by Eva Crocker
“Definitely, just let me know when you’re leaving,” Greg said, shoving the plastic gun into the pocket of his bomber jacket, muzzle pointing out into the night.
Back in the house the cardboard had turned to mush. I found Nicola in the kitchen talking to some guy.
“If they smell pee, they’ll pee,” she was saying. “So you’re going to have to really scrub that part of the couch. I don’t like chemical cleaners, I use diluted tea tree oil in a spray bottle. Just a drop or two.”
I sidled up to her.
“Tea tree oil, okay, and where would I get that?” He was flirting with her.
She was wearing a sparkly off-the-shoulder sweater with a short skirt and army boots. I tugged on the hem of her sweater. The guy didn’t acknowledge me at all. She smiled at me but kept talking. “The other thing is the litter box —”
“I scoop every day,” he interrupted.
“There’s fireworks in the backyard,” I said, aware of the tequila on my breath.
“Is it covered? Some cats prefer covered.”
I pulled on her sweater again. “Do you want to see the fireworks?”
“And if you can find a sort of private corner, they like that,” she said. The guy was nodding.
“It’s going to be over soon,” I said.
“You guys go on, I’m going to the bathroom, I’ll find you out there,” the guy said.
When we got outside people were lighting Roman candles plunged in the snow. They’d bend over to light the cardboard tubes with a barbeque lighter and jog away. We joined a loose circle of people passing a joint around. The Roman candles made a hissing noise before spraying sparks and curls of smoke. Bright orange embers hopped on the snow. When the joint got to me I inhaled deeply and held the smoke in until it made my chest hot. I exhaled through my nose and got the spins.
“I think Greg Locklear wants to come home with us,” I whispered into Nicola’s hair. I thought I said it quietly but I’m a bad whisperer so who knows.
“Why?”
“He told me he did, that he wants that,” I said.
I handed Nicola the joint.
“What do you think of that?” I asked.
“It’s fine,” she said, but she passed the joint on and stomped off into the yard.
When I turned around Nicola was swishing a Roman candle through the air. Her arm arced upwards, shooting flares of light over the fence, then down at the ground. The sparks burrowed into the snow leaving black craters when they fizzled out. People yelled, a combination of warnings and cheering. Nicola spun around and waved her arm back and forth across her chest. A rush of sparks hit the house; some ricocheted off the barbeque and back towards our semicircle.
I didn’t feel anything but I slapped my palm against my face. I smelled burnt hair. I knew the smell right away. She dropped the cardboard tube and it spun itself in a lazy circle in the snow, sputtering out the last of its smoky guts. I combed my fingers through my bangs and singed bits of hair fluttered past my eyes. There was a wet spot on my forehead. I poked it and it stung.
“Am I bleeding?” I asked the guy next to me.
He got his phone out of his pocket and shone a light in my face. “A little bit, yeah.”
Nicola came up to the bathroom with me. We both leaned into the medicine cabinet mirror. There was a raw pink circle the size of a quarter on my forehead. There were pinpricks of blood inside it that reminded me of the craters on the moon.
“I really didn’t try to do that, I promise, I swear, I would never, I just . . . would never.”
“My bangs actually look kind of cool.”
Later Nicola, Greg Locklear and I ran through streets that were smeared in slush, back to my house. We passed a group of guys with their shirts undone who yelled “Happy New Year!” to us. When we got to the house we were laughing hysterically about how Nicola had wiped out and landed on her ass. I kept trying to shush Nicola and Greg because Viv and Mike were sleeping across the hall from my room, but then I’d succumb to a fit of giggles myself and we’d all be laughing loud together again.
In my bedroom, the see-through pink handle of the tequila water gun poked out of Greg Locklear’s jeans pocket. We were all in the bed, kissing, still mostly clothed. I took the gun and pointed it at both of them, waving it back and forth. They opened their mouths. I pulled the sticky trigger, two squirts each. But the gun was almost empty and the alcohol didn’t make it to them. Drips of tequila sank into my comforter. Nicola held up a hand for stop. “Don’t you have any music, Stacey?” I shuffled on my knees to my desk and flipped open my laptop. I put on some sleazy seventies music. What a lady, what a night. I found us a string of condoms in the bottom drawer of my desk.
In the morning I woke up to Greg Locklear climbing over me to get out of the bed. He mouthed “Sorry” when he saw my eyes were open. The bed springs crunched as he moved. The room smelled of alcohol and sweat. He dressed quickly with his back to me. His freckled back and bare ass, the patch of long black hairs on the back of each thigh. I closed my eyes, my mouth tasted of tequila, my teeth were scuzzy. I heard him jog lightly down the stairs, a pause as he got on his shoes and then the front door opening and closing.
Nicola slept for most of the morning. I showered and lay on the couch in my bathrobe until she woke up. She came downstairs in her baggy sweater and short skirt. She’d left her tights upstairs. I sat up and she joined me on the couch. I pulled Viv’s flannel blanket over her bare legs.
“I’m so sick,” she said.
“Me too.” I slid a hand under her sweater and rubbed her bare back.
“It’s a new year,” she said, looking out the window at the grey sky.
