by Lee Child
Yeah, it’s kind of expensive. E-cigs and apparatus, not cheap.
One pod is equal to one pack of cigarettes. Or is it one hundred cigarettes? But how long would it take you to smoke one hundred cigarettes? Like, e-cigs go much faster.
Nicotine is much more concentrated. Fantastic!
One of the guys, his dad also moved out of their house so you can talk to him, kind of. Saying, My father doesn’t give fuck-all about me. Got to face it. He’s married again, he has a young kid, my stepbrother, his wife has two kids of her own. I’m out.
He says, Yeah. I guess.
What I’d like is, to kill him. Just—wipe him away.
Yeah. Me too.
But he doesn’t sound interested. Like, he’d like to wipe away his old man if it wasn’t too much fucking effort.
The single time I visited them in Bay Ridge, the hot new wife complained that I “smelled”—my underarms, crotch. Didn’t like the way I dressed, including my running shoes, which she said were “rotted.”
Just that I was trolling her. (Joke!)
Didn’t get all the soap out of my hair in the shower (I guess) so I looked like a “banshee.”
(Fuck, the bitch knows what a banshee looks like.)
(Maybe kill all of them including piss-pot Tyler. Collateral damage.)
Hid in the fucking bathroom getting buzzed on spearmint e-juice. Like, my eyes were crossed by the time I was finished and fuck eating with them, no appetite for anything to be shared with them, and anyway, too excited to sit still.
Well—maybe some things got broken. Maybe precious little a-hole Tyler got scared and started crying. By the time I got home (via Dad’s Uber account) my mouth was so dry, couldn’t swallow. Chest weird-feeling like something was inside clawing its way out.
Next time, you will know what to do. Bring the AK-47 with you, asshole.
* * *
One morning returning to Mom’s room to discover autumn leaves posted outside the door.
Ask a nurse what’s it mean and she tells you—Patient is in danger of falling.
Meaning, patient cannot be trusted to get out of bed unassisted. Patient should not try to get out of bed unassisted.
So, Mom is getting weaker? Fuck them.
* * *
Anything I can do for you, Jacey, let me know.
Please! Your mother is such a lovely person.
Their mouths are sad. Their eyes are pitying.
First you just thank them—Yeah. Okay. Like, you’re embarrassed they know about your mom and (you think) they care about her, and you.
Anything I can do for Lilian, Jacey, let me know.
Then one day outside school where she’s come to pick Billy up after practice you ask Billy’s mother could she drive you to the hospital tomorrow morning?—and she hesitates and says she will summon an Uber for you, because she has an appointment in the morning, on the other side of town.
Let me know what I can do, Jacey—Len’s mother says, so you tell her that your mother would appreciate a visit from her sometime, and Len’s mother says quickly yes, she would love to visit Lilian, she will try to get to the hospital tomorrow, or the following day, but so much is happening in her life right now—It’s kind of crazy. Frankly.
Still, your mom receives cards, flowers. Potted wax begonias from the ex-husband.
On the card—Hope you will have a speedy recovery. Yours, Ben.
Speedy recovery!—like, is this a joke?
Yours. That is a joke.
So furious, pulses are strumming in my head. Dying for a hit!
But shit, I’m short of cash. Like somebody is turning me upside down by my ankles, shaking out money from my fucking pockets.
Bad dream, a vampire bat is sucking my throat. Carotid artery.
Except suck-suck-sucking my blood, the bat is also regurgitating into my blood a sweet fruity-chemical taste and releasing a chill cloud to conceal us.
Funny sensation in my chest. Lungs? (Bubble-lung? Sounds like a scare tactic/fake news spread by the tobacco industry.)
(Whatever I spend on vaping isn’t as much as you’d spend on cigarettes. And there’s no tobacco. No cancer.)
Dad would be furious with me if he knew about the vaping. If he knew my track performance isn’t so great. Fuck Dad, what does he know?
