Fiend

by Peter Stenson

  Maybe Maddie’s telling him they should go to KK. Maybe he’s saying she’s the key to me, as soon as she sees who the fuck I am, it’ll be over. She’ll get everybody to turn.

  And maybe Typewriter is agreeing. He’s saying, Should see how pathetic he is without her. For a year straight, all I heard was KK this, KK that. Such a fag.

  I think I see them laughing.

  My best friend’s plotting against me.

  7:46 PM

  We’re eating rice, everybody but Maddie. He’s in his cell. We eat in silence and the weight is beyond heavy—the burden of utopia fallen. I catch Typewriter staring. He’s obvious in his backstabbing. Derrick shovels rice into his mouth. Randy’s good cheer is gone. He eats with his hands. A piece of rice hangs from his bottom lip. I reach under the table and give KK’s leg a squeeze. She pulls away. It’s like family meals when things first started to go bad, me at fifteen, suspensions and found joints, my parents not sure how to circle around the subject of my fuckups. We eat and pretend things are okay, wishing for everybody else at the table to choke.

  The hole’s huge now, Randy says.

  Where? KK asks.

  The garage. Gonna give, Type says.

  The cure doesn’t work, I say.

  No shit, Derrick says.

  Fucking kill me, KK says.

  Randy’s like, How about a little shot? He looks across the table at Derrick. Just something to take the edge off?

  Derrick pulls a Ziploc out of his jumpsuit pocket. There’s got to be close to two ounces in it. He says, Have at it.

  We stare and salivate and we know it’s his way of saying see what the fuck happens. Maybe it’s the fact that I shot up a few hours before instead of at seven in the morning like Randy, but I have a little sense, a little perspective. I tell Derrick to put it away. I say, We’ve got a routine right now, let’s not mess with that.

  Easy for you to say, Typewriter says.

  Derrick’s like, The fuck is that supposed to mean?

  Type shrugs.

  I want to kick him under the table and to pin him in his cell and tell him it was for his own fucking good, everything I’ve ever done, motherfucker would be dead without me. Instead, I say, The door’s fine. Plus there’s other doors, man, not like it’s a free shot in.

  Just because you pretend it isn’t a problem, doesn’t mean it’s not, KK says.

  It will hold.

  Not for long, Derrick says.

  And when the garage door gives? KK asks.

  Then we go out another way. There’s got to be some other exit.

  Through general population, Derrick says. Big Chucks, hundreds, if not thousands.

  I’m trying to figure out something that will appease their fears, some bit of excitement that will get Type the fuck off my jock, something that will give them a morsel of hope, because I know a junkie without hope is as good as dead. I picture the hole in the garage door. I’m remembering Maddie making us strip. I’m looking over his shoulder to the police cruiser. The fucking police car! It’s perfect. If it gets bad, like really bad, the Chucks about to break through, we pack up the lab and get in the car and gun it over any walking dead stupid enough to get in our way.

  I spit my plan out as it comes to me.

  Derrick nods his head.

  I tell them that we’ll get out of the city, head north, way north, middle of Canada north, hitting every farm for ammonia and pharmacy for ephedrine along the way. I talk about reinventing ourselves in wooden huts and booby traps and eating berries and we’ll reinvent the human species, some Garden of Eden shit.

  Jesus, just shut the fuck up for once, Typewriter says.

  I ignore him. He’s just one person. But the others, I see it over each of their faces—the formulation of a thought, a kernel of hope.

  Typewriter stands. He says, Can’t listen to this bullshit. So fucking done with the Chase Daniels show.

  And you’ve got a better idea? You want to step up for once in your fucking life and give a goddamn solution?

  He says, So fucking done with you. He turns and heads toward Maddie’s cell.

  I look at those of us still at the table. I say, Fuck him if he can’t get on board, because this shit here, this plan, it’s as foolproof as anal sex is to preventing babies.

  Those of us left at the table smile, even Derrick. KK’s dimples are back, the good ones, her being happy.

