by Bill Parsons
At first Pickin’ Pete was disappointed and was about to reclose his eyes--no Broke Bob and Bill the Pill meant no pill. It took awhile, but eventually a thought came to him: If Stringy Sarah was baking muffins, she was hungry; and if she was hungry and eating, she was high, for Stringy never ate unless she was high. So perhaps she had a pill. This was a comforting, motivating thought, and he hoped his presumption was correct.
Pickin’ Pete dressed quickly, hurried from his room and used the bathroom--which was just outside his bedroom to the right. Then he exited without benefit of washing his hands, splashing his face with water or running a comb--or his fingers even--through his few remaining strands of dark, scraggly hair. He merely limped really quickly down the hall, wiping his hands on his pants legs as one foot stomped loudly and vibrated the entire trailer. He emerged through the living room and into the kitchen, where he paused to quickly pick sleep boogers from his eyes.
At the kitchen table sat Stringy Sarah, munching a corn muffin over a plate of them. The pan in which the muffins had been baked lay atop the stove under a cooling fan. In here the smell of baking cornmeal hung thick in the air.
Stringy Sarah, thirty-three, short and tiny with long, thick, black hair worn in a ponytail, looked up at Pickin’ Pete with a smile, revealing straight white teeth in a mouth that held just a hint of an under bite. She had two children, a boy and a girl, both of which had inherited this same under bite in exactly the same proportion to the extent that one look at them indicted them as their mother’s offspring. “Hey, Pete,” Stringy Sarah said around a mouthful of corn muffin. “What’s up?”
Pickin’ Pete gave Stringy Sarah a hopeful look. “Got anything?” He didn’t tell her he was sick, for he was sure he looked about as bad as he felt.
Stringy Sarah had already taken another bite. While she chomped with apparent glee her head nodded affirmatively and her finger gestured to a tablespoon that lay on the table. In the spoon was a pill. Beside it was a glass of water, an unused cigarette filter and a brand new hypodermic syringe.
Stringy Sarah gulped her mouthful of corn muffin. “I didn’t forget my little buddy.”
Pickin’ Pete instantly became a blur of motion, darting to the table, seating himself and beginning the process of readying his morphine pill for injection. At some point Stringy Sarah finished her muffin and began an incessant, inane stream of chatter--when high on pills she yapped continuously, worse than a speed freak on meth--most of which Pickin’ Pete ignored. He may have heard something about a miss and an abscess as he drew water up into his new rig and then squirted it over his pill; and something about Broke Bob and Bill the Pill as he put flame to the bottom of the spoon, smashed the softened pill with the flat end of the syringe’s plunger, and then drew the gelatinous mixture through the cigarette filter and up into his rig; and he may have heard her say something about cooking meth as he searched for and found a vein and then injected the shot of monster grub and waited as feel good rushed over his body like millions of sharp, fiery needle pricks. Then euphoria settled over him like a warm cozy blanket on a cold winter’s night and all was right with the world.
All at once Pickin’ Pete remembered his car and saw the keys laying in the center of the table. Where’s Bob and Bill?”
“They left with some girl around one. She was driving a Regal and was geeked out on meth and wouldn’t come in the house. I think they went to go cook because Bill was cleaning out bottles and crushed some psuedoes before they left,” Stringy Sarah said. “I just told you all this, Pete.”
“You been here long?” Pickin’ Pete asked as he lighted a cigarette and drew deeply. Smokes tasted so much better when he was high on pills. Really, everything was better when he was high on pills. Fishing was especially good high on pills. Perhaps he would go fishing this evening. He knew a nice little spot on a stream beside a small bridge.
“Since about four this morning.”
“You been here that long and just now gave me a pill?” Pete said, feelings hurt. Fishing was now forgotten.
“No, I just got the pills, Pete, an hour ago. I told you--Danny. Remember? Just now.”
