One by One

by Nicholas Bush

  Soon after moving into the Russo residence, during parties Giovanni and I host with a small group of people, I discover his infatuation with his Ouija board. Once everyone has become sufficiently wasted or high and all other forms of entertainment have been exhausted for the evening, he always pulls out the board. Too tired or inebriated or too curious to refuse, our guests usually give in.

  One evening, Giovanni and a friend of ours burst out of his room with Adriana following closely behind. They are headed outside and ask Greta for binoculars. I follow them all to the back deck, with no idea what’s going on. The three of them stare up at the sky, so I look too, but the sky looks the same to me as it always does. Greta is calmly standing behind them, smoking a cigarette, and Francesco is wiping a dish dry with a cloth while peering at us through the window over the kitchen sink. I ask why we are all out here, what we are looking for, and Giovanni simply replies that the stars are about to move. I know better than to laugh at him; after all, the group is outside with binoculars and a laser pointer and the adults are showing genuine interest. Something must be going on. When I look up again, sure enough, one of the stationary stars seems to slowly begin to move around.

  Giovanni hands me the binoculars, “Look.” He shines the laser pointer in a stationary position and tells me to lock onto the end of the beam with my line of sight. When I find the beam through the binoculars, I see a craft with three blinking lights high in the sky. It silently glides on a linear course to the end of the beam and then makes two right-angle turns before continuing to travel on its original course, now at an impossibly high velocity. This takes just a second to unfold, but time pauses while I watch. I can’t believe my eyes. I have never been so intrigued—it’s beyond measure. I consider myself tough from all I’ve been through and yet I am trying to avoid being frightened by what I’ve just seen. Was that an alien spaceship? What was that?

  I give the binoculars back to Giovanni and nonchalantly say, “Cool,” and then I walk back into the house, silently trying to process what just happened.

  Much to Giovanni’s dismay, never once do I actively participate or even play along when he pulls out the Ouija board. He also doesn’t like that I won’t actively discuss UFOs with him. He often asks me what I think about having seen a UFO. I’ll say, “That was crazy,” but I know he wants me to express more interest or emotion. On my end, I do think it was crazy, but I don’t know what to make of it or what to do with that feeling. Instead of expanding my mind, I prefer to escape. I just want to party and have fun. That is what life is about, right? Not trying to make sense of the universe. Why care about something that seems to have no purpose or explanation? In the back of my mind are the lingering questions of why the Russos are involved in these otherworldly activities and what their endgame is. Something feels off, or bad, about all this, but is it really, and should that matter to me? Can I put it aside?

  My chosen path is to do nothing. I continue to regard the references and invitations by Giovanni’s parents to partake in their spiritual practice as nothing short of stupid, even though Giovanni has taken the time to elaborate on the subject and reveal that he has taken part in some of his parents’ séances and has seen greater things than I could even imagine. I express my doubts concerning a personal investment of any kind into such ridiculous spiritual activity by remaining silent on the subject, simply not replying to their inquiries when provoked to do so. Only when I acknowledge the legitimacy of the inexplicable cause of the events that have taken place concerning the Russos’ involvement in my life, or the UFO we saw together, do they relent on the topic. What I take away from all these events is that these people live by some sort of combination of La Cosa Nostra code and guidance from spirits conjured up during séances hosted in their living room.

  It’s not that I don’t believe Giovanni when he says that he has recently seen a spirit appear in human form walking right into the room out of a solid wall . . . but what am I supposed to do with that? I grew up roaming city streets after school, looking for a friend or classmate to stay with, bouncing from house to house ever since I can remember. I have no desire to seek help or direction from God, the universe, spirits, UFOs, or anything of the sort. I’ve made it this far on my own without any of those being there for me.

