The Heroin Scene in Fort Myers

by Oliver Markus Malloy

  Later Lucy called me and told me she wanted to hang out. Nicole had disappeared again, doing who knows what with who knows who, so I had no reason not to hang out with Lucy. I took her home with me, and we talked all night. She told me she was sorry for writing the letter to Veronica and the one to Cho. She said she felt bad for the way things ended between us, when I found out she lied to me about me being the only one on her viso list.

  Suddenly Jasmine called Lucy. Jasmine had returned from Key West a few weeks ago, and had been back in Fort Myers. She had already relapsed on her first day out, before she handed me the letters Veronica had written her in jail. Jasmine's mother was an alcoholic, and they both got drunk to celebrate her freedom. She shot up Ds just a few hours later.

  She had pretended to be clean in Key West, but I could tell by her posts on her Facebook page, that she was behaving like every other addict who was in the process of relapsing after getting out of jail.

  Veronica had cheated on me with Jasmine, and gotten her name tattoed on her wrist. But Jasmine had also dated Snickers at some point in the past, like everyone else in jail. And she was Abby's best friend. But ever since she returned from Key West, she was living with Wigger at Abby's house, sleeping with Wigger in Abby's bed. Abby's boyfriend Wigger had not only cheated on her with her own sister Tabby. Now he was cheating on Abby with her best friend Jasmine. What a guy, what a guy.

  Jasmine and Wigger got into a fight, because he'd been cheating on her with some other girl. Jasmine had enough and wanted to get away from him, She called Lucy to see if she could stay with her. They had been in the same dorm in jail for a while. Lucy told Jasmine that she was staying at my house and offered that we could come get her.

  A few weeks ago, Veronica had told me that someone really needed to tell Abby what a lowlife Wigger was, because he was cheating on Abby the whole time while she was in jail.

  Take a moment to fully appreciate the irony in that. Go ahead, I'll wait.

  Veronica felt bad that Wigger was cheating on Abby! Meanwhile she was cheating on me the whole damn time! She understood that Wigger was a fucking lowlife for doing that to Abby, but somehow it didn't sink in, that she was a fucking lowlife too, for doing exactly the same thing to me.

  When Lucy got out of jail and we started hanging out again, she told me the same thing: someone needed to tell Abby what Wigger was doing being her back.

  So I ended up writing Abby a letter. I didn't even know her, but I knew what she was going through, and I wanted to warn her about Wigger, just like people had warned me about Veronica. It was a simple act of kindness. She deserved to know. A real friend would have told her. But she had no real friends. All her so-called friends were drug addicts, who had no loyalty to anyone, and who would hit on Abby's man in a heartbeat, if there was drugs or money in it for them. Even her own sister Tabby betrayed her. And now her best friend Jasmine did, too.

  After Abby got my letter, she asked Wigger if what I wrote was true. Of course he denied it, but he was really pissed at me.

  So now there was a possibility that Jasmine's fight with Wigger in the middle of the night was just a trick, to get me to go there. Maybe he and his homeboyzzz were waiting for me. Well, I wasn't gonna let some little ghetto thugs intimidate me. After all, I had a gun now! What it do, homeslice? Holla!

  I hid my gun on me and felt like James Bond. Lucy and I were on a mission! It was 3 am by the time we got to Abby's house. Jasmine got into the car and told Lucy that she was upset, because Wigger had been cheating on her. She was sick and tired of the way he was treating her, so she was done with him. On her way out, she stole some crack from him.

  When we got home, Lucy hid in the bathroom and smoked Jasmine's crack for hours. She just wouldn't stop. She left the door unlocked, so Jasmine and I tried to get her to come out. But she was busy rearranging the towels. Over and over again, with the twitchy motions of a tweaking crackhead.

  Lucy said that she wanted to watch Beautiful Creatures, so Jasmine and I were waiting for her on the living room couch. We kept calling her, but she wouldn't come. Then Lucy called me into the bathroom.