“Oh,” Pickin’ Pete muttered. He kind of remembered hearing her say something about something that had to do with crack head Danny. Although the subject was never broached overtly, Pickin’ Pete was aware that Stringy Sarah sometimes bartered sexual favors for pills, and crack head Danny vice versa. “Thanks for the pill. Um, Bill say how long he’d be?” Pickin’ Pete was thinking how nice a big shot of dope would feel about now.
Stringy Sarah said, “A couple hours,” which was Bill the Pill’s standard response to this question; although more times than not a few hours stretched into many hours, and sometimes days. Bill the Pill’s word was extremely unreliable, unless he was working somewhere near the house--he never worked in the house.
“My God, Sarah, that’s bad,” Pickin’ Pete suddenly exclaimed, for the first time noticing the abscess at the crook of her arm. These were caused by missed shots. Hers was enflamed, an angry red color, and the size of a golf ball. The skin surrounding it was also red, and red lines radiated outward from it. The thing had developed a head and looked about ready to pop at any time as even now puss oozed from its center. It was one of the worse abscesses he had ever seen on her, and there had been many, hence, her nickname. Stringy Sarah was in the habit of being unaware--or choosing to ignore, one--when the gauze the E.R. had packed into the cleansed cavity of her abscess would begin to unravel and come loose, hanging from the hole in her arm like a string. It would begin as a small protruding piece, and then gradually, as the days passed, grow longer and longer until it eventually fell to her wrist, swinging with her gait, slapping against her arm with each step. This long stringy piece of gauze which hung from the open wound in her arm was ugly, stained with blood and that brown stuff doctors swabbed on you before they sliced you open. Really, though, this was nothing when one considered that no one, not one solitary soul, had ever said anything to her about this lone, ugly strip of bandage that seemed to be always present, hanging from a nasty looking abscess somewhere on her arm. Perhaps people had grown used to seeing it, as though it had become a part of her, a gruesome extension or ugly appendage. It was inexplicable and perplexing, that was, had not everyone in their circles been junkies. Only with that understanding could one begin to gain even a glimmer of comprehension. Even then it was incredible. “You need to go to the hospital,” Pickin’ Pete finished.
“I will,” Stringy Sarah said, “Tonight, or tomorrow.”
“That’s got to hurt. It’s red as a beet. How long’s it been there?” Pickin’ Pete asked with a look of extreme discomfort. He disliked physical pain, and Stringy Sarah’s abscess looked very painful.
“A few days. And it ain’t so bad, long as I don’t bump it, or jerk my arm or anything, and if I keep doing pills. I’ve got a few,” Stringy Sarah said.
Hearing this comforted Pickin’ Pete and his face relaxed. “Oh, good,” He said, then realized how it must have sounded. “I mean that it don’t hurt and you’re going to the hospital.” Still, Pickin’ Pete was happy she still had pills...extremely so.
“I know, silly,” Stringy Sarah said and began chattering, but Pickin’ Pete lost interest and stopped listening, as was his custom when she prattled on about nothing. However, he was unable to pry his gaze from the angry looking swelling at the crook of her arm. It looked horrible, like it was ready to catch fire at any moment, or blow its top like a ready to blow volcano.
“I bet it’s hotter than that stove eye,” Pickin’ Pete blurted, interrupting in her inanities in mid-stream.
Stringy Sarah stopped short and shot Pickin’ Pete a puzzled look. “Huh?”
“That volcano on your arm,” Pickin’ Pete said, reaching out a hand. “Let me feel”
“No, Pete, don’t you touch it,” Stringy Sarah said, smacking at his hand.
“I won’t touch it. I promise. I just wanna feel the heat.” She allowed him a
nd he recoiled. “My God, Sarah, that thing’s on fire. You need to go to the hospital now.”
“No, I told you, I’ll go tomorrow,” Stringy Sarah said, as though she hadn’t mentioned earlier she might go tonight.
“But that thing’s looking awful bad. I mean, it’s even starting to stink. Don’t you smell it?”
“No, I don’t smell it. You smell that sink full of dishes, not my arm,” Stringy Sarah insisted. Then after a brief pause, she added, “Look, I’ve had oodles of these things. You know that. I know when to go to the hospital, and I’ll go when I’m ready. Okay?”
