by P. J. Vernon
Tilly was never there because Tilly was safe the whole damn time. Thank god for that. I scroll for Nathan’s texts. My screen is a spiderweb of fractured glass. It must’ve shattered at some point in the elevator. More desperate messages from him wait.
Where are you?!
I need to see her!
His next text provided the Good Samaritan’s phone number and address, three streets over from us. Another demands a photo the second she’s in my arms. Proof of life.
I fumble with my keys and leave the front door ajar. The act of shutting it is overwhelming. Do I need to call Detective Henning immediately? Of course I do. Kristian’s credit card—or whoever’s card he used to book the room—could lead Detective Henning and her partner straight to the fucking psychopath.
Kristian had probably shoved his GoPro on a hotel-room shelf to capture the whole thing. Exactly like Haus. Is he part of some, like, international gay snuff film ring? Seems as implausible as a gay mafia, but my mind can’t stop spinning. How did he come to DC? How did our paths cross inside Haus?
Seven-twenty-one. He gave the room number to the bartender, and it’s all Detective Henning will need. Then she’ll have to tell Nathan everything.
I note the vacant space above the mantel in Nathan’s library. If I never saw those oily, glaring Klein eyes again, I’d be thrilled. It’s just bizarre of Nathan to suddenly want them gone too. In the powder room, sink water runs ice-cold over my face.
My hand pulses; what if Kristian broke it? It’s not bruised, so whatever wounds I have are hidden for now. A cherry rash circles my throat, but my first injuries cover for my second.
My thoughts roll and roil and wash like sea waves. Breaking against one another in sprays of rain, changing directions, riptides and currents swirling this way and that. When they draw back from shore, something’s left behind in their wake. A sense I’ve been here before. A detached and defeated state disaster leaves. When I’ve lost. When apathy takes hold because I’ve failed.
When Detective Henning tells him the truth, Nathan will cry. He will scream at me. Flecks of spittle will strike my face, and my heart will rupture. I will know a sadness far worse than before, because before, I hadn’t yet learned how good things could be. For people like Nathan and the people he loves. And at the very bottom of that very deep and very dark sadness, I will find some motel that I will never leave. I will book a room that will be soiled and reek of piss and whiskey and be absolutely perfect for the conclusion of my just-as-soiled life. I will log on to MeetLockr and Grindr and Casual Encounters and all the rest, and I will replace Oliver P with Needs Oxy Now, and I will pay with whatever depravity I’m asked for, and while I submit to the fetishes of strangers, I will pray that this time, this time Nathan does come across my profile and is vindicated because, after all, he deserves at least that.
That I can give him.
I stare into my own wild eyes in the sleek glass of a gilded sink mirror they’ve got no business in. But I have been here before.
TYRE, IN
The bottles in my bag rattled with each step across the cracked Indiana sidewalk. Early morning, and the fresh sun’s rays did little to warm, given the season. But it didn’t matter because scalding hot or frigid and cold, I couldn’t feel anything. Certainly not pain.
It’d only been two days since the door to my and Hector’s apartment shut a final time, but I’d stayed high—low?—ever since. I thought sleeping in my old music teacher’s shed was clever. She’d never locked it, but I wasn’t the only thing drawn to the heat it kept. My exposed flesh was a feast for fire ants deep in the wood mulch.
Up early, and I’d walked some dozen or so bleak blocks on the hunt for somewhere else. Passed through the downtown drag lined with diners and payday loan sharks. Walked beneath a faded mural painted on the brick of the old Chevy factory. A rosy woman steered a ’60s Corvette with one hand and waved her sun hat with the other. Above her, in swooping ribbons of red, white, and blue: floor the gas to tyre! america’s next detroit!tm
A promise long discarded by coast dwellers in their gilded fortresses of the San Francisco Peninsula and the island of Manhattan. A possum-pissed receptacle for those who bungled their shot at the American Dream. Now they only shoot meth and oxy and, speak of the devil, the barred windows of a pharmacy catch my eye.
