“Fine.” After two glasses of scotch on an empty stomach, he probably was too boisterous.
Since Madison had no intention of doing so, Damario left her for the bedroom designated as a coat room. It would be rude to leave without first announcing so to her guests, but doing so to the throng of revelers on the bottom level meant delaying the inevitable.
Madison never audibly mentioned the word “divorce.” It resided in her thoughts; his, too. Six years ago, both swore before God they would not be “that couple”; upper class blacks whose busyness broke the cords of matrimony. His parents were 33-year marriage veterans, but the Shenks and each of their four children – except Madison – had divorced, remarried, and divorced again. If Gene and Hilary had stayed together, Damario figured she and her sisters would be slower to pull the separation trigger.
He wandered through the elaborate home’s lengthy hallway, found a bedroom on the right with an open door, and entered.
“Lights dim,” commanded a female voice.
Under the faint glow, Damario recognized Kareza, who had shed her dress to the floor. In a revealing coral bra and matching panties, she closed the door and thrust herself onto him.
“What're you doing?” The scotch placed a time delay on Damario’s responses. He knew he should have pried Kareza’s body from his and left the room. However, he had yet to move as her body slithered across his.
“This was meant to be,” she said, smooching the exposed part of his chest above his cashmere v-neck sweater. “And yet, you continue to fight it. Don’t you believe in destiny?”
“Madison,” he said, attempting to move his leaden limbs.
“Ever think she wasn’t ‘the one‘? What if there’s someone else and you settled for second best?” Kareza stopped short of kissing Damario’s lips and planted his hand on her breast. “You tried to make your marriage work,” she said, breathing onto his lips. “You failed. Find glory in that attempt. Let the moment be the moment.”
Damario succumbed to temptation and kissed Kareza. He released all the pent-up excitement and fervor upon her mouth and at his hands, which roamed across her body. The pair breathlessly paused. Kareza reached behind her back to unhook her brassiere and backed towards the coat-covered bed. Damario stopped moving, sensing a presence behind him. He turned to see Madison trembling in the open doorway.
Unsure of how much she had witnessed, but certain she saw the topless vixen lying on the bed, he opened his mouth to explain. In one motion, she approached and slapped him. Kareza moved to the opposite side of the bed and gathered her clothes.
“Don’t!” She pointed a finger in his face and cursed him. “It’s exactly what I think, exactly what it looks like, and don’t tell me it doesn’t mean anything!”
Damario wiped the eggplant-colored lipstick from his mouth. Madison slapped him again and again until he gathered enough coordination to block her next attempt. At that, the couple stormed out, one after the other, into the chilly night air. By the time she had composed herself enough to authorize her entry to the Cougar, Damario positioned himself behind her.
“Were you going to sleep with her to get back at me?” She turned to him, her eyes bulging with rage. Kareza slinked unnoticed past the fighting couple. “That’s the plan – embarrass me in front of my subordinates?”
“There’s no plan. It just. . .happened. And you, I know that you. . .”
“You do things for reasons.” She huffed and cursed him again. “They don’t just happen. There’s planning, thought, logic. What were you thinking?”
“You haven’t touched me since June,” he exploded. “You get a period a week at a time. What about the other 20 weeks I’ve been waiting?”
“So, it’s the lack of sex. It’s my fault you can’t control yourself? That’s lame, Damario.”
The partygoers inside the house started counting down from sixty.
“Oh, so, I’m lame? And I can’t control myself?”
“Can’t you hear? What do you call a drunken hook up with the first woman you see? Let me break this down for you. Remember what Yvette does for a living? She’s a divorce lawyer. Monday morning, I’m making it official. This marriage is over. And for the record, I‘ve always been Shenk. I won‘t be Coley much longer.”
Damario shook his head and pounded his fists into the Cougar’s aluminum alloy shell. “You checked out on me a year ago when you started sleeping around behind my back.”
Cheers of “Happy New Year” rang from the house, followed by noisemakers and fireworks overhead. Her husband’s accusation halted her rebuttals and shook her insides. She retched pink spit onto the ground. What does he know?