Calling and asking, How’s it going, Jacey?—in this guilty-sounding voice, and I say kind of mumbling, Okay. (Not calling him Dad. Not calling him anything.) And there’s silence so he says in the fake-Dad voice, You okay, Jacey? And I say, Yeah, sure. And he says, How is your mother, Jacey?—which is a trick question, so all I say is, Mom’s okay. Like rolling my eyes, the asshole hasn’t got a clue what he sounds like, but this time I’m still buzzed, still feeling good and not like shit, which is what Dad makes you feel like, except not now, now I am inside the Spider-Man costume laughing in his face—What the fuck do you care? And Dad’s so shocked, he can’t even answer at first, then finally sputtering—Don’t talk to me like that. Goddamn you. Who the hell do you think you are! I am serious, I care about your mother and I care about you.
Laughing at him, saying, Fuck all we care about you. And Mom too says—Fuck him.
So Dad is shocked. Like he could believe that his wife/my mother would say such words aloud is ridiculous, but he will talk himself into it, and the new wife will believe him. Sure.
Turn it all inside out, to justify his behavior.
Sure. I know.
Why you are gonna die, asshole? Spider-Man is closing in on you!
* * *
Prowling the hospital. Gliding like Spider-Man on invisible threads. No one does more than glance at the ID on your shirt front. Not a glance at your bloodshot eyes, your zombie grin like a crack in concrete.
Running out of cash. Restless sensation like you’re hungry—but not for food.
Floor below, take the stairs. Easy access. Carrying a tray, like from the cafeteria downstairs. Bustling hallways, staff change, seven p.m. Mingle with visitors, enter a room, and if there’re people inside back out, honest mistake, easy to make in the hospital—(“Hey, sorry—I guess I’m on the wrong floor!”)—but if there’s nobody in the room except a sleeping/comatose patient, go to the bedside table, see if there’s a wallet in a drawer, glasses, hearing aid, quick remove the wallet, quick remove the cash, replace the wallet, nobody knows.
Heart pounding like an e-shot to the chest: cool.
Scored seventy-three dollars, first time.
Vaping gives me the courage. Brain rush. (Weaker and weaker each time.) Running up the stairs two, three at a time—then flying. Spider-Man!
To be able to afford vaping, you need to prowl and scavenge. But to be able to prowl and scavenge, you need to vape.
Second time, 110. Plus some old guy’s fancy wristwatch in the bedside drawer along with dentures, hearing aids. (The patient’s in the bed sprawled with his mouth open, skin like yellow leather, IV fluids dripping into his bruised arms.)
(Trying not to look at him. Turn your eyes away, quick.)
Another time, on the fourth floor, no money in the drawer. (No wallet.) But a rosary you snatch up and stuff into the backpack.
(Glance at the figure in the bed, Jesus!—a pixilated face you can’t tell is female or male.)
No fear. Cool. Quick escape like Spider-Man.
The trick is looking like you know where the hell you’re going. Nobody gives a shit about visitors.
Except: Excuse me. Who are you, and where are you going?
Female in dark-blue uniform, must be a nurse. Middle-aged, hatchet-faced, no smile and no bullshit. Staring at you suspiciously like with X-ray eyes penetrating your backpack seeing exactly what you’ve scavenged tonight.
Trying not to stammer. Saying, you are visiting your mother in room 7771.
Well, this isn’t the seventh floor. This is the eighth floor.
Express surprise: eighth floor! You’d thought it was the seventh . . .
Got off at the wrong floor, y
ou guess.
Smiling, not sweating. E-juice cool: tincture of lemon.
But the nurse isn’t persuaded. Husky arms, taller than you. Looks like she could hoist you over her shoulder. No-bullshit kind of (dark almond–skinned) female squinting at your ID. Pretending she is memorizing your name, face. You are sure she’s bullshitting. If she wasn’t she’d ask you what’s in the backpack, what’s in your pockets. Could summon security guards. But maybe, since it’s late, past eleven p.m., she doesn’t want to get involved. Might be she’d have to report you to the police, file an actual complaint, show up at a court hearing. Might be, it isn’t worth it for her. If you have stolen cash, cash isn’t traceable. A wristwatch, could be yours. There’d have to be a search of the hospital room by room to determine if the watch was missing, plus isolated bills. Fuck, she’s thinking, just fuck, it isn’t worth it to burn this white boy’s privileged ass.
So the suspicious nurse glares at you disgusted, in a snotty voice saying she will have to escort you to your mother’s room.