“Did you have fun last night?”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah?” I asked.
“It was fine, I would have rathered just us.”
She went to the bathroom and I heard her vomiting through the closed door. There were long pauses between the retching. It sounded like someone trying to lift a heavy piece of furniture. I worried again she would wake Viv and Mike. When she came out, her face was so pale that the dark bags under her eyes were frightening.
“I need to go home,” she said.
“Do you want some water?” I didn’t want her to leave.
“No. Could I borrow some pants?”
I hugged her goodbye at the door and watched her walk through a snowdrift in my jeans.
Seven
I woke up the morning after the Pleasant Street party, where I’d met Kris, to the loud beep of the garbage truck reversing. I liked watching the church dumpster get emptied. I stood up and took a couple of dizzy steps towards the window.
Huge metal prongs extended from the front of the truck and slid into handles on either side of the dumpster. The prongs lifted the dumpster up over the cab of the truck, leaving a wet square on the ground where it had been. The metal arms moved up and down, shaking the dumpster in the air above the truck; the plastic lid flew open and garbage rained into the truck’s bucket. Then the driver slammed the dumpster back down in the parking lot. The crash made my dresser jump and scared the cats. The coughing woman stepped out of the side door of the church, an unlit cigarette stuck to the wet inside of her bottom lip, bouncing there.
The garbage truck beeped as it backed away from the emptied receptacle and retracted its prongs. The dumpster sat where it had always been. The coughing woman settled into her spot on the fire escape, patting her pockets for a lighter. I heard a key in the front door. Holly’s voice in the porch.
I wanted to pretend I wasn’t home. To listen through the wall as Holly and whoever she was with found the mess in her room. My legs felt tired going down over the stairs to greet them.
Holly and Dave were unlacing their boots in the wet porch. Holly was wearing a big black hoodie that hung to her knees and black tights. She had a soft
guitar case over one shoulder. Dave King played bass and I’d heard Holly was going to play guitar in his new band.
“Oh no — do you have a dish towel or something?” Dave King said as I passed them on my way into the kitchen. There was a cloud of stale alcohol around them, they were just finishing their night.
“Why?” Holly asked.
“There’s a dead mouse here,” Dave said.
“What?” Holly said. “Where?”
“It was probably the cats,” I said. “Where is it?”
Holly was always bringing people over to the house. They didn’t make a racket so I couldn’t say anything, but I hated having random people there all the time. When I went to make supper she was always at the kitchen table drinking beer with some folk dude. They left empties and beer caps on the table.
I looked under the sink for a J-Cloth; I’d seen some in a bucket of cleaning products the previous tenants left behind. I found the open package and slid a crisp, folded cloth out. When I straightened up they’d both come into the kitchen.
“I’ll get it,” Dave said, reaching for the cloth.
“It’s fine, I can do it. It doesn’t bother me,” I said.
“Let him do it.” Holly snatched the cloth out of my hand and gave it to Dave.
I went to the sink and squirted zigzags of neon green detergent over the dishes.
I turned on the hot water and used steel wool to break apart a crust of oatmeal around the top of a pot. Dave came back in and dropped the cloth into the garbage bin. I heard the mouse’s body hit the bottom of the can.
“I need to talk to you about something,” I said.
Holly pulled out a chair and sat at the kitchen table. Dave sat across from her.
“I’m exhausted. I’m going to bed, I just need some water,” She folded her arms and lay her head down on the table.
“It’s important,” I said, still facing the sink working on the creamy scuzz in the bottom of the oatmeal pot.
“Okay. Do you mind getting me a glass of water? I literally can’t get up.”
“It’s kind of intense.” I wiped my wet hands in my jeans. She lifted her head off the table, her eyes were red. I filled a pint glass with water and put it in front of her.
Holly took a long drink, “What?”
“The cops were here yesterday. Did they call you?”
“No, why?”
“It’s kind of disturbing. I had to give them your number, I’m sorry.”
Dave King was flipping a beer cap over and over on the tabletop. It seemed dismissive, but maybe he was uncomfortable.
“Jesus. Can you just tell me?”
“They said illegal digital material was transmitted from this address. An image. They took a bunch of stuff — electronics. They took your hard drive.”
“What does that mean?” Holly asked.
“You had an external hard drive in your room? A silver thing?” I said. “They took it, I’m sorry.”
“Like child porn?” Dave King asked.
“I don’t know,” I said.
“Oh my god. What the fuck.” Holly rubbed above one eyebrow with pinched-together fingers.
“I had to give them your number—”
“Fuck,” Holly said.
“It’s okay, it’s just a mistake. It’s going to be okay,” I said. “I really think it’s going to be okay.”
“Someone made child porn here?” Holly asked.
“I don’t think they made it. It was transmitted. It might not even be a porn thing. The warrant is over there.” I nodded to the living room. “It doesn’t really say anything, it’s legalese. But listen, is there anything on your hard drive that might be bad?” I tried to make my voice gentle.
“Bad?”
“Something they would consider, like, evidence of cybercrime? Or illegal activity in general? Some kind of image?” I asked. I was waiting for Dave to say something, like, “Maybe I should leave,” but he just sat there.
