by W Winters
Jase
Years ago…
I knew something was off before I even opened the door. I spent the hour before coming here arguing with Carter about even bringing Angie here.
I didn’t trust her at The Red Room though. Not with the shit I have going on and the people that come and go. I tried to help her before and she took off, coming back worse. And the last three nights she destroyed the place, searching for anything to numb the pain she was in. She was fucking skin and bones. Her cheeks were so hollow. Addiction will do a lot of things to a person. It turns their curious smirks into glowers of pain, their bright eyes into dull gazes to nowhere.
It wasn’t just the addiction though. She couldn’t be sober because then she remembered what she’d done.
Fuck, the memory of it makes me sick.
“She’s not with me, but that doesn’t mean I can’t help her.”
“You can’t help everyone, Jase.” Carter’s hardened voice is clear in my mind. He looked me in the eyes and told me, “You can’t help her. You can’t and shouldn’t. You shouldn’t have brought her here.”
“I don’t want to help everyone.” I bit back the answer, feeling the anger rise inside of me. It was the first disagreement we’d ever had. I had to do it, though. “I want to help her. Just one person.”
“Why? She’s not yours.”
He didn’t get it. For the first time, he showed his confusion. He didn’t understand that I didn’t want her, I just wanted her to be okay. Even if she was nearly a stranger, even if I’d never want her to walk through the doors of the bar again once she left.
I needed to feel like I could make it right. We all make mistakes, but it’s okay if you can make it right. I just needed to make it right.
“You shouldn’t have brought her here.” That was the last thing he said to me as I made my way back to the guest bedroom, questioning everything I’d done. I’d like to think that was why I thought things were off when I got to the door. But it was something deeper than that.
With my hand on the doorknob, I remember how I told her to just sleep before I left. Get some fucking sleep to help her with the withdrawal. Her eyes were so sunken in and dark as she screamed at me. It could have been the cocaine or the heroin. She looked nothing like the woman I’d known before.
I had to empty the room out to keep her from throwing things. She liked comic books, so I went out to get her some. It would only be weeks. Only weeks of helping her get back on her feet, then she was someone else’s problem. Then she’d be able to think clearly and choose whatever she wanted to do next. But as it stood, the addiction made every choice and it was leading her to an early grave.
I remember the way my scar shined on my hand, the light brighter there than on the metal knob as I pushed the door open.
It was quiet, too quiet for her not to be sleeping in the empty bed.
The bathroom door was closed and I glanced at the clock. 3:04 a.m. Someone once told me the Devil gets a minute every day. 3:07 to come and do his darkest deeds. I stared at the clock, knowing the Devil’s deeds were done all day long, whether he was here or not.
Every second I sat on the chair in the room, I thought about what to tell her. I didn’t know her well enough to know what to say. All I could think of telling her was that it would be better tomorrow. That she just had to take it day by day. It takes weeks to get through the worst of it, sometimes longer.
She didn’t listen the first time, or the second, but maybe she’d listen now. Maybe tomorrow. Back then, I had hope.
The next time I looked at my watch, nearly forty minutes had passed. It was then that I realized it was still too quiet. Far too quiet.
I knocked at the door, but she didn’t respond. “Angie?” I called her name, and still nothing.
I knocked harder, feeling that gut instinct that something was wrong. I remember the way her name felt as I screamed it and hammered my fist against the door, all the while, it was far too quiet.
Testing the knob, it wasn’t locked, so I pushed it open. I knew then though, the Devil had come and gone. And that I was too late.
She’d shut the shower curtain, but even through it I could see the slash of red on the tiled wall. I’ll never forget that first sound I heard that night when I went to check on her. It was the sound of the shower curtain opening.
The blood was all over her hands and arms. The first thought I had, was that she must’ve regretted it and tried to stop the blood from the cut at her throat.
She tried to take it back.
I didn’t cry for her in that moment, but I leaned back against the wall, taking in her red hair and how it matted to her bloodied skin. Her eyes were still open, so once I could move, I closed them for her, even though my hand shook.
I failed her. I did this to her. It was all I could think.
Falling to my knees next to the tub, I prayed for the first time since my mama died. I asked God to take over for me. To help her and forgive her and forgive her sins.
I didn’t ask him to forgive mine though. I’d be more careful about mine, but I knew I’d keep doing it.
I couldn’t take back the years of what we’d already done. I couldn’t take any of it back.
Carter was right, I never should have brought her there.
“I remember the first time I met Angie. I thought she was a sweet girl although a little too loud when she was drunk. She was older than me, and didn’t want a damn thing to do with me other than to score drugs for a party. Which was fine, because the feeling was mutual.” I talk easily, like I’m only telling a story.
“Coke or pot for the weekend. Whatever the flavor of the week was, she wanted it. It was easy to sell it to her. With her long red hair and wild green eyes, she wasn’t my type, but I couldn’t deny she was kind and polite. She used to stand on her tiptoes to turn around after getting her stash, doing a little curtsy of thanks that would at least get a chuckle from me.
“You remember Angie, Seth?” I speak clear enough that both Seth and Hal can hear me. The basement room today feels hotter than ever. More suffocating than it’s ever been before.
