by Tracey Ward
“Hey!” a woman calls to me brightly.
She’s older, in her sixties. Beautiful gray and white hair. Welcoming blue eyes. She keeps it tight for a woman her age, her petite body clad in a long, flowing skirt, a tight tank top, and a big, loose cardigan that makes her look even smaller than she is; so does the big turquoise jewelry dripping from every opportunity on her body. She’s at the stove with a spatula in one hand and the other on her hip, looking like she owns the place. And she probably does. My guess is, this is Angela. Bear’s wife.
“You’re awake,” she observes.
I smile weakly. “Somewhat.”
“How do you like your eggs, honey?”
“I don’t, thanks. You don’t have to do that.”
“I’m already cooking. Skillet’s hot. Tell me what you want or I’ll make you whatever I feel like.”
“She’ll put Siracha in it,” Skeeze warns from a table tucked in the corner. He’s hunched over a plate full of eggs, bacon, sausage, and pancakes soggy with syrup. “A lot of Siracha. I’d tell her what you really want before she melts your face off.”
“Scrambled. Please,” I tell Angela. “No Siracha.”
She smiles mildly. “You got it. You want some coffee?”
“Is there hot sauce in it?”
“One way to find out.”
“I’d love some. Thanks.”
“Look at the manners on this one,” she tells Skeeze, grabbing a pot of coffee. “You could learn a thing or two from him about how to talk to women.”
Skeeze snorts. “I’m sure there’s a thing or two I could teach him about women.”
“Nothing he needs to know. Nothing anyone should ever know.” She nods to Skeeze. “Have you met Skeeze before?”
I nod, catching his eye for a second. “Yeah. We met the other night.”
“You looked a little different, brother,” he tells me, munching on his bacon. “You get some work done?”
“A little lift. A quick tuck.”
“Looks good.”
“Thanks.”
“You poor thing,” Angela laments sympathetically. She hands me a steaming white mug of black coffee. “I heard you went to the hospital last night.”
“Against my will.”
“Harley made you go?”
“Yeah.”
“She’s good at that.” She nods to Skeeze and the table. “Go take a seat, sweetie. I’ll bring you your plate when it’s ready.”
“Thanks…”
“Angela,” she confirms with a smile. “And you’re very welcome, Josh.”
I feel weird having someone take care of me. First Harlow with the hospital last night and now this woman with breakfast. I’ve been either taking care of Pops or on my own for the last few years. It’s almost too much to deal with. It makes me nervous.
“Yo!” a voice barks behind me.
I spin around, spilling hot coffee on my hand and wrenching my side. A sharp hiss passes through my lips.
Kill is filling the doorway and then some. He looks down at me with a knitted brow, a low curl on his lips. “Bear wants to see you. Now.”
He disappears before I can respond. I hear Skeeze stand up behind me, his boots falling heavy on the old wood floors. He takes the coffee from my hand and sets it down on the counter next to Angela.
“Let’s go, man,” he tells me, heading out the door after Kill.
Angela casts me another bright smile. I’m starting to think she’s made of them. “I’ll keep your food warm for you.”
“Thanks.” I remember the keys in my pocket. I should give them to Angela to give to Harlow, but I don’t. I don’t have to think too hard about why to find an answer.
I want a reason to see Harlow again. And soon.
I follow Skeeze out the door and down the hall. We head for the storage room I was in last night with Raw and Harlow, but Skeeze takes us to the right instead of the left. This room is much larger. There’s a pool table in the center with a large oak insert that has the Devil’s Due skull and wings logo burned into the center. Pictures cover the walls, most of them black and white. Some are framed Poloraids, grainy and blurred. Chairs have been pulled from along the walls to surround the table and Skeeze leads me to the one at the south side, opposite Bear sitting at the head. The rest of the club is already here. Already seated. They watch me as I sit down gingerly, my chair creaking loudly in the quiet room.
My pulse races as they stare at me. Especially Kill. That guy is intensity personified.
Bear grins under his beard, warm and welcoming. It reminds me a little bit of Angela. “Josh. Thanks for sitting down with us.”
Skeeze shuts the door heavily, latching the bolt before taking a seat.
I shift in my chair. “Thanks for having me.”
“You know what we want to talk to you about, don’t you, son?”
“Drugs,” I answer immediately. Why beat around the bush?
Bear wags his finger at me, chuckling. “She was right. Harley is always right. You’re smart.”
“Some days more than others.”
“How about today? Are you feeling clever today?”
“I haven’t decided yet.”
“We’ll try to help you figure that out,” Devo promises, unsmiling.
When I look at him, I wait for the guilt to hit me. To take me by surprise and leave me feeling ashamed about what I did. About what I still want to do.
It doesn’t come. Not a drop.
Bear gestures to Raw. He immediately produces my bottle of pills, sending it sliding across the smooth table to Bear. The old man catches it without looking, his eyes steadily on mine.
“What you have here is a sweet little deal,” he tells me admiringly. “Raw tells me you have a lot of buyers on campus.”
“About twenty regulars. Thirty or more when it’s crunch time.”
“What’s crunch time?”