  One evening I ask them point-blank at the dinner table in a sort of jovial tone, “So, are you guys in the mafia?” All I receive in response is a glare from Francesco that lasts for what seems like forever. He puts his fork on his plate while he glares, and Greta, Adriana, and Giovanni just sort of stop eating and look at the floor. This is when I realize just how secretive these people are. In fact, whenever I press them for any direct information about themselves and the shadiness that defines them (although I don’t phrase it like this), I am always met with an evasive or vague response. It becomes clear that they are so dead serious about maintaining whatever path of life it is they’ve chosen that they won’t even let me in on it, even though I’m becoming more and more like an adopted son.

  The only information I ever get comes from Francesco directly, as he loves preaching about how life is meant to be lived. The gist of it is to basically play society’s game well enough to stay off the radar, but to live under the authority of a code that is to be followed in order to gain respect, be feared even, and get what you want . . . money, power, sex, drugs, a house, a car—anything. I feign interest when he says these things, and then simply turn a blind eye and figure that as long as I am loyal to them, I can continue to enjoy the ride.

  As time goes by, my involvement with drugs grows deeper. In public high school, I see the older kids I used to party with on so many adrenaline-filled nights out with my sister. I start hanging out with the kids my guidance counselor calls the “undesirables.” They’re a large group of kids who skip class, wear clothes with suggestive drug and sex themes, and get into a lot of trouble. Being a huge stoner at such a young age, I fit right in. I catch rides with them and dip in and out of school during the day. It’s really a blast; school just feels like a break in between the parties I sneak out to at night. My GPA is now about 1.7, but my new friends don’t ask and don’t care. I don’t even care.

  On one of my first few days at the new school, I walked into one of the bathrooms and got offered a bag of weed from a guy taking a piss. He’s older than me and I’d never met him before, but we knew of each other. I paid him twenty bucks for some decent pot. This is the beginning of the drug trade being thrust into my face. At a school dance, the kids in my grade find out that I’m willing and able to sell weed, stuff I get from older guys or stuff that comes through Giovanni, and soon I’m constantly being asked for it. I find myself spending most of the night making calls and doing deals in the parking lot.

  In days to come, as word spreads that Giovanni and I sell, we do all our deals in a nearby park, whether we’re buying or selling. In addition to kids in our grade, older people start coming to us pretty regularly too. The game just sort of happens to me this way. And even though Giovanni never tells me, I realize that he’s undoubtedly sometimes getting weed to sell from Greta and Francesco or their friends in Chicago. It’s always been clear that Greta and Francesco are fine with Giovanni and I smoking weed. In fact, they often smoke it themselves and in front of us. Adriana smokes too. It’s a wildly different environment from that of my parents’ house. There seems to be an endless supply.

  So now Giovanni and I are selling regularly—there are mad amounts of drugs around—and the money is flowing in. Over the course of our freshman year, we evolve from selling weed to anyone who asks for it to being the guys people go to for every type of illegal narcotic—from magic mushrooms and LSD doses dropped onto SweeTarts candies and chocolate bars to amphetamines and opioids, and everything in between, with our mainstay being a seemingly unlimited supply of high-grade marijuana. If anyone inquires as to the availability of another drug, we commit to acquiring it within one week under the condition that the
y exclusively come to us for their weed. If we don’t have a source for a requested drug, Giovanni is able to get it through his dad. This includes goods like the high-quality cocaine we get for some of the older guys who’ve stuck around after high school, or the crack cocaine we supply to the small group that requests it: mostly kids that try and act like thugs and want to be able to say they “slang rocks,” but come to us with words like “Yessir.” Gavin tried it and said it made his ears ring for an hour.

  Under strict caution by Francesco of punishment from “the devil himself,” we are never allowed to use any of the drugs that we sell to our customers (these things don’t really get discussed, only told), however, Giovanni and I definitely play the wind when it comes to sneaking what we can. Francesco is a very imposing man and I’m intimidated as hell, but Giovanni doesn’t take him too seriously.

  Fun is always above fear. For my fifteenth birthday I got a really nice rugby-style Pendleton shirt and a bag of weed with cocaine sprinkled inside of it. I find out from Giovanni that there’s only a sprinkle because Francesco and Greta found the coke and used it themselves—then, because they have high standards, they laughed at us for using something so low quality. This is one of the only times I’ve known them to do drugs besides weed themselves.

