by Nico Walker
Ari’s phone rang. Gary picked it up. It was Old Boy. We were good. Twenty minutes later we were back at the abandoned house, shooting up in the inferno. The heroin was superstepped-on. I said, “No offense, Gary, but this shit is kind of some garbage.”
Gary said, “I don’t normally go through that guy. I only called him cuz you said you needed something quick. But my other dude, he told me he’s got some fire. I just won’t be able to get up with him till later.”
We agreed we would do that. I was sure Gary was fucked but I’d give him another try. In the meantime I had to run. I texted Emily when I was on the freeway. I got downtown and made a left off of Chester and waited for her to come down. We drove around to the parking lot.
“How is it?” she asked.
“It’s so-so.”
“As long as it gets me well, man.”
“It will. It isn’t that bad. It’s just the dope’s expensive for what it is and Gary and Ari depress the shit out of me.”
“Hmm.”
“What do you think?”
“I do feel better.”
“How’s your day been?”
“Totally fucked. The Writing Lab is a fucking joke. I have this one student. He’s on the basketball team. He doesn’t do anything. He expects me to write his assignments for him. I’m pretty sure he’s illiterate.”
“Well the basketball coach probably promised him that you’d do his homework for him. That was probably their understanding.”
“Fuck their understanding.”
“Yes, I know.”
“Ugh. I don’t want to go back up there.”
“Then don’t.”
“Sure,” she said. “That’s a great idea. Maybe I can join the fucking circus.”
“Just saying.”
My phone buzzed. I had a text. It was from Big. He said he was about to be on the East Side if I wanted to meet up with him.
I called him. Everything was good.
I said to Emily, “Big’s gonna meet me at Rock-and-Roll McDonald’s.”
“Why there?”
“It’ll be alright.”
“How many are you going to get?”
“We’ve got enough for a lot of them.”
“Then do it up. This heroin is shit.”
“You wanna come?”
“Sheesh. I dunno.”
“C’mon. We’ll buy these fucking pills, come back over here, shoot the fucking pills. It’ll be great. Romance, you know.”
“Fuck it. I have an hour and a half till I have to be back.”
“You’ll make it.”
Rock-and-Roll McDonald’s was just over on Carnegie. A lot of drugs got bought and sold there. Of course the police knew about it and there was usually an undercover cop or two at Rock-and-Roll McDonald’s. Still you had to go and do some dirt there every now and then because if you didn’t you were fucking nothing. I had even seen the mayor of Cleveland there before. He had cut me and about five other cars in the drive-thru line. Cleveland was a small town.
We arrived before Big.
I had an idea.
I said, “Let’s go inside.”
“Really? You want to go inside?”
“I’m tired of waiting in the car all the time. And we’ve got money today.”
“Whatever you want.”
“Don’t order a fucking salad either.”
“I’m going to order a salad.”
“Okay. But you have to get a milk shake.”
“Deal.”
We went in and ordered—burgers and shakes, French fries, the whole shit. Emily got a salad. We sat down where we could see the cars turning in. Big would be along in a minute. He wasn’t the type to keep you waiting. He was good like that. He may have shot some people to death at one time but that was nothing to do with us and he had paid his debt to society so there was nothing more to say about it but thanks for the dope. I only wished he sold heroin. He didn’t. He only sold OxyContin. He had his own script on account of his fibromyalgia and he could ride around with pills all day with no problems.
I saw him turn in. He was driving a white Chevy Blazer.
I said to Emily, “I’ll be right back.”
I went outside and got in Big’s truck.
He said, “I fucked a pink toe last night.”
Big was a corpulent man, in his 60s.
“She had a nice ass for a white girl,” he said.
“That’s good. Let me get twenty of them.”
He said no problem.
I had the money. It was Pell Grant money. I counted it out. Big counted out the pills. Big always had a fuckload of pills on him. He was an LPN and he bought pills from old people. Once I asked him how he knew which old people would sell him their pills. He said it was simple—you asked the poor ones.
I said, “Thanks a lot, Big. I’ll be calling you.”
He said, “Alright now.”
I went back inside Rock-and-Roll McDonald’s. I had just spent $900 I couldn’t afford to spend. But I had a lot of OxyContin in my pocket and it’d last Emily and me through to Monday, so I felt alright about everything. Then I became aware of the man who had followed me when I came inside. He sat at the table just past my right shoulder. He was middle-aged, pale as a ghost, wore a turquoise jacket and faded jeans, showed male pattern baldness. He had no food in front of him. Emily saw him too. She looked at me and I winked and she gave no sign and I was proud of her. She was too cool. She was like a cross between Mary Poppins and Billie Holiday.
I said, “How’s the salad?”
She said, “It’s alright.”
“That’s good,” I said. “So what’s this shit with this illiterate motherfucker again?”
“It’s not fair. He’s so fucking arrogant but he’s completely stupid. I don’t see how he can be so arrogant when he’s that stupid.”
