by William Lobb
Zara and Payton came home, and Zara was a little drunk. This only amused Frankie. It didn’t anger him or sadden or disappoint him. He admired people who could get a little drunk. Frankie never could. There was no “a little” drunk for Frankie. Frankie had forgotten to eat. He didn’t care. The three of them undressed and went to bed.
Frankie and Payton got up early on Monday. They made their coffee and went out on the patio. The air was cool for New Orleans. They were only a couple of days from Thanksgiving. The conversations between them were simple and quiet. More often than not, they were centered on sobriety: the steps, successes, and failures. Not just discussions about being not drunk or drugged, but about being sane. Sanity wasn’t a given, but a gift, a fragile and precious gift. Each day sane and sober was one to respect and cherish. There were no promises. Sometimes Frankie wondered if he’d wake one day insane again. He hoped not. He tried hard to be sane.
He told Payton he sometimes saw sanity like leaves on a tree, appearing out of nothing and nowhere; a complex grid that blossomed and bloomed to life. Sanity, alive and thriving. Then, for no apparent reason, it changed color and texture and shriveled up and died. Frankie felt like he was in the mid-summer of sanity now, the good days, the solid, warm, long summer days. He needed to live and bask and thrive in these warm, golden, and sky-blue summer days.
Payton, a girl born of and on the bayou, looked at him strangely. She really didn’t understand the picture he was trying to paint of leaves and blossoming and dying. Payton was a girl of perpetual green, perpetual summer. Frankie could try to explain, but the bayou was another world, summer’s haven where winter was not welcome. He felt his sanity in full bloom. But he feared the autumn, the fall of sanity.
They finished their coffee and went inside to get dressed. Zara heard them and woke up, a little hung over.
Payton gave Frankie a phone number. She said, “This girl is a mess. She’s attended a few meetings, and had a couple of sponsors. She says she wants to get clean, but she constantly fails. You’re the most hardcore addict that any of us have ever met. Maybe you can connect to something in her. This is not your problem, but the general consensus is she will probably be dead soon if someone doesn’t get to her. I want you to try.”
Payton called the girl on the phone, she answered and said she would be home, but she was sleeping. Frankie could stop by in a few hours. Payton wrote down the address, near where his truck was parked. He needed to stop by and start it up. He had to figure out if he was still in the trucking business one of these days. Payton said, “Take some cash. I told her you were coming by for a blowjob.” Payton smiled and Frankie laughed.
He just said, “Whatever it takes.”
Frankie took a walk through the city on this quiet Monday morning, one of those rare times when he could find New Orleans asleep. He walked over to the tractor, climbed inside, and fired up the huge, powerful diesel. He sat in the deep, thick leather seat, put his hands on the massive white steering wheel, and played with the radio, trying to find a station he could listen to. There was way too much country music in the South for his taste. He listened to the engine choke and roar to life. He felt nostalgia for the road but, at the same time, it was tough sit in that cab.
On his last trips, he’d been pretty wasted, with the demon riding shotgun. He sat there a moment and thought about the past year, as the engine warmed and smoothed out. He was still all right with money, but he needed a plan for the next year. Could he justify sobriety in his mind, while running drugs? He didn’t even know if he could find another way in. Running weed seemed pretty legit to him, harmless. He couldn’t go back to the East Coast or the New York City mob. He’d heard rumors, just recently, that the killings of Eddie and John Quarry had caused a small war to erupt, involving all of the East Coast mobs in the flower business. He was pretty certain there was a hit out on him still, but he figured he was as safe here in New Orleans as anywhere and safer than many places. He’d need new connections, maybe in Detroit or Chicago. He could go legit. That thought made him laugh. He might someday be sober, but he’d never be a legitimate businessman.
He thought about his stones for the first time in months; the weight of his sins and his crimes. He had not lost sight of who he was, not for a second, but it had somehow come to blend into this entire new persona. When Frankie said the words “drunk and drug addict and murderer,” they carried less weight, or maybe the same weight, just less urgency. He couldn’t and wouldn’t ever allow himself to fall into the delusion that he was cured of anything. He knew, on his own and by talking to others, that he would be in bed with that demon until death, and he hoped then they could part ways. But, he feared, silently, occasionally, that even in death he’d be haunted by that son-of- a-bitch.