  As the months roll by, Giovanni and I become skilled in the secretive modes required to be successful drug dealers: never reveal our sources, or any information about anything illegal whatsoever; be indirect and secretive, always in control, never involving any outsiders; and do exactly what our superior tells us to do. For me that means Giovanni, for him that probably means Francesco. Police are to be respected and avoided, and never, under any circumstances whatsoever, spoken to. This code runs deep, and given that I’m willing to follow it, I get the feeling I could really succeed in this world if I want to. I could get more power, more drugs, more money, more respect, more loyalty. I never push it, though; I never really delve into it to the fullest extent. I’m satisfied having fun and avoiding my house and my parents, my life.

  I tag along because I want to get to where the party is, where life’s pleasures are. Who’s down for some fun? Who wants to do some crazy, freaky shit? Where there are no rules is where I want to be and where I continually find myself. I just like to get high, forget about my terrible relationship with my parents, and enjoy being spoiled by people whose very presence is intoxicating. At the end of the day, they’re odd but pretty fucking cool, badass for sure, and it seems special to be part of their family.

  Chapter 4

  For the remainder of our freshman year, Giovanni and I continue to live the fast life, attending large parties to have fun, make money, and rake in the notoriety and respect of being young criminals. It is at one of these parties that a girl I know, Madeline, also fourteen or fifteen, loses her life. A number of pills are supplied to the owner of the home, a guy in his twenties, along with his father, a middle-aged man, and late at night, with the pills in hand, the guy and his father take Madeline into a bedroom. They don’t know her. To them she is just a young girl who has been drinking all night, easy prey. They give her all of the OxyContin she wants and then some. She loses consciousness during their time together, overdosing, and later dies. The details are discovered and reported on the local news.

  For weeks after it happens, I see Madeline’s face in reflections or dreams. I hear her voice too. I can’t get her out of my mind. We had met through a mutual friend. She was a pretty, very kind, soft-spoken girl who just wanted to have fun, very innocent. She was flirtatious and playful with me, but also had a calm and relaxed demeanor. I used to play photographer with her. Nothing dirty, just fun at a few parties. She would pose for the camera, alone or with friends, as I snapped some pictures.

  One time, she called and asked if I would accompany her to a park on the edge of town near a farm field and Frisbee golf course and bring some weed along. We’d meet up with a few other kids there. I got the feeling she liked me, but I wasn’t interested in having a girlfriend and didn’t make a move. Instead, I took pictures of her “driving” a tractor that we’d found with some of her friends. She was always asking me to take pictures.

  Until recently, I’ve never taken OxyContin very seriously. I’ve been taking things like Vicodin since I injured my back when I was a kid, so I’ve never been too impressed with pill-form opioids. I’ve always thought they’re pretty weak and figured that if people were jonesing for Oxy, it’s likely because they haven’t tried anything else. Man, was I wrong. I’ll later find out that Giovanni actually favored doing pill-form opioids from day one, because of how strong they are. In fact, he’s always had a huge stash of them. I don’t like to think about it, but a part of me suspects he might have had something to do with the pills Madeline was given because he always tries to hide his involvement with the drug from me. I don’t know for sure what he does with them. When I bring up her death, he says things like, “Yeah, that’s too bad, man,” or sometimes comes back at me with, “Why even mention it? I had nothing to do with that.”

  In the weeks after Madeline’s death, Giovanni and I are summoned to an inner city park to supply a quarter pound of weed to a guy we’ve never dealt with before, but know pretty well. He’s older, hangs around our crowd, and is into selling weed too. Since we run in the same circle, and especially since it’s within our school, we decide to try and become his supplier when he comes to us for some weed, or so I thought. I will later find out that Giovanni actually wanted to meet the guy to rob him, as a sort of fuck you for being our competition.

  It is pre-agreed that the quarter pound of weed would be bought for the full price of $1,200. This is our stated price and the guy doesn’t try to bargain, which is unusual. We should have known something was off.