“Okay. Settle down. I was just saying.” But Pickin’ Pete knew better. That stench wasn’t dirty dishes, but the rancid odor of her rotting arm. It was bad and the infection spreading quickly. But he reckoned it would be okay until the morning. Besides, the arm was hers, and she had the pills. She could do whatever she wanted.
So for the next few hours they did pills and got high. Pickin’ Pete limped around the trailer, going from room to room, piddling and feeling good, moving things around and looking at things. Stringy Sarah followed, yacking away to a no listening Pickin’ Pete. Both were fine with their roles--she talking at nothing; he catching maybe a stray word now and then: kids, dad, DCS; etc. Eventually, around nine, they ended up in the living room, Pickin’ Pete in his easy chair, facing a muted television, fingering around on his guitar; Stringy Sarah on the couch on the end nearest him, still talking. As Pickin’ Pete absently plucked guitar strings, Stringy Sarah’s angry looking abscess again caught his eye.
“That thing’s getting worse,” Pickin’ Pete said, eyeing her arm. It seemed to have become more swollen and redder, and the swelling had spread to her elbow and surrounding tissue.
Stringy Sarah stopped yapping and examined her arm. After a moment she looked at Pickin’ Pete and the look in her eyes wasn’t as self-assured and confident as it had been earlier. “You may be right, Pete. The pills aren’t touching the pain anymore. Maybe I should go on to the hospital.”
“You should,” Pickin’ Pete said. “We should go now. You got a couple bucks for gas?” He had checked and Broke Bob and Bill the Pill had left his car empty.
“No,” Stringy Sarah answered absently. She was looking at her arm closely and sniffing at it. “You know, it does stink, Pete, like something rotten.”
“What did I tell you?” Pickin’ Pete said, rising to put up his guitar. “Come on, get ready. I’ll take you. I probably have enough change laying around for gas.”
Suddenly Ozzie’s Crazy Train--Pickin’ Pete’s ring tone--rang out. His phone was on the coffee table and he answered it. It was Bill the Pill.
“I need you to come get me.”
“Where you at?”
“Mom’s.”
“You got anything?” This question was standard for Pickin’ Pete, asked during the course of nearly every conversation in which he was a participant.
“Yeah, I got a little something,” Bill the Pill answered, although he didn’t sound convincing. But he always sounded like that, tentative, as though unsure of himself, of anything, really. But this was because he was always geeked out on meth and, so, was hard to read. A person never really was sure how to act around Bill the Pill. One got the impression if one slipped and did or said the wrong thing one was liable to wind up with a hole in one’s chest. However, Pickin’ Pete had come to learn that if Bill the Pill said he had a little something he usually had a lot of something.
“Got any gas money?”
“I got a couple gallons of gas. Listen, I’ve got to get out of here. That chick Bob met up with was supposed to come get me, but now she won’t answer her phone and mom’s mad. She’s got to go the doctor tomorrow and is ready for bed, but she won’t go to bed ‘til I leave. She’s having some kind of out-patient surgery tomorrow, so I need a ride up out of here.”
Pickin Pete was about to agree to go get Bill the Pill when Stringy Sarah, still sitting on the sofa and sniffing at her rotting arm, caught his eye. “Damn, Bill, I forgot. I’m taking Sarah to the hospital. She’s in pretty bad shape.”
“Man, I’ve got to get out of here now. She’ll be alright for an hour or so. You can take her later.”
Pickin’ Pete continued to stare at Stringy Sarah, who was now returning his look, her gaze a question mark. “Here, talk to Sarah,” Pickin’ Pete said, shedding himself of the responsibility.
Sarah accepted the phone. “Yeah?” She listened a moment, then answered, “Yes, of course. That’s fine, Bill. We’re leaving now.” She listened again, then, “Sure. Don’t worry about it. See you in a little bit.” Then she went to jabbering into the phone about something when suddenly she stopped talking and gave Pickin’ Pete a mildly bewildered look. “Huh, disconnected. Must have been a bad connection.”
