I exit the bathroom, find my jeans strewn across the floor on the other side of the room and put them on. There’s a bottle of whiskey in the kitchen cabinet that I take with me outside. I hop out onto the fire escape and take the rickety, black-iron steps up five flights before I get to the top where a dark red door gives me access to the roof of the building.
The view from up here is fantastic. The city is spread out beneath me like a wet slut waiting for my dick. Twinkling, bright, and ready to be conquered. Fucking glorious. I bring the bottle to my mouth and take a swig and then another, washing down the bad taste in my mouth with the sweet burn of good whiskey. I set the bottle down in front of me on the floor. Searching inside my back pocket, I take a cigarette and my lighter out of the box. Three turns of the spark wheel puts fire at my fingertips. I light the cigarette, bring it to my mouth, and take a long drag of nicotine into my lungs. My exhale releases noxious fumes into the air.
Picking the whiskey bottle back up, I head to the edge of the building and take a seat over the ledge. Ten stories up doesn’t seem like a high enough point to plummet from. Relax. I’m not going to jump. Although I’m sure there’s a hundred-mile long list of people who’d be too happy to see me kiss the pavement. Now I ask you, what kind of person would I be if I gave them the satisfaction? Besides, I’m too much of a sadist to contemplate suicide. I enjoy my self-imposed hell. I can feel my demons beating against the impenetrable walls of memories I’d sooner forget. Persistent little fuckers. Another swig and a drag of smoke into my lungs doesn’t work in washing away that taste of self-loathing. The contempt is stomach acid crashing against the jagged edges of my emotions.
What the fuck brought this on? It can’t possibly be because I just treated Grace no better than my own personal cum rag. That’s me daily. Asshole is my first, middle, and last name. I sigh, close my eyes, and they pop right back open again when an image of my dad flashes in my mind. I laugh. But it lacks humor. Yeah, we’re not doing this shit tonight. Strolling down fucking memory lane isn’t something that’s going to happen.
I’m off the ledge in seconds. The climb back down to the fifth level of our apartment is a short one and the instant I enter, I find Dro sitting on the ratty couch in the living room. The naked blond girl with the tattoo sleeve and septum piercing sitting on the floor rolling up little plastic bags of grayish-white powder is Dro’s girl, Wynn. She’s been in and out of his life since he took me in two years ago.
I frown, muttering, “When’d you get in?” He wasn’t here—I glance at the watch on my wrist, thirty minutes ago when I left.
“Been here.” He’s lost in concentration counting the bills in his hands. There are already four stacks of wrinkled cash on the coffee table, along with seven small sandwich bags filled with weed. Three 9mm Glocks are set next to an empty box of latex gloves. Looking at the mess surrounding Wynn on the floor, the fingers on the gloves she’s cut up have been thickly packed with the newest product. SKY. A scientifically modified version of ecstasy on crack. It sold great with the high school and college crowds. Weed is still the number one seller but SKY is gunning in at a very close second. SKY is where the money is right now. With the twist of the top and pull into a knot, Wynn sets down the last lump onto the small mountain she’s created before moving on to her next project.
The large, silver tray is topped with heroin. The box of starch, bottle of baby powder, and can of Ajax are a clear indication the batch on the tray has already been cut.
“You put on a hell of a performance, Maxie. Maybe you and I should get in front of the camera. Give you a taste of a real woman.” She looks up at me with a leer, and her half smirk is teasing.
Finishing off what’s left of my cigarette, I flick it outside the window. “Let me know when you find one.” I head to the kitchen to put down the nearly empty bottle of whiskey.
“You little shit.”
I chortle, “Yeah…that seems to be the consensus.” I should get that tattooed on my ass. “What do you got for me, Dro?”
“Got a runner. Baz in Dresden Heights has been skipping out on me. Two months, no payments. We’re tracking him down tonight.”
***
Going after a runner is going to put things back in perspective. It’s exactly what I need to get rid of that little bit of conscious that wanted to pop up earlier. Runners are unpredictable. It’s either a hit or miss with them. From what I know, Dro has ten dealers working under him, including myself. Of those ten, I know of three who’ve skipped out on paying Dro his cut since he took me in. From the beginning, he’s taken me along to see how this part of his drug business worked. The dirty part. The part that’s all adrenaline, pain, and blood. I’ve seen him gouge an eye out with a hot spoon. Sick curiosity has me wondering what sort of creative torture he’s going to use this time around and whether he’ll let me participate.
