by David Joy
Wayne untied the bandanna from his face and shoved the rag down the back pocket of his jeans. The crystal had started to deepen the shadows of his face, a fast-paced hollowing of features that uncovered a man’s skeleton. He’d always been wiry, but the dope burned off any lean muscle he’d ever had and now he was as scrawny as a gutted squirrel. Even his pile of greasy hair seemed too big for his head. The motor-oil-speckled jeans cinched tight to his waist had at least four inches to give, and the WrestleMania shirt he wore with cut-off sleeves damn near swallowed him.
Wayne hit the power on his stereo, a Drive-By Truckers album Aiden hadn’t heard in ages coming over the speakers. “Have a seat,” he said, slapping his palm against a coffee table by the couch before he disappeared into the back of the house.
Wayne came back into the living room with a half-filled ziplock bag, at least an ounce of yellow crystal coarse as pea gravel. He tossed the bag onto the coffee table the way a man might toss his car keys, and slid a stamp-sized baggie from underneath an ashtray. When others stopped by, the bags were already filled, and Wayne swapped them fast for crumpled wads of cash. But he’d known Thad for a long time and for whatever reason trusted him, almost seemed to look up to him, especially once Thad came back from the Army. So Wayne always weighed what Thad and Aiden bought in front of them.
He brought out the big bag of higher-grade dope he usually saved for himself. There was no reason in the world he should have believed Aiden and Thad any different from the others, but Aiden thought, in that line of work, a man might be searching for at least one friend, one person he believes won’t slit his throat, and, for Wayne, that was Thad Broom. Aiden would’ve dug Wayne’s grave in a heartbeat, never even thought twice, but Wayne’s dope was as clean as any shake-and-bake meth coming out of Jackson County, so Thad made Aiden promise to keep his hands to himself.
“How much y’all want?”
“A hundred a gram?” Thad asked.
“Got to be a buck twenty.”
“One twenty? You hear this shit, Aid? Skinning us.”
“Anybody else’d be one fifty.”
“That ain’t my problem.”
“And it ain’t mine whether or not you find that other twenty.”
“Just a gram, then.” Thad looked to Aiden as if he might give him the okay on buying two, but Aiden wasn’t ready to drop all the cash they had. It was hard enough to save anything, but there was no telling when the next payday would come.
Wayne swung his rag of hair out of his eyes and shoveled crystals into the baggie with a plastic spoon. He shook a little back out, flicked the corner of the bag till the shards settled, eyed it, sealed it, and tossed it onto digital scales.
“Why you weighing that shit in the bag?” Thad hollered.
“Why you always asking questions?”
“I ain’t trying to buy plastic bags.”
“Bag’s a gram. Dope’s a gram. Ought to weigh two.” Wayne pointed down to the scales where numbers bounced back and forth between 2.2 and 2.1 on an illuminated blue screen. “A cunt’s hair heavy, if you ask me.”
“Heavy my ass.” Thad reached down and snatched the bag before Wayne could even think of shaving it back.
Wayne laughed under his breath, reached over, and killed the power on the scales. “Do a rail right fast?”
“Out of your bag, we’ll do as much as you want.” Thad counted out six twenty-dollar bills and handed them over. “What you say, Aid?”
Aiden nodded and Thad tapped out half the bag onto the table. He drew his billfold from his back pocket, slid his expired license from a sleeve, and started to mash crystal into powder beneath the card. Aiden watched him closely as he ran the butt end of a cigarette lighter over the top of the card, crunched shards into dust, and when it was ground as fine as he could get it, he cut the dope into two lines.
“That ain’t enough to cook a toad,” Wayne said, then spooned more from his bag and piled it between the lines Thad cut. “Divvy it up.”
Thad went back to grinding, pushing, and turning the butt end of that lighter like he was milling medicine with a mortar and pestle. Aiden studied him as he raked the pile into three rails and scraped each across the table till they all had a thick trail of dope carved in front of them. Wayne snatched a straw from the table, slid his sodbuster from the side pocket of his jeans, and snipped the straw into thirds with the knife blade against his thumb. They each took a straw, Wayne counted down, and when liftoff came, they bowed like a family in prayer and walked their noses straight through dope as fine as broken glass.
