Cure For Pain

by NM Facile

  “Why did you choose them?” A lion and a bat seemed like odd choices, but what did she know about tattoos?

  “When I was young, probably nine or ten, I remember overhearing my mom and the old guy that lived next door talking about me. I always thought the man was magical. Just something about him made him mysterious and interesting. He had traveled all over. I think he had been a journalist or something. Anyway, I heard him telling my mother that I reminded him of a mountain lion. Ever since then I’ve been intrigued with the animal.” Ty mumbled through the words, leaving out the part about how they were alike, both shy and withdrawn but containing an inner strength and intelligence. Mary could tell he was almost asleep.

  “What about the bat?”

  His breathing had become heavy and she thought he had already fallen asleep. She would just have to ask him some other time. She closed her eyes and snuggled into Ty. After wanting him here in her room, in her bed, for so long, she still couldn’t believe his warm body was here next to her. She would be able to wake up with him in the morning.

  She was just starting to drift off when she heard Ty yawn and slur out the words, “Redemption. The bat is for redemption.”

  Chapter 13 - Hard Questions

  Ty was going to Hell. There was no question about it. In the early dawn light, he watched the peaceful angel sleeping next to him. Even in her sleep, she had the slightest trace of that delicious pink gracing her soft cheek. He wanted to reach over and kiss it, but didn’t want to wake her, so he settled for stroking it gently with his fingers. Her features were so fine and delicate, she reminded him of the little porcelain ballerina that had once turned graceful circles in his mother’s jewelry box. When Ty had been very young he was intrigued with the small, flowered box and the mystery of the music within. He would wind the key tightly before opening and closing the lid, delighted each time the ballerina popped up and resumed her dance. Once, Ty had turned the key too far and the ballerina danced no more.

  He studied Mary with the seeds of fear and guilt growing in him, churning in his stomach, twisting it into a tangled lump of anxiety. Ty would give anything for her: his future, his life, his heart. But had he turned the key too far? As with the jewelry box, he hadn’t been able to leave well enough alone. Nothing would ever be the same now that he had tasted her. He would only crave her more than he already did, and no matter which way he looked at it, he couldn’t see it ending well.

  It was just a matter of time before Karl found out about her, and found a way to use her to his advantage. When Ty had dated Sara, Karl had constantly threatened to cut him off. He had been concerned with how much she knew, and – worried about his own ass – warned Ty several times that she couldn’t be trusted, and would bring him down. He insisted that it wasn’t him who was concerned, it was the bosses, and they wouldn’t hesitate to take her out if she became a problem.

  The situation with Mary was completely different. She was still a risk because she was a distraction, and Karl had said many times that the bosses wanted distractions and problems to be dealt with. Whoever the bosses were, Ty knew that they had the power to carry out their threats. The fear of not knowing what he was dealing with constricted the knots in his stomach. He planned on getting out soon, but would he be able to take Mary with him? Would she even want to go once she learned the truth? The questions echoed endlessly, with no answers in sight. The loudest of them all left him sick with foreboding: how much danger had he put Mary in, and would there be any way to get her out of it?

  Ty wished he could shut his thoughts off and indulge in the moment. Being there with Mary was the closest thing he would ever have to Heaven. Here alone in the early morning light, her naked body, warm against his, practically begged to be worshipped, yet he couldn’t get past the worry. Instead he lay there, watching her sleep, wishing more than he ever had before that he was someone else.

  The night before, Ty had been captivated by her. Her smile, her voice, her laugh, even the twin vertical lines creased between her brows when she was thinking, every move she made, every breath she took, had him mesmerized. The doubts had come back in full force when Ryan had approached them. His appearance had been a bucket of cold water, waking Ty from his dream, bringing him back to the reality where he didn’t deserve Mary. It wouldn’t be long before she saw that. Ty was expecting it every time he spoke with her. They hardly ever talked about his life before they met, as if she wanted to buy into the fairy tale as much as he did. It couldn’t last, though. At some point, the day of reckoning would come. They would have to face it and she would be gone.

  For the moment, though, she was his. Ty swept the wayward corn-silk strands of hair from her face and kissed her ear. He buried his face in her hair and breathed her in as he wrapped his arm around her, pulling her tight against him. In the last moments of consciousness, he thought of the summer ahead and hoped for maybe just a few more mornings like this.

  Mary’s eyelashes fluttered open and she smiled as she caught a glimpse of Ty, his handsome face relaxed, his black hair tangled around him. Seeing that he was still asleep, she propped herself up on her elbow to study his face. She reached forward and lightly touched the crinkles in the corner of his left eye. She loved the way those crinkles turned into deeper creases when he smiled. She brushed her fingers over the dark scruff covering his strong jaw. It was softer than it looked. Her hand trailed down to the warm hardness of his chest. She ran her fingers through the hair, over to the ink on his left pec.

  The tribal bat was less than five inches across and half that in height. Mary traced the swooping lines. It wasn’t just a random design as she had originally thought, but an artistically scripted word: redemption. Why redemption? And why a bat? She had so many questions she needed to ask him. She had been avoiding them, partially afraid of what his answers would be. Mary knew she couldn’t keep going on this way. This wasn’t a comic book; he wasn’t Bruce Wayne, and he was no Batman. In fact, it was very likely that he wasn’t even a ‘good guy.’

