BANG! The door slammed open, and my eyes lit up and I looked at the front door. What I saw made me jump out of my seat, along with Rory and Tyler. Three men, their faces covered with masks, holding machetes ran into the house, screaming.
“Give us the fucking money and drugs!” they yelled like madmen. They punched my dealer until he was knocked out and took all of his drugs. I ran to my car and my heart raced as I could hear the footsteps coming closer behind me. I slammed the door and burned out of the driveway just as the masked robbers ran into the street after me. My legs shook as I just made it out alive. I was shaking as I lit up a cigarette. Holy shit!
Rory, Tyler, and I all had gotten away, and thank God I hadn’t brought my drugs with me. It had almost seemed like a set-up, as if the masked men knew that my dealer had just picked up a delivery. About an hour after the incident, we all drove back by my dealer’s house. We opened the door slowly to find that he was on the couch with his head down, bleeding. He was smoking a cigarette and having a drink, and he was furious.
“What the fuck am I going to do?” he yelled, as he smashed a hole in the wall. “Five pounds they stole, and thousands of dollars; fuck!”
We sat on the couch with him and didn’t know what to say, until we heard: FREEZE!
The cops had busted into the house to find us all sitting on the couch. Luckily, we had no drugs on us and had already drunk all of the alcohol and blew through all of the cocaine. They had gotten a complaint from a neighbor that three masked men had run into the house with weapons. They noticed my dealer’s bleeding head, and called an ambulance. They questioned us each individually, bringing us outside by the cop cars. We all gave the same answer: “Not sure why they tried to rob us.”
We were all summoned to court, however, and the reason for the summons was unbelievable. One of the officers had found a pill bottle with the name scratched off that was filled with Klonopins, and, after searching the house, they also found a joint that my dealer hadn’t even known was in the house. The worst part was that the cops now had us all on their radar and were watching us.
“Logan Michaels,” the judge said. “You were a witness to a robbery; please tell us what happened.”
“Your honor, three masked men broke in and beat my friend up. They tried to rob us for our wallets and then left. I was able to make it out before they got to me.”
The judge got the same story from all of us, but he didn’t buy it. All of my friends were on probation, so he told us that even though he didn’t believe us, he had no actual evidence that we had been in the possession of drugs. He told us that if we were in here again, there would be serious consequences and even jail time, and that he would be watching us carefully meanwhile. If you ask me, we got off pretty easy; they never found the men who had committed the robbery, but I had a feeling that it had been someone very close to us all.
After this incident, I started to think about whether I was prepared for this lifestyle. It was a cutthroat business, Rory had said. He was right—you couldn’t trust anyone anymore.
•••
My father’s birthday was in a couple of days and I was nervous to see him; it had been months since I had even talked to him. Plus, I still wasn’t ready to meet my half-sister.
Jared and I walked into my father’s small apartment and saw him standing there with a smile. He was happy to see us; he seemed to have a better relationship with Jared, the little brother. It was funny because my father and I looked so alike, and everyone had always told us we were twins, but now we were so distant.
We gave him a birthday card as I grew even more anxious; it was strange to think that I could be nervous in front of my father. It made me sad to realize that my dad—the same guy who had played baseball with me until the sun went down, had built me my first basketball hoop, had cheered for me at my games, and had given me advice—could seem to be such a stranger. It broke my heart to think about this, and I wished that things could go back to normal and that we could just have a beer and laugh about life.
“Want to meet your sister?” he asked. Jared and I looked at each other uneasily and I could tell his heart was racing as fast as mine.
“Sure,” we said. He opened the door to a room with pink walls and toys everywhere; she was in her crib. Jared and I both entered the room silently, but we were thinking the same thing. I remember hearing Jared talking to my mom one night, saying that he had always wanted a sister, but why did it have to happen in the worst way?
Afterwards, we both left my dad’s that day as changed people. Jared and I didn’t say much; we both pulled up to Mom’s house in silence. I think that we both wanted to be alone for the night. We both headed to our bedrooms and shut our doors.
