The First Cut

by John Kenyon

  He was facing me, a white T-shirt hanging loose on his frame, his hair bleached blond and spiked more from fitful sleep than product. Taking my coat off seemed to catch his gaze, and we locked eyes for a split second before he put a hand to his face and looked down at his plate.

  That’s OK, I thought. I don’t want to talk with you either.

  “Two?” said the matronly hostess behind the counter. Trudy stepped around me and said “yes,” asking for a booth. “Be a few minutes,” the woman told her. “Two just put in their orders and the third just got their food.” Trudy nodded and took a step back to lean against the wall. I moved to join her, holding my coat under my arm.

  I was waiting for her to notice Randy. He was the reason for what seemed to be our ongoing argument, the latest round of which had led us into this greasy spoon instead of a nicer place in Iowa City. We were driving back from her uncle’s funeral in Chicago, trying to get to Council Bluffs before her magic temp-job hall pass for “bereavement” expired. I had a headache from peering through thick fog for the past hour, and wanted to treat us with a decent meal while giving my eyes a break. But her stance, as ever, was that we couldn’t afford it. “Let’s just stop and get a quick sandwich at that diner outside of town,” she had said. “Save a couple of bucks.”

  We were always trying to “save a couple of bucks.” I was marginally employed, catching on with construction crews or other manual labor jobs when I could, and her clerking position barely earned enough to cover rent on the hole we called home.

  I looked again at Randy, but he continued to look down. He was sitting with another guy; he, too, wore a baggy white T-shirt, but without being able to see his face, I couldn’t place him. Randy didn’t look good. The drugs had obviously taken their toll over the years, his evolution from dealer to dealer-user obviously still in motion.

  “Hey,” Trudy hissed, elbowing me in the ribs. “Is that Randy?”

  “Yeah. I saw him,” I said, knowing I’d be unable to pull off the lie if I said no. “I was hoping to avoid a confrontation.”

  “You were hoping?” she said, still trying to keep her voice down, but with less success. “Jesus. You’re the only guy I know who actually went soft in prison.”

  “You know a lot of ex-cons, do you?” I asked, letting an edge creep into my voice. Trudy, a petite and pretty brunette from a nice section of Omaha, hadn’t known much about the dark side of anything before she met me.

  She turned it down a couple of notches. “Sorry. I just can’t believe you don’t want to go over there and beat the shit out of him right now.”

  “I did the crime, I did the time,” I said, repeating what had become a mantra of sorts.

  “What about his crime? His time?” Trudy countered. “It was his deal. He pulled you in and --”

  “Look, we’ve been over this again and again. I asked to come in on it,” I said, looking around to see if anyone was paying attention. “No one forced me.”

  A couple brushed by us after paying their bill. Trudy pushed herself away from the wall as they passed and went to talk with the hostess. A moment later, the woman came from behind the counter with two menus in her hand. “Follow me,” she said. I looked at the far wall and saw all three booths still occupied. The woman led us to the lone open table, right next to Randy.

  “Your waitress will be with you in a moment,” she said, leaving the menus on the table.

  Now it was my turn to hiss. “What are you doing?” I asked Trudy, sliding down in my seat to hide behind my menu.

  She ignored me and turned to Randy. “Well, if it isn’t Randy Parton! God, what a small world!” He looked over with alarm, then looked at me. “Hey, Jack. Thought I saw you over there.”

  “Well, isn’t this just a sweet little homecoming,” Trudy said. I looked at the guy across from Randy and realized it was Mark Salter, a friend of Randy’s from Moline who hadn’t been accepted at Iowa. He would come up on weekends to go out to the bars, taking advantage of the social scene without the hassle of classes. It took a moment to recognize him. Both of them had been avid weightlifters back then, but Mark was even more gaunt than Randy now.

  “Hey, Mark,” I said, nodding to him. He nodded back, but sat silent, nervously twisting a plastic straw around his finger again and again.

  “I been meaning to get in touch now that you’re, you know,” Randy said.

  “Out of prison?” Trudy said, a bit too loudly, her shrill voice piercing the low murmur of conversation. People from nearby tables turned to see if something more interesting would develop.

