Cristina

by Jake Parent

  “There’s a little more on the back,” Lindsay added.

  Cristina,

  If you came by the store, seriously, don’t worry. I’m fine.

  -C

  Part of her wanted to feel relief. More of her felt like he was full of shit, if only because it was exactly the kind of smile-and-lie she herself would have pulled back in the day.

  She told Lindsay to have Casey call her as soon as he showed up, even though she was certain he wouldn’t.

  Standing on the curb outside the store, Cristina paused, considering what to do. She really wanted a cigarette.

  Offshore, the fog had partially burned away to reveal what would no doubt be another perfectly sunny day in paradise. She barely noticed.

  Her panic simmered into a warm anger. At Casey for quitting on himself when he most needed to be strong. And at herself for giving up her heart to him so easily, allowing herself to be hurt again.

  Then she caught herself.

  Is that what love is? Being there only when it’s convenient?

  No, Cristina.

  You don’t even know what he’s doing and you’ve already written him off. Maybe he needs help. And even if he did relapse, that doesn’t mean he’s gone forever.

  How many times in the past six months have you felt like using?

  A few at least.

  Stop being so damn judgmental.

  Despite her best effort to stay positive, she couldn’t help but feel betrayed.

  50

  Cristina drove to all of Casey’s favorite surf spots, hoping he was just trying out a new board somewhere. She asked around, but couldn’t find anyone who’d seen him.

  Finally, just before giving up, she was approached by a man with burned-out red eyes and a tic that caused him to jerk his head toward his right shoulder every few seconds. He stood way closer than Cristina was comfortable with, and spoke so fast it was obvious his words were having a hard time keeping up with his brain.

  He asked, “Casey Peters the one you lookin’ for, hot stuff?”

  His breath smelled like battery acid.

  Before she could answer, he continued, “Yah. Yah. Everyone knows that guy. I seen him. Seen him this morning. Tell you about it for a stogie.”

  “Sorry, I don’t smoke.”

  He looked disappointed and then smiled. The lustiness in his eyes made Cristina sure he was about to ask her for a kiss, or something even worse. The idea of putting her lips on him made her want to throw up. His mouth was covered in cold sores from the bottom of his nose to the tip of his chin. She could barely look at him.

  Thankfully, all he wanted was a dollar.

  “Sure,” Cristina said with relief as she pulled out her wallet, at the same time patting her back pocket to make sure her knife was there.

  But he didn’t go after her. He just stared off into nothing for a while, perhaps wondering how he could get a few more bucks out of her, or maybe just trying to grasp onto some sense of reality.

  Either way, he snapped out of his trance to tell her that he saw Casey riding his motorcycle about an hour earlier.

  “One of them big rumblers,” he added.

  “Where?”

  “Out by the old concrete factory.”

  “In the neighborhood with all the abandoned buildings?”

  “That’s the one!” He held up a finger and smiled a near-toothless grin.

  Cristina suddenly felt really sorry for him.

  He continued, “Perkins Town is what a lot of people call it.” He looked her up and down, as if really noticing her for the first time. “Might not be too good a place for a pretty girl like you.”

  This time he sounded more protective than crude. She could see, somewhere in his heart, a real desire to help her. Despite his mouth bumps, his bad breath, his constant twitch, and the way he kept scratching at his scabby arms, he was still a human being.

  She pulled out a five-dollar bill and gave it to him.

  “Get some food,” she said.

  “You bet!” he responded, snatching the money from her hand and limping away before she changed her mind.

  With her worst fears confirmed, Cristina sat in the car and cried. She tried calling Casey twice more, only to hear the deep, cool tone of his voice as he asked her to leave a message.

  51

  Not knowing what else to do, Cristina headed toward Perkins Town.

  The entire way, she couldn’t stop thinking of the two junkies who approached her car the day Anise was with her. Their black, sunken eyes. She imagined Casey huddled together with the two walking corpses, all sharing a spoon as they cooked up.

  The fog hadn’t broken on this side of town, leaving the whole area shrouded in mist as she pulled her Civic onto what once must have been a cute little downtown strip.

  Several store signs still hung in place over doorways.

  Henry’s Market.

  Twice Bitten Secondhand Clothing.

  The Paper Crane Stationery Shop.

  There were more. But most were either dangling in the air, or had already fallen onto the dirt-caked sidewalk.

  Many of the buildings had collapsed walls, their crumbling rubble spilling out onto the sidewalk and into the streets.

  The whole area looked like a warzone.

  Cristina had squatted in lots of neighborhoods, but she couldn’t remember ever seeing one that looked this thoroughly forgotten by the rest of the world.

  At the same time, more people were around than before. A sordid hive of dispossessed bodies, crawling in and out of buildings like roaches. Some of them turned bulging, paranoid eyes toward her as she drove down the street, but most simply staggered about like zombies in an old horror movie. A few others crawled on all fours, hands sweeping along the sidewalk, searching the ground for something to smoke or snort.

