Kobe

by Christopher S. McLoughlin

  Jaybird opens his car door and scoots in. As soon as the key twists the ignition, the bass thumps so hard pebbles pop up from the parking lot.

  "Jay, you's a fuckin' dope dealer, man!" Skaggs spits the words out along with little pieces of phlegm.

  "First of all," Jaybird says, "I'm not a drug dealer, at least not some clown on the corner holding weight. If I was, I wouldn't even sell you a blunt.

  "Go ask that fool Billy, he'll serve anyone. You need to get some scruples. You rob someone I care about, I'll stick my foot so far up your ass my toes'll tickle your tonsils."

  * * * * *

  Curt drains the water from the bathtub. Katie's face is still beautiful even though it's a bit blue. Her veins are like a roadmap under pasty flesh.

  Her expelled bodily fluids wash into the sewer as Curt scrubs her clean, careful not to tear her fragile flesh. He dries his dead lover with a towel and begins to brush her tangled, yellowish-red hair.

  * * * * *

  Skaggs, lost and shaky, shuffles behind the Manor carryout. His skinny frame squeezes through a hole in a chain link fence. On the other side is Bayside Apartments. The ghetto of Kobe. It isn't a third world country or the projects in Detroit, but it's the worst area in this small town.

  Skaggs trudges through the tall grass until he reaches familiar territory, Apartment building F. Where he lives, but more importantly, where he can score dope.

  The burgundy carpet squishes underneath Skaggs' worn out running shoes. The stink of stale beer and vomit overpower the average red-blooded American. Not Skaggs. He's seen and smelled it all.

  He stops in front of apartment 1408. Although a bit apprehensive, he knocks.

  No answer.

  He pounds louder until he hears the sound of shuffling feet, then cranes his neck and leans his ear against the door.

  "Who the fuck?" a gruff voice calls out.

  "What up, Billy? It's Skaggs."

  "Goddamnit! It's seven o'clock in the fuckin' mornin'!"

  "You're already up now." Skaggs smirks in the hallway.

  Billy, a mass of high school muscle underneath a thin layer of flab, opens the door. "Da fuck?" Billy asks in between yawns.

  "I need some shit, man," Skaggs says.

  "Whatcha need?" Billy's throat scratches the words out.

  "Some of that Bobby Brown, brotha."

  "You're way too white, and it's way too early for you to talk like that." Billy staggers to his couch. He picks up a blanket and covers his half naked body.

  Skaggs follows him in and shuts the door. Beer bottles, bongs, and empty pizza boxes litter the dealer's apartment.

  "So can you do anything for me?" Skaggs puts his hands in his pockets and rocks back and forth on his heels.

  "I only have a little bit of heroin, and that's my personal stash. I got some Xanax, a couple Adderall," Billy pulls out a cigar box looking through his leftovers from a busy Saturday night. "I got some loud, I always got that."

  "I need heroin, and maybe some coke if you got it." Skaggs says.

  "You and Leroy always speedballin'. Shit's gonna blow up your heart one day. Why don't you just smoke? I'll give you a blunt of Kush for like ten. I got the best weed in the building."

  "No coke?"

  "Motherfucker. It's Sunday morning," Billy puts the cigar box on his coffee table, "The goddamn day ain't even started yet. I sold out of party drugs by like, three am. No molly, no acid, no shrooms, no coke." Billy takes a cigarette out of a pack and lights it up.

  "Mind if I get a shot?" Skaggs pleads.

  "I just told you, I only got personal. I never want to be in that bind where I'm starting to quiver like some... junkie." He ashes his cigarette and lies back into his couch. A layer of fat squeezes over his six-pack.

  "Just one shot?" He begs for it like a starving puppy.

  * * * * *

  Zed monitors the gauges on Leroy Brown.

  'As an upholder of the law, I see more evil go unpunished than I see good prevail'.

  That's what big brother Judd preaches. The government gives people trials. Innocent until proven different. Bullshit. Leroy's a menace with more than just a criminal mindset, he's a sick puppy.

  The type of guy you have to watch around your kids. There isn't much you can do with a lowlife like Leroy, except make him into award winning BBQ.

  Leroy's sweat and blood drip down the drain, along with shit and piss through catheters, both rectal and urinary. It makes it easier for clean up.