Pickin’ Pete marveled at the ease with which Bill the Pill had manipulated Stringy Sarah. She was never that way with Pickin’ Pete, usually argued with him tooth and nail. Although Stringy Sarah shared the extra room with Bill the Pill, Pickin Pete had never known them to share a bed. If both of them happened to be living at the trailer at the same time, Stringy Sarah always got the bed. As far as Pickin’ Pete knew the two had never had sex. Still, Pickin’ Pete couldn’t shake the feeling that Stringy Sarah reserved a small place in her heart only Bill the Pill could inhabit. He also couldn’t shed the thought that this was an exercise in futility for his abscess prone friend.
They left. Stringy Sarah drove(infected arm and all)because they had done a pill before leaving and she had convinced Pickin’ Pete he was too high to drive; which really hadn’t been too awfully difficult since she had the pills and there wasn’t much Pickin’ Pete wouldn’t do for a pill. Truth be known, she was in no better position to drive than he. In fact she had been doing pills since way before Pickin’ Pete had arisen and so was in a more inebriated state. And she had no license, while he did. Still, she hadn’t cared. She was feeling good and wanted to drive, and if he was fool enough to let her she was fool enough to do it.
The night was warm and sticky, miserable and typical for mid-July in east Tennessee. Most of the ride over to Pickin’ Pete’s mother’s followed closely to the river and its reservoir and so was foggy, thick in places. Stringy Sarah drove slowly and carefully and eventually they were rolling up the gravel driveway that led to a white house on a hill--Bill the Pill’s mother’s house.
Bill the Pill stood behind a mid-nineties model F-150. In his hand was a five-gallon gas jug, which presumably had been requisitioned from his mother’s recently built utility shed, the overhead door of which stood wide open, revealing inside a riding mower and other yard tools. Bill The Pill’s mother stood just outside the rear door of the house in her housecoat and slippers, hands on hips and a not happy look on her face, which was illuminated in the dull yellow glow of a floodlight attached to the side of the house.
Without a word Bill the Pill went to work, pouring gas in the car. Pickin’ Pete and Stringy Sarah exited the car and approached Bill the Pill’s mother, both of whom knew her. They also knew Bill the Pill’s sister, Wacky Wanda.
“High, Martha,” Pickin Pete said.
“Pete,” Martha greeted in a none too tender tone. “Don’t you people ever go to bed?”
“Sorry, miss Rickets,” Stringy Sarah said. Stringy Sarah always treated Bill the Pill’s mother with the utmost respect, because she was stern and in Stringy Sarah’s opinion mean, which tickled Pickin’ Pete. He loved watching Stringy Sarah, who was short and small, stare up at Martha, who was big and tall, trembling in morbid fear.
“My God, girl, what’s wrong with your arm? That looks horrible,” Martha blurted, voice full of revulsion. “And is that your arm smelling like that?”
“It’s an infection, Miss Rickets. I scraped it against something,” Stringy Sarah lied.
“Why haven’t you went to the hospital yet?” Martha asked.
“We’re going now,” said Pickin’ Pete.
Martha shook
her head. “You poor people. The whole lot of you. I swear you need to get off those damn drugs.” Pickin’ Pete heard the door to Martha’s building slide shut, and Martha shouted, “Make sure you lock it, Bill, so one of your druggie friends don’t rob me.”
“It’s locked, mom. Thanks. Sorry to keep you up. Bye, love you and good luck tomorrow,” Bill the Pill said. He waved to the others to come on, then climbed into the back seat of Pickin’ Pete’s Corsica, the back door of which had been standing open.
“Bye, Martha,” Pickin Pete said.
“See ya, Miss Rickets,” Stringy Sarah said to the back of a retreating Martha, who was swinging shut the kitchen door.
“She is mean, Pete,” Stringy Sarah observed.
Pickin’ Pete laughed as they made their way back to the car, Stringy Sarah again climbing in behind the wheel. Pickin’ Pete sat up front while Bill the Pill sat sprawled in the back seat.