He lit a cigarette and thought hard about the road. There was still a guy in Texas who could get him work as a coyote, running illegals over the border. It seemed like a lowlife way to make a living, but if he was helping people get to a better life and he was humane, it might not be a bad gig.
He thought about going further south, leaving the U.S. for good and getting involved in a few of the conflicts to the south. He had a friend who went into Colombia and made some money, then got the hell out.
He thought about Zara. He couldn’t define her, couldn’t place her. It had only been a few months, but he was sure he loved her. He had a hard time accepting that she was a prostitute, even though these days she said that she was more of a manager of the place and the other girls. He still knew, he had to accept her occupation. It was easier for him than for many men, having spent a lot of time and money in the company of hookers.
He felt like he was avoiding something, a truth about her and about him, but at this stage of his life, all he could do was take everything as it came, every day, and not live in the future or the past. Just live. The act of living clean was still new to him, still hard, still an adventure.
It was apparent to him that Zara was to be a major influence in his life. He hadn’t planned for any of this. For now, he needed to find and focus on this new girl, Stacey.
He shut down the tractor and climbed down from the cab. He walked about three blocks down and then turned onto Iberville Street and into a pretty sketchy-looking area. The houses were tightly packed together like most in the Quarter, but this particular stretch seemed unusually run-down. He could feel the sadness as he stood in the street. The gutters were littered, not just with normal city waste, but also with the occasional syringe, big rubber bands, small baggies; things that he knew all too well. He walked to the house where he was told he would find the girl and knocked. He knocked a few times; finally, a window opened up on the second floor and girl stuck her head out.
She yelled, “Are you the guy Payton told me about?” Frankie replied he was. She said, “Twenty bucks for a blowjob, fifty to fuck me. You have cash?”
Frankie assured her he did. She said she would meet him in the alley to his right. He turned the corner and waited.
It was a narrow and dark alley, not wide enough to drive a car through. On either side were old stucco and cement houses. At one time they had been white, these small houses with tiny windows and narrow wooden doors. The one door to his left opened and the girl emerged. Her clothes were wrinkled and filthy and her hair was greasy and stringy. Her face, once pretty, now looked haggard and old, far older than her mid-twenties. She stood there and he stood there for a long moment.
Finally, she said, “You’re not a creep, are you? Did you bring the cash? Do you want to fuck or do you want a blowjob?” Frankie, in a way, admired her straight-up, no bullshit approach.
He said, from a distance away, “Uh, I guess we’ll fuck, right?” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a fifty-dollar bill.
He handed her the money, and she took it, slid it into her jeans, and held the door open for him. He walked into the little alcove off the kitchen and stood there while she op
ened the kitchen door. His first impression of the room was complete filth. Garbage overflowed onto the kitchen floor, a stench of rotted food filled the air and his nostrils. Two huge, empty dog food bowls sat on the floor. Two large bags of discount dog food were ripped open and half-empty, also on the floor.
She took his hand and led him through a cluttered living room. Again he found more garbage, plates with dirty, moldy food, some on the coffee table, some on the floor, some on the ripped and worn furniture. Three people seemed to be sleeping or passed out on the furniture. He saw syringes and spoons and a lighter and some baggies on a small, worn out coffee table. He knew they weren’t just sleeping.
A very large, tall, white man came into the living room from the back of the house. Frankie stiffened up and clenched his fist. This guy was huge, bald, and covered in tattoos. The guy looked and smelled sinister. Frankie noticed a few swastika tattoos and one of white thunderbolts and he knew exactly what this guy was all about. Stacey simply said, “I’m going to go fuck this guy,” and she handed him the fifty-dollar bill.
She opened up a narrow, grimy, white door with hand prints deeply embedded in the faded white paint and led Frankie up some very shaky stairs to an attic. He watched her ass as they climbed the stairs, and even in the midst of all this filth and depression, hatred and abuse, he thought the girl had a cute ass. They arrived at the top of the stairway. Frankie put his hand on the top of the banister and almost fell down the stairs as the finial top came loose in his hand. He turned and had to duck down, as the ceiling was very low. This room was a claustrophobic but finished attic and it was hot up there. Under the dormer on the left side of the room, was the bed.