  Zed adjusts the feeding tube lodged down Leroy's narrow throat.

  The shack is only a quarter mile from the Pitt. The restaurant was built on the interstate for obvious reasons, and the smoke shack was the original house on the property. Zed built a much larger home when the restaurant took off.

  Over the years, to help transport the protein, Zed built a tunnel from the shack to the Pitt. Zed loads up a cart with eight foil pans of ribs and makes his way through the tunnel.

  * * * * *

  Billy shifts his jaw to the side, he wants to knock a couple of those rotten teeth out of Skaggs' melon for waking him up at the crack of dawn. However, the businessman in him understands that Skaggs gives him hundreds of dollars a week.

  Double taxed.

  No one else in the Bay will serve the ugly freak, so Billy reaps the rewards. He leans back on the couch and examines the situation. He knows this fool, sure, but you should never trust a junkie. He grabs a desert eagle from behind the couch cushions. Just in case. "Whatever man," Billy puts the gun on his knee in plain sight, "it'll be twenty dollars."

  "For one hit?" Skaggs' eyes stretch open.

  "The economy crashes until at least two pm. I'll let you know as soon as I get supplied, but if you want a hit, I'll sell you one for twenty bucks. Then you get the fuck out and let me sleep. Take it or leave it, but hurry up so I can go back to bed."

  "I'll take it." Skaggs pulls a twenty out of his sock. "You seen Leroy?"

  Billy looks at Skaggs in disgust. "Yo. You better lay that cash on the table, you stank smellin' mutha-fucka! I ain't takin' no sock money from you, at least not hand to hand, I'll wipe that shit off after it airs out."

  "Fine dude, I'll put it on the table." Skaggs does as he's told. "Anyway, Leroy went out on a run to get some cash, and never came back. I been watching round and I know people thought he was an asshole, but I don't think anyone 'round here woulda clapped him. I think Judd killed him, man."

  Billy doubles over with laughter.

  "Judd killed Leroy? Sure man, cause a junkie would never steal from another junkie, right?"

  "Leroy wasn't like that." Skaggs shakes his head. "It's possible Judd took him out to the city limits and put one in the back of his skull. Cops're crooked, I'm just sayin' it's possible."

  "Yeah it's possible," Billy shrugs, "it's also possible your mom's cunt smells like cool ranch Doritos, but I don't put my nose in other people's bidness." Billy puts a tiny amount of dope into a crack sack and hands it to Skaggs.

  "Mind if I shoot up here?" Skaggs asks.

  "You can't wait ten minutes to get upstairs to your apartment?"

  Skaggs looks down at the floor.

  "Whatever man, at least take yer nasty ass to the bathroom."

  * * * * *

  Once he's in the bathroom with the door locked, Skaggs reaches inside the bottom pocket of his cargo shorts. He retrieves a small case with a zipper on the side. Inside the case are his essential tools for survival, his narcotic cooking equipment. He sets up the works on the bathroom sink and ties off. The sweet smell of melting heroin soothes his weary mind, but not as much as the warmth crawling through his body after he mainlines.

  Once the ritual is complete, Skaggs staggers through the hallway back to his dealer's living room.

  "You gonna be good for the rest of the day?" Billy asks.

  "I'll stop by at like three, but I ain't too sure if I'll be able to hold out for that long," Skaggs answers with a frog in his throat.

  The s
our truth swells inside of him. He knows he isn't much. Not even worth the twenty bucks he stole from his mom's purse.

  The smack swims through his veins and attaches itself to his heart, his mind, his inner child. It takes more and more of the dope to make him whole. Hell, he wasn't whole to start with, but the heroin never made fun of him. It never beat him up in school. Never laughed at him for having bad skin or greasy hair.

  When you're addicted to smack all you think about is your next fix. You're never really sad, just temporarily sober. Skaggs snaps out of it and makes his way to Billy's front door.

  "You know what's real cheap and gets you goin' pretty good?" Billy stands and stretches, leaving his pistol in Skagg's peripheral vision. "Bath salts. They sell 'em at the Manor."

  "Don't that shit make you go crazy?" Skaggs asks.

  "Doesn't everything? I mean, if it's too strong, just mix it with a couple pills. Maybe a few xanax. I got purple footballs and full bars."

  "Gimmee two bars too, I guess."