“Finals. People panic during finals. They look for speed to stay awake to study and sedatives to come down when they’re cranked too high to function.”
“What about you? What’s your poison?”
I shake my head adamantly. “I don’t do any of it.”
Hyde eyes me dubiously from my left. “Never?”
“Never,” I swear. “It’s one of my rules, along with no negotiations and no surprises.”
“You run a tight ship,” Raw comments.
I shrug. “It’s how I feel in control.”
“What happened last night with the dude who jumped you?” Kill asks.
I look at him hard, like he’s not a megalith that could crush me under his will alone. I think it’s the only way to deal with him. “He surprised me.”
“Sounds like you could have used some backup,” Bear suggests meaningfully.
Here it comes, I think.
“I’ve never needed it before,” I reply carefully.
“Times change,” Kill tells me. “Businesses change. And if we don’t change with them, we’re gonna fall behind and fail. Do you know what I’m saying?”
“Yeah. I’m pretty sure I do.”
Bear sighs irritably. “Kill has some serious opinions on business and what we should be into and what we shouldn’t. He’s been saying we need to get deeper into the drug trade for years.”
“It’s the only thing that makes sense,” Kill tells him assertively. “Riding a high horse and letting The Black Hawks pull in money hand over fist while they push a full menu is a waste. We could be killing them in this game but instead we’re sitting back and watching them get rich on meth money while we hand out weed for pennies.”
Bear grins again. This one looks less like Angela’s. A lot less. “Like I said, Kill has opinions. But we have tradition and a conscience and I won’t sell something that ruins lives. That’s not what we’re about. It never has been and it never will be.”
Kill has more to say about it. I can see it in his eyes. In the tight press of his lips against each other, but he keeps it to himself.
He stays carefully controlled and quiet as Bear baits him with an extended silence.
Finally, Bear pops the top on the bottle of pills, examining the contents. “These are quality. The real deal, aren’t they?”
“I get them from a pharmacist,” I agree.
“Here in town?”
I don’t answer that. They know I get them from Ritchie, he’s the only pharmacist around, but I’m not about to offer him up on a platter. I’m not a total idiot or an asshole.
Bear lets my silence slide. He shifts the bottle in his hand, tilting his head sideways to read the label. “You’ve got good stuff here.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re the only one selling these in town.”
“As far as I know.”
“Did you know that we sell all the weed in this town? That we’ve been the only supplier for over twenty years?”
“I did know that, yes.”
“And you never thought to talk to us before you started selling on our turf?”
I take a slow, deep breath. They watch me. Six sets of eyes studying me closely but not one is giving anything away. Are they angry? Am I in more trouble here than I thought?
“I didn’t,” I admit evenly, my insides churning like a washing machine. “My product is totally different from yours. I didn’t think there’d be any overlap, and as far as I know there never has been.”
“You’re selling in another man’s town. It’s good manners to let him know before you set up shop.”
“I was born here. It’s my town too.”
Out of the corner of my eye I see Raw smile.
“What would you do if you suddenly found yourself with competition?” Bear asks pointedly. “In your town.”
“I’d quit” I reply, surprising us both. “I’m not in it for the rest of my life. I’m out in a year anyway.”
“When you finish college?”
“I’ll graduate Winslow in June with my Bachelor’s Degree, but then I’m leaving for MIT to get my Masters.”
“So, no matter what, you won’t be selling anymore in a year?”
“That’s right.”
“That’s very interesting.”
The room waits in silence while Bear thinks that through. My hands are rivers running sweat in the small crevices of my palms; my lifeline bleeding out slowly onto the floor at my feet.
Finally Bear nods to Raw, speaking to me. “We want to offer you protection while you operate. Raw will be happy to work with you, running deals with you. He’ll be your enforcer. He’s good at making sure meetings go smoothly.”
“What would that cost me?” I ask indelicately.
“Oh, I don’t know. What did you offer Raw in exchange for getting this product back for you?”
“A ten percent cut of the sales.”
“I think for a permanent position he’d deserve twenty, don’t you?”
“Twelve,” I counter coolly.
“Seventeen.”
“Fifteen.”
“Fifteen,” he repeats in agreement. “Good.”
“Fifteen to the club for protection and another five for your investment in expansion.”
Bear sits forward, intrigued. “What do you mean by ‘expansion’?”
“I’m operating with limited stock. There’s more demand than I can supply. I need capital to buy more product and build the business. If you supply that capital, you get a five percent return on your money.”
“Twenty percent.”
I shake my head. “I’m not negotiating on this. I have other overhead to consider. Giving you any more than five percent makes the entire operation unviable. I’m not giving you a cut of my sales either. I’ll repay the loan you give me at five percent interest, but I’ll prep Raw to take over when I quit. I’ll give him my buyers, my supplier, and get people comfortable with him being part of the operation. The people I’m selling to are young. They spook easy. They need to trust who they’re buying from and I’ve spent years cultivating that trust. It’ll take at least a year to transfer that over to Raw. But at that point, you’ll own the whole operation. One hundred percent.”
