The Drifter

by Christine Lennon

  “Just go already,” Caroline shouted across the bar at Betsy, swaying slightly, trying to right her balance to prove she was capable of making sound decisions. “I’ll find a ride home.”

  Ginny walked back toward Betsy, rolling her eyes.

  “She’s huddled in that booth with some guy,” Ginny said, rolling her eyes. “He looks like a real prize. Let’s just get out of here.”

  Ginny and Betsy drove home in silence. It wasn’t the first time they’d left Caroline to fend for herself with a new guy at a bar. Caroline was proud, almost defensive, of her independence, since it had been cultivated over the years she spent as the only child of a single, working mom. She was walking home from school and letting herself into an empty house for as long as she could remember. Caroline was afraid of nothing.

  “Which do you think is scarier?” she often joked. “Riding home with a strange guy, or getting into a car with Ginny behind the wheel?”

  They stumbled into the apartment, ears ringing from the noisy bar and thirsty as hell. Betsy went to the fridge for a glass of water. In a messy collage of ticket stubs and party pictures, she spotted one from the sorority hayride last January, the scandalous smoking event that would transform her life into something she’d barely recognize, stuck to the door with a cheeseburger magnet. Betsy looked like a jerk in a cheap straw cowboy hat, with that dumbstruck, desperate look that she was beginning to notice was the watermark of her college photos. She was obviously smitten with her friends, the sinister Caroline, who, at the time, was claiming not to drink but had Betsy sneak Solo cups full of grain alcohol punch to her in the bathroom at parties, and beautiful Ginny, with her head slumped on Betsy’s shoulder. To her left was her ex, a snarky Georgia boy named Mack who had so clearly lost interest in her that he didn’t bother to look at her or the camera. She had always found him to be intermittently petulant, prone to irrational outbursts of anger over botched restaurant orders or people who didn’t understand his jam band obsession, and dull. He was considered desirable, by consensus, though, and Betsy felt desperate to hold his interest. In that sad fraction of a second preserved on film it was clear that she’d lost it a while ago. He broke up with her in the back of the hay-strewn wagon minutes after the shot was taken, while a lone piece of straw dangled from her bangs over her right temple. She knew Caroline was the one to deem the picture worthy of a spot on the fridge, as a souvenir of Betsy’s pain. She’d been tempted to take it down all summer, but she wanted to at least appear too cool to care enough to throw it out. Betsy moved the burger magnet to obscure Mack’s bloated, self-satisfied face.

  Betsy gulped down her own water and filled another glass, which she took with her when she climbed the stairs to where the bedrooms were. She put it on Ginny’s nightstand. Then she opened the linen closet in the hall to grab a quilt and an extra pillow for the night. Ginny leaned against the doorframe of her room wearing a boxy, oversized T-shirt from a Sigma Chi party that they decided to tie-dye a deep shade of rusty orange, which, Betsy suddenly realized, looked like bloodstains.

  “Why don’t you just crash with me?” Ginny asked. “You don’t have to sleep on the lumpy sofa.”

  They got into bed, eyelids heavy with exhaustion and booze.

  “Why are you so nice to me?” Betsy asked Ginny, as she drifted off to sleep. “Why haven’t you kicked me out yet?”

  Ginny shifted her head on the pillow.

  “Bets, I swear you’re the only one who doesn’t understand why people like having you around. How many times do I have to tell you? You’re good enough. You’re smart enough. And people like you.”

  They fell asleep with the light on.

  Betsy woke with a start to see Caroline hovering at the end of the bed, swaying ominously over her sleeping friends.

  “Jesus, Caroline, you scared the shit out of me,” Betsy said, rubbing her eye with her knuckles. “Why are you standing there? Who drove you home? Are you alright?”

  “I didn’t know you were awake,” Caroline slurred; the neck of her T-shirt was stretched to expose one of her shoulders. Her eyeliner was smeared and sooty, and the back of her hair was rough with tangles. Betsy could smell the alcohol and sour mix across the room and wondered how anyone could think that vodka was odorless.

  “What time is it?” Betsy asked, propping herself up on her elbows.

  “I don’t know,” Caroline said, a smile widening across her face. “Time to make the doughnuts?”