  His breath changed and his chest tightened. She looked up to see if he was awake and met his intense gaze.

  “Morning, angel.” It was no more than a whisper.

  Ty brought his arms up around her, holding her to him. Mary rested her head on his chest, feeling his strong heartbeat. They were silent, each savoring the moment and the feel of the other’s body against their own. She dreaded the questions she had to ask, and Ty dreaded answering them.

  Quietly she began, “Why do you carry a gun?”

  He half smirked, half grimaced. “You saw that, then.” Mary nodded. “Here I thought I was doing a good job of keeping it out of sight.”

  “Not so much. Why do you have it?”

  Ty hesitated before telling her that he carried it because he delivered in some bad parts of the city.

  “But why do you always carry it?”

  “Out of habit.”

  “Batman doesn’t carry a gun.”

  “I’m not Batman.”

  Ty had a feeling that this little Q&A wasn’t going to go well. He could tell that Mary was already suspicious of his answers.

  “Did you really stop dealing?”

  He wanted to be pissed that she would even ask that, but how could he be? She had no reason to believe him.

  “Yes,” he answered.

  “When?”

  “The night I left the note.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I couldn’t leave you alone, and I didn’t want to be that kind of man in your eyes.”

  She rolled to the side to face him, but he still didn’t look at her.

  “What kind of man is that?”

  “The kind I have been. The kind that didn’t care anymore about anything other than money.” He looked down at her, surprised to see not judgment or disgust, but pity in her eyes.

  “Is that why you did it in the first place?”

  “Yes.”

  “When did you start?”

  “Not long after I turn
ed 16.”

  “How? I mean, how did you start?”

  Ty had never shared this with anyone: not Sara, not his mother, not even his public defender. But he needed to tell Mary. It was his penance, a perfect contrition.

  “Remember when I told you about my first job as a busboy?”

  She nodded. “Your mentor from school got you the job. The one they talked about at the cave.”

  “Right, Vasile Raylyanu.” Ty paused, unsure of how much he wanted to tell her.

  “Was he the, uh, dealer, too?” Mary asked, her voice soft in the quiet room.

  “Not at all, he gave me the job. Just a busboy, he said he’d help me with college, but…” Ty shrugged. “There was this other guy that came in a lot. A customer. Regular. We’d talk once in a while when it was slow.” Ty paused again, lapsing into silence as he remembered. He shivered involuntarily at the memories of the man watching him. Measuring. Almost ogling. It had creeped him out. Ty couldn’t exactly say what it was that tipped him off, but he had been pretty sure Karl was gay, and Ty didn’t want any part of that. Over time, he learned that his intuition on Karl’s sexuality was correct, although he never once made a move on Ty. He was more interested in what Ty could do for him than to him.

  “One day he flagged me down halfway into his meal. He told me he had a friend outside that needed to pick something up, and he didn’t want it to look like he was leaving the table without paying. He asked if I would run it out for him. We weren’t that busy so it wasn’t a problem. It was just an envelope.” Ty paused, remembering the time so clearly.

  The silver car was parked next to the curb right outside. The driver was fidgety and anxious-looking, but at the time Ty assumed he was just in a hurry. He already had the window down as Ty walked over and passed him the envelope. The driver handed Ty a white envelope in exchange, and then put the window up and drove away before Ty could say anything else. Ty shrugged it off as rudeness, and didn’t think anything of it.

  “He gave me an envelope in return. When I brought it in, the guy gave me twenty bucks for helping. I made exchanges like that a few more times that summer and over the course of the school year. Sometimes he gave me twenty, sometimes it was more. I probably should have questioned it, but Mom and I needed the money.” Ty paused and added, more to himself than to Mary, “It was just exchanging envelopes; what harm could there be in that?”

  “How did you figure out what it was? Did the guy tell you?”

  “Not really. He finally suggested I become an errand boy for his consulting business. He offered me more money than I was making as a busboy and I really wanted to get my own car.” It sounded like the whining of a selfish kid now, but that had been his goal at the time.

  “After that, it didn’t take me long to figure out what it was. I’d lived long enough in the city to know what junkies looked like. I hadn’t paid as much attention when they came to the restaurant; they must have been mostly recreational users. My new ‘contacts’ were another story. I had my suspicions and one day I opened an envelope.”

  “How did you know what it was?” Mary didn’t think she would have, although she probably would have guessed it was a drug of some sort.

  “I took it back and confronted him. He admitted to it being heroin.” Ty had been disgusted and felt used. “I told him I was done. He scoffed at me, saying it didn’t matter. His justification was that people were going to buy it and use it whether or not he sold it. He said it was no different than cigarettes or alcohol or even junk food. People were going to do what they wanted to with their lives and put whatever they wanted in their bodies. He pointed out that everyone knew the dangers of what they were doing before they did it, but it didn’t stop them. He even went so far as to call it natural selection.”

