by Ray Rhamey
She tousled Chloe’s hair. “Listen, honey, why don’t you play while I see to Uncle Timmy?”
“He’s sick again, Mommy.”
“I know, sugar. I got him some medicine.”
Going into her bedroom and then to the walk-in closet that served as her brother’s room, she found Timmy shivering on his mattress on the floor, a sheet pulled up to his chin. The air stank of stale sweat and soiled clothes—she needed to do a cleanup.
Jewel knelt beside him and smoothed his hair. Hard to believe he was twenty-three now. He’d been her “little boy” since he was twelve and she seventeen, when their mother was killed in a mugging. She loved him so much, it ached.
His jaws clenched and unclenched as he looked up at her. It broke her heart to see how hard he worked not to show his pain. She handed him a packet of pink she’d gotten from Murphy.
His eyes widened, and he flashed her a grin. “Oh, thank you, Sister, thank you.” Hands quivering, he dug his dope kit out from under a pair of dirty jeans. Jewel couldn’t watch, so she went to the living room and stared out a window.
Tears clouded her eyes, and she cursed the junkie chemist who had cooked up the designer drug with a hook that couldn’t be removed. She’d looked for help on the Internet and found out that pink was crack cocaine and freebase nicotine combined into a new drug. The nastiest part of pink was the most addictive drug known to science—nicotine in the freebase form. The crack created instant dependence, and pink’s freebase nicotine created instant addiction.
“You feel like God.” That’s what Timmy had said at the beginning, back when he was stronger and had enough money for pink, and they hadn’t believed the talk they’d heard about how bad it was. He’d do the drug and then go out for a long night, humming and snapping his fingers. He’d told her, “You’re the smartest, the strongest, the sexiest. Anything is possible. And it lasts for hours and hours.”
Yeah, pink gave addicts a few hours in heaven, but when it wore off, it put them on a bullet train to hell. Because it was so new, nobody’d found anything to treat the suffering and, so far, detoxing killed you. When addicts withdrew, they died in agony.
It had been just six months since pink had taken over Timmy’s life because some fool at a party had slipped it into his pipe of marijuana. Now he was a condemned man.
After a dinner of fried Spam, greens, fruit salad, and a treat of Girl Scout Thin Mint cookies, Jewel snuggled Chloe close on the couch and read to her. She stayed away from stories with a father in them, because they sparked questions she didn’t want to answer.
At eight o’clock, after a flurry of hugs and kisses, she tucked Chloe into bed. Timmy, now smiling and energized by a shower and clean clothes, went out to enjoy his high while it lasted. Jewel tried television, but the shows were either sex, violence, mindless crap, or all three.
Surfing channels, she caught a news report that said the guy who had tried to shoot Noah Stone was pleading not guilty. That was nuts. There was a herd of witnesses, for Christ’s sake. But his lawyer would probably get him off on a technicality—she’d seen them do that a hundred times at the office.
Hank Soldado had been a hero twice in the same day. She pictured him with Stone in the hospital room. Soldado hurt but strong, Noah Stone warm and inviting, yet each had a similar edge.
She dug out the Alliance brochure. It painted a picture of life made good through work, the promise, and THREAD. She dozed in her chair and dreamed of her daughter running through green grass under a blue sky, laughing.
Free.
The next day dragged by, filled with hours of job-hunting. She found a perfect position, but they called her old boss and it went belly-up. She’d never get a job with him sinking every chance she found.
She took out her phone and checked her bank account balance. Today would have been payday, and without that things looked awfully lean. She felt as if the world was ganging up to crush the life out of her life. Noah Stone’s invitation to Oregon came to mind more and more. But there was Timmy.
The next morning, while scouring want ads and having no luck, muffled whimpers from Timmy’s “room” distracted her. She went back to check on him.
He lay on his mattress, shivering under a blanket, sweat rolling off his face. She knelt beside him and ran her fingers through his hair. It’d been too many hours since his last hit; he was really hurting.
He looked up at her, his eyes wet wells of pain. “Sister . . .”
“What, honey?”
