by Mann, Marni
He carried me into the room across the hall and laid me on the bed. The shades were closed and he didn't turn the light on. His hands took off my pants and shirt, and I was left with only my bra and underwear. I hadn't showered or brushed my teeth in two days. I hadn't shaved in weeks. And I didn't give a fuck.
But before heroin, I had cared. When I'd dated Cody in college, I always dressed in cute outfits and underneath, a sexy pair of panties and matching bra. I'd shower, shave, and lather my body with fruity scented lotion before I'd go to his apartment. I'd brush my teeth as soon as I got up in the morning so I wouldn't scare him off with my breath. Even when I'd kissed Casey, I had gum in my mouth to hide the cigarette smell.
Raul's lips grazed my body. His tongue ran down to my thighs and climbed back. His fingers rubbed my crotch, and I could feel him inhale my smell. And all I thought about was how good I felt.
The scent of the condom and his candy-flavored breath were oddly delicious. His mouth tasted tart like Starbursts. The shot was making me crave sugar again, and if I wasn't going to reach an orgasm, at least I got to taste his candy.
Raul didn't kick me out in the morning. He told me I could stay as long as I wanted, and when his friends came over, he left me alone in his room. He kept checking up on me, bringing me food and movies to watch, and refilling my syringe. I didn't know why he was being so nice. It wasn't like I was special or prettier than the other girls I'd seen hanging out here.
When we moved out of Abdul's hotel, we left behind most of our clothes, and we'd been wearing the same outfit for three days. Que gave us money to buy some new clothes so we went shopping. We each got a couple shirts and a pair of jeans and then we stopped at a bakery for chocolate cupcakes.
On our way home, we passed a library. There was a sign by the door that said: Computer classes, 2-4 p.m. daily, free to the public.
My cell phone showed it was only noon.
I pointed at the library. “I need to go in there for a sec.”
“For what?” Renee asked. “You gonna check out a book?”
“I want to use their computer.”
She said she'd wait for me outside, but I had to be quick. Her stomach was upset and she needed to shoot up again. We'd shot up just a few hours ago. It seemed like her stomach was upset more than not.
I found the computers along the far wall of the library and got online. I typed in Eric's full name, but only football articles came up from when he played in high school. There wasn't an obituary or any articles about his death. I guess his parents couldn't have an obituary printed or plan the funeral until the autopsy was completed and his body was shipped up to Bangor.
I walked through the middle of the library this time, but stopped when I saw all the kids. Groups of three were sitting on the floor and one kid from each group was reading out loud. Their teacher was sitting at a table close by, watching each group and taking notes.
“Switch,” the teacher said. The kids, who were reading out loud, passed their book to a different kid in their group. They were young, kindergarten or first grade, and reading from lesson books.
A little boy, in the group closest to me, got stuck on a word and raised his hand. I started to walk over to the boy, but the teacher stood and went to his side, so I didn't. She helped him sound out the word and then the boy asked what it meant.
“Class, can any of you tell me what the word believe means?”
A bunch of kids raised their hands, and the teacher called on a little girl.
“Believe means to know something is true,” the little girl said.
“Very good, Mona,” the teacher said. “I'll give you a star if you can put believe in a sentence.”
“I believe my cat has fleas,” Mona said. She scratched her arm and all the kids laughed.
“Nicole,” Renee yelled. She was standing on the opposite side of the reading group, close to the front door.
The kids and their teacher turned towards Renee and then to me.
“What the hell is taking you so long?” Renee said, too loud. “I told you I wasn't feeling good.”
The teacher's lips were pointed in a frown. “Never mind them, class,” she said.
Some of the kids looked away and the rest kept their eyes on me. The ones who stayed had scared expressions.
They thought I was scary?
But in my head, I was wearing the long patchwork dress, standing in the front of the group, holding a notebook full of assignments, and they were calling me “Miss Brown.” I had taken them on a field trip to the library, helping them with vocabulary and overseeing their reading lesson.
“Let's go. Now,” Renee shouted.
But I wasn't their teacher. I'd been wearing the same clothes for three days, my hair was greasy, and track marks covered my bare arms.
I believed heroin was pumping through my veins. I believed Renee was sick because she needed another shot. I believed I'd be sick too if I didn't do one soon.
“I'm coming,” I said and followed Renee through the door.
Renee said we should ride out Que and Raul's offer to stay at their house for as long as we could. She didn't want to go back to sleeping in the park. She said she needed to be close to a bathroom since she was still getting sick a lot. I thought I could give Raul what he wanted for a while. He was keeping me well fed.
What he wanted was sex—all the time. It was like he couldn't get enough of me and, in return, I couldn't slam enough of his dope. Right before he was about to come, he'd whisper strange shit in my ear like how he wanted me to be his boo and how I was all he could think about. He said he'd wanted me since the first time we met, but whenever I came to his house, I was always with Eric. Raul said I looked happy with Eric, so he never pursued me. I didn't correct him either. I was happy when I was with Eric, but that was in the past.
