by Kara Storti
TRIPPING BACK BLUE
Kara Storti
Minneapolis
Copyright © 2016 by Kara Storti
Carolrhoda Lab™ is a trademark of Lerner Publishing Group, Inc.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Storti, Kara.
Title: Tripping Back Blue / by Kara Storti.
Description: Minneapolis : Carolrhoda Lab, [2016] | Summary: “Finn is a gentle, tortured dealer and addict whose life is slipping away. When he finds an almost magical drug called Indigo, he thinks it will let him break free, but he’s dead wrong”— Provided by publisher.
Identifiers: LCCN 2015021012| ISBN 9781512403084 (lb : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781512404449 (eb pdf : alk. paper)
Subjects: | CYAC: Drug abuse—Fiction. | Drug dealers—Fiction.
Classification: LCC PZ7.1.S757 In 2016 | DDC [Fic]—dc23
LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015021012
Manufactured in the United States of America
1 – BP – 12/31/15
978-1-5124-0762-4 mobi
978-1-5124-0764-8 ePub
978-1-5124-0763-1 ePub
To Mom who showed me creativity and to Dad who taught me persistence.
Friday, March 22
Chapter One
My car craps out in Dammertown. Here I am, it’s two in the morning, stuck in front of what’s probably a crack house, boarded up, spray-painted over, my cell doesn’t work, the street lamp’s flickering above me, and—
The light goes out.
I rest my forehead against the steering wheel.
It wouldn’t be so bad if I didn’t have ten thousand dollars in cash underneath my seat. It wouldn’t be so bad if I weren’t in the ghetto of ghettos, where just last week a little kid got shot. That’s it. From now on, I’m sticking to slinging weed. I’m not doing this other sketchy nonsense, even as lucrative as it is, even as exciting as it is. I have to admit, begrudgingly, I’m out. Sweat is on the steering wheel from my palms. The window is fogging up from my hot and nervous breath. Okay, okay, okay. Finn, it could be worse, just play it cool, that usually gets you out of it every time. My twin sister, Faith, she’d say, think bright. I love my sister dearly, but her smiles are always real, and sometimes I want to tell her to wake the hell up.
All I’ve got to do is just get through this ordeal. Push through it; be a man. There’s so much to look forward to.
Home. I’ll feel the money in my hands. Dirty, gritty paper, thick stacks smelling funky and good.
Oxys. From my mom’s stash. I’ll take one and be loose, free, and in a warm bath of I just don’t give a fuck. I’ll smile. A real one. They don’t come along often, for me, a salesman. That’s what I am, like Pop—my father. Can’t say that with any kind of pride, but there it is.
There are a few guys standing on a sagging front porch smoking and drinking from cans of beer. They haven’t looked my way. Yet. What are my options? There’s a gas station about a half mile down the road that gets robbed on the regular. And there’s Jason Frye, my pot supplier’s brother, whose place is around here, but he’s the last person I want rescuing me today. Or ever. A couple of weeks ago he stole money from me, then I stole his girlfriend, then he slashed my tires, then I ratted him out to our high school principal for smoking weed in the bathroom. I’d say we’re not on the best of terms.
I feel for the bag of money underneath my seat, just a simple L.L. Bean backpack, corners of the bills poking through the material, solid and reassuring. I can’t leave it in my car, and I shouldn’t have it on me while I go strolling through the projects. Either way, it’s bad news. All I know is that it’s mine (didn’t even have to divvy it up this time), and I can’t let anything happen to it. It’s hard-earned cash that I’ve been dreaming about, putting myself to sleep at night by counting it like sheep.
These choices I have to make? It’s not choosing what shirt to wear in the morning. It’s choosing between what sucks and what blows, the epitome of a rock and a hard place. You can say that lately life hasn’t been exactly generous.
The backpack is slung around one shoulder when I open the car door, the creak undeniable, it’s like a burp in a library. The three guys on the porch, who are like, acre-big, take notice. Stupid car. Stupid neighborhood. It’d be one thing if I lived in New York City, where there’s violence, sure, but tons of opportunity to become a better man. Not the case here. Instead I’m north of Albany, in rotten Dammer-fucking-town, where there is no other side, where no great life is waiting for me, where the earth threw up and walked away.
I start walking in the direction of the gas station, its light a pathetic, piss-yellow beacon in the night. Don’t look back. Make it seem like I belong here. I kind of do. The trailer park I live in isn’t much better than this, but it’s home, and I would give my left nut to be there right now. I’ve been in this neighborhood plenty of times, but tonight it feels different, it feels meaner, and I feel small.
Though my footsteps are even and I’ve got me some swagger, I can hear the guys following right away and not even being shy about it. One of them says something, another one coughs.
Then, “Hey, where you goin’?”
Pretend I don’t hear. Jason’s place is up ahead to the right, and it looks like that’s my best option. The sidewalk is uneven, wobbly ground, chunks missing from the blacktop. I try not to stumble. It’s not even warm out, yet sweat is tracing lines down my back.
“You don’t answer me? Why aren’t you answering me?” His tough-guy voice echoes through the corridor of the street.