  I went inside. She was still rearranging the towels. Then she said: "I just wanted to let you know that I'm a very jealous person, and it really bothers me that you are sitting in the living room with Jasmine."

  Jasmine and I had been sitting on opposite ends of the couch. We really weren't doing anything, just talking, and we had been calling Lucy over and over, so we could finally start the movie. But to make her happy, now I sat in the bathroom with her, so she wouldn't feel jealous anymore. I was getting really tired. It was 6 am by now.

  Suddenly Lucy decided to make dinner for all of us. At 6 am!

  She had made a nice dinner for me a few days ago, right after Thanksgiving. We had wanted to spend the holiday together, but then she had been smoking crack around the clock instead, and tricking. So we decided to make up for it a few days later instead. She was proud of herself and sent pictures of the dinner she prepared for me to her grandpa and Nicole. I thought that was really sweet.

  She decided to impress Jasmine with her cooking skills, and made a little bit of everything she could find in my fridge and freezer. She made a ton of food. Jasmine and I kept telling her that we really weren't hungry, but Lucy wouldn't take no for an answer. So we ate something to humor her. Jasmine was already nauseous from the Ds she had shot up, but eating dinner at 6:30 am pushed her over the edge and she started throwing up. I told her she could lie down in the guest room, but she said she didn't feel comfortable sleeping in a bed. She preferred sleeping on the couch. So I brought her some blankets and a little bucket, in case she had to throw up again.

  Then I went to sleep. It was 7 am. Lucy kissed me good night and told me she would join me in bed in a minute. At 8 am I woke up, because Lucy sent me a text, telling me she'd be right in. She did that a lot, sending me texts while we were in the same house, but she was in one room, and I was in the other. I went back to sleep.

  At 10 am my phone rang. It was a Global Tel call from jail. I hadn't heard from Veronica since before Thanksgiving, ever since Wendy was sent to D pod for screaming at Kathleen, because Wendy found out that Veronica was still sending love letters to Kathleen. I was done with her. I wasn't even thinking about her, while I had been spending time with Nicole and Lucy.

  But the call wasn't from Veronica. It was her friend Cassidy. The girl she had told me to ask about what she was doing in dorm 2 with Wendy. The one who would tell me that Veronica was being 100% faithful to me and that there was nothing going on between her and Wendy.

  Cassidy said she was being released from jail the following night or early morning, and she had nowhere else to go. Could I come pick her up, and could she come stay with me for a few days, until she figured things out. I didn't know this girl at all, but she said she had something for me: a love letter that Veronica had written to Wendy in D pod. Wow.

  Veronica had given the letter to Morgan, the girl who used to be Kayla's best friend, and who had given my letter to Veronica, after I asked her to tell me the truth about what Veronica was doing behind my back. But now Morgan really did come through for me after all, and instead of giving Veronica's letter to Wendy, she decided to give it to me instead. Morgan knew that Cassidy was about to be released, and she gave the letter to her, so she could pass it on to me, once she got out. Thank you, Morgan. I owe you one.

  I told Cassidy on the phone that I really appreciated that she was going to give me the letter, instead of passing it to Wendy, and I promised that I'd be there to pick her up.

  I really wanted that letter! I knew that once I saw it with my own eyes, I would be over Veronica for good. I really hadn't missed her at all since Thanksgiving, because I was so busy with Nicole and Lucy.

  Then I told Cassidy that Lucy and Jasmine were staying with me right now, and to spread the word in jail, before she got out. I figured it would get under Veronica's skin. Then I got up to go find Lucy and tell her about Cas
sidy's call.

  Lucy wasn't in her spot in my bed. And she wasn't in the bathroom. And Jasmine was no longer on the couch. I figured maybe they're on the porch, smoking. Nope. Not there either.

  So I texted her: "Where r u?"

  Lucy texted me right back: "I'll call u later."