  “Very funny,” mumbled Ginny, with her head still on the pillow. “This is why you barged into my room to wake us up, hovering over my bed like a total psycho. To make terrible jokes.”

  “God, Caroline, what happened to your knees?” Betsy asked. “Do you even know you’re bleeding?” Caroline’s knees were scraped raw and a thin trickle of blood traveled down her left shin. Betsy looked at the red numbers on Ginny’s alarm clock. It was 4:21. There was no point in going back to sleep.

  “Great. Rug-burned knees. Keep it classy, Caroline,” said Ginny, her voice muffled from the down.

  “Maybe it’s time for you to get your own apartment, Betsy? Maybe that’s what time it is,” said Caroline. She shuffled into the bathroom and sat down hard on the toilet seat. Betsy got up out of Ginny’s bed, went into the bathroom, opened the medicine cabinet, took out some cotton balls and Bactine, and placed them on the side of the sink.

  “Do you want me to help you clean those off?” she asked.

  “I’ve got it. I can handle it,” Caroline said. With eyes half-closed, she crouched on the edge of the tub and rinsed her knees under the faucet. Still dripping wet, she picked up her noisy, electric Waterpik toothbrush and jabbed it around in her mouth in an almost violent way.

  “Hey, Caroline, maybe it’s time to take that picture of fat-face Mack off of the fridge? Maybe that’s what time it is?” Betsy said.

  “Yeah, Caroline, that guy put the ‘ick’ in ‘dick,’” said Ginny.

  “He put the ‘ew’ in ‘screw,’” said Caroline, through a mouthful of water.

  “Hey, I know! We should burn it, like in a voodoo shrine,” added Ginny, who sat up suddenly in bed, inspired.

  “Sure, but maybe we wait until all of us are sober to start striking matches,” said Betsy.

  “I’m going to miss you, fake roomie,” said Ginny, making an exaggerated frown with her already rubbery face. “Who’s going to convince me to go on those crazy late-night daredevil adventures? Who’s going to deliver my water before bed? Who’s going to make me put butter on my popcorn?”

  “Yeah, Orville Redenbacher, we’re all sad to see you go so soon,” added Caroline, in her best, nasal deadpan, as she hobbled past Betsy in the hall, thoughtlessly stripped down to her bra and underpants.

  “Oh Christ, Caroline, will you just shut up already?” said Ginny. “You are ruining the moment.”

  “Don’t waste your time, Gin,” said Betsy, who had turned her back and started down the stairs to find her shoes and then ride to work, her voice trailing behind her. “It’s been over for a while. Caroline, you know, you put the ‘end’ in ‘friend.’ The very bitter end.”

  CHAPTER 4

  CRAZY SHIT

  August 25, 1990: Early Morning

  The fact that she slept in Ginny’s bed with the light on and was woken up by a hostile drunk should have made her stiff and cranky. But at twenty, she could still crash for a few hours in someone else’s bed and get to work before 6:00 a.m. without much fallout.

  She brushed her teeth quietly in the kitchen sink, dug through her duffel bag for some clean shorts, cutoffs that were over-bleached and worn at the edges, and slipped on her Converse. She felt for the spare key on the small table in the hall, which was piled with unopened mail, and slid her arms through the straps of her backpack. Betsy closed the door behind her carefully and jumped when she noticed their neighbor’s cat on the stoop. It seemed just as irritated to be awake at this hour as she was. It snarled at her before it slunk away into the shadows. She unlock
ed the Schwinn, impressed that she remembered the new combination so early, and pedaled off into the muddy, orange light of dawn.

  Hungover but still, miraculously, ahead of schedule, she reached the top of the hill, thighs burning as she strained at the pedals. The streets were empty, for the most part, but in the near distance she saw the red flashing lights of a police car approaching. As it got closer, she realized that pedaling away from the sound, which was now echoing off of the imposing brick buildings of the campus, was no use. She hopped off of the bike and covered her ears as her shoulders crept up the sides of her neck. The wail of the siren pierced through to the center of her headache, which had been impressive even before that little cops-and-robbers interlude.

