“Hey, I have to ask you guys a question,” I said. They both looked at me, eyes wide at the serious tone in my voice.
“Yeah, sure.”
“Anything.”
“Why don’t either of you wear underwear?”
They laughed, not expecting my silly question.
Raphael answered first. “I usually do wear underwear. I’m at the end of my laundry cycle, remember?”
“Oh, yeah.” That did make sense to me. Raphael didn’t seem like someone who wouldn’t wear underwear, but he would rather go without than wear a dirty pair.
“Boxers or briefs?” I asked.
“Boxer briefs.”
“Yeah, which one?”
“Boxer briefs. They’re like boxers but they’re briefs. Long ones. Like boxers. But like briefs.” He giggled at his own explanation, knowing it was a bit convoluted.
“Oh. I guess I’m not really up on my men’s underwear.” I turned to Max. “What about you? Why don’t you wear underwear?”
“It takes up too much room.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“In my backpack. I want to be able to fit all of my belongings in a backpack, and if I have to fit several pairs of underwear too, it’ll take up too much room. Just one more possession I’d have to worry about,” Max explained. Raphael laughed. I couldn’t figure out if he really thought this way or if he was just saying whatever popped into his head at the moment because he was high. It was an interesting direction, though, and I wanted to pursue it.
“All of your belongings? You have a lot more than what can fit in a backpack. What about this table?” I said, tapping the underside of the dining room table with my knuckles.
“That’s yours.”
“Mine? You bought it. You bought all the furniture.”
“Yeah, for you. It’s not mine.”
“So when you sit on the couch in the living room, you think you’re sitting on my couch, not yours? Or when you go to bed at night, you’re sleeping in my bed, not yours? Don’t you ever feel at home?”
“Yeah, sure, I feel at home. I don’t think of it. It’s just that if I left tomorrow, all I’d take would be what could fit in a backpack.”
“Are you planning on leaving me?”
“No! Not at all. Not ever! What? No, that’s not what I meant. It’s just that all of this is too good, and it’ll probably come to end at some point. I just want to be prepared for that.”
“Max! That’s so pessimistic,” I said, surprised by his doom-and-gloom attitude. He never seemed that way on the surface, smiling and laughing, making jokes. He was always in a good mood.
“It’s not pessimistic, it’s realistic. Nothing is that permanent.”
I felt bad for him that he had such a dismal outlook on life and told him so.
“No,” he said. “You shouldn’t feel bad. I’m happy. I’m not explaining myself well. It’s just that I’ve lived out of a backpack before, I kind of got used to not wearing underwear, and it might happen again, so why get used to it now? Who knows what will happen in the future.”
I decided he was just high and rambling.
“I’m not going to leave you, though,” Max continued. “Don’t think that. I love you. I love you more than anything. More than winning a card game. More than beer. More than weed.” Now I knew he was just high and rambling.
Then, he turned to Raphael and said, “I love you, too.” We all giggled again and professed our love for each other, allowing the warm, fuzzy feeling the E gave us to submit to our feelings.
I had done Ecstasy a few times in clubs before, dancing all night to house music that was too loud to talk and going wild with a large group of friends as we raved until dawn, but this was the first time I had done it in such an intimate setting. Although I had found it fun before, the club scene wasn’t really my thing. This trip was a whole new world. It brought me even closer to both Max and Raphael, forming a tight-knit circle between the three of us.
The night went by in a flash of music. We danced, talked, and laughed until the dawn broke on the horizon. We watched the sun rise out on the porch and smoked a joint. I had come down and was ready for bed.
When I finally got up after sleeping the morning and half the afternoon away, Raphael was already awake, sitting at the kitchen table smoking a cigarette and drinking coffee. He and Frank were the only people I let smoke in the house. Frank always politely declined and went outside, but Raphael lit up, grateful that he didn’t have to brave the weather for his nic fix. This time of year, though, it was beautiful out, much nicer than inside, and I suggested we sit on the porch. I poured myself a cup of coffee and we went out, settling into the two rocking chairs.
