Ferocity Summer

by Alissa Grosso

  “I wish I was more like you,” Willow said.

  “Why the fuck would you wish that?”

  “You’re just so calm and cool. You don’t let things get to you. I wish I was half as strong as you.”

  “You’re crazy. You’ve lost it.” Suddenly, I hated myself. My supposed best friend didn’t know a thing about me. She didn’t have the first clue. “Remember that weird guy at Johnny’s Quik Mart I told you about, the one with the Hawaiian shirt?”

  “Sure,” Willow said.

  All I needed to do was tell her everything. Maybe it wouldn’t return us to our Marco Polo days, but at least it would restore the link between us. At least I wouldn’t feel like the cheater, the Marco peeker.

  “I found out how he knew my name. Turns out Joe Bullock paid the guy to come into the store and creep me out.” I heard myself say the words. They came too easily. I didn’t even want to say them, but my mouth had a will of its own. It was kill or be killed, and backed into my own corner, I was willing to do whatever it took to win. Willow wasn’t the enemy, though, or maybe she was, I didn’t even know. Everything was such a complete and total mess. I wished I could call a time-out to give myself a chance to sort things out and figure out what was what. There are no time-outs in life.

  “And you were all worried,” Willow said. She believed me, and I hated myself for how easy it was to deceive her. “I told you it was probably nothing. Didn’t I tell you?”

  “Yeah,” I said. Jesus, what now? What were we supposed to do now? Somewhere down below, at the bottom of the lake, the remains of Lydia’s sandals lay, algae-encrusted and disintegrating. I wanted to join them in their peaceful resting place. Christ. “So what now?” I asked aloud.

  “Let’s go back to Pablo’s.”

  “I thought you said he was a flake.”

  Willow just shrugged.

  This time, we took the direct route. Maybe Willow had remembered how to get there. Maybe she was in a hurry. We turned at the garden gnome and the car climbed up the long, steep driveway. It was the yellow NO TRESPASSING sign that first made me suspicious. Then, when we got to the top, I could see that the house was all boarded up, all the windows, the front door, like it had been abandoned for years.

  “Something’s happened to Pablo,” Willow said.

  “Maybe he left a note.” I got out of the car, Willow following not far behind me.

  There was no note. We wandered around the side of the house and into the backyard where we found Pablo sitting on the back steps. He looked a little dirtier and scuzzier than last time, but otherwise not much different.

  “Hey,” Willow said. “What the hell’s going on?”

  “They threw me out,” Pablo said. “Can you believe that? Back taxes or some shit. I’m like so bummed.”

  “How long has it been boarded up like that?” I asked.

  “Few days, I guess,” Pablo said. “Hey, did you bring me anything?”

  “I think I’ve got some chips and candy in the car,” Willow said. “I’ll go get them.” She went back around to the front of the house.

  “Your friend, how’s she doing?” Pablo asked.

  “Fine, I guess.”

  “Yeah? She don’t look so great. Her eyes, you know, they look a little off. She might want to take it easy, you know, not so much partying.”

  So Pablo the Perpetually Stoned was saying that Willow was doing too many drugs. I found this interesting, might have even laughed if it wasn’t so goddamn true.

  “You don’t have a hammer or nothing with you, do you? We might be able to pry those boards out so I can get back inside.”

  “No,” I said. “But won’t they just kick you out again anyway? They’ll probably put you in jail or something.”

  “Nah, probably just fine me. They’re nothing but a bunch of money-hungry capitalists.”

  Willow returned bearing junk food.

  “Cheese doodles,” she said. “And stale corn chips. The gummy worms all melted together from the sun, but I think the sweet tarts are okay.”

  “Starburst, looks like your friend is a regular junk food addict.”

  “Not addict,” Willow said. “Aficionado.”

  “Denial,” Pablo said as he began to eat the cheese doodles, “is a junkie’s best friend.”