  “Settle down,” I said to her. “Let’s just eat, OK?”

  Trudy looked at me with disgust in her eyes, flipped the menu open and slapped it loudly on the table. The waitress came around with glasses of ice water, and we each ordered a sandwich and fries. We sat in silence for a few minutes, while Randy and Mark, both leaning forward over the table, whispered animatedly.

  I wanted to look anywhere but at Trudy. She had a right to be mad. I lost two years of my life because of Randy. She lost two years waiting for me, and another shackled to me after a pregnancy scare led her to drop out of school a semester early. I had only been out of prison a couple of months at the time, so we moved west to be close to a family that we realized too late didn’t want anything to do with an out-of-wedlock baby sired by an ex-con. A miscarriage did nothing but drive a wedge between us; her family wasn’t going to lift a finger -- or pry open a wallet -- as long as I was still around.

  It had started with what we called “trucker speed,” little white pills that Randy bought from someone on campus to help him stay up at night to study. That evolved into meth, and the inevitable shift from user to creator. He couldn’t afford his habit, so he decided to make his own. I knew but chose to ignore the shift. I was 20 years old, barely keeping my own head above water with classes that were exponentially harder than high school, and figured his business was his business. It wasn’t until I came home from class one day and saw him standing at our kitchen table, stuffing sealed plastic bags of meth into a gym bag that I got involved.

  As I gazed around the diner trying to avoid Trudy’s gaze, I noticed the ratty black bag at Randy’s feet, and a similar one at the feet of the guy sitting behind him. Didn’t take a genius to see what was going on. I knew one of the bags was stuffed with ziplock bags packed with tan powder, the other with bundles of grubby bills. At some point, Randy would grab the other guy’s bag and go to the bathroom to check the contents, then return. The other guy would do the same with Randy’s bag. When they left, each would take the other’s bag and the deal was done.

  I was relieved when our sandwiches came, because it gave us an excuse to not talk. I looked over at Randy and Mark from time to time, watching them eat. Randy picked at his sandwich, while Mark attacked his like a rabid dog. I could see the muscles of his arm flex through his thin, pallid skin as he moved the sandwich from plate to mouth repeatedly.

  After a couple of bites, Trudy turned toward Randy. “So, Randy, how have the last three years been for you? Pretty good? Nice to be able to come and go as you please?”

  "Trudy,” I said, but she shot me her “shut up” look and turned back to Randy. “I asked you a question, Randy.”

  He set his sandwich on his plate and picked up his napkin to wipe his mouth. He had always moved slowly despite the meth, determined. Unlike his customers, who favored speed metal and punk, Randy was closer to the hippie end of the spectrum, always playing one of the endless series of Neil Young albums he had stacked against a battered turntable in his room. Now, he was more shaky than smooth; I watched the napkin tremble as he brought it to his mouth. He seemed to be stalling for time.

  “I’ve been fine, I guess,” he said, not looking up. He set the napkin down, then looked straight at me. It was a cold gaze that was hard to read. He then looked down at the bag at his feet, and then back at me. He picked up his sandwich and started to take another bite.

  “Fine?” Trudy s
aid. “You’re fine? Well, let me tell you something, you creep, there is nothing --”

  “Trudy, “I said again, reaching out to grab her wrist. I pulled her close. “Let it go,” I whispered. “They’re about to do a deal. Knowing how the last one turned out, I don’t think you want to get involved.”

  I’d been pinched in a similar situation nearly three years ago. Randy and I were meeting a guy from Kansas City. We were at the Iowa City Recreation Center in the locker room. We had a bag that contained about three pounds of packaged meth from Randy’s increasingly sophisticated operation, and the buyer would have a similar bag with $20,000 in cash. We were early, sitting on the bench waiting for him to arrive. Randy hadn’t wanted me to come, but I’d forced the issue, telling him I could use some easy money as much as him. I had been using a little bit by then, and he grudgingly decided to let me come. We were early, and after a few minutes, he said he was feeling twitchy, so he went out to walk around the block. The buyer was early, too, slipping through the door to drop his bag next to ours on the bench. I unzipped it and saw the money inside. As I reached in to do a quick count of the bundles, he opened our bag to check on the drugs. Each satisfied, we exited. I went first, and made it as far as the sidewalk in front of the center when a cop came around the corner and shoved me up against the wall.