  Billy smiles. A drug dealer doing what temporarily boosts America's economy, his civic duty.

  Chapter V

  Sunday Morning Blues

  Skaggs stands at the counter of the Manor Carryout, the little ghetto convenience store in the heart of Bayside Commons. He stares at a yellow box of bath salts with the label 'Speed Racer' on the front.

  "These fuck me up?" Skaggs asks Akmed, the dark skinned clerk behind the counter.

  "They are not for human consumption. You want to buy them?" Akmed looks past Skaggs, watching customers peruse his products. Thievery is common in this part of town, some business proprietors let it slide, but Skaggs knows the clerk's reputation for pulling a shotgun on shoplifters.

  "You ever try 'em?" Skaggs asks as the line behind him grows.

  "I don't do drugs," Akmed says in a thick African accent.

  "Then why do you sell 'em?"

  "Same reason I sell tampons."

  "What?" Skaggs stares at the agitated clerk, puzzled, of course in his given state of expanded equilibrium everything is puzzling.

  "I don't want to argue my station in life. Either buy them or get out."

  "You can't talk to me like that, I'm the customer!" Skaggs pounds his hand on the counter.

  "I've poured my heart and soul into this business to keep it running," Akmed says, "The day a doped up scab shuts me down, I'll pack my bags and move back to Africa." Akmed slides his hand underneath the counter.

  "I'll buy them, ok?" Skaggs nervously throws a ten spot on the counter.

  Akmed hands him the box of bath salts, smiling, "thank you for shopping at Manor Carryout, come again."

  * * * * *

  Quinn's skinny legs slap overgrown weeds as he walks through the Bayside apartment complex, the morning dew sticks to his baggy jeans. A cell phone firmly presses against his ear. "Yeah Rob, I can give you an eighth for forty-five. I'm gonna finish my math homework and I'll swing by. Don't tell anyone else I'm dropping the price for you, it'll hurt business."

  Quinn crosses into a mulched area around a hazardous playground. Beer and liquor bottles litter the area. Condoms are tossed haphazardly underneath a plastic slide with forgotten children floating around inside.

  He walks by a group of gangsters passing around a blunt. They stare at him for a moment. He puts his head down and picks up the pace. Once in the clear, he continues his conversation.

  "Naw I got it from Jaybird. I don't buy shit from Skaggs anymore he's been acting sketchy as fuck. Did you hear his theory on your dad killing Leroy?" Quinn crosses a parking lot. "Twisted, right? He's been doing all kinds of drugs lately. Like not weed and pills, but fucking heroin, meth. Shit like that."

  Quinn strolls past an elderly couple and waves.

  "My mom's gonna kick him out soon. I don't know if he's got anywhere to go, no one in the Bay wants to take care of him." Quinn climbs a set of stairs into building F. The smell of dollar store carpet cleaner fills the air.

  "I don't even want to look at him, let alone have him sleep in my house. Did I tell you he stole half my script of Adderall? Fuckin' prick. Anyway, I'll call when I get done with my homework dude, see ya."

  Quinn unlocks the door to see his mom still asleep on the couch with half a beer next to her. Sunday morning blues. He eases the door shut and sneaks down the hallway to his room.

  The smell of weed permeates the air as Quinn pulls out a twenty-eight-gram treasure from his pocket. He puts it up to his nose and inhales the exotic aroma.

  Quinn removes a digital scale from a cigar box and sits it on the dresser. He presses the power button and places a plastic cup on the scale. Quinn presses tare and the weight goes from fifteen grams to zero. Crystals fall like snow from the bright green nuggets when Quinn drops them into the cup.

  Twenty-eight point six, a little over an ounce.

  Smoking for free is the code of most pot dealers. The most important rule by far is don't carry a zip without a weapon. Bullets don't fly often, but those pistols in everyone's backpacks aren't for target practice. It's the Wild West in Bayside.

  Quinn carries a taser.

  He used it once on the way home from school. A couple guys started pushing him. When one of the goons tried to take his book bag, Quinn hit him with some electroshock therapy. The electricity surged through the thug, and the asshole shit his pants. The other guy ran like a little bitch.

  That's Bayside, the gated ghetto. Thugs lurk around the corners to harass helpless teenagers, scumbags, and addicts alike. A mom with two jobs generally gets a pass, mostly because they're the strongest people in the neighborhood. Afraid to lose their hard earned money or pride.

