by Tim Meyer
Gotcha, girl, Jarvis thought.
The chick was dopesick.
-3-
Twelve Years Ago
Curled up like a lazy dog on a hot afternoon, twenty-two year old Jarvis Mott fought the chills, sweats, and surging pain all at once. He battled hard but the sickness was all too much, breaking him down minute by minute, hour by hour, until he wanted to gnaw on his own brain. His skin froze like a sheet of ice, yet the blood beneath burned like a dragon spitting fire into his veins. His heart hammered like in the middle of a rigorous fuck, but Jarvis hadn't been lucky, not since Christi broke things off and eloped with his best friend to Texas, or Arkansas, or some other state where they wore cowboy hats and herded cattle. Apparently she got clean and found Jesus. Great for her.
Fuck it, Jarvis thought as he squirmed beneath the sweat-soaked bed sheets, dying. If it were one symptom, he could have endured. But all three? No way Jose. Not the big three. He figured it wouldn't be much longer until he opened his wrists with the box cutter he had “borrowed” from work. The bastard gleamed at him from the corner of his nightstand. He wondered which cut would bleed out fastest: horizontal or vertical. He'd heard arguments from both sides, but never had the balls to see for himself.
He managed to remove the sheets away from his face. His joints ached and burned while goose-flesh populated on his sweaty arms. He closed his eyes, hoping the nightmare would end. When he opened them, another nightmare appeared, this one taking the shape of a concerned mother, his mother, the one who volunteered at the local church, never missed a Sunday service in the last forty-nine years, and watched Mel Gibson's The Passion of Christ at least once a month. She peered over her thin-rimmed glasses, panic assuming control of her face.
“Jarvey?” she asked. Hearing the childish nickname, he wanted to hide. Jarvis thought they'd all call him Jarvey in Hell, one of the main reasons he hadn't ended his suffering. The other was—deep down—he wanted to live, wanted to see himself clean again. The Big Three tested reason two. “Jarvey, sweet Lord in Heaven, are you okay?”
“Y-yeah, Mom,” he said, teeth chattering. “F-fine. Thanks f-for asking.”
“You look like death,” she said bluntly.
Feel like it, too, you wench.
He didn't hate his mother, but she annoyed the living piss out of him. Pops too, although he could talk baseball with the old man when he wasn't reading Bible passages or watching that Joel Osteen character give squinty-eyed sermons on the boob tube. It seemed the only thing mother wanted to talk about was how many cans of soup she donated to Father Scandrick's monthly food drive.
“Did you call out of work today?” she asked.
“Yup.” Speaking hurt. So did existing at this point, but the box cutter seemed like a mile away and it had lost its charm.
Mother put her hand on Jarvis's forehead, retracted it immediately like she had burnt it on the stove.
“Oh Jesus and the Gospels, you're burning up!”
Don't be so dramatic, he opened his mouth to say, but the words came out garbled, an unintelligible mess.
“What?” she asked.
He waved her off like a king to his plebeian jester.
“Oh, is that the thanks I get for being a concerned mother?” she asked, expecting an immediate answer. Instead, she received the usual eye roll. “Well, this is the second time this month you've gotten the flu, and it's not even flu season yet.” She squinted, suspicious of something foul. It was an odd, unfamiliar look and it hit him where it hurt the most.
Does she know? How could she? I've been so careful...
“Something you want to tell me, Mister?”
Go away...
“A mother knows when something is wrong with her baby...”
Get the fuck outta my room!
“Just sick, ma,” he said. “Something's...” A few coughs for dramatic effect, “going around the office.”
She flared her nostrils, catching a whiff of bullshit. Standing up, she shrugged in defeat.
“If you ever need to talk,” she said, making her way slowly toward the door, “I'm here. I'm your mother, remember? You can tell me anything.”
