Bad Company

by Virginia Swift

  The cosmos answered, in the gentle, wayward voice of Jerry Garcia. The guitar work was simple, lilting, reliable. The words offered solace, images of still water, invitations to reach out her hand and have her empty cup filled. Garcia, gone too soon across the Great Divide, had never in life known Sally Alder, but even now, he was wishing he could show her the way home. God knew he hadn’t died pretty. Almost nobody did. But here was his beautiful music. It was enough. It had to be enough.

  By now, she thought, she’d heard the worst of what Scotty Atkins could tell. How could anything else she found be much more horrible than what she’d just learned? She was scared. Borderline petrified. But at the moment it was just as easy to worry about Jerry Jeff.

  When she got to the house, Delice’s Explorer was parked in the driveway. Sally pulled the Mustang up behind. The front door was open, and through the screen she could hear screeching rock music, and even louder, Delice yelling at her son.

  “You damn bonehead! What in holy hell makes you think burning something that smells like a cross between geranium death bomb and a junkyard fire will cover up the smell of weed? Goddamn it, JJ, talk to me!”

  As she let herself in, Sally’s nose confirmed Delice’s impression. Jerry Jeff had indeed been burning quite a lot of extremely cloying incense. Of course, incense was nearly as old as fire, but in Sally’s youth, when millions of Americans had first begun to discover the pleasures of the recreational use of burning aromatics, there hadn’t been the varieties of incense there were now. You had your sandalwood, your jasmine, and your patchouli. Then as now, kids had thought incense burning a great device for masking the aroma of marijuana, which, of course, it had never been. Nowadays incense came in zillions of smells—everything from coconut to bat guano. JJ had chosen a fruity bouquet—wild strawberry? harvest peach? Sometimes consumerism wasn’t a good thing.

  One look at Jerry Jeff told her that he was indeed good and stoned. He lay on the living room couch, red-eyed and giggling at his livid mother, stroking Mr. Skit-tles with one hand, eating a Kit Kat bar with the other. A music video blared from the television, and wadded-up candy wrappers lay heaped and scattered on the floor next to him. “You’re supposed to be at work, Ma,” he managed between bites and guffaws.

  “And you’re supposed to have half a brain, goofball! Is this something you do all the time, or do you use illegal drugs only on occasions when the police already have you under suspicion?”

  She picked up a magazine and whacked him upside the head. “Get up and get this mess cleaned up. Then go take a shower while I air the house out. Try to get a foot on the ground, boy. You’ve got some explaining to do.”

  Sally could almost see the wheels turn in his skull as Jerry Jeff got to his feet, still cradling the cat. Pot paranoia warred with marijuana euphoria, and then the giggles were gone and he’d moved into sulky teen mode. “Give me a break, Mom. I mean, didn’t you and Sally and all your friends smoke pot? Didn’t Uncle Dickie do stuff that was even worse? What kind of hypocrite are you?”

  “The kind that can kick your ass. Don’t start that shit with me, Jerry Jeff Walker Davis. Just because I killed a lot of brain cells, that doesn’t mean I have to like it when you start obliterating the few you’ve apparently got. I’m not taking the blame—I don’t buy your ‘Mamas, Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Potheads’ crap. Now go get in the damn shower. Your taste in incense sucks.”

  He slouched off then, but as he trudged up the stairs, Sally heard a chuckle escape him. It suddenly occurred to her that it might be a lot easier to get answers out of him stoned than straight. Whatever he’d been smoking, it looked as if it had been strong enough that a shower wouldn’t sober him up. If she could get Delice to cool down, he might say a lot more than he meant to.

  Delice was slamming around, cussing and throwing windows open. Sally went over to the couch and began picking up candy wrappers. Did kids these days still call the stoner’s sugar binges “mad munchies”?

  She wondered if what Jerry Jeff was hiding had anything to do with the fact that he was smoking dope.

  “So is this the first time you’ve caught him getting loaded?” she asked gently.

  “How could you tell?” Delice snapped back.

  “Hey, I’d be pissed too. Especially given his situation with the cops.”

  Delice stomped into the kitchen to open more windows. Sally followed. “So what are you going to do about it?”

  “Oh, for starters, rip his room apart, find his stash, flush it, and then tear him limb from limb,” said Delice.

