Tripping Back Blue

by Kara Storti

  Faith doesn’t answer me, she isn’t even bothered by my disgusted tone.

  Then Peter steps in. “Faith, do you really think that’s a good idea?”

  “I do.” She turns and says directly to me, “It’s too much pressure. Not right now. I really can’t deal right now.” And surprise, there’s shakiness in her voice, that same shakiness she had the night of her seizure. Her vulnerability almost quells my anger. Almost. She’s stronger than this. She has to be, for both of us.

  “Cheers to that,” Penelope says, holding up her pipe as if she’s giving a toast. “Life is hard enough. College is bullshit. Just another way of turning us all into robots.”

  Goddamn people don’t get it. They just don’t get it. I’m in a room full of losers, my sister included. Faith thinks that she has anxiety now? What about when she finds she’s stuck in D-Town, pushing paper, or tables, what have you, on a rainy hopeless day, when regret and longing are boring into you like oncoming car headlights on bright? I swear, once you miss the window of opportunity to leave this place, you aren’t ever leaving.

  “Gimme that,” I say to Penelope, snatching the bowl out of her hands. I take a long, hard puff like it’s my last, blow the smoke out so thick it engulfs the room. I hope Faith feels how livid I am, hope that it’s raising the hair on the back of her neck. But she doesn’t seem to notice.

  “Half the school is going to DCC anyway. It would be the best way to ease in—I could go for a semester and then maybe transfer. Who knows? I need to get my bearings, you know? Do you all really feel like you’ve got your bearings?” she asks, looking around at us, brush in hand. For some reason it feels theatrical, an actor asking the audience a question and not expecting an answer.

  “I understand where you’re coming from,” Peter says. In his eyes, there’s so much longing it’s painful to watch. My body’s rigid, my hands are twisting around and over each other, goddammit Faith, for someone so smart . . . The bowl goes round and round, and she takes a hit, blowing smoke straight up. She’s the only one standing, towering above us, and the smoke cloud makes her look even taller. Then she leaves the room with the clack of her high heels. I go after her, grab her wrist in the hallway. She jerks her arm away from me and hisses menacingly, “Back. Off.”

  I throw my hands up in the air, surrendering for now. Screw her. She isn’t going to stop me. I will do this thing for her, whatever she says.

  When I return to the room I clap loudly and everyone jumps. “All right, you fools, we got work to do.”

  My friends have been helping me sell weed for years now. I get the stuff, I pass it around, we all get a cut of the profits. It’s been going smoothly, besides your run-of-the-mill scares. There was one time I was almost arrested. This female cop pulled me over and found a bunch of dime bags squished in between my seats. Somehow I got her talking about making cookies because I told her my mother likes medical marijuana in baked goods. Found out the cop bakes a mean cupcake so I go asking her about the ingredients, yellow cake, chocolate frosting, sprinkles or no sprinkles, whatever, she was putty the moment I opened my mouth. My mouth, my something, saves me every time.

  I signal to Peter to turn down the music. “You’ve heard about the new shit, right?” I say to the group.

  “Yeah, I’ve heard about it, but I don’t see it anywhere. I’m ready for it, man, I’m ready for something different. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m bored.” This is Max, who isn’t the sharpest tool in the shed, but he’s definitely loyal. Loyalty goes a long way. “So where the hell is it?”

  “Haven’t acquired it yet,” I say, lighting a cigarette, shrugging Diane off me. “And that’s the problem. We need to find the supplier. I want a piece of this pie. If I get a piece of the pie, then you do too. So this is what we do. We’ve got to organize.”

  “We’re not your army, Finn.” Peter’s voice is a warning. I love the guy, I do, but he’s really testing my patience. We’re on the same team, dude, remember?

  Then I decide I don’t really care how he’s looking at me, because the rest of them are full-on enchanted. My pitch is pitch perfect. You want something life changing? Try this shit. You need a shot of absolute ecstasy? Try this shit. You need to feel good again, in a way that feels pure, that feels healthy, like a cleanse, a catharsis, an exorcism?

  “Exorcism?” Diane says.