The room is silent and surprised. They didn’t except this. Neither did I. I thought when they demanded a piece of my profits that I’d try to talk them down as far as I could without getting my ass kicked again or risk having them take it all by force. But the more I think about it, the more this makes sense. With them backing me, I can spend this next year pulling in more green than I’ve seen in the previous two years combined. I can buy more pills than I can sell in a day. I can pay Pops’ bills, my bills, and maybe have something left over to squirrel away for my future. My scholarship to MIT covers everything but room and board, and that shit is more expensive than you’d think. It’ll take it’s toll and fast.
“Ten percent,” Bear counters.
“Five,” I hold firm.
“Eight.”
“Five.”
“Seven-point-five.”
“Five.”
He smiles appreciatively. “Five it is.”
I’m surprised when he gets up to come around the table, offering me his hand. I stand with a wince that I wish I could have masked because looking into the old guy’s eyes is a pissing contest I wasn’t prepared for. From a distance, he looks like the sweet, understanding hippy type. Up close, when you look in his eyes, he’s something else completely. Less of a man and more like his namesake; like a bear ready to bite my fucking head off if I don’t act right.
“What do you need to get started on our expansion?” he asks.
“A grand should get us going. Fifteen hundred would be even better. Finals week is coming up in December.”
“Crunch time, right?”
“Right.”
“Good.” He motions to Devo. “Give the money to Raw when you two get back from Culver. He can go with Josh to make the purchase and meet this supplier. You got time for that Raw?”
“I can make time.”
“Then do it. I want you shadowing Josh as much as you can. Learn the ropes. Meet the customers.”
“Shake hands? Kiss babies?”
“Try to keep it in your pants,” he warns. “I don’t want you sleeping with these young girls, taking payment in pussy. Cash only, right, Josh?”
“That’s rule three,” I agree. I’m only half kidding.
Devo snorts. “Yeah, good luck teaching Raw the rules. Once you start telling him ‘no’, he starts looking for a way to twist it into a ‘yes’.” He stands, coming around behind me to head for the door. I stiffen as he passes, ready for anything, but he ignores me. His eyes are on Raw. “Let’s ride, man! It’s almost nine. We got a meeting.”
“Right behind you, sweetheart,” Raw replies in a cloying tone. He claps me on the shoulder as he passes to go for the door. “Leave me your number, yeah? I’ll text you later about meeting up.”
“You got it.”
Kill, Hyde, and Skeeze leave without a word behind them. They leave me alone in the room with Bear and my suddenly desert dry palms. I haven’t wrapped my head around what just happened yet. I don’t think it will sink in for a while. It’s been a wild couple of days and my body is in a sort of shock, my mind numb in ways I haven’t felt in a long time. Ways that feel dangerous but kind of good. Sort of amazing, like I’m freefalling. Like life has spiraled so far out of my control that it’s not worth worrying about it anymore.
It’s liberating as fuck.
“We’re trusting you as much as you’re going to have to trust us,” Bear tells me solemnly, bringing me back down to Earth. “Can you do that, son? Can you trust us?”
“I think so.”
“I hope you can because we’re going to take care of each other. Have each other’s back when the chips are down. We’re a family here. We don’t turn on each other. When the wolves are at the door, we come together. We don’t fall apart. Do you understand me?”
Keep your fucking mouth shut when the cops come calling.
&nb
sp; Yeah. I understand him.
“Yes,” I promise, my stomach rolling violently with the weight of my promise. “I understand.”
“I hope you do. I like you, kid.” He claps me on the shoulder; hard. It hurts because it’s supposed to. “I’d hate to be disappointed by you.”
Bear leaves me alone in the room, disappearing down the hall toward the kitchen. I think of Angela and my coffee and eggs waiting there for me.
I immediately turn to vomit in the wastebasket by the door.
Chapter Eleven
Harlow
Nursing homes make me nervous. They have a strange smell, a combination of medication and ointment. Jell-O. Soup. Sick. The worst part is that they feel like hospitals, not homes. Every room I pass has an elevated hospital bed with side rails at the ready. Shrunken bodies lay small and delicate under the dappling sunlight. Heavy quilts and thick robes are draped over their legs, their armor against the cold despite the tropical heat inside the joint.
I can’t picture Pops here. He’s too much. Vibrant and alive like no man I’ve ever known. A huge heart that beat for me when mine tried to give out. He was my sun on every cloudy day. My light in the dark of a closed closet. No air. No sound. No life.
“He’s in this one here,” the short, chubby nurse tells me. She’s giving her pink and blue polka dot scrubs a work out with her butt and her breasts, both stretching the fabric to its limits.
Pops probably loves it, the dirty old coot.
She opens the door to a room on our right, leading me inside. It’s hotter than the hallway was. Along with the heat, we’re immediately hit with the blare of the TV on the wall. It’s broadcasting a football game. College, from the size of the O-Line.
“Russ, you have a visitor,” the nurse sings happily to him.
“Josh?” Pops rasps. “What’s he doing here on a Wednesday?”
“It’s Friday, honey, and it’s not Josh.”
I step further into the room, past the walls of a small closet blocking the bed from my view. He’s sitting up in the middle of it; a mound of pillows at his back and a black remote in his hand. When he spots me, his jaw drops nearly to his sunken chest.