We were talking real loud so the police could hear us. And we kept on talking real loud. We talked about school real loud, talked real loud about the illiterate basketball player and what she was going to write her thesis on and what so-and-so had said about so-and-so. We talked about a girl she worked with who was a piece of shit. Things like that. Whatever else. We acted like we were just good people out having some lunch.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
I was looking for something cheap but good. I thought if I could find that then it would be alright and we’d manage.
That night Gary got out on me for $180. It was a loss but not a total disaster. Emily and I had the Oxys we picked up earlier from Big. So we had time. As far as the money, I thought $180 was fair to never have to see motherfucking Gary again.
I left Ari at the abandoned house. I had said I’d look out for him when Gary came through. That was off now. But I figured he’d be alright. I got home. Emily had made me something to eat. She asked me how it had gone with the heroin and I told her.
“Fucking goddamn!” she said. “A hundred and eighty dollars?”
I said it wasn’t like I’d done it on purpose.
“I know but, baby, you have to see why I’m upset. I’ve been here working, taking care of the plants, making your cocksucking dinner, and I need to write a paper while you’re out playing the big shot and losing our goddamn money!”
“Did you say ‘big shot’? What the fuck is this? Are you a fucking idiot? Is this nineteen fucking seventy? You think I like this shit? You think I like dragging my fucking dead ass all over town and dealing with these fucks?”
“Baby, I’m serious. We’re spending over a thousand dollars on dope, every week. We can’t do that. It’s unsustainable. It’s insane.”
“Okay. So file that under No Fucking Shit. What am I supposed to do about it? Can I just quit? What about you? Do you think you can quit? If you can, let me know, and we’ll qu
it right now. Won’t that be nice? Let’s quit right now.”
“You fucking asshole.”
She started to cry.
“Goddamnit. You’re crying.”
“Fuck you, you motherfucking asshole. This is serious and all you are is a motherfucking asshole.”
“Goddamn fucking shit….Would you please calm down….Look….Shit….Please stop crying. I love you.”
“Don’t you understand that we’re completely fucked?”
“I understand. Believe me, I understand. I really do. And you’re right. And I’m sorry. I feel it too. It’s just we’re so fucked and I don’t know how we’re gonna get out from under this thing so all I can do is try and hold things together the way they are. We have so much to do all the time and it’s like when can we get sick for a month, you know? When will we have time to do that? It’s a fucking trap, you know?”
“But we have to.”
“I know. But just not right now. We will though. We can hang in a little longer. Then we’ll get off it.”
“You don’t mean that.”
“No. I do mean it. I’d like nothing more. Truly. This can’t go on forever. That’s fucking obvious. So something’s gonna make us change. We just have to stay together. That’s what’s important. Please come here.”
I held her.
“…It’ll be alright. Don’t worry about it.”
“…You’re full of shit.”
“Goddamnit.”
“I’m sorry, but it’s true.”
“I feel fucking horrible.”
“Me too. I fucking hate this shit.”
We felt so fucking horrible that we had to shoot some more pills. We each did an 80. Then we felt better. It had only cost us $90, and we could make it through the night. Tomorrow it would only cost another $90 to get us out of bed.
We watched TV again. We went to bed late. We heard a plane flying low over the house. There was a plane that flew low over our house sometimes at night.
Emily pressed against me. “Hmm…how come you never fuck me anymore?” she said.
“I love you too much.”
“You can fuck me in the ass if you want.”
“I’d like that,” I said. “But my heart’s totally broken.”
“So’s mine.”
“I know it is.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
Ari called Saturday evening and said he was sick. He said, “Do you have anything?”
I said, “Man, what the fuck?”
He said, “Please. I’m fucked up.”
I said, “Alright. I’m on my way.”
I drove to the abandoned house and Ari really was sick and it was cold as fuck in that house. Ari looked bad as shit going around wrapped in his sleeping bag like he was, guts all inside out, nose running all over him. I knew what he was going through. I went through it all the time. About every week it would happen to me. That’s why I hated seeing other people sick; it reminded me of how fucked I was.
I said, “What happened to your boy? Shouldn’t he be looking out for you?”
“I’m sorry about the other day,” he said. “I didn’t know.”
“Here’s an eighty,” I said. “It’s for you. You can have it and it’s yours and you won’t owe me shit, but you have to put me on with somebody, somebody who’s not a fuck. You give me another motherfucker like Gary and I’m gonna come back and burn this fucking house down with you in it. Please believe me. And I deal with him directly. I don’t deal with you. Make sure he understands that.”
“Okay, whatever,” he said. “Sure. Thank you.”
Ari shot up 40mg and was saved. Then he called Manny and Manny said I should come through. He was out in Painesville. I wasn’t thrilled about Painesville but I’d go see him.
I met him at a gas station off Route 2. I called him from the parking lot. He said go inside. He was standing in the chips aisle, acting paranoid as all get-out. He was on meth and he’d been picking holes in his face. He had his hat pulled down and his collar up. He was talking in a whisper and I couldn’t hear him. I got frustrated.