  “Straight up,” I say. “But first things first. Organize. I want your eyes and ears open. I want you sniffing things out. I don’t care who you got to talk to, talk to them. I don’t care where you got to go. New York City? Syracuse? Fucking Niagara Falls? Don’t matter, don’t care. We’ve got to find it, or else.” I stare at them with my serious Finn eyes, my razor edge shark fin glare.

  “Or else what?” Peter challenges.

  “Or else we’re losing our lives!” I exclaim. “Are you all really making bank at your jobs? I’m certainly not. I’m sick and tired of throwing around salami and cheese for a living. You hear me? Weed’s only getting us so far.”

  “Hell yeah,” Bryce and Max say at the same time. Peter is finally nodding too. Diane and Penelope are silent. They’re in another world, riding off the wave of their buzz.

  “Girls, are you in?” I snap. They both perk up and murmur yes. What did I say about loyalty?

  “Well, okay then, class. I’ll give you your assignments.”

  I do just that. I give a list of contacts and locations to the girls and another list to the guys. As their eyes scan the words, I know they’re not happy with what they see.

  “Dude. I’m not going into that part of Dammertown,” Peter says, scowling.

  “We never go into Dammertown Heights,” Bryce says, shaking his head at the piece of paper. I was expecting this. The D-Town ghetto isn’t a place where we go. It’s where the hard stuff is, coke, heroin, meth, and I know better than to encroach upon this turf, especially after my run-in there a few weeks ago. But my boys’ faces will be unfamiliar, and they’ll be perceived as some dumbass, curious kids. I hope.

  “Penelope, let me see your list.” Bryce grabs it out of her hand. “Hey, man, they’ve got it easy.”

  “No, we don’t. We got to visit that smelly, creepy retirement home on Birch Ave. Why you got us doing that, Finny?” I don’t like it when she calls me that, but I let it slide, puff my chest out, wind myself up again.

  “The way this drug works is that it induces memories so vivid they feel real.” I hang my hand in the air above my head for a pause and then let it drop. “Hell, they are real. Good memories. The very best. What old person wouldn’t want that?” If the Klaski lady has the drug, then maybe other old folks do too. Not that I want to say anything about her at this point. She’s the wild card that doesn’t need to be a part of the equation.

  They all look at me doubtfully. “Listen, guys, just go do your jobs. If nothing shakes out in a few weeks, then that’s that. I’m not asking you to go and convince anybody of anything; I’m just asking you to go play detective. Haven’t you always wanted to do that? Go sleuthing? Nail the bad guy? Well, the bad guy is this drug, and it’s going to do nothing but good for us to find it. What do you say?”

  I slide my hand up Penelope’s thigh and nuzzle against Diane’s neck, kissing her slowly behind her ear. “Say yes,” I whisper.

  Max and Bryce look at each other, rolling their eyes. Peter reaches for the fresh bag of weed but I intercept it.

  “No, no,” I say. “Not until I have my answer.”

  “What are you going to do? What’s your task?” Peter snaps.

  “I’ve got the hardest one of all, you pricks. I’m talking to Mike Frye in Vermont.”

  “He just tried to kill you,” Max says quietly.

  I nod. Don’t really want to reminisce on that memory. I push that out of my mind.

  “We have a deal then? Everyone in favor say ‘Aye.’”

  There’s a beat of silence before they all agree. I toss the bag of weed over to Peter, who’s shaking his head.

&nb
sp; “This better be worth it, man, this really better be worth it.”

  Saturday, April 13

  Chapter Twelve

  As if my relationship with Jason Frye isn’t complicated enough, my relationship with his brother Mike is even worse. After I had hooked up with Jason’s girlfriend, ratted him out to the principal, and didn’t give him free weed for his troubles, his big bad brother comes down to D-Town from Vermont to teach me a lesson. This was a few months ago. Somehow he gets me cornered at a drive-in movie theater where I’m minding my own business with some preppy girl who feels naughty to be on date with me. Then suddenly I’m being dragged out of my car, thrown into the field beyond by three guys who hold me down so Mike can wale away at me. I’m proud to say that yes, it did take all three guys to restrain me, but I ended up with a broken nose, a black eye, a broken rib, and gobs of spit in my face.