  9:11 PM

  I’m lying in bed. KK’s next door reading the fucking Big Book. Type’s still with Maddie. I’m a little freaked out because the giggles from down the hall seem to be even louder than usual. Plus, I’m picturing the garage door caving like chain-link fences around South American soccer fields. I have our real guns spread out, the ones that can actually kill. There’re two slugs in each shotgun. I have two shots left in the pistol. Six deaths, if aim isn’t an issue. Six get out of jail free cards. That’s it. There’s got to be at least seven Chucks in block A alone. Who knows how many in the mess hall. Hundreds or thousands outside of the garage. Six shots. Six rounds. Randy, Maddie, Derrick, Typewriter, KK, myself.

  The lights cut. There’s an instantaneous eruption of Chuck laughter.

  My first thought is that Nazi Derrick is trying to conserve power.

  I hold on to Buster and my pistol. Everything’s pitch black. I hear Typewriter from across the common room say, What the fuck? I place the pistol in the pocket of my orange jumpsuit, grip Buster’s stock.

  Now I hear Derrick’s voice, a bark: Who hit the lights?

  I know nobody touched the lights. We’re out of power. The grid has failed. We’re now in the dark ages. I wonder about candles and flames to cook meth and about toilets that don’t flush. I go out in the main room.

  Six shots. Six deaths. It’d be that easy. Saving the last people alive from a death worse than death.

  KK reaches out and takes my hand.

  All I can hear is the echoes of laughter. Darkness and laughter. I know KK’s imagination is the same thing—Chucks bashing down unlocked doors—because when we see a flicker of light, she screams.

  Maddie holds a lighter in front of his face. It’s the first time I’ve really taken a good look at him since the beating. His right eye is swollen shut, angry and blackening. He doesn’t say anything, just stares at me. The flame dissects his face and he’s scarier than any Chuck I’ve seen.

  The power grid, I say.

  Fuck me, Derrick says.

  Typewriter flicks his lighter. He stands a few inches away from Maddie.

  Need to go, Randy says, Christ, mates, we need to leave now.

  Fuck, fuck, fuck, KK chants.

  All gonna die, Maddie says.

  Stop, everybody, Derrick shouts. Shut the fuck up with that. We planned for this. Chase’s plan. It’s fine.

  Fine? Fine? Fuck, bud, half these locks are electronic, Randy says.

  Got the keys right here, Derrick says. He jiggles a chain and it sounds like a toy poodle. He says, Not electronic, that’s only in the pen.

  We’re quiet.

  Finally, Derrick says, We’re fine in juvie. Fine for the night.

  Bullshit, Randy says.

  Derrick’s right, I say. There’s nothing to do right now. We try to get out in this darkness, we’re…

  Dead, KK says.

  Dead, Maddie says.

  Derrick tells us to shut the fuck up. He says, We get up at dawn, take the cruiser, and get ghost.

  We listen to giggles and I think about the backup plan of a slug in each of our sleeping mouths.

  Derrick says, Get your personal shit together. We leave at five.

  He’s a shadow walking back to his cell. We stand there not knowing what to do. I feel a hand on the small of my back and it’s KK and her nose is giant even in the dim light and I take my left hand off Buster and put it over her shoulder and she leans into me, my armpit, my shoulder, my girl.

  All gonna die, Maddie says. He lets his lighter go to darkness. He says it again, All gonna die. />
  We stand there. None of us want to move away from the table, away from each other. Finally, KK and I walk to our side. She walks into my cell. I tell her I’ll be back in a second. I go over to Typewriter’s and he’s sitting on his cot with his lighter casting shadows on the white walls. I know he hates the dark. Kid slept with a night-light his entire life, right up until the moment we burned his house down. I know he’s scared. I know he needs me.

  Need to talk, I whisper.

  Don’t.

  I take a few steps into his cell and sit on the desk connected to the wall. I’m like, Dude, I’m not sure what you think I—

  Just stop, he says. Just fucking stop, Chase, heard your shit for years.

  Whatever you think you saw—

  I don’t think anything, bro. I saw you. I fucking saw you on the camera.

  Here, is this what you want? I pull out a little bit of scante from my sock and throw it at Type and I’m like, Fucking take it. Is that what this is all about? You just mad I didn’t give you a taste?

  Fuck you.

  Because I can remember a thousand times when you stole shit from me. From the Albino. How many bags you short in your life?

