by J. R. Helton
We watched TV for an hour and Susan came back over from Rebecca’s house. Susan wanted to do some more coke but we were all out of it and Corky had either taken his with him or he’d hidden it. Jill said she knew some of his hiding places and went searching. All she could find was an eighth and it was sealed up in plastic. Jill decided to cut it, take out a rock, and reseal it.
“He’ll never know,” she said. “I do this all the time.”
Jill resealed the packet with a match and we ground up the rock and did it. When Corky arrived, he went straight to his hiding place and pulled out the packet.
“Jill!”
We all jumped. Corky brought the packet into the den.
“If you’re going to steal my coke,” he said, “please steal it from the plastic bags and not the sealed packets, okay, please? I already weighed this out.”
“Okay,” Jill said meekly.
Corky had done some great deal in San Marcos and had a lot of coke. He opened up the eighth. We did it up, watched TV, and laughed about the crappy job Jill had done resealing the plastic packet.
I began to ride around with Corky in the evenings when he made his rounds up in San Marcos, selling to the students of Southwest Texas State. At night, we climbed into his black Cadillac and drove twenty minutes north. Baron, the huge white German Shepherd, rode in the back. Once in town, we drove slowly down the streets and back alleys around the campus, making stops and doing coke at each one. The more wired we got, the more Corky blabbed. He talked about his Navy SEAL days or spoke lovingly of Baron, what a good dog he was, the adventures they’d had, and how he was Corky’s closest friend. These stories went on at great length, but I sat there quietly, listened, and did his coke. One night, before we began his errands, he said we had to find his ex-roommate.
“What for?”
We stopped at a light. “He’s fucking me around,” Corky said.
“How so?”
“Well, he brought this guy over the other day and . . . I mean, how stupid does he think I am?”
“What?”
“He brought this guy over to buy some coke and he tells me, he tells me that the guy’s his brother.” He looked at me for a reaction.
“Yeah, so?”
“He was lying. The guy wasn’t his brother at all. He was his cousin!”
“Maybe he made a mistake.”
“You don’t make a mistake like that. C’mon, between a brother and a cousin? He was lying. I don’t even think he’s related to the guy. First he tells me he’s his brother and then he says he’s his cousin. I mean, what the fuck is going on? Who is this guy? I’m gonna find him and bring out a can of whip-ass.”
We drove around, stopped at another light. A guy on a motorcycle drove by and Baron went wild in the backseat, barking, slobbering, growling, and trying to jump out of the car windows.
“I trained him to hate niggers and motorcycles,” Corky explained. “Wait . . .”
He pulled the car over by the San Marcos courthouse in the town square. “Hey, grab Baron’s mouth and hold it shut for a second.”
I looked at Baron, his long teeth. “I don’t know . . .”
“He won’t bite you. Not unless I tell him to.”
I grabbed the bottom of the dog’s jaw and squeezed his mouth shut with two hands. Corky pulled out a long vial of coke, shook a small mound out onto a piece of paper he’d pulled from the dash, and then blew every last bit of it down the dog’s nose. Baron struggled but I held him.
“Okay, let him go.”
I took my hands away and Baron shook his head violently. He sneezed a few times, jumped out of the open backseat window and started barking loudly. Corky jumped out of the car and chased the frenzied Shepherd down. He kicked him in the ass and moved him toward the car while screaming at the animal.
“Goddammit, you fucking obey me! You do what I say!”
He proceeded to make the dog jump in and out of the car, sit and roll over at his command. This went on for several minutes. We were parked right in the middle of town. I looked up at the granite courthouse. The windows were dark and there were no patrol cars around the building. I saw a few kids laughing and riding bikes with little wheels in front of the old Holiday Theatre. I remembered going there with Susan on dates in high school but the movie house was closed now and the marquee was blank. Baron whined and moaned.
“Come on, Corky, I think he’s learned his lesson,” I said.
“Yeah, okay.”
He got back in the car, Baron jumped in, still shaking spasmodically, and we went looking for the lying roommate. After about an hour, we found the guy sitting in his car at the H-E-B parking lot. We got out of the Cadillac and slowly walked up to the man’s Nova. Corky leaned in the driver’s side window. The guy had long brown hair, a goatee, tattoos. He was older than both of us and he looked fucked up. I’d met him before but I couldn’t remember his name.
“Oh hey man,” he said. “I’m trying to find my fuckin’ keys. What’s goin’ on Corky? I was gonna call you guys yesterday—”
Corky popped him in the jaw. “Why did you lie to me?!”
“Ow, shit man. What’s goin’ on?”
“Let’s get him out of the car.”
I stood there, frozen.
“C’mon, let’s get him.”
“No thanks.”
Corky shrugged and yanked the guy out of the car as though he were weightless. The man looked like he was confused, had no idea what was going on. Corky hit him a few times very hard, extremely hard. The man began to bleed, it seemed, from his entire face. There was dark red blood flowing everywhere and I could feel my stomach beginning to turn.
“Please,” the man mumbled, “Leave me alone. I’m sorry . . .”
