by Demers, Matt
The girl’s brother. Jade’s brother.
James knew the details of all Gaffer’s extended family even though he never met them or knew what they looked like. His niece included. He knew Jade was an underachiever in school, except for art and math, which she loved. But, how did she know to give him the meds? James didn’t do social media – even before he got sick. Had Gaffer shown the girl an offline photo? James hated pictures. People often pointed out his smile didn’t look genuine, which was the truth.
She read my name on one my empty prescription bottles. They lay in the grass that night.
“Tweaks can read?” James pressed two fingers to the girl’s neck. Her pulse fluttered weakly and guessed another two hours in the sun was all her body could take.
“What are people gonna say when they see you with me? They’ll probably kill us both, you know.” He picked the girl up and continued down the highway again. It stretched flat and hazy for miles until disappearing between two massive manufacturing plants along the horizon. A catwalk bridge ran high above the road and connected the two plants and with the large matching windows on each building, it made the twin plants look like a mechanical beast. “You owe me, Gaffer,” he said as he walked the beast’s paved tongue and into the mouth.
***
Dusk.
A self-serve Shell station, with a large lot and tiny sales shack, sat tucked beneath shadow of Wacko Plastics. The Shell station divided the industrial district from the slums. Hiram Walker’s waited for them beyond that.
The girl`s pulse weakened still, but now, it seemed, the Shell might serve as a lucky break.
A massive carport stood over two rows of gas pumps. The digital readouts displayed were blank, but the shack’s doorway drew an outline of florescent light. When was the last time James saw electricity running from the power grid? Six months?
Large slabs of plywood covered the windows. Keep out or die! ran across its length in green spray paint. Beneath, in black paint: PROPERTY OF THE US ARMY.
Property of the Army? Not likely, James thought. Boards and spray paint doesn’t exactly scream government endorsement.
If it was the Army at all, they were probably renegade men, abandoning their posts for their own agenda. As far as James knew, the United States no longer existed, let alone The US Army.
He imagined Thrasher and Bondy, lone wolves, taking potshots at him from the windows of Wacko Plastics. Thrasher and his acne scars screaming bloody murder as he chopped Jade and himself to bits from the safety of high ground.
Who would leave a gem like this unguarded?
James scanned Wacko Plastic’s rooftops. Nobody, James knew.
He set Jade down on a strip of the gas station’s landscaping, walked past the pumps and approached the shack’s entrance. The padlock looked thick, but nothing a fire extinguisher couldn’t handle. James grabbed one from pump 5 and returned to the door. He rammed the extinguisher. The clank of steel on steel echoed off Wacko’s brick wall and into the slums of Madison Heights. After three more unsuccessful thrusts, James stopped to listen. Nothing stirred.
He raised the extinguisher higher this time and brought it down with a grunt. The lock snapped and the chain coiled beside the doorstep. James grabbed the door latch.
“Fuck.” Also locked.
The door latch appeared large and stubborn. James stepped back, lifted one leg and gauged the range by aiming with his boot. He kicked it. The door blew open and cracked loudly against the stopper. James spun around and listened again , and again , nothing stirred.
He peered into the shack. His mouth dropped.
“Uhhh….”
Coca-Cola, Ice Cappuccino, flavored water, Red Bull, Monster Milk, and every kind of juice fathomable stood gloriously behind the glass display case. Everything glowed from the fridge lighting, as if the Pearly Gates appeared in the form of nutrition-less consumerism.
The faint hum of the cooling system confirmed the drinks remained ice-cold.
The sales floors racks appeared pristine and untouched too. Bags of every flavor of chips, Twinkies, Ding-Dongs, Joe Louis pies, spicy mustard pretzels. A chest freezer held frozen breakfast burritos and miniature pizzas — all items thankfully mummified by MSG and phosphates.
James salivated. “God bless America for preservatives and frozen dinners.”
He ran out to fetch Jade, short-cutting between the pumps. Something invisible snagged his ankle. He looked down to see a fishing line draped loosely over his steel toe.