•••
Winter had come and gone, spring had been a blur, and summer was unfolding. My old friends had loved their freshman year at college. Most of my ex-friends’ parents now hated me and thought I was a bad influence. These were the same parents who had once loved me for the athlete I was; it’s funny how people can change so easily and can be so quick to judge you. I hated them, too. They didn’t understand what was happening in my life, and I could try to explain it to them until I was blue in the face, but they still wouldn’t listen.
My brother was in a deep relationship with Vanessa; they would spend all day together every day, and she basically lived with us. My mother and Vanessa had become close friends; my mother was almost like a mother to Vanessa at times. She came from a rich upbringing, but it wasn’t her blood family; she had been adopted when she was younger by a wealthy family in North Andover. Her family didn’t really understand our family, and it seemed as if they still didn’t like Jared. He was on probation, so they thought he was a bad influence on Vanessa. At times, I wanted to solve all of the problems in my family’s life, but then I’d think, one man can’t change the world. Maybe one day I could become rich and resolve all of my mistakes. Until then, though, I sparked weed and pushed everything under the rug; I was still only eighteen, after all.
One day, maybe I could become the man I was destined to be, but, until then, I’ll take it one day at a time, I told myself.
In reality, I was a drug-dealing pothead and an alcoholic steeped in self-pity. I threw away a great life, a clean life, and was cascading ever deeper into being a criminal and leading my fifteen-year-old brother down the same destructive path.
The dealer guy with the faded goatee and grimy look ran into me on the street one day. He liked me, said I had always had potential, and gave me his cell number to call if I ever wanted to start selling more weed or cocaine. He told me that cocaine was where the “real money” was at, and I could see why—it was extremely addictive.
I held onto his number for a while, since I was not sure if I wanted to go down that route. He was no joke; his life was complete, and he was a drug dealer who would die for it. His name was Blake and he must have been twenty-five; he came from a couple of towns over, closer to the city. He had lived a hard life and rarely smiled. I wasn’t sure if he hated the world more than I did, but it must have been pretty close.
“Do you have any weed?” It was a scenario I had tried to avoid and had been afraid would come one day: Jared had asked me for drugs. “I know you sell weed; everyone knows it. What, you think I didn’t know?” I grabbed Jared to shake him, but realized that it wasn’t his fault. Who am I kidding? Everyone knew I was a drug dealer. He told me that everyone in the high school said I had some of the best weed around. I told Jared that I wouldn’t sell him any or give him any, and warned him to stay away from it. Who was I kidding, though? I was a hypocrite. It drove me nuts that my brother smoked weed and knew that I was dealing.
“How long has he known?” I muttered under my breath.
That night, I had probably made the worst mistake possible, and, of course, it had to do with me drinking my face off. It must have been two a.m. and I had barely made it home from drinking at Rory’s house. I don’t even remember driving home. Jared and
Vanessa were up watching TV, and they laughed at me as I stumbled into the kitchen and rifled through the cabinets, throwing food in my mouth.
“Hey,” I heard from around the corner.
“What’s up?” I said to Jared.
“Do you have any weed?”
In my drunken state of mind, I said, “Follow me.” My mother was sleeping, exhausted from working another double-shift. I brought Jared and Vanessa up to my room and opened my closet; under a stack of clothes was an odor of marijuana. “Since you know anyway; take a look,” I said to them.
Jared’s eyes lit up as I removed the dirty laundry to reveal a couple pounds of weed. I felt so cool as I grabbed a nugget out of one of the bags; Vanessa and he had never seen so much weed. It felt good to have Jared actually admiring me for the moment, even though I should have been ashamed of myself. I rolled up a joint as we all went to the back porch. It was the first time I had smoked with Jared; now we got stoned and laughed together hysterically. For that short time, I finally had my brother back—the brother who used to follow me around at my baseball games, the brother who used to look up to his older brother Logan.