“Of course.” Seth answers calmly as I roll up the sleeves to my shirt. I’m careful and meticulous, but even so, I know I’m on edge. I’m on the verge of losing it and I haven’t even touched the surface yet. He adds, “One of our first regulars,” when I don’t respond.
I made the mistake of watching the video Marcus sent me the second I got out of the park. I brought Hal here and waited. I didn’t sleep, I didn’t go home. I just waited until Seth said Hal was alert enough to go through with this.
Like always, he’s standing behind Mr. Hal, who’s in the interrogation chair. Although there’s no interrogation today.
There are no questions for him. No need for a shirt to smother his screams. I want to hear them. I want the memories of tonight to somehow mask the memories I have of Angie’s last day.
“You remember her?” I question Hal, feeling that crease deepen in the center of my forehead as I pick up the hammer. It’s an ordinary hammer.
The tool of choice is fitting. Angie’s dad worked as a carpenter. When he died, she went off the rails, that’s what she told me once when she was struggling with her sobriety. It was easier than dealing with reality and the party drugs she bought for weekends became necessary every day. And then a few times every day. And then harder drugs. Just so she didn’t have to think about her dead father.
So it made sense to me to choose a hammer.
“I don’t know who you’re talking about,” the man answers. Confidently, stubbornly, like somehow he’s got the upper hand here. Maybe he thinks I actually have questions, but I don’t. All I have for him is a story.
I watch the light shine off the flat iron head of the hammer as I walk closer to him. There are no cuts on his wrists from trying to escape, nothing that shows any fear. And that’s fine by me. I don’t want him scared, I want him in pain. In fucking agony the way Angie was.
; In the same agony Bethany’s stuck in. The thought strikes me hard, and I hate it. I want it to go away. More than anything, I want her pain to stop.
My arm whips in front of me, the metal crashing against the man’s jaw and morphing his scream into a cry of agony in a single blow.
The left side of his jaw hangs a little lower and the man fights against his restraints as he screams from the impact.
Glancing at the splatter of blood across my dress shirt, a huff of a breath leaves me, trying to calm the rage, trying to calm the need to not stop.
But Bethany’s pain never stops. It never fucking ends.
“Marcus showed me a video. Only one. You knew her,” I say and shrug, like it’s not a big deal. Like he wasn’t forcing himself down her throat while she was high and crying on a dirty floor.
“You knew her better than me,” I comment. Thinking back to who she was before it all went downhill and trying to get the loathsome video out of my mind. If I could bleach it away, I would.
“She came in a lot, but only to get what she needed,” Seth speaks from behind the fucker. He’s reading me, his eyes never leaving me as I pace in front of the chair, waiting for Hal to stop his bitching and moaning.
“I want him to hear this,” I tell Seth, raising my voice just enough for him to know not to console me like he’s trying to do. I don’t need that shit. I don’t need to be told I couldn’t have helped her or I couldn’t have stopped it. I could have. I know I could have if I wasn’t so fucking high on power and young and stupid. It’s more controlled now. But back then, there was no protocol, and we sold to anyone and as much as they wanted.
“She was young, I had the drugs, I couldn’t tell her no at first. She was the first person I told no. The first one where I realized I ruined her life.” I’m staring at this asshole, and he’s not looking at me. He’s whimpering, looking down at his bare feet that are planted on the steel grid beneath him. He’s not paying attention, so I swing the hammer again. Down onto his right foot. Crack! And then the left. The clang of the metal and the crack of small bones ricochets in the room. The black and blue on his skin is instant.
He screams and cries, but all it does is make me angry. He didn’t care that Angie cried. He didn’t care about what he did to her. He can mourn for his own pain all he wants, but it’s not enough.
I have to walk away, seeing Bethany’s face and knowing she wouldn’t approve of this. What alternative is there though? To let this world turn with no consequence?
It’s the fact that we feel pain when others feel nothing. This man feels nothing. The regret is hard enough and the guilt too, but walking around in a world where it isn’t acknowledged, where those feelings travel alone… it’s a hell that hides in every corner.
Hal cusses at me, spitting at my feet and sneering an expression of hate. He can’t hold it long though. I slowly draw the sharp edge of the hammer across his throat as I speak.
“It was my fault, Hal. My fault that she got hooked and when she did, I sent her away. We’d only just begun in this game. We were bound to make mistakes. And Angie Davis was one of them.”
Fuck, the guilt comes back full force just saying her name.
“I told her no, only a few months after I met her. I gave her the sweets, I told her to get better and then she could come back. Instead, she found you.”
If she hadn’t come to me, if Angie had gone to Bethany instead… My fiery woman, she would have known what to do. “Angie wanted help, she really did.” I equate her to Jenny in this moment. Wondering if it really would have been different. If she really wanted help and if Bethany could have fixed her. I wish I could go back.
I can smash this hammer into his head, but I can’t take her pain away. There’s not a damn thing I can do to take Bethany’s pain away
I think the words Hal’s trying to say are, “Please, don’t,” as he spits up blood. It only reminds me of the way Angie said it in the video I saw hours ago. Please, don’t.