  Ty took a breath, remembering how he had argued back about the families that were broken and the lives ruined from addiction. Karl contended that those things could and did happen all the time, with or without drugs involved. Families fought, divorces happened, kids were neglected and people died. It didn’t matter what caused it; that was just the way life was.

  “Yeah, but what about it being against the law? Alcohol and cigarettes are at least legal.”

  “His advice was that a person needed to take some risks in life to get what they wanted. He offered me a lot of money to come work for him. It would be enough to go to college and help my mom out.” Ty shook his head. “I asked him how he could sleep at night and he calmly replied, ‘the same way any businessman sleeps. It’s nothing personal. It’s just business.’”

  Ty laughed. “I told him to go to hell. That’s when he threatened to turn me in, to go to the police with pictures of me exchanging envelopes. He asked how my mom would feel about having a son in juvie.” Ty had walked away, and Karl had called out to him that he would be back.

  “I lasted for two weeks before I started questioning myself. I knew drugs were bad. Hell, we’ve all heard ‘just say no’ since we were in fucking kindergarten.”

  Mary noted the tone of self-disgust his voice took on as he continued.

  “But that was for doing them. Taking them was different from selling them, right? It wasn’t my problem if some idiot wanted to smoke something or inject themselves with a potentially lethal substance. Fucking tobacco companies are still making and selling cigarettes and everyone knows the fucked up things they can do to a person.”

  She looked up at him accusingly.

  “Exactly. I know all the warnings, but it doesn’t stop me from doing it.”

  She rolled her eyes and rested back against the pillow.

  “I began to weigh my options and the scale gradually began to drop significantly to one side. I finally caved when my mom surprised me with the rest of the money I needed to get a car, only to have hers break down beyond repair a week later.”

  “Three weeks, four days and give or take a couple of hours, and I was back on the phone begging him to let me come back. He laughed at me and said, ‘Kid, you outlasted my expectations by at least a week.’ Thus began my life as a heroin dealer.” Ty finished his story.

  He had left out Karl’s name and a few other details; such as how he had moved from dealing into running deliveries.

  “You know you probably could have turned him in.”

  “I know now how flawed my logic was. I could claim it was the immature thinking of a teenage boy, or say I was worried that he would come after me or my mom. I can justify it any way I want, but ultimately what it came down to was money. The lure of the money was stronger than my convictions.”

  “And now?”

  “Now there’s you.”

  They were silent again. Mary was still trying to absorb it all. Growing up with a single parent, she knew how tight money could be. She had never had the newest toy, but then she never went without, either. She hadn’t had much contact with her father, but he still sent her mom money to help out. College was never really a concern; Mary had saved, worked hard at part-time jobs, applied for scholarships, and she had attended a state school to help keep the costs down. She was trying to understand what life must have been like for Ty.

  “Where was your dad? Didn’t he help out at all?”

  Ty gave a dry laugh. “All I know about my dad is his name, that I look like him, and that he persuaded my mom to run away with him when she was seventeen, before he left her alone and pregnant.”

  “What about your grandparents?” Mary’s grandparents hadn’t been the most supportive of her mom, but they still wanted to see their granddaughter occasionally.

  Ty shrugged. “Mom ran away. I don’t know what she ran from but whatever it was, she never wanted to go back and she never talked about it.”

  “What happened to your mom?” Mary had never asked before, always waiting for him to supply that information when he was ready. Now that the questions had begun, she thought she might as well ask about everything she wanted to know.

  “She died while I was in prison. It was a blood clot
or something.” Ty grew quiet again. Mary sensed this was something he didn’t want to talk about, and she didn’t want to push. She moved closer to him, once again laying her head in the crook of his arm. It was a small gesture of comfort, but more than Ty expected after sharing all that with her.

  “What was prison like?” She hadn’t known anyone who had been to prison before.

  “Lonely.”

  While she waited for him to elaborate, she began to trace her fingers over his chest.

  “I mostly avoided everyone as much as I could, which was not easy to do in a place that crowded. I worked at any job I could get, and read whenever I had the chance. The busier I could stay, the better. Holidays were the worst. I would see my mom but it was almost harder to see her, knowing I had disappointed her. I tried to get her to stop coming. She wouldn’t hear of it, though, and came every week. If I had known…” Ty trailed off.

  “How many years were you there?”

  “I did about five of seven.”

  “And then what? Out for good behavior?” She had no idea how that worked.

  “They call it ‘departure.’ It’s a reduced sentence for those who show that they aren’t likely to reoffend. There were conditions: treatment, mandatory testing, reporting in…” Ty shrugged again. “I’m just about done.”

  “And then what?”

  Ty shook his head. He had no idea what awaited him.

  They were both quiet again. He ran his hands through her hair as she traced his tattoo.

  “Redemption…what’s the significance?”

  That was a harder question to answer than any she had asked before. How did he explain his admiration for the bat’s ability to adapt to survive, to fly through the dark guided only by its own internal ability? Ty answered with a distant voice.

  “When I left prison it felt like a rebirth. A new chance at life, a chance to redeem myself. I felt like a bat emerging into the night, not sure where I was going but knowing that I would find a way to make things right.”