“I’m moving out.” Holly said.
“Did the cops say ‘cybercrime’? They used that word?” Dave asked. “I’m sure you’re not the kind of people they’re looking for, they’re looking for some sleazy guy.”
“Yeah!” I realized I was holding the scrubby in my fist, dripping grey dish soap froth on the floor.
“They said that?” Holly asked.
“Not really.”
“What did they say?”
“They said they have to prove we’re not the suspects. They said we should think about who might have access to our Wi-Fi.” I was careful not to look at Dave while I said the last part.
“I’m going to stay at Dave’s until I find another place.” She turned to Dave. “Is that okay?”
“Yeah, totally, of course,” he answered meekly.
“You don’t have to worry because the internet’s not in your name. They said that. They really did. The person who owns the internet is the suspect.” I tried to keep my voice level.
“Why did they take my hard drive?” Holly asked.
“They couldn’t clear it at the scene. They kept saying that it’s hard to clear Mac stuff.”
“What does that mean? I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Cleared at the scene? I don’t know, I guess I don’t really know,” I said.
“You said this was temporary,” Holly said.
“When did I say that?”
“When we came to see the place. You were like, ‘We can look for other places.’ You didn’t like this house.”
“You liked it, I moved in because you liked it.” My voice went high. “I don’t think anything happened here. And it’s probably like identity theft or stolen credit card numbers or something.”
“Or selling stuff on the dark web like guns or just like illegal swords, like throwing stars or whatever,” Dave said.
“They said an image,” Holly said. “Did they leave a phone number?”
“Who?” I said.
“The cops?” Dave asked in a quiet voice.
“I was here alone when they showed up. It was scary, like after the Snelgrove stuff. I was thinking about that the whole time. I nearly brought it up but I just wanted them to get the fuck out of the house, I didn’t want to drag it out.”
“I’m not trying to be mean,” Holly said coldly.
“There was a whole swarm of them. All those people who smoke on the corner were watching. You know the woman who coughs in the night? And that man who’s sometimes with her — they were watching. Because the cops were like ‘We have a warrant, get out of the way’ and I just kept being like, ‘Why? Why? Why?’ in the doorway.”
“Jesus,” Dave said.
“It was so over the top,” I said.
“This situation is just —” Holly said. “Why didn’t you tell me yesterday? When it happened, right away?”
“They took my phone,” I said.
“My name’s not on the lease,” Holly said. “I didn’t sign anything.”
“You’re moving out now?”
“I’m not staying here.”
“I can’t find someone for January. No one moves in January.”
Dave was flipping the beer cap again, not looking at either of us.
“We said temporary.”
“The most fucking frigid month of year and everyone is broke,” I said.
“You’re being really unreasonable, I agreed to temporary. Now I have to call the cops about child pornography, now my name is tangled up in that.”
“It’s not my fault. It doesn’t have anything to do with me,” I said.
“I don’t want to know,” Holly said.
“What?”
“If you’re involved in this, in any way,” Holly said, “I don’t want to know about it.”
I wiped my hands on my pants, I couldn’t believe I’d been washing her dishes.
“I don’t know you that well.” Holly stood up.
“I don’t know anything except what’s in the warrant,” I told her.
“I’m going to bed.” Holly took the warrant and left the room.
“I might be able to help you find someone for January,” Dave said, trailing behind Holly. “I can ask, I think some people at my work were talking about moving, they have a shitty landlord, so.”
“I’ll find someone.” I don’t want to live with one of your loser friends, I thought to myself.
I turned the hot water back on and moved the tap back and forth, slicing through the gooey lines of dish soap. If Holly had never shown up, Viv, Mike and I would still be padding around our drafty old house on Patrick Street with the wide halls and big windows. I turned the tap off and left the dishes in the sink with suds dissolving all over them.
I went to the bathroom, picked Holly’s glasses off the edge of the sink and dropped them on the floor. When the lenses hit the tiles there was a clink like wine glasses meeting across a table. I was going to leave them on the floor for someone else to accidentally crush, but then I brought my foot down on them. I felt the arms snap out of place and a metal hinge dig into my instep. The glass scratched across the grouting and cracked.
I listened to Holly and Dave moving overhead. Her bedroom door was open. The conversation had gone so differently than I’d anticipated. I lifted my foot and pressed the tender spot where the hinge had dug in. I couldn’t hear what Holly was saying; even her tone was difficult to make out. I heard footsteps on the landing, she was coming down.
I darted into the living room and grabbed my coat out from under theirs on the couch. In the porch I stepped in a pool of melted slush and then stuck my wet feet into my sneakers. I could hear her on the stairs, I left with my coat unzipped, pulling the door quietly shut behind me. I had tears in my eyes, maybe from my stinging instep.
The coughing woman gave me a slow nod and I returned it. The sidewalk was covered in thick ice sprinkled with grey salt. I checked the parking lot for cop cars. I walked as quickly as I could on the slippery ground in my sneakers. Holly would cross the living room to see if I was still in the kitchen. She might open the front door.