One by One

by Nicholas Bush

  A few weeks after the calls with Dusty and Allison, I get a second alarming call. This time it’s from a detective. Apparently, during one of our parties, a drunk girl told my roommate and a few of the guys who live with us that her parents had a lot of cash stowed away in their closet and that her family was going out of town in the near future. When the family was out of town, my roommate and two of his friends broke into the girl’s home and robbed it. I sometimes go with them when they rob drug dealers and people looking to buy drugs, but I truly don’t know what the detective is referring to. I don’t respond to the allegation despite his threat that I will be charged for the crime right along with them.

  I let this go, but things get out of hand soon after, when my roommate and his cronies decide to rob a close friend of mine who I street race with. Not only do they rob him, they break into his duplex and thoroughly trash the place, vandalizing it completely. They are way out of line. Joe is my friend, and I trust him. We’ve all hung out together many times even though he’s never approved of our lifestyle, saying that sooner or later we’ll end up dead and that it isn’t worth it.

  When Joe returns from an extended stay at his mother’s house in Chicago and finds his place in complete disarray, he is incensed and immediately contacts me for help. I drive over and help him clean up the mess, but he accuses me, along with the other guys, of having something to do with it. As I try to talk some sense into him, he demands that I prove I wasn’t involved by helping put my roommates in jail—something I could never do. I don’t want to stoop to the level of betraying my crew.

  At the same time, I’m pretty crushed that they chose to do this. One minute everything was good, and now all hell has broken loose. It all happened so fast. They had to have known raiding his apartment would put me in this nasty position, one that forces me to choose them or Joe.

  I’m trying to make sense of everything when Joe suddenly grabs a loaded pistol and points it at my chest, then basically declares that unless I agree to help him, he will shoot me right there in his living room. I try harder to convince him that I had nothing to do with it, and I can see that he comes around to believing me, but this doesn’t matter. He wants justice and he wants it now.

  As I sit at gunpoint, Joe calls the police and demands to speak with the detective who is working the case of my roommates’ last robbery. Within ten minutes, the detective is pulling up to Joe’s driveway. There is a warrant out for my arrest because I have an unpaid marijuana fine, so everything is just great right now. The cop handcuffs me and puts me in the back of his police cruiser, and he and Joe sit up front. I’m driven to jail and then because I’ve been arrested while on probation, I’m told that I have violated my probation and will be held indefinitely. If I mess around and get caught a third time, it will be a year in prison under Wisconsin’s three-strikes law.

  In the interview room, Joe pleads for the detective to make me help get my roommates off the street. By now I am so tired of hearing about all the trouble they’ve caused, and I’m still feeling really bad for Joe, not to mention the family whose home they burglarized, that my loyalty is beginning to break. I’ve done many wrong things, but I’ve never been interested in wronging innocent people; it goes against the code I’ve tried to live by for so long.

  People who choose to live a life of crime are vulnerable to guys like me, they are susceptible to getting checked if caught slipping, meaning if they ever let their guard down, they are fair game. Too many guys, I’ve found, think they are too big and bad to have somebody step up to them, which me and my guys are usually more than happy to do. But I believe that bystanders not intimately involved in crime or facilitating it in any way, people who are just with us to have fun, should be left alone. They have no business fucking around in the game and they know it, so the game should leave them alone out of respect.

  My guys crossed that line for whatever reason—I’ll never know why. Talking to the police also goes against the code, but this time around, I know Joe is right. I’m also so tired of this life by now. The more I sit, the more my skin crawls. Now, I want these guys to leave my apartment, to stay out of my life. I can’t deny the real world any longer. I have to make a choice, and for the first time, I choose to cooperate.

  I reluctantly tell the detective what little I know about my roommates’ activity the night of the break-in. I know they went out for the night while I sat alone smoking pot, and hours later came back with drugs, cash, and loot. They didn’t tell me what they’d been up to, and I didn’t ask. In case it’s worth anything, I say that I would never do anything to hurt a friend and that I am against giving any information which contradicts my morals, but that I’m innocent and I want this to be clear and that’s why I’m cooperating.

  It’s a lose-lose situation and even though I share my intel, I am charged with the crime anyway. Go figure . . . . I apologize to Joe for what they did. I can’t tell if he and the cop fully believe that I had nothing to do with it. There’s no good ending to this and I’m starting to feel like I’ve been living in a movie where my character’s fast life has caught up with him in the worst possible way. In real life, it’s turned a good friend into my worst enemy.

  During the following few weeks, while I sit in jail, I learn that my roommates are also taken in and incarcerated, but are put in a different unit. At one point, I see a flier that resembles an old western “wanted” poster. It’s taped to a jail wall and has a “$10,000 reward” sign and a photo of a guy I knew years earlier, when I still lived with my parents. The guy had been murdered and the poster is a request for information on who killed him. I will later find out from the court case that he had been fronted a large amount of marijuana, but when the seller returned to collect the money, my friend didn’t have it. At this, the seller and his gang pulled out pistols and demanded that everyone in the room empty their pockets. The seller also apparently demanded that my old friend’s girlfriend strip naked. My old friend rushed the seller and tried to wrestle his gun away from him but was shot once through the chest and killed instantly. The murderer fled the scene. The news is a shocking and devastating blow. The game is a bit dangerous, for sure, but a murder? No one is supposed to be killed.

