Tripping Back Blue

by Kara Storti

  I hear the self-blame in her tone, and it’s heartbreaking to hear. I know guilt. I’ve been in its dragon mouth too many times.

  Surprisingly, she continues. “Billy and I used to go up to the lake house south of here that Jimmy and I built with our bare hands. I wish you could have seen it. Big windows in front with unobstructed views of the water. Those windows had to be twelve feet high. Maybe more. My, life was good back then. Too bad I had to sell it eventually. It was just too much to keep up.” The lamplight flickers, and I notice the beauty of the flowers again. They are almost Stacey beautiful. Almost.

  “It was good even when we didn’t have much. There was this one month when all we ate were bananas and eggs. Did I mention that before? For a whole month . . .” She leans up against a wall that isn’t fully covered with indigo, though when she leans back, a puff of powder surrounds her. She shuts her eyes.

  I watch her closely. She needs a break from all this talking. “Faith and I used to sneak into the cafeteria after lunchtime and take all the leftovers when the lunch lady was cleaning up with her earphones in. We’d take anything. Brussels sprouts, wrinkled green beans, congealed spaghetti, you name it. Mom and Pop weren’t known for their stellar culinary capabilities.”

  I’m not sure if she’s paying attention to me, because her head is sagging to the side and her eyes are still closed. I rest my hand on her shoulder. “Hey, are you okay? You want to go outside?”

  “I’m fine, Billy—I mean Phineas—thank you very much,” she says, a little winded. “I’m a nurse, I know if I’m okay or not. Worked with the mentally ill and saw how they were treated like second-class citizens. I used to tell stories to Billy about my time there. Scared the holy bejesus out of him.”

  I’m evaluating her, from the top of her hair down to her butt-ugly shoes. She doesn’t look okay. But I continue along like nothing’s up. “What kinds of stories?” I ask. I remember back to my date with Stacey when she told me about Orah’s patient who made clocks.

  There is liveliness in Orah’s demeanor again, and I start working while she talks. “I once was strangled by a man who thought I was a demon. It took three attendants to get him off me.”

  “No joke?”

  “None whatsoever. When Billy and I were up at the lake house together, he’d make me tell him stories like that, over and over again. Told them so much he started telling them back to me—better, in fact. Boy, he has an imagination, that one. We’d just stand by the water, skipping stones and swapping stories.”

  “Sounds like a lucky kid,” I say with sincerity, sealing up one of the bags. I try to blink the sting of the air out of my eyes. “I used to tell my sister stories. You know, when she was upset . . . well . . . not really stories, but facts. Like I can run through a list of bird facts faster than you would believe. I also know a lot about other animals too, like cheetahs. I went through a phase where I was kind of obsessed with them. Faith would calm right down when I’d start telling her how fast cheetahs can run and how they can’t roar. They can purr loudly, but not roar.”

  Orah lets out a short laugh. “Well, isn’t that interesting. Seems like you know a lot about a lot.”

  “I pride myself on it.”

  This tidbit about cheetahs and other felines I shared with Faith while she was in the hospital. She wanted me by her bedside every day, and I made sure to read up and memorize as much as I could about animals she liked when I wasn’t at the hospital. Very rarely would I have to refer to my notebook densely filled with handwritten information—I knew everything by heart. However, if I did have to take a peek, Faith would give me a sly smile, and I would exclaim, “Oh come on! How am I supposed to easily remember that hyenas originated in the jungles of Miocene Eurasia 22 million years ago?”

  Orah’s mouth is parted, body angled forward to speak. Her voice is softer than usual. “There was a woman at the hospital with schizophrenia who would run around her room in circles until she passed out. The only way that I could get her to stop was to sit in the middle of the room and read her nursery rhymes. She’d circle around me, a frantic duck-duck-goose, but eventually she would stop, climb into bed, and suck her thumb.”

  “God, how old was she?” I ask. It was kind of reassuring that there were people out there maybe more messed up than my parents.