“Es-s-s-steban . . .” He trailed off and shut his eyes.
So he’d been thinking about running out of pink. When Esteban Sanchez, who’d lived in the apartment below them, had run out of money for the drug he had screamed for a day and a night before he died. The story in the ’hood was that he had bitten his tongue off in convulsions. She still had nightmares about it.
With no job, she had to stretch the time between drug buys as far as possible. She couldn’t even think about what would happen when she couldn’t pay for it anymore.
Timmy groped for her hand, and she took his and clutched it to her heart. He said, “I’m afraid.”
“I won’t let it happen,” she said. Brave talk. She had maybe enough cash for another couple of weeks, and then she could start pawning her rings, which were really meant to keep her and Chloe off the street. She couldn’t let that happen, she couldn’t! But what else could she do?
Timmy cried out and doubled over. Jewel sighed, leaned close to kiss him on the forehead, and then left. In the kitchen, she called to see if Juana could babysit while she went to meet Murphy. She could, in a half hour. Jewel poured the last cup of coffee from the pot. Her mind kept asking her what she could do, and she kept running away from the question.
Chloe joined her with her crayons and her new Day at the Zoo coloring book. Jewel said, “Whatcha doin’?”
Chloe showed her. “A peacock!”
“Hey, you’re stayin’ in the lines great.”
A muffled cry came from Timmy. Chloe glanced at the bedroom, then said, “Will Uncle Timmy always be sick?”
Jewel stroked Chloe’s head. “I’m afraid so, honey.”
Chloe turned to her coloring, and as Jewel gazed at her, a sinking hopelessness grew. No, Timmy would never get well. It would be this way until he died.
Thinking of the days and years ahead, Jewel had a vision of Chloe as a young woman, suffering the same way. Oh, Lord, it could happen. Living here, it could happen real easy, just the way it had with Timmy.
She couldn’t deal with that now. Pushing the thoughts aside, she went to check on the state of her cash.
The Alliance brochure sat next to her purse. She opened it and stared at a photo of Alliance headquarters. It looked like a farm with a backdrop of green hills and blue sky.
Then she looked around the apartment. There were stains and dirt all her scrubbing couldn’t budge. Out the window, the sky was more brown than blue.
Timmy groaned.
She paced. All right, girl, what are you gonna do about it? Leave? She had enough for bus tickets. To go where? The only place outside of Chicago she knew anything about was Oregon, and only that Noah Stone and maybe a job were there. It was so far away. Timmy would never make it. But remembering Stone’s smile when they’d talked, she thought maybe she had the makings of a friend out West.
She went to the window. A boy of about ten burst into the courtyard below, running all out. Three larger boys chased him down in the center of the yard. They circled him, and then two of them pulled pistols from their sagging jeans. The boy tried to run, but they shot him in the back. After he fell, they each gave him a kick before sauntering away, laughing.
She gazed at Chloe. To stay could mean handing her child the same death sentence that boy had been under. That Timmy was under.
But she couldn’t leave Timmy to die in awful pain.
And then Jewel understood what she could do to . . . to help free him.
She called Murphy to find o
ut where he was patrolling.
Pushing through a shuffling crowd on Wabash Avenue, she saw Murphy across the street, leaning against a rusty steel beam that supported the elevated train tracks overhead. A pinkie stumbled down equally rusty steel stairs that led up to the platform where the train stopped. He went to Murphy and held out a fold of bills. The cop made no effort to hide a practiced swap for a packet of pink. Smiling, Murphy added the bills to a roll of cash damn near as big around as a baseball.
Jewel cut across the street, dodging cars like a matador with a bull charging her. Murphy scowled when she trotted up to him. Probably disappointed because she wore jeans and a T-shirt instead of a miniskirt.
She said, “You gonna give me a ticket for jaywalking, Murphy?”
“Not if you’re buyin’.”
She took eighty dollars from her purse. “Give me a double.”
Murphy smiled, took two packets of pink from his tunic, and traded them for her money. He added her bills to the roll of cash and slipped a red rubber band around it.
Just looking at the fat son of a bitch made her mad. He was everything wrong with this city, with her life.