  They hadn’t witnessed the deal, so even though everyone involved knew what had happened, they could only bust me for the packet I had foolishly stuffed in the front pocket of my jeans on the way out the door, just in case I needed a boost before the deal. They caught the buyer walking out the back with a bag full of drugs. He was hit with a 25-year sentence, while I was socked with an aggravated misdemeanor that meant two years in prison and a hefty fine. Randy never did surface, and because I wouldn’t roll over on him or the buyer, I got the maximum sentence.

  That was the last time I had seen Randy until now. He seemed to disappear. He never came to visit me, never contacted me. I always chalked it up to fear of getting caught. It was clear he hadn’t changed; in fact, he was worse.

  Trudy had set her sandwich down and was looking now at the two bags on the floor. She couldn’t see the men sitting behind Randy without turning, and she was clearly trying to do so without drawing attention to herself. The man directly behind Randy was wearing a green work coat and a trucker cap pulled low. The guy across from him seemed smaller, wiry. He was dark complected, but he, too, had a grimy yellow hat pulled down low and was difficult to see.

  Trudy scooted her chair back a few inches. “Do you have the keys? I need to get something out of the car.”

  I pulled the keys out of my pocket and handed them over. As I laid them in Trudy’s palm, she grabbed my wrist with her other hand. “Get ready to run,” she whispered. She stood up and put on her coat, then reached down and grabbed the handles of the bag at the feet of the guy behind Randy, yanked it up and pushed her chair over as she backed quickly away from the table.

  “He’s got a gun!” she screamed, pointing at Randy as she skittered away from him and then turned and ran. I sat stunned for a moment as the diner erupted in commotion all around me. People screamed as two burly truck drivers grabbed at Randy. I jumped up and ran after Trudy, grabbing my coat from the back of my chair as I did.

  She hit the door of the diner and pushed through to the parking lot, running toward our teal Chevy at a dead sprint, oblivious to the puddles. “Hurry, Jack!” she yelled, knowing I’d be splashing along right behind her. She opened the door, threw the bag in the back and slid in the driver’s seat. I reached the car a second later and climbed into the passenger seat. She keyed the ignition, kicked it into reverse and skidded across the lot, the back tires throwing rocks and mud as the car sought traction. I turned and looked in the rearview mirror to see Randy, Mark and the other two men burst through the door of the diner and run across the lot.

  “Wow! All right!” Trudy yelled, smacking the steering wheel and she maneuvered the car onto the frontage road. “Revenge is sweet!”

  I finally remembered to fasten my seatbelt, which tipped Trudy to do the same, and then turned and pulled the bag out of the back seat. I sat it on my lap and zipped it open. I was surprised to find about 20 zip-lock bags full of powder, wholesale meth. Three years ago it would have been worth $20,000 or so; much more on the street. I had no idea what it would go for now.

  “How much is there?” Trudy said, making no attempt to keep the excitement out of her voice. She steered the car up the entrance ramp and onto Interstate 80 westbound.

  “Probably about 2 pounds, maybe less,” I said, shaking the bag to see what it contained. I wasn’t going to reach in for fear of leaving a fingerprint that would send me back to prison for 25 years.

  “What do you mean? Two pounds of money? How much is that?”

  “There is no money. Randy must have been buying instead of selling. He had the money, you grabbed the meth.”

  “Oh, God,” she said. “So we have enough drugs in the car to get you put away --”

  “Get us put away,” I corrected. “For a very long time.” We were both silent for several seconds.

  “What did you think, that you could just grab Randy’s money to get back at him?” I said.

  She looked over at me, her face a mix of fear and shame. “That’s exactly what I was thinking. It was perfect. The Mexicans would get the drugs and Randy would get nothing. Not like he could report it to the cops. The perfect crime and the perfect way to stick it to Randy. He owes us.”

