “No. NO. I would have stayed, even with all that. I don’t care. I’m tough. I can take it. She wouldn’t let me stay. She kicked me out. She said she’d file a restraining order if I didn’t go, and then I’d never be able to see you.”
We’ve been through this, a hundred times. We’re making the best of a shitty situation. We always have.
“Take the insulin. Please,” I murmur.
“Not until I get out of here.”
A light flashes. The door swings open, crashes into the wall. Carol’s silhouette is black against the blinding hall light behind her.
“I knew it,” she shouts, and her voice is full crazy.
“Whoa,” I say. “Just be calm.”
She’s got her bat. I hop off the bed, draw her away from Joaquin.
“You come into my house,” she snarls. She runs at me, bat raised, swings it, connects with my legs. I go down hard onto the carpet.
Joaquin cries out.
“Stay there,” I yell. “Carol, stop.”
“You come into MY HOUSE.” She swings again. I roll. The bat hits the carpet with a thunk. I try to push myself up but she swings again and connects with my stomach. I fall back, the wind knocked out of me.
“Stop!” Joaquin screams.
I grip my stomach, try to separate myself from the pain. Pain is just a sensation. I can rise above it. “I’m sorry,” I manage to tell her. “I came to see Joaquin. I missed him.”
“You don’t get to miss him,” she screeches. Gone is the pale, dishwater-bland woman. In her place is a wild-eyed beast of rage, white nightgown fluffy around her. She swings again, catches me on the shoulder, knocking me forward. My temple hits the corner of the bed frame.
Blackness. Pain. Memories of the carpet—
—Crying into the carpet when she pulled Joaquin from my arms, my tears and drool wetting the dirty wool beneath me—Bleeding into the carpet, my busted nose on fire, pain pounding from my broken wrist—
I roll onto my back. I hear myself groaning. The bat thumps into the carpet next to my head.
Joaquin leaps out of bed and onto Carol, and he’s her same size now. “Stop it!” he shouts. He’s wrestling for the bat, and he’s almost winning.
I try to push myself to my feet. My head swims. My cheek is warm and wet.
“Joaquin, leave it,” I say. “Go into the living room.”
“NO!” He wrenches the bat from Carol in an impressive display of testosterone. He heaves it aside, knocks all the shit off his nightstand. “You’re a crazy fucking bitch!” he screams in her face. “I hope you die and go to hell!”
I stumble to my feet, almost passing out from the wave of pain from my forehead. I press my hand to my head and blood slides warm and wet across my palm. Carol turns to me, and we look at each other in the yellow hallway light.
“Get out of my house,” she commands.
Joaquin says, “Go ahead, Jazz. Go get your head looked at. I’m fine.”
I leave the backpack. I hope Joaquin will take the insulin. I’ll go to Carol’s church and pray to her twisted-ass God if that will get him to take it.
As I limp past Carol, I stop to look at her. She’s small, and old looking, and she’s taken everything from me.
If I could shoot her in the face right now and never get caught, I would. Without hesitation.
WEDNESDAY
10
GREG
I CAN DO THIS, Greg thinks, but he isn’t altogether sure he can. His whole body quakes, shivers racking his arms. The syringe clutched by his side trembles against his leg. He checks his watch. 7:12 a.m. Any minute now.
The underground 7th and Metro station downtown is hot with the scents of cologne, weed and body odor. Commuters push past Greg as they rush to the escalators, shoulders bumping as they push past each other to get their connections to the yellow line.
Greg’s heart pounds maniacally: thump-thump-thump-thump. He checks his watch. Seven fourteen.
He pulls the visor of his baseball cap down over his eyes. The brown spray they’d given him to conceal his shock of bright red hair rubs off on everything, and the inside of his cap is already sticky with it. It’s funny. Where he grew up, in Chicago, his red hair was unremarkable, but here in LA, red hair is so unusual and recognizable, they had him disguise it. They also gave him a temporary sleeve of tattoos, a hideous collection of brightly colored dragons. The idea is that, if people describe him, they’ll focus on the dragon tattoos and pay less attention to facial features.
A thought slides into his head, bringing with it a new wave of panic: when this is over, he will have become a whole different person. Never again will he be someone who hasn’t killed someone. From here on out, for the rest of his life, he’ll be a murderer.
Doesn’t matter. He’ll be free from Catelyn. No more plates thrown at his head. No more mocking, no more threats. No more waking up with her on top of him, eyes wild, hips thrusting. He’ll be a free man, and he’ll take the burden of conscience over the chortling of policemen any day as he files report after report that all go uninvestigated. After all these years of feeling like half a man, he’s going to take control.