Something high-pitched beeped loudly. James cupped his ears and knelt down. He grasped the tripwire and followed it across, letting it run through his fingers. He felt something very light at the end of it. The sound drew closer. James winced from the pitch. He spotted a small shiny object by the pavilion support beam.
On the cement lay a thin piece of metal with teeth like a key. James recognized it immediately — a cheap key chain alarm that works by pulling the key from the base. Inserting the key back into the base would deactivate it. James needed to find it. He snatched the key and spun, searching.
James followed the line to the opposite beam until he spotted the base. He inserted the key and the alarm fell silent. James figured five minutes was all they had. Five minutes on a good day.
James ran for the door, but skidded when he remembered Jade lay in the grass. He darted across the lot for her, but already, something Tweaky shrieked from a Wacko office window. James grabbed the girl, and sprinted as fast as the cancer allowed — which wasn’t that fast — for the store entrance.
He ran through the doorway and now the screams came from Madison Heights, too. He sat Jade against the cooler’s display glass and spun around. Before James closed the door, he caught a glimpse of a pale hoodlum Tweak sprinting across the lawn of a condemned duplex — the infamous Madison Height’s crack house. A gaudy, silver crucifix bounced around the Tweak’s neck with each step as it ran.
Shell Store #252
October, 17:
Sorry for my English. If you read this and know Abdul and Eddie Preshari, tell them there nephew is head to Crystal Bay harber.
Kerala promised that she call back with news about her cousins houseboat, but she never. Many text and messages on her voicemail did nothing and now the phones fell out. I should never have trust someone from PunjabiPersonals.com I should have never come to America. The Pakistani government would never let this shit becoming.
Muhammad’s blessing upon you,
Amin Basra
میری انگریزی کے لئے معذرت. اگر آپ اس کو پڑھ اور عبد اور ایڈی بصرہ کو جانتے ہیں تو، ان کے بھتیجے کرسٹل بے بندرگاہ پر جا رہی ہے ان سے کہو.
کیرل میں اس نے اپنے کزن کے گھر کشتی کے بارے میں خبر گزشتہ ہفتے کے ساتھ مجھے واپس بلا ہے، لیکن وہ کبھی بھی وعدہ کیا تھا. اس صوتی میل پر کئی متن اور پیغامات کچھ نہیں کیا اور اب فونز کے باہر گر گئی. میں کسی اعتماد میں آن لائن ڈیٹنگ کبھی نہیں چاہئے. میں امریکہ کبھی نہیں آیا چاہئے. پاکستانی حکومت نے یہ گندگی کبھی نہیں کرے گا.
آپ صلی اللہ علیہ وسلم محمد کی نعمت،
Each time a Tweak slammed against the entrance, it rattled the leaning shelf barricade. On the counter, a stand of lottery tickets teetered to the edge, and fell to the floor and scattered. James, from where he sat leaning against the cooler glass, reached out and grabbed one. He scratched it with a thumbnail.
“Another sucker,” James said and flicked the ticket away. It landed in a teepee of empty candy wrappers, Pepsi cans, and Pringles tubes.
Hydrated and fed, Jade seemed more lucid now. He nursed her at first, but once she gained the strength to sit up, James dropped the caregiver role. A Gaffer or not, she was still a Tweak.
Jade didn’t peel her eyes from the door for t
he first 24 hours. When the rattling and moaning and screaming gibberish became loud, she whined like a puppy. Why was she scared of them? Did she know what she was? Cats growing up with dogs thought they were dogs too, so maybe Jade had another sponsor. Someone human.
Maybe these shits could be trained not to be shitty. But could other Tweaks conceptualize betrayal? These thoughts held weight and James hated that. It felt like running in a soaking-wet varsity sweatshirt.
“You know what I do when I’m scared? I remind myself that my guardian angel never leaves me,” James assured her. Jade watched his hands rubbing at the Bearcat’s grip. He stood up and searched the back shelf of cheap toys and grabbed a mockup of the Smith & Wesson .38 special. The toy gun had a red muzzle cap on the end as required by US law. Once.