The crystal burned them all the same, lit spot fires like a drip torch in each of their noses, and Aiden cleared his throat loudly with his eyes bulged to try and snuff it out. Thad howled over speakers rattling the Drive-By Truckers’ “Puttin’ People on the Moon,” and Wayne sparked off the couch with his head jerking from side to side.
“Got something you boys got to see to believe,” Wayne yelled before he shot off for his bedroom. “This shit’s going to blow your minds.”
Aiden’s mind was already blown, running sprint car laps around the dirt track of his skull, when Wayne Bryson popped out of the bedroom with guns strapped all over his body. There was an AR-15 assault rifle aimed downward from his chest in a military sling, the black grips of a pistol peeking from his waistline, some long-barreled stainless revolver shoved in his belt and dangling down his leg like a machete, a pistol-grip pump shotgun in his left hand by his side, and some skinny carbine rifle he balanced against his hip and aimed toward the ceiling.
“Ready for war!” Wayne screamed at the top of his lungs. “Goddamn Booker Branch Rambo!”
Thad was laughing hysterically as Wayne stood by a doorway right next to where a bar split the living room and kitchen, then waddled toward them with his legs bent wide so the pistols wouldn’t slide loose from his waistline.
“Where the hell’d you get those?” Aiden asked.
“Scabs’ll steal anything.” Wayne swung the shotgun up and tossed it Thad’s way. “I’ll take a gun over money any day of the week.”
Thad snatched the shotgun out of the air, shouldered it, and stared down iron sights like he just might blow off the bottom halves of Wayne’s legs. The gun seemed some natural extension of his body the way he handled it. He yanked back on the pump and a shell flipped into Aiden’s lap. “Might ought to tell somebody there’s one in the chamber.” He slid forward and yanked again, pumped till there were no more to give. There were six shells scattered across the couch, three red and three yellow.
Dope had a way of running Aiden’s mind full of some of the clearest thoughts that ever lit in his head, and right then his mind fired those thoughts from a Gatling. His mind thought things and saw things a second before they happened, and trying to make sense of it made his muscles twitch.
“Buckshot and slugs,” Wayne said. “I always go with the buckshot first. What you think, Mr. Broom?”
“I think I could do a lot of damage in close quarters with this thing, but in the long run I’d take that AR.” Thad reloaded the tube, racked it on the fifth to make room for the last shell, and set the shotgun on the grimy carpet. Wayne drew the long-barreled revolver from his belt and laid it on the coffee table, but Thad couldn’t leave it alone. He seemed to find something humorous about the size of the weapon and picked the revolver up, waving it over his head, hollering, “Nobody move!” before bursting into hysterics.
“Smith .500,” Wayne said. “Dirty Harry ain’t got nothing on that.”
Thad pulled the hammer back just a fuzz with his thumb and spun the cylinder like a little boy playing with the wheels of a toy car.
“You ever seen one of these?” Wayne asked, and shook the tactical rifle that he held down his side. “This Kel-Tec folds plumb in two. I’m talking you could shove that son of a bitch down your britches.” Wayne pushed down on the rear of the trigger gu
ard and folded the barrel back over the stock, and the skinny rifle doubled in half. He placed it on the coffee table in that fashion, then pulled the pistol from his waistline and settled one hand on the grip of the AR. “But you’re right about this AR. These two, now, these two are my babies. This here’s the Colt my daddy carried in ’Nam.” Wayne raised the pistol and pointed it center mass on Aiden’s chest.
“Don’t point that thing at me!” Aiden rose off the couch and had split the distance between them before Wayne’s eyes even focused. Aiden’s thoughts were coming clear. He was seeing the future.
Wayne flipped the barrel toward the ceiling. “Calm down, Aiden. Ain’t nothing in the hole.” He hit the release on the side and the magazine fell to the floor. “It’s empty.”
“You point that thing at me and I’m going to shove it down your throat.” The dope had Aiden all funny and he was losing control quickly. The world was speeding up and speeding up and he was just about to kick it all into oblivion. Thad was still just laughing.