  July

  Just after I stepped out of the shower, I heard someone repeatedly pressing the doorbell. It had to be Willow. No one else could be so annoying. I threw on my clothes, still pulling them on and buttoning as I ran through the kitchen to the door.

  “You are so annoying!” I yelled as I flipped the deadbolt and pulled the door open.

  Christian Calambeaux stood on the front stoop.

  “Hi, Priscilla,” he said.

  “You shouldn’t come to my house,” I said. “My mother thinks I’m sleeping with you.” Christian shrugged. “What do you want?”

  “To negotiate.”

  “Negotiate what?”

  “The terms of your cooperation.”

  Today he actually was wearing a pair of jeans with one of his trademark Hawaiian shirts. He also had on a pair of ridiculously ornate-looking sandals.

  “Why would I cooperate?” I asked.

  “You’ve got nothing to lose.”

  “And nothing to gain.”

  “That’s not true. Have you eaten lunch?”

  “No.” It was ten after eleven.

  “Let’s go. My treat.”

  When Christian pulled into the parking lot of the Budd Lake Diner, my reservations began to flare up. I might see someone I knew. People my age frequented this place. People who knew Randy frequented this place. I thought it would be immediately apparent just what I was doing in a restaurant with a man whose shirt depicted parrots and surfboards. I thought everyone would be able to see that I was on the verge of selling out my nearest and dearest for a little extra spending money. I remained seated when Christian got out of the car.

  “I’m not very hungry,” I said.

  “I’m starving,” he said. “Come on.”

  Against my better judgment, I followed him inside. As I walked past the newspaper boxes out front, USA Today’s “Ferocity Epidemic” headline caught my eye, but it was the Star-Ledger headline—about a total of ten convenience store hold-ups in the Garden State over the past few weeks—that made me pause long enough to read the first couple of paragraphs. There was a theory that the hold-ups might be related to similar burglaries that had occurred in New England earlier in the summer. Perhaps I’d picked the right time to quit the business. Maybe I was in the wrong line of work entirely. How many convenience stores did you have to rob to be able to afford a new life?

  “You coming?” Christian asked. He was holding the door for me. I jogged up the steps.

  “So, what’s the deal with your clothes?” I asked when we were seated in a marginally discreet booth and handed menus that neither of us opened.

  “It’s so I blend,” he said. “So I don’t look like a cop.”

  “Blend?” I asked. “On what planet do you blend?”

  “I’m just an average guy, relaxing on vacation.”

  “This is not a part of the world where anyone chooses to spend their vacation.”

  “Hey, there was a time when the lakes of bucolic northwest Jersey were a pleasant getaway from the hustle and bustle of urban life.”

  “Yes, but then they invented the automobile.”

  The waitress arrived and took a beverage order.

  “What makes someone decide to become a cop?” I asked.

  “A sense of altruism, I suppose,” he said. It wasn’t much of an answer. Perhaps sensing my dissatisfaction, Christian added, “It pays well, and it feels like I’m not just wasting my life away.”

  “Operative word being ‘feels’?” I asked.

  “I can make a difference in the world,” Christian said. I was positive he’d stolen the line from a public service announcement.

  The waitress delivered drinks. Our m
enus were still unopened, and Christian told her we needed more time to decide. He began adding sugar to his coffee and didn’t stop. I watched as he added packet after packet. It was amazing the man still had a full set of teeth.

  “You think you can make a difference, but I don’t see how,” I said. “I mean, even if I cooperate with you, and even if I give you information that puts Randy away, and some of his associates, too—so what, right? I mean, they’re not really bad people, and their removal from law-abiding society won’t change the world any. It’ll just create some openings for enterprising young drug pushers to fill.” I stopped because I saw the waitress hovering, probably determined to take our order so that she could go out and have a cigarette.

  “My sister died of a drug overdose,” Christian said. This confession sent the waitress scurrying to some other table where the conversation was far more banal.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “It was because of someone like Randy Jenkins that she’s dead. She was nineteen.”