  I figured maybe they were meeting a dope boy at the mall or something. Who the hell knows? But then my instincts told me to check the guest bedroom. When I walked in, I found Lucy and Jasmine in bed together! The same bed where I had found Veronica cheating on me with Kim a year earlier!

  I was speechless. I just walked back out.

  How the fuck could Lucy do this to me? Last night, when we had picked up Jasmine at Abby's house, we went to Walmart afterwards, because they both wanted to dye their hair bright red. While we were walking around the store in the middle of the night, Jasmine was arguing with Wigger on the phone and told him she wasn't coming back. Lucy took my hand, and said: "I hope we will never argue like that. I want things to always be ok between us. I love you." Then we kissed.

  And now this fucking psycho was in my guest bed with Jasmine! The same damn girl Veronica had cheated on me with, after Kim.

  I really was living in the Twilight Zone. And Lucy was an eerie copy of Veronica. It seemed like she was determined to do everything to me that Veronica had done before her. Or like she was auditioning for the same role in a crazy horror movie.

  I said loudly, but calmly: "Get up and pack your stuff. I'm going to drop you guys off wherever you want to go. But you can't stay here."

  Lucy came out. She was still high, and said: "What do you mean?"

  "What do you think I mean? I want you to get out," I replied.

  "NO! Where the fuck am I supposed to go? I have nowhere else to go! I'M NOT LEAVING!" she yelled.

  I didn't give a shit at this point. She could go to her grandfather's house, or stay with Cho or G-Force or Wigger or whoever else. But I wanted nothing to do with her anymore. I was not gonna let her betray me the same way Veronica did, because I already knew what happens next in this movie. I had seen it all before. I felt like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day. I was reliving the same situations over and over. Only the names changed.

  Meanwhile Jasmine pretended to be sleeping. Or maybe she was really just as comatose as Veronica and Norbert had been, when I had caught them in bed together, and they didn't wake up, no matter how loud I yelled.

  "I'm not going ANYWHERE!" Lucy continued to scream. I started to feel bad for her. She really really didn't want to go. She knew she had fucked up again, and she didn't want it to end like this. We had just made up last night. She had just told me last night how sorry she was for fucking things up between us when she was in jail and she had other guys visit her. And now she fucked it all up again already.

  "If you don't leave, I will call the cops and you'll get arrested for trespassing," I said calmly.

  "I don't care! CALL THE COPS! I'm not leaving! I'M NOT LEAVING!!!" Lucy screamed.

  "Don't test me," I replied calmly. "I don't make empty threats. I really will call the cops if you don't leave. And you will be in jail two hours later. Is that really what you want?"

  I grabbed my phone and pretended to start dialing.

  "Fine, I'll go. I can't believe you! We didn't do anything! We were just lying there."

  Veronica said the same thing when I found her in bed with Kim. And then again when I found her in bed with Norbert.

  "I didn't do anything wrong! But I'm not gonna explain myself!" Lucy yelled.

  "I'm not asking you to explain yourself. Just pack your stuff and go. We're done," I replied with the same unshakable calmness. This whole situation didn't even feel real. I was totally detached from what was going on. I felt absolutely nothing. Like I was watching a movie, and this stuff wasn't really happening to me.

  I woke Jasmine up and told her to get dressed and pack her stuff. She pretended not to know what was going on, so I explained to her that she had to leave, because I found her in bed with Lucy.

  "This is so petty," she scoffed under her breath.

  Funny. She didn't think it was petty when Veronica or Wigger were cheating on her. Then her anger felt perfectly justified. But now I was being petty, because I wasn't ok with Lucy fucking someone else in my guest bed, after we had just made up last night?

  Then Lucy came over to me with big puppy dog eyes, and asked me like a little kid: "Am I allowed to come back at some point? Or am I never allowed to come back?"

  She was so adorable at that moment, I just wanted to squeeze her and let her know how much I love her.

