by Vivian Gray
So here I am, considering becoming exactly the kind of criminal Slash is in order to pay down my mom’s debts. No, I remind myself, not the same kind of criminal. You’re not violent. You’re not out there threatening to kill someone or beat someone up. You’re not that. Well, not yet, anyway. I’ve seen those movies where the hero goes from trying to save his family to drug kingpin. Was that who I was? Was that who I wanted to be?
Of course it wasn’t. And I wasn’t going to let it happen. But I had to do something. My night of passion with Slash had netted me enough to cut our bills in half, but that other half was still going to be next to impossible to pay down with just tips from the bar to pay my way. I needed another source of income. This would be an easy, and harmless, way.
I can’t think anymore. I feel so sick, so nauseated, because of what my life has become. Last night, it made me throw up, and tonight, it’s about to make me do it again. I run to the bathroom and vomit for the second time in two days. This stuff is so bad, it’s got my stomach doing jumping jacks and making me feel like shit. I have to do something to feel better than this. But I know I won’t; I know I can’t.
So, I make my decision: as soon as I get mom’s next prescription, I’m going to Marcelo.
The next day is when it happens. The pharmacy calls and says Mom’s latest stash of drugs has come in. There used to be more – six, I think, all aimed at keeping her cancer at bay – but since she decided to give up on treatment, she’s been down to painkillers to keep her comfortable, or as comfortable as you can be when cancer is literally eating your body alive. And the painkillers are strong. No wonder they’re going to fetch such a high price on the open market.
I go to the pharmacy and pick up the prescriptions for my mom. They’re such high doses that when she takes just one, it basically knocks her out. I stay with her until the drugs kick in, then I go to work. I count out ten total pills – enough that I’ll make a good payment on them, but not enough that I’ll be depriving my mom of the medicine she needs. She hates taking the pills anyway and still has some left over from last month.
I put the pills into one of the empty pill bottles from the pharmacy and head off to the Red Club.
It’s empty again when I get there – are there ever any people in this joint? But Cooper is still behind the bar, and in the corner, reading glasses on, poring over paperwork, is Marcelo. I walk in, and his eyes immediately dart up.
“Well, well, well,” he says, looking me up and down like I’m a piece of meat. “Look what the cat dragged in. How are ya, Erin?”
“I’m… I’m okay,” I say, nervous.
“I don’t usually see you in the middle of the day,” he ventures, his tone still irritatingly insistent. “To what do I owe this unexpected pleasure?”
“I brought something for you.” I pull the pill bottle out of my purse.
“Ah.” He stands up and comes towards me. “What have you brought me, little girl?”
“Painkillers, just like we talked about. Ten of them.”
“Just ten?” he asks, clearly perturbed. “I had expected so much more!”
I shrug. “Sorry, Marcelo,” I say without a hint of remorse because, frankly, I don’t feel remorseful at all, “this is all you get. My mom is still sick, and she still needs meds for the pain.”
“I understand, I understand. But still, just ten? You could surely do better than that.”
“It’s ten more than you’ve got right now. And they’ll fetch a nice price on the streets, I’ll bet.”
“Oh, they will,” he assures me. “So, what do you want for them?”
“You said you’d give me three grand for a month’s worth, so how about a grand for these?” I ask, hoping I sound braver than I feel.
“Gee, a grand? I think that might be a little too much, don’t you? You’ve only brought me ten of them, after all, not a whole set.”
“But this – this is the good stuff, Marcelo,” I say, showing him the label.
“Ah.” He reads the label under his glasses. “So it is. Fentanyl, huh? Impressive. Strong stuff. Yeah, I think we can get you a grand for that. What do you say, Cooper?”
Cooper doesn’t say anything, in fact, he just goes to the cash register and opens it. When he closes it again, he’s holding ten hundred-dollar bills, which he sets on the bar in front of me.
“So, Erin,” Marcelo says as he holds out his hand, “do we have a deal?”
I take his hand and shake it, then pick up the money. As I’m taking it and putting it into my bag, my phone begins to ring.
“Shit, I’m sorry,” I say as I quickly shut it off – though not before I see who was calling. Slash. What could he possibly want?
“I see you’re still in contact with Slash,” Marcelo says over his glasses. He points to them. “Nearsighted,” he adds. “I can see things far away clear as day. So, tell me – how long have you been seeing a guy from my old club?”
“Wh-what?” I ask, trying to feign bewilderment.
Marcelo isn’t buying it. “Come on, Erin. I know Slash is the one who bought you at the auction. I know who he is. I know he’s with the Savage Hearts. And if I know that, you must know it, too.”
“I don’t know what you—”
“Cut the shit, Erin!” Marcelo nearly explodes on me. “I want to know what you know about Slash and the Savage Hearts.”
“Honestly, Marcelo, I don’t know much of anything,” I tell him, a pleading note in my voice. “We slept together that one time, and we went out a few times after that. That’s it. I don’t know anything about the Savage Hearts.”
