by Nico Walker
We’d be throwing up when we said all this. But already we would be feeling better. There was a hopeful urgency in those moments and life was beautiful.
* * *
—
BIG SAID come on. We drove across town in our pajamas. It was raining. We had enough for five—$225—and we parked somewhere off of Fulton. Big was on time. He pulled up in the white Blazer. Big always came through in the clutch and he didn’t treat us like fiends. Most of the time they do.
I got in his truck: “How do you do, Big?”
He said, “What’s good?”
I gave him the cellophane from my cigarettes. “You got five of those?” I said.
He counted five. “Haven’t been seeing you as much as I usually do,” he said.
“Yeah, I guess not.”
He handed me the cellophane back. I folded it and put it in my pocket.
He said, “You’ve been fuckin with that heroin.”
“Yeah, that’s sort of what it looks like.”
“Uh-huh. You know I don’t mess with that shit. I just fuck with the pills because I know what I’m getting, I know what I’m selling. No problems. No riding dirty. No scales or any of that bullshit. Nobody running a game on me.”
“I see what you mean.”
“Alright. I’ll catch you later.”
“Alright.”
Big drove off and I walked back to the car. Emily had the kit laid out on the center console—the spoons, the needles, everything—and we shot up and we were right as the rain. We went home.
* * *
—
IT WAS the middle of the night. Emily and I were in the basement and she’d filled the garbage can with water. I said, “How long have the plants been flowering?”
She said, “Five weeks.”
I looked at the instructions that had come with the nutrients kit. I’d always thought the nutrients kit was a scam.
I said, “We should just use fucking Miracle-Gro.”
“That’s what I’ve been saying,” she said.
We were in the room we called the laundry room. That was where the sink was, next to the washer and dryer. The dryer had been broken for a while. We couldn’t get the dryer fixed because of the grow room. We used a clothesline instead to dry our clothes, and our laundry doing had suffered.
There was a 600W high-pressure sodium light hooked up in the corner. That was for the cuttings and for the mother. The mother had been cut all to pieces. We’d taken a hundred cuttings off her. We kept a mound of leftover potting soil in the opposite corner. We mixed our own potting soil. We had such millipedes in the house you wouldn’t believe.
Emily checked the pH. We needed acidity. I turned to get it.
She said, “Not that one.”
I said I know. I took the other one. “How much do you think we need?”
She said, “Here. I’ll do it.”
She did and she checked the parts per million too. She told me what they were. And they were alright. But I didn’t know what they meant. We picked up the garbage can and carried it into the next room. It was a finished room, carpeted and drywalled and all that shit. It had a big stupid fucking tent in it. Inside the tent was Mylar or something else that was like Mylar. I didn’t care if it was Mylar or if it wasn’t, just I didn’t know and it bothered me sometimes that I didn’t know things I should probably know. I knew that I’d glued the Mylar to the walls in the corner of the laundry room and I thought it was probably different stuff but I wasn’t sure. It was a fancy tent. The only thing that made the tent not completely fucking stupid was it was easy to hang the lights off the frame. It wasn’t my idea to buy the tent. All I did was set the thing up. It was Roy who’d said we needed the tent. He’d been our partner in the grow room when we started. Then he stole from us and he wasn’t our partner anymore and we thought he was a real piece of shit. Still I had this fucking tent and I didn’t know how I was ever going to be rid of it.
We only had two 1000W lights—there had been three but we’d had to give one to Roy when we wanted him gone. We were getting a pound per light and we averaged $4500/lb selling it off in QPs and ounces. It took about three months to grow the shit—one month to get the plants up to the right size, two months for the flowering cycle. The lights were on 24/7 in the first month and 12-on/12-off the last two months. This used a lot of electricity and we had to run the lights off ballasts that ran off a subpanel. We had made the subpanel and wired it to the breaker box. We’d had to disconnect the doorbell to make space for it. We had bought all the wire and the conduit and the panel and everything at the Severance Home Depot. I’d been trying to figure out what kind of wire we were supposed to buy, and we were all three of us fucked up on heroin and Roy was being a prick. I’d try and say something and he’d have his fancy little smirk like he always had on his face and he kept looking at Emily and rolling his eyes and she was rolling her eyes. She had taken his side. I couldn’t believe her. She had taken the side of this bitch. And it was one of those situations where you wanted to kill a guy but you couldn’t because you were at Home Depot and there was a law against it and you needed money for heroin and your money was in this thing and it didn’t matter because she’d done what she’d done already and everything was fucked forever and there’d be no changing that. I thought, She’s a horrible cunt whom I love.
And later, when Roy had stolen from us, Emily was real bent out of shape about it.
She’d said, “Why’s he doing this? He’s such a fucking asshole.”
And I heard something in her voice then.
And I didn’t wonder at that.