  I remember it way too clearly. Mike’s standing above me, the bright red of his shirt assaulting my eyes, his saggy jowls supersized. The power behind his punches is unrealistic. “I really hate to do this to you, man,” he says calmly as he hits me. “We have a nice business arrangement going. I don’t want this to strain it. But I got to say, you fuck with my brother again and I’m going all the way with it. I’ll just say that some of my best friends are on the force—and they’ll have no trouble looking the other direction.”

  Our business relationship I wouldn’t exactly consider “nice,” but it works. He has an associate in D-Town who supplies me with his homegrown marijuana, I sell it to my usual buyers, then I take my cut and he takes his. No problemo.

  Course my mouth gets in the way. I remember saying something to the effect of, “Aw, that’s swell you got boyfriends on your side. I see you got a lot of boyfriends. I should show your woman what a real man is.”

  This rubs him extra wrong because he’s obsessed with his girlfriend—Victoria—loves her to death, shows everyone photos of her fat ass on the beach, her latest selfie she posted on Facebook. Mike steps on my junk and I scream beyond bloody murder until I black out.

  Phineas, don’t you think you should get some help? You can’t carry this with you for the rest of your life, I hear my sister say when I wake up in the hospital. Come to find out, Mike is the one who dumped me there.

  This is the stuff I’m thinking about on my way up to Vermont. It doesn’t get to me too much because I’m riding off a good buzz from a joint I smoked earlier. I know the buzz won’t last but I’ve got to enjoy the peace it brings. You have to practice being present, Faith’s therapist told her way back when. It seems like a waste of time to me—like the present is a butterfly meant to be caught in a net. Forever chasing, always elusive. And once it’s caught, what are you going to do? Pin it down on paper and call it yours?

  Mike lives in northern Vermont where he’s got the weed empire of the Northeast. His acres of pot grow in the middle of nowhere and are sprinkled in between abandoned cornfields.

  I have only been up here once to see him when I first started dealing, just a wet-behind-the-ears type of kid. He was so nice to me back then because I was so stupid. It didn’t take me long to call him out on my pathetic cut. I negotiated. I told him that D-Town is teeming with potheads, I know every single one of them, and they all love me—I can get them to buy bud like it’s penny candy. Now I’m on his bad side, but I’ve come bearing gifts. I had the foresight to save the residue of Mrs. Klaski’s drug that was on the mirror she left behind.

  Pine trees everywhere, a blanket of blue above. It’s the type of day where the smallest thing feels miraculous: a rabbit sniffing a dandelion on the side of the road, an old person walking with a cane to his mailbox. I even see a couple yellow finches flit across the road. Those acrobatic little suckers thrill me every time. They bounce and undulate and call out when they fly to make themselves known. Attention whores they are. I drive with the windows down all the way, and for once I’m not listening to music because the wind sounds just as good.

  Here I am, already on my way to accomplishing my assignment. I wonder if those bums have even dragged their asses out of bed yet.

  When I turn the corner of a forgotten country road though, the miracles disappear. He’s got five junk cars crowding the driveway and part of his front yard where there used to be grass, and in spite of all the money he makes, you’d never guess it if you looked at the crap-hole he calls a home.

  And goddam it, there’s Mike in the window like he’s waiting for me, even though I didn’t tell him I was coming. One of the guys who beat me up at the drive-in movie theater—I think his name is Nelson—walks out from behind the side of the house, wearing a camo-printed vest and no shirt underneath. His overfed McDonald’s stomach jiggles with each step. I feel for the knife around my leg. It’s just a precaution but possibly a necessary one. I hop out of the car.

  I wave to the glowering Nelson like he’s my best friend. Mike hasn’t moved from the window and even from here I can see that he’s fatter, unhealthier, and greased up to the heavens.

  “I come in peace,” I say, raising my hands.

  “Sure you do, you piece of shit,” Nelson says, slamming me up against my car. I groan, then chuckle softly. He searches me, finds the knife in my jeans pocket (yeah, I had the foresight to bring two) and shoves it in my face. “This don’t look like peace.”

  “You blame me?” I ask. Then I say quietly, “I’m going to reach for a book in my car. What’s in it is something you’ll want to see.” Nelson is dripping with sweat even though it’s not that hot out. He motions for me to get on with it. I open the car door and reach into the backseat for my biology textbook. He grabs it without hesitation and comes upon the small baggie of drug residue I saved between the pages. He raises it to the sky.

