Twelve

by Nick McDonell

  Yeah, I know, Dory. It’s like what I do now, this dealing, it’s like that. I move in and out like a ghost, so no one remembers when I’m gone. It is the way the best help is supposed to be.

  Yes, Michael, but we had fun at the zoo with Charlie and Warren and Hunter and the Grouchy Duck, didn’t we? Remember when the duck barked at Charlie?

  Ducks don’t bark, Dory, they quack.

  Chapter Eighteen

  JESSICA GETS UP at eleven, barely remembering that Chris put her in a cab and told the driver where she lived. She remembers her doorman helping her, though that doesn’t matter now because it is almost noon and she feels really shitty, but she has a date with some of her girlfriends to go ice-skating. She hangs around with these three girls all the time, even though she knows she is much smarter than they are. They agree about certain fundamental things, and this holds them together. They agree about who is cool and who is not. They agree that it is okay to give blow jobs but not to have sex until, like, the time is right. They agree that they should never have to buy their own drinks at bars. They agree that chicks must come before dicks. They agree that they are all sexy, but each more so than the other three. They agree that the Hamptons rock and that their parents suck, even though, like, I tell my mom everything, but not everything everything, you know? So the four of them are going ice-skating this morning, and they meet at Wollman Rink in Central Park. They wear tight blue jeans and ribbed sweaters and parkas and nice gloves. They all have good skin and are pretty. They treat guys badly, but the guys don’t care, as long as they can get maybe a blow job once in a while. Everyone knows exactly what is going on.

  As they put on their skates, the girls talk about how they are repulsed by the sweet smell of nachos and fake cheese, popcorn and hot dogs. This is not their kind of food. But, alas, none of them has her own skating rink, at least not in the city. Arm in arm, they head out onto the ice. They giggle as they go.

  Like, like, like, like, like, like . . .

  Like, no way.

  Three times around and the girls are ready to get off the ice when a gawky kid skating by himself slips and falls in front of them. The girls try to veer out of the way, but Jessica is unable to make it. And one of her skates cuts across the boy’s forehead, just under his bangs. He yells in pain and then clutches his head. Blood swirls out on the ice, and the girls all scream as they race for the edge of the rink. The boy pushes his hand on the cut to stop the bleeding. His name is Andrew. He wouldn’t have been here to begin with, but he made this plan with his friend Hunter, who can skate like a hockey player. Then he got that crazy call from Hunter about jail, and his father went down there but told Andrew he couldn’t come. So Andrew decided to go skating anyway. People always say Andrew is a little distracted. Ice-skating without girls? Just on his own? Guy’s probably gay.

  Chapter Nineteen

  THE SKATING GIRLS are like so totally freaked out that they have to go and have a hot chocolate together at Jackson Hole. But once they all hit Fifth Avenue, Jessica heads in a different direction. She has to make a call.

  “Hello?”

  “Chris, it’s Jessica. Thanks for taking care of me last night.”

  “Sure, yeah.” Chris isn’t surprised. He helped her when she was passed out, and didn’t try to fuck her or anything.

  “I mean it,” she says. She wants some more of whatever she had the night before. The high was the best thing she’s ever felt. And now it’s faded and gone. And some more would be good, before vacation is over. Just another taste before she has to go back to school. She doesn’t need much or anything. Just a little more. She walks faster. She is sweating under her parka.

  “You get your weed from that White Mike guy, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Could I get his number?”

  “Yeah, sure. You wanna get some and smoke?”

  “Actually, no, I wanted to get something else.”

  “Coke?” Chris won’t do coke. His brother, Claude, used to do a ton, and it fucked Claude up. Chris doesn’t know what to tell Jessica about all that.

  “No, what I did last night.”

  “I thought you were drunk.”

  “No, it’s like coke but more like Ecstasy.” Jessica is speaking very quickly. The words tumble over one another. “Then it was like something totally different.”

  “What was it?”

  “I don’t know, it was just called Twelve.”

  Chapter Twenty

  ANDREW MAKES IT off the ice with blood dripping down his face. The rink manager calls an ambulance, and at Lenox Hill Hospital, a doctor stitches him up but says he has to stay for observation for six hours, because the stitches are so close to his eye. They put him in a room on the third floor with another kid. The two hit it off and are happy for company as they lie there, stoned.

