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The More They Disappear

Page 12

by Jesse Donaldson


  Mattie accepted the invitation reluctantly, held out her pinkie and made him swear. “Lard gave me a couple pills,” she said. “Nothing much.”

  “What kind of pills? Tylenol? Birth control?”

  She rolled her eyes and offered him a fake smile. “Just some stuff for aches and pains.”

  “Where’d Lard get the pills?”

  Mattie made a big show of avoiding the question, stood up, and stomped away. “I thought we was gonna be friends,” she said, “but you’re just trying to get me to snitch.”

  “I’m not taking out the handcuffs,” Harlan said. “I just want to chat, maybe convince you to stop having sex and doing drugs. That sort of thing.”

  She put her hands on her hips, thumbs forward, elbows cocked back. “Do you like me, Harlan Du-pay?”

  “I’d like you more if you started taking care of yourself.”

  She cat-walked up to him. “Let’s roll a joint,” she said. “I know you smoke.”

  “No.”

  “You’re a good guy.” She sat next to him again, rested her head against his shoulder.

  Harlan looked into the dusty dandruff along her scalp and shrugged her away. “Time for you to go home, Mattie,” he said. “I’ve got grown-up business.”

  “What’d you think I was suggesting?” she asked, pursing her pale lips. “’Cause I don’t think it would work. You want to be sheriff, and I’m just trailer park trash. People wouldn’t understand our mismatched love.”

  “Funny,” Harlan said.

  Something about the girl put him at ease—the way she jumped from subject to subject as the boredom set in, the way she couldn’t keep still. “What do those pills do?” he asked. “They must do something if you sleep with boys named Lard to get them.”

  “Oh. They just make your body go numb,” she said. “Send this sort of cool water through your veins and turn all your worries away. Some people take uppers so they can keep doing stuff. I did that once, but it made me feel like my arms weren’t mine. I didn’t like that. I like the lay-in-the-grass-and-look-at-the-sky pills.”

  “Kids have died taking them.”

  “I ain’t dead,” she crowed. “Besides, I can’t even afford the good pills. Those are for rich kids now. I wouldn’t let Lard stick his stubby in me for nothing.”

  “So Lard deals?”

  “Oh, Jesus Christ, Harlan. You being a cop again? Lard sneaks them off his daddy who’s got this back thing. He takes a couple and convinces some girl to fuck him. Lard likes skinny girls.”

  Harlan didn’t want to know more. Mattie acted as if her life were normal, which in its way it was, but that didn’t make it right. She was still just a kid. “You want a Coca-Cola?” he asked and opened the cooler he kept on his porch. The tepid water floated a couple of sodas and some dead insects. A waterbug had managed to make a home there and skated across the surface with frog-leg kicks.

  “You know how I like my Coke?” she said. “With big chunky ice in a Styrofoam cup.”

  “Settle for lukewarm in a can?” He handed her the soda and popped his own. “You know, I hate to sound like an old fart, but things have changed since I was your age. Not so much kids breaking the law. They’ve always stolen what isn’t theirs and started fights and gotten high. It’s just that now they rob houses and the fighting involves guns and the drugs can kill you. I’ve caught twelve-year-olds sucking nitrous from Reddi-wip canisters and drinking cough syrup. I even found one kid setting a plastic garbage pail on fire and huffing the fumes.”

  “That’s pretty desperate.”

  “I don’t know what to do about it.”

  “Why do you have to do anything? It’s their choice to get high. And they don’t hurt nobody besides themselves.”

  Harlan thought about his own father—all boozy breath and heavy belt, purple fists and white rage. He could still touch the scars from a nail-filled two-by-four swung into his shoulder. “Your daddy told the truth,” he said. “I grew up poor.” He motioned toward the house. “Shit, this ain’t a castle. But I saw how all that getting fucked up hurts someone eventually.” He pulled down his collar and showed her the scars, scattered like buckshot.

  Mattie clutched the Coke in both hands and brought it to her mouth, looked away. “Let’s say you caught me with pills,” she said. “What would you do?”

  “I’d ask you where you got them.”

  “And I’d say they’re for my grandma. She forgets to take them, so I remember for her.”

  “I’d check on the prescription.”

  “And you’d find out I don’t even have a grandma.”