The room was cluttered with dirty clothes and more garbage. There was a linoleum runner that ran the length of the room. Dirty and worn with the edges pulled up from the floor, it almost tripped Frankie a couple of times. There was an old stereo sitting on some cardboard boxes. It played some staticky southern rock station. Then he finally heard it—“Freebird”—and he laughed silently.
He asked if she had recently moved in and she said she’d been there about six months, but hadn’t had time to unpack. He guessed shooting heroin and giving blowjobs occupied all of her time. The room was dark and lit by tall religious candles, dozens of them: Jesus and Mary and angels and images of the cross. Tacked up on the walls were two old and dirty rugs, also covered with images of Jesus, doing something he assumed were from Bible scenes that he had somehow missed during his recent and brief indoctrination into the church. Everything in the room was twisted in juxtaposition to anything he could piece together happening in this place, in this house, except perhaps that the crucifixion was heroin. He’d seen a few die on that cross. He lost some friends to that drug, the Devil’s Dirt.
Stacey quickly undressed, lay on the bed and spread her legs, as if indicating she was open for business. Frankie was still too confounded by the religious symbolism and the filth of the room to even notice her lying nude on the filthy bed. He felt suddenly a little like he did while doing acid, with flashes of the past months and his meager and failed search for God, his own addiction, and the pain of this girl’s life and the pimp downstairs. He sat down on the bed, fully clothed, and said he’d really just come to talk to her.
She sat up, supporting herself on her elbows, and looked confused. He began to speak, “It’s not that many months ago that I was where you are now. You shock me and challenge me for a number of reasons. You’re a mirror to me. I take no comfort from your pain, but it’s familiar, more so than this foreign landscape I now call home. Here today, somewhere in your tragedy and pain, I miss this. It’s a very dangerous and broken piece of me that wants to lie down in this bed and fuck you and take your poison in my vein and become one with this world again.
“You make me feel a welcome visitor to a familiar and deadly and foreign land. I see the ugliness of your life and it excites me. I came here to help you, but you tempt me. There’s nothing appealing here to me, but a comfort in what I know and what exists to destroy me. Maybe it’s too much work to be clean. Maybe that’s not who I am at all. Maybe what I am and what is real is right here, right before me. Maybe the filth and your sickness are what I am and all I’m able to be. Maybe I should kill you and kill your pimp and then kill myself. What is the appeal, the sexiness, the need in this tragedy?”
She spoke, “Maybe you should. You’d be doing me a favor, to kill me, to kill him. Maybe you should.”
Frankie confided, “You’re the first person still living your addiction that I’ve encountered since I’ve been trying to live sober. I came to help you, but I’ve got nothing to offer. I’m still as broken and dead inside as you are.”
Hers was a kind of poverty not unlike Alexandrine’s, but Alex had an abundance of spirit, of faith, of love. Stacey had none of these, and in that moment realizing this, Frankie felt a connection to this woman deeper than he’d felt for anyone in many years. Sitting here on the edge of her bed in all this filth and stench and poverty and addiction, Frankie felt at home. He wanted to fuck her and get high. He stood up to unzip his pants. That motion broke the moment. He saw, out of the corner of his eye, the demon, who was as real and clear and alive as he was the night Frankie rolled into this town, as alive as the night Frankie shot heroin in the bathroom of the bar. His confusion built. Frankie wanted this dirty, strange pussy and he wanted to get fucked up. The pimp yelled up the stairway, “You got that other guy coming up in about fifteen minutes, the one who likes you to slap him around. You two better finish up quick. Suck his dick and finish up.”
Frankie yelled back, “Fuck you, asshole,” and the two heard the skinhead come running up the stairs. Frankie, still fully dressed, met him at the top of the stairs and launched himself head-first into the pimp. He met him about four stairs down from the top, and threw punches hard as the men connected.