  Quinn worked his way up from the bottom of the drug dealing food chain, paying twenty bucks for a gram. Once he got in good with some of the stoners around the building he started buying it from Billy.

  Jaybird used to stop by Billy's place from time to time, collecting money. Whenever he came around he was always friendly to Quinn, and anyone else that was there. He'd usually spark up a blunt and let it pass around the room before he left. A very generous man, not pushy, he'd just come, get his money and leave.

  One day, Jaybird pulled Quinn aside and gave him an offer he couldn't refuse; two hundred bucks an ounce.

  Jaybird grows the majority of his weed and has different pay scales for each. The strain he sells Quinn is his pride and joy, Kobe Kush. No other member of the drug dealing community can get it for less than three, not even Roc or Billy.

  Quinn keeps his lips sealed tight about the bargain. He just tells everyone it costs four hundred an ounce, well everyone except Rob and Austin.

  It isn't a mystery Quinn has a shitty life. A junkie for a brother, a drunk for a mother, and a ghost for a father, but he can make it out as long as a few dollars slide into his hands. Jaybird's main buisness is real estate and he says as soon as Quinn can move six pounds he'll get him set up with a home.

  Not just a trap house, but an honest to goodness home outside of the Bay, with no piss stains on the carpets or bums in the courtyard.

  * * * * *

  Music pulses through the beige apartment wall. Skaggs sniffs a line off a small square mirror, the last in a four lane drive. He backs away, tilts his head north, and snorts back the drain letting the mixture drip down his throat.

  His cheeks clench.

  His teeth grind.

  His abdominal muscles tighten.

  After his body begins to let loose, Skaggs dumps bath salts into a mortar and pestle. The white crystals bounce around inside the bowl. He squishes the speed into dust relatively quickly. He adds five Adderall tablets, five Ambien pills, a Xanax bar, and two Percocet twenties in with the store bought Methylone. He crushes the ingredients until they blend into one heavenly powder.

  * * * * *

  Tina wakes up on her worn out sofa. Music from her idiot son's room pounds in her brain. Skaggs, the boy who broke her heart, the child who doesn't care that she works fourteen hour shifts to pay fo
r his thievery. The son she carried in her womb for nine months and ten days.

  "Turn that shit down!" Tina rolls off the couch and sort of spins to the bathroom, it's not a walk, but she isn't really falling either. It's the hung-over shimmy.

  Inside the bathroom, she turns on the shower in preparation for another day.

  * * * * *

  Skaggs drops and does twenty pushups.

  He jumps up and shadow boxes, dancing violently with his reflection, to 'Killing in the Name Of' by Rage Against the Machine.

  "I'm gonna fuck you up, Judd!" he screams.

  We've all done this move, the angry yell at the fake man in the mirror. Flexing our muscles at ghosts.

  The heroin is all gone. The Adderall and Percocet mingle like two strangers in a bar before their first drink. The bath salts, a legal substance, have already taken hold. The Xanax makes him lose control of his inhibitions. He can only think of revenge. A sheriff's shield buried below six feet of dirt.

  Skaggs picks up a hatchet. His smile is sinister in the reflecting glass. A box-cutter catches his eye, and the wheels in his brain excel with manic thoughts.

  * * * * *

  Quinn fills a backpack with clothes, an electronic tablet, a couple chargers. The essentials.

  "Yeah I'm comin' over now, Rob. It's gettin' too crazy here for me. Skaggs is high as fuck, stomping around the room, and making all kinds of noise. My mom's in the shower so I'm gonna wait and tell her goodbye. She ain't gonna be home until six in the morning.

  "Poor lady's pulling graveyard again. I slipped an extra twenty in her purse while she was drinking last night, enough to get her gas and food."

  He tosses his bag over his shoulder and makes his way to the door.

  * * * * *

  Tina massages her sore arms with a pink loofa. The water washes over the wrinkles on her face.

  "I'm going over to Rob's ma," Quinn yells from outside the bathroom door.

  "If you wanna wait a few minutes, I'll drive ya."

  "You sure?"

  "Of course babe." Tina hears his footsteps wander away, leaving her with nothing but the rhythm of tap water and incessant bass oozing through the wall.