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
Manny owed Cookie $600 for the dope Cookie’d fronted him. But Manny didn’t have any $600 and he wasn’t going to have it. What Manny usually did in these situations was get the dope boy fucked off. But he waited too long.
Sunday morning I got a call from Manny. He said he had to talk to me about something important and he said we needed to talk in person. He didn’t sound right. I was thinking maybe he was setting me up to get me fucked off, but I needed to buy some heroin and Manny had said it was real important. So I said okay. After all I liked Manny. Manny was a human being. He was a fuck but he was a human being.
I said to Emily, “You’d better stay here. I might go to jail.”
She said, “What’s going on?”
I said I didn’t know, probably nothing.
When I got to Richmond Mall I called Manny. He said to stay where I was parked. He came around in a blue Ford Explorer I hadn’t seen him in before. There was another guy driving. Manny was in the passenger seat.
They parked in the spot next to me and I got in with them. Manny was wearing a Yankees cap pulled down real low, but I could see his face was lumped up pretty well and that was too bad for Manny because the driver looked like Muhammad Ali circa the Cassius Clay era. Manny said, “This is Cookie.”
Cookie said I could buy dope from him now.
I said okay.
I had enough for a gram—$120—so I bought one gram and took it home and shot it with Emily. It was decent, not great.
My phone rang. It was Cookie.
He said, “How was it?”
I said it was decent.
* * *
—
MANNY GOT Cookie fucked off two weeks later. Cookie tried to get away and he took the police on a chase. It wouldn’t have been a big deal except that Cookie still had Manny in the car with him. That made it kidnapping.
I got a call from Cookie’s brother Pistol. He said he would sell me heroin. So I was alright. Then Pistol got himself fucked off shooting at Manny and I got a call from Black. Then Pistol was out on house arrest and I was supposed to go through him again. All this didn’t take two months to happen.
* * *
—
THE HOUSE was in the suburbs, on a street not far from mine. It was a nice street, plenty of big trees—oaks, I think. And Pistol would have cars full of dope fiends waiting out there, cars full of dope fiends like Emily and me. Often he would take hours before he was ready to serve us some dope; and we’d say, “This guy’s such a fucking asshole it’s amazing.”
And we’d all be sick and making sad faces until he called us one by one and had us pull up into the driveway. He’d serve us from the side door of the house so as to not set his ankle bracelet off.
I didn’t like going over there, especially after the surveillance truck appeared. It was parked a few driveways up from Pistol’s. You might even see the police in it, see them getting in and out or see them doing whatever. They definitely didn’t give a fuck if you saw them. And they saw me. They saw my plates. All of that. But it couldn’t be helped. I had to go where the heroin was.
One morning the police raided the house and took Pistol back to jail. The whole family—the mom, the little kids, everyone who wasn’t in jail—had been there when it happened. They were upset. I didn’t know what all had happened when I got a call from Black that afternoon. He said for me to meet him over on Belmar. He was standing out there on the sidewalk, waiting with his other brother Raul. I recognized Raul because I’d seen him before and he was a big smiling type of motherfucker and he had a big shiny watch so he was easy to recognize. Raul looked five years older than he was; he was only 23. Anyway. I thought I was just driving out there to buy some heroin and I didn’t know why they were standing out there waiting; usually when we met up that way we did transactions car to car, and they weren’t ever on time.
I parked at the curb and got out and walked over to where they were. I asked Black how he was doing and Black told me what had happened that morning.
I said, “Shit. That’s too bad. Your brother’s a good dude. I hope he’s alright.”
Black looked at Raul. Black was making sad faces, being all dramatic about things. He was just a kid. I think he was 20. He said, “What I want to know is why they were saying your name.”
Raul was standing behind me.
I said to Black, “What are you talking about?”
“They said a white boy who drives a black Ford.”
“Dude, what’s that mean? Of course they’re gonna know that shit. There’s been a surveillance truck parked outside your house for the last two weeks. I told you that. Probably everybody else did too. So you’ve got a surveillance truck parked outside your house and you’re running it like a trap house in the middle of the fucking suburbs and when the police kick your door in you want to say it’s my fault? What are you, nuts?”
“They said your name.”
“They could get that off the plates.”
“They didn’t say your government name.”
Then it occurred to me.
“Oh,” I said.
“Oh what?”
“You know the Dale-Junior-looking motherfucker? Short? Red hair? Freckles? Calls himself K-Mart. Buys dope off you? He came up to my car and talked to me the other day when I was out on your street, waiting on your brother. He knocked on my window and started talking to me about dope and everything else and how he’d been a mule running dope out of New York and some bullshit. He wouldn’t shut the fuck up. He tried to get my phone number and I told him I didn’t have a phone. I got a bad feeling from the guy. He was real fucking nosy, you know? And I didn’t really say shit to him but he did get my name. I imagine he’s the one who told it to the police. Apart from that I don’t know shit about what happened this morning.”
Black looked at Raul.
Raul said, “I believe him.”