  You know that feeling, when you have to punish a puppy for peeing on the rug, but it breaks your heart to spank him, because all you really want to do is cuddle him? That's exactly how I felt right now.

  "Yeah, you can come back some day," I said.

  Her face lit up. It made her feel a little bit better that this was not really going to be the end between us. Now she knew I still loved her, even if I was mad at her right now.

  On our way out the door, she showed me a notebook she had stolen out of one of my office drawers. She said: "I'm gonna make a scrapbook! Of all our meals together! I'm gonna cook for you every day, and we'll take pictures and then we'll put all the pictures in this book, so we can always remember it!"

  It took everything I had not to hug her and kiss her and tell her I love her, and that I really didn't want her to leave. It was breaking my heart. She was just the sweetest little girl in the world. All she wanted was to feel loved. But I had to take a stand. I couldn't keep letting her treat me like this and let her cheat on me like it's no big deal. Either she was going to learn that the only way to be with me was to be faithful to me, or she was going to have to go fuck dope boys and Backpage pervs again.

  In the car she started texting some guy who called himself Fatso. He was supposed to pick them up at the Edison Mall. When we were almost there, she said: "Great, now Fatso isn't answering his phone. I think we're gonna be stranded."

  I dropped them off in front of the main entrance.

  "Are you really gonna make me get out of the car?" Lucy asked. "You have no sympathy. You are so cold." Then she slammed the door. I left. I didn't even get out of the parking lot, when Lucy already called me back: "Please don't leave me here! Please turn around and take me home with you."

  I felt so bad. But she needed to learn that her actions have consequences. You can't just fuck someone in my guest bed and then act like nothing happened and everything is ok with the world. I hung up the phone. Then I texted Nicole. I hadn't heard from her in a day or two, ever since she had disappeared again. I knew she was getting really bad on drugs, and at this point she was probably no better than Lucy.

  Nicole texted me right back: "Hey sugar. I'm at the Days Inn in North Fort Myers, please come get me."

  When I arrived at the hotel, she was sitting in the parking lot. She told me she had been staying in a room at the hotel with someone else, and he ditched her.

  I figured it was most likely a dope boy, and either she had been fucking him for drugs, or she had been tricking. Like I said, girls don't live in hotel rooms, unless they're tricking. I couldn't stand thinking about it. I just gave her a hug. She looked sad and exhausted. She was so worn down.

  I took her home to my place, and we cuddled and talked. I told her what had happened with Lucy and Jasmine, and Cassidy's call.

  Nicole told me she had a new probation officer, and that he called her in that day, out of the blue. She was supposed to report to his office at 4:30 pm. But by the time we got there, it was 4:58 pm. He was really pissed and screamed at her. He felt disrespected. He told her this wasn't a game, and she better be at his office tomorrow, at 8:30 am sharp. If she was there at 8:31 am, he'd violate her and send her back to jail. And she'd better be ready for a drug test.

  She was hysterically crying when she came out of his office. I tried to calm her down. She had a full blown panic attack. She couldn't breathe or
stand up straight. I gave her a hug and just held her tight, while gently telling her that everything would be ok. Finally she calmed down a bit. She said she would obviously fail the drug test tomorrow.

  We made plans for her to get a plastic cigar tube and smuggle clean pee in her vagina. She was supposed to practice that night, because she had never done it before, but then she started texting frantically again, and suddenly told me she had to go do a tattoo for an hour at night. She disappeared all night. When I finally picked her up, it was midnight. Now we had to go searching for a cigar tube, go home, and practice. We went to bed at 4 am. Then we got up at 6 am. I checked the Sheriff's website and saw that Cassidy had been released, but she didn't call me. I messaged her on Facebook and asked her what happened.

  Then I took Nicole to her probation officer. We stopped at the same CVS where Lucy and I had bought presents for Summer when she was in the hospital. We went in the bathroom together and she prepared herself for the drug test by placing the plastic tube inside of her vagina. It was really uncomfortable, and she had a hard time walking.