James unwrapped the plastic, popped the red tip off and let it drop to the floor. If it came down to it, Jade would be better off if a threat believed she carried a real loaded gun.
“Always take yours with you. Remind yourself she’ll always be there.” James handed her the .38. “Guess you’ll need a holster.” All the store carried was a yellow Batman utility belt — the Adam West version — with the bat symbol adorning the buckle, but she seemed happy to have the gaudy toy regardless.
How the hell will I explain her to Hiram’s? She’s a fucking termite in the eyes of the world. Her friends do things like yank out tongues and bite off toes. They tear strands of muscle from necks with a Swiss Army knife.
James had asked Phil Rettig — Am I next?
We’ll see, he’d said.
Another day passed. James hung pine fresheners in the staff bathroom because the water didn’t flush. The toothbrush he had packed had fallen out somewhere in the Monroe City Raceway dirt, so James found hydrogen peroxide in a first-aid kit and mixed it with baking soda for toothpaste. He grabbed two shoe polish applicators for toothbrushes.
Finally, after two more days of eating, shitting, and sleeping, the Tweaks left.
“Here, make yourself useful,” James handed Jade three bottles of water. She looked for a place to put them, but her dress was pocketless. She attempted to fit them into the Batman utility belt.
James crammed as much food and drink that his rucksack and pockets could carry. All items that offered the best bang for their buck — jerky packed easily, Gatorade hydrated better, breakfast bars packed more vitamins and carbs. James used a window scraper to help pry the leaning shelf from off the doorway. By now, rain sprinkled against the shack.
“Rain again? But it’s only been two weeks.”
He opened the door and the glow of the shack seeped into the mist.
“Do we half to leave?” Jade pleaded.
“So…it seems you can do more than make up creepy rhymes.”
They walked into the greyness and headed down the road toward the slums. James was now quadruple-dosing his pain medication, which left him lethargic and nauseated. But it dulled the pain. That’s what mattered.
They passed a giant billboard vandalized with spray paint. It read: Madison Heights Reformatory: We teach boys to live well. Except the ‘e’ and ‘a’ of ‘teach’ was changed to ‘o’ and ‘u’.
“Vandalism is funny,” James chuckled. He never expected The Heights to ever make him smile. Every time he’d driven down Westcott Boulevard, in the days before the Escalation, he’d cursed social assistance. It made him think of slimy things.
“Leeches,” James thought aloud and glanced down at that very thing. He wasn’t sure if her rain-matted hair made it worse, but Jade looked bad. Good for a Tweak, and better than the concentration-camp look back at the raceway, but still nowhere near passable. Hell, if Paul Woodhouse was any indication, she’d split at the seams any day now.
“Stop,” James demanded. He looked at a distant building standing down the intersection. He crouched, cupped Jade’s elbows and examined her eyes. No cataracts, but her green irises were mostly clouded Tweak-signature yellow. James supposed he could fix that. He swore at the rain puddles and reluctantly detoured east. Jade stayed close behind.
James watched the Walgreens building grow until he stood below the red-lettered sign. The storefront looked empty save for a murky Volkswagen Jetta in the disabled spot. The double automatic doors stood partially open. They walked into the gloom of the store. Overcast skies shed little light through the windows. As expected, everything useful was long taken.
But Cosmetics appeared fully stocked. Good thing.
“Wait here,” James said to the girl.
He walked cautiously to the back and dragged his aching body over the pharmacy desk. He found a half-bottle of codeine tablets and tossed it into his rucksack. The top of James’ skull no longer seared, but it still throbbed, and the high dosages for Timmy cut his supply by three-quarters. He’d need a lot more codeine.
There seemed to be something about Gaffer’s staple job, though. James didn’t remember him dousing it with disinfectant, and now it felt — even through the painkillers — as if something festered beneath the surface. His head itched. His teeth ached.
He returned to Jade with two pocket mirrors from aisle 12. He gave one to her and kept the other.
“The only thing worse than befriending a Tweak is giving one a makeover,” James told Jade. “Make like a diva and doll yourself up.”