  “But that’s not true,” I said. As soon as I said it, I knew I shouldn’t have. Dead sisters weren’t something you wanted to mess with. He’d just poured out his soul to me and I had to go and get all contrary. “What I mean is, you can’t blame a drug dealer for your sister’s overdose. I mean, she’s got to be at least partly responsible for her actions.”

  “If someone hadn’t been there to supply her, then she would still be alive.”

  “I think you’re ignoring the laws of supply and demand.”

  “Excuse me?” he said. His face had taken on a bright pink hue. Why the hell couldn’t I just shut up?

  “As long as there is a demand for narcotics, you can arrest all the drug dealers you want and it won’t make a difference. There will just be more to take their place.”

  The waitress descended upon us again, determined not to be put off by dead sisters or lame excuses.

  “Feta cheese omelet,” I said. “White toast.”

  “I’ll have a BLT,” Christian said, “and a cup of broccoli soup.”

  The waitress walked away. Christian stared into his coffee. I scanned the diner for familiar faces. I didn’t see any.

  “So, why should I join you in your quest to save the world?” I asked.

  “Do you always have such a negative attitude?”

  “I’m realistic. It’s not my fault some people would rather live in fantasy land.”

  “I did my homework,” Christian said. “I know you were with Randy last summer on the boat.”

  “It’s pretty much common knowledge,” I said. “Even if the newspapers couldn’t print our names.”

  “Yeah, well,” he sighed. “I don’t hold it against you. Everyone makes mistakes.”

  It wasn’t long before our lunches arrived. I shoveled food into my mouth even though I wasn’t hungry. I could feel Christian staring at me, but I didn’t look up to meet his gaze.

  Soldiers were dying—General Sherman’s men, fine fighting men. There was so much death in sight, all around him, year after year. If it kept up long enough, he might be next, shot down in battle, gasping out his last breath on some bloodstained, godforsaken battlefield. Someone needed to bring this bloody mess to an end. Enough was enough. If nothing else, he needed to save himself from a premature demise. I wonder what it felt like when Sherman made the decision to unleash his hellish fury on the South. Did it feel like every last shred of humanity was suddenly sucked from his body? Did he feel as empty and soulless as I did, right then in the diner?

  “Get me out of going to court and you’ve got yourself a narc,” I said.

  “What?” Christian asked.

  “The trial,” I said. “Get me out of it, and I’ll help you.”

  “I can’t do that,” he said.

  “That’s bullshit.”

  “It’s a different matter,” he said. “It’s not related.”

  “Randy was there,” I said. “It’s related enough. You’ve got the power to pull some strings. If you can promise me I don’t have to go to court, then you’ve got my cooperation.”

  “I can’t make a promise like that.”

  “Well, then, I don’t think I can help you.” I stood up.

  “Sit down,” he said. I didn’t move. “Look, I’ll look into things. I’ll see what I can do for you, but in the meantime, you have to show good faith. You have to help me.”

  “Fine,” I said. It felt like I had just made a deal with the devil, but I didn’t care.

  Later That Week

  Willow and I sat in the dingy Pointless Pursuits waiting area while Craig was busy with a client—someone there for the shop’s advertised business, not its illicit moneymaker. I hated the place. The sunlight that poured in through the dirty front window illuminated everything that was wrong with my life, but now, at least, I had an excuse for being here. I didn’t like it any better than my old excuse, which was that I was Willow’s best friend. In fact, my new secret assignment was making me feel pretty shitty about myself.

  I couldn’t tell Willow a damn thing about what was going on. When you can’t tell your best friend about the most important thing going on in your life, then you know that things are seriously messed up. Worse, though, than not being able to tell her anything was the fact that I seemed to be using her—or at least my friendship with her—and this made me nauseous with confusion.