  What’s with the fuss? she thought, certain that nothing could be happening in that town at that hour that was worthy of such a production, and that it had been way too long since she’d seen anyone in a hurry of any kind. She remembered Tom talking about the police, that they had discovered something grisly a day or two ago, but she hadn’t heard much since. Betsy made a point of avoiding any police officers that came in for free coffee after her fake I.D. arrest, and what Caroline referred to as the “ecstasy episode.” During their sophomore year, Betsy and Caroline tried MDMA at a fraternity party, giggling wildly as they swallowed the tiny capsules with a swig of warm beer. About forty-five minutes later, Betsy started having chest pains and her pulse was racing. She was convinced she was dying of a heart attack. Caroline, whose pupils were wide with wonder, tried to take her outside for a walk to try to calm her down, but Betsy panicked. Eventually, Caroline grew tired of her friend’s anxiety and was drawn back inside by the thumping music, leaving Betsy alone in the grass. When the pains refused to fade, Betsy found the nearest pay phone and called 911. Minutes later, an ambulance, a police car, and a fire engine were parked on Fraternity Row, red lights blaring. Betsy was alone, lying on the gurney, watching the scene around her flash in frames as the drugs kicked in for a second wave. What seemed like every male on the entire campus poured out of the frat houses that lined the street to see what was happening. As the onlookers gawked, the medics took her vitals and determined that Betsy was, no surprise, not in cardiac arrest. She was having a panic attack. They took her to the hospital anyway to check her blood levels for alcohol poisoning. She got a stern lecture from the emergency room physician about the dangers of illegal drugs, how she had no idea what she was taking—it could have been cyanide for all Betsy knew—and how she was taking precious time away from people who really needed a doctor’s care.

  Even though the police let her off with a warning, word quickly spread to everyone in the house, and when she was finally brave enough to show her face in the dining room, there was a wave of snickers and whispers that followed her to the salad bar. When she finished her lunch, she checked her mail cubby and found the small strip of paper requesting her presence at Standards. Standards was the secretive meeting held every Sunday night in a small, somber library off of the foyer. The purpose of the gathering was for the house alumni advisor, the house president, and the “chaplain” (the biggest prude they could find who was willing to discuss the amoral conduct of her friends) to reprimand members for their disreputable behavior—to their faces for a change. Betsy was lectured in Standards about unbecoming conduct and the dangers of alcohol abuse (she never admitted to the drugs, despite their leading questions), which struck Betsy as confusing and hypocritical, since alcohol and underage drinking was assumed, and, the way she saw it, practically expected, at every Greek party on campus. She was advised to be more careful and let off with a warning.

  The following year, Standards was a regular Sunday night appointment for Betsy, which made her realize that things may not be working out for her there. The final straw, or her epiphany, as Betsy called it, came during a single week when she’d been accused of three offenses: smoking weed on the sun porch (True.), dropping “roaches” between the wooden slats of the porch deck (False. She liked to get high but she was not an arsonist.), and smoking (cigarettes) at a sorority function (True.).

  The behavior in question occurred during the annual hayride, which was essentially an excuse to get drunk outside, in the woods, in front of an enormous bonfire. She’d shown up promptly at 7:00 ready to face the music. The vague unrest that had been percolating inside Betsy for months was coming into sharper focus.

  “Were the people huddled around that twenty-foot stack of flaming timber offended when I smoked a single cigarette?” Betsy asked the group.

  “It’s just that, Betsy, you know how it goes,” said Holly, their president, the very same Holly who’d been busted for a DUI (at 4:21 p.m. on a Friday, according to the police report) during her first month on campus just three short years earlier. Her gaze was trained on the tiny silver cross on Betsy’s necklace so she could avoid eye contact. “It just looks bad.”

  The sorority bylaws, which were likely written in the 1950s, specified that sisters were only allowed to smoke indoors while seated. Betsy knew it was a stupid habit and bad for her, but she was being chastised for being tacky, not endangering her health.

  “OK, got it. Smoke inhaled from the giant fire: OK,” said Betsy. Her voice began to break. “Smoke inhaled courtesy of Philip Morris: not OK.”