  As we’re about to get into the guy’s car, to get the cash, Giovanni notices men in plainclothes with guns drawn rushing into the parking area from all angles. He says my name and I know instantly by the look on his face that we’re in trouble. I’m not yet fully inside the vehicle, so I leap out and begin running full speed ahead as if my body has always stored energy for this, just in case. I make it a good hundred yards or so before being tackled—but now there is a gun in my face and a screaming cop. “Where’s the weed, scumbag?” he yells at me. I say nothing and no badge is shown, but I’m thrown into their car anyway and taken to the police station.

  Giovanni is taken in a different cop car and they keep us separate so we can’t create a no-talking pact or decide who will say what. The cops say they will drop the weed charge for information about where the pills at the party came from. I’m now pretty sure that we were set up by the idiot being pinned for supplying the party with drugs, the guy who claimed he wanted to buy from us. Again I say nothing. After hours of my life are wasted, we’re released. We weren’t carrying weed on us at the time of the bust. We planned to get the cash and have someone else deliver it after, or at least that’s what I thought the plan was, so without finding weed on us, the cops have no leverage.

  Having beaten the cops and this older drug dealer makes us feel invincible—and the feeling of invincibility is a high in itself. We wear the experience like a badge of honor and continue living it up for the rest of the school year and well into the summer. For the first time, life begins to feel, well, pretty okay. I start making some serious money, and I even get to travel with the Russos to Chicago and New York City. We stay at Ritz hotels.

  However, no matter how extravagantly I live, how many parties I go to, or how deep into the drug world I fall, I cannot shake the memory of the short time I spent with Madeline. I can’t believe she’s gone, let alone wrap my mind around how it all ended. A heaviness begins to sit on my shoulders and soon it’s compounded by a yearning to see my siblings. I miss them, particularly my younger brother, Austin. I’m spending pretty much all my time at the Russos’ house now. Sometimes on Sundays my mom calls early in the morning and tells me to walk home and get r
eady to go to church. I usually have to stay at my parents’ house after church and do yard work all day, and sometimes I have to cater to their bullshit demands all weekend, or attend family events like a fiftieth wedding anniversary party for my grandparents. Sometimes they make me stay home and do chores all week. It all feels like a show, like they’re trying to prove to themselves that everything is normal. Besides that, each Christmas and summer my grandfather flies the extended family out for a skiing vacation in Big Sky, Montana, and a fishing trip to Lake Athabasca, up in Canada. Except for the fact that I get to see my siblings, I hate every minute of them. Still, I have to go.

  At the end of my freshman year of high school, Allison moves out of the house and goes off to college. Lindsay had left a few years earlier, so Austin is now alone in that hellhole. Sometimes I sneak by to hang out with him, but he knows there will be hell to pay if he’s caught commiserating with me, so he immediately says, “You can’t be here, I’m calling Mom and Dad.” On the few occasions that I visit by choice and my parents accept it, he follows me around. There is something sacred about our brotherly bond that our parents will never be able to destroy. It will always be sad to me that he gets stuck in the middle of the volatile relationship between my parents and me, and has nowhere to run.

  Nevertheless, missing my siblings and mourning Madeline’s death has no tangible effect on how I choose to live—I’m already in too deep to change my ways. As the months go by, my marijuana use continues to escalate. I wrap high-grade ground-up weed in dryer sheets to mask the smell and carry it on me wherever I go. I now have one-hitter pipes and small lighters hidden in the school’s ceiling, locker-room, and one of its least frequented bathrooms, giving me ample locations to sneak away to and get high throughout the day. I hitch rides with older classmates on my way to and from school and I smoke with them. The most logical method when it comes to enduring school each day is to get high there. I never do homework, try very hard, or consistently attend. During one exam week, we had a written portion and a presentation with a partner. I completed the written, but failed the class because I was unaware of the presentation. Luckily for my partner, the teacher nullified the presentation portion for him, only counting his test. I must have been gone when they set all that up.