  Sally nodded. “Sounds reasonable to me. Do you suppose he figured you’d be this furious if you found out?”

  Delice pulled open a cupboard, found a glass, filled it with water, and drank it down. “No. I suppose he thought I’d be a hell of a lot madder even than I am. He knows what it’s like when I’m really in orbit.” And then she looked at Sally with misery in her eyes. “He’s all I’ve got.”

  Sally’d never had kids, of course, but at that moment, looking at her dear old friend, she knew how children could shatter your heart. “He’s a good boy, Dee. A hard worker. He goes after what he cares about. He loves you.”

  Delice was not one for crying, and as the tears came into her eyes, she flung them away with the sleeve of her satin cowboy shirt. “I know. I just don’t get this. What’s wrong with him?”

  Sally didn’t want to upset her more by being too nice. Then again, the woman obviously needed comforting. Sally obliged, and for a long moment they stood in the kitchen clinging to each other. “Maybe,” Sally said softly, “it’s just this. Just the reefer. If he expected you to go nuclear on him, maybe that’s what he’s been hiding from you, from the cops. As you so kindly pointed out to him, doing dope is illegal. He’s only fourteen. It probably looks like a pretty big deal to him. Maybe that’s all there is to it. It’s a place to start, anyhow.”

  The hug had helped. They sat down at the kitchen table. “Think back, Dee. Remember when we were getting wasted? I seem to recall stoned conversations that went in a hundred different directions. Maybe they were a little light on coherence, but we covered a lot of ground. Put him at ease. Make him feel like you’re on his side. If you don’t holler him deaf and dumb, I bet he’ll talk.”

  Delice put her elbows on the table, and rested her chin in her hands. “Are you suggesting that I take advantage of his intoxicated state to worm information out of him?”

  “Exactly,” said Sally.

  “Well, in that case, maybe you’d better stick around and help him relax. He does think you’re cool.”

  “Of course he does,” Sally said. “I am cool.”

  “For someone old,” Delice added.

  Sally gave her a baleful stare.

  Ten minutes later Jerry Jeff walked into the kitchen, hair wet and shoulders damp under his white T-shirt, handsome, vulnerable, spacy, and contrite. “I’m sorry, Ma,” he said. “Really, really sorry. I don’t want to make you mad or sad.”

  That was all it took. Now they were on his side.

  “Oh God, Jaje,” Delice said, rising and wrapping her arms around him, heedless of more dark water spots spattering her shiny shirt. “Just tell me what’s going on. Let me help.”

  “You know, JJ,” Sally put in softly, “nobody’s going to lock you up for smoking marijuana. Your uncle’s got lots better things to do with his time and his jail. Just for the moment, let’s not worry about what doing drugs is doing to you, and talk about something a little different.”

  Jerry Jeff looked relieved and confused. “Yeah. What do you mean?” He sat down. There was a bowl of fruit on the table. He couldn’t help himself; he reached out and snagged a banana.

  Delice started right in. “How long,” she began, working very hard at keeping her voice steady, “have you been getting high?”

  Thickly, through a mouthful of banana, he replied, “I just started in the spring. I haven’t done it that often, Mom, I swear. This is the first time I’ve
ever bought it myself.”

  Before Delice could push further, Sally kicked her under the table. “Okay, JJ—so you’re telling us this isn’t a habit with you.”

  He finished the banana in three bites. “No. It’s just kind of something I’ve done for fun now and then. Lots of kids at Laramie High get stoned every morning before school, but I never did anything like that. Just weekends and stuff. It relaxes me.”

  “What the hell do you need relaxing from?” Delice exclaimed. “You’ve got a roof over your head, all you can eat—”

  “Mom, please,” he said.

  “Yes, Delice, please,” Sally added, then turned back to Jerry Jeff. “I can understand. You’ve spent the week working and rodeoing. There’s been a death in the family, and everybody’s upset. The police have been hassling you. It’s Friday afternoon. I can see why you’d feel like doing a number and kicking back.”

  Jerry Jeff rolled his eyes. “Doing a number?”

  “Old,” Delice told Sally. “Not cool.”

  “Okay. Anyhow, JJ, what I’m trying to say is that we’ve got some notion of how you’re feeling. And even if your mom busted you, she’s not going to make a federal case out of it.”

