‘That’s your problem!’ she says, raising her brows.
‘What do you do for a living?’
‘Cocktail waitress.’
‘Where?’
‘Arizona Center.’
‘Which bar?’
‘Why? You gonna stalk me?’
‘Huh! Feisty one, aren’t you? Look, you’re welcome to continue this conversation in my room if you like.’
Unsure, she glances at ADD for guidance. ‘Erm, I guess—’
‘Do you mind if I steal Claudia from you for a minute?’ I ask.
‘Be my guest,’ ADD says.
I unlock the door. ‘Come on, Claudia. I don’t bite.’ I sit on the bed, Claudia on a chair, maintaining a safe distance.
‘Your friend Skinner’s not coming back here, is he?’ she asks.
My ears twitch. ‘No. Why?’
‘He was freaking out about some woman he has a baby with—’
‘Mari.’
‘Yeah, Mari and girls in general. Then he looked at me and said, “You know what, I could throw you off the balcony right now.”’
‘When did this happen?’
‘Earlier. I was outside on the balcony. I was so scared. He doesn’t seem like the most sane person in the world,’ Claudia says, her eyes wide.
‘Don’t worry. He won’t try anything while I’m here.’ He knows I stay here. Would he attack this place?
The door swings open – Claudia jumps. A bearish figure bursts in as if hunting for someone to maul.
‘Hello, la’,’ I say, rising off the bed.
‘Hello, la’.’ We hug.
‘This is my new friend, Claudia,’ I say.
‘Hello, Claudia.’ His hug raises Claudia off her feet.
‘Not another English guy!’ Claudia says.
‘He’s my best mate from my home town,’ I say.
‘I was hoping Skinner would be here, la’,’ Wild Man says, one brow arching.
‘He threatened Claudia. Tell him.’
‘Yeah, and I’d only just met the guy,’ Claudia says.
‘What did he say?’ Wild Man asks.
‘He threatened to throw me off the balcony. I was so afraid of him. He isn’t even big. He just looks scary. He almost has like a … like a devil look in his eyes,’ she says, twiddling a lock of hair.
‘Did he pull a gun on you?’ Wild Man asks.
‘No. But I knew he had one.’
For weeks, I call Claudia, but she refuses to go on a date. Eventually, she allows me to visit her place on Bell Road – a small one-bedroom apartment, the decor mostly pink and zebra print, the kitchen yellow. She serves veggie bacon on pink, blue and yellow flower-shaped plastic plates partially melted. The next time I visit, I bring her a gift of glass plates. Unimpressed by money, she says she prefers thrift stores. It’s months before she lets me stay the night and we start going out. She doesn’t approve of my drug dealing, but I don’t listen. She’s such a good influence and so gentle in comparison to my exes, I fall in love with her.
Seeking adventure and a reprieve from the escalating drama in Arizona, I take my friends to Mexico. High on Ecstasy, GHB and assorted pharmaceuticals, I hire three jet-skis. Cody’s won’t start. Claudia jumps on mine. Wild Man takes the third and immediately tries to ram us. Skimming off the waves on the Sea of Cortez, I go full throttle, with Claudia screaming at Wild Man to stop trying to kill us.
‘Piss off, Wild Man! You’ll never catch us!’ I yell.
‘Just watch me!’ Wild Man says.
Fortunately, my weight plus Claudia’s is about equal to his, so he can only match our speed. When I turn to head back towards the beach, Wild Man goes in the opposite direction and circles around. He is heading straight towards us, grinning mischievously. Every time I switch direction, he does likewise to keep us on a collision course. When we are just about to crash, I steer a sharp left. We pass him so close, Claudia could have slapped his face.
‘Wild Man, stop trying to get us killed!’ Claudia yells.
He responds with a deep demonic laugh. He keeps stalking us, provoking more near misses. At one point, he is a few feet behind. Claudia screams so loudly that my ears hurt. Heading straight out to sea, I ditch him.
Eventually the waves grow so big I become alarmed and look over my shoulder, shocked to see that the people on the beach are barely visible. They’re the size of ants. ‘Holy shit!’ I say. ‘Look how far we are from the land. We’d better go back.’