“What you got in the bag?” another asks.
Just one block to Jason’s. I have to get there, like now, like yesterday, because the gas station is too far and probably closed. The money stacks are stabbing into my back through the L.L. Bean canvas, and the thought of it isn’t comforting anymore; it feels dangerous, burden-heavy like everything else lately. They’re getting closer, hack-laughing, and I smell their late-night smell, beer, stale cologne, trouble. It’s a white trash potpourri I know too well.
Jason’s place is a few steps away now, thank God, because one of them is next to me. I can see his cigarette hanging from his mouth, his diamond earring glinting in the sickly, flickering street light.
“Is schoolboy scared?” The guy with the earring inclines his head, juts out his chin to showcase his fat face and pubic hair goatee. He’s slurring his speech, and I think it’s probably the norm and not the exception. His two friends are at his side, flank him, their shadowed faces are ominous and anonymous.
I walk up Jason’s steps and bang on the door. I don’t give a shit if I look desperate because I am desperate. Please, Jason, be home, have a heart just this one time, I won’t mess around with you anymore, I’ll stay out of your way, truce. Pleas
e. Just please.
One of them snickers, as if he can hear my thoughts. Jason’s door is scratched and busted up, the half-moon glass window at the top covered with plywood. I cinch my backpack tighter against my shoulder and rap on the door again. And again, until my knuckles sing.
Nothing.
Jason’s probably looking out his window and laughing.
So I turn and face them. Three against one. I’m six feet, got some muscle on me, but still, this is no fair fight. I feel for the Buck knife in my pocket that I know I don’t have. I left it at home before the run, and sure enough they patted me down, before the drop. I do a quick glance around. There’s a raggedy-ass shrub to the right of me and an iron railing of the cement steps to the left—nothing I can use as a weapon.
They’re eyeing me hard, eyeing my bag even harder, and finally I say casually, “Hey, I’m gonna get going, all right?” Not the stupidest thing I’ve ever said, but not the smartest thing either. I make a move to leave but the one with the earring pushes me back.
“You look familiar,” he says. “Don’t he look familiar?” He turns to one of his buddies, who’s wearing a tight white T-shirt with stains on the front, which draws attention to his muscular pecs. Pecs nods, and then spits on the steps in front of me. Of course I look familiar. I have blah brown hair and blah brown eyes (unless you look closer; I’ve been told they’re golden-toned), but it’s the scar on the side of my face and across my chin that distinguishes me from every other white dude in D-Town.
“He’s that kid. Remember Andre talking about him? No business making this his territory,” Pecs says. They don’t have to nod or respond to know they agree. Then he says to me, “Stick to your own playground.”
Earring guy cranes his neck to get a better view of my backpack. My heart is ramming against my ribcage as he jabs a finger at me. “What’s that you got, schoolboy? The fruits of your labor? Might be your labor, but it’s our fruit.”
I smile a fake smile, because that’s all I can do. Buys me some time. Relaxes them and me, slightly. Usually gets me out of a bind or two, gets me laid, gets me popular. Not sure what it’s going to get me tonight, so I let the backpack strap fall from my shoulder, I shrug, and pretend to look resigned.
I jump—
Over the railing and take off, my bag bouncing against my side, as they sprint after me, sneakers slapping pavement, yelling, keys and lighters and whatever else jingling in their pockets, music to a race I don’t want to be running. Good thing I’m fast and fit and see the brightness of the gas station, less than a quarter of a mile ahead.
I think I’m going to make it, I really do.
Then something sharp and hard hits the back of my head.
Chapter Two
When I come to, the first thing I feel is a jab to my side. I open my eyes and see my sister, Faith, chomping on gum, grinding her three-inch heel into me.
“Get up, shithead,” she says.
I sit up fast, too fast, as fast as my thoughts, which are spinning and starting to process. Broken-down car. Three guys. My—
“Where’s my backpack?” I crank my head around, and all I see is pavement. Where are those assholes? They messed with me. You don’t mess with Finn. I handle my shit.
“Where’s my backpack?” Faith says in a mimicking tone, her earthy brown eye on a never-ending roll. “You’re lucky you aren’t dead, brother.”
“What are you doing here?” I ask, dragging a palm over my face. My pulse is as loud as a boom box. Faith smiles tightly. She’s been out dancing in Albany, I can tell; her face is all glittered up, and her eye patch is sequined and twinkling in the street light. “You shouldn’t be here. This isn’t a place for you to be.”
“Uh-huh,” Faith mutters, raised eyebrow saying, You don’t think I can take care of myself? Who’s the one on his ass? “Jason texted me and told me you got jacked. Good thing the punk’s in love with me. He’d have left you for dead.” Her voice is lower than most girls’, quieter too, but she enunciates every word to make it count. Tonight this really drags on my nerves.
I get up. This is when I discover the brick that was used to take me out, and my head hurts like hell because of it. I’m only somewhat grateful that it didn’t do more damage. I start scrambling around, running up the street, down the street, looking under porches, mailboxes, tipping over garbage cans, crawling underneath cars. Faith stands there, her hand on her hip, checking her cell phone. I’m dizzy, panicking, a crater of loss dug fast into my chest. Ten thousand dollars. More than I’ve ever had.