Ten minutes later, we’re out of the apartment. He left Wynn inside. He told me once to never trust a bitch. Apparently this one is different. Guess she’s the sort of pussy who’d take a bullet for her man. Fucking stupid if you ask me. We take the gray concrete staircase down to the first floor. There’s a perpetual stench of piss, vomit, and other bodily fluids that hits you the instant you round the last staircase and head to the back of the building. You get used to it after a while.
“Take your truck. Got business in Dorchester I gotta take care of after.”
A little TLC over the last few months has my Chevy purring like a kitten. It’s still a piece of shit though compared to Dro’s souped-up, old school black Mustang. I follow behind him, weaving in and out of lanes until we jump off the expressway ramp and take the Dorchester exit. It’s the next town over from Trenton. We park a block away from the row of red brick buildings standing tall against the night sky. Walking side by side, we don’t talk. It takes us roughly ten minutes to get to the second building. When we enter, we head straight for the elevator. There’s a family waiting. A mother and her two children. One looks to be around ten while I’d put the other one around my age. Once the elevator doors open, Dro and I step inside. The family doesn’t follow. The mother holds onto her younger child and while the older kid moves to get on, she whips her arm out to stop him from taking another step.
“Coming?” Dro’s inquiry sounds like a threat. He’s a big guy. And standing at 6’4 with a bald head and half his face covered by a chest-length full beard, he looks intimidating as fuck. He’s not quite as decorated with tattoos as I am, but the Hannya mask covering his bald head is disturbingly frightening at first sight. There’s also the fact he’s carrying a crowbar and impatiently tapping against his left leg waiting for an answer.
The mother shakes her head. “We’ll catch the next one.”
A shrug comes off from his massive shoulders. “Suit yourself.”
A very small part of me appreciates her oldest son’s glare at us, and I smirk back at him as the elevator doors close shut. It smells like curry and BO in the hallway of the twelfth floor we get off on. Not pleasant, but I’d take this smell over piss and vomit, any day. The green door at 12D is a little dented up, like someone took a baseball bat to it. At the cock of Dro’s head, I slightly lean against the opposite side of the doorframe while he stands a little out of sight of the peephole positioned in the middle of the door. He doesn’t immediately barge in like I assume he would, but gives a courtesy knock. Three slow, but firm, knocks that’ll alert the fucker we’re here. No big surprise when he’s met with silence.
“The fuck you knocking for?”
Instead of answering, he gives another knock, “Baz, you’ve got sixty seconds to clear your little girl out of the room before I get inside.”
The bit of shock I experience at Dro’s show of compassion in wanting to spare this little girl the sight of violence that’s about to take place quickly disappears at the sound of muffled crashing inside. That spurs Droski into action. Wedging the flat head of the crowbar between the jamb and the knob, it takes him three hard, forc
eful jerks of his hand before the door pops open. Honestly, I could’ve been spared the fucking sight of Baz’ lily-white ass trying to climb out the window. There’s another man present and while the lower half of his body is relatively covered by a bed sheet, it didn’t take much at all to see the outline of his dick. Still hard.
“Jesus, fuck.” I give him a wide berth as I make my way inside. Dro has already run ahead of me intent on grabbing Baz before he makes it out of the window. The apartment’s tiny. Nothing unexpected there. It smells like booze, sex, and cigarettes. I take a quick inventory of the place. Next to the ashtray on the coffee table are three white lines of what I can only assume to be coke. The doors to the bedroom and bathroom located across from each other have been left partially open. There are water stains on the ceiling, slowly bleeding down to the walls that had probably been white once. There’s a cigarette-burnt, green shag carpet that’s supposed to hide the heavily worn linoleum flooring beneath. Seated on the shag carpet in front of the TV that’s a throwback to the 90s is the little girl Dro wanted cleared out of the room.