A little voice tells him, “You can’t do it. You’re weak.”
He checks his watch. Seven eighteen.
Where is this guy? He should have been on that last train, the red
line from NoHo.
Greg searches the crowd for gray hair. Has anyone else had a hard time finding their quarry in these crowds? Of all the things he’s worried about, it never occurred to him that he wouldn’t be able to find the guy in the first place.
And there he is.
Relief washes through him. He’s in business.
The man walks by Greg, eyes on the escalator, forehead drawn into a frown. Gray hair, gray suit, briefcase clutched under his left arm. Greg has stared at the photo of this man so much over the last twenty-four hours, he would recognize him anywhere. It’s time. Now. Go.
He pushes himself off the wall, joining the flow of traffic just a few people behind the man. He bumps into a crowd of teenagers and mutters, “Sorry.” His heart knocks against his ribs.
He follows the gray-haired man through the crowd and gets on the escalator ten steps behind him. The man hurries off the escalator across the platform headed for the 7th Street station exit. Greg picks up his pace. He can’t let him get past the next escalator, where the crowds thin out and then it’s the open street.
The man’s legs are long, and he has a head start. Greg jogs after him. He gets on the escalator right behind the man. This is his chance.
He bends down like he’s tying his shoe, pulls the little plastic stopper off the syringe and stabs it into the man’s calf, depressing the plunger.
The man kicks, knocking the syringe out of Greg’s hand. It clatters into a crack in the escalator. The man spins, looking for the source of the pinch. Greg dives back down the way he’s come, pushing past people going the correct way up the escalator. Shouts ring out around him as he pushes a group of women out of his way. He’s in a blind panic, has no idea which way he’s going, slams into a Metro cop. “Sorry,” he gasps and dives into the open door of a gold line train just as it closes.
He presses his back to the door. His chest heaves. He’s sweating. His whole body shakes. The train lurches and picks up speed.
He locks eyes with an old lady in a handicapped seat. Her eyes widen and she drops her gaze. He must look crazed. Everyone conspicuously ignores him, studying their phones and the toes of their shoes. Only a young man with tattoos on his shaved head looks straight at him, one corner of his mouth pinched into a smirk.
Greg shoves his hands in his pockets, afraid someone will notice the latex gloves.
How much poison does it take to kill someone? He barely got any into the man, not even a fourth of the syringe.
“Oh my God,” he gasps as a horrible truth collapses down upon him. He forgot the playing card. It’s still in the Ziploc baggie in his back pocket.
With unsteady hands, he pulls out the flip phone and dials the 800 number. He keys in his six-digit code and snaps it shut.
The train shudders, slowing. “Chinatown station,” the speakers tell the passengers. The train jostles to a stop. When the doors whoosh open, Greg jumps out into a clean, clear morning. The San Bernardino fire has been put out, and the sun shines bright in a cloudless blue sky.
He hurries down the stairs of the two-story train station decorated like a pagoda. The phone buzzes. He flips it open. “Hello?”
“Hello, Greg?”
His voice trembles and cracks. “I fucked up. Okay? I’m sorry. I fucked up.”
A pregnant pause, and then the voice says, “Calm down and tell me what happened.”
He lowers his voice to a whisper. “I tried to inject him in the leg but he kicked it away. And I forgot the card. I’m not sure I got enough poison in him.”
“We told you very specifically to inject into the trunk of the body. Were you unable to do so?”
“I forgot!” Greg cries, only now remembering this part of their instructions. If Catelyn were here, she’d have so much fun mocking him about this. He can hear her laughter, feel it in his bones. “I don’t know if I can do this. Maybe I just don’t have it in me. Why do I fuck everything up?”
“You need to calm down, Greg.” The command comes through hard and dry.
Greg takes deep breaths. He feels like he’s hyperventilating.
The voice goes on. “You understand, this is a complex organizational system. If one single person fails to complete their assignment, the rest of the chain falls apart.”
“I’m so sorry,” Greg moans. “I don’t know if I can do this.”
A metallic sigh hisses through the voice disguiser. “Go ahead home. I need to regroup. Do you have any plans for the rest of the day? Tomorrow?”
“I told my neighbor I’d take her to Costco tomorrow so she could use my membership card. But I can cancel.”