“Does Yvette know you’re sleeping with her ex? Is Justin here, too? Is he inside? And that one at the hotel where we spent our anniversary? Who else?”
Madison cried uncontrollably. “I didn’t. . .”
“How many?” He had to know. “You laid the guilt on real thick for me, and we didn’t even do anything but kiss. How many guys, Shenk? Don’t lie to me.”
She sniffled and tucked her bottom lip in, as if to pronounce the letter F. Four, 14, 40, 400, it doesn’t matter. It’s too many.
Damario pushed Madison away, entered the Cougar, started it, and gunned the engine. She ran to the passenger side, but her husband locked the butterfly door and she could not steady her hand on the panel. As she finally held it still, the sports vehicle unevenly sped off down the road, swerving every dozen feet. Her heart skipped when he ran the stop sign on the residential road. Thankfully, no one in cross traffic hit him.
Alarmed, she dug through her pocketbook for her holophone. She yelled into it. “Emergency! My husband. . .he’s been drinking and. . .”
“Ma’am, what’s your location?”asked the human-sounding droid.
“It's a '51 platinum Cougar, license plate BMN-157,” she answered.
“Locating license plate Bravo-Mike-November 1-5-7 now.”
A couple of blocks away, a tremendous pop of twisting metal and shattered glass erupted.
Madison covered her mouth. Soon, a few exiting partiers surrounded her.
She dropped her Zara Hristoff handbag, kicked off her matching high heels, and ran barefoot down the street. God, just let him live, she thought: the closest thing to a prayer she had uttered since asking for breasts during puberty. Madison crossed the street without looking. I didn’t apologize. Would it have done any good? God, don’t let him be dead. She turned the corner. I’ll tell him everything. The accident scene came into focus. I should’ve gotten the door open. God, don’t let him be dead. . .The one time I needed it. . . I should have been there. . .I could have stopped him. God, don’t let him be dead.
She skirted the pools of broken glass and spilled fluids. “Damario!” He did not respond, and she could not see him through the broken door window. “Damario!”
The front of the Cougar had been wedged between a utility pole and the stone facing of a partial wall. The residents of the adjacent home remained on their porch but watched the events unfold with equal parts disgust and interest. Desperate to help him, she stepped onto the shattered glass and pulled the handle up with all her might. No amount of normal human effort on her part was going to open it. She tried until a man stepped forward and yanked the door up but not enough to untangle Damario’s unconscious body.
Madison reached in and placed two fingers at Damario’s neck. He has a pulse! The fingers she withdrew dripped with his blood.
Eternity passed between then and the emergency personnel arriving.
Medical droids freed him. But, while the Cougar’s safety measures had preserved his life, they maimed him in the process.
CHAPTER THREE
QUINNE
New Year’s Eve night, 2049
When the music abruptly paused at midnight, Quinne Ruiz heard nothing but the memories. The first two shots of Jameson did not vanquish them, nor did the following four. She vomited, buying herself five minutes of relief before the images r
esumed. A red-faced, 19-year-old Puerto Rican girl with blurred makeup and pouty lips intently stared at Quinne. She cursed the girl until snickers and titters alerted her to the fact that she did not recognize her own profane reflection. After readjusting her white peasant blouse and refreshing the taste in her mouth with water, she rearranged her flattened dark brown bangs and stumbled back into the club.
“Easy.” Outside the bathroom, Crystal Cantrell, or “Cee Cee,” a perky blonde taller and heavier than the 5’4” Quinne, lent her a steady arm. “I should’ve flagged you before we even got here. You’re done. We’re leaving.”
Done? Her face screwed with displeasure in slow motion. “I’m good, Cee.”
“How many shots have you had since we got here, with your fake-ID-having self? Tell me the right number and I’ll buy the next round.”
The pounding heaviness in Quinne’s brain prevented clear thought. “Eight?”
“Six. Let’s go.”
“I wanna shot!” Quinne belched. “Before I take shots. . .for real.”
Cee Cee draped Quinne’s arm over her shoulder and helped the drunkard to her feet. “You act like they’ll put you on the front lines. You’ll be lucky if they let you hold something sharper than a pencil.”