I said, “Look, man. I got this money.”
“Not here. Go over there and leave it by the Doritos.”
“Uh…”
“The Doritos.”
“Man, I’m not gonna leave the money by the Doritos.”
“Would you keep yer fucking voice down. Everybody can hear you.”
I rolled up my sleeve and showed him my left arm. My left arm was fucked. My right arm was fucked too, but I only showed my left arm.
I said, “Look, man. I’m not fucking around. I’m on the level.”
“Yer not hearing me.”
When I got home with the dope, Emily asked me what had taken so long. I said I’d bought a gram from a new dope boy. She asked if he was alright. I said he was alright enough. She was happy about that. We shot some of the dope and it was good. It was cheap for how good it was. Emily and I were very happy. That night we danced in the living room. We danced for something like a half hour straight. We danced like in third-class ballrooms. We just made it up.
Let’s sing another song, boys, this one has grown old and bitter.
It was a good night. It just happened.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
The good thing about Manny was he was a serious dope fiend and he was up against it just as bad as you were, so he didn’t make you wait. He’d even drive you with him to get the dope if need be. There were a lot of people in Painesville who wanted Manny dead. So he had to move to the city. And that was good too because I’d hated going all the way out to fucking Painesville.
He had a room at the Euclid Lodge. He was staying there with his boyfriend, an ice monster named Chauncey. Chauncey was ten years older than Manny and he said he was from Florida. Manny said Chauncey’s dad had been a congressman or something like that. Manny said his own family bred horses. “I come from a very wealthy family,” he said. “But I’m cut off.”
I didn’t care. Yet it was important to Manny that I believe him and when he was out in Painesville he had driven me past a horse farm and said it was the horse farm his grandfather owned. It was dark and I didn’t see any horses.
Manny definitely was a police informant and a lot of people went to jail. Like Ari. Manny sold him a scale with dope all over it. He said he’d sell Ari the scale for $10. That was a good deal so Ari bought it and five minutes later he was getting arrested for paraphernalia and possession with intent to distribute. This was a shitty thing that Manny did to Ari.
Sometimes when Manny needed to get somebody fucked off, the police would raid his room at the Euclid Lodge and strip-search everybody and take one or two kids to jail. But Manny and Chauncey didn’t ever go to jail.
The police had a room directly across the hall from Manny. One time I had parked and I was walking up to go in and a policeman called down to me from the second floor.
“Hey. You left your window open,” he said.
I turned around and looked and saw that I had, and I waved to the policeman and said, “Thanks.”
He said, “You’re welcome.”
The worst thing about Manny being a police informant was he would get on with some good heroin and then it wasn’t long before he’d have to give up the source. Like there were these two guys who had this tar that smelled like rotting fish and got you higher than fuck’s sake for $100/gm. Your ears would ring like a motherfucker. But we weren’t getting it two weeks when Manny had to turn those guys in.
And I said to myself, You really ought to get away from this shit while you still can.
And I said to myself, Duly noted.
* * *
—
THE PROBLEM with Emily and me was we were killing one another. Apart we probably could have managed, but the two of us together wa
s a form of suicide. It took teamwork to get your life fucked up so bad. But we couldn’t let go.
Emily had been giving me a hard time for a few days then. She was real pissed at me because I’d got ripped off for $600. It was something Manny had put me onto and I should have known better; I should have known there was no such thing as a $600 ounce of cocaine. But I was a greedy fucker and I thought my ship had come in: I could have flipped those ounces for $900 all day, and people would have loved me for it. Then I figured out what it really was and the money was gone and there was nothing to be done. It was touching how Manny kept on like he hadn’t known; he had even cried real tears. But I was still out the $600.
Emily said, “You’re killing us, baby.”
I said, “Goddamn would you shut the fuck up?”
It was a terrible mistake to say this. She got to screaming at me then. She’d scream like a great bird sometimes. She’d grow wings and fly around the house screaming like that. She’d be up around the ceiling, screaming. It was really awful. It was like arguing with a pterodactyl. You could do nothing.
I said, “Jesus. Please.”
But it wasn’t ever over quick once she got going. She kept on. She blamed me for everything. She had a point. But it wasn’t like I ever saw her quitting dope.
Say we tried to quit. Say we’d had enough of spending all our money and having a lot of shitty motherfuckers try and get over on us. Say we’d said fuck it and the weekend came and we had time to get sick. We might go a little while, maybe make it to Sunday night, make it with all the fever and the puke and the wishes we were dead. Then one of us was sure to say to the other, “You know, we’re doing pretty good. I think we deserve a little break from this.”
And the other was sure to say, “Yeah, that’s what I was just thinking. Plus we have to take care of the plants.”
“That’s right. The plants. I’m gonna call Big.”
“Yeah, do that. But only get two.”
“Okay. I’ll ask him for four though. We have to go to school tomorrow.”
“You’re right. Better get four.”