She offered him a way out and the smart thing would have been to take it. But he couldn't. He wouldn't take it. There were consequences. Always consequences. He'd done too many awful things over the years. Telling her such meant facing those consequences to the end. He'd confess to everything—the stolen cash from work, the unexplained shortages from the family vacation jar, the robbery of the Drive-N-Dine Christi and he pulled last month—and all for what? A chance at redemption? No. Forgiveness? Of course not. Truth be told, there was no way out. Only consequences. Some worse than others. Now he had to decide which consequences he'd rather endure.
“I'm fine...” he said. Cough, cough to seal the deal.
She turned down the hall.
The next ten minutes dragged like Sunday morning mass. Joints ached. Muscles burned. And the hunger for methamphetamine jumped his bones.
Fuck it.
That's what it came down to.
Fuck it.
The only conclusion Jarvis could draw.
Fuck it all.
It was time to feel good again.
FUCK IT.
He scraped himself together, dressed for success (a hoodie and jeans), stumbled down the hallway and into mother's room, raided her jewelry chest, and booked it to the nearest pawn shop.
-4-
They paused to rest and regroup near the highway overpass. Below, many cars littered the streets, forging a trail away from a small town, where many had attempted to flee. A nearby sign read “Mooreville”, a place no one in the group had heard of. Minutes later, the sound of commotion coming from within reached them. They listened to the shouting. People. The faint sound of harsh words carried in a soft breeze. Fighting. The wind further revealed the severity of such. Killing. The echo of gunfire fell upon their ears.
Without hesitation, Sam sprinted forward. By the time Tina and Bob took hold of him, he already had one leg over the guardrail, determining which vehicle to break his fall on.
“Sam!” Tina shouted as she wrapped her arms around his shoulders.
He swung his other leg over the edge. “Let go of me!”
“Not happening,” Bob said. He took a firm hold of Sam's left arm.
“That could be them! They could be down there!”
The others considered the possibility amongst themselves while Bob and Tina brought Sam back. More gunshots rang out in the distance.
“You're going to get us killed,” Brenda snapped as she rejoined them.
Bob stepped between them before more fireworks launched. “Everyone calm down.”
Matty crept over the guardrail, peering out.
“It's not them,” Matty said.
“How do you know?” his father asked.
“They'd be much farther by now.”
“You don't know when they left. They could be there. In trouble.”
Matty closed his eyes, shaking his head for the second time. “We know approximately when they left. And unless they crawled, they'd be much farther. At least two days. I know we've been pushing hard, but if I had to guess, Soren's been pushing them harder. We're nowhere close.”
Sam gazed upon the rooftops and listened. The gunfire was fading. He moved closer and strained his eyes. A yellowy-orange glow danced from one residence to the next. Within minutes, black smoke billowed out from the town's four corners. His view became obscured as the group raced in front of him to witness the inferno. Slowly, he found a seat on the pavement and rested his head against the concrete barrier. He had seen enough.
“I'm fine,” Lilah said in a low whisper, as soft as a breath.
“You're not fine,” the group heard Jarvis tell her. “You're sick. Really sick. And it will only get worse.”
She rolled her eyes and turned her back.
“Hey!” he said, reaching for her shoulder.
Before he could
lay a finger on her, Matty was between them, brow furrowed and ready for answers.
“Whoa, little man,” Jarvis said. “I'm concerned about your girlfriend here.”
“She's not my girlfriend,” Matty said. “And what's the matter with her?”
Lilah tugged on his sleeve. “Come on, Matty. The guy is talking out of his ass. Don't listen to him.”
“I know what's going with you. You do too. Don't pretend like it's not happening,” Jarvis said. “That would be unwise.”
“Will it be unwise when I put my foot up your ass, bro?” Lilah asked.
“Nice mouth, girl,” Chuck said, applauding her.
“Shut it, Chuck,” Jarvis said. “I'm serious, Lilah. You need help.”
“Fuck you!” she screamed and turned away.
Matty took off after her, but not before shooting Jarvis a nasty look.
“What the hell was that all about?” Chuck asked.
