by Gina Ranalli
I get a funny feeling in my stomach, kind of nauseous, and it suddenly feels like my blood is itchy in my veins. What the fuck is going on?
The scar clearly came from a deep wound, but…
This shit makes no sense.
I stare at myself, at the scar, for a long time. I might have stayed there even longer, but Marvin starts scratching at the door and I blink, startled, and look away from the mirror. When I look back, the scar is gone. Totally gone.
Of course it’s fucking gone. It was never there in the first place. I never cut my face, not even when I was a kid. No falling off a skateboard or hitting a windshield or getting nailed with a pop fly lost in the sun.
I grip the edges of the sink and continue to stare at myself. The same phrase—what the fuck?—runs over and over in my mind, like it’s the only English I know.
A drug flashback? A premonition? What the fuck is wrong with me?
A trick of the light, I decide. It’s the only thing that makes sense.
The sound of Marvin whining at the door distracts me again and when I open it, the scent of cooking food assaults my nostrils. Is that chick actually making me breakfast at midnight? Maybe I shouldn’t kick her out just yet.
Marvin pushes past me into the bathroom and proceeds to help himself to a nice fresh bowl of toilet water.
-Nasty ass dog.
I give myself one last glance in the mirror and then get the fuck out of there. I don’t know what that little hallucination was about and I really don’t want to. For all I know, it could be a newborn brain tumor bursting from my frontal lobe like a huge zit getting ready to pop. Or it could be the first sign of schizophrenia or Alzheimer’s and I’ll be drooling in a corner by the end of the year.
In the kitchen, Violet is at the stove and the smell of bacon is growing. Joey is seated at the table and a few of the others are mingling about, cluttering up my house and my peace, my sanctuary.
Rick, my drummer, has a blonde hanging off his shoulder and they’re both looking a little green around the gills.
-You okay, man?
He smiles at me and then I know the fucker has been shooting up in my backyard.
-Okay, you know what? Everybody, get the fuck out. Party is fucking over.
Joey immediately gets to his feet. He knows me better than anyone else and he knows when I’m not fucking around.
In less than two minutes, everyone is gone, ushered from the backyard, through the house and out the front door, except for Violet, who apparently has pretended she didn’t hear the command or she thinks she’s exempt from it.
I’m sitting where Joey was and watching her move around the kitchen, searching for shit like salt and plates and mugs. I can’t believe the balls on this one. Does she think sucking my dick is the same as an engagement ring?
Fuck it.
I let her cook for me, feed me, talk to me about her life, but I don’t really listen all that much. Eventually, I travel into the living room and sprawl out on the crushed velvet sectional sofa with my old Ovation and strum the first few chords of a song called “Cash Kills,” something that was a hit a long time ago by a band no one remembers anymore.
Violet stays in the kitchen for a long time, loading the dishwasher and doing whatever the fuck she’s doing in there and I’m yawning, playing songs without singing them, but every couple minutes I flash back to that weird experience in the bathroom.
When Violet finally finishes cleaning up, she joins me on the couch and listens to me play for a few minutes.
-Pretty. You should play on stage more often.
I nod.
-Yeah, I should. But I’m not that good, really. Joey and Chris are the real musicians.
-I doubt that.
She moves closer to me, pressing herself into my body, and starts rubbing my crotch. My dick surprises me by responding instantly and I set aside the guitar and dig my hands into her hair.
I think I’ll fuck her this time. Show her the tabloids are right about my stamina and all the other bullshit they’ve been writing for years.
Deep inside her, listening to her moan, a new song begins to form in my head, something about movement, time…life and circles, always evolving.
Revolving.
CHAPTER THREE—The Junkie (2)
I come back, sit straight up and puke all over my lap.
What the fuck was that?
The queasiness passes almost immediately, but my pulse is racing like a terrified little bird suddenly trapped in a cage made out of razors.
Not giving a shit that I’m covered in vomit, I lie back again, staring at the water stained, cracked gray ceiling. It takes me a moment to realize my dick is hard, something it hasn’t been in I don’t know how long.