Jade glanced back at James for a long time and then perused the rows of lipstick, mascara, blush, skin cleanser, and cover-up. Gaffer had observed — from his many trips beyond The Wire — that department stores had become museums, displaying the useless crap of the human race that had become no use for survival, all of preserved for future generations. “Tragedy comes with a built-in bullshit detector,” Gaffer had told James.
“But why’s it always got to be the hard way?” James responded as is if Gaffer’s ghost walked the aisles along with him. A rush of missing his friend flooded him. He bit his cheek until it passed.
James waited for Jade to grab whatever girls used for makeup, but she only stood there. Was she too young to know? Too stupid to remember? He might have hoped too soon that anything intelligent remained behind those glassy eyes. He felt the itch of frustration up his arm, but just as it colored his cheeks, she grabbed a tube of something cream colored.
Good, James thought. He couldn’t fathom playing makeup artist. He found the aisle marked “eye and ear care,” and thumbed the shelves until stopping at the colored contacts. He grabbed all five boxes of emerald green and another five bottles of solution.
He passed the eyeglass mirror and looked at himself. His hair never looked so thin, so dull. His pallor lost the healthy Greek glow he inherited from his biological mother, so he’d heard. There was no hiding his illness, but he guessed a woman or two might still find him attractive. Maybe. Not like it mattered.
James wasn’t interested in his own makeover, though. He wanted to scope the Gaffer- rigged staple job on the top of his skull.
“Just look. “How bad could it be?”
He set the shop items on the shelf except for the pocket mirror, which he opened and aimed behind his head to reflect the head wound.
“Urgh.”
The patch where Gaffer shaved was now stubble, but a hideous sac of greenish yellow infection showed through. A dark black spot in the middle made it appear like an eye. The staples still held the gash tight — at least that healed well, but the rest bulged upward, pulsating almost. A ring of red puffy skin ran around the infection. For whatever reason James thought the green and red looked festive. If only it was December.
What would Marcus do? Leave it be? Pop it?
James shopped the dental care aisle and returned. He untwisted the cap of hydrogen peroxide and set it on the ledge. He removed a dental pick from its packaging and dipped it in the bottle. He aimed the mirror with one hand and held the pick’s handle with the other. He guided the pick to the infection and probed.
“What did Mom say about popping zits? Screw it.”
The pick approached the g
reen-yellow bulge.
He pricked it lightly and felt something wrong. He breathed in through clenched teeth, the way people do when they stub their shin. A blunt pain bolted from his skull to the roots of his teeth. The pressure along the gum line became so bad, it seemed every tooth would pop from the socket. A bead of pus formed where the pick had touched the surface.
There we go. Just finish her.
With one hard stab the sac burst. James winced as he felt and heard the pop. Yellow pus oozed out as the sac’s skin deflated. It reminded James of Elmer’s glue poured into gobs and left to partially harden. He pressed the red ring around the infection. Hard yellow fluid curdled outward.
It brought instant relief. The sac was a railroad spike jammed in his skull, now finally yanked free. The pressure dissipated completely. It felt like being reborn.
He poured the peroxide over the wound and it sizzled and fizzed. He wiped the blood-puss away and poured again. The cut foamed and blew bubbles. The swelling reduced to almost nothing. He grabbed gauze and cut it into a square, applied antibiotic cream and taped the wadding over it. He stuffed the leftovers in his rucksack mesh. Satisfied, and feeling much better — smiling even — he returned to Jade.
“Whoa,” James said. He looked over Jade’s shoulder, into the pocket mirror. Her reflection showed a cute, well-manicured girl of about eight.
Sickly — yes.
Passable — just maybe.
“Nice work,” James admitted. He explained the contact lenses to her, but she shook her head when asked if she understood. He sat her on the chair used for blood-pressure tests and dabbed the solution in her eyes. She sat without a fuss as he struggled for the better part of an hour to slip the contacts in. When he finally succeeded, he stood back and smirked.
“We’ve done it. From Tweak to stage 3 lymphoma.”
On the way out, they stopped in the seasonal aisle and grabbed a Hanna Montana umbrella before heading out into the gloom.