There’s a cartoon on; some overly pink girlie show with ponies and castles. Something I’m assuming would’ve ordinarily grabbed her attention. But instead, her brown eyes are fixated on the all-too-real scene playing out in front of her. She doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t react. But the array of emotions flying across her face is all too familiar. There’s sadness there and confusion mixed in with fear. But it’s the dominant emotion, the anger gleaming in her rich brown eyes that stirs a memory from a past I can’t exorcise.
***
Don’t fucking cry.
Don’t make a fucking sound.
Those are the only two thoughts circling around inside my head. I have maybe a few seconds to breathe before I hear the whistle of the whip carve through the air. My body tenses and my teeth clench as my fingers ball into fists at my sides so tight from the strain that they appear bloodless.
Crack!
A sharp, sucking breath that’s more a gasp than breathing tumbles out from my dry, cracked lips as my back arches away from the force of the impact. The blow of the whip brings on an explosion of pain, but it’s the tiny hooks attached to the four black leather straps that makes it excruciating. The hooks claw into the wounds that are already there, tearing open the skin on my back while scraping down to raw flesh. When they’re tugged free, taking slivers of skin and blood with it, I fall forward. My hands reach out in front of me, the stiffness of my bruised arms is the only thing keeping me from cracking my head open on the concrete floor. The sweat covering my body is like salt slowly seeping into the gashes. It hurts like fucking hell.
“Look at your brother, Noah. Look at what you’re doing to him.” The voice of our tormentor taunts my brother. I hate that voice, and more than anything else, I hate the man it belongs to.
“All I asked was that you touch him. It’s not like you haven’t done it before.” There’s a short, humorless laugh. “You’ve done plenty of very bad and very dirty things to each other.”
“Cau-cause of you…you…sick fuck…” I should’ve anticipated the kick that slams into my side, sending my beaten body crashing to the ground.
“Every time you tell me no, this stupid little dog is going to get hurt. You already know this, Noah…”
“Don’t…don’t you listen…don’t listen, Noah…he can’t do shit to me…” It hurts to talk. Hurts to breath. It hurts to fucking blink. What I want more than anything right now is my mom. She’d make the hurt go away. I’d curl up on her lap. She’d pet my hair and hum a song. I’d listen to her sing and die peacefully on her lap. That’s the only thing I’ve ever prayed to God about. Not that he ever listens. But that’s what I’ve always wanted. To die in her arms. To be taken away from this hell and the demon who rules it.
But that hasn’t happened yet. Mom is one suicide attempt away from a mental hospital. No one is listening to me pray because it’s as if God doesn’t exist. No one is going to save me and Noah. That’s why I can’t pass out. He’s got nobody but me. I can’t leave him alone in this. And I think…I think Dad’s coming close to breaking him. That’s why I always try to draw Dad’s attention to me. I can handle it. When he’s beating the shit out of me, he leaves Noah alone.
The heavy thread of approaching footsteps is all the warning I get before beefy fingers fist through my hair, gripping a handful, and tug me up so that I’m dangled from only that hold, my toes barely touching the ground.
“I’m going to make sure that an ocean liner can cruise through your filthy little asshole when I’m done with you, dog.”
I’m shaking. The pain feels like it’s coming from every pore on my body, but the anger gives me something to focus on. It’s a pitch-black pit centered right at my core. With one eye swollen shut and the other barely open to see much, I stare up unflinchingly into the dead eyes of Satan himself.
I scoff, “I’m only twelve and my dick is bigger than yours, fucker.” I spit out the mucous-filled blood that lines my mouth.
He sends me sailing through the air. My body lands with a sickening thunk against the oil burner. He takes one, two, three giant charging steps toward me, barreling down with all the force and power of a two hundred and some odd pounds man subduing a child.
“NO! Dad. No! I’ll do it! I’ll do it! Please! Please let me do it!”
I can’t hear Noah over the sound of my flesh tearing as our dad makes good on his threat. I can’t hear my twin begging and crying anymore because my screams are too loud.
“AHHHHH!”
The scream brings reality back into focus as the slivers of the dark memory blur away. It’s the little girl fighting and screaming as dick-sheet guy pulls her father into the room and slams the door closed.
