Property Of, the Drowning Season, Fortune's Daughter, and At Risk

by Alice Hoffman

  I whispered McKay’s name, but he did not answer my voice, as he had not answered my kiss. I covered the hand he held to his face with my own, and then my fingers felt what was now unprotected by McKay’s palm: the liquid heat of blood on his skin. Only a few drops of the lye McKay had thrown into the Dolphin’s eyes had fallen onto his own face, but those few drops had eaten through his skin like maggots.

  I ran to the sink, stopping to rummage in my coat pocket for a silk scarf. I ran the scarf under cold water. Then I held the silk to McKay’s skin and bathed the flesh that had been touched with lye. There was a small but very deep hole in his left cheek. McKay didn’t move, he did not speak. And only when I could no longer look at his wound, did I notice the curve of McKay’s lips. Outside on the Avenue the wind was dying, but still snow fell deeper and deeper, and I saw now that McKay smiled.

  2

  McKay and Baby Perez had arranged to meet at midnight in the parking lot of the High I-Cue Pool Hall. Perez would then drive Starry to the abortionist in the South Bronx who, Perez claimed, had received a degree from Albert Einstein Medical College. The High I-Cue was located in Pack territory. Perez would wait till twelve-thirty and no later; if McKay did not arrive, he would know the Avenue still belonged to the Dolphin.

  We sped over the ice, so as not to be late; each time we were caught by a red light, each time McKay hit the brakes, the Chevy skidded wildly. McKay held the silk kerchief to the wound on his cheek; he steered the car with one hand. In the back seat Starry had accidentally dropped a lit match into the upholstery as she attempted to light a cigarette. “Jesus fucking Christ,” she muttered.

  The time was minutes before midnight. I moved close to McKay and lifted my hand to touch his face. “Let me see,” I said.

  He jerked his head away from me. “No,” was all he said.

  We pulled into the near-empty parking lot of the pool hall. McKay turned off the ignition and rolled his window down.

  “I’m cold,” I said. In the back seat Starry was mumbling and lighting matches.

  “Shut up,” McKay said to her.

  “You shut up,” she said.

  “He’s late,” I said of Perez.

  McKay did not answer me.

  “I say, he’s late,” I repeated.

  We waited for some time in silence. Then the headlights of a small sports car shone on the Avenue. Perez parked a red MG convertible close to the Chevy. His velvet cape scattered snowflakes around his boots as he walked toward McKay’s window.

  “Hey, hey, hey,” Perez said. “Everything is everything, and we have got it to-gether.”

  “I’m cold,” I whispered.

  “Shut up,” McKay said.

  “No trouble?” Perez asked.

  “None,” said McKay.

  Perez studied McKay’s face. “You got cut,” he said, and McKay shrugged. “As long as the other dude’s looking worse.” He laughed. McKay was silent. “The other dude does look worse, doesn’t he? The Dolphin is taken care of?”

  “The Dolphin is taken care of,” McKay said. “The Avenue is now yours to deal whatever you want.”

  “Solid,” Perez said. He peered into the back seat. “This is the chick?”

  “Fuck you,” Starry said. “Who is this joker?” she asked.

  “This joker don’t take no trash,” Perez said. “So cut the babbling and let’s get it on.”

  “I’m not ready,” Starry said.

  “Well, you better be ready,” Perez said.

  “A couple of minutes won’t kill you,” McKay said.

  “Shit, man,” Perez said. “This guy’s a doctor, and a doctor keeps to his appointment schedule.”

  “A doctor, my ass,” McKay said. “We got a last transaction to settle.”

  Perez agreed to wait. He returned to the sports car. His head moved to the rhythm of the radio.

  McKay turned. “Give me the shit,” he said to Starry.

  “I don’t know what you mean, McKay.”

  “I want that spoonful,” McKay said.

  “McKay,” Starry said. “I don’t have it, I thought you took it. One of the fuckers from the Pack must have lifted it.”

  McKay opened his door. He left the car and opened the back door. “Get out,” he said.

  “Hey, boy, it’s cold out there,” Starry protested.

  I left the Chevy and walked around to where McKay stood. I held my winter coat around my shoulders and the air rushed through the material of my blouse like cold needles. I held his arm. “McKay,” I said. “Don’t. You don’t have to.”