  “So I’d arrest you.”

  “Okay, but what if I had a doctor’s note of my own. ’Cause maybe I have some pain, too. Most people do. And maybe I’d go across the river to a doctor in Ohio and get a second note for all that pain.”

  “You’re not telling me anything I don’t already know.”

  “You don’t want to be sheriff, Harlan. Deep down you’re like us over at the Spanish Manor. We don’t care who the sheriff is.” She drained her Coke, stood up, and kicked at the boxes. “It’s a shit job anyway.”

  * * *

  Mary Jane pressed her palms against the wall and stretched the length of Mark’s bed. It felt good waking up away from her parents’ house. Mark was gone but she had a dim recollection of him helping her to bed and kissing her good-night, almost like a dream. The sheets were steeped with the salty smell of him. She doubted they’d been washed in months. She sat on the edge of the mattress and pictured the bedroom with a more feminine touch—art on the walls, clean carpet, lavender-scented potpourri. Imagined a pair of heels kicked beneath the bed, a small box of jewelry atop the dresser, their clothes side by side in the closet. Two lives braided like rope. Visions of their future threatened to overwhelm her. With happiness. With doubt. She’d risked everything for Mark. Lew Mattock was dead. And the memory of it cored her. His slumped head on the grill. She stood up and searched for an Oxy to fill the void, hesitated once she’d found one because it was still so early, then popped it in her mouth. She reminded herself she’d done it to save Mark—that they’d done it together.

  When Mark first told her Lew was going to arrest him, Mary Jane brushed it off as false bravado. She’d always considered Mark more pharmacist than drug dealer and couldn’t imagine him in an orange jumpsuit. Prison wasn’t a place for boys like Mark Gaines. He’d just finished his first year at UK with good grades, and he was home for the summer but acting strange. Mark had never been a heavy user but that summer he invented a game where they both snorted so much Oxy they passed out, and the “loser” was the first one to wake up. That person had to write a note with a joke or a funny drawing welcoming the other back to the world of the living. Mary Jane tired of the game but Mark insisted, thought it was hilarious when he found a note telling him how much better off he’d be dead.

  Then one terrible night Mark’s concerns about Lew became real to her. They were sitting on the docks tossing stones in the river. The town had thrown a party for the Fourth of July, trying to one-up the pyrotechnics set off by their neighbors to the north. Remnants of the celebration littered the riverbank—trash cans vomiting beer bottles and half-eaten burgers, tufts of exploded paper and plasticware lapping against the shore. Mark was quiet, and when Mary Jane asked him what was wrong, he said “nothing,” which had become his standard response to any question. She leaned over and kissed him—the only way to break through—then took a walk. She worried she was losing him. Her plan had been to join Mark at UK, but when the university rejected her, that idea went up in smoke, though Mark never wanted to talk about it.

  It was only a couple of minutes after she left him on the dock that Mary Jane heard Mark arguing with someone. She hurried back to find Lew harassing him. “I will make your life a living hell, you stuck-up prick,” Lew barked as he balled Mark’s shirt in his fist.

  “You’re drunk,” Mark replied in an eerie monotone.

  Lew pushed
Mark to the edge of the dock. “Five thousand,” he said. “You or your daddy. Do you understand?”

  Mark didn’t respond, so Lew unholstered his gun and let it shimmer in the moonlight. Mary Jane couldn’t stand by and do nothing. She stepped out of the shadows and screamed, “No!” In the pale glow of night, she could see Mark’s eyes—dull and unimpressed. He shook his head.

  Lew took a step back and swiveled his eyes between Mark and Mary Jane, the gun swaying loose in his hand. “That’s cute,” he said, lifting the gun languidly toward Mary Jane as if it was a crooked finger. “You got a girlfriend. I didn’t think you were the type.” He bent his wrist effeminately and laughed. Smiling, he turned away from Mary Jane and pointed the gun back at Mark. “Take off your clothes.” Mark hesitated and Lew cocked the hammer. Mary Jane stood in shock as Mark pulled his shirt over his head and unbuttoned his jeans. His belt buckle thudded against the wood with a dull knock. “All of it,” Lew said and tapped the gun against Mark’s crotch. Mark slipped off his shoes, methodically peeled off each sock, then dropped his boxers to the dock. He looked as vulnerable as a plucked chicken and his lip quivered slightly as he cupped his genitals.

