Jane.

by Riya Anne Polcastro

  The television crews showed up sometime between the EMTs and the recon mission where a single, frightened cadet was sent up to assess the lunatic situation. From the snippets of news I was able to sneak while Mother was in the washroom or checking the mail, the media painted a very unflattering picture of my aunt. Channel Six exposed her brief stay at the State Hospital, and each of the other two major stations followed suit. Channel Two showed diagrams of expert predictions as to whether my aunt would die or be paralyzed by a fall from different parts of the roof. In their most distasteful version, she fell into the drive-thru and was immediately crushed by a two-ton truck. From there, they segued into a pundit interview with a so-called psychiatrist who told the viewing audience that my aunt was clearly a sociopath who had no consideration for the order of society and no guilt for her actions. Leave it to the media.

  Even now it seems there is always some quack more than willing to throw the label du jour at my aunt. First it was schizophrenic, obsessive-compulsive, and post-traumatic stress disorder; then manic depressive—which was renamed bi-polar with a new edition of the DSM, wait, no, schizoaffective actually . . . then again, let's go for schizophrenic with a touch of generic mood disorder, and ten finally dissociative identity disorder, topped off with a little adult ADD (kind of like sprinkles on top of a sundae−sprinkles that were quick to be renamed ADHD). The multiple personality diagnosis was quite an accomplishment for Rose since she set out to get it on purpose. I remember her saying how she just wanted to see if she could pull it off, see if she could trick them—never mind that mental health labels stick with you for life. What did my aunt have to lose? The doctors had already told her that she would never recover. They assured her the voices would always be there as would the brutal mood swings. What was another label when there was no hope of getting better anyway?

  28

  (Velma) They tried to talk her down. But there is no talking to that girl when she has got an idea in her head. She simply does not listen to reason. She just kept on walking with her sign and her chants. And how long do you think she kept this up? Twenty-four hours. That’s right, a whole day! I tell you, she had to be possessed to pull that off. No human can go a whole day without sleep or food or a trip to the restroom unless they have the Devil on their side.

  29

  And so developed a tenuous situation. Rose would not be talked down by the police. It was not like they could knock her down, either; even with a net, there was a good chance she would break her neck. But they sure as hell could not leave her up there to fall on her own. They could not just do nothing and look inept in front of the viewers at home. So they brought in a suicide-prevention counselor. He was not exactly the right guy for the job, but the economy was booming at the time, and he was desperate for work, so he slipped up the ladder and attempted to talk her down anyway. It was all for naught, of course; no admonition about all the people she was hurting, all the people who were worried about her, would bring her off the ledge. He even got inside information from my mother and tried to use my name in particular to lure her down. But Rose just laughed and told him how proud I would be of her one day. They tried SWAT next, then a hostage negotiator. Both hung up after thanking the chief for a good laugh.

  The restaurant was losing money fast. If it had been up to management, the doors would have been kept open for the duration of what was being called the Taco Burger Standoff. Why not capitalize on the publicity? But alas, the police would not allow themselves to be made a sideshow and shut business down. Corporate got antsy and talked cash. A couple thousand in exchange for an end to the madness, no big deal. But Rose scoffed. What sort of person did they think she was? The insult only strengthened her resolve to bring down the Taco Burger man.

  All in all, Rose walked the circumference of the roof, picket sign and slogan in tow, for twenty-four hours. And then she just stopped. She hopped off of the ledge and onto the roof as if it was not the moment everyone had feared would never come. She walked straight past the four or five officers who had been stationed on the roof to monitor her. They did nothing to stop her, just watched in shock as she climbed down the hatch and back into the restaurant. But before her feet even touched the ground, she was tackled from behind by a break room's worth of cops. In my aunt’s eyes, she had done nothing wrong, and she sincerely believed that she could just walk away from the whole ordeal whenever she was ready so long as no one got hurt. Of course, she was wrong and ended up the one injured in the process: a concussion from her head being slammed back into the metal ladder, a dislocated shoulder from the first of the overzealous and sadistic officers who jumped on her, a shattered hand and fractured wrist from the ensuing dog pile, and countless bruises. A clear-cut case of police brutality, right? Nope. My aunt is crazy; there is no such thing as police brutality.