Corky looked over at me and seemed disappointed. He let the man drop to the asphalt. We walked back to the Cadillac. Just as Corky was getting into the car, the ex-roommate yelled something from the ground.
Corky yelled back, “What?”
“I’m sorry, man. I’m sorry . . .”
Corky got back out of the car, walked over and kicked the guy in the stomach two times. The man jerked a little and laid there, limp. Corky walked back and got in the car. He sat there for several seconds, his hands on the steering wheel, and I saw he was shaking. He finally started the car and we did another line and continued driving.
When Corky and I started freebasing the money just disappeared like it was never there. Susan and Jill started complaining quietly about how Corky and I were gone so much and that we weren’t sharing enough coke with them. One night, when we were gone, Jill moved out and into a new house. Susan went with her. Corky was very happy to be alone; more coke for him he said. I started shuttling back and forth between both houses at all hours of the night.
Corky’s older brother showed up in town one day. His name was Gary and he was almost as big as Corky. Gary had just been released from prison in Oklahoma. He had that blank look in his eyes, no fear, no emotion, nothing behind them. His girlfriend was currently serving life up there for killing some guy with a claw hammer. Gary came into town on a bus with the claw hammer’s little boy in tow and was calling him Junior. Gary said he needed a car so Corky and I went and found him a beat-up ’74 Mercury Cougar which barely ran. We drove it to the house and Gary started working on the engine. What little money he had went to car parts and Corky for coke.
I started freebasing with these two people and getting wired for days. Susan and Jill quit coming around. We’d smoke and smoke and I’d start talking and ranting to Corky and Gary. They couldn’t believe me; I just couldn’t stop going. I’d find myself shrieking something to them, my voice breaking, tears in my eyes, sweating and shaking. Even Gary, the serial murderer, took me aside one time and said, very gently, “Relax, man. Take it easy. I’m calm. See how we’re
calm? Everything’s okay here. Everything’s fine . . .”
One night, around eleven p.m., a skinny old cedarchopper came over. He was from Cypress and I vaguely recognized him as a person with whom I’d once done drugs in high school. He was there with a couple of Cypress kids who were buying an ounce of cocaine that the three of them would cut to pieces and sell back in town.
Gary, Corky, and I went into the back room with the Cypress kids to weigh it out and we left the boy in the living room with the old cedarchopper watching TV. We did some coke with the kids from Cypress and they said they knew me from high school and asked me a bunch of questions about people I’d already forgotten. They gave Corky some money and he gave them some coke. When we came into the living room we saw something was wrong. The little boy was crying. Gary walked over and sat beside him on the hearth of the fireplace.
“What’s wrong, son?” Gary asked him.
“He’s all right,” the cedarchopper croaked.
I looked at the old man. His skin was weathered, dark, and wrinkled. When he sucked on his cigarette, his cheeks sunk in deeply. His eyes were filmy and red and he smelled like an ashtray.
“Shut up, man,” Gary said to him. He put his arm around the crying boy. “What’s wrong? You can tell me.”
The boy pointed to the cedarchopper. “That man kissed me.”
“What?”
The boy continued to cry. “He tried to kiss me . . .”
“What do you mean he tried to kiss you?”
The old man sat up in his chair and made a noise of disgust. “Jesus Christ, I didn’t try to kiss that little boy. I just told him that—”
Gary moved quickly and backhanded the man so hard he fell out of the chair. Gary then immediately kicked the man in the face several times with the heel of his boot. Corky pulled Gary away.
“I’m gonna kill this fuck!” Gary said. His long hair was hanging down around his face.
The two Cypress kids edged slowly toward the front door.
“Hey!” Corky yelled.
The boys jumped.
“Get him out of here,” Corky said.
When the two young men picked the cedarchopper up one of his eyes fell out. They both dropped him. Corky was having trouble holding Gary back.
“Let’s kill him, Corky,” Gary said earnestly.
“I said get him the fuck out of here, now!” Corky yelled.
The Cypress kids picked the cedarchopper back up. He seemed completely unconscious and was dead weight. They dragged him out the door with great difficulty. I looked out the window and watched them load him into the back of their pickup. They left the tailgate down and sped away. Gary was awkwardly trying to comfort Junior. The little boy seemed even more upset than he’d been earlier.
“Do you want some ice cream?” Gary asked. “You want some pancakes or something?”
After about five minutes, I left and went over to Jill’s to spend the night with Susan.
There was a party at Jill’s on Saturday night. Corky and Gary came over first and we all sat in the living room, freebased, and watched videos. After a while, a bunch of college kids from New Braunfels showed up and Corky and Gary disappeared into a back bedroom with a few people. Susan, Jill, and I were in the kitchen then, holding vials in boiling water and ice, purifying the coke and smoking it. We stayed in the kitchen most of the night and didn’t share, while people eagerly filed in and out of the back room. Around four a.m., we noticed it was very quiet in the house.
“I guess the party’s over,” Jill said. She took a hit off the glass pipe, held it, then blew the smoke into my mouth.