It seems like a good sign. A bonus side effect.
I’ve never in my life felt a high like the one I’ve just experienced. And I’ve had a lot of highs, both good and bad. But this one…holy shit. Fucking amazing and I know one thing surer than I’ve ever known anything: I need more. I need to do it again. It’s what I’ve been searching for my whole life-the greatest escape of all.
I try to remember every moment of the trip. I was a fucking rock star! A rich, famous fucking rock star, surrounded by drugs which for some reason I wasn’t into but whatever—and at least one chick begging for my cock. Probably with plenty more where she came from. A kick-ass dog, friends, expensive shit in an expensive house, the whole fucking nine. Everything I could want. Hell, I could play guitar, something I’ve wanted to learn to do my entire life but could never seem to work up the needed discipline.
It was me. I was him. The scar was the clincher. I reach up and touch it. Though it had mystified my other self, I knew exactly how I’d gotten it and when. A broken glass bottle thrown at my face when I was nine and trying to steal a pair of sneakers off another kid’s feet. His dad, a grizzled, wino-looking dude, hadn’t taken too kindly to it and whipped the nearest object at my head while screaming that he was gonna cut my balls off and feed em to a pack of wild dogs.
I wasn’t nearly quick enough and caught the bottle in the temple where it split the side of my eye wide open. I’d always considered myself lucky that I hadn’t lost the eye. A quarter of an inch to the left and I would have.
I don’t know why that other drug-induced version of me didn’t have it. I know even less why he then did have it, and then didn’t again, but maybe drug-induced me never had to steal anything. Drug-induced me seemed to have a pretty cushy fucking gig.
But what did it mean? Could I become that guy? Have that cushy rock star life?
The idea makes me laugh aloud. Of course fucking not. No way. But I want that life now. More than anything. And if that means I have to stay high forever, then so be it. I can do that, no problem. I won’t be missing anything here, that’s for fucking sure.
I just need to get more. Find Harvey. Beg, borrow, steal, whatever.
But finding Harvey in the first place—if I even can—means I have to go out into the world, which sucks balls. But, fuck it. It’ll be worth it.
First things first.
Get up, take a goddamn bath, wash this puke off me. Spit and polish, like they used to say back in the day.
Running the dirty brown water into the tub takes longer than actually being in the tub and sitting in it is no picnic. It doesn’t help that the claustrophobia-inducing bathroom’s color reminds me of the inside of a migraine, so I’m in and out, barely using the same sliver of soap I’ve had for probably six months already.
I got wet. That’s good enough for me.
Pulling on cleanish sweat pants and a new t-shirt, both of which I washed by hand in the sink a few days back, I’m pretty much ready to roll.
Stepping into shoes duct taped together at the toes, I grab my keychain with the one key on it and get going.
Night is falling and it’s drizzling outside, as usual. And cold too. I don’t put the temperature higher than 45 degrees or so, wishing like fuck I had a ja
cket. Or even a winter coat, if I want to really dream. I bet rock star me has a whole closet full of coats, probably a full-length fur or two included.
That Jeff is living the good life, man. And soon I will be too, if I have my way.
The streets are pretty much deserted. Nobody wants to come out in this crappy weather. Hell, they don’t want to come out at all, if they can help it and I don’t blame them. I’m the same way. This shit city is going south fast. No jobs to speak of, no nothing but empty buildings, some of which are about a season away from collapsing altogether.
I walk towards the west side, where a bar called Sennacherib’s is still operational and the most likely place I can think of for Harvey to be.
It takes me twenty minutes to get there and by the time I arrive I’m wet, cold and cranky but thankful I didn’t get jumped along the way.
I’m surprised to see about ten people inside, all men of course, but Harvey isn’t among them.
The place is small and gloomy; it’s hard to see the two guys in the back shooting pool. They’re little more than shadows moving against the backdrop of a couple of dart boards and framed pictures of chicks in bikinis leaning over Corvettes and classic Mustangs.