  While sitting in jail biding my time and uncertain about my future, my probation officer pays me a visit and fills me in on what’s going on outside. Much to my surprise, my roommates have all confessed, telling the truth for once. My charges are dropped because each of them corroborated the fact that I was not in any way involved in the robbery.

  When I leave the jail, I find Joe waiting outside for me, ready to give me a ride. We both breathe a sigh of relief as we hang out together that night, recollecting the past few weeks’ events. That night Joe and I stay up late. He likes to take synthetic drugs he orders online, so we do a bunch of them. We mix psychedelics with speed and, of course, smoke a lot of pot. I’m so relieved to be out of jail. Eventually I pass out on the couch while he is sitting on his recliner doing ten different things on his computer.

  Early the next morning, he has to work and before he heads out, he offers me a job at his dad’s business, a granite countertop installation company. I tell him I’ll think about it after I sober up. I’ve been making quick and easy money for so long and finding a legitimate line of work feels like an absolute last resort. How could I ever hold down a job as an addict? I’m not a play by the rules kind of guy. Taking a regular job seems like it will kill my ego and my image. Plus, I’ve always thought work is for suckers. It goes against my very identity to try and hold down a job unless it is a ruse to try and lie low and outsmart Johnny Law. I am happier doing whatever I want whenever I want, and looking after myself, doing whatever it takes to survive, so fuck work, you know?

  I spend the day lounging around Joe’s place and when he gets home, he gives me a ride to a park within walking distance of my parents’ vacant house, and says that he will get in touch with me later that day, after I’ve had
time to think it over. My roommates and I were evicted after the apartment was raided and everyone living there was arrested, and I don’t want to go to the Russo house, so I really have nowhere else to go. I also have to get to my car, which was towed to my parents’ house after my place was raided.

  After Joe drops me at the park, I sit for a while, trying to get my bearings. I need time to think about what to do next. I mull over whether to go straight and take Joe up on his offer to work with him at his dad’s granite countertop installation company. Eventually, I decide that maybe it’s time, and maybe I should accept.

  I’m walking through the park when my phone rings. I flip it open and it’s my mom.

  “Nick, it’s Mom.”

  “Yeah?”

  “We lost Allison last night, I’m sorry.”

  “What?”

  The statement sounds like a vague press release, revealing no details whatsoever.

  My mom repeats what she said. She doesn’t say how Allison died, but simply that she had gone to sleep and when Dusty tried to wake her, she wouldn’t wake up. It’s clear to me that she must have overdosed and as I try to process this, my eyes well up and a rage sets in. It seems to me that they must have known Allison was abusing drugs and not done anything to help her. I start screaming at her, but my mother ignores this and continues to speak as though I’m fine. “If you’d like to come home for a while, you can. There will be people stopping by the house and we aren’t going to do anything for a few weeks, while we take care of her funeral.”

  “God fucking damnit! Fuck! Son of a fuck! Fuck!” I hang up on her and throw the phone on the ground. I scream at the top of my lungs until I feel light-headed, then I sit down, seething with anger and overtaken by grief.

  Eventually I get it together and continue walking toward my parents’ place. I mostly look down as I walk, but at one point I glance up and meet the eyes of a construction worker on a telephone pole. It strikes me that he knows something terrible has just happened to me by my look, but he decides not to say anything. I’ve certainly had my share of down moments, but right now I’m utterly crushed and have no one to turn to. A female jogger runs by with her dog and looks the other way as I cry bitterly.

  So many memories that Allison and I once shared are suddenly mine alone. I am furious that Allison did what she did and that my parents didn’t do anything to stop her. I’m furious at myself too; why did I accept her word when she said she was fine? I should have gone down there and saved her.

  Finally, a space in me opens and there is an awkward feeling of peace that seeps in as I very slowly accept the fact that she’s dead. It’s not that I’m okay with the fact that she’s gone, but I’m emerging from the blind rage and black hole of sadness and loneliness I’ve been in all morning and joining humanity again. To ease my mind, I begin toking on a blunt that was in my pocket.

  I walk for an hour and then meet my brother’s best friend, Zach, at my parents’ house. He offers to drive me to my parents’ summer home, where they currently are, but I pass on the offer. Instead, we smoke a ton of weed together and I weep. He sheepishly tries to offer encouragement and comfort. After a while, I stand up and walk to my Mitsubishi 3000GT. Looking back, I don’t remember the drive, but I will forever remember what I learn shortly after arriving: that Allison was pronounced dead at 3:00 a.m. It’s the exact time that I suddenly woke on Joe’s couch the night before.

  Part Two

  Chapter 7

  The fact that Allison died is surreal. I have moments where I accept it and moments where the very idea of it makes me nauseous and my body recoils. I want her back so desperately; I want this to be a bad dream. Allison was the only person who seemed to truly love me unconditionally. She never abandoned me or kicked me out and we had so many shared memories from our childhood, memories I find myself daydreaming about for weeks. It feels like all of a sudden the world is a cruel form of imprisonment, and I’ve been given a life sentence as punishment.