I try to turn the jet-ski. A wave the size of a bus capsizes us. Submerged below the jet-ski, I ingest salt water and panic. With the strength of ten people, the current drags me around underwater. Noticing the dark void towards the sea floor, I’m seized by fear of death and desperate for oxygen. Hoping to stop swirling, I thrash my limbs with maximum exertion and claw my way towards the light above the water. Managing to resurface, I suck in air. Gasping, I spot Claudia, flailing, struggling to keep her head above the water, her hair compressed to her face.
‘Help!’ she yells.
I swim towards her, but a massive wave throws us in different directions.
‘Swim back to the jet-ski or else we’re going to drown!’ I yell.
‘I can barely swim! I can’t make it!’
‘You have to!’ I swim towards her.
‘Oh my God! Are there sharks in here?’ she shrieks.
Having no skills in water rescue, I reach and grab her body, but plunge us both underwater. To resurface, I have to release her. ‘Come on! We’ve got to swim to it before the next wave hits!’
Side by side, we swim to the jet-ski. We cling to it, panting.
‘We’ve got to turn the jet-ski back up,’ I say. ‘Are you ready?’
‘No.’
‘No?’
‘I’m too weak.’
‘No, you’re not! Come on. Try!’ I yell, determined to convince her.
We wrestle with the heavy jet-ski. Every time we try to right it, the water slaps it back down. Exhausted, we have to keep taking rests, but eventually we turn it over. I grip Claudia’s slippery body, shove her up and climb on. She hugs me from behind and we both slump forward, short of breath.
‘Look how far away from land we are,’ she says, shivering.
‘I don’t know how to restart it. I’ve got this safety thing on my arm, but I’m so high, I didn’t pay any attention to the emergency instructions.’
‘Me neither,’ she says, desperation in her big eyes.
‘I’m such a dumb-arse,’ I say. ‘Maybe they’ll see us from the beach and rescue us.’
‘What if we don’t get rescued?’ she asks. ‘What if we float further out to sea?’
‘They’ll realise something’s up when we don’t take the jet-ski back. They’ll send someone out to look for us. We’ll be all right, love,’ I say, unconvinced as we drift further away.
Soon, the people on the beach are imperceptible. We appear to be approaching a sea lane. Praying that we don’t get run over by a ship, I hear a strange sound: clippety-clippety-clippety
Heading by us is a rickety wooden boat manned by wizened Mexican fishermen in blood-stained aprons. Two of them are carving up a massive fish and chucking chunks overboard as bait.
‘Help! Help!’ I yell.
As the boat drifts by, they squint at us as if experiencing a mirage. Clippety-clippety-clippety …
‘Shit! They don’t speak English!’ Watching them leave, I panic. Drawing on the Spanish I know, trying to say, ‘Please help me. I don’t understand how to start the jet-ski,’ I yell as if my life depends on it, ‘Señores por favor necesito su ayuda! Jet-ski, no entiendo! No entiendo! Por favor necesito su ayuda!’
The boat slows and starts to turn.
‘Yes! They’re going to help us. We’re saved,’ I say, rejoicing.
As their boat nears, I notice they’re scowling.
‘Look at their knives,’ Claudia says, her eyes bulging with terror.
Reading her thoughts, it dawns that she cou
ld be raped or they could murder us. ‘Holy shit.’ Staring at the curved steel streaked with blood, I feel queasy.
One of them speaks in Spanish. They laugh, displaying rows of brown teeth, receding gums and gaps where teeth once resided.
I hold up the bracelet with the emergency jet-ski starter. ‘No entiendo!’
They laugh again. Their boat nudges the jet-ski. Taking me by surprise, the nearest grabs my arm with incredible strength. Startled, I tense my side to avoid falling into the sea. Leaning towards the jet-ski, the fisherman yanks the bracelet off my arm. He puts the key where it belongs and the engine starts. Although relieved, I’m alert for danger.
‘Gracias, señores. Gracias,’ I say.
The fisherman who helped us steps aside. One with a sword-sized curved blade comes to the edge of the boat and lunges at me. Petrified, I almost jump into the water. Leaning, he puts the blade aside and spanks Claudia’s behind. She shrieks. The fishermen cackle and laugh as if it’s the funniest thing they’ve seen on the water for a while.