He smacked a wet kiss at her. She clenched her fist around the packets of pink. “I have something else for you.”
The look in his glittery little eyes was greedy. “Yeah?”
She smashed her knuckles into his face. He dropped the money roll, grabbed his nose, and cried out. Blood gushed from under his hands and down his chin.
People shot glances at them and as quickly took them away.
A warm wave of satisfaction washed through her. “That’s for turning your back when that punk was tearing off my clothes.”
“You bitch!” he screamed. It sounded like “Ooo bib!”
A grubby man reached for the money on the sidewalk. Jewel snatched it up and glared him away.
The fat roll of cash felt damn good in her hand. It was heavy—had to be at least a thousand.
Overhead, steel wheels squealed against rails as an L train came to a stop at the platform above them.
Murphy held out a bloody hand. “Gimme.” It sounded like “Gibbe.”
The money was freedom. A future for Chloe.
He grabbed at her and she retreated around the track support.
“Ooo bib!” he said, and fumbled for his pistol.
Jewel bared her teeth, reached forward, and yanked the gun from his hand. She pointed it at his chest. “Thanks for the donation.” She ran up the stairs to the L platform and pushed through the crowd to an open train door.
Murphy staggered onto the platform, gasping for breath. He charged her way, yelling, “Stob er! Stob er!” People turned her way, and one big guy started toward her.
Clamping the gun under her arm, she yanked the rubber band off the roll of bills and peeled off a bunch, then yelled “Money!” and threw the cash into the air. The crowd scrambled for the fluttering bills, and Murphy was shoved back. She grabbed the gun. It was black and evil in her hand. The door started to close—she dropped the gun to the tracks below the car and then backed inside. Murphy bulled his way through the money-grubbing crowd, and she gave him the finger as the doors closed and the train left him behind.
She slipped the cash into her purse and wrapped her fingers around the wad. It was real. She shook her head. Had she gone crazy? But it had felt so good when she’d— Shit. Murphy had her phone number. He’d track her down. She had gone crazy.
She touched the two packets of pink. It had seemed like the best thing to do, but now she didn’t know if she could follow through. And would Timmy understand and take them both to—
The ring of her cell phone startled her. She dug the phone out of her purse and answered.
Murphy’s voice said, “I ged oo.”
She stabbed the “off” icon and wished the train would go faster. She had a bad feeling. This was gonna go sour.
Back home, she knelt beside Timmy’s bed. His eyes watered with misery. She took him in her arms and held him close as he shivered. Tears rolled down her cheeks.
She released him, and he lay back. He said, “I’m sorry, Sister.”
“So am I, honey. I love you.”
Like a starving man, he said, “Did you get some?”
Oh, Lord, how could she do this?
A spasm twisted his body and he moaned.
How could she not? She held out the pink. Both packets.
“A double?” Nobody lived through a double. He nodded and gave her a tight smile. “Thank you.” He took the pink.
He reached up and stroked her cheek along the scar. “I love you, too.” Then he reached for his kit.
She stood and turned away, then stopped. She couldn’t do this. She started to turn back, but then left him. She had to. And Timmy was okay with it. It was what he wanted, she had seen that.
Back in the living room, she stared out the window, hoping for something to take her mind away from her pain. But there in the courtyard dirt was the bloodstain from the boy who’d been gunned down. His body was gone. It was as if he’d never existed.
She’d helped Timmy the best she could. Now it was time to take care of Chloe. And she couldn’t do that when they were neck-deep in drugs and defenseless against violence and guns. And Murphy. They needed a safe place to be.
Keeping her eyes away from where Timmy was, she went to her closet, took her best clothes from the rod, and tossed them onto her bed. She pulled her big suitcase from under the bed and set it next to the clothes. She heard the rustle of his movements. Sniffling back tears, she emptied the stuff from her dresser drawers into the suitcase and folded her clothes on top.
Still avoiding Timmy, she hauled the suitcase into the living room. Chloe was working on a giraffe in her coloring book. Jewel said, “Honey, come help me do some packing.”