The two stumbled through the dancing masses to the entrance adjacent to the bar. “One more,” Quinne slurred. “Please? One more shot for them.”
Her friend wondered about the difference between six shots of liquor versus seven, until she noticed sadness building in Quinne’s eyes. “Honor Troy in a better way, Q,” she gently said. “He wouldn’t want to see you like this.”
She’d attend basic training next week, and then likely be shipped off to whatever overseas conflict the government fought. She did not particularly believe in war or obliterating an enemy observing a political tenet that the states opposed. Nevertheless, she signed up without reservation. Nothing remained for her at home, except Anibel Ruiz; a devout Catholic, belligerent lush of a mother with a whacked out internal thermometer and a menial civil service job. Quinne's test grades were too low to garner scholarships and she had no interest in learning a trade.
“If Troilus Carter ain’t want me to do this, Troilus Carter shouldn’t ’ve died,” she lamented. “So, he ain’t gotta vote ‘bout what I do or don’t do. You ain’t gotta buy me nothin’. Somebody over there will. I’ll flash Saint Maria, if I got to.”
Cee Cee reluctantly consented. She helped the staggering girl through the dancing couples and authorized payment before Quinne had an opportunity to expose her left breast in barter.
Quinne held up the shot and downed it. Satisfied, she wiped the back of her hand across her lips and walked outside under her own power. Her companion followed.
The outside temperature hovered around the low-40s; cold enough to see one’s breath and to stab small needles of sobriety into Quinne’s brain. She produced an object from her pocket and covertly sniffed from it. The sound drew the attention of her friend.
“What was that?”
“What, Cee?”
“That sound.”
“What you talkin’ ‘bout?” She feigned ignorance. “There ‘re a million sounds out here.”
The two women physically tussled until an empty drug container fell to the ground. Quinne did not bother to acknowledge its existence. They stared at one another until a white police Caper with interior red and blue visor lights stopped next to the sidewalk where they stood. Quinne inconspicuously hid it under the sole of her black platform boot until the traffic light changed. She then kicked it into a sewer grate.
“So you’re that girl now?”
Quinne shook her head and moved close enough to her friend that they could comfortably whisper. “It’s not what you think, Cee.”
“So, I’m blind? Or, you’re not just my girl who borrows my clothes and has a drinking problem. You’re a drug addict, too?”
“Keep your voice down,” said Quinne. “It’s a little somethin’ to stop the spinnin’. E’erybody does it a little. I only do it when I drink too much, that's all.”
The girl flipped a gloved hand in response and walked away. “Wrong. Everybody doesn’t do it. Goodbye, Quinne.”
Quinne followed. “It ain’t even that serious! Since you went back to church, you act like you ain’t never did nothin’. Admit it – you’ve sniffed before.”
Cee Cee spun around. “I drink casually Quinne, not like a fish. I don’t do drugs. Never did. And I don’t keep company with people who do – not anymore.”
Unwilling to beg, Quinne shouted after her. “You drove! How am I supposed’ta get home?”
Cee Cee pantomimed lifting her shirt and disappeared around the corner.
Quinne sighed. They lived miles from the club. Her skin tight jeans were like tissue in this weather. With no units to pay the cover charge, she could not reenter the club. Cee Cee’s suggestion might work, but enough people had seen her Saint Maria Goretti tattoo for one night.
As she lingered at the crosswalk, the Caper that stopped in front of the club circled around. Its driver stared at her through his open window. “Good evening, Ma’am. Happy New Year.”
“Happy New Year.”
Suddenly self-conscious, she wondered if the substance she felt ooze from her nose was mucus, blood, or the substance she just inhaled. If she turned away, he may become suspicious. If she stayed put and it was drugs, he would arrest her. Inhaling would be a temporary solution for mucus. With little recourse, she fished a tissue from her pocket and wiped her upper lip. Just snot, she discovered. Regardless, the policemen flashed their lights. An empty container had fallen out of her pocket when she got the tissue. Both men exited the Caper.