‘Cheeky bugger!’ I yell, outraged, but relieved that the jet-ski is working. ‘I think we’ve overstayed our welcome.’ I turn the jet-ski and speed away, thankful that we didn’t drown or get sliced into bait.
In Mexico, I host a little Ecstasy party in the beachfront condominium I’m renting.
‘Everyone’s on X except for you,’ I say to Claudia around dawn.
‘They do look like they’re having fun,’ she says.
‘Are you ready to try it yet?’
‘I guess I could try it and see what all the fuss is about. But just give me half of one.’
Claudia takes half a pill. An hour later she says, ‘My face hurts and I feel like puking. This is gonna be my first and only time rolling.’ She rushes to the trashcan and vomits. Most of the puke lands on a paper plate at the top of the trash.
High on a cocktail of drugs, I grab the paper plate. ‘Mmmm, I see veggie bacon going to waste. This is how much I love you.’ I eat the vomit.
‘He does love me. He’s eating my puke,’ are the last words I hear before passing out.
Back in Phoenix, one night in bed, I tell Claudia, ‘You’re the golden-hearted woman I’ve been looking for all my life, but I’ve always chosen the wrong one.’
‘Shaun, I love you,’ Claudia says, ‘but this drug dealing is dangerous. I can’t handle the thought of losing you if the cops arrest you. Since my parents got divorced, I’ve made a point of not getting involved with anyone I might lose. Dating a drug dealer wasn’t something I wanted in my future. I’m giving my heart to you, and if you’re going to continue to drug deal it’s not something I want to stay involved with.’
‘I want to stop dealing. There’s just a lot of money owed right now.’
‘You’re silly! You’re a stock-market guy. You can make money doing that.’
‘I do want to get back to that. I just can’t stop the drug stuff overnight. I want to live a normal, healthy, happy life with you.’
‘A normal, healthy life when you’re running around with Wild Man and G Dog! They scare me, Shaun.’
‘They’re just my friends.’
‘They come over here with guns. You disappear with them for days at a time, probably not up to any sort of good. Shaun, I need you to quit dealing drugs. There are two sides to it. Number one: our future. Number two: my family. My family life is so strong. When you disappear for days on end, I go to my mom or dad’s house. I can’t have my family know they raised somebody who’s with a drug dealer. Aside from the world that is my family, you are the second part of my family. I want to start a family with you.’
Touched, I blush. ‘OK. I promise I’m going to stop drug dealing, eventually,’ I say, unconvinced.
‘Will you come and meet my dad?’
‘Yes, I’ll meet your dad.’
The next day, we dress to meet her father: Claudia in a pink short-sleeve sweater and a knee-length skirt with a floral pattern, white, light green and pink. I put on bright-blue raver trousers and a black shirt. Before setting off, I drink a glass of wine to calm my nerves.
In Quartzsite, Claudia parks at a white one-storey house surrounded by a little wooden fence and khaki-coloured desert. We enter the gate. Greyhounds charge at us. Excited to see Claudia, they bark, smile and perform little sprints.
Inside, Claudia introduces me to Barry, a big man with long hair and biker tattoos. Behind round spectacles, his eyes, the same as Claudia’s, are radiating goodwill. His demeanour and kind voice are relaxing.
‘Pleased to meet you.’
Firmly, he shakes my hand. ‘This is Steph,’ he says, smiling at his wife, who has long dark hair and light-brown skin.
Lorna, their 4-year-old blonde daughter, shows me her toys.
Over barbecued food, they ask about my job. Saying I trade the stock market, I feel guilty for fibbing. They ask for investment advice. I tell them to buy gold. We watch a comedy starring Ice Cube, laughing and joking all the way through it.
On the drive home, Claudia says, ‘Don’t ever tell any of your friends where my dad lives.’
‘Of course not,’ I say, offended. ‘Why would you even say that?’
‘Because Wild Man walked all the way to Buckeye and beat up a whole family. He could probably walk all the way to Quartzsite if he ever gets mad at me.’
‘He won’t ever get mad at you. It was so nice to be around your family, your dad especially. I don’t know why I was so nervous beforehand.’
‘They’re always so funny and Lorna’s so cute. Me and my brothers, we just laugh the whole way home after we visit Tonopah.’