So you say okay, affable and unguilty. And the two of you take the elevator one flight down and she escorts you to your mother’s room (with the fucking autumn leaves posted outside the door), which is dim-lit at this hour as a wake. And there’s your mother in her bed, IV fluids dripping into her battered arms. By chance an attendant is checking your mother’s vital functions, heart, blood pressure, oxygen intake, so she’s awake if slightly dazed, but a smile lights up her tired face when she sees you—Jacey! You didn’t go home, you’re here . . .
First time since the infusion room, your mother has smiled at you.
In this way you escape detection. The suspicious nurse melts seeing how Mom reaches for you like a sleepwalker. Seeing how you take her hand, you don’t shrink away as another kid might do, embarrassed and scared.
Yeah, okay. Though you’d been ready to strangle her, the nurse, not your mom. Stuff her lumpy body in the utility room with the sign Soiled Linen.
* * *
Alone in the room. With your mom. Blank black windows reflecting only the room as in a concave lens, subtly distorted. But safe!
Clutching your mom’s (chilly, limp, thin) hand, though your mom (still smiling, wanly) seems to have drifted off to sleep. Jesus!—the wild plan comes to you: you will activate the Juul in your pocket, bring the e-cig to your mom’s mouth, give the patient a jolt to the brain like an electric shock.
Wake up, Mom! You’re too young to die and I am the one to save you.
ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS
Jonathan Ames is the author of ten books of fiction and nonfiction, including Wake Up, Sir! and What’s Not to Love? He is also the creator of two televisions shows: Bored to Death (HBO) and Blunt Talk (Starz). His novels The Extra Man and You Were Never Really Here have been adapted into films. His latest novel is A Man Named Doll.
Robert Arellano is the author of five novels from Akashic Books, most recently the Cuban noir Havana Libre. He created the Internet’s first hypertext novel, Sunshine ’69, and wrote the story for a graphic-novel anthology from Soft Skull Press, Dead in Desemboque. He is a professor in the Oregon Center for the Arts at Southern Oregon University.
Cara Black is the New York Times and USA Today best-selling author of nineteen books in the Private Investigator Aimée Leduc series, which is set in Paris. Black has received multiple nominations for Anthony and Macavity awards, a Washington Post Book World Book of the Year citation, and the Médaille de la Ville de Paris—which is awarded in recognition of contribution to international culture. Her latest novel is Three Hours in Paris, a World War II thriller.
Eric Bogosian wrote and starred in the 1987 play Talk Radio, which was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and a Tony Award. For the film adaptation in which he starred, Bogosian received the Berlin Film Festival’s Silver Bear prize. His stage work off-Broadway has garnered three Obie Awards and a Drama Desk Award. In 2015, Little, Brown published his nonfiction book Operation Nemesis. In 2019, Bogosian was featured in the Safdie brothers’ film Uncut Gems.
Lee Child was fired and out of work when he hatched a harebrained scheme to write a best-selling novel, thus saving his family from ruin. Killing Floor went on to launch the New York Times #1 best-selling Jack Reacher series with over 100 million books sold in forty-nine languages. Forbes calls it “the strongest brand in publishing.” The series has spawned two feature films and an Amazon Prime Video series.
Ariel Gore is the award-winning author of a dozen books of fiction and nonfiction, including We Were Witches, Hexing the Patriarchy, and F*ck Happiness. Her short stories have been included in Portland Noir, Santa Cruz Noir, and Santa Fe Noir, which she also edited.
Michael Imperioli’s first novel,The Perfume Burned His Eyes, was published in 2018 by Akashic Books and was translated into both Italian and French. The Rome International Literary Festival of 2018 commissioned his short story “New York City—33 AD,” which he read at the Basilica Maxentius of the ancient Roman Forum. Imperioli was coscreenwriter of Spike Lee’s Summer of Sam and writer/director of the film The Hungry Ghosts. He also wrote five episodes of The Sopranos for HBO, in addition to playing the Emmy Award–winning role of Christopher Moltisanti.