  “Forty-eight. Yep.” She nods. “Look at those wide eyes of yours. You can’t make these things up if you tried. There was another man who kept crystals of different shapes and sizes hanging from dental floss in his window. They would catch the light and flash different colors. They would flash rainbows. He told me that each one held a different kind of energy, from happiness to sadness, from humor to dread. I asked him why he kept the crystals with the negative energy. He said it was a reminder. A reminder that life is a spectrum from the good to the bad—like the spectrum in the colors of the rainbow. You can never stay fixed forever, you walk, run, jump, crawl on red, orange, yellow, et cetera, and everything in between throughout your time on earth. Everything changes. Nothing ever stands still.” She looks at me pointedly.

  “It’s like those bright spots you were talking about. They are there on the spectrum of things,” I say, comforted by this thought. Orah nods, and I know that she feels comforted too—yes, by this knowledge, and probably by the fact that I listen to her, I digest what she has to say.

  “He gave me one of those crystals before he was discharged—a beautiful round one—but he wouldn’t tell me what kind of energy it held. I had to decide for myself.”

  “So what did you decide?”

  “I decided it was hope,” she says, pausing. “I gave it to Billy. When he was going through a hard time. But I’d be quite surprised if he still has it . . . after what I did to him.”

  She bends over and leans on her knees, whispering to herself, “Isn’t that right, Billy, isn’t that right, Billy . . .” Sweat is standing out on her forehead, matting down her hair.

  I go to her, reach out my arms, I don’t know what the hell I’m doing, supporting her, comforting her, just showing her I’m here, but she pushes me back like I’m bum-rushing her, like I’m some bully, like I’m worthless with the worst intentions.

  “Whoa, sorry, I’m just trying to help,” I say, hating the hurt I hear in my voice.

  Orah’s not listening to me. She’s saying Billy’s name again and again, and she is now only present in some faraway place that is all past, past, past.

  “Why don’t we go outside?” I offer, thinking she might be hallucinating, maybe even having a bad trip like I did—we have been in the crypt for a long time.

  She jerks her head up to glare at me. “Don’t tell me what to do, child. You are in no place to order me around. You should be worrying about yourself, because frankly, you should be doing more. One day you’re going to wake up and regret not turning your life around sooner.” She shakes her finger at me. I’m not sure if she’s talking to me, or if she’s thinking I’m Billy.

  I blurt out, stung, “Says the woman who’s helping me deal drugs.” I wait for her to respond, and then, when she doesn’t, I shrug. “You know what? I don’t care. I don’t know where this is coming from, and frankly,” I say, eyeing her down, “just because you couldn’t control your grandson doesn’t mean you can control me.”

  Orah snaps out of whatever state she was in, trance, fugue, delusion, and says, “We’ve harvested enough. I want to go.”

  Fine. Just as well. I’m sick of hearing about what I should be doing, what I should strive for, I can’t stand that word, God, I can’t stand all the shoulds. I shouldn’t be doing anything except what I’m doing in this moment. Indigo is my everywhere, my everything, my now.

  She grabs a backpack and shoves into it bags and bags of indigo. I do the same with my two packs. We don’t look at each other, we don’t say anything. I do a rough estimate of how much indigo we have. I’m thinking twenty-five thousand dollars conservatively. Why do I feel like it’s not enough?

  Chapter Twenty-niner />
  She clicks the lamp off, I open the crypt door, and we’re bathed by late-morning light and blessed by fresh air. Orah is unable to fit the key into the lock because her hands are shaking so bad. I approach her like she’s a skittish deer, goddamn Bambi, gently take the key out of her clammy hands and lock it up. It’s quiet, I hear a squirrel skitter by. We walk up the incline, leaving the ledge behind, but before we get into the main section of the cemetery, there are other noises causing bad vibes to jingle up and down my spine.

  The path is blocked up ahead.

  Four big guys with beefy arms are coming toward us. One of them is smiling grandly, like he’s cheated death, and he’s here to spit all over it. Mike. Fucking Mike. I should have known—given my strained relationship with a bitch called karma—that he would appear at the worst time.

  Orah grabs my arm. I push her behind me and tell her to stay still. Of course she doesn’t. Of course she’s yammering on about how we should have been more discreet, we should have come even earlier, we should just get rid of the rest of the indigo and be done with it. Should, should, should, should. Meanwhile, my heart’s working so hard it’s weeping. If anything happens to her . . .