  “No,” Delice agreed, “but I am going to ask you to hand over all your stuff, and I’m going to get rid of it.”

  “I know,” Jerry Jeff said, reaching in his back pocket, pulling out a rolled baggie full of dried green vegetation and setting it on the table. “I figured you would. This is all there is, I swear it.”

  Delice picked up the bag, opened it, took a whiff, nodded. “You haven’t been doing any other drugs?” she asked.

  JJ shook his head. “Just weed. I know people who do all kinds of stuff, but I’m not into it. Seriously, Mom, you’ve gotta believe me.” Mr. Skittles, toenails clicking on the kitchen floor, approached Jerry Jeff and then sprang into his lap. Kitten sympathy.

  “What other drugs do they do?” Delice pursued.

  The boy looked troubled. “Probably anything you can think of, and some things you never heard of.”

  “How do they get it?” Sally wanted to know.

  He looked at her as if she were an idiot. “How do you think? Look, I don’t want to get anybody in trouble. Let’s just leave it at me, okay Sally? I gave my mom everything I have, and I promise not to do it again. Isn’t that enough?”

  “All right. We’ll leave it at you. Where’d you buy this lid?” Delice zipped the baggie closed and put it back on the table.

  And now, for the first time, the boy looked like he was thinking about crying. “Do I really have to say?”

  His mother took his hands. “Yes, honey, you do. I need to know.”

  He looked at the table, struggled with his composure, and ultimately lost. One choked sob. Silence. They waited. When he raised his eyes, Sally thought she’d never seen anybody look that unhappy. “I bought it from Monette.”

  Sally and Delice exchanged anxious glances. Neither was surprised, but it wasn’t reassuring news. “When?” Sally asked.

  “Last weekend. She met me out at the fairgrounds.”

  Too far to walk. And Scotty had said that Monette’s car wasn’t working. “How did she get out there?”

  “A guy drove her.”

  Sally had some sympathy for Scotty Atkins—JJ wasn’t giving up any more than he had to, one morsel at a time. Then again, Scotty himself wasn’t exactly Mr. Tell-all. “Who, Jerry Jeff? Who drove her?”

  “Come on, it doesn’t matter . . .” he tried.

  “Forget it, JJ. It does. I’ve had just about enough teenager crap. Who was with Monette at the fair-grounds?” Delice said.

  He mumbled the name.

  “I’m not sure I heard you right. Speak so I can understand.” His mother was beyond cutting him an iota of slack.

  “Adolph, Adolph Schwink, okay? I’ve roped with his brother Herman.”

  As Sally had expected. “Do you think she was getting her drugs from him?” Sally asked.

  Jerry Jeff shrugged. “She didn’t say. I didn’t ask. He was just there, kind of hanging around.”

  “Tell us exactly what happened. Everything, Jerry Jeff. And don’t make me have to drag it out of you one piece at a time.”

  He peeled another banana. “Okay. Exactly what happened.” He chewed a large chunk of banana, swallowed. “Could I get something to drink, Ma?”

  Delice poured a glass of milk and set it in front of him, scowling.

  “Thanks. So let’s see . . .” He looked down at the kitten, at his hand caressing its fur.

  “Stay on track, kid,” said Sally, sensing that his brain might be slipping out of gear. She gritted her teeth and pushed on. “What happened when Monette and Adolph came to the fairgrounds?”

  “Oh. Oh yeah. Well, it was last Saturday. I was out there getting some practice in, and checking out the stock. They showed up just as I was finishing. That guy Adolph was driving, a little red Japanese car of some kind—I didn’t pay too much attention. We went out to the parking lot out front, and sat in the car. Monette rolled a joint, and we smoked it. We got pretty wasted.” The milk had disappeared. Two banana peels lay flat on the table. Mr. Skittles was asleep. Jerry Jeff eyed an apple in the fruit bowl.

  “Keep going,” said Delice, handing him the apple.

  He took a bite, chewed, swallowed. “Well, then they wanted me to show them around, so we kind of wandered around the stock pens and the arena and the waiting areas and all that. I don’t remember, exactly. We were pretty messed up.”