  “Stop,” Mary Jane said, her voice a whisper. And then louder, “Stop it!”

  Lew holstered the gun and in a flash his arms uncoiled and sent Mark toppling into the river. Mary Jane ran to the edge of the dock as Lew kicked Mark’s clothes over. “Say hello to your mama for me,” Lew said before walking away.

  Mark paddled in the water after his clothes, tossing them up before hoisting himself with two scrawny arms. It took a minute for him to catch his breath and despite the warm, humid night, goose bumps rose along his skin. “I hate him,” he said, shaking. “I fucking hate him.”

  Mary Jane wrapped Mark in her arms. “It’s okay,” she said. “I won’t let him hurt you. We’ll do whatever it takes. We’ll kill him if we have to.” She’d been high—just talking shit—but the words ended up prophetic.

  Now Mary Jane was in Lexington and she needed to forget about that past. She raised the blinds and looked out as students scuffled toward campus. It was midmorning but most wore pajamas or sweatpants, had hair freshly slept on. They looked less like scholars than junkies and those who made an effort stood out. A boy in a crisp blazer and jeans, his thumbs cocked under the straps of his backpack. A girl wearing motorcycle boots, peacoat, and a long red scarf.

  It was the first day of her new life and Mary Jane decided to make the most it. At least Lexington wasn’t Marathon. She ran a hot shower and pretended she was spaghetti boiling in a pot, softening and loosening and letting go. Afterward, she put on her favorite oxford shirt and a black skirt, did her makeup and straightened her hair.

  Out on Euclid Avenue, she fell in lockstep with the other students, even stopped at the bookstore to pick up a backpack and reading material. The shelves were arranged according to course. Most held heavy textbooks stamped with boring titles, but a class titled Acid Trips and Flower Power: Literature of the Sixties caught her eye. She bought copies of On the Road and Divine Right’s Trip, the back of which said it was about a Kentuckian driving across the country in a VW bus. Mary Jane had never been much of a reader but she thought she could use the books as guidance for her own journey.

  With the backpack slung over her shoulder, she moved with the confidence that comes from belonging. She followed a girl with pink streaks in her hair to a grease spot named Tolly-Ho, where muscled line cooks worked the flattop while punk-rock waiters poured coffee. She took a booth next to a grimy window where dead flies lay on their backs and a fluorescent sign hummed. The tattooed forearm of a waiter shoved a menu onto the table. The tattoo was of a mermaid clutching a rock. Behind the mermaid, a sinister castle rose to a quarter moon and a horde of bats flew to the elbow. “Drink?” the waiter asked.

  “Coffee,” Mary Jane said as she looked up.

  He had a scruffy beard, white boy dreads pulled into a tall, colorful cap, and a barbell in his left eyebrow. “The corned beef hash is on special,” he muttered.

  The sound of pans clanging and the smell of bacon frying filled the diner. The chatter of students melted into the din as Mary Jane cracked open one of her books. “Here comes D.R. Davenport, Divine Right he calls himself after that incredible stoned-out afternoon.…”

  Mary Jane paused and thought about how she’d tell her own story. “Here comes Mary Jane, MJ she calls herself, after that fateful day in Marathon.…”

  A coffee mug came down with a clang and sloshed onto the book.

  “Damn,” the waiter said.

  “It’s okay.” Mary Jane dabbed the pages with a paper napkin.

  “It’s been a shit morning.”

  “It’s okay,” she said again.

  His face relaxed into a grin. “My bad.” He had a crooked, toothy smile.

  “I like your tattoo,” she said.

  The waiter looked down, as if noticing it for the first time. “My brother did it. He works at True Blue down the block.”

  “It’s awesome.”

  “He’s good. And cheap. Just ask for Madcap.”

  “Maybe I will.”

  “How about something to eat while you think on it?”

  Mary Jane bit her lip softly. “The hash sounds good.”

  “Hash always sounds good to me,” the waiter said.

  Mary Jane laughed. “Me too.”

  “I’m Vince,” he said.

  “Mary Jane.”

  Now it was his turn to laugh. “The hash for Mary Jane,” he said. “You gotta be kidding me.”