Claudia’s joy starts to purge my soul. For a moment, I fill with sadness and don’t know who I am. I breathe deeply to steady myself. How can I put this woman who loves me so much at risk by continuing to drug deal? Gripped by an urge to do what’s right for Claudia, for us, for my family, for her family, I say, ‘You’ve been right all along. I’m going to stop drug dealing.’ I watch, keen to see her reaction, my thoughts accelerating to figure out what must be done.
‘Are you serious?’ Claudia says, taking her eyes off the road to see if I’m telling the truth.
‘Yes.’
Her eyebrows leap and she beams.
‘I love you and don’t want to lose you,’ I say, smiling.
Claudia takes a hand off the steering wheel and grips mine.
‘What we need to do is rent a place together that nobody knows about. I won’t tell any of my friends where we live.’
‘My brother’s moving out of his Scottsdale apartment. We can take that,’ she says excitedly.
‘Perfect! If we keep the lease in his name, no one will be able to trace us there.’
A month later, we move. I’m thrilled and nervous to put the English Shaun persona behind me. It’s the end of an era. At least I never got caught. My family will never know and what they don’t know can’t hurt them.
Claudia gets a job as a telesales consultant. I trade the stock market online. On weekdays, I try to live normally. Eating at Indian restaurants. Taking kickboxing and Spanish classes. Working out at the gym with Claudia, followed by smoothies at Jamba Juice. Even trips to the laundry room are fun, watching Claudia prance around in bumblebee-patterned pyjamas.
But on the weekends, I still hear the wolves howling that it’s party time. I sneak off with Wild Man, getting high on GHB.
Aunt Mo – whom I first lived with in America but who had returned to England in 1992 – flies to Phoenix. After a weekend of partying, I take Claudia to meet her at an Indian restaurant. Mo and Claudia get along right away. I sense an unspoken approval.
‘How come you’ve lost so much weight, beloved nephew?’ Mo asks. ‘You look like shit!’
I almost drop a samosa. ‘Long hours following the stock market in the US and London. I’ve not been getting much sleep.’
‘Then either trade the US or London. You can’t stay awake all day and night for both!’
‘I k
now. You’re right. I will,’ I say, relieved she believes me.
‘So, what have you been taking to stay awake for so long?’
She knows! Caught off guard, I squirm and try to hide my guilt behind a smile.
Mo rolls her eyes and narrows them. ‘Just remember, one way or another, it will catch up with you. One time, I had a line of coke to give me energy to play five-a-side football. It made me feel like I could take on the whole team alone. I managed to injure my ankle, but I was so high, I didn’t think it was serious, so I kept playing. I got to the hospital the next day and the specialist asked me what I was on. Being honest, I jumped in with, “OK, I had a line of coke.” He ignored me and continued with, “Were you on gravel or AstroTurf?” I was laughing until he diagnosed me with a broken ankle.’
Mo asks more questions about my life, but out of fear word will get back to my parents, I clam up. I appreciate her concern, but I see no end to my drug use.
Chapter 58
Six months later, I leave the Wild Ones to drive home. I turn. So does the car behind. I turn. The car behind turns. Following me or am I being paranoid? I slow down. Black car. Tinted windows. Driver has no hair. I shiver. The man Wild Woman described? Out to rob me. Aw shit! I’ll show you what the RX7 can do! I squeeze the wheel, lock my shoulders, screech off. The car speeds up, closes distance. I pump the brakes, turn too sharply, fishtail. Screech! He slows to turn. I speed away. Changing gears robotically, I zigzag down side streets. He pursues, drops distance. I ditch him and pull a U-turn, singeing the tyres. I turn off the lights, park, wait, my head throbbing. His lights appear. He roars past. Disappears. I put my lights on and head for the main road.
Minutes later, he’s behind again. How’s that possible, you bastard? Furious, I speed from Tempe to the outskirts of Phoenix, pursued all the way. I turn into a post office and arc around the car park. I get back on the road, cut into a neighbourhood, swing a U-turn and head in his direction. He slows down. I pass him. By the time he turns, I’m gone.
I run red lights and get on the freeway. I’ll soon be home. I begin rehearsing what to tell Claudia.
Near Scottsdale, I notice cars in my mirror zooming my way in the fast lane. I change to the middle lane, expecting them to overtake. They get behind, led by the black car. No fucking way! No matter, I’ll ditch them off the freeway.
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