Marcelo ponders this for a moment before continuing, “You know what?” he finally says. “I believe you.”
“You do?”
“Yes, I do, Erin. Tell you what – why don’t you go home to your momma and take care of her? I know she’s sick, and I’m sure you don’t want to be long removed from her. Can I count on seeing you next month?”
“Y-yes – unless something happens to my mom before then.”
“Then we’ll see you then,” Marcelo says with an almost satanic-looking grin. “I look forward to it.”
As I open the door to the Red Club and leave, a cool thousand bucks in my hand, I can’t believe my luck. I thought for sure when Marcelo noticed that Slash had called me – and especially when he said he knew Slash was with the Savage Hearts – that he was going to hurt me, or worse. But he surprised me. Again. He just let me go, and he let me keep the money.
That doesn’t seem like something that would be done by the big bad gangster Slash made Marcelo out to be. Maybe I have been too quick to believe a guy who is an admitted criminal. I mean, Marcelo is a criminal, too, but he has never lied to me the way Slash has; he has never tried to make himself out to be a good guy. And for that, maybe he is just more decent that Slash.
But something still feels wrong with that summation. I genuinely like Slash, and he seems to genuinely like me. There is – or, at least, was – something between the two of us, chemistry I feel like I can count on. And getting his mom to come in as my mom’s hospice nurse… well, that was something special.
I don’t know. Maybe I’ve done something horribly stupid. I am, after all, a criminal now – a drug dealer. If I were to get caught, I could easily go to prison. So really, am I truly any different than Slash on that front?
I can’t shake this feeling out of my head as I drive back home. I’m expecting Nancy to be over in an hour so that I can go to work. But I’ve crossed every line there is. I’m a criminal now, same as Slash, same as Marcelo, same as all these other guys in these motorcycle clubs. I don’t think the cops are going to care that I was doing it to help my mom. Everybody’s trying to help somebody, even if it’s just themselves.
All of this is on my mind when I get home, so much so that it’s hard to look my mom in the eye.
“What’s wrong?” she asks after I’ve been sitting on the couch for a long time. “Does it have anything to do with that young
man on the motorcycle who took you out a couple of times?”
“Oh, mom,” I say, attempting to dismiss her query.
“Don’t you ‘oh, Mom’ me, Erin. I’m not dumb. I know you’ve been seeing him. And I think… I think it’s great, hon. Honestly, I do.”
“Mom, I’m telling you, you don’t know what you’re talking about. I went out with him a few times, but we’re… we’re not seeing each other anymore.”
“Why ever not?”
“It’s just…” I don’t honestly know what to say. I feel tears welling in my eyes, but I don’t really have a good excuse for them to be there. I broke it off with him. “I guess we’re just not meant for each other, Mom. That’s all.”
“That sounds like a bullshit excuse.”
“Mom!” I exclaim, taken aback by her swearing. I have heard my mom swear maybe once in my entire life before this. It is disconcerting, to say the least.
“Come on, Erin. Do you like the guy?”
“Yeah, but—”
“No buts, young lady,” she insists, grimacing through pain as she adjusts herself in her chair. “If you like him, why would you not want to be with him?”
“It’s… it’s just complicated, Mom. Listen, I really don’t want to talk about it, okay?”
“All right, dear,” she says resignedly. “But I was just remarking to Nancy the other day about how I’d noticed a change come over you. You seem happier, like a weight has been lifted off your shoulders. I can’t imagine what must have happened to change that.”
“You… you told Nancy about my dating life?”
Had Nancy mentioned to my mom what she had told me about her son? I can’t imagine that Mom would be pushing me towards this relationship if she knew about Slash what I know. Still… what had Nancy told her?
“I did,” she replies, “and she said the same thing I think: if we can get even just a little bit of happiness in this cruel, awful world, we have to cling to it with everything we have.”
“I know, Mom, I know. I have to go get ready for work, okay? I’ll be back in a bit.”
I head upstairs and start getting dressed. I’m brushing my teeth when I realize that I haven’t had to use a tampon in a while. I’m usually pretty regular, so I start tracing back in my mind when my last period was. Then I think about my nervous sickness the last few days. I had thought it made sense when I got sick after finding out about Slash’s life of crime, and again after breaking up with him. But I’d been sick almost every day for the last few days, at least once a day.
And coupled with apparently missing my period…
... Oh no.
Oh no.
No, no, no, no, no.
“Mom,” I call as I’m rushing out the door, “I’ve got to run a quick errand. I’ll be right back, okay?”
I don’t even wait for her reply. I’m going to be late for work, but I don’t care. I text my boss that I’m going to be a little late for my shift on my way to the pharmacy. I pick up a pregnancy test and can’t even look the clerk in the eye as she scans it and puts it into a plastic bag. Why is this taking so long? I wonder almost angrily.