  The food was oversalted and undercooked but Mary Jane didn’t complain. She picked at the plate long after other customers had come and gone, and Vince refilled her coffee time and again. They talked whenever the flow of customers slowed down. He was older, almost thirty he said, without getting specific. He wasn’t a student. He was busy living and that was hard enough. She told him she wasn’t a student either and when he asked about the books, she said she didn’t need some professor telling her how to think. He liked that, told Mary Jane she was wise for her age.

  It had been so long since she’d flirted with someone who wasn’t Mark that she’d forgotten the thrill of a stranger’s attention. She didn’t want to leave, but she worried that if she stayed, it would become awkward, so when Vince went to pick up an order for a four-top, she left a tip with an Oxy beneath the bills.

  A couple of buildings down, she stopped in front of True Blue. Its walls were graffitied with tattoo stereotypes—an anchor, an arrow-struck heart, a rose, and a cross. A pair of gutterpunks with a dour pitbull sat against the building smoking cigarettes and panhandling for change. As Mary Jane hesitated in front of the door, a hand touched her shoulder softly. “Hey,” Vince said. She turned to look at him. “You know that tip you gave me?”

  Mary Jane gave him a sly smile.

  “Can you get more?”

  She nodded.

  Vince took a pen from his ear and the waiter’s pad from his pocket. “I’m having a party in a couple days. You should come.” He handed her the address, stooped to kiss her cheek, and she returned the gesture. He was the tallest boy she’d ever kissed.

  “You getting a tattoo?” he asked.

  Mary Jane nodded again. She would have nodded to anything.

  “Say hi to my brother for me.”

  Mary Jane turned back to the tattoo parlor with a new confidence. Mark wasn’t the tattoo type, but maybe she was. She’d never much thought about tattoos; her parents wouldn’t approve—tattoos were low-class—but her parents weren’t in the way anymore. She undid the top button of her oxford shirt and flared the V so that the top of her bra became visible, adjusted her skirt so that it rode high on the hips, and stepped inside.

  The girl behind the counter had a face full of piercings and a star tattooed above each breast. She lisped a syrupy hello and introduced herself as Eva. When Mary Jane asked after Vince’s brother, Eva pointed to a stocky man with close-crop
ped hair dancing to drum and bass. He wore tight black jeans and a ripped T-shirt, held together by safety pins, that said DISMEMBERED across the chest. It looked as if he’d been attacked by a slasher and Frankensteined back together. Nearly every inch of his skin, even parts of his face, were tattooed. When he came over and put out his right hand, she noticed the word mad inked from his ring to index finger. The left had cap from index to ring. “Madcap,” he said in a soft voice. There were bits of gray above his temples.

  “You here for a tattoo or a piercing?” Eva asked.

  Looking at the tattooed man and pierced girl, Mary Jane was torn. “Both,” she said.

  “A double-dipper,” Madcap hollered. “Awesome. Eva here does the piercing.”

  “Where can I put a hole in you, hon?” Eva asked. A stud flashed from the back of her mouth.

  “The tongue,” Mary Jane said.

  “And I do the tattoos,” Madcap said. “Did you have something specific in mind?”

  Mary Jane shook her head. “No. But Vince said I should come see you.”

  “Well, a friend of my brother’s is a friend of mine. As long as you have cash.”

  “How much?”

  “Well, that depends on the tattoo.”

  “I have about five hundred.”

  Madcap nodded. “That should work,” he said. “Let’s look through the binders while Eva sets up.”

  A flood of images filled the pages. There were ten roses, thirty decorative bands, dragons, bosomy ladies, and birds. So many birds. Chinese symbols. Love. Peace. Strength. A page of black cats, a few nymph fairies. “There’re so many,” Mary Jane said.

  “Most people want something personal,” Madcap said. “Not just a pretty picture. Each one of my tattoos has a story behind it.” He asked her what she was passionate about.

  Mary Jane didn’t know. “I’m moving out of my parents’ house,” she said. “You know, being on my own.”

  “That’s a great reason for a tattoo,” Madcap replied, all positivity. “It makes me think of this painting I saw. It was this girl—this woman, really—walking along a dirt road. She was alone but she was strong.”

 

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