  Not the same.

  Bullshit.

  Not the fucking same and you know it, he hisses. He tosses the cellophane back at me. He stands and I reach for my pistol inside of my jumpsuit and I wonder if I have what it’d take to kill my best friend and he’s in my face now, the flame gone, just his hot breath and the whites of his eyes.

  Fucking loved you, he says.

  I know this is him saying he’s done with me and I’ve fucked up things beyond repair and this is him saying he looked up to me like a brother from the very first moment he made you holding? eyes at me on the bus and that it’s all gone now, everything changed, me, I’ve fucking changed, that’s what he’s saying—you’re not the person I loved, you’re not a person with a habit, you’re a junkie, the motherfuckers we never wanted to become, the kind who rob welfare mothers for their EBT cards—and this is too much for me to handle. So I laugh. I laugh into his face. I call him a faggot. I say, I always knew you wanted to fuck me. His inhale has an audible catch. I tell him he’s an ungrateful faggot, to have a nice sleep without his night-light.

  KK’s sitting on my bed when I get back to my cell.

  She chars a spoon. I feel like slitting my wrists. I’m about to ask where she got more dope, but she beats me to it, asking if I want to get spun. I tell her yes. I sit. Our shoulders touch. Boiling splice, things are finally good again between us. She asks what that was all about. I tell her Typewriter’s being a little bitch. She says, Fuck Type. I smile as she takes my arm and her fingers tickle as she strokes a vein and then it’s the pleasant sting of a needle finding a home and then she kisses my ear and pushes the plunger.

  Sucks, yo, KK says.

  The words hang in the cell. I don’t know if she’s talking about Typewriter or the darkness or our lives. She takes my hand. We interlock fingers. Mine are short and nubby, hers long and slender.

  Where are we going to go? KK asks.

  I squeeze her hand, tell her, North.

  North?

  Canada. Northwest Territories. Alaska. Someplace where there’s nobody. Where we don’t have to worry about any of this.

  Yeah, except some blubber-eating Eskimo.

  Take that right now. Better than this.

  Think it’ll work? she asks.

  Has to.

  No it doesn’t.

  I cradle KK’s head and kiss her lips. I take off her jumpsuit. Her skin is cold. I think about Typewriter. He’ll get over it. He’ll understand. He’ll know that everything I do is for him. I take off my suit. We press our bodies against each other and our ribs rub together like a wooden instrument. I’m hearing Type’s words, his saying he loved me, and I can’t shake the feeling it was a good-bye. I’m hard. KK puts me inside her and I start to move my hips and she tells me no.

  Huh?

  Not tonight.

  I think she’s joking so I give another thrust but she shakes her head and says, I just want to feel you. She kisses me, then rests her head next to mine, her nose in my nook, her pussy lips tight, and she whispers, I loved you so fucking much. My hand is on the back of her head, her hair, then her neck, and I feel the different texture of the tattoo. I wonder if she meant to use the past tense. I tell her I love her more than anything, but these words feel somehow not enough, never enough.

  MONDAY

  1:09 AM

  There’s noise from down the hall. KK and I are barely asleep because we’re a little spun and scared. In four more hours we’ll be out of this bitch into the great unknown. It sounds like something dropped, something metal. I grab the pistol from the floor and sit upright, tensed.

  What is it?

  You hear that?

  You’re tripping.

  Listen.

  We strain our ears.

  Lie back down, baby.

  But I’m thinking about the door to block A having caved, about the garage door being ripped apart, about block B, and the door to the mess hall. About it all caving and our cells filling with throngs of walking dead.

  I’m going to look, I say.

  Baby.

  It’s fine.

  No, don’t be fuckin’ stupid.

  Just stay here, be back in like two seconds. I lean forward, kiss the hump of her nose. I walk naked into the common room. It’s pure darkness. I bang my knee on the corner of a table.

  In the hallway, I keep my steps light and hold the pistol aimed at nothing.

  Step, step, stop, wait, listen.

  The giggles take over the silences. They occupy my rests.

  I jump when I hear a door close.

  I squint trying to make out shadows, movement, sound.