Even with the barrier of the bedroom door closed, the muffled “I want my daddy!” can still be heard. “I want my daddy!” she cries again. It’s a high, screeching sound that coincides with her father’s tortured scream. Looking over to the side, I see Dro raising the crowbar and slamming it down on Baz’s right kneecap. He does it again and again, like he’s hammering a nail into wood. All there is is the screaming. So much fucking screaming. “Daddy! Daddy!”
“Shut the fuck up or I’m going to blow your daddy’s head off!” Can’t stand kids.
Silence. Fucking golden.
Approaching Dro, I’m quick to realize his method isn’t going to get the job done any faster. All the goddamned screaming is bound to get someone to call the police, sooner or later. I don’t want to be around if they decide to make it sooner.
Drawing the SIG from the back of my jeans, I close the short gap between us and send the butt of the gun crashing against Baz’s face. “Where the fuck is it?”
Residual shit from my latest memory develops into blazing anger. I can’t see straight. All I want is to beat something to a bloody pulp. I press the gun to Baz’s temple. I’d settle for shooting him, too. “Talk, or I pull the trigger.” Serious as fucking cancer, I take off the safety, my finger poised at the trigger. There’s a silencer attached to the barrel. No one will hear anything.
“I…shit…okay, man, okay. There’s…there’s four grand in the back of the freezer, inside the waffle box.”
“And my product?”
Looking at his sniveling, red face makes me want to pull the trigger. I want him to say there’s nothing left. I want Dro to give me the signal. Pull the trigger. Shoot him. I’m itching. I look up at Dro, but he’s focusing on Baz.
“Fuck, Dro…fuck, man…I’m so fucking sorry, man. I…I have some left. I had to try it…my baby, Felix, he asked to try the new stuff.”
Through clenched teeth, Dro asks, “Where is it?”
“Bathroom…in the toilet. I put it…I put it inside a latex glove, like you showed me, Dro. It’s inside…inside the tank.”
When Dro cocks his head toward the bathroom signaling that I should go get it, I want to tell him to go get his own shit. I don’t want to be t
he goddamn errand boy right now. But I don’t say shit, mainly because I have enough respect for him to keep my mouth shut when it calls for it. Can’t lie, it takes me a good minute or two to withdraw the gun before slowly stepping away from Baz. With the SIG at my side, I make it to the bathroom. Removing the lid from the tank, I set it down on the sink counter before returning to look inside. Bobbing on top of ice-cold water is a tightly packed pale yellow latex glove. Much as I want to shoot Baz dead for no other reason than he annoys the fuck out of me, I have to give the idiot props on knowing how to store SKY. I exit the bathroom with the wet glove in hand, and Dro anticipates my throw and catches the glove before it falls to the floor. Next, I head to the kitchen where I find a white Whirlpool fridge taking up what little space there is. Still sporting my gun in one hand, I use the other to pull the freezer door open. There’s nothing in there aside from gray freezer-burnt meats well past their expiration date. I keep looking. The box of waffles is behind an empty, white ice cube container. Two bundles of rolled-up cash falls into my hands when I tip the box over. Just for good measure, I look back inside, thinking maybe the remaining two rolls are stuck frozen on the inside of the carton.
Nothing.
Dropping the box, I rifle through the freezer, careless of the dry, frozen meats that fall to the floor in loud clacks. Unrolling the elastic bands, I quickly count each roll as I make my way back to the living room.
I hand Dro the cash. “He’s short two grand.”
“Where’s the rest of my money, Baz?” Dro’s been pretty calm through all of this. Mr. Unflappable. He prefers putting his actions into words rather than displaying them. The number he just did on a weeping Baz is proof of that.
“Look, man…look, just give me a week…a week and I’ll pay you back. I’m good for it, Dro. You know that.”
With a grin, I say, “Let me shoot him.”
Baz’s eyes bounce from left to right, looking first at Dro and then me and then back again. Like he’s wondering if Dro will let me put a bullet in his brain. The anxiety and fear on his face gives me a rush. “I’m good for it! Please, man…come on, Droski, man…my little girl is in there. Please don’t fucking kill me, man…”
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