  Actually, neither is really happy for company. They are happy that they are rooming with another private school white kid who doesn’t smell. It could be a lot worse. Especially for Andrew, who can tell the other kid is on much heavier drugs than he is.

  That girl Sara Ludlow comes to visit. Her boyfriend is the other kid, Sean: captain of the football team, skier at Vail, brown hair, born in the hospital he now lies in, school on Seventy-third Street, father on Wall Street, mother just chauffeured back to Eighty-fourth Street, whatever—this kid is very high. And who obeys the street signs anyway.

  Sean was in a car accident coming back from East Hampton in the new PT Cruiser his parents bought him for Christmas. Sara gives Andrew the once-over as she comes in, then looks at Sean’s IV and kisses him on the forehead.

  “Ohh, how are you? How’s your arm?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Andrew is watching and listening from the other bed. He is pretending to be half asleep as he takes in Sara’s beauty. She is wearing tight jeans and has her hair in a ponytail. Andrew is horny.

  “Where are your parents?” she asks Sean.

  “Came and went.”

  “So what do the doctors say?”

  “I don’t even know.”

  “You must be on pretty heavy drugs, huh?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Can I have some?”

  “No, those are for when I go home.” Sean sounds suddenly angry.

  “It was a joke,” she says.

  Andrew laughs, and Sara turns to him but can’t seem to decide whether to smile or scowl. She does both. Sean drifts off.

  “Sorry. I’m Andrew.”

  “Sara.”

  “Sara Ludlow.”

  “You know me?” as if everybody doesn’t. In fact, Sara knows she is famous. She likes being famous. She wants to be more famous. Here’s how you do it. First you’re famous in your grade, then you’re famous in your school. Then you’re famous in all the schools, and then in the city, or at least the part of the city that matters. And then you’ve got a career.

  “Do you know that girl Vanessa who goes to your school?” He asks.

  “Yeah.”

  “She’s friends with my sister.”

  “Everybody knows everybody.” She can hear he has the Dave Matthews Band’s Under the Table and Dreaming in his Discman, and she likes that music. “I’ve been meaning to get that album,” she says.

  “You wanna take this one?”

  “No, I couldn’t . . .”

  “No, really, take it.” Excuse to see her again, Andrew thinks, and Dave Matthews blows anyway. “Yeah, I’ve got other CDs. You can give it back to me next time I see you.”

  “That’s sweet. Thanks a lot.”

  “I’ll find you through him.” He nods at the other bed.

  “Okay, great.”

  “All right, I’m leaving, okay?” she says, looking at Sean.

  “What about football?” he asks.

  “What did the doctor say?”

  “I might be out, I don’t remember.”

  “Good. Okay. Bye-bye.”

  Sara walks for the door. Andrew watches the perfec
t smoothness of the denim on the back of her thighs as she walks away. After a while, he goes back to thinking about Hunter. There is not much he can do, he decides, but think. His father said he couldn’t just call all the ritzy hotels in Europe. It would take time. Hunter didn’t even know which country his parents were in when he talked to Andrew on the phone.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  WHITE MIKE AND his father moved right after his mother died of breast cancer, three and a half years ago. It was hot in the new place, and there was nothing on the walls. In his room, there were bookcases and there were books on them and that was good, but everything else was stacked haphazardly, and the big box of his old stuff was sticking out of the closet so he could see it. Maybe you know how it is and maybe you don’t, but sometimes if you can’t see what you’re finished with, it’s better. The room was big, but getting rid of the box seemed to clear up a lot of space. White Mike stripped to his shorts and lay down on the floor, spread-eagling his body, so he felt a little cooler. That’s how it was for him that first night in his new room.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  WHEN SHE LEAVES Lenox Hill, Sara walks over to Madison. She takes her Nokia phone out of her Prada bag hanging over her black North Face parka. No missed calls. She accesses the menu and scrolls down until she comes to a new entry from last night: Chris. She has a plan. She hits the talk.

  “Hello?”

  “Are you with anybody?”

  “No. Who’s this?”

  “Can I come over?”

  “Sure, yeah. I mean, who are you?”

  “Me. Sara. I’m coming over.”