Finally, I get the test, jump back in the car, and head home.
“Erin?” my mom asks as I rush to the bathroom, “is everything all right?”
“Sorry, Mom, can’t talk,” I say hurriedly. “I… uh… I gotta go really bad.”
“Okay…” my mom responds as I slam the door behind me.
Once inside, I take the test out of its packaging and read the instructions. I’m just supposed to pee on the tab, so I do so, then leave it and wait for a few minutes. Hopefully, this will all be over soon, I’ll have a negative result, and I can go along with my day. It’ll be easy.
Nothing is ever that easy.
After two minutes, I close my eyes and pick up the test. One line means not pregnant, two means pregnant. I try to rationalize that it was my first time, and no one gets pregnant on their first time. Hell, some people try for years and can’t get pregnant. So, what are the chances that I got pregnant after having sex once in my entire life?
I open my eyes and stare down at the test.
Two lines.
There are two lines, in very clear blue, seeming to mock me as I sit there. I’m completely numb. The one time I did something reckless in my entire life – the one time I went out and had sex with a guy – I ended up getting pregnant. How could this be? How could I have been so stupid?
I shake my head, willing the tears to stay back. I don’t know what I’m going to do. I can’t have a baby; I can’t afford it, especially with Mom in the shape she’s in and my reliance on ill-gotten means to get money to pay our bills. But I can’t… get rid of it either. I’m not a very political person, but the idea of aborting the baby just seems wrong to me. It’s just not something I am comfortable with.
Oh God. What am I going to do?
Chapter Fourteen
Slash
My call goes to voicemail. Again. That’s the fourth time in the last two days that Erin has completely ignored my calls. I can’t imagine what’s up with her, but I’m honestly worried. If she’s been in contact with Marcelo and the Tattooed Angels, she could be in for a world of hurt later on. But that’s later on. Right now, all I want to do is talk to her.
The way we left things that night hasn’t sat well with me. I spent the rest of that night getting drunk on cheap beer, which seemed like a better idea at the time than it ended up being. I woke up the next morning with a hangover the size of Alaska, and in an even worse mood than I felt. I wanted to break something. I wanted to kick somebody’s ass.
Instead, I told Jerome about the whole pills thing with Marcelo’s crew. I didn’t tell him how I’d come about the information because I wanted as much as possible to leave Erin – and her mom – out of it. Luckily, Jerome didn’t ask. Instead, he just said, “Interesting. You’ve done well, Slash. Now, get the fuck out of my hair. I need to think.” I nodded and left him to his devices.
Tonight, something in the air feels different. The atmosphere in the Warehouse is just like it always is – smelling of stale beer and stale cigarettes – but there’s an energy that seems to hum from everybody assembled. Jerome is walking with a swagger I haven’t seen before. When he calls the boys to order, everybody snaps to attention, especially because he’s speaking in a clipped tone none of us really recognizes.
“Gentlemen,” he says, looking through the denim and leather, all the part of an MC leader, but carrying himself more like the CEO of a Fortune 500 company, “you all know that piece of shit, Marcelo Cruz, has been… disloyal to us. Well, boys, word’s come down that he’s trying to run in our league, in our game.”
“What’s he doing, boss?” one of the mindless drones calls out from the gang of men gathered around Jerome.
“He’s running drugs, gents,” Jerome cries out. “The sorry son of a bitch thinks he can get in on our game. Well, I don’t know about you all, but I ain’t having that. I wouldn’t let anyone from a rival gang hone in on our turf – especially not some piece of shit turncoat like Marcelo. So, the question then, is, what are we going to do about it? Well, I’ll tell you what we’re gonna do, boys: it’s time for a panty raid! A little birdy has given me a tip on where one of their storehouses is, and we’re gonna go in there, and we’re gonna take what’s rightfully ours! Are you with me, men?”
Jerome sounds for all the world like an old-school pirate, ready to take the bounty of a ship he’s bound to capture. But something about the way he talks inspires everybody – it sure does for me. I’m determined to join him, and so, seemingly, is everyone else in the club. A great cheer erupts – we’re finally doing something about those goddamned Tattooed Angels and that bastard Marcelo!
Then Jerome turns to his two lieutenants and motions for them to head back with him.
“Slash!” he calls out after me. “You’re with me, too. Come on.” I look around, wondering for a moment if it could really possibly be me he
’s talking to. But it is, and he notices my hesitation. “Well come on, you big, dumb ox,” he chides. “Are you comin’ or not?”
“Y-yes sir,” I reply as I practically have to will my legs to get moving.
Back in Jerome’s office, the three of us stand around as Jerome goes through some paperwork.
“Slash,” he says in a quiet voice, “I want to commend you. You’ve done your homework, and you’ve done good work getting info on Marcelo and the Angels. I’m really impressed.”
“Thank you,” I say, being humble.