  Cristina recalled plenty of instances living in squats when there was no dope around and no money to buy more. People developed something she could only now describe as insanity. They would imagine that different things could get you high. Someone would start with a “what if . . .” And before you knew it, the whole group was trying to smoke plaster or brick or Ajax, or whatever else was around and fit into a pipe or onto a piece of tinfoil.

  The memory made Cristina shiver. She suddenly felt more than a bit afraid.

  But she figured she’d be OK if she didn’t stop.

  No sooner had the thought crossed her mind when she felt a – THUD – from underneath the wheel of the Civic. The front end skipped into the air, then fell to the ground. The back end did the same. Her heart shifted itself into what felt like its highest setting – faster than when she speed-walked the hill behind her house to keep up with Jack.

  Please let the tire not be flat.

  Barely able to breath, she eased her foot back onto the gas pedal.

  The car kept moving forward. It seemed OK. In the rearview mirror, she saw the culprit: a chunk of concrete that had either fallen or been thrown into the road.

  The day darkened further. Enough that Cristina turned on her headlights.

  She clicked the windshield wipers into action against the fog. The tops of the buildings were covered, shrinking the neighborhood, like a mouth trying to eat her.

  The little downtown strip was coming to an end, giving way to the single-family homes she’d seen on her first visit. And still no sign of Casey.

  She was about to turn around for another pass – sure that he was somewhere on this main street – when she happened to glance down an alley and saw, just barely through the grey soup, a glint from the Harley’s chrome fork.

  Cristina slammed on the brakes, skidding the car to a stop. She pumped the steering wheel toward the alley and pulled the car in, parking behind Casey’s bike.

  The headlights illuminated what she saw was a short dead-end. The light and noise startled two huge rats who were rummaging through a pile of loose trash. They both looked up at her for a moment, decided she wasn’t a threat, and went back to work
.

  First gripping her knife into her hand, Cristina opened the car door and stepped out into the alley’s dank air. She barely avoided stepping in a pile of rather fresh-looking feces, and tried to tell herself it was the work of a feral dog. Somehow she knew better.

  Across the alley from the bike was a single metal door marked Employees Only.

  An incredibly vocal part of her mind – the logical part – told her to simply get back in the car and drive away. But an even more forceful piece of her knew that Casey was somewhere inside, perhaps in trouble. If she was going to help him, she had to put aside her fear.

  With a deep breath of garbage-tainted air, she tried the knob and it turned. She thought maybe it was bolted. It didn’t budge when she pulled. But with one foot against the wall, she managed to apply enough force to pop it open.

  The hinges cackled like an old witch.

  The sound gave her chills, but that was nothing compared to the searing fear that burned through her body when she saw what was inside.

  For a moment, all she could do was stand there, completely paralyzed.

  It was the exact same room she’d seen after going through the portal in her dream the night before. Down to the smallest detail.

  The dim light coming through the high windows.

  The pallets and debris.

  The sour odor of piss and shit and mold.

  Across the darkened room, she saw the outline of a door, knowing that its path was blocked by a black curtain, and beyond . . . she couldn’t think of that. Not if she wanted any hope of going through with her search.

  Before charging into the building, she went back to her car and dug out a tiny LED penlight she kept in the center console. She tested it and was grateful to find that it worked.

  Behind her, the door slammed shut. She jumped fully into the car, flipping open her knife as she spun around to see who was coming at her.

  It was only the wind.

  The door creaked once more when she reopened it.

  Again, she stared into her dream as it dared her forward.

  She entered the building and half-expected Annie’s sad, blue eyes to come floating out from the shadows. It was hard to decide whether she would welcome the sight, or run back to the car screaming.

  It was a choice she didn’t have to make, because the only difference between the dream from last night and her current reality was the fact that she was now totally alone.

  Her small flashlight barely penetrated the murky darkness. The quiet of the building was broken only by the dead echo of her flats shuffling across the concrete, and those muffled, scream-like noises.

  Using a technique Michelle once taught her for stressful situations, Cristina tried to replace her fear with something that made her happy.

  She chose Anise’s smiling face going around the carousel at The Wharf.

  The mental trick worked and her heartbeat slowed.

  She reached the black curtain, hearing the hiss of a lantern beyond it. With one hand, she slowly pulled the fabric aside.

  The mattress was there, along with its collection of dark stains. And the piles of used hypos, vials, foil, and other trash. But, like with most bad dreams, reality wasn’t nearly as frightening, especially to someone who’d seen this side of life before. Awake, Cristina clearly grasped that the patches of blood and urine and who-knows-what-else were disgusting, no doubt, but they weren’t going to jump off the mattress and grab her. That’s not the way things worked in the real world.

  For good measure, she pointed her dim flashlight toward the darkened section of the room. Seeing nothing but broken bottles of booze and discarded fast food containers, she moved on.

  As in her dream, the next room was illuminated only by a single beam of light cutting down the center of a long hallway.

  Before she could bring her flashlight up to examine the walls, the tiny device died.

  “Fuck!”

  The sound of her voice stirred something in the dark.

  Whatever it was settled.

  Is someone watching me?

  She almost wished Annie would appear. At least then she could pull Cristina along with the inhuman strength she’d shown in the dream. But she wasn’t there. No one was. And, thankfully, neither was the paralyzing fear and sadness Cristina had experienced before.