  The block B door is still closed and I realize the sound came from the other end of the hallway, from the door to command central, the booking station, and the door to the garage. As soon as I trace this path in my head, I understand what the fuck is going on. Derrick’s bolting. That’s why he wanted to wait until morning. He’s sneaking away like a little bitch motherfucker. This is as much a death sentence as putting slugs into our brains. I start to run. I throw open the door to central booking and then I’m trying to find my way in the darkness and I’m feeling desks and trying doors and groping the walls and I finally hit a metal push bar.

  The stairway is dark and I take the stairs three at a time.

  I’ll kill him.

  I run and I’m out of breath and the concrete is cold on my feet. In the garage I see a shadow putting shit in the cruiser trunk. He’s nothing but the vaguest of outlines. I’m about to yell, but part of me is like fuck that, this motherfucker’s bolting, leaving us for dead, so I flip the Glock around. I charge. I jump into the air and I’m the Air Jordan silhouette, only I’m naked and my stupid dick swings and my basketball is a gun.

  There’s a scream.

  There’s the cracking of metal against temple.

  He doesn’t moan or anything, just slumps over. I peer down. It’s not Derrick. It’s Maddie. I crouch real close and touch his face and my hand comes away soaked.

  The fuck?

  Please.

  Get up.

  Maddie struggles to sit. It takes him at least five seconds and then he leans forward, his head between his legs. I hear the pitter-patter of blood dripping onto concrete. I’m speechless.

  The fuck you expect me to do? he says.

  I don’t know what to say.

  I sit. Lean my head against the bumper of the car. The cacophony of laughter is earsplitting. Maddie’s blood on the concrete reaches my naked ass. The end of my sack dips in it. I replay every conversation I’ve had with Maddie over the last few days. The moments when I felt like some sort of connection was being made. My arm around his shoulder. Me thinking that he was just like I was. Me thinking that this kid looked up to me, was on my side. Me selling him out and the beating and him r
ealizing I was just another piece of shit who would do whatever it took to save himself.

  Just fucking kill me, he says.

  It’s a faucet, his wound. Maybe he’ll die from this. Losing too much blood or an infection. I’d swung as hard as I could.

  You did this, he whispers.

  Maddie as me. That had been my whole fucked-up fascination with him. Maddie as a kid who didn’t know his ass from his overcoat and a kid who was simply trying to not end up dead and he is me, both then and now, both of us doing what we can to survive. My eyes adjust a little. I see he has the lab broken down and put into the trunk. We’d have died without our ability to cook. He was leaving us to die. And then I’m remembering his creepy-ass voice in the darkened common room—all going to die—and it was premeditated, Maddie’s idea to run, probably heard us talking about the cruiser earlier, and of course he knew how to hot-wire a car because he was in here for grand theft auto. This was his only play—take on the world alone, leave the family that betrayed him to go through withdrawals and then death.

  I remember him backing away from Derrick, tears already starting, unable to comprehend my cruelty.

  And I want to apologize. I want to tell him it was a moment of weakness and fear—I was just fucking scared, man. I’m scared of losing everything I have. I’m scared of not getting what I want. I’m scared I will amount to nothing and I’m scared the doors will cave and six shots won’t be shit and I’m scared the baby hadn’t really turned and that Typewriter will realize he’s better off without me and I’m scared of KK because I know one day she’ll kill herself and then I’ll be alone, my real fear, all fucking alone.

  I’m sorry, I say.

  Maddie laughs. It’s wet from the blood pooling in his mouth.

  He doesn’t owe me his forgiveness. I know this. Nobody does.

  Get the shit over with, he says. He grabs my hand and pushes the pistol to his forehead.

  A single shot, any fear of Maddie exposing the real me erased.

  Fucking coward, he says.

  I’m thinking about Frank, about it being my money and gusto for getting high that led to his death. But this shit with Maddie is different. He wouldn’t be down here if I’d copped to stealing the splice. My direct actions forced his hand. I tell him I can’t. I can’t be that motherfucker. He says, You already are that motherfucker. I lower the gun. I stand. His blood runs down my nuts and onto my leg. I walk to the trunk of the police car and take out a canvas laundry bag full of lab equipment. Maddie clasps his hands together and starts begging between choking sobs. I tell him to come up when he’s done crying.