Frankie looked like a bird in flight as he and the pimp flew and tumbled down the stairs. The pimp felt the impact, first on his legs, then his back, as they slowly fell down the stairs. The stairway was so narrow that the walls caused them to get somewhat stuck and twisted between each other as they worked their way down. The pimp landed a few more punches, and Frankie shook them off. His connected hard with the pimp’s face. Frankie could feel the pimp’s greasy sweat on his hands.
The pimp heard Frankie say, “I’m going to fucking kill you, asshole.”
The pimp believed him.
They landed in a pile at the base of the stairs, Frankie on top as they broke through the door, so he felt no pain on the landing. Kneeling on the pimp’s chest, with his hands around the pimp’s neck, Frankie choked him, staring into his eyes. Eye-to-eye, Frankie stared deeply inside this man. He could see fear. He could see and feel the pimp watching the fast-forwarded movie of his wasted and pathetic life pass before his eyes. He didn’t seem to put up much of a fight at the end. Possibly his neck or his spine had already been broken in the fall. Frankie knelt there, still choking him until he saw life take its last breath. The pimp was dead.
Stacey, totally nude, descended the stairs, crying and screaming. Frankie stood up. He felt a little sore, but nothing was broken. He heard a knock on the door. Stacey walked over the now-dead pimp. Still totally nude, she opened the door and saw it was Payton.
Frankie stood up and looked at the two of them and said, “This one was easy. This fucker needed to die.”
Stacey looked at both Payton and Frankie then back at Payton and said, “This one? Is this guy some serial killer? This one. What the fuck does that mean?”
Frankie walked over the body and up the stairs. He returned a few minutes with Stacey’s dirty clothes wrapped in his arms. He handed her the clothes and said, “Get dressed. There’s nothing for you here. There never was. This is over for you.”
He told Payton he had to go. He told Stacey she was to call the police, and tell them he fell down the stairs. Frankie explained, �
��No one will ever give a shit about this scumbag. And you better tell those assholes passed out on the couch that the cops will be here in ten minutes. Stacey, make that call and get the fuck out of here with Payton. This place is filthy with heroin.”
Frankie said to Payton, “Have Stacey make the call and then bring her back to Zara’s.” He continued talking to Stacey as she put her clothes on, “I’ve been you all my life. You almost pulled me back in. I can’t help you, I can’t help me. I can’t control myself around you. Your toxin is what I crave. You are so broken that to me you’re perfect.”
Frankie walked alone back to Zara’s. He climbed the stairs and walked into the kitchen, poured himself a tea and sat on the patio.
Zara walked onto the stone floor and sat next to him. “How did it go with Payton’s friend?”
Frankie just shook his head and said, “I didn’t fuck her and I killed her pimp.”
Zara said, “Well, both of those are good, I suppose.” She realized she noticed a change in Frankie.
Frankie said, “I think I’ve changed. I think I’m making some kind of forward movement in a positive way, but I’m not. Nothing ever changes. This girl taught me all I need to know about myself. I’m back to feeling the weight of my stones. I really want to drink. I may go to David’s bar and get really drunk. This tea is not getting it done. I need some pills and a lot of vodka. I need to get massively fucked up and stop pretending. All this is bullshit, all this, you me. Everything else is real and who I am. This guy, the one talking to you now, is me and where I belong. I need to get the fuck out of here and back to reality. Fuck this.
All your light and positive attitude and sage—it’s all poison to me. You are poison. You’ve tried to make me something I’m not. I am a raging drunk and a killer. I live in my darkness. Men like me can pretend all day long to have changed. But we don’t change, we never change. We’re so broken inside, all we do is pretend to be like people like you. You are the lie, Zara, not me. You are the illusion. When I killed that fucking pimp I knew. I saw me again. I don’t live with a demon—I am the demon. People like me, when they look in the mirror, they see a truth the rest of you will never see, never know. I am everything you fear. You should drop to your knees and thank your buddy God for that. I don’t change. I just pretend not to be the monster I am. Fuck you and fuck your illusions. I need to get back to my darkness. I have no place here. There is no country for me, no amnesty. I belong on the other side of that razor-thin line. You want the truth? Fucking look in my eyes! You’ll see nothing but darkness. That’s who I am; that is what I am.”