Being someone's girlfriend sounded like a lot of work, and besides, dope made me lazy and emptied all my emotions. But at the same time, I liked being with Raul. He was tender when I needed him to be and gentle when my crotch was sore. He listened when I bitched about my parents, which was every few hours because that's how much they were calling. Michael was calling too.
News of Eric's death had finally gotten out in Bangor, and my parents were crazy over it. They were acting like the cops with all their questions. I told them Eric and I had drifted apart. He'd been hanging around his co-workers who were a bad crowd, and they'd gotten him into drugs. I never said the word heroin when I was on the phone with them. It was sacred like when people said gosh instead of God.
By the end of each phone call, I had them believing my lies. But within a few hours, they'd call back with more questions. They wanted to know why we were staying in a hotel at the time of Eric's death, and I said our apartment was being treated for bugs. They'd bring up the rape and how much I had changed since it happened. They tried to use my weight loss and acne, and my weird behavior at brunch, as signs I was on drugs. I repeated the same excuses: I was running every day and working too much, and was still getting over the flu when they'd last seen me. I told them I'd never even smoked pot, let alone stick a needle in my arm. They didn't call me a liar, but I could hear concern in their voices.
To get them off the phone, I'd tell them I was at work. Raul would have a shot waiting for me, and before I hung up it was already in my arm.
Tim called a week later. He said Eric's funeral was in two days. I asked if I could crash on his couch and if he'd pick me up from the bus station, and he said yes to both. When we got off the phone, I went into Que's room to tell Renee.
“Can I go?” she asked. “I need a break from this place.”
I didn't know if she was talking about Que's house or Boston. And why did she need a break? She hadn't gone back to work, and she was getting all the smack and food she wanted for free. I thought we had a pretty good thing going on, and I wasn't sure if I even wanted to leave.
“Can you cover your bus ticket?” I asked.
“I'll get the m
oney.”
“What about dope? We'll be gone for a couple days.”
“I'll take care of it… for both of us.”
I went back into Raul's room where he was waiting for me naked in bed.
“I'm taking a trip,” I said and climbed in next to him.
His lips moved over my chest and down my stomach, and then his head disappeared under the blanket.
“Mmm… Where we going?” he asked.
My needle was lying on the nightstand, full and ready to be shot. I reached for it, but I was too late. Raul's head surfaced and he moved on top of me.
“I have to go home for a few days.”
He moved in and out of me. But there was something different about it. His dick was warm and there wasn't any chaffing.
“You're not going anywhere,” he said and devoured my mouth with his.
It was the condom. He wasn't wearing one. And I wasn't on the pill.
Fuck.
Fuck it. It was too late, he was already inside me. And since I'd been slamming so much dope, a baby wouldn't have a chance of surviving in my body.
“Can you lean up a little?” I asked.
I slapped my arm and fisted air since I couldn't get off the bed to grab my belt. He didn't stop, but he gave me enough room so I could stick my vein.
“You're mine,” he said.
My eyes closed, but I could still feel him and hear his breath coming out in moans.
Was I his? As long as he kept feeding me, I guess I was.
CHAPTER NINE
Renee came through as promised. She got the money for the bus ticket and enough dope to keep us high while we were in Maine. Raul gave us a ride to North Station and bought me a one-way ticket. Before we boarded, he lifted me up in his arms and kissed me goodbye. He told me he'd miss me and would purchase my return ticket as soon as I was ready to come home. If he bought me a round trip ticket, I'd return to Boston, but that didn't mean I'd return to his house. That was his way of controlling when I came back to him.
I wasn't sure if I'd miss him the way he was going to miss me. He didn't give me that tingly feeling in my stomach. Raul did have free reign of my body, but he didn't have my heart. His drugs did.
It had been two years since I'd left Bangor, and when the bus pulled onto Main Street, so many memories hit me at once. We drove by the Bangor Auditorium where my high school graduation was held, and the Bounty, where we went clubbing because it was the only place in town that didn't card at the door. We passed the Bangor Daily News, where my dad worked. He used to bring me there as a kid to do his filing and photocopying.
We got off the bus with our backpacks and climbed straight into Tim's car. He drove through town and everything looked exactly the same. The ground had a light dusting of snow, and the sky was overcast, which gave the buildings and houses a grayish tint.
My favorite store, The Grasshopper Shop, and our Friday night hangout place, the Wig & Courier, were both still there. There was a line out the door at The Coffee Pot, which made the best sandwiches in town, and I saw Jeffrey, my old hairdresser through the window of The Cut Hut.
We passed Eastern Maine Medical Center. That was where my old roommate, Katy, had taken me the morning after the rape and where the doctor had told me what those bastards had done to me. The rape—that was why I'd left Bangor in the first place. Why did I come back here and re-open all these memories? Eric was dead and his funeral was in the morning. Shit. I needed to get high.
Tim lived in a small one-bedroom on the top floor of a converted house. When we got inside, he asked if we wanted to smoke a bowl, and I said we would after we cleaned ourselves up. Renee and I went into the bathroom and ran the faucet so he couldn't hear us. We did a small shot to get straight again, but not too high. I didn't want Tim to know I was using heroin. In high school, we'd smoked hash and opium together, but smack was different. It was the drug that wasn't talked about to people who didn't use.