“No. Go ahead. It’s important not to draw any attention to yourself by making changes to your schedule. We’ll check in with you tomorrow. And, Greg?”
“Yeah?”
“Keep the temporary tattoos for now.”
“Okay.” This is good. This means they’re going to give him another chance.
The voice says, “I want you to think about all the people who now have to wait for justice because of you. Because you didn’t follow through today, women and children will go to sleep tonight—and tomorrow night and the next night—separated from each other, victimized, tormented. This is what you’ve stolen from them, Greg—freedom.”
11
JAZZ
I WAKE TO a dull buzzing. Through the darkness, pain in my head flashes sharp and bright.
I pull my face up. It’s been squashed against the rough fabric of my couch. My body feels stiff and sore. I touch the bandage on my forehead, remember with a flash the clinic, the nurses, the stitches. Only four. Not bad.
The buzzing resumes. It registers that the sound is coming from my purse on the kitchen counter. The bright light shining through the curtains and bars on the windows tells me it’s late morning.
I drag myself off the couch. The room buckles around me and my head goes fuzzy. I grip the couch arm and wait for my vision to clear.
Panic flares—did I forget to call in to work? A blank space where memory should be. And then it comes back. Right. Yes. I texted Carlos from the waiting room last night. Relief.
I look down at myself. My tank top is crusted with dried blood, and my skin and jeans are filthy from the trek through the attic. I strip out of my clothes and replace them with a pair of boxers and a T-shirt.
I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror that hangs on the bathroom door and straighten up to get a better look. My eyeliner is smeared, casting my eyes into shadow under my shaggy bangs. I hate the way I look in mirrors. I feel bigger from the inside, tougher, stronger. Sometimes I’m caught by my own reflection and shamed by my own smallness, by how vulnerable and female I must look to the world around me.
My head throbs. I press a hand to the stitches. I never let them prescribe me opiates out of fear of being like my drug addict biological mother, but I got a bottle of ibuprofen 800s at the clinic and I need one of those bad boys stat. I find my purse on the kitchen counter and pull the prescription bottle out of it. I take one of the pills with water from the sink. I gulp down the entire glass of chlorine-scented tap water gratefully. I fill the glass up again and chug it. Blood loss always makes me thirsty.
My purse starts buzzing again. I search through it, cursing my need to have seventeen lip balms, and finally come up with the flip phone. I stare at it in blank surprise, and then I remember yesterday’s phone conversation and open it. “Hello?”
“Jasmine,” the warm, genderless voice purrs. “Are you alone?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re in your home or car, somewhere you can’t be overheard?”
“I’m in my apartment.”
The voice says, “Are you all right? You don’t sound well.”
“I’m fine.”
“Have you had a chance to think about our offer?”
I gather my thoughts.
“So you give people a permanent solution to their problems with people like Carol.”
“That’s right.”
“You know how shady this sounds. You call me on this weird burner phone I found the night some dude was murdered, using a voice disguiser, and you want me to believe you’re just a nice and helpful organization who wants to help me, like, murder my foster mother?”
“You’re right about us wanting to help you. We really do.”
I should know better than anybody—there are no easy solutions. No one wants to help you, not for free. Everything comes at a price, and I don’t even want to know what this person has in mind.
“Jasmine?”
“You know what? I think I’m good. Thanks but no thanks.” I snap the phone shut and set it aside. I feel a twinge of regret, which is stupid.
I get out my French press, scoop Trader Joe’s coffee into it and pick at my nails while water boils in the electric kettle. I’m a little angry with Joaquin for not wanting to take his insulin, but I also remember being his age. I was thirteen when they placed me with Carol. Jesus, Joaquin’s two years younger than I was when he was born. I can’t believe how young I was. I felt like I was so mature and world-weary, but I was just a kid.
The kettle clicks off, and I fill the French press with boiling water. When the coffee is ready, I pour some into my mug and sip it. It tastes like heaven.
The flip phone starts buzzing again. I drink my coffee and watch it, contemplating the green light glowing from the little rectangular screen in which shines the word Blocked.
I pick up the phone, open it and snap it shut.
The phone buzzes again. I gulp my coffee, flip open the phone and snap it shut.
A pause. Buzzing. I snap it open. Shut.
Pause. Buzzing. Open. Shut.
After the tenth time, I fumble the phone open before it starts buzzing and try to find the power button. I’m pressing things at random when the phone buzzes again, and I accidentally answer it. A tinny, faraway voice emits from the speaker.
“Don’t hang up, Jazz, or your son will die.”