  I ran a hand through my hair and exhaled a breath I realized I had been holding for a while. I looked over at Trudy. Though she was small, she was a firecracker, someone you wouldn’t mess with twice. But now, she looked like a child behind the wheel, hunched over, her arms stiff as she clutched at it.

  She seemed to snap out of a daze just then, sat up straight and looked in the rearview. “Jack, they’re behind me.” She said it with an odd calm.

  “Which one?” I said, turning in my seat to look through the rear window to see first one car, then another emerge from the fog.

  “Both of them, I think. What should we do? Why don’t we just throw the bag out? They’ll stop and get it and we just keep going, right?” Her voice rose in pitch with each word.

  “That might slow them down, but not for long. One would stop and the other would keep after us to make sure we didn’t just throw out a bag stuffed with newspapers or something. Hell, they might not even see us do it in this fog.”

  “So what are we going to do?” she said, her voice now shrill.

  “Keep driving and just watch what you’re doing. They won’t do anything on a busy interstate, and we don’t need to get stopped by a trooper for speeding.”

  She nodded. Her legs were shaking and she was gripping the wheel more tightly than before, her knuckles white.

  “Steady, babe. We’re almost to Iowa City. Get off on Dubuque Street and head north away from town. Get us on our turf.”

  Just then my cell phone rang. I didn’t recognize the number, so I ignored it. About 30 seconds later, it rang again.

  “Get it!” Trudy said, sounding a little hysterical. “Maybe it’s someone who can help us!”

  I pushed the button to connect and put the phone to my ear.

  “Is this Jack?”

  “Yeah, who is this?”

  “It’s Randy. Glad you have the same cell number. What the hell was Trudy thinking?”

  “She wanted to get back at you,” I said. “Dumb mistake. So how do we solve this?”

  “Is that him?” Trudy said. “Tell him to back off!”

  “Jack, this is a serious situation, OK? These are bad people, and they aren’t just going to let you walk away.”

  “They’re bad people? What about you, Randy? You’re not exactly a Boy Scout here. I’m not sure who I should be more afraid of.”

  “It’s them, Jack. No question.”

  I hung up then, and threw the phone down by my feet.

  “This
is not good, hon,” I said. “We need to think of something.”

  Trudy, her face now ghostly white, pulled the car onto the exit at Dubuque Street, blew the stop sign at the top of the rise and headed north away from town. As we followed the road down toward the Iowa River and then back up and past it, I got an idea.

  “Remember that Frisbee golf course out at Sugarbottom that Randy and I used to play?”

  She nodded.

  “Head out there. I think I know what we need to do.”

  Truth told, Randy and I didn’t see each other much outside our apartment. He was a perpetually undeclared major who didn’t make it to class very often, and I was a pre-engineering major always loaded up with homework. He had answered an ad I posted in the student union looking for a roommate after Tony, a friend from my hometown, had dropped out and moved back home after a bad case of mono.

  The one thing that Randy and I both took to was Frisbee golf. There were a few courses around, but the one at the Sugarbottom camping area near the Coralville reservoir, a state park surrounding a man-made lake north of town, was the best. For a few short weeks our junior year, we played so often that we got to know every twist and turn, every dip and rise. We’d wander around, talking about sports, girls and music, me trying to discuss the latest from the Strokes or the White Stripes and Randy digging down into hippie rock arcana in the hope of convincing me I was missing out. There were some tricky holes, the wire basket that we aimed for completely out of sight around a copse of trees or over a scrub-covered hill of limestone. Those obstacles, and my familiarity with them, was the edge I sought to get us out of this.

  The phone rang again, but I ignored it. I wanted to think that Randy was on our side, but I wasn’t willing to put my faith in someone tweaked to the gills that was probably armed. Trudy steered the car onto Mehaffey Bridge Road, careful as it snaked through wooded areas and over the water, then turned onto Sugarbottom Road as it swung out wide to the south around the lake. She turned into the camping area, slowing a bit as the road turned from cement to blacktop.