Tim smoked us up after we mainlined, and it wasn't long before people started showing up to his place. He had said some of the regulars were going to stop by, but I didn't expect a party. The old gang from high school was all here.
Time must have stopped in Bangor. Everyone looked just the same, and Tim told me they were all still dating their high school sweethearts, still working at the mall, and living at home with their parents. Anyone could see I wasn't like them anymore.
Didn't they want better? Bangor was a sad place. There was fun to be had out in the world, and it didn't involve hanging out at Tim's and sleeping in the bedroom you grew up in.
There were at least fifteen people there already, and I heard someone say more were on their way. No one greeted me with hugs when they came in. They said hello and then completely ignored me. I caught stares and snide looks like they didn't know what I was doing here. Maybe they were just surprised by how thin I'd gotten, but that wasn't a reason to blow me off.
Tim had bought a case of beer, and Renee was helping herself, pounding one after another. I'd never seen her drink before, but tonight she was sucking them down. And it wasn't just beer, she was hitting every joint that was passed to her. The strongest drug in this apartment was weed, so I was hitting the joints too. Tim didn't hang out with pill-heads or the kids who did blow. I wished he did. Renee said a speedball—mixing blow and dope—was a crazy rush.
We were all huddled in the living room, and Emily, Eric's ex- girlfriend from junior year, handed me a water bong. I took a hit, and just as I was passing it to Renee, Emily asked me about Eric. The room turned silent and all eyes pointed at me.
“What do you want to know?”
“Did he really die from a heroin overdose?” she asked. She wrinkled her nose when she said heroin, like the word grossed her out.
“That's what I heard,” I said.
“You should know, you were living with him,” Tony said. “So you had to have seen it happen.”
What did they want from me? A confession? They needed someone to blame for his death and because I was here, that person was me.
“I have a job,” I said. “So no, I wasn't there when it happened.”
“Were you?” Emily asked Renee.
“Nope, I was at work too,” Renee said.
Wouldn't they love to know Renee saw the whole thing and to keep herself out of jail, she waited to call 9-1-1. But I'd never tell them that, just like I didn't tell the cops Renee was lying when she gave her statement.
“Eric was addicted to heroin and neither of you knew?” Tony asked.
Both Renee and me shook our heads. I didn't need to convince them I was innocent. These people didn't mean shit to me, and what fucking difference did it make? He was dead. Couldn't they just leave it alone?
“They're lying,” Emily said. “You can't live with someone and not know they're shooting up drugs.”
“Look how thin she's gotten,” Frank said and pointed at me.
“You were doing heroin with him, weren't you?” Ryan asked.
I couldn't take this anymore. I needed to get out and find a quiet place where I could shoot up.
I told Tim we were going to get something to eat and we'd be back later. He said this wasn't Boston, and everything closed at ten. We left anyway. We walked down Broadway and stopped when we got to the park. Broadway Park was the one place in Bangor where I didn't have to hide. There was something about the trees, and flowers, and benches that made me feel like I was back in Boston. Maybe it was because it looked so much like our park, Boston Commons.
Screw this place. And screw Eric too. I never should have come back here, and if it wasn't for that asshole dying, I never would have set foot in Bangor ever again. I was better than all those people at Tim's apartment. In fact, they wanted to be like me, living in the big city and away from my parents. And what was waiting for me in Renee's backpack was fucking perfect.
In the middle of the jungle gym, between the slide and wobbly bridge, was a cubbyhole, and we climbed inside. With our legs crossed,
we both fit comfortably and used the light from the full moon to guide the needles into our arms. During the nod that was usually filled with warmth and beautiful pictures, I had a flashback of my last night in college.
Katy and I had arrived at Washburn Apartments for the yearly rager the complex threw to celebrate the beginning of spring. Of course, in Maine it sometimes snowed until May, and this year was no different. The ground was covered in fresh powder, and the temperature was dipping well below thirty degrees. We'd spent hours getting ready to look our cutest for Cody and Katy's boyfriend, Brandon, but the night wasn't kicking off like I had planned. My jacket hid the shirt I'd bought just that morning and my new boots were pinching the crap out of my toes.
Cars were parked on both sides of the road and on the snow- filled lawn, and the three parking lots were full. There had to be over five hundred people there already, and somewhere among them were our friends we were meeting. The boyfriends had all gone to Portland to watch the Sea Dogs game and weren't due back until midnight, so we had a few hours to catch a buzz.
Katy and I found the nearest keg and stood in line to buy a cup.
“Having fun yet?” a voice said in my ear.
I turned around and my friend Ben from biology class was standing behind me with three full cups in his hands. He handed one to both Katy and me.
“Thanks, Ben, how'd you score these?” I asked.
“My goal is to get all the pretty girls drunk tonight.”
“Well you got any bud,” Katy said. “You might as well get us high too.”
Ben was never without weed, and sometimes we'd buy from him when our regular connection was dry.
“Come with me,” he said with a big smile.
We followed him towards a row of townhouses and stopped when we reached the front steps of his apartment. He pulled out a blunt from his pocket and passed it to me after it was lit.