“Aren’t you going to help me?” I yell. She crinkles her nose and looks up at the sky, then back down at whatever text she’s composing. I wasn’t expecting sympathy to ooze out of my sister, but still. I consider telling her she looks like a slut, short black dress, makeup-smudged eye, but I think better of it.
I sit down on the same spot of the pavement where I fell and put my head in my hands. My fingers graze a bump on the back of my skull. Damn it smarts, but there’s no blood. The ringing in my ears isn’t letting up, though.
“Do you realize how much money I just lost? And you won’t even help me?”
Faith looks put off, like how dare I even address her. “Oh? So I’m supposed to help find your drug money? And be an accessory to a crime? Sure, bro, anything for you.” Black fingernails to match her black dress and her black mood.
“Don’t even be like that. I’ve given you some of that money to—”
“Nope,” she says, plugging her ears, her phone still grasped in her hand. “We’re not going to talk about that. I’m here to rescue your pathetic ass. Can we get going? Before we get shot or something?”
I groan, louder than I meant to. Faith is already getting into her car, a light gray rice burner that’s a piece of shit on a good day. It’s pointless to give another look around, but I do anyway, my breath ragged, going through the grater of my ribcage, coming out thin, barely there. When I collapse onto the seat of the car, Faith doesn’t start it up right away, she’s chomping and texting and playing with her earrings that dangle to her shoulders.
“So, we peacin’ out or what?” I ask.
She looks up after a few moments, the glow of her phone a blush on her face. “I can’t keep doing this for you, Phineas. It’s constant damage control: bailing you out and watching you fall. It’s getting old. I’m sick and tired of looking at your bloodshot eyes.”
“Faith—”
“Listen, you smoke up, fine. Dealing weed, I’ve accepted that. Mom’s valium you sold for twenty bucks a pop, great, she doesn’t need that shit anyway. But running heroin, Finn? Seriously?”
She won’t look at me. I didn’t think she knew—it’s not a fact I advertise like, oh hey, I just humped some H across three state lines, cool. Hid bricks of it in the hollow space behind my bumper, sweet. I try hard to keep our worlds separate.
I raise my finger. “One-time thing, I swear. The opportunity arose, and I had to take it.” I’m not lying either, but she probably thinks I am. I pat my pockets down, check for cigarettes, but I know I left them in my car. Faith’s glove box is empty. I would kill for a smoke right now. Kill.
“Why? So you can buy more coke? Pills? E? What’s the flavor of the week?” Her voice is shrill, and I don’t want to listen, don’t want to listen at all. Don’t want to admit to myself that she’s on the edge too and that I put her there. I immediately say what comes to mind. I never said tact is my strong suit.
“Don’t change the subject, sis. I just lost a shit ton of money. Shit. Ton. I’m legitimately freaking out right now, I was going to give it to you for school, for your business, ’cause seriously, what was I gonna do with it, you know? You could expand, have your own brand, a logo for chrissakes, I got ideas—”
“Shut the fuck up!” Faith yells, hitting the dashboard with her palm. And then I see something’s happening. Blotchiness on the side of her face, mouth trembling, breath puffs out of her nose with force, shaking hands.
“Sis
ter,” I say, counting to five in my head, just like they told me to do. Steady myself before I can steady her. It’s awful and hard, I’m not going to lie, it brings me back, every single time, to that moment right after her accident. “Look at me, okay?” She’s not looking, she’s focused on her fingers now clutching the steering wheel. “Hey, hey,” I say quietly, putting my hand next to hers, careful not to make contact. “I’m going to come around to your side so you can get in the passenger’s seat, all right? I’ll drive us home.”
She’s frozen. This hasn’t happened in a few months. I thought she was getting better because high school is almost over, and she’ll be hearing back from colleges and on her way to a new life out of this hellhole.
It takes me some time to coax her out of the car, takes me even more time to get her to the passenger side. I push down on her shoulders to guide her into the seat, but she doesn’t budge, her eyes are fixed straight ahead, past me like I don’t exist. I can’t break or bend her, that’s why I can’t help her. I’m getting frustrated, I want to slap her across the face. Her eye patch is askew. I fix it, she doesn’t feel it. I get just a stare straight ahead into a beyond of nothing.
“Faith. Please let me help you,” I say gently. “We’re going home. We’ll watch The X-Files. I’ll make you a grilled cheese and tomato sandwich. Let’s go do that, okay?”
For a second I think she hears me, her eye blinks, but then she’s back into fortress mode. Usually she’d come out of it by now, usually she’d say my name, Phineas, in a slur like she’s just awoken from a bad dream, and the recognition in her voice and eye would be a welcome home. My sister. My twin. We’re not magical with each other, we don’t read each other’s minds or feel the scrape when one of us gets hurt, but she’s the reason why I don’t feel alone most of the time.
I take a deep breath. “Get into the fucking car, sis,” I say, hoping the sternness in my voice will bring her back. Nothing. I decide to use some force, grabbing her waist, nudging her into the car, and that’s what does it. She starts to scream.