  In the bright light, the powder’s color is even more beautiful. It dazzles like a blue diamond, morphs with the light—sometimes more blue than violet, sometimes the other way around, switching back and forth, like a hologram. Needless to say, it doesn’t look like anything else out there. I’m pissed off for not realizing before how goddamn pretty it is.

  “Well, lookie here,” Nelson says. “Mike’s heard there’s something new in town.” This comment catches me a little off guard. I guess I’ve been creating more buzz than I thought. Or is someone else out there distributing it?

  “Yeah, I got something new, son,” I say.

  I’m taking a risk, I know that. There is no guarantee that I’m going to find it here, but now I’ve got a hunch that I’m on the right track. From the window, Mike motions for Nelson to bring it over.

  “Let’s go inside and have a conversation,” I say. “This could potentially be very big for both of us.” Nelson doesn’t like me telling him what to do but Mike’s waiting. Curiosity is coming off him like paint fumes.

  Before I’m fully inside, Mike’s blocking the doorway, keeping the screen door open against his meaty shoulder. He’s a real class act, I tell you: wearing a red hoodie with the Adidas logo on the front and cut-off khaki shorts. Sandals with socks. Dragon tattoo on his calf. He lifts his eyebrows and examines the baggie filled with the gorgeous blue substance.

  “What’s this all about?” he asks. He can’t pass this up. I know his business has been sliding downhill since dry weather has killed off a good chunk of his crop, and he doesn’t have enough manpower for hydroponics.

  “It’s a game changer,” I say. “There’s nothing like this out on the market. Maybe you know about it.”

  “Maybe I do, maybe I don’t.” He opens the bag and smells the powder. Doesn’t give it a taste. His eyes are slow moving—from me to the drug, the drug to me. I can’t get a read on him.

  “I’m just asking for a talk, man. You can keep it, it’s yours. Just let me bend your ear for like, five minutes.”

  “Bend my ear? Bend my ear? Look at this kid,” he says to Nelson, gesturing at me with his thumb. “Never know what to make of you, Flynn.”

  The way he says this, it’s almost fatherly, hardy h
ar har, we should both slap our knees and have a good laugh or something. Maybe he’s high right now, but I know better than that. A good supplier is never an addict. A good supplier is a businessman, and though I don’t respect Mike, I respect his business—he’s been successful for a long time now. But what about me, as a dealer? Do I get respect? I’ve got to get a hold of myself, not get high, find my center and all that, be more like a businessman and not so much a user.

  “It’s Finn,” I say. Ignoring me, he walks inside but leaves the door open. Nelson follows behind me, good little puppy he is.

  Inside, the thick, cream-colored carpet is worn down and the only furniture in the room—couch, coffee table, television stand—is nicked and humble as hell. There is a Buddha statue on the window ledge, no bigger than a coffee pot and without a fleck of dust. Two bookshelves flank the fireplace with no books, just various figurines of dogs, cats, and horses: trinkets a kid would collect. Everyone knows that Mike doesn’t have kids. God help those children if he did.

  Someone’s in the kitchen rummaging around, and that’s where we’re headed. Victoria is there making a cup of tea in a bathrobe so silky and short my imagination doesn’t even have to work. I can tell she gets off on it a bit because she doesn’t leave right away. Instead she bustles around, big hips swaying to their own rhythm, boobs bouncing on the downbeat, until she finds a mug to her liking and a tea bag to suit her tastes. When she reaches for the teapot on the stove, I can see the bottom of her ass, and Mike sees that I see, but he doesn’t pound me to a pulp. Instead he stands there admiring her for a few seconds, then says, “Honey, we need to use the room.”

  Her brown hair swings cheerfully when she turns around—mug in hand—and stretches up on tiptoes to kiss him on the cheek. He pats her behind.

  “You notice this pretty thing?” she twirls around to ask me, waggling the fingers on her left hand. The diamond engagement ring’s so big, planets should be orbiting it.

  “Damn,” I say, reaching out to touch her fingers for a better look, but I think twice. Last thing I need to be doing is getting handsy with the missus. “Mike’s an A-plus sugar daddy, isn’t he?”