  I tell her to go, I try nudging her away from me, but she stays attached. Really? She trusts me as her protector?

  Mike’s smile is vast. His three friends, ones I don’t recognize, are as tight as slingshots, ready to launch, all different heights yet bulked up with steroid-fueled muscles. One of them—the tallest—wears a black rosary around his neck that bounces against his chest when he moves. Mike is limping from my workmanship, but this does not make him any less intimidating—in fact, he looks even more like a monster, lurching along, out for blood.

  My blood.

  “Hey guys,” I say. “Visiting the dead?”

  “Yeah,” Mike says, a yard or two away from me now, he’s a stop sign in his XXL red shirt. “The almost dead. We’ve been tailing you long enough.” His eyes bore into mine as his men flank him. The rosary wearer is to his left, and to his right stands a man with a black bandana and another with silver rings on both thumbs. Orah sucks in a powerful gasp, I whisper to her, it’s okay, you’ll be okay, I’m going to handle this.

  Then Mike flicks his chin, and Silver Rings is dragging Orah away from me, a robotic reaction to complement his emotionless face. Before I can launch a hit, she’s digging her heels into the earth, she’s pawing at him with useless effort, and without a thought I’m tackling Bandana and Rosary, who have conveniently made an impressive wall between me and her. I pull at their clothing, latch onto the rosary that doesn’t break, Godspeed indeed, my strength initially overpowers them, punching what I can punch, shoulders, chests, jaws, aiming kicks, scratching, you name it. I got Bandana’s ear pinched between my fingers, and I think I scratched Rosary’s cheek. Still, it’s not working. They’re like stones, they can’t feel a thing. And soon they’ve got me. Bandana body slams me down with ease, crushes my spine with a foot, his sweat not even close to being broke. My brain jostles against my skull. They don’t see that she’s just an old woman? Mike is chuckling at my tendon-popping struggle, my immobility. That stupid smile of his. He lights up a cigar.

  As I’m down, Rosary tries to yank the two backpacks from me. I roll on the ground out of the way, and he smiles as if thinking, aw, isn’t that cute, this kid’s so brave. Then his dark eyes deaden, and he looks over at Silver Rings, who starts squeezing Orah’s neck so hard she’s turning purple and her eyes are bulging out of her head. I use my remaining strength to throw myself toward her, but Bandana’s nimble and has me pinned again quick.

  “Let her go!” I yell. I shout until I’m hoarse, and the whole time, in the back of my head I’m apologizing to her, over and over again.

  “You give us the product, and we let grandma live,” Bandana says, not looking into my eyes but over my head, like empty air holds more importance. Mike’s standing there, leaning against a tree with casual interest.

  “Leave her out of this,” I say, barely able to make out the words. “Leave her alone.” I’m out of breath, and my vision is cramped. I can only see her face, her terrified eyes, and how a silver-ringed hand is squished against her mouth to discourage her from screaming. He squeezes her harder.

  “Here,” I say, heaving the bags filled with indigo at them. “Now let her go.”

  He releases Orah, who collapses to the ground, her hands up to her throat, her mouth open, gasping, gulping for air. They let me scramble to her. She pushes me away, fucking A, then gives me this desperate, relieved look that breaks me in two.

  But Mike and his friends aren’t going anywhere. This isn’t over yet.

  I start praying to the dead. Help us. Horvath and Lily from the crypt aren’t listening, and the others are silent too. The birds are singing what did you expect? What did you expect? What did you expect?

  “So here’s the infamous indigo,” Mike says, yanking out a ziplock bag and lifting it up to the sky. It sparkles. It dazzles. “Yes, this is definitely not Early’s stock. I think they’re calling Early’s stuff ‘flower’ down in the city. I like the name indigo so much better.” He throws the bag over to Rosary, gestures for him to test it out, and the dude snorts up without any reluctance; Mike’s got these suckers on automated response. Indigo hits, his eyes roll back, he leans up against a tree and slides down to a squat. The crucifix bobs against his stomach.

  “So the question is, where is the rest?” Mike asks, waving his cigar-holding hand toward the three confiscated backpacks.

  “There isn’t any left,” Orah rasps.