  There was nothing terribly odd about me hanging out at Willow’s house. I’d always done this, but now it was not just for her company. I had a job to do, and that job involved keeping track of Randy’s movements and gathering Christian’s precious information. When I’d arrived at her place earlier that afternoon and asked if Randy was home, she’d acted jokingly offended, and I knew that I’d hurt her pretty deep. But despite this, I didn’t think twice about going with her to visit a seedy tattoo artist/drug dealer, because as far as I was concerned, I was going to turn something decent in to Christian. It may not have been about Randy, but it would still be dirt. I was going to show “good faith,” and in turn he would be compelled to help me out.

  I picked at the skin on my thumb as I sat stiffly in the dirty chair. I had to tell her what was going on. There was no point hiding things from her, and maybe she would understand. If she didn’t, that was a chance I’d have to take.

  “Must be a pretty elaborate tattoo,” Willow said.

  She kept moving around, trying to get comfortable. Her hair had grown damp with sweat. I hated myself for being so selfish. I hated myself for turning into a traitor to save my own neck while my best friend was in the act of flushing her life down the toilet using every narcotic substance she came across.

  “Maybe we should just leave,” I suggested.

  “After waiting this long? You’re crazy. Do you have any gum or anything? My mouth’s so dry.”

  I had only three orange Tic Tacs, which I handed her. She chewed them up in seconds without even bothering to suck on them. They made a clicking noise against her teeth. It reminded me of a cat eating a bird or a small rodent, the bones crunching in the cat’s mouth.

  I remembered a visit to my aunt’s house as a young girl. Her cat, Tiger Lily, had caught a baby rabbit. With the help of my aunt I chased Tiger Lily into the garage, hoping to free the baby rabbit, but before we could get her, she ate her prey. The crunching of the rabbit’s bones echoed in the garage. I cried, unable to comprehend how such a sweet cat could do something so mean.

  “It’s instinct,” my aunt said. “She can’t help it. Maybe she didn’t even want to do it. She just did it out of habit. She couldn’t not do it.”

  Willow was no better off than Tiger Lily. For her, the drugs that had once been an escape, a thrill, had become nothing more than a tired habit. This was no longer something that brought her any pleasure, but she couldn’t not do it. Partly, I guess, it was addiction, but there seemed to be more to it than that. It was like she was playing a role, acting out a part, saying her lines but without her heart really in it. She
wasn’t so much a drug-addicted teenager as she was someone playing the part of a drug-addicted teenager. I wondered what that made me.

  When Craig finally emerged, he was sweating. His face was red and wet, and a cigarette dangled from his mouth. The cheap fabric of his T-shirt had been made transparent in places by the sweat that had soaked through. He smelled of dirt and stale beer and perspiration.

  “You again,” he said when he saw us. When he talked, the cigarette wiggled up and down but didn’t fall. “Don’t you have jobs or something?”

  “We don’t like jobs,” Willow said. “Or they don’t like us.”

  Craig made a disgusting sort of gurgling noise that might have been laughter.

  “I came to see a man about a tattoo,” Willow said. Their eyes met and spoke in the universal language of drug dealers and drug users. Willow followed Craig into a back room. I kept my seat. A better rat would have followed them, I suppose, but I couldn’t see how my detailed description of just one more drug deal among all the millions of drug deals out there was going to help Christian become a big hero or whatever the hell he was trying to become.

  I stayed in the waiting area, and when Willow emerged ten minutes later, I didn’t really notice the new lines of worry that zigzagged their way across her face because I wasn’t really looking for them. I didn’t know anything was up until we were almost back to her house.

  “Are you still looking for employment?” Willow asked.

  “I was kind of planning on finding a few grand accidentally dropped along the side of the road.”

  “Then I’ve got something right up your alley.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” I asked.

  “I’m talking about a way for us to make some decent money.”

  “Does this in any way involve taking off our clothes?”

  “No. It just so happens that there are ways for a woman to get paid what she’s worth without removing a single article of clothing.”