Black said, “You don’t know how much sense you just made.”
“I need some heroin.”
“I have to get it out of the car.”
“I’ve got enough for two.”
“I’ll put you together.”
I drove home. It wasn’t quite three in the afternoon. Emily was watching Springer. We split the heroin up and I told her what all had happened.
The heroin was okay. The two grams were light.
Emily said, “Why would the police do that to you? You could have been hurt.”
I said, “This may come as a surprise to you, but the police think we deserve to die.”
I called Black.
I said, “This was light.”
He said, “Really?”
“Yeah, by four.”
He said, “I got you later.”
* * *
—
I WENT back out to meet up with Black and I was waiting in the car again, outside his house. I was glad the surveillance truck was gone. Raul came out and he walked up to the car and I rolled the window down. I thought he was going to drop the heroin off. But he didn’t. He said no, Black would bring it out in a second.
I said alright.
He said, “Hey, you know somebody I can get an ounce of coke from?”
I said I might know somebody but I had to call and check.
“Yeah, do that,” he said.
I got on the phone and called Mike, a.k.a. Pills And Coke. I told him what was up.
Mike said, “Who is this guy?”
I said it was a guy who sells heroin.
“Is he black?”
“Yeah.”
“Shit. I don’t know.”
“Well, he’s right here. What do you want me to tell him.”
“Is he alright?”
“Has been so far, yeah.”
“He said a zone?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Can I talk to him?”
“I can give you his number.”
“Okay.”
“I’ll text it to you.”
I got off the phone and said to Raul, “He’s gonna call you. Let me get your number. I’m gonna text it to him.”
He said alright.
Black came out to the car. He gave Raul a look like, What are you doing?
Raul smiled and said, “What?”
Black didn’t smile and he shook his head. We traded the money and the heroin. I had a scale and I weighed out what he’d given me to see that it was right. I asked Black if he still wanted to buy a QP. I said I was still holding one for him if he wanted it. He said to bring it by next time and he’d take a look at it. I could tell by the way he said it that he wasn’t about to buy shit. But I said I’d bring it anyway.
I felt like I’d accomplished something. I had another number I could call now if and when I ever got hard up to find some dope. And I’d done Mike a good turn. Mike had been fucked up for a minute. I’d paid him back in full for the contents of his safe, so it wasn’t like it was my fault. Mike’s problem was he had got himself fucked up on the pills and coke he was supposed to be selling and had got to be a dope fiend almost as bad as I was. He was even getting his pills from me now. He didn’t let it go to his head though; he was still arrogant as fuck.
* * *
—
SO OF course the heroin didn’t last us very long at all. It was all gone a little after we woke up the next day, and in the afternoon we were back waiting again outside the house on the nice street with the big oak trees and there was Raul again and Raul came up to the car.
I said, “Emily, this is Raul. Raul, this is Emily.”
Emily said hi.
Raul said hi.
I asked Raul how it had gone with Mike.
He said it had gone well. The coke was good. He said he would hit Mike up for some more. “You know how when you’re cooking it up with the baking soda and it sizzles?” he said.
I didn’t know. But I played along.
“Did you bring some of that loud with you?”
I said yeah.
He said, “Let m
e see it.”
I gave him a bud to look at.
“Oh that’s nice.”
“It’s called Grapefruit,” I said. “It’s got a really good taste to it.”
“I might have to buy some of this.”
Black came up to the car and looked at Raul again with the same look as from the day before, and Raul smiled again and went back inside. Emily said to Black, “Your brother’s nice.”
He said, “Raul’s some shit.”
I said, “You want to look at this QP?”
He said he’d have a look. I handed him the bag and he opened it up. He said, “So this is that gas, huh?”
Emily said, “Yeah. It’s gas.”
He said it looked real good but he couldn’t buy any just this minute. Maybe later.
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
The story of being a dope fiend is people will lie to your face and you can’t call them on it lest they not give you what you need when they get around to it. Saturday was no different. Emily and I woke and shot up the last of our dope and the day began. A day didn’t begin until we had run out of dope and it was time to get some more.
“How much money do we have?”
She said, “Nine hundred dollars.”
“That’s not bad.”
I called Black but he didn’t pick up. I sent him a text. He texted back saying he wasn’t together yet.
Emily said, “We could call Big.”
“Yeah, maybe we should do that.”
It was tricky having a little money. You might think you could buy a quarter ounce of heroin to last you a few days, but that would be a mistake. If you bought three grams of heroin you might get one gram of heroin and two grams of cut. If you bought seven grams of heroin you might get one gram of heroin and six grams of cut. So when you had some money the best thing to do was hold off. You couldn’t go wrong buying pills though. Pills didn’t get stepped on. And Big wasn’t a fuck.
We went to see Big and we bought ten pills and came home, by which time it was just around two in the afternoon and the day looked like it would be alright when all was said and done. Then my phone rang. It was Mike.