The pad of scripts in the front pocket of my bag. Still had plenty of pills to make it a few days. Maybe a week, depending on how shitty things got. Who was I kidding? Things stood to get much shittier.
I unzipped my duffel, reached inside, and took whatever pills my fingers found first. Then I waited for them to dull the world’s sharpening edges. A renewed warmth to blanket my insides. For the sense of normal and the courage to come. It’d stoke what I needed to stand, to sling my bag over my shoulder, and to walk inside Wellington Family Compounding Pharmacy.
A bell wire tripped, and the man at the front register greeted me with a passing smile. Passing because it started wide but vanished when he sized me up. Haggard, numb, armpits that reeked like wet onion. At least I’d changed my pee jeans. Hector would’ve found my gift by now.
Fluorescent lighting was never forgiving, but it’d never been this brutal either. A display of hand mirrors threw ten unrecognizable reflections my way. A hollow person who’d come to the end of his rope. Nowhere to go. Black soil crammed beneath nails shorn short, legs chewed up by ants.
I thought about swinging through the restroom. Washing up to invite less scrutiny from behind the pharmacy counter.
Instead, I beelined for school supplies and tore a fat black pen from its packaging. Oliver Park had come to fill a script for OxyContin. I was stupid, but not stupid enough to go crazy. Know the laws you break, as Hector would say. I wrote for a thirty-day supply since anything more would be flagged as ill-gotten.
You can do this. I steeled myself with a deep breath as if I had a choice. You have to do this.
“Hi there,” said the on-duty pharmacist. A redhead in mauve lipstick. Overweight but Tyre skinny. Busty leopard print popped beneath the white of her lab coat and she smelled like a pink Starburst.
“Hey.” I slid the paper across the counter, but steady hands were a struggle. “Just need to fill this.”
When she took it cautiously, as though it were something dangerous—as though I were dangerous—I should’ve cut and run. She eyed the note. She eyed me. Then the note once more.
“One moment, please.” She gave a smile to match her warm drawl. “If you’ll wait right over there.” She pointed to a nook of folding chairs. Next to the blood pressure machine for self-diagnosing the heart disease you know you’ve got because look at where you are. What town you call home.
“Yes, ma’am.” I shuffled to a seat. She’d seemed nervous. Suspicious when she gleaned the script. My hands still quaked, and she must’ve seen that too. What doctor writes in Sharpie?
Five minutes passed.
Should I get up? Just get up and go?
Ten minutes.
No. I don’t give up. At least not when it comes to shit that I very much should give up on.
Fifteen.
Besides, she’d smiled when she asked me to wait. People don’t grin at criminals. They scowl. They scowl, and they call the police—
“Stand up for me, son.” An unseen voice spiked my pulse. A boot-camp kind of deep. I spun, and my heart caught fire. I flinched. My body wanted to break for it before my brain chimed in.
“Stand. Up,” the officer repeated. “I’m not fuckin’ around with you, boy.”
Two thick fingers beckoned. As I stumbled to my feet, he took my arm. His grip wrapped the whole of my biceps. The heat of shame flushed my chest, my cheeks, the tips of my ears.
Shame and panic. Black leather holster. The sleek black gun inside it. Black radio. Shiny black baton catching the pharmacy�
�s fluorescent bulbs in bendy waves.
Black, black, black. Even his dark-blue uniform held whispers of slick black.
“You’re a dumb little shit, you know that?”
I never saw the handcuffs, because my wrists were pulled tight behind my back by the cop reading me my rights.
37
WASHINGTON, DC
The doorbell on stately number 403 on Twenty-eighth chimes like a music box through an unseen home. The facade of stone and stained glass is far larger than Nathan’s.
Footsteps, a tumbling latch, and a front door of swirling iron parts.
“Hello there.” An older woman with cropped silver hair smiles. “I’m Barbara, and you must be the dog owner. Come in.”
The floor is marble or something like it, and her heels clack as she gestures me into a foyer that smells like fresh-squeezed lemon and cash. She reminds me of Nathan’s mother, Kathy. Women who wear their wealth on Valentino sleeves and speak in vaguely British accents. Mannerisms that say they might be New World, but they’re closer to the Old one than you are.