“That was quite a night we had,” Raphael said, grinning at the memory.
“It sure was. Thank you.”
“No problem. There’s no one I’d rather do that with than you guys.”
“You wouldn’t rather be with one of your chicks?” I asked. Raphael always had a different girl, all of them gorgeous. Their brains obviously weren’t the assets that he looked for, though. He once explained that he never stayed with one long enough for her intelligence to matter.
One girl in particular stood out in my mind. Raphael was visiting us, and we went to a bar in Burlington for a few drinks. Raphael met up with this girl the day before and had asked her along. She was beautiful, with long legs, red hair, big blue eyes, and nothing between her ears.
I had to go to the bathroom and get rid of some of my beer. She followed me in, making the pee trip a group effort like so many women did. I don’t know why they did that. The bathroom didn’t seem like a great social place to me; I just wanted to get in, get it done, and get out.
“This skirt is totally designer,” she said as she stopped in front of the mirror and reapplied her lipstick. It was hot pink, matching her perfectly manicured nails. “My friend works at a posh store downtown and can get you a discount if you want.”
“Thanks,” I said, not really giving a shit for her clothes. She was trying to be nice, and I appreciated the offer, but all I could think of was my beer sitting on the table getting warm.
“Raphael is so hot! Do you think he likes me?” she asked, turning to me and smiling with whitened teeth.
I looked at the cleavage created by her enormous breasts as they peeked out of the V-neck in her tight sweater. “Yeah, he likes you,” I answered, somewhat truthfully; I knew he liked those, anyway.
“I just love Latino men. They’re so sexy.”
“Raphael is French Canadian,” I answered, not able to just let it slide.
“Yeah, I know. Isn’t that cool?” She giggled.
He picked a real winner tonight, I thought. Instead of saying anything, I just politely nodded.
Back on my porch, Raphael laughed and answered my question about being with a girl instead of us. “No way. Those girls are fun for one thing only. Not conversation. Maybe someday, when I’m ready to settle down, I’ll meet one who’s hot and intelligent. Like you. Until then, I’ll have fun where I can find it.”
We sat there for a few minutes, rocking in the chairs and sipping coffee.
“Hey, do you want to smoke?” Raphael asked.
“Wake and Bake? I don’t know. I’m not really alive yet after last night.”
“Oh, come on. Pot’s the best cure for an E hangover.”
“According to you, pot’s the best cure for everything.”
“That’s because it is. They should just legalize it.”
Keeping drugs illegal didn’t make them hard to get; they were just more expensive to the user, the money spent on them lined the pockets of drug dealers, and the government lost out on taxes they could collect on them as well as paying for a costly “War on Drugs” that didn’t work anyway.
Being one of those people who profited from the drug trade, I had my opinions on the subject. “No way! I’d be out of job if they did.” I made good money running that stuff across the bord
er.
“Just marijuana. There are plenty of other drugs you could still smuggle.”
I laughed and took out my tin box of smoking supplies, giving into his request. I had refined my joint-making skills and considered myself an artist. I took pride in rolling them to perfection.
Max came out, wearing only a pair of shorts and looking like his head was so far up his ass that he’d need the jaws of life to pull it out. His eyes weren’t even open and his hair looked somehow messier than usual. He sat on the porch floor and leaned against the beam.
“My jaw hurts,” he said as he rubbed his hand along its edge and open and closed his mouth to loosen it. “What the hell did I do last night?”
“Mine hurts, too,” Raphael said and passed the joint to Max. “I chewed the same piece of gum for five hours.”
Ecstasy had a way of making one’s jaw clench and grind all night. Chewing gum helped alleviate some of it. The one time I did E and didn’t chew gum, I chewed a hole in my lip that took days to heal and hurt like hell.
“Thanks,” Max said and took a long drag.
“So, I figure that we all get about $34,000 each when we split the money,” Raphael said.
