by Sam Hawken
Kelly threw the butter away. It splattered on the glass of the back door. “Shut up!” he yelled, and Paloma’s voice went silent.
He curled up on the couch. Down in the pit of his stomach where the sickness curdled, Kelly felt lonely. The quiet was too quiet for him now, and his mind was too clear. His works were in the bedroom, but getting there was a marathon Kelly wasn’t prepared to run. He would sleep here for a little while and then he would go there. And this would be the last of it before he stopped, because he was too close to the line.
“Paloma, just shut up,” Kelly said. “I’m okay.”
THREE
ESTÉBAN CALLED WHILE KELLY SLEPT:
Hey, man, where the fuck are you? Listen, you need to call me, all right? I don’t know what your deal is, but if you and Paloma decided to run off together… that shit’s not right. You got everybody worried, okay? You get this, you tell Paloma to call me.
And don’t you do nothing stupid like getting married, okay? Just call. Okay, just call me wherever. Okay.
FOUR
CHINALOA WAS SUPPOSED TO TAKE away pain, but it was a cheat because the pain didn’t disappear. Instead it was all put on hold, kept in a secret place, and when there was no room for the pipe or the needle anymore, chinaloa gave it all back because chinaloa was a bitch that couldn’t stand to be jilted.
Kelly hurt behind the eyes and deeply into his skull. His stomach was a knot and he heaved over and over again even though there was nothing in there except something clear and acidic and nasty. His shoulders hurt and his knees hurt and anything that could swell or bend or stab him with shards of broken glass came alive and punished him.
Even smells assaulted him. Kelly hated the odor of his body. He showered six times in a row and scrubbed himself until his skin was raw, but the rot-stink wouldn’t go away. It was the dope working its way out of his blood and through his flesh and seeping into the air he breathed. He could not brush his teeth often enough.
The worst was not being able to think straight. He couldn’t ask himself why and he couldn’t remember anyway. Hot screws were jammed into the base of his skull and he could not speak or dream or even move. When he slept now he slept for relief, because only then could he earn some distance from withdrawal. He was dying.
But no, he wasn’t dying. Dying was easier than detox. He knew this already, had been in this hell already and told himself he would never go back, but he had and he was and it would end when it was damned good and ready and not a day or a minute or an hour before. Kelly wished he were dying; that much he could hold onto.
Footsteps on the landing outside his apartment were thunderous. When the work-whistle sounded at the maquiladora across the way, it broke Kelly’s skull in half. He dreaded a knock on the door because it would tear him apart and he would have to scream. A scream would kill him.
No one knocked. Even the phone didn’t ring anymore. Kelly knew when he got his thirst back that he was going to live. He drank one glass of water after another until his stomach bloated. He pissed like a river through a broken dam. The hurt faded. He put on clothes and even went outside to sit by the heavy bag.
Finally he could eat, had to eat, but he got nothing from the store except rice and corn tortillas in the hope that he could keep them down. He ate and threw up again, but the second time he did keep it down and the time after that, too. Once he finished a bowl of rice and he wept with the bowl clutched between his hands so tightly that his flesh blanched white.
He shaved his face and left bloody nicks behind because he did not want to look at himself in the mirror. His weight was down, but not healthily. His clothes were loose on his frame.
The apartment was filthy. Nothing was picked up and nothing was put away, so the floor was strewn with wrappers and empty plates and everywhere a bottle or a can could be perched it had been done. Opening the windows wide let the smell out, but the mess remained.
He listened to his phone messages again. Once he had to pause and he cried with his hands over his face. He cried because he was ashamed and he was ashamed for crying. It took an hour to get through to the end.
Estéban answered the home phone. It was before noon, but he was awake. “It’s me,” Kelly told him. “I want to talk to Paloma.”
“Paloma? Hey, what the fuck? I been trying to get you for a month, cabrón! I come by your place, I call you on the phone… don’t be playing that shit with me now. Where’s Paloma?”
“I didn’t… you didn’t come by here,” Kelly said.
“The hell I didn’t! I banged on your door for a fucking hour. Where’s my fucking sister, pinche?”