  Chris is very surprised and very happy. Yesterday he thought she didn’t even know who he was. Now she has his phone number and everything. Maybe she has everybody’s phone number. Probably. Anyway, she’s coming over.

  Sara walks up the steps of Chris’s town house and presses the button on the intercom. Chris’s voice comes across. Sara announces herself. Chris says hold on. She gets in.

  It’s Saturday, so the house is empty except for Chris and Claude. Sara wishes she could get rid of the housekeeper and her little brother’s nanny when her parents are away, which is always. She has to ask Chris how he does it. She can tell a lot of people work in this house. Sara follows Chris up to his room on the fourth floor. A television is buzzing and moaning in some corner. Chris is wearing basketball shorts, white and black, and Kevin Garnett sneakers—the ones that zip up the top. He is also wearing a wife beater, but he is not particularly beef, so it sort of hangs on him and brings out the pale skin and pimples on his hairless chest. Chacne is the name for pimples on the chest; bacne, the name for pimples on the back. Chris hopes she doesn’t notice and sits down on one of the couches in his room and stretches out his arms on the back His armpit hair is sparse. Jessica sits in the thousand-dollar black and gray swivel chair opposite him. Chris gets up and goes to his computer, where he starts the first song on his playlist. The first song is Tupac Shakur’s “California Love.”

  Sara smiles at him. “Listen, I have this great idea.”

  “Okay.”

  “Your parents aren’t going to be here for a few days, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “We should throw a party.”

  “What about last night?”

  “No, I mean a real party.”

  Chris doesn’t know what to say. She’s just so beautiful.

  “I could get everybody to come,” she says. “Everybody cool.”

  “I don’t want it to be too big.”

  Sara is not in the mood for this. She gets up and sits down close to Chris on the couch. He tenses, surprised by the arm she places around his shoulders.

  I can’t believe I’m doing this, thinks Sara, mockingly, to herself. I am trading on my womanly wiles for something I want. Ha, ha. She slips her tongue into Chris’s mouth. He reciprocates, and with perfect timing, she pulls away.

  “Don’t you want to have a big party?”

  “Sure.” His dick is getting stiff and visible through his Jordan shorts.

  “The biggest party ever,” she says. “It’ll be amazing.” She knows the right party on New Year’s Eve will lock her in as the girl who makes things happen. Which everyone knows she is already, but this would still be great. Great. Great for her.

  “Just not too many people.”

  “But it has to be huge. Besides, people will need to keep themselves occupied in case we start to have some extra fun, by ourselves, somewhere else.” Sara glances meaningfully at the bed.

  “I thought you had a boyfriend.”

  “I have lots of boyfriends,” she says, smiling at him. “That’s the way it works. I’m not a slut—”

  “Of course you’re not.”

  “But different guys are interesting for different reasons. There are just so many of you. You’re interesting for a very specific reason.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You’ll have to figure that out for yourself.”

  Sara’s grandmother went to a coming-out party once that was supposed to be the most famous party of her generation. It was out on Long Island. Not in the Hamptons, but on the North Shore where they used to have huge estates with incredible gardens on the Sound. This party was so wild, kids really were swinging from chandeliers, and the place got totally trashed. Cops came from two counties, and eight or nine boys from Yale and Columbia were arrested. The story was on the cover of Life magazine. Sara’s mother was born nine months later.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  WHITE MIKE IS walking down Lexington toward Ninety-first Street to meet Jessica. He is with Lionel, because when he got the call, he knew he would need this new Twelve stuff. The girl had described the drug perfectly when she was asking for it, even though she had asked for “The Number Twelve.” He knew what it was. It was practically like she was still on it.

  The whole deal is starting to make White Mike uneasy. This new drug is bad news. Plus, he is having to deal with Lionel all the time because of it, and Lionel is a creepy dude. Lionel with his brown and yellow bloodshot eyes. White Mike knows that Lionel carries a gun. The gun is the scariest thing that goes along with making more money. White Mike never saw a gun in the beginning, but pretty soon the money got more serious. Once a thousand dollars is changing hands, the dealers always have some kind of protection. It is just too much money to fuck around with. The kids, of course, have no idea.