I go up to the bar trying to shake the rain out of my hair. Hoop is here, like he always is. It’s his place and has been in his family for three generations. Supposedly my dad drank with his dad and they went through some shit together but I have no idea if that’s true or not. Old guys seem to love their tales of grandeur more than just about anything.
Hoop gives me a nod and I return it, slipping onto a stool.
-What’s up, man?
He shrugs, his bald head gleaming, the brightest object in the whole place.
-Nada. You want a drink?
-On the house?
-Fuck you.
-For a price, doll face.
He gives me a disgusted look and starts to turn away from me.
-Whoa. Hold up. You seen Harvey?
-Who?
-Dent, I mean.
-Ah. Not yet. He’ll be by though. He usually is.
-Soon?
-How the fuck should I know? It ain’t my turn to babysit his ass.
I sigh and shiver and look at the guy a couple stools down who’s eyeing me like he sees a steak.
-Spot me a brew, man?
The guy is older, a grayhead, with deep creases all over his face and a craggy beard.
-What’s in it for me?
-Stimulating conversation?
He grunts and looks away.
-I’m just kidding, man. What do you want?
Again, that look. He definitely sees something edible but I’m crossing my fingers it isn’t a literal thing. Cannibalism is more common than it used to be. Not a thing you hear about every day, but it’s getting to be once a month maybe. Seriously fucked up shit. People have fallen on some hard fucking times.
-What’s your name, kid?
-Jeff. What’s yours?
He thrusts out a gnarled hand across the gulf of the two stools between us. “Halleck. Richard Halleck the third.”
-No shit?
I shake his hand and try to look impressed but I have no fucking clue who he is and I’m not even sure he expects me to.
-No shit. Hoop, give this kid a drink on me. He looks like he could use it.
Hoop does as he’s told without a word and then goes back to ignoring his customers, his concentration on a decaying old titty magazine.
-Thanks, Richard Halleck the third. You’re a scholar and a gentleman.
I’m taking my first sip of the vaguely coolish beer when Harvey walks in out of the sad sack of a night.
-Yo, bro.
I beat him to his bro and he looks surprised.
-Eon. What a fucking surprise.
Halleck gives me an untrusting look.
-I thought you said your name was Jeff?
-It is. Jeff Eon.
He eyes Harvey, sizing up the competition maybe.
Harvey sits between us.
-Looking for me?
-How’d you guess?
-I’m fucking psychic. I warned you, didn’t I? Just once and you’re hooked.
Hoop looks up from his magazine, gives us a dirty look. He has rules. No drugs in his bar. Not because he’s morally opposed or thinks he’ll get raided or anything like that but because he says if people are high on other shit, they’re less likely to have cash for booze or even want booze if they have cash. Catch 22, he always says, though I don’t think the analogy applies like he thinks it does.
-Head outside for a minute?
-I just got here, motherfucker. Mind if I dry off before I start chasing your ass around?
I sigh but nod. You can’t push Harvey to do anything he doesn’t wanna do. If you try, he’ll stonewall you hardcore.
He gets a drink from hoop, paying with cash—probably the same cash I gave him earlier—and sips it casually, pretending like he doesn’t know me for a while.
Hoop walks to the other end of the bar and I clear my throat, talking soft.
-You need to hook me up, man.
-Can you pay for it?
I try to give him my best sorrowful puppy eyes.
-Then fuck yourself.
The Halleck guy leans towards Harvey.
-Give the kid what he wants. I’ll cover him.
And I think, oh fuck.
Something tells me I’m gonna be paying dearly for whatever happens next and probably not in the way of an IOU either.
But I want it. Bad. Whatever the cost, I know it’ll be worth it.
I look at my new beneficiary, if that’s what he is, I look him square in the eye.
-Let’s do it, old timer.
CHAPTER FOUR—The Killer
The apartment complex is dark and quiet as I move through the parking lot. It’s just after midnight and I know exactly where I’m going. To the newlyweds’ place. Number A-4.