The next morning, Jared and I went back to our old ways. It’s funny how much alcohol could change you. We both said “What’s up?” to each other, and I could tell we both knew that we loved one another, but it was more of an unspoken bond. Jared had started to hang out with the wrong crowd, too, which angered me. I didn’t want that for him. He would hang out at a house down the road where the mother smoked weed, her daughter smoked weed, and the daughter’s boyfriend, who was older than me, was a real problem. He was known for fighting, for robbing people, and for carrying a gun at times. It scared me to know that Jared was hanging around this crowd.
I actually sold weed to the mother and smoked with her sometimes. They knew me and relied on me. Her daughter was around Jared’s age and her boyfriend must have been close to twenty. He was a shady character; I could just tell, and I tried not to associate with him, but he liked me. He was known for hanging out with older punks who would rob people and beat them up afterward. I had sold him weed a couple of times, but had never smoked with him; he just wasn’t to be trusted.
The smart thing for me to do would have been to stop selling him weed. What kind of twenty-year-old smokes with fifteen-year-old kids and dates a seventeen-year-old girl? His name was Luke, and he reminded me of the scum of the earth.
The fact that my brother hung out with him made me sick to my stomach. I tried to warn Jared about him, but Jared wouldn’t listen. I can’t really blame him, since I wasn’t much of a role model either, but at least I would never rob or intentionally hurt anyone. Jared started to spend a lot of time smoking weed with Luke and a couple of other older kids. He was heading down a dangerous path, and every time I tried to tell him not to do what I was doing, he ignored me. He continued doing community service until he was eighteen, while going to school. Jared was such a smart kid, and he had always gotten good grades; I just hoped that he would graduate, instead of dropping out like I had done.
Vanessa’s parents resented Jared, which I think led him to become more depressed and made him smoke more weed. I’m not sure what Jared felt about his life at this point; he had the same situation as I did, but his situation must have been harder: he had been only twelve when our parents split up, then he had met a sister he had never known about, and had witnessed his brother becoming a drug dealer.
I was sure that one day Jared would tell me his story and talk about how all of this had affected him. I was too caught up in my own stuff to ask him, but I imagined that he couldn’t have been feeling good during this time. Jared had fallen for Vanessa at such a young age; I couldn’t imagine how he must have felt, with her parents scrutinizing his every move. I hoped that someday I could hear his side of the story, so I could understand what was going through his mind. But until then, I could barely handle my own life.
•••
It was a regular night; I had just gotten home from the convenience store where I had gotten a pack of smokes. I had just picked up two pounds of weed, and left it in my secret hiding place. The night was relaxing, I was high, Jared was at Vanessa’s, and my mom was again working a double-shift. I watched TV, made myself a calzone, and chilled. My high started to come down, so I went upstairs to grab myself a bowl to smoke in order to stay high for rest of the night. I walked up the stairs and things seemed different as I approached my room. I walked into my bedroom, noticing that the door was slightly open. Hmm, strange, I usually close my door. Whatever; I must be too high, I thought. I tossed aside the laundry to get to my weed and saw nothing. Huh? It must be in the back. I couldn’t even remember where I had put it; I was so high all the time that my memory had faded. Another layer of laundry, and still nothing.
“What the fuck!” As I ripped my whole closet apart to find nothing, I realized that my two pounds of weed had been stolen! I’d never felt so many things at once: the feeling of betrayal, of anger, of being sick to my stomach, and of confusion. I didn’t even know where to begin. How could this have happened? Was it a conspiracy against me? How was I going to tell my dealer, who had fronted me the two pounds, that I had been robbed? I needed to find it. My heart raced and my forehead dripped with sweat as I ran out to my car in a panic.