  Intellectually, White Mike knows everything. He knows that Lionel comes from a place where there actually was crack, even if there’s not so much anymore. He knows that Lionel’s neighborhood can get really fucked up, manifest the specter of the inner city he and all his friends heard about in history class but only White Mike ever came close to seeing. White Mike is cognizant of, even involved in, this other New York City. All of which makes it weird and not weird at the same time that he knows, say, that Lionel has children. And get this: Lionel told him how in the third grade his son, Jeremy, had been disciplined by a teacher for writing on his desk, and the kid had said, My dad’s gonna shoot you. The teacher backed off, then quit later that year. Lionel was proud of that: Sure, I’d have shot the bitch. Shoot any bitch-ass nigger fucks with me. Teacher, cop, punk kid, doesn’t matter to me. All the same anyway. The words stuck in White Mike’s head. White Mike and Lionel don’t talk as they walk.

  As they get to Ninety-first, they see Jessica waiting on the corner, walking around a phone booth. She keeps looking around but doesn’t notice the two drug dealers until they are almost right on top of her. She is trying to play it cool, but she has never done this before. White Mike feels sorry for her.

  Lionel eyes the girl, but she is focusing her attention on White Mike. He is the one she can deal with. They introduce themselves, and White Mike inquires as to how much she wants. First, though, Jessica wants to know exactly what the stuff is called, even though she doesn’t want to come off as naïve. So she braces herself and asks, looking away from White Mike. Lionel grins and
grunts with laughter.

  “Twelve,” White Mike says. He tries to look her right in the eye but can’t catch her gaze.

  “Sorry?”

  “Twelve.”

  “Oh.”

  Lionel’s baritone slides out from his hood, surprisingly smooth, even musical. “How much,” he says, not even really a question.

  For the first time, Jessica really looks at him. The dark skin hooded under the sweatshirt, unwashed, and the eyes looking straight at her. Lionel is handsome, in his way. He has a strong jaw and doesn’t look fat, even though he is enormous. Jessica takes this all in.

  “A thousand.” She almost totally busted her cash-advance lines for this.

  Lionel’s eyebrows arch for half a second. White Mike sighs and indicates for the three of them to start walking, and takes the money from the girl, crisp bills in his hand, and Lionel hands her five tiny Baggies. Jessica now has the impression that this drug is Lionel’s domain and not White Mike’s. Her attention is refocused. White Mike is surprised when she asks Lionel for his beeper number, “because, you know, it might be easier if it was direct, and maybe I’ll want some more . . .”

  Lionel gives her the number. White Mike doesn’t want to think about this.

  Jessica, eager to get away from them now, says goodbye and turns the corner hurrying toward Fifth Avenue.

  That was easy.

  I am so cool.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  WHITE MIKE LOOKED at her as she spoke. His mother said that it could be a couple years, but it might he less, and at the end she said she was sorry, and he said, Don’t worry, it’s not your fault. She said she wasn’t going to talk about it anymore, and they were just going to live the best life they could. Did you hear me, Michael? Always live the best life you can.

  That night White Mike woke up sometime after midnight and walked to the kitchen in the dark. There were no windows in the old kitchen, and when the swinging door swooshed silently closed behind him, the room was black. Not even a sliver of light came through the crack under the door. He reached up to a cupboard, opened it, and searched for a package of cookies. His hands found the package and took it down, all in total darkness. Next he pulled a stool up to the cupboard to get a glass. The first thing he felt was a champagne flute, so he took that, and it was as cold as the tiles on his bare feet. He placed the glass next to the package of cookies on the counter. He opened the package as silently as he could and removed a stack of cookies, the whole bunch in the first of the divided rows of the package. He placed the stack next to the flute, closed up the package, and replaced it in the cupboard. He turned in the direction of the refrigerator and regarded the darkness before him. Then he closed his eyes, and the darkness changed imperceptibly, maybe just in that he knew his eyes were closed. He stepped across the kitchen to the refrigerator and opened the door. Orange brightness flooded his closed eyes, and he reached about for the carton of milk. He found a carton, cold and full, and took it out, closing the door as quickly as he could. The brightness faded, and he opened his eyes. In the darkness he opened the carton and poured himself a champagne flute of undiluted cranberry juice, his mother’s favorite drink.