  I blame my parents for Allison’s death and this is multiplied when I find out that they were fully aware of the bad state she was in. Dusty, to his credit, had contacted them late one night after finding her unconscious and barely able to breathe. The call to them wasn’t long after he contacted me. He was in a panic and didn’t know what to do. My parents insisted that he refrain from calling an ambulance or taking her to the hospital, which is located on the same street as their home, and said they were on their way, to do exactly what, I’m not sure—perhaps to save the day somehow. However, my sister woke up about forty-five minutes into what would have been a three-hour drive for my parents, and implored them to return home, and they did.

  Dusty and Austin told me about this, and after they did, I confronted my parents about it, only to be met with my mother’s absolute and resolute denial. She firmly said that it never happened, but one look at my father confirmed for me that it had. His guilt and shame were palpable and out of sheer mercy and better judgment, I didn’t press them on it. It was clear that they regretted the decision immensely.

  Later, I’ve left my parents summerhouse to go out and buy some weed to help me relax, when I get a call from them. They ask me to meet them and the rest of our family at the funeral home to view Allison’s body, but the thought of seeing her lifeless body lying in a coffin is too difficult for me. I snarl at my parents over the phone, “You have to go and look at her body just to be able to accept the fact that she’s dead?” They calmly respond that it is just to say goodbye, and I respond with a string of profanity, basically stating that she is gone and the whole thing is pointless, and then I hang up. There is a pain and tightness in my chest, and the heartbreak is all-consuming.

  Two weeks later, a few other pallbearers and I carry Allison’s casket down the aisle at her funeral. I am able to keep my composure until we place the casket in the hearse parked in front of the church, then I suddenly break down. I begin hyperventilating and then I black out. I don’t know what happened immediately after. Later in the day I walk alone along a path in the woods near my parents’ summer home. I smoke a joint while talking to myself, venting my rage and trying to calm down. There is no denying the fact that I am severely shaken by Allison’s passing. I am twenty-one now and can no longer endure the anguish I find around every corner, whether inflicted on me or self-inflicted.

  On June 16, 2011, my sister is buried in a spot overlooking a beach and beautiful waterfront, where gorgeous sunsets grace the sky. She is buried where we used to play as children, where my brother learned to walk, in the garden next to our summer home. I am the one who digs her grave. My dad says, “I can’t, I just can’t.” He asks Austin to help, but Austin doesn’t follow me to the shed to get a shovel and I don’t push him to.

  So there I am, my stomach in knots and my mind reeling, dizzy with grief, digging into the soft soil. I’m alone outside with the shovel while the rest of the family is inside, and with each dig of the shovel there is a heart attack of emotion. Every fiber of my being wants to stop, to run, but to stop would be a disgrace, an option I don’t have. Crushed by the enormity of it all, I grab my drink and slam my fifth vodka and cranberry juice of the day, and then I take a few hits from my joint. I desperately do all I can to force my emotions inside, lock them up, and throw away the key, but it’s impossible. I can’t ignore the painful reality, that I am digging my sister’s grave.

  Allison was the most beautiful person I have ever met. I preferred spending time with her and talking with her more than with anyone else. She treated me with respect, never judging me or laughing at me. She was my favorite person and now she’s gone—forever. I strike rocks and roots as I dig, a three- or four-foot deep hole, and I nearly lose my grip on sanity in the process—hacking at the earth with tears raining down my face, foaming at the mouth, and groans and grunts escaping through clenched teeth.

  When I’m finished, I notify my family that her final resting place is ready.
My parents, remaining siblings, a few family members, and I take handfuls of Allison’s ashes, all that’s left of her, and pour them down into the grave. This is the moment you hear about, when reality begins to set in. I want so badly to join her.

  Everyone says a few words to her, words I won’t remember, and then it is done. I fill the grave with dirt, covering her remains, and my aunt plays some sort of instrumental tune over a portable stereo. I want to smash the stereo and take it all out on that fucking thing; I don’t know why. Before stepping away, I turn to my family and warn them not to walk on the spot her ashes rest in or they will have to answer to me.

  In the rare moments when I have some peace, it comes from the thought that she is now free from drugs and in a better place. But then the questions invade: Where is she now? And didn’t she deserve to live a long and happy life? I am tormented by the enormity of it all and I can’t figure out how to answer these questions. The one thing I know is that Allison would have wanted me to take care of our little brother, Austin. They were so close and if there has ever been a relationship of pure love and trust between two people on this earth, it was theirs.

  As much as I am hurting, as hard as it all is for me, I know it is even harder for Austin. Allison had always showered Austin with affection, and he adored her. He had pictures of her lining his bedside table, photos of them at football games and various restaurants. They were so close and yet in the wake of Allison’s death, he doesn’t show any emotion. He also never talks about her death—ever. I pry and attempt to bring it up with him, warning him that if he keeps his feelings all bottled up inside it could drive him crazy.