  30

  A week or so after Rose is taken in, there is a knock at the door, and my heart sinks as I imagine the police on the other side that are here to tell me that my aunt committed suicide on the ward. I answer the door relieved but confused to see a young man dressed from head to toe in red instead. He pauses for a second, bows his cornrowed head, and then stumbles in practiced measure, "Is Jessica home?"

  I furrow my brow and respond that he has the wrong place. He is nervous and shifts from one foot to the other.

  "Did Jessica used to live here?"

  I shake my head, "Not that I know of."

  There is something peculiar about him. He is thugged out but more rap video than real-life thug, complete with high-end kicks and freshly pressed designer jeans. His dewy brown skin is flawless, even impeccable—so much so that it should contradict his next question. "Hey, I don’t mean to bother you, but do you do crystal?" He hops from his left foot to his right; his nerves creep and crawl across his face. "A honey like you, I’ll hook you up fat."

  I stare back at him blankly. Is that a skinny joke? Or is he actually stupid enough to be going door-to-door to sell meth with his Jessica story? There is something very odd going on here, and it calls to me to explore where the trail leads. Crazy? Maybe. Maybe I need a little bit of crazy in my life; maybe I am not only used to it, maybe I like it. With my aunt on a psych hold, this situation presents the opportunity to furnish it myself.

  "No, I don’t do crystal." I say, the insult heavy in my voice. "Got any coke instead?" I offer him seventeen dollars and a five-dollar bud.

  He tells me he does not, but he should be able to hook it up if he can get a ride. Now, perhaps this is where I should close the door, but my instincts do not tell me to. Fear does not come knocking right behind him. He could be an undercover cop (although an awfully nervous one). Or a carjacker. Or murderer/rapist.

  But none of these thoughts so much as cross my mind. What does is that Angela and I have a date at the strip club tonight, and she is all out of booger sugar. Furthermore, this cat smells like fear himself, and in this small exchange, I have already established a position of power at the cellular level. My mind has taken on a different level. More and more so as of late. A whole new element of existence is exposed. This is not a state of invincibility, a typical drug-induced state, but rather one in which I simply do not give a fuck. Maybe every move cannot be anticipated, but I am confident enough in my understanding of the situation to maintain control. Most importantly, no matter how hard he tries to imagine it, when he looks at me, he does not see a very good victim for whatever his motives are. Sweat has already started to form on his brow as he climbs into the passenger seat of my car.

  On his direction, we head over to 25th Street by the post office. This is the part of Felony Flats with literal box-like flats. Most of the people desperate enough to reside in these shacks are sex offenders and homicide parolees. There are also plenty of older, semi-rundown houses lining the street, and I pull over when he points towards a group of people hanging out on the front porch.

  "I need the money," he says.

  "You want the pot too?"

  "Nah, they’ll jus
t hook up a short sack."

  He takes the cash and walks over to talk to someone on the porch. They chat for quite a while, and there are shrubs between them and my car, so I cannot tell if anything is exchanged. When he comes back, he tells me he did not have any luck, but he is pretty sure that his other homeboy will be able to help us out; we just need to go down the street a little further.

  This time, he has me park in a visitor’s spot in an apartment complex, and I wait in the car while he walks up the stairs and disappears from view again. He is gone even longer this time, and my annoyances stack one right on top of another. It is getting late, and I was planning to hit the gym before it is time to go out. I had just changed into my workout clothes before this oddball knocked on my door, and now I’m freezing in my booty shorts and wifebeater.