“Oliver.” I take her limp wrist delicately. “And thank you so much. I can’t tell you how worried we were.”
It’s only now I note the concern behind Barbara’s eyes as she reads me. I’d washed up and changed clothes at the house, but she’s still unsettled.
“I hate to be impolite,” she starts, “but do you mind showing me your ID?” I pause. I’ve not fully processed her request when she speaks again. “It’s just that I know the address on the dog tag. I was close with the family there. Before the property passed to a charitable organization.”
“The Klein Foundation,” I interrupt, grinding my teeth. “And yep. That’s my house.”
“You don’t sound at all like who I spoke with on the telephone.” Her lips purse into a tight smile. “I owe it to the owner to be certain.”
Despite the fact it makes no fucking sense, she’s quite pleased with her vigilance. How would I know to ring her doorbell to steal someone else’s dog? Mere seconds have passed, and Barbara already looks at me as Kathy Klein does: disdainfully. I’m a tragedy, which is out of my control, but how cruel of me to make needless victims of others by simply existing in their lives.
“Dog fighting,” Barbara says as if this will help. “It’s all over the news.”
“Sure.” My ears burn as I reach in my pocket. A new license hasn’t arrived, but the DMV issued a temporary printout. I unfold it, and her eyes move line to line with unearned suspicion.
Yes, Barbara. The garbage at your door lives in a heritage townhome owned by something called a Klein fucking Family Foundation. You, he, and said foundation are all equally shocked.
“Lovely.” She pinches the paper like a dirty diaper. “Well, I’m so happy you’ve found her.” She punctuates her words with unnerving syrup. If she knows my house, what else could she know? Just how vigilant is Barbara?
“Lucinda.” Silver chandelier earrings throw the day’s last sunlight in my face as she calls over her shoulder. “Bring the dog, would you? The owner is here.” She pivots. “What’s its name again, dear?”
I thought this bitch had read the tag. “Tilly.”
“Yes, of course. Tilly. Bring Tilly here,” she calls out again, but Barbara’s still wary. “Poor thing simply showed up on our back porch. The damned garden gate won’t stay shut, but I suppose that’s a blessing for little Tilly.”
A second set of footsteps, and a uniformed woman—presumably Lucinda—rounds a corner. Tilly is nestled in her arms; her bobbed tail wags wildly.
My heart erupts, warmth blooms. I can’t help myself and reach. Lucinda flinches as I take Tilly into my hands. Her warm tongue lapping my face. Sour breath I’ve never been happier to smell.
When I look back up, Lucinda’s vanished and I start to tell Barbara about the reward.
“That won’t be necessary,” she says, bothered I’d mention something as crass as money.
“Okay, well, thank you so much again.” I set Tilly down on slippery marble and fasten her leash. “Really. This means the world to us.”
As I make my way to the sidewalk, the iron door shuts with a chorus of latches.
Barbara’s done something Kathy Klein must only dream of: she’s locked me out.
* * *
• •
Back home, the sweet noises of normalcy return. Nails clicking and jowls panting, Tilly bounces from room to room, taking stock. She’s finding her mooring again. Reassuring familiarity puts an eager spring in her step.
But it’s not normal. She’s still in danger. So is Nathan. So am I. This life is on loan to me. A bill I cannot pay is coming due any day now, and then there will be nothing to save me from myself.
Walking downstairs one slow step at a time, I’m directionless. Perhaps I’m headed to the drawing room to lie down. Not to sleep, of course. That’s impossible. But to collapse on my back. To fixate on a coffered ceiling until the courage to call Detective Henning comes.
In the foyer, I first notice the French doors to the library ajar. Nathan’s never careless when it comes to protecting his sanctuary. Maybe he forgot after making space for new art?
Moreover, his briefcase sits on top of his desk. Leaving it at home’s not unusual. The bespoke bag is something he carries only on suit-and-tie days. If he’s on call, it’s a tattered book bag, scrubs, and sneakers. I part the doors enough to take a single transgressive step inside.