Kelly put his hand on the kitchen counter. He felt off, like the floor was shifted, and he wanted to sit down. “She’s not here. She… she called me a few times.”
“When?”
“I don’t know.”
Kelly heard Estéban breathing on the other end of the line, taking shuddery breaths. Kelly felt cold. “This is not funny,” Estéban said at last. “You tell me where she is.”
“I don’t know. I swear to God, I don’t know. Listen… I fucked up, man. She called me—”
“She was worried about you, bro! We all were. I heard some shit and I don’t believe it: something about you buying horse. Somebody tells me that, I say they’re full of shit because you don’t touch that no more. Paloma says she’ll go see you and then nothing. Tell me what you said to her.”
“I didn’t say—” Kelly began.
“Did you hit her? If you fucking hit her and she ran off, cabrón, I will put a knife in you. ¿Entienda? I will stick you in the fucking ground, bro. I will fuck you up.”
Kelly’s temples throbbed and he rubbed them. Estéban ranted in his ear. He was dizzy and the floor canted more and more. If Estéban would just shut up, he could think, but Estéban wouldn’t and the torrent covered Kelly over.
“Hey, are you still there?”
He was on the floor by the phone with the receiver still pressed to his ear. “I think I blacked out,” Kelly said.
“I’m coming over there.”
“No. I’ll come to you,” Kelly said, but Estéban had already hung up. He put the phone away and tried to clear up. Two big plastic trash bags were full in ten minutes. Kelly threw out his old sheets. The bedroom still reeked of ammonia. The mattress showed a brown-stained outline of where Kelly’s unwashed body slept and sweated and dreamed chinaloa dreams. It was ruined; Kelly would have to get rid of it.
When Estéban came he pounded on the door. Kelly opened up and Estéban bulled past. “Paloma? ¿Paloma, está aquí?”
“She’s not here,” Kelly said.
Estéban checked the apartment. He came back to the living room and Kelly saw that he’d lost weight, too. Dark grooves cut in beneath his eyes and his hair was unkempt. He hadn’t shaved in a few days. His clothes were rumpled as if he had slept in them. Estéban looked as if he was about to cry. “Where is she, man? Just tell me where she went. I promise I won’t do nothing to you if it’s your fault. You broke up with her, she broke up with you… it don’t matter.”
“She’s not here,” Kelly repeated.
“What the fuck do you mean she’s not here?!?” Estéban smacked the phone off its receiver. He kicked the front of the refrigerator and left a dent. Kelly’s few dishes were by the sink, gathered unwashed. Estéban swept them onto the floor. “What did you fucking do to her? Where the fuck did you go?”
Kelly stood by the door. It was still open, and he hadn’t moved even to push it shut. He felt rooted. The shattering dishes didn’t make him flinch. He was aware of his pulse rushing in his ears. “She didn’t come here.”
“You said I didn’t come here!”
“I didn’t hear you,” Kelly said. His throat hurt and his voice pitched higher. “I was high, man. I got messed up. If she came… I didn’t hear her.”
“¡Mierda!”
Estéban kicked the refrigerator again and the door popped open. Kelly’s stack of plastic-wra
pped tortillas was there half finished. The rest was empty, stained yellow by the little light, and forlorn.
When Estéban came at him, Kelly didn’t try to get out of the way. Estéban grabbed Kelly by the front of his shirt. His expression was twisted, frantic, and now he did cry. The whites of his eyes were bloodshot. “She said she was going to see you!”
“I didn’t hear her,” Kelly wanted to say, but he only whispered.
“What the fuck, Kelly? What the fuck?” Estéban shook Kelly and the tears came freely. “Why won’t you tell me where she went? Just tell me where she went, Kelly, so I can go get her.”
“I don’t know where she went,” Kelly said.
Estéban didn’t let go; he buried his face against Kelly’s chest and sobbed. Kelly put his hands on Estéban and they clung to each other. Kelly shook all over as he cried and a part of him was ill at ease when his tears fell into Estéban’s hair, but there was no time for that.
“I want to bring her back home,” Estéban said.