“Just calm down. Ain’t a thing in it.” Wayne cocked the hammer and raised the pistol to his temple. “See?” He pulled the trigger and the far side of his face blew off. A thrash of blood, chunks like grayed hamburger, let loose across the room. His arms dropped to his sides, his right hand still clenching the Colt, and he held there for a second or two before he toppled stiff as a tree face-first into the coffee table, rapping the bridge of his nose on the way to the floor.
Thad jumped up from the couch with his hands up around his face. “What the fuck just happened? What the fuck just happened?”
“Cocksucker blew his brains out! He blew his fucking brains out!” Aiden tilted his head so he could see around the coffee table, then kicked at Wayne’s shoes, Wayne’s bottom half trembling. “He’s deader than hell! I’m telling you, that motherfucker’s deader than hell!”
Wayne Bryson lay there with his gnarled face flat on the floor. His body blew a slow foam of bubbles where the hollow-point ripped apart his left brow. His mouth was slightly open. His eyes were closed. Blood pooled around pieces of him the same pale yellow hue as thrush.
“We need to get out of here, Aid.” Thad started panicking, yanking his head every which way, looking everywhere to try and make sense of something that had happened as fast as a balloon popping. Thad snatched the crumpled twenties he’d paid Wayne from the table and shoved the money in his pocket. He grabbed the bag of dope and that long, shiny revolver, settled his eyes on Aiden with his jaws sawing back and forth. “We need to get the fuck out of here.”
Faster and faster, the world was cooking now. Aiden followed Thad out the front door, knowing there wasn’t a thing he could do to stop it.
(5)
When Aiden’s father pulled the trigger, his head seemed to follow that bullet as it passed through the roof of his mouth and then the roof of his skull. His head slapped back violently and his body collapsed beneath him like some invisible puppeteer had pulled a knife and severed the strings to the puppet. Aiden figured that’s how it always happened, but now he knew differently. Wayne Bryson stood there for a second or two, just stood there, head drooping with part of his face gone before gravity got the best of him. Felled him like a goddamned tree.
“I’ve never seen nothing like it,” Thad said. “I’ve seen some fucked-up shit, but in all my years of living, I ain’t ever seen nothing like it. Have you, Aid?”
“No,” Aiden said.
“I mean one second he was talking, and the next second that shit blew out of him like he’d sneezed. That gun went off and his brains . . .” Thad shook his head like a madman. “Fucking chunks, I’m telling you.”
Thad rocked on the couch in the living room of the trailer. He kept standing up and rubbing his hands down the thighs of his jeans like he couldn’t get the sweat off his palms. He yanked the cigarette he smoked out of his lips and flicked ash in a spasm, tapped at the filter until bits of burning tobacco peppered the carpet around his feet. Then he plopped back onto the couch and hot-boxed another two or three drags, stood up, and repeated that series of movements over and over. Up down, up down.
Aiden’s mind already ran faster than he could stand, and all of Thad’s jumping around poured gas on the fire. Aiden’s brain ran so quickly that there seemed to be a sound to it, a low ringing in his ears like feedback. He already wanted to come down, but there wasn’t any hope for that. He hated the way crystal made him feel, but it never stopped him from snorting it or smoking it or anything else so long as there weren’t needles. Time and time again, he’d get down, and when that mood hit him he’d do anything to feel different, any kind of different, anything at all.
Loretta Lynn was on the couch beside Thad, her straw-colored coat almost camouflaged against the fabric, and she kept nodding her head, panting, and sniffing like she thought the jig Thad danced was for her amusement. When the cigarette had burned down to the filter, Thad scooted to the edge of his seat and smashed the butt into an ashtray on a round plywood table that centered the room. The table was the size of a tractor wheel, an empty conduit spool Thad and Aiden salvaged from the scrap pile of a construction site.
As soon as they’d come inside, Thad dropped Wayne Bryson’s bag of crystal and his long-barreled revolver on the tabletop, and now he was on his hands and knees digging a pinch of meth out of the bag. He patted his back pockets for his billfold and threw it onto the table when he found it. He scanned the room, slapped his hands against his chest with his eyes squinted, like he was trying to find something. A thought seemed to light in his mind and he jumped up and stomped through the trailer into his bedroom.