It’s not like I’ve been told not to come in here, that I’m not allowed. That would be silly. Tom had wandered in thoughtlessly, but I’ve always felt like this room’s off-limits.
Just as strange as pulling down family portraits and not shutting doors that always stay shut, Nathan’s bag has also been left open. A latch with a three-digit spin lock hangs uselessly by the handle. And even stranger? The devilish little thing that peeks from within. Had I been anyone else I know—literally anyone else save Hector—I’d have simply walked right by it. But I’m not anyone else. I’m Oliver Park. Administrative assistant. Addict.
Nathan’s prescription pad. A distinctive Rx leers behind a folded newspaper page from Vibe, the city paper Nathan consumes like sugary candy. I hesitate, one foot in the library, one foot still safely outside.
If it were a siren, its call couldn’t be any louder. I make tight fists, bring my feet together in the cool darkness of Nathan’s sanctum, and stand perfectly still.
I’ve coexisted with Nathan’s prescription pads for five entire years. To say dark thoughts, dangerous thoughts, haven’t spawned is a lie. I’ve steeped in them, but not long enough to count as anything but fleeting. To the contrary, my ability to cohabitate with a blank prescription pad is proof of my growth. Empirical evidence of a past that’s long gone.
But I can’t ignore the new call. Haus, my mistake, Kristian, everything after. The flooded bathroom, Tom, Tilly—everything is my fault. Frightening longings stir from deep slumber. Faustian little worms called to the surface by a hard rain.
The notion that my past will stay buried is a farce. I’m my own worst enemy. This is an undeniable fact, and I can’t escape from myself any more than I can crawl out of my own skin. Tyre or Georgetown. Piece-of-shit one-bedroom or legacy townhome. Hector or Nathan, it doesn’t make a difference. One controlled me with his hands, the other with his words, but the fact remains: I require control.
And running away doesn’t make a fucking difference because I follow me wherever I go.
That same teeming knot of hornets gathers in my throat, and even my ears sweat. I step deeper into the library.
Stop, I tell myself. Stop it.
Another step. Nathan’s Tom Ford cologne lingers in the air.
Stop it.
Then another.
You can still stop. You can stil
l turn around. A window is rapidly closing, yes, but even a crack will let the light in. A fucking open window, Oliver. Stop!
Perhaps I’m only reaching for the newspaper page. See, I reason, I want to read Vibe. My logic is as fragile as these crinkling black-and-white pages. At the top, Vibe splashes in bold font. Classifieds beneath that. An eclectic barrel of ads: landscaping equipment for sale, substitute teachers needed, escorts of all flavors available for all tastes.
My sweaty palms pull ink from the pages, and I trade them for something else.
My finger grazes its cream-colored front page. Nathan’s pen has left an impression behind. A ghost of the last script he wrote. Tracing the lettering, I can’t make out the dosage, but the drug he ordered is quite legible: fentanyl.
The relationship a surgeon like Nathan has with that specific drug is distinct from one a person like me might forge. It isn’t just another tool in my toolbox for pain management or anesthesia. Fentanyl is dark magic. A tiny Hobbit’s ring that taunts and calls and—without exception—destroys.
Hundreds of times more potent than morphine and everywhere lately. News, docs, podcasts, and AM radio. Illicit stocks have flooded US markets. Diluting fentanyl vials precisely isn’t always in an addict’s wheelhouse. The overdoses, the deaths, have swept the nation west to east. We’re poisoning ourselves at breakneck pace.
But I opt for a slower method. I hold my breath and a ballpoint pen. When I exhale, blue ink has written a single word: Percocet.
* * *
• •
I’m not a different person this time. I’m the same today as I was back in Tyre. When I stood in the waiting area of Wellington Family Compounding Pharmacy and a cop called me a dumb little shit while snapping handcuffs shut. But to anyone who is not Nathan’s parents or Neighbor Barbara, I look like a different person and that’s what counts.