Peter Kimani is a leading African author of his generation. He has published three novels, including Dance of the Jakaranda, a New York Times Notable Book of 2017. He has taught at Amherst College and the University of Houston, where he earned a PhD in creative writing and literature. He is a founding faculty member of the Aga Khan University’s Graduate School of Media and Communications in Nairobi, where he teaches journalism and creative writing.
Bernice L. McFadden is the author of ten critically acclaimed novels, including Sugar, Gathering of Waters (a New York Times Editors’ Choice and a Notable Book of 2012), Glorious, Praise Song for the Butterflies, and The Book of Harlan (winner of a 2017 American Book Award and an NAACP Image Award). She is a four-time Hurston/Wright Legacy Award finalist, as well as the recipient of four awards from the BCALA.
Joyce Carol Oates is the author of a number of works of fiction, poetry, and nonfiction. She is the 2019 recipient of the Jerusalem Prize, and became a member of the American Philosophical Society in 2018. She is currently a visiting distinguished writer in the graduate writing program at New York University. She is the editor of the anthologies Prison Noir, New Jersey Noir, and Cutting Edge: New Stories of Mystery and Crime by Women Writers.
Achy Obejas is the author of the short story collection The Tower of the Antilles and the novel Ruins, and the editor of Havana Noir.
Lauren Sanders is the author of the novels Kamikaze Lust, which won a Lambda Literary Award, With or Without You, a Lambda Literary Award finalist, and most recently The Book of Love and Hate. Her writing has appeared in numerous publications and journals, including Book Forum, the American Book Review, and Time Out New York. She lives in the great nation of Brooklyn.
Christopher Sorrentino is the author of five books including, most recently, The Fugitives.
Jerry Stahl is an award-winning author, journalist, and screenwriterwho has published nine books, including the best-selling memoir Permanent Midnight, along with the novels I, Fatty and Happy Mutant Baby Pills. His work has appeared in Esquire, the New York Times, and the Believer, among other places, and he edited The Heroin Chronicles for Akashic Books. Stahl’s screen credits include Hemingway & Gellhorn, Maron, and, most recently, Escape at Dannemora, for which he received an Emmy nomination.
Hannah Tinti is the author of The Good Thief, Animal Crackers, and The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley. She teaches creative writing at New York University’s MFA program and cofounded the Sirenland Writers Conference. Tinti is also the cofounder and executive editor of One Story. You can find her @hannahtinti.
David L. Ulin is the author or editor of ten books, including Sidewalking: Coming to Terms with Los Angeles, short-listed for the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay; the Library of America’s Writing Los Angeles: A Litera
ry Anthology, which won a California Book Award; and the Akashic anthology Cape Cod Noir. The former book editor and book critic of the Los Angeles Times, he has written for the Atlantic, the Nation, the New York Times, and other publications. He has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the Lannan Foundation.
ABOUT THE AKASHIC DRUG CHRONICLES SERIES
The Akashic Books Drug Chronicles series was launched in 2011. Every book is available on our website, as eBooks from your favorite vendor, and in print at online and brick & mortar bookstores everywhere. For more information on the series, including an up-to-date list of available titles, please visit www.akashicbooks.com/catalog-tag/drug-chronicles/.
NOW AVAILABLE IN THE AKASHIC DRUG CHRONICLES SERIES
THE COCAINE CHRONICLES, edited by Gary Phillips & Jervey Tervalon
THE HEROIN CHRONICLES, edited by Jerry Stahl
THE MARIJUANA CHRONICLES, edited by Jonathan Santlofer
THE SPEED CHRONICLES, edited by Joseph Mattson
About Akashic Books
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Akashic Books is an award-winning independent company dedicated to publishing urban literary fiction and political nonfiction by authors who are either ignored by the mainstream, or who have no interest in working within the ever-consolidating ranks of the major corporate publishers. Akashic Books hosts additional imprints, including Black Sheep for Young Readers, the Akashic Noir Series, the Akashic Drug Chronicles Series, Infamous Books, Kaylie Jones Books (curated by Kaylie Jones), Gracie Belle (curated by Ann Hood), the Edge of Sports (curated by David Zirin), Punk Planet Books, Dennis Cooper's Little House on the Bowery Series, Open Lens, Chris Abani's Black Goat Poetry Series, and AkashiClassics: Renegade Reprint Series.