  “Bullshit.”

  She looks sternly at him. “I don’t tell fibs, young man.”

  My arm is around her as she holds onto her neck, all I’m thinking is how much of a warrior she is. I scan her face, her skin, I think she’s all right—but how do I know? Mike shoots her an icy glare and then starts cackling. His guys join in. He stops. They stop.

  “Is grandma running the show?” Mike asks, scratching his chin—it’s the first time he doesn’t look indifferent.

  Orah twists away from me, gets up, and starts to walk back toward the crypt, only slightly unsteady on her feet. I scramble after her, calling her name, because for a second I actually think she’s going to show them. That would be ridiculous, after her stressing constantly that the crypt must be a secret. Mike pauses with slight disbelief, then yells for Silver Rings and Bandana to follow her. Bandana grabs her arm, but she shakes him off. I think I hear her say something like, “Keep your paws to yourself.”

  “Where’s she going?” Silver Rings asks, his sweat a reflection on the bridge of his nose.

  “I’m taking you to our harvesting spot,” she calls out without looking over her shoulder.

  We all follow her. Rosary is still tripping, eyelids aflutter, lips twitching. I’m not sure what to expect, but I’m really hoping Orah has a plan. Mike is behind me, and before I can make some comment like stop checking out my ass, he locks his hand around my upper arm and kicks the bottom of my shin, right where there’s more bone than muscle. It takes all my strength not to fall over. Bile rises in my throat.

  “You know you did some serious damage to my foot,” Mike says. He pulls a Buck knife out of his pocket. My Buck knife. “Does this look familiar?” He runs the knife along the line of my jaw, then slides it down underneath my Adam’s apple; it’s the sound of a way-too-close shave. Sweat is immediately dripping from my temples.

  “Go ahead,” I say. “Kill me. Slit my throat.” And for a second, I mean it.

  Bandana points toward Orah. She’s reached a clearing in the woods where power lines are running down a long slope of rolling grass that changes color depending on the direction of the wind. Light green to the left, dark green to the right. Orah is looking down on what appears to be a picked-over garden. There are plants I recognize—tomato plants, zucchini, and basil—and others that I don’t. Some look like ferns, others look like pot plants, but I know they’re not, and
there’s some kind of flower that’s red and meaty.

  “So is this where you grow?” Mike asks. He starts laughing. “You remind me of my noni,” he says, pleased, almost nostalgic. “Tough-ass bitch she was. But man, did she have a green thumb.”

  We all approach the garden. “The ground isn’t ripe for growing anymore. We harvested the last of it,” Orah says, motioning to an almost entirely bare patch of dirt. Mike crouches down next to it and smiles sweetly.

  “There’s only one way to prove that this is a genuine grow spot,” he says to me. “Isn’t that right? After your visit, I had my guys scope out the situation of this new drug. They came out with some pretty interesting intel from a source who happens to be connected with your competition. They found out the drug they call flower grows off the bones of the dead.”

  I’m feeling pounding in my ears. How the hell do they know that?

  Mouth a tight line, Orah nods sharply, very businesslike.

  “Dig then, if you don’t believe me,” she says. I hate to admit it, but she’s got more balls than me.

  He roars with laughter. “You got some fight in you. I’ll give you that.” He sinks his chubby fingers into the earth, chunks of dirt flying over his shoulders, the few remaining plants ripped, murdered and quartered. He’s not finding the buried treasure. He gives her the evilest of eyes. I try to tear away from Bandana, but no there’s no use, he’s just too strong.

  “It’s there, and that’s the gods’ honest truth,” she says, crossing her hand over her heart.

  “Don’t you realize you just stole like twenty-five thousand dollars’ worth of indigo?” I yell. “Isn’t that enough, man?”

  Mike ignores me. A noise rumbles in the back of his throat while he digs into the ground again, and I’m shaking because though I might deserve to die, she doesn’t. A grunt, a hiss, an intake of breath from Mike. His hand comes up with a bone. Is that a femur?

  “Well whaddya know?” He wipes it off on his shirt, holds it up to the sky. “I guess this lady ain’t pulling my chain, after all.” When he stands up, he carries the bone over his shoulder.