They’ve only lived here for a few months but I saw them moving in. They have a lot of nice shit. And a shiny new car too, that still had streamers and cans tied to the back bumper and the words ‘just married’ painted across their back windshield in soap.
They’re young. Younger than me for sure. And happier than me too. I don’t know what they do for work, but they’re fairing pretty good, especially compared to everyone I know. We’re all just a bunch of lifetime fuck-ups with no prospects on the horizon.
I keep my eyes open for any movement as I climb the steps up to the newlyweds’ door. Their car is gone, just like it is every Wednesday night. No clue where they go but it’s good for me that they do.
Making friends with the woman who manages the complex was pretty smart, if I do say so myself. She has keys in the office—keys I helped myself to one night while she was outside talking to one of the tenants about a noise complaint. She didn’t even notice. I made sure to only grab a couple at a time, make copies and return them the next night. The chick—Jamie is her name—is pretty sweet on me. She’s one of those fat, insecure girls that’ll take attention from wherever she can get it. Sad, really, but what I’m doing isn’t hurting her any. I get to let myself into people’s apartments and she gets to think a young, handsome-ish guy is into her. Boost her ego while I boost my wallet.
The cops have been by every time I’ve broken into a place, though usually not until the next day. Three times so far. So, yeah, they know something is up, as do all the tenants. They had a meeting and everything, which was kind of funny, since I was there, acting all appalled and concerned, just like everybody else. Even volunteered to do the “neighborhood watch”, take a shift during the early morning hours of Saturday, since I’m up anyway.
At first I thought it would be perfect—break-in while I’m on watch, patrolling the grounds, supposedly, but after I thought about it, I decided that might make it obvious who was doing the crimes.
I’ve been pretty careful, fucking up locks when I can so no one figures out about the keys. I
mean, they’ll figure it out eventually, but I’ll be long gone before they do. That is, if luck is on my side and I have no reason to think it won’t be. It has been so far.
At the newlyweds’ door, I turn and look around one last time to make sure I’m not being observed. I even check the windows of other apartments. Satisfied the coast is clear, I unlock the door and slip inside, closing it behind me, soft as a whisper in the dark.
They left a light on in the kitchen, the one above the stove, so it’s dim inside, which is good. Just how I like it.
I slink around, taking the place in. It’s nice. They have nice furniture and electronics and all that shit. I’m not really sure what I want. I never am and never go into a place with anything in particular in mind. Mostly small stuff is what I’m after. Jewelry, credit cards, any cash lying around. I’m sure as fuck not stupid enough to try walking out with a 65” plasma flat-screen TV, though it would sure as shit be nice. But I can’t be overly ambitious—I live in the complex too, for the time being anyway. Gotta take it easy, not get greedy.
Checking out stuff on the counter in the kitchen, I examine a checkbook, debating on pocketing it when there’s a squeak behind me, like a chirping little bird.
I turn slowly and just about shit my pants when I see the wife standing there in the doorway, dressed in flannel pajamas and holding a tissue to her nose. Her eyes are wide and frightened and the moment we make eye contact she spins on her bare feet and starts to run away down the hall.
-Fuck.
There’s a moment when I think about just getting the fuck out of there, jumping in my car and taking off right away. No fuss, no muss. But then I’m chasing her. Out of fear or panic, I’m not sure which. Maybe both.
She’s racing towards the bathroom, crossing the threshold into it and in the process of slamming the door when I hit it hard with my left shoulder, all my weight behind it. She flies backwards, lands on her ass and starts to scream. I’m on her before she can get out much sound, my fist colliding with her mouth, rocking her head back, knocking it hard into the tile floor. There’s a moment when she’s dazed, her eyes rolling back in her head, showing only the whites. Her bared teeth are smeared with blood from her split lower lip and a horrifying thought occurs to me. What if she’s not alone here? What if her husband is home too? Maybe they let someone borrow their car.