“No. We’re not splitting it evenly. No way,” Max said and took another drag before passing it to me.
“I agree,” I said. “I didn’t even do that much.”
“Are you kidding? You were the one who got stuck with all the evidence. That’s the dangerous part. You deserve it as much as I do,” Raphael said then turned to Max. “And you actually robbed the bank. I just stood next to you.”
“You fucked the ugly chick. That’s worth more than anything either of us did,” Max pointed out. “Besides, Ellie and I live together. We’d come out with a lot more than you did if we just split it evenly.”
“What if we split it in half then?” Raphael said. “I take half and you guys take the other half.”
“I still think that’s too much for our part,” I said.
“No way. We’re a team. I’m not taking any more than that.” Raphael stubbornly folded his arms across his chest, letting us know that was the end of the discussion.
My share was about $25,000. Not a bad take for a few hours of flying and waiting. I decided almost immediately what I would do with my cut. The next day, I asked Raphael to drive me into Burlington to a car dealership before he left for Montreal. I had always driven shitty, old, used cars. For once, I had enough money to buy something nice and get rid of my broken down Ford.
For my new ride, I carefully chose the right car. It was a silver Subaru Impreza WRX, manual shift, with racing seats and plenty of horsepower. It was fast and sporty, but had symmetrical all-wheel drive so it could handle the snow and ice that came with our harsh winters. As far as I was concerned, blowing all of my money in one place was worth it. I loved that car.
12.
Drug dealers, like people in any profession, come in all different shapes and sizes. Some were nice, like Jim and Lenny. Lenny grew pot in Canada, Jim sold it in Vermont, and I transported it between the two.
Jim resembled what I liked to call Renaissance Jesus, like in those paintings from Da Vinci’s era where they show Jesus sporting long golden brown hair and watery blue eyes instead of the dark Middle Eastern looks he probably really had. That was Jim in a nutshell.
Lenny was older and bald, an earthy farmer with soft hazel eyes and an effortless smile. He dressed like a reveler at a Grateful Dead concert.
Jim and Lenny were generous and paid well, always giving me large tips made up of their own produce, their gentle natures making them easy to deal with. I liked them. I even hung out sometimes with Jim and his wife. She made the best “special” brownies.
There was a coke dealer named Martin whom I occasionally flew for, too. He was okay. Fashionable, he was always dressed to the nines and drove a black Audi TT. He was polite, but not very friendly, too business-like. He gave me a fair price for my work and usually gave me a tiny packet to try out later, nothing close to the amount that Jim and Lenny gave me. That was okay; I liked Jim and Lenny’s products better.
One particular night, I flew a job for a guy I didn’t know. Frank had set it up and told me to let him know how it went. This was a new connection. I didn’t know what I was carrying, but it was none of my business, anyway. All I had to do was get there, exchange a black duffle bag for another one, and come back.
I had been waiting for 45 minutes already. I wasn’t accustomed to waiting for anyone, and I was starting to get pissed off. It was always best to get in and out as soon as possible, just in case anyone had seen my plane land and got curious. Papy Volant wasn’t exactly quiet. Being delayed a few minutes was acceptable, but this was out of line.
I’ll give him five more minutes, I thought. Then, I’m out of here.
Finally, a car pulled into the field. It was an ’80’s Buick, painted black with wide red and silver zig zag stripes across the hood and down over the sides. That kind of car just screamed, “Pull me over!” A short, wiry guy with hair like a hedgehog, the tips bleached blond, got out and walked over to me. His pants were about ten sizes too big with chains draping over the sides. His wife-beater shirt was stained a grubby gray, and he was wearing sunglasses in the middle of the night. His tattooed arms were decorated with pictures of nude women, skulls, flames, and weapons. Some of them could have been almost cool if they were on a sexy body. This guy had a body like a cadaver. He kept looking around nervously, waiting for someone to jump out at him at an unexpected moment.