  Not that I am not used to the quest. Sometimes it takes a few contacts before you score. But this does not feel right; he is up to something, but it cannot possibly be worth a mere seventeen dollars. I cannot imagine what kind of con he could be running here unless it is simply to play chauffeur for his Jessica meth gig. Still, my curiosity is stronger than my desire for cardio, so it is a conscious decision to see where this game will lead. It is no big surprise when he comes back empty-handed again. At this point, my strategy is to sit back and watch him play himself out. At worst, I will be out seventeen dollars, but it will be worth it to watch him really sweat.

  After a third stop and still nothing, he asks me to stop at a store. Suspicious, I follow him inside for a soda. He selects something out of the glass case behind the counter where the pipes and tooters are. Back in the car, he says, "I have one more hookup to check."

  My senses are a little too heightened right now, so I say, "That’s fine, but I’m going home to smoke a bowl first." A couple of hits should calm them down. Back at the cottage, I decide to roll a joint to smoke while we drive instead. Without asking, he grabs a CD case off of a shelf then reaches into his jacket and pulls a small baggie from an inside pocket. Inside is not cocaine. It is all rocks—more translucent than white. Crystal. He takes a razor blade from his pocket and chops it up. As rampant as the stuff is in the Willamette Valley, I have seen it on only a few occasions and never ever chopped up. Smoked, yes. Shot-up, OK. But chopped up? Um, no. Not that I have ever been interested enough to pay it any attention. Meth is a dirty drug cooked up in bathtubs by street chemists that convinces its users to turn away from grooming and personal hygiene and steal everything in sight. And now here is some well-dressed tweaker chopping it up in my living room and asking me if I would like a line.

  He bought that shit with my money. He was never trying to hook up any cocaine nor did he have any meth to sell to begin with. This fucker was soliciting to be a go-between, not just so that he could skim a little off the top, but so he could make off with the entire sack. I was not in search of the right cure for his craving, so he lied some more, and now he is putting my seventeen dollars up his nose right in front of me.

  He is done before I finish rolling the joint. "Can I borrow your phone?"

  I nod and he goes outside to make a call. When he comes back, he sits next to me on the couch. He still has my phone open, and it looks like he is playing with the camera. Then he goes and tries to nudge my knees apart like he is going to take a crotch shot, and I snatch the phone out of his hand, burning through his pupils with my own. "Don’t fucking touch me."

  He shrinks back from my rage and off of the couch. It is not clear whether he was testing my inhibitions or my fight, but he will not try either again.

  When I have finished rolling the joint, we leave to check with his last fictional hookup, this time parking on a quiet street in the suburbs. And once again, I wait in the car while he walks down a few houses and disappears from view. He has me on a wild goose chase. But does he really think I will drive him to so many places that I will forget I gave him my money in the first place?

  Once more, he returns without anything—just as expected. "But I just remembered another homie . . ."

  "Nah," I interrupt, flipping a U-turn back to my house. "How about you just give me money back instead?"

  He shoots me a quick look like a child caught with his hand in the cookie jar and then starts digging in his pockets furiously. "Oh, oh shit," he lies. "I must have dropped it."

  Calm and quiet, I just watch him fumble as he cooks up his story. I do not understand his nervousness. What does he have to fear? I am a buck twenty-five and unarmed as far as he knows. He is almost twice my size; what does he possibly think I am going to do to him? Why doesn’t he just admit that he stole my money, say "sorry bitch," and get out of my car? What does he think I am going to do about it? Chase him through suburban backyards and camouflaged trailer parks? He has the look of someone who has taken on more than he can handle and is pissing his pants trying to get out of it when he blunders, "I must’ve dropped it. Yeah, I must’ve dropped it in front of my homegirl Sandy’s house."

  "Well, then let’s go back and get it," I say dryly, wondering how long he will try to keep up this charade.

  "See, she’s not home anymore, so we’ll have to go see her at work. I’m sure she picked it up."