The group faced Jarvis, awaiting an explanation. He hung his head and rolled a few rocks beneath his sneaker.
“Forget it.”
Although they were quiet, the expressions on their faces clearly made it known they wouldn't. As they turned from him, Jarvis reached down and grabbed a stone with a sharp edge. He walked over to the sign and scraped the stone against the metal. The ear-pulling screech startled the group.
“What the hell are you doing?” Chuck asked.
Jarvis stepped back and tossed the rock aside.
NO
MOOREVILLE
the sign now read.
No one disagreed.
“Wait!” Matty said, running after her. “Lilah, wait!”
She stopped at the end of the overpass. She turned around and he abruptly stopped. He bent over and put his hands on his knees, catching his breath.
“What was that all about?”
“He's a dick.”
Matty tilted his head. “Come on. You can't fool me.”
She knew he was right. She couldn't fool him, nor could she trick the rest of the group. And it would only get worse. Much worse. She couldn't deny what Jarvis suspected, not forever.
“I don't want to talk about it. Please,” she smiled, although it looked more like a painful wince.
“Okay. What should we talk about?”
Lilah shrugged, dropping her smile and all other emotion.
“What's your favorite movie?” Matty asked.
“My favorite movie?”
“Sure. Mine is The Day After Tomorrow. I know it's not, like, the best in terms of story structure and the writing is kind of iffy in some parts, but it's fun. I can watch it over and over again and not get bored. So what's yours?”
Lilah thought about it, glancing up at the moon and the trillion stars crammed into the midnight sky. “I don't know. Seven, I guess.”
“The one with Brad Pitt?”
“That surprise you or something?”
Matty cackled. “I thought you'd say The Notebook or something.”
She squinted as if trying to spot a distant object. “Listen, mister—growing up with two brothers didn't allow me to have many girly hobbies. So wipe the smirk off your face if you know what's good for you.”
“Listen, I love Seven. Classic movie. Doesn't get enough attention as it should. Plus, the ending? Come on. Perfect. Absolute—”
“And Chimichangas from Bienvenido's. Love them.”
“Huh?”
Lilah jerked her head back and forth. “You know what I mean? The best.”
“Lilah...”
Her eyes shifted. Her mouth twitched.
“You don't smell that?” she asked. “That's crazy! We used to eat there all the time when we were kids and God it smells like salsa, the sweet and spicy kind.”
She lost her balance and stumbled sideways, but she caught herself before Matty reached her. He grabbed her shoulder, and she squeezed his.
“Carp...” she said.
“Carp?”
“Why'd you let him touch me, Carp.” Tears filled her eyes, dribbling from the corners. A drop ran down her cheek, leaving a wet trail in its wake. The moon made the path sparkle. “Why did you let him touch me, Carp. Goddammit, why did you let him?”
She stumbled to one knee. Matty called for help, but the group was already running toward them.
“You're going to be okay, Lilah,” Matty promised. “We'll get you help.”
Puke exploded from her mouth, and splashed the pavement.
“I really did like the pink dress better, Daddy,” she said, her pupils lolling before disappearing behind her fluttering eyelids.
Matty wrapped both hands around her body as she convulsed. The violent seizures continued as he corralled her head against his chest and screamed into the night.
-5-
ELEVEN YEARS AGO
“Careful, skinny-boy,” the juice-head on the couch warned. “Dat some good-ass shit.”
Jarvis, wearing sunglasses and a hoodie in a dim room with no air-conditioning in the middle of July, looked at Juice-Head sideways. He tossed him the money and looked down at the bag of crystals. They had a purple hue to them, and Jarvis wasn't sure if it was the way the drugs were manufactured or the odd light of the room. Could be some good-ass shit, he thought, or it could be bath salts.
“Better be careful,” Juice-Head said again. “Dat's dat good shit. Fuck you all up. Make you see stars, the moon, Jupiter and Uranus, you know.”
“Yeah,” Jarvis said, “I know.”
“Good, now get the fuck outta here.”