  Sally was getting hungry watching him power through every edible item in sight. “All right. I want you to think hard, JJ. Where was your gear while you were showing them around?”

  He closed his eyes, concentrating.

  “Think!” his mother snarled. “Don’t just zone out on us!”

  He squinched his eyes shut tighter as he worked the apple down to the core. “Let me see. Okay, when they got there, I was sitting on the tailgate of some guy’s pickup. I had my duffel bag with me. When I went with them, I took it with me. Then we sat in the car. I was in front with Adolph, and Monette sat in back. At first I had the duffel on my lap, but after a while I put it on the backseat next to her.”

  “Was the bag zipped?”

  Jerry Jeff looked sheepish. “Er, actually, the zipper’s been broken for a while. I’ve been kind of shoving it together with safety pins. When I remember. It works okay.”

  “So Monette could easily have taken something out of the bag, yes?” Sally asked.

  “I guess so.”

  “Like your piggin’ string,” Delice added.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “And she could have just stuck it under the seat while you weren’t looking?” Sally’s turn.

  “She could have.” Apple finished.

  “And then, when you all finished smoking the joint, you picked up your bag and took it where?”

  “Hmm. Give me a second. Oh yeah, since they wanted to look around, I went to put it in the contestants’ locker room, but it was all locked up. So I ended up sticking it inside the VIP lounge.”

  “The lounge wasn’t locked?”

  JJ thought about it. “Nope. Usually it is, but sometimes, when there’s a lot of traffic in and out, they leave it open. There were a bunch of committee guys out there that afternoon, doing stuff to get ready for Jubilee Days.”

  “Do you usually leave your things in the lounge?” Sally asked.

  “No. Generally I put everything in the locker room, but I already told you it was locked. But Uncle Dwayne was there, and he told me it was okay for me to leave the bag in the lounge, and pick it up later.”

  Chapter 22

  Fabulous Food and Toxic Waste

  Sally was just dying to tell him everything she’d learned that day, but when Hawk got home from Cheyenne, he had to call Molly Wood. Once again, no answer. Sally heard him leave the message: “This is Josiah Green. Molly, please call me as soon as you can.” Josiah. It made Sally grin.


  But Hawk wasn’t smiling. “I wonder what the hell’s going on out there,” he said.

  “She’s probably out by her pond, looking at ducks,” Sally said, trying to reassure him, but a little concerned herself. “Or maybe she’s visiting a friend, or buying groceries in town. Don’t worry. I’m sure you’ll hear back from her.”

  “Yeah, I guess,” he said, getting a can of club soda out of the refrigerator. “I’m going to go take a bath. I need to think.”

  Think. Okay. When absolutely necessary, Sally could manage patience. Living in such a small house, they’d learned, after quite a number of snarling exchanges, that there was wisdom in claiming and ceding each other as much domestic space as they could find. He sloshed in the tub. She sat in the backyard and played her guitar and gave her voice the kind of workout she knew it needed, getting ready for the gig the next night. Then the bath was hers. He weeded the garden. Both thought. She had to admit, it helped.

  And so they passed the time until they dressed to go out for the first decent meal they’d had all week. She wore a slinky black dress, high-heeled sandals, the gold drop earrings he’d bought her for her birthday, the emerald ring her mother had left her. He wore a black silk shirt, black jeans, polished boots. They gave each other the once-over and smiled. Tonight we’re settin’ the woods on fire.

  Downtown Laramie looked like the governor had declared Wyoming Pedestrian Day. Most of the strollers wore cowboy hats, and many were a little unsteady on their stacked-up, slope-heeled boots. The bars were hopping with people hanging on after happy hour, and the restaurants had lines out the doors. Out on Old Ivinson Street, Sally and Hawk picked their way among revelers carrying plastic to-go cups that smelled like Coors Light and Southern Comfort.

  Most people navigated pretty well, but there were those who didn’t, with mixed results. A compactly built blond staggered into a chunky baldy with his name burned into the back of his belt, and it was true love. A tourist in shorts and fanny pack stumbled against a Harley, and the owner, in sleeveless leather vest and greasy jeans, objected. But before the objections became too strenuous, one of Laramie’s finest intervened, reminding the motorcyclist that Jubilee Days was a lot more fun for people who weren’t incarcerated.