“I know,” Kelly said because it was all he could say. “I know.”
FIVE
THE MATTRESS STANK SO BADLY THAT Kelly couldn’t stand to sleep on it. He put a pile of gym clothes on the floor of the bedroom and used his training gloves for a pillow. Estéban crashed on the couch. They shared Kelly’s tortillas and rice for dinner and made little conversation. When Kelly fell asleep that night, he heard Estéban weeping quietly to himself.
In the morning they would go to the police. That much they decided on. They would get cleaned up and dress right and when they made their report they would be taken seriously. Estéban had a wad of American bills; he would pass a couple hundred bucks to the man in charge. That, too, would be taken seriously.
Kelly had dreams. Maybe they were of Paloma and maybe they were nightmares, but he remembered nothing about them. He slept longer than he intended, and when he stirred he heard Estéban moving around in the front room. “Why didn’t you wake me up?” Kelly called. He went to the bathroom and washed and dressed in the clean, button-up shirt with a collar that he saved for Sunday meals with Paloma.
He owned no fancy shoes or slacks, so had to wear sneakers with jeans, but it would be enough. He went to the front room. “Bathroom’s open,” he said. “You want to hurry up and—”
“Estéban isn’t here,” Rafael Sevilla said. He sat on the couch where Kelly and Estéban shared their quiet, simple dinner the night before. “He’s down with the locals. Says his sister’s disappeared. He’s not so dressed up like you, Kelly.”
“What the hell are you doing in here?”
“The door was wide open.”
The door was open still and the glare was bright. Kelly had his shoes in his hand and he felt stupid standing in front of Sevilla in his Sunday shirt, his skin still damp from the shower and Estéban long gone. “When did he go?” Kelly asked.
“I don’t know, but they called me a couple of hours ago. I tell the locals who I’m interested in and they pass word on to me. Same with you. That’s how I know when you’re in the shit again, Kelly. And you’ve been in the shit, haven’t you?”
Kelly didn’t look Sevilla in the face. He went to the kitchen, though there was nothing there to keep him. He had only one unbroken glass for water and he used it. “I fucked up,” he said.
“I know. But that’s the kind of fuck-up you can’t afford, Kelly. I told you before: I turn a blind eye to the hierba, but not the other. I thought you were smarter than that.”
“I guess not,” Kelly said with his back to Sevilla.
“No. But all you addicts are stupid when it comes to heroína, eh?”
“I’m not an addict. I fucked up. That doesn’t make me a junkie.”
“Then look me in the eye when I’m talking to you, Kelly.”
“I’m not some kid you can boss around.”
Sevilla had a quiet voice, but it had strength. Kelly heard it before and he heard it now. Sevilla said: “A man could look me in the eye.”
Kelly turned. He looked at his feet and then the counter, the phone, the sliding glass door at the back of the apartment and finally to Sevilla. The old cop sat utterly still. His eyes seemed sadder and the lines around them deeper. Just looking at Sevilla made Kelly feel tired, as though there was an unwelcome weight shared between them.
“I slipped,” Kelly said. “It wasn’t what I wanted. I got right again.”
“Until the next time.”
“No. There’s no next time.”
“If you were with Paloma I’d believe it, Kelly,” Sevilla said. “But she’s not around. Where did she go?”
“I don’t know.”
“What did Estéban tell you?”
“Nothing. He said… he said she went to check up on me and, hell, I don’t know.” Kelly’s eyes burned and he rubbed them. He didn’t want to cry in front of Sevilla. That would be too much.
“Who sells Estéban his heroin?”
“Oh, for Christ’s fucking sake!” Kelly shouted. “The man’s sister is gone, all right? She’s just… just fucking gone and I don’t give a shit who gives Estéban what and what for! Now why don’t you just get the fuck out of my place?!?”
Sevilla didn’t move, but his expression settled into something hard. He wore a suit, but like all of them it wasn’t pressed and had the impression of age. Sevilla took the handkerchief from his breast pocket and held it out to Kelly. “You want to wipe your snotty nose?”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Kelly demanded, but he touched his nose with the back of his hand unconsciously.