  All her energy was now focused on what condition she was going to find Casey in.

  She stood in front of the metal door that Annie had pointed to.

  Its knob turned easily.

  She pulled, producing another long, creaky squeak.

  When she saw what was beyond, a thousand dark memories rushed into Cristina’s mind.

  52

  In the years Cristina spent living on the streets, she saw many places where junkies came together to writhe in their collective filth and shared misery.

  None were as horrible as what she now saw before her.

  The floor was crammed with bodies, at least in the parts of the room she could see. Light from two of the high windows crisscrossed, casting rays of diffuse grey toward the center, leaving everything else in darkness.

  Most of the sickly-looking people lay sprawled out on the floor like corpses, or on bare mattresses, the siblings of the one in the lantern room. Complete with the same revolting wet blotches. The same collection of used needles and filth surrounding them.

  Miniature glass vials crunched beneath Cristina’s shoes like tiny seashells.

  There was little coherent conversation, but the room was far from quiet. Sounds drifted from the darkness. Sorrowful moans. The murmured babble of people talking to themselves. The clawing of overgrown fingernails on cloth and skin. Every so often, a fearful scream broke out, sounding as if the person making it was being tortured.

  Cristina’s overworked mind recalled the joy she felt when Anthony had asked her to marry him. The pain of kicking heroin. Part of her ability to do so driven by the prospect of never again having to step foot into this kind of hell.

  Yet, there in that room, she was surprised to find some deeply hidden part of herself that was tempted to join these forgotten members of humanity. She wondered if, perhaps, that was why she was there.

  Did part of her want to find Casey relapsed?

  She could suddenly see herself in his arms on one of the filthy mattresses, snuggling close as he pricked her skin with a needle.

  At that exact moment, a hand reached from the shadows and touched the back of her shoulder. Her first instinct was to go for her knife. She produced the blade and flipped it open without hesitation. Before she could plunge it into the dark, she heard a familiar voice.

  “Wait, it’s OK. It’s me!”

  “Casey?”

  He stepped out of the dark, his hard, handsome face sitting atop the two interlocking roses that embraced one another up the length of his neck.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked with real concern.

  “What are you doing here?” she echoed.

  He looked clearheaded, although a bit nervous, moving his head from side to side, trying to keep an eye on everything all at once.

  “Well,” he said. “It’s a little bit of a long story. And, if you don’t mind, I really don’t like being in here, especially now that I have to watch out for you.”

  “I can take care of myself,” she responded, trying to sound mad, but in her heart relieved that Casey was both okay and seemingly still clean.

  The trademark smirk crossed his face and he continued, “The short of it is, a kid I mentor relapsed. I’ve been trying to find him.”

  Cristina’s relief turned into guilt and shame.

  “I’m so sorry, Casey,” she said as she hugged him. “I thought you were—.”

  “—Getting high?” He pushed her back to arm’s length, still looking around like some paranoid bank robber. “Yah, well I kind of thought you might. Look, that doesn’t make me happy, but it doesn’t surprise me either. In fact, it’s partially my fault. I know it wasn’t v
ery respectful of me to just run off. So get that worried look off your face. I still love you. But I’d really like to get you, myself, and hopefully this kid Jeremy out of here as soon as possible.”

  Cristina managed a weak smile.

  “What can I do?” she asked.

  “You can stay right next to me. Someone Jeremy knows said he’d be in here. I’ve checked most of the place out, but there’s still one corner I need to look in.” He pointed. “If he’s not there, my guess is he’s probably moved on.”

  Casey grabbed her hand and they walked toward the darkest section of the room. Cristina noticed for the first time that he was carrying a police-grade Maglite. He flicked it on and directed the powerful beam forward.

  At least a dozen people were huddled together in the corner, all in varying states of awareness. Casey swept the light from one person’s face to the next. Most of the sunken, burned-out eyes barely reacted, sending back only empty stares. A few turned away or tried to block the light with their arms.

  When the beam crossed the face of a young man, one who looked less decrepit and emaciated than those around him, he at first looked stunned.

  Then he bolted.

  “That’s him!” Casey said.

  He pulled Cristina along as he chased the kid toward a metal door on the opposite side of the room. The door was either locked or blocked somehow. Either way, the kid was unable to open it. There was nowhere else to go.

  “Jeremy, stop!” Casey yelled, his voice harsh. Then he softened. “It’s me, Casey. I’m here to help, OK?”

  Jeremy didn’t turn around at first. He stood with his back to them, staring at the door with his shoulders slumped in defeat. As they inched closer, Cristina heard him sniffling. She stopped a few steps short. Casey tried to pull her forward, but she gave him a look that said to go ahead.

  He nodded.

  Casey put his hands on Jeremy’s shoulders, leaning in to say something Cristina couldn’t hear.

  “No!” Jeremy shouted. “I’m not going back.”

  Casey said something again, a long something. Jeremy turned around. The flashlight no longer showed his face, but Cristina could hear him crying. The quivering sound of a little boy lost in the dark.