“O-Officers,” she stuttered, holding her hands up in surrender. “Problem?”
“Let me guess – it’s not yours? Or, you’re holding it for a friend?” The driver corralled Quinne’s hands in handcuffs behind her head and announced her rights, while frisking her. His partner seized the drug paraphernalia she dropped.
She rolled her eyes and reluctantly ducked into the rear of a police transport for the first time since a shoplifting charge four years ago. Unlike that offense, this one would mar her permanent record. When they arrived at the station, Quinne had no one but Cee Cee to call. Anibel would cuss her out, and Guillermo, her father, would be too busy with his nuclear family to care. Everyone else could not be bothered. She refused her rights to a phone call, instead preferring to languish inside of a common holding cell.
One by one, she watched prostitutes, junkies, and transients get summoned and released or transferred. Hours passed. By the dawning of New Year’s Day, a new batch of criminals kept her company. Then, her skin started bubbling. She needed to sniff again. Though the headaches and vomiting from drunkenness lasted longer, the boils and dehydration from untreated sniffing were more severe.
Soon, without water, she’d vomit blood from her inflamed stomach lining. If she did not black out, Quinne would then wildly convulse, descend into cardiac arrest and finally die. She dragged herself to the glowing cell bars. “Help!” she managed.
The attending officer beckoned emergency personnel. “Sniffer in withdrawal.”
Within a minute, a machine forced water down Quinne’s throat and pumped intravenous fluid into the bend of her right arm. Not long afterward, the symptoms abated.
“Quinne Ruiz,” called the attending officer. He led Quinne down a corridor to a secluded room and sat her down adjacent to her court-appointed counsel; a droid, and a foreign woman looking to be in her 30’s wearing an impeccable gray pinstriped pantsuit. “Comfortable? Getting enough water?”
Quinne weakly nodded and noted the counselor’s facial features were perfect. “You look like a model, or an actress. Thought you’d be older, or uglier.”
“My bloodline ages well.” She beckoned the droid to come closer. “Lucky for you, I’m just the kind of help you’ll need today.”
Quinne read the woman’s clearance
level. Visitor. “Who’re you?”
“I’m Kareza Noor. I work as a non-profit court liaison and psychiatrist to youth defendants. You know, the military takes drug offenses seriously, Miss Ruiz, regardless of the soldier shortage.”
“Look, I’m a chick who had a lil’ too much to drink and got caught with a sniffer.” The droid’s vocal inactivity caught her attention. She pointed at it. “Shouldn’t that be handlin’ this?”
Kareza chuckled. “The fake identification didn’t help either, but relax. Samantha Wright here will do enough to keep you out of jail.”
Quinne looked incredulous. How?
“The sniffer you dropped had enough residue on it to get you a misdemeanor possession charge. If you plead guilty, you’ll get a fine, maybe community service. You’re a petty offender. Otherwise, they‘d be searching your apartment right now.”
“I am Samantha Wright, of the pilot legal android program. Miss Noor tells the truth,” affirmed the machine in a warm human female voice. “The probability is high that you will not be assigned jail time. If you complete these terms and avoid being arrested for illegal drugs again, the charge will stay off of your record and you can still enlist.”
“I ain’t no addict,” she argued. “Addicts repeat offend.”
“Normal people don’t drink themselves stupid and hit a hallucinogen chaser, especially one with these kinds of side effects. Addicts do. If you can stop is not the issue. You didn’t stop. That’s why you got caught. Do the treatment. Happy New Year.”
Quinne returned to the cell, where she remained until her early morning arraignment. While the charges were read, Kareza smirked. “I’ve dealt with him before, all the time,” she said, leaning over to Quinne. “Don’t talk unless I tell you to.”
“Miss Noor, Happy New Year. Here on behalf of the Genesis Institute, I presume?”
“Yes, your honor.”
The judge eyed Kareza. “Your company does good work in the community.” He addressed Samantha Wright. “Evidence has been marked, weighed. . .protocol followed. . .Counselor Wright, you’ve spoken with the defendant?”
The Anarchists Page 3