“I mean if you’re going to be a spoiled little boy—”
“I’m not anybody’s—” Kelly began.
Sevilla cut him off: “¡Parate! Right now I talk and you listen. And listen closely, Kelly, because I don’t want to lose my temper with you. You don’t want me to lose my temper with you.”
Kelly closed his mouth. Sevilla rose from the couch and walked the room the way he did: a slow circuit that never paused long, but missed nothing. He lingered at the sliding glass door and touched the thick splatter of dried butter leavings. When he looked back to Kelly, his eyes were dark and no longer sad.
“She’s been gone ten days,” Sevilla said. “I know because I asked around. You were gone, too — crawled up into your fucking needle — but Estéban was also missing. Did he tell you that? Did he say he was out of town?”
“No.”
“I didn’t think so.”
Kelly waited for Sevilla to say more, but instead Sevilla looked out toward the maquiladora beyond Kelly’s balcony. He was quiet for a long time, until Kelly couldn’t stay silent anymore. “Where was he?”
“Somewhere,” Sevilla said. He put his back to the view and fished a pack of cigarettes out of an inside pocket. “I could make a guess, but I don’t have real answers. That’s because I don’t know names. Names like who supplies Estéban with heroin.”
“Goddammit, I told you I don’t know.”
Sevilla knocked one cigarette from the pack, perched it in the corner of his mouth and lit it. He inhaled deeply and exhaled through his nose. He came away from the sliding glass doors and closer to Kelly. He used the cigarette as a pointer. “Then let me tell you what’s happened. Estéban and his good friends you don’t know, maybe they aren’t such good friends after all. Maybe Estéban makes too much money, or maybe he doesn’t make enough. Someone gets angry or he gets angry, but the end result is the same: Paloma goes for a ride and until everyone’s happy again and made friends again she stays away.”
Kelly shook his head. “No,” he said.
“No? Maybe she doesn’t come back at all. Maybe she’s dead already.”
“No, that’s not what happened.”
“I don’t know what happened, Kelly,” Sevilla said. He moved closer and left fading streamers of smoke in his wake. “I don’t know because I don’t have names. With names I can get faces and places and times. Then I can know.”
Kel
ly felt flushed, breathless, and put his hand on the counter by the sink. A shard of broken plate pressed against his palm. “She’s not dead. No dealer took her.”
“You know that for certain, do you, Kelly?”
“I know it.”
Sevilla was close enough to touch. The smell of cigarette was all around Kelly, and the aroma of his aftershave. Kelly wanted to push Sevilla back, but he was afraid he might fall; he was lightheaded and the smoke didn’t help. “You don’t know, Kelly. You can’t know. But we can… if you help me.”
“I don’t know what I can do for you,” Kelly said. He closed his eyes. He felt nauseous.
“Help me cut through Estéban’s bullshit. What he tells the locals I don’t care; we both know these men, these distribuidores de la heroína… they’re bad men. You’re not a bad man, Kelly; a woman like Paloma would never love a bad man.”
“Get away from me.” Kelly shoved Sevilla. The cop stumbled and his cigarette hit the floor. Kelly staggered backward and got tangled in his own sockfeet. He toppled onto his rear. When he looked up Sevilla had his hand on his gun and his face was flushed red.
“Don’t be stupid, Kelly! I want to find her, too. You think I don’t want to? After all the good she’s done? You don’t know how many people owe her, Kelly. You’ll never know.”
“Get the fuck out of here,” Kelly said. His eyes stung and he blinked away tears. “You just… you just get the fuck out of here now.”
“If I leave here now, Kelly, you’ll get no help,” Sevilla said.
“I don’t want your help. I want you to leave.”
Sevilla sighed. The high color drained from his face and he let his hand move away from his pistol. He crushed the fallen cigarette into the vinyl tile with the tip of his shoe. When he went to the door he paused as if to say one last thing, but Kelly wouldn’t look at him and finally Sevilla just left. Kelly put his face in his hands and all the words and pictures and ideas and fears and hopes whirled around behind his eyelids until they could only come out in more tears.