  “The cigarettes are just . . . unbecoming,” stuttered Leslie, the chaplain. “But the pot thing? Well, it’s an illegal drug, for one. Plus, we’re going down in flames, ‘Burning Bed’ style, if you keep dropping the butts into the deck.”

  “This isn’t the first time you’ve been called in here for this,” said Laurie, the alumni advisor, who was on the university’s music faculty. Laurie had pledged somewhere in the Midwest back in the 1970s when sororities were out of favor, and made a point of telling all of the active sisters that she would never have made the cut had she rushed in Gainesville today. No one argued with her. “Betsy, if it happens again, measures will be taken. This isn’t a joke.”

  “Are you sure about that?” said Betsy, forcing her voice to be steady. “It feels a lot like a joke to me.”

  The weed accusations she flatly denied. The last time someone admitted to doing drugs in that room it was sweet Kelly from West Palm who had a small cocaine problem. She was coaxed into confessing to a few lines under the guise of the sorority board’s goal to “get her help.” She was kicked out the following day. Her parents were called. Tears were shed. She moved home and spent the next two years commuting to Florida Atlantic University. To that, Betsy said, “No thanks.” Straight-up denial was the only way to go. Betsy could pretend not to care in that suffocating room, but she was barely out the back door before she burst into tears, vowing never to return again.

  Over the following week, she’d had her chrysalis moment: She quit, moved out of the house, dropped her pin in the president’s mail cubby, and moved in with her coworker Melissa, despite her surly roommates’ protests, until she could find a place of her own. On a whim, she lopped her long, wavy hair to just below her chin, and stuffed the dozen or so floral dresses she owned into a black Hefty bag, which she dropped at Goodwill. Then, just like that, it was over. She rode her bike to class, slept at Melissa’s, showed up for work, studied at the library, and went back to being unspecial, save for her moments with Ginny, just like before.

  The following Saturday, Ginny came by the bagel store to pick her up after her shift, as usual, and the next day the two of them drove out to Cedar Key to drink dollar Red Stripes, watch the sun reflect off of the Gulf, and listen to a mediocre reggae band with the regular sweaty mob like nothing ever happened.

  There was no way any of the officers in town remembered her from the ecstasy episode, and she knew that, but she kept her head down anyway. She was determined to make it to the end of her college career without another incident. One more semester, just four more months, and it would be over. She felt the excitement of a new school year stirring inside of her. After a long, quiet summer, students were finally starting to trickl
e back into town. She wondered who would show up that day and order their first breakfast of the new school year. Would she ever run into John again, or would he just disappear into the business quad, be absorbed into the masses like everyone else? If nothing else, with people coming back to campus, things would start to get interesting.

  When Betsy rounded the corner on her bike and Bagelville came into view, she saw two police officers get into their cruiser in front of the store and drive away. When she got to the back door, it was unlocked, and she walked in to see Tom sitting at his small desk in the corner, holding his head in his hands.

  “Hey, Tom, what’s going on?” Betsy said, warily, worried about what he might say.

  “It’s the crazy shit I was telling you about,” he said, lifting his eyes up to meet hers. “We’ll talk about it once you’re done with the juice. There’s work to do.”

  A MOUNTAIN OF overripe citrus beckoned. It was her job to toss all of it into the industrial juicer, sacrifice the fruit into the humming, pulp-covered abyss, and then empty the hollow peels into the Dumpster out back.

  There was no way Betsy could have known that on the opposite side of 34th Street just hours before she struggled to climb the hill, swerving down the slope that made her fight for air that morning, was a man in a stolen car, struggling to focus on the road through the tears streaming across his temples, blown by the air coming in through the window. Betsy would later read that man had cried tears of confusion, remorse for the girl he’d slaughtered in her room. The victim, his second in a week, had just returned from the gym with plans to shower and head to work, the graveyard shift manning the switchboard at the sheriff’s office, of all places. But he was waiting for her in a closet, having pried the sliding-glass door open with a screwdriver. When she didn’t show up to work by midnight, an hour after her shift started, or answer the phone at her house, a patrol car drove out to her apartment to see if she was OK. She was found on her bed, stabbed in the back five times with a foot-long blade, and wiped clean of her own blood. She was his second victim in the eight days since he’d rolled into town.