“It’s fine to party and have a good time, but she was slipping. She wasn’t herself. Addiction grabbed hold of her and wasn’t letting go. Anyone and everyone could see it.”
“Yeah, I remember,” Seth comments, nodding his head even as looks at me like he has nothing but sympathy for me. Fuck that. I don’t need sympathy. I don’t deserve sympathy.
“I remember. She was clinging to you crying, begging you for more.” Seth still hasn’t accepted what I have. Every word he says sounds like an excuse. “You sent her away with a way to help her.”
Fuck, I should have known better. I wasn’t in it like Carter was. I’d only just started and I didn’t realize the ripple effect and the tidal wave it was capable of creating.
“I was young and I was stupid. I gave her whatever she wanted and however much she said she needed. Even when I knew it was getting bad. It took a long time before I sent her away…”
“Jase,” Seth’s tone is warning, cautioning me in where my mind is going, but I cut him off.
“No.” My response echoes in the room even though it’s pushed through gritted teeth while I tap the hammer in my hand, blood and all, as I add, “I take that blame. It’s my fault. All of it.”
Lifting the hammer up, I point it at Hal. “But you,” I start to speak. I can’t get the rest out though. I can’t voice where this story inevitably turns.
Instead I crash the hammer onto his knees. Bashing them relentlessly. Then his thighs. His arms. Every bone I can break.
Screams and hot blood surround me. The man’s cries get louder and louder. Does he cry in front of me at the memory? Or at the realization that there’s no way he’s getting out of this room alive?
It’s what I’ve wanted for so long, some kind of justice for Angie, but I thought it would feel different. I thought it would feel better than this.
Instead the pain seeps into my blood, where it runs rampant in my body. The memories refuse to stop.
With a deep inhale I back away, letting the screams dull as I think about how sunken in her face was when she came to me after a month of being gone. I didn’t know. I didn’t take responsibility for what I’d done, and I let her walk out, thinking she’d be fine.
Because that was the story I wanted to hear.
“She told me things you had her do, but you didn’t have a name then. How you took advantage of her. You had others come in while she was tied down on the table. She told me how she didn’t even care when you tossed the heroin at her. That she remembers how badly she needed the hit. Even as you and the other men laughed at her and what you’d done.”
Seth isn’t expecting the next blow I give to the guy, straight across his jaw. He lets out a shout of surprise as the blood sprays from the gushing wound, down Seth’s jeans and onto his shoes.
The once clean, bright white sneakers with a red streak are now doused in blood.
He takes a step back, getting out of my way and keeping his hands up in the air. He’s acting like I’m the one who’s gone crazy. But how could I be sane if the very thought of what happened didn’t turn me mad?
“Seth, she ever tell you the things she did when we sent her away?” I ask him. Feeling a pain rip my insides open.
He shakes his head. His dark eyes are shining with unwanted remorse.
“She said she did shit she was so ashamed of, she couldn’t tell me. She said she didn’t deserve to live.”
I smash the hammer down onto Hal’s shoulder. But he doesn’t scream this time and that only makes me hit him harder. Still, he’s silent. His head’s fallen to one side and I don’t care. Maybe his ghost will hear me.
“All the money and all the power in the world, and I couldn’t save her,” I scream at the man. “You know why?” I keep talking to him. To the dead man. Feeling my sanity slip. “Why I couldn’t save her?” I ask him, knowing Seth’s eyes are on me, hearing his attempts to calm me down but ignoring him.
“Because she couldn’t live with the things she’d done when she wasn’t sober. She reme
mbered it all. And she couldn’t deal with it.”
There is never true justice in tragedy.
You have to live with yourself after what’s done is done.
“Angie couldn’t do it,” I tell him. “She couldn’t live with the memories and she couldn’t forgive herself.”
I locked her in a room to help her get over the withdrawal. I gave her the pills and I gave her a safe place.
She killed herself.
“She had a sister. She had a mother who needed her. I couldn’t even get out of the car at the funeral because of how they were crying.”
It’s the endings that don’t have an honest goodbye that hurt the most. They linger forever because the words were never spoken.
I don’t know who I’m talking to at this point. Seth or a man who didn’t feel remorse for what he’d done, only for himself. I should have made him suffer longer. I should have controlled myself.
I hate that I ever sold her anything. I hate that the beautiful redhead at the bar would never smile again. All because of a dime bag of powder that took her far away from the world she wanted to leave. All because I sold it to her.
Every blow, I would take too. I deserve it.
Bethany should do to me what I’ve just done to this man. I led Jenny down that path. We sold her drugs, we bribed her with them for information. Even if it wasn’t her first or her last, I know we sold her something and then let her walk away.
The thought only makes me slam the iron of the hammer down harder and more recklessly. Crashing into his face, his shoulders and arms. Every part of him. Over and over again, feeling all the anger, the pain, the sadness run through me, urging me to do it again and again.
When my body gives out and I fall to the floor on my knees, heaving in air, I finally stop. Letting my head fall back, and closing my eyes.
I could never tell Bethany. She deserves to hate me. I don’t deserve her love, let alone her forgiveness. Not any of it.