Staring at the ounce of crystal on the table, Aiden knew right then he needed to take that shit and run. His mind had gone mad, but he understood two things. He knew that the dope would be Thad’s end. He knew that if there was no running out, there’d be no coming down, and that could end only one way. But he also knew there was at least twenty-five hundred dollars in that bag, and that amount of money could be the start of getting off that mountain, so he moved quickly. He came out of his chair, swiped the dope, and was to the door in one clean motion, but even that was not quick enough.
Thad came back through the kitchen with a small glass pipe to his lips. His cheeks swelled as he blew into the stem trying to clear resin left from whatever they’d smoked last. Aiden had one hand on the doorknob and the other holding the bag, and he froze when their eyes met.
“Where the hell are you going?” Thad asked. He had a metal clothes hanger unwound and ran the straightened end in and out of the pipe a few times before blowing again to see if he’d cleared the clog, a slight whistle sounding from the steamroller.
“I’m going to run out to the car right fast,” Aiden stammered. He hoped Thad hadn’t seen the bag, and from his question, Aiden didn’t believe he had.
“Hurry up,” Thad said as he circled the wire inside the pipe. And about that time Aiden heard the glass crack. The steamroller was broken in Thad’s hands and he stared at what he held as if he couldn’t believe what had happened. He reared back and shattered what was left against the wall, screamed “Goddamn it!” before stamping back into his bedroom. But Aiden didn’t stick around to see what came next. He was already out the door and gone.
• • •
AIDEN DIDN’T SEE HER when he hurried inside and rushed to the bathroom to hide the drugs. He was flat on his back on the tile floor with his head in the cabinet, trying to balance the bag of crystal on the trap under the sink. When the dope was hidden, he shimmied out and discovered her hovered over him. Seeing April there caught him off guard, and he hammered the back of his head against the edge of the cabinet in surprise.
“What the hell are you doing?” April asked. She was wrapped in a navy-blue robe, and from where Aiden lay he could see that she didn’t have anything on underneath. Her hair was pulled into a ponytail, one blond sliver of bangs cutting across her stare.<
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He scrambled from the floor and they were chest to chest as he tried to back her out of the bathroom. “Nothing.”
“Sure as hell ain’t nothing,” she said. The two of them were wedged in the doorway. She glared like she might be able to decipher the riddle from the way he looked at her. “Tell me what you were doing under there.”
Aiden stuttered a lie about checking to see if the pipe was leaking, and not one word of it sounded believable because what came out was jumbled and his eyes looked like they were going to pop out of his head. She was just about to scoot into the bathroom and check for herself when the front door slammed against the living room wall.
“What did you do with that bag, Aiden?” Thad met them as they came out of the hallway. He stood barrel-chested out of breath with Wayne Bryson’s revolver white-knuckle tight in his hand. April started to scream about the gun and what Thad was doing in her house, and he told her to shut her mouth without even glancing to where she stood. “Answer me, goddamn it!”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Aiden said. He had his arm stretched across the hallway so that April couldn’t pass, and Thad came forward, raised the pistol, and pressed the barrel straight into Aiden’s forehead.
“You’re going to tell me what you did with it.” Thad cocked the hammer with a look in his eyes that said he was seconds away from pulling the trigger.
“You better get that goddamn gun out of my face,” Aiden said.
“I ain’t doing nothing till you tell me what you did with that bag.”
“Thad, I’m telling you, if you don’t get that fucking gun out of my face I am going to beat your brains out with it.” Aiden could feel the rage building inside of him, and it was one of the oldest feelings he knew. Those who had known his father said that Aiden’s mother had been cheating, while others simply said she’d had her fill of his shit and was ready to leave, but the real reason didn’t matter. What mattered was how Aiden’s father had snapped. It was that unshakable volatility that carried into Aiden. It was that spark-away-from-burning-the-world-down that had always scared him to death, and he was almost there.