“Maybe we should go somewhere,” Susan said. She took a hit off the pipe and handed it to me.
Corky slowly walked into the kitchen. He looked at me and said, “Come in here.”
I was lighting the pipe. “What? I’m busy.”
“You really need to come in here.”
I looked at him. His face was pale and his eyes bugged out. I took a hit, gave the pipe to Susan, and followed him into the back room.
Gary and some incredibly skinny coke whore were looking down at the bed. A tall, young guy with long blond hair was laid out on the sheets at an odd angle. His face had a blue tint and his eyes were wide open.
“He’s dead,” Corky said.
I nodded. “He is.”
Corky looked at me. “He’s fuckin’ dead.”
“What happened?”
Corky glanced at Gary. “I don’t know. He took a shot and he just froze up and died.”
“Well, shit.”
“What’re we gonna do?” Corky asked.
The coke whore started shaking and pushing her stringy hair behind her ears over and over. “I can’t believe this shit,” she said. “He was supposed to go after me. That was gonna be my shot. That could’ve been me. What if that was me? That was supposed to be me. I’m the one—”
“Oh, shut up,” Gary said.
“We need to get rid of this body,” Corky said.
“Yeah,” I said, “the sun’s coming up in a minute. Do you know this guy?”
“Yeah. His name’s Spencer. He was in my government class. He lives around the corner. What’re we gonna do?”
“Did he drive over here?” Gary asked.
Corky nodded vigorously. He was very wired. “Yeah, yeah, he’s got a blue truck right outside.”
“Well, let’s drive him back home,” Gary said.
“I’ll go tell Susan and Jill to leave,” I said.
“Shit, shit, shit,” Corky said. “We gotta hurry. The sun’s coming up.”
I went into the kitchen. Susan was lighting a cigarette at the kitchen table.
“What’s wrong?”
“It’d probably be good if y’all left.”
“What’s the matter?” Jill asked.
I shook my head. “You should just go.”
Susan needed no encouragement. She stood up. “Come on, Jill.”
Jill stood up and I followed them out the door. I gave Susan a kiss at the car.
“Are you coming back?” she asked.
“Yeah, in a little while. Just drive around for a minute.”
“Meet us over at the Kettle.”
“Okay.”
The coke whore came running out of the house, jumped in her VW, and drove off.
“What the hell’s going on?” Jill asked.
“Nothing.”
I went back into the house and walked to the bedroom. Corky and Gary had socks on their hands.
“Don’t touch the body, man,” Gary said.
“Why?”
“Just don’t touch the body,” Corky said. He handed me a pair of socks. “Put these on.”
“Are these clean?”
“Just put ’em on.”
I put the socks on my hands.
Corky picked up a limp blue arm. “Let’s go, let’s go, hurry.”
Spencer was tall and heavy. He must have lost control of his bowel functions somewhere in there, because he smelled like shit. With great effort, we loaded him into his truck. Corky set him up in the middle of the seat like he was alive. Gary started the truck and Corky got out of the cab and looked at me.
“What?”
“Go ahead, get in,” Corky said.
“I don’t want to sit next to that guy.”
“Just get in.”
“Fuck you. You killed him.”
“Look, I didn’t kill him—”
“Corky!” Gary said. “Get in the goddamn truck.”
“Ahh, shit,” Corky said and climbed inside and slammed the door.
I took the socks off my hands and handed them to Corky. “I’m gonna walk over to the Kettle and meet Susa
n and Jill.”
“Don’t tell them anything,” Corky whispered.
“I won’t.”
I watched them drive off into the dark. I started walking to the Kettle, toward the sounds of the freeway. The sky was turning light gray in the east and I had this sinking feeling like I’d missed something by not going to sleep.
I never heard another thing about it, but I was a little nervous. I told Susan: “We need to figure something out.”
“Okay. What?”
We were sitting on the floor at Jill’s, doing a few lines and watching TV.
“We’re almost out of money,” I said.
Susan nodded. “I know.”
“Maybe we should move and get our own place.”
“I’d love to do that.”
“I’m getting sick of New Braunfels.”
“I’m very sick of it.”
“Well . . . I have an idea.”
“What?”
“Let’s sell the car.”
“My mom gave it to me for graduating from high school.”
“So? We can buy a cheap car and use the rest of the money for other things.”
“Other things?”
“Like a deposit on an apartment.”
“Right. Would you hold my hair back?”
I held her hair away from her face while she leaned down to a mirror on the table. She did half a line, hesitated, and did the rest. “Where should we move?”
“Let’s go to Austin.”
“Okay, great.” She wiped some coke off the mirror and rubbed it on her gums.
“Is that what you want to do?”
“Yeah, sure. I think it’ll be fun.”
I looked around for Jill. She was in the bathroom. “We need to phase them out.”
Susan nodded. “I think you’re right.”
“This is a small town. Everybody knows them, it’s just a matter of time.”
“I think Corky’s dangerous.”
“I know Corky’s dangerous.”
“I like Jill though.”
“Yeah, but they gotta go.”