  At this point, my only plan is to go with the flow and trust that an opportunity will present itself. This supposed homegirl works at the adult shop down the road. I follow him inside, and he wanders around, ducking in and out of rows of dildos and pocket pussies as if he is trying to get lost among them while trying to appear as though he is looking for someone. When he does not find who he is not looking for, we leave the store empty-handed, and he doesn’t say a word to the solitary clerk.

  "Um, she must not be here yet. We’re gonna have to wait."

  So we go back to my car, and he is restless and fidgety for a few short moments before it all gets to be too much for him, and he heads back inside, claiming he needs to use the phone. I watch him go inside through my rearview mirror and dial Daemon. Julia answers with suspicion instead. I ask to speak to her boyfriend and ask him what my best move would be.

  "Are you asking me to come down there and help you out?"

  "Nah," I answer. "Not exactly. I’m not sure that seventeen dollars is worth taking it to that level. It’s more just the principle of the matter, you know? I just want to know what you think I should do in this kind of situation."

  "Where you at?" he asks.

  "The porn shop on Lancaster. You really don’t need to come down here; I was just hoping for some advice."

  "We’re just down the street."

  In my rearview mirror, I see the front door of the porn shop open, and this nervous tweaker hustler walks back out towards my car. For all he knows, I do not even see him. I’m just a dumb white girl talking on her cell phone, not paying attention to anything or anyone else. Or so he thought when he knocked on my door. Why doesn’t he just walk away now? I get out and meet him beside my car. Daemon wants to know what he is claiming.

  "Bloods," he answers, as if that is the end all be all of it.

  I roll my eyes at the obvious. "More specific . . ." He responds with something completely nonsensical. "Las Vegas Pimps?" He nods and I have to choke back my laughter. On the phone, Daemon laughs as well. "Hey, let him know he’s in Westside territory. Whatever little crew he ran with down there in the desert don’t mean shit here. Tell him I’m on my way to come talk to him."

  I do and Pimp here nods. "OK, OK." He takes a pair of white leather gloves out of his pocket. They are fingerless with Velcro straps.

  "He’s putting on his fighting gloves," I tell Daemon. We both laugh.

  After we hang up, he tells me that he is going to wait inside. He is nervous but not nervous enough; yet another chance to escape and he passes it up. Maybe it is the shit he snorted. Maybe he thinks there are no real gangsters in Salem, Oregon and gravely underestimates his predicament.

  I stand outside my car and watch the door. Daemon and Julia arrive in no time. We all go in together and walk through the en
tire store, down the same rows of videos and dildos all over again; we even look inside the arcades. They are waiting for me to point him out, staring at me like I failed to notice that he had gotten away. We circle around to the front of the store and notice that there is a restroom. The lock reads "unoccupied," but there is an obvious presence behind the door. We look at each other, back at the door, and back at each other. The lock slides quietly over to "occupied."

  At this point, the clerk has picked up on the tension and eyes us for a moment before reaching for the phone. She dials a very short number and continues to stare at us while she talks.

  "I think she’s calling the police," Julia says.

  "We should leave," Daemon agrees.

  In the parking lot, I thank them for their help, and Julia hugs me good-bye. While she waits to turn out of the parking lot, the Vegas Pimp ducks out of the shop and darts across the street right in front of her. She rolls her window down and yells back at me, "That him?"

  But of course it is not worth chasing a tweaker across five lanes of traffic. Daemon runs into him again a few weeks later. Cat gets one look and takes off running again. Daemon gives chase just for fun, but as they say, "You ain’t catching no crackhead." And that one is still running over seventeen dollars.

  31

  (Angela) I know we broke up and all, but all I wanna do is put my face between those legs! Still, why ain’t she wearing more clothes? Booty shorts, really? It ain’t even warm out, and she’s here showing off her ass to everybody! I mean, I know it’s August and all, but damn girl, your cheeks are hanging out!