Juice-Head went back to weighing his inventory and appropriating them into little clear baggies. When Jarvis didn't move, he looked up, continuing on with his daily duty.
“Did I fucking stutter, skinny-boy?”
“No, sir. Just thought you could tell me how to get the fuck out of here. Not from Newark. Wouldn't know one street from another.”
“Do I look like a fucking map to you, motherfucker?”
No, you look like a big bald, no-dick, steroid-abusing motherfucker, motherfucker.
“No, from here you don't look like a map.”
“Good. Then you heard me. Get the fuck out. You paid, now get the fuck out.”
Jarvis turned and headed for the door. A few minutes later he was on the streets of Newark, after dark and in the wrong neighborhood. Hoodlums on the corner pretended to hold a knife fight, stabbing the air between themselves, calling each other names like, “Young Blood” and “Young Crip” and other monikers Jarvis had heard before and never understood. He knew getting his suburban white-boy ass out of there was paramount. He hustled down the street, feeling the hoodlums' eyes following him. They called to him, said something like, “Hey, yo, white boy! You forgot something!”
He took off running and found his car a few blocks down. He didn't know if the hoodlums were following him because he never looked. He ran. And fast. As quickly as his under-worked legs would carry him.
He slipped the car key into the lock and popped open the door. The hoodlums were seconds behind him. One of them reached for something in his shorts and Jarvis was sure it wasn't anything pleasant. Jarvis ducked into his rusty Oldsmobile and cranked the engine. He expected the bitch to fail. That's usually how things went in Jarvis's fucked, shitty life, but the bitch roared and he threw her in gear instantly, peeling out of the parking space. He waved his middle finger to the hoodlums and they fired shots in reply, which hit nothing as far as Jarvis could tell.
Before he reached a safe, comfortable road he had been familiar with, Jarvis opened the baggie on his lap. He surveyed the side streets for cops, but cops rarely patrolled those streets unless called. Driving with his knees, he packed his pipe full of crystal and and put his lighter to it.
“Good shit,” he mumbled to himself, his eyes shifting back and forth between the road and his hot pipe. “That's all these fuckers say anymore. My shit is good. This shit is good. Fucking heard it once, I've heard it a thousand times. This stuff be the hotness and
all that whack bullshit—fucking assholes.”
Smoke curled before him and Jarvis placed his lips on the glass and inhaled. He closed his eyes and the smoke grabbed his lungs. Much to his surprise, the dealer was right. Dat's good shit!
“I'll be dammed.” He blew the smoke out, a cloud appearing before him, fogging the windshield. “Motherfucker was right. That was some good-ass shit.” He didn't wait long to take another pull. The second time around was even better than the first.
He navigated through the ghetto fine, honking at pedestrians and laughing because they looked like characters from the Candy Land board game he played as a child. At some point the road turned into a rainbow and the apartment buildings towering on both sides of the road took the form of giant gumdrops. He laughed and returned to the pipe for thirds. Thirds were better than firsts and seconds combined.
He laughed some more.
As the drug turned on him, he slowly realized something was amiss. The shit was too good, and Jarvis considered the grave possibility that Juice-Head laced his bag with something he didn't pay for. When no semblance of the real world remained and all he could see was gumdrop mountains, candy corn hookers, and gingerbread death machines, he knew it was time to pull over and ride it out. But here? In the middle of downtown Candy Land? The gummy bear people and candy cane animals would rip his skinny-white ass apart and eat him alive. No, he had to press on. Muscle his way through this. Follow the Rainbow Road and get the fuck home where he could ride this nightmare out in the safety of his own bed.
He convinced himself he'd make it when three Twizzlers appeared before him, screaming and throwing up their red licorice arms. Jarvis knew if he stopped, the Twizzlers would tear him to Reese's Pieces. So instead he hammered the gas pedal and drove through them. The licorice liquefied on his windshield and Jarvis drove a few more feet blind, until his car hit something solid. His head smashed against the steering wheel and the light of the world blinked.