“You got it?” he said by way of greeting. This guy was a tweaker, a crystal meth addict. He scratched his skin with ugly hands, the nails on his simian digits a little too long and curled, tobacco-stained, trying to get at an itch that wasn’t there. He took his sunglasses off, and I saw his red-rimmed eyes, large vacant orbs sunk into his skull. I couldn’t tell his age; probably younger than I was, but he looked at least twenty years older, his skin prematurely aged.
“It would be nice if you showed up on time,” I said.
“You got it?” he repeated as if he hadn’t heard me. He was moving constantly, his arms writhing around, his head twitching and shaking.
“Yes. I have it.” I handed him the small duffle bag, careful not to touch his hand. He gave me the creeps.
Normally, my clients are subtle. Some just take the delivery and go. Some check it out, usually in the car. This guy dropped the bag to the ground and zipped it open right there. He pulled out a one-gallon plastic zipper bag filled with crystals. Methamphetamine Ice.
“Well, fuck me ’til Tuesday! Look at that!” He seemed pleased by what he saw as he grinned with that typical meth mouth, nasty rotted teeth, blackened by decay and broken from grinding them too much.
He took out a crystal and held it up to inspect. Pulling a glass pipe from his enormous pants pocket, he dropped the meth into the bowl of the pipe and was about to light it when he stopped.
“You take it first.” He stretched his arm out, extending the pipe to me.
“Oh, no thank you. I don’t do that.” I do draw a line somewhere.
“Take it!” His pointy, acne-scarred face pinched up in anger.
“No. Really, I have to fly back. I don’t fly if I’m high.”
“Are you trying to poison me?”
“No! I just don’t --”
“What did you put in my shit?” he interrupted with a note of panic in his voice.
“Nothing! I don’t cook it. I just transport it. I didn’t even know what was in there until you took it out.” I was more than uncomfortable now. I just wanted him to take his shit and get out of there.
“Listen, bitch, you take it, now.” His voice grew cold as he pulled out a gun that had been tucked into the back of his pants and held it to my head.
“Wait. Let’s be reasonable here.” I wanted to sound calm and assertive, but it wasn’t coming out like I planned. My voice quavered, betraying the emotion underneath. I really didn’t want to s
moke meth, especially not alone with a freak in the middle of the night when I needed to fly back home. On the other hand, he looked like he was going to kill me if I didn’t.
“Smoke it!” he screamed and hit me with his gun. The impact knocked me to my knees, and I clutched the side of my head as black spots danced in front of my eyes. My hand came away wet and sticky with blood.
I took the pipe from him and lit up. It was harsh and tasted like chemicals, not friendly and smooth like the stuff I was used to smoking. I coughed, my face going all red as I tried to wheeze air into my lungs. I took a deep breath and spit then handed it back to him. I hoped I couldn’t catch a disease by using his pipe.
He seemed satisfied by my test and took a huge drag himself. He visibly calmed, the shaking abated, and he took a long, slow breath. Not saying a word to me, he picked up the bag and walked to the Buick. He threw it in the back seat and took out another bag. He chucked it at me, got back in the car, and drove away.
I sat on the ground for a moment to get my bearings then took the bag, which probably contained money, and walked back to the plane. I set the bag inside and flopped down in the grass, holding my head in my hands. I was way too messed up to fly. That was one rule I always stuck to. I never flew or drove when I was fucked up.
I’ve done a lot of drugs. In the right place, at the right time, with the right people, drugs can be fun. That’s why people do them. Am I promoting drugs? Of course I am. That’s my livelihood. However, in the wrong place, at the wrong time, drugs can be your worst nightmare. That was the only time I ever tried meth. I didn’t know how long it would last or what the effects would be. Supposedly, it caused euphoria. That’s not how I was feeling. I was scared, paranoid and completely weirded out. My heart was beating so hard I was afraid it would explode. This was one of those nightmare moments.
I took my cell phone out and called Max. My hands were shaking as I dialed, a mix of the drug and the fear. He picked up on the second ring.
Hashimoto Blues Page 9