Chapter 12
FROZEN TEARDROPS
After several hours of constantly thinking about who had robbed me, I found myself feeling dead inside. I couldn’t trust anyone anymore; it had to have been someone close to me. I walked back and forth in my room and couldn’t stop pacing, realizing that I would have to tell my dealer I had lost two pounds. What was he going to do?
Finally, I dialed the phone, hoping he wouldn’t pick up and just wanting to disappear instead, since it would have been so much easier.
“Hello?”
Fuck, I said in my head. My voice was shaky. “It’s gone.”
“What?” he replied.
“I was robbed for all of the weed!”
I must admit, he wasn’t as angry as I thought he would be, and it may have been because we had become so close over the past months.
“Just think of everyone you sell to,” he said. “Is there anyone you can think of who knew where you hid the drugs?” My mind raced with so many people; I figured that I had to start somewhere.
As I paced back and forth, my brother Jared walked in and I immediately grabbed him and started to scream at him. His eyes lit up with anger and confusion as I yelled, “Where the fuck is it? Where the fuck is it?” But Jared honestly had no clue what had happened, and then admitted something that made me realize this had been my own fault.
“I did tell a couple of friends that you had tons of weed when you showed me that night.”
“Who did you fucking tell?” I replied, beet-red and furious. He revealed some names to me, and then Rory, Tyler, and I hopped in my car, ready for war. We drove over to each individual house and interrogated everyone that Jared had named. Some were kids I didn’t even know; we slammed them against the wall and threatened to beat the shit out of them. Others, I could tell, had no clue what we were talking about, but I was freaking out as the clock ticked.
When my dealer got around to telling Blake, his supplier, I knew I was going to be in deep shit. Blake wasn’t just a small-time dealer; he had connections that would have killed me. I must have chain-smoked all day until I just wanted to fall asleep and pretend this was all a dream. I wish I could have shut my eyes to wake up in seventh grade again as the all-star basketball player.
After a full day of stress and panic, I threw myself onto my bed, although my eyes were still wide open from the adrenaline. Who had robbed me, how did they know, and how was I going to get out of this?
“Logan,” I heard Jared say, as I laid on my bed, stressed out. “I think I have an idea who took it.” I jumped up as soon as I heard this, as my brother told me the story.
“While you were out yesterday, I had Tammy and her boy
friend over to smoke.” My stomach tightened as I immediately knew it was those shady motherfuckers. Tammy was a burnout and her boyfriend was the guy who was known for robbing people and for carrying a gun everywhere he went.
“I told them how cool you were and that you always had tons of weed on you and that you had showed me. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean for this to happen.”
I asked Jared, “Do you think they did it?”
“Yeah, I do,” he said. I took a deep breath and sighed; I really didn’t want it to have been them. The main reason was that I didn’t have a gun or any protection and, if I approached Tammy’s boyfriend, he would probably shoot me. Then again, what choice did I have?
I sat in my car outside Tammy’s house holding a baseball bat. I had no clue what I was going to do.
I called my dealer, who had Blake over to his house, and had told him about the situation. Fuck; my heart beat out of my chest as I heard Blake say, “He wants to talk to you.”
“Do you know who took it?” the dealer asked.
“I’m outside of their house now and I am pretty sure I know who it is.”
“Go get it back,” he said and hung up. Fuck, fuck, fuck; this is it, I’m going to get shot and die. My life had come to this; I just wanted to get shot and end it already.
I grabbed my baseball bat and stepped out of my car. I ran up by the side of the back door and could feel the sweat on my back, dripping. I was in denial as I banged on the door with the baseball bat. No answer, so I banged again. Still no answer. I kicked the door open and entered, ready for battle as I turned left and then right. I approached the kitchen area and saw nothing; I then ran upstairs to the bedrooms and kicked the doors in. Throughout the house I searched every square inch, nervously waiting at any minute to be shot and die. Nothing happened, though, and I ran back out to my car and drove away in panic. I lit up a cigarette immediately as my heart raced faster and I hit the gas harder.
The Crossroads of Logan Michaels Page 16