Chloe looked up, and then her eyes widened. “Why are you crying, Mommy?”
“Uh, air pollution, makes my eyes hurt. Come on, let’s round up your critters.” They went to Chloe’s tiny room.
Chloe collected her favorite stuffed animals and dolls while Jewel packed her library of picture books into a duffel bag. She added the animals, dolls, and Chloe’s clothes, then dragged the bag into the living room. She said, “Chloe, go potty, we’re going . . . away.”
Afraid of what she would see, she went back to Timmy. Instead of the horror she expected, Timmy had dressed in his good clothes and arranged himself neatly on his mattress. A faint smile curved his lips, and his eyes were closed, the constant frown line between his brows gone. His chest did not move. He looked at peace.
He didn’t hurt anymore.
Her fear released in a rush of sad relief. She knelt and brushed his hair, and then gathered him in her arms and held him close. He was so thin, so fragile. She whispered, “Oh, my brave Timmy.”
She rocked him and murmured the lullaby she’d made up to get him to sleep when he was little. “Good night, Timmy, it’s time to rest your sleepy head . . .” She let the silence take over. Tears ran down her cheeks, but she just couldn’t let him go.
Chloe’s voice came. “Mommy?”
Oh, God. Hoping her voice wouldn’t expose her crying, she said, “Coming, sugar.” Jewel laid Timmy down and wiped her cheeks. She leaned forward and kissed his forehead.
Jewel went to the living room, put her purse over her shoulder, and extended the pull handle on the suitcase. “C’mon, Chloe.”
“Where we going, Mommy?”
“A better place.” She hoped. Oh, Lord, she hoped.
Chloe started for the bedroom. “I want to say goodbye to Uncle Timmy.”
Jewel caught her arm. “He’s . . . already there, honey.”
She left the apartment door unlocked and stopped at Juana’s for a long hug and to leave her enough of Murphy’s cash to put Timmy to rest.
Hours later, as their Greyhound bus rolled westward into Iowa, Chloe slept with her head on Jewel’s lap. Jewel stared out at the green, rolling country and mourn
ed Timmy. A sensation of weightlessness from being freed of the chains of his dependence shamed her, but she knew herself, and she knew she would leave that behind. She had two tickets to Oregon, a foreign land with strange new ways and a promise.
What Are We Coming To?
A cold snap had hit Washington D.C. The city’s famed cherry blossoms were brown and rotten on the trees. They matched Marion’s mood perfectly. The humidity had returned to dismal, the new crime stats she’d seen on CNN were disastrous, and rush-hour commuters were demented.
Four blocks from her office in the Department of Justice building on Pennsylvania Avenue, traffic slowed to a slug’s pace. Finally, it crept past a parked ambulance, its lights flashing, and she saw a blanket-covered body on the pavement near the curb. Paramedics were loading a second body on a gurney into the ambulance. Two detectives interviewed people on the sidewalk.
When Marion came to a cop directing traffic, she stopped and lowered her window.
The cop, sad-faced and fiftyish, said, “Keep moving, ma’am.”
“What’s the problem?”
“Please keep—” He peered at her. “Oh, Ms. Smith-Taylor. Didn’t recognize you. It’s a drive-by. Third one this morning.”
She shook her head. “What are we coming to?”
The cop sighed. “I try not to think about it.”
Already weary by the time she arrived at her office, Marion collapsed into the big leather chair behind her desk. Her gaze slid across the masses of law books that filled her walls. So many laws. So many lawbreakers. She stared at two-foot stacks of files detailing vicious crimes that made her job, with one exception, depressing.
The one exception walked in and shut the door behind her. Suzanne carried a half dozen fat file folders, a handful of pink message slips, and a small Priority Mail box. Her blond hair bounced just above her shoulders as she strode to the desk and set her burdens on the one clear spot. She peered at Marion, and a look of concern shadowed her expression. She stepped behind Marion’s chair, and her cool, strong fingers massaged Marion’s stiff neck and shoulder muscles.
After a few minutes, Marion sighed, then swiveled and pulled Suzanne’s head close to place a soft kiss on her lips. “Thanks.”