  “Get out,” he said to Starry.

  “Honey, if you’re in pain, if your face is hurting bad, I got Darvon and codeine.”

  McKay did not answer me.

  “We can go to an emergency ward, maybe they’ll give you Demerol. You just say you were holding a bottle of cleaning fluid and your hand slipped.”

  Starry slid slowly out of the back of the Chevy. Her eyes seemed to be studying possible paths of escape. She needed McKay and Perez if she wanted the ride to the South Bronx. But she also wanted to hold on to the heroin I knew she carried in her purse. “McKay,” she said as we stood in the snow, “what you want with heroin? You can get all the money you need dealing coke for Perez. And you’re straight, you ain’t got no habit.”

  “Give me the spoon,” McKay said, grabbing her arm.

  “You’re going to do it again,” I said. “You’re goddamn going to do it again.”

  “What do you want? What the hell do you want from me?” McKay said.

  “I want to go home.” I said. “McKay, I just want to go home.” He had the Avenue now; he was free to walk and deal on any street corner. The Dolphin was taken care of, and McKay had proven that he was through with honor, and that he was no longer anyone’s fool. What did he want?

  Starry handed him the plastic bag; McKay studied the junk. “Almost two spoons,” he mused.

  “Fuck you,” Starry said.

  “And the works,” McKay said. “Give me your works.”

  Starry handed him a dull-edged needle and a tarnished metal spoon.

  “Give me enough for a fix,” she said. “Give me enough to get off. I don’t want to get sick.”

  “One of the Pack must have lifted the dope?” McKay sneered.

  “Give it to her,” I said. Starry was trembling.

  “Let’s go inside,” McKay said. “Let’s all of us go inside.”

  I held Starry’s arm, and we followed McKay into the pool hall. We passed the green felt tables and continued toward the rear, to a narrow hallway outside the toilet door.

  “You wait out here,” I said to McKay.

  “And trust her with the junk?” McKay laughed. “Not a chance.” He opened the door; the three of us entered the fluorescent-lit toilet; our reflections moved in the mirror which hung above a stained porcelain sink. McKay locked the door; he removed his belt.

  “Don’t bother with that,” Starry said. From her purse she produced a rubber tube and a clamp. She wound the tube around her arm and clamped it tightly. “What do you say?” she demanded of McKay. McKay began to fix the heroin. “Just like the good old days,” Starry sneered.

  I did not want to be there with them. “I’m going to wait outside,” I said.

  “No, you won’t,” McKay said. He no longer bothered to hold the scarf to his face. The hole in his skin was raw and deep.

  “Well, you sure ain’t gonna be no beauty no more,” Starry said to McKay. She tossed her raccoon coat to the floor, and sat upon it. The clamp was tight around the rubber tubing; her veins rose pale and blue.

  “Come on,” she said to McKay. “Come on,” she urged.

  McKay walked toward her. Starry still wore a woolen hat pulled over her hair. She stared up at McKay and he knelt. When the heroin entered her, Starry sighed, as if in the act of love.

  McKay stood over the sink and fixed more dope. The water ran. McKay stared at me and nodded.

  “McKay,” I said.
The night seemed too long; the night seemed to last forever.

  “Come here,” he said. I shook my head. “Hey.” McKay smiled. “Get over here.”

  I stood with my back against the wall. “Go ahead and kill yourself,” I said. “Go ahead and start it all again, but I’m having nothing to do with it.”

  “You know,” McKay said, “you’re no fun anymore. You just ain’t no fun.” Starry sat slumped over on the tiles; she watched us until she could no longer keep her eyes open. “When was the last time you got high?” McKay said.

  “I don’t know,” I said. I bit my thumb and began to count the tiles of the soundproof ceiling.

  “It’s about time,” he said. “It’s about time you did.”

  Each time before when we got high together I had been the one to ask McKay permission. Only a few times had he allowed me heroin. And even then, he always avoided my veins.

  “Why?” I said.

  “I want you with me,” he said.

  “I’m with you,” I said.

  McKay shook his head. “I want you high with me.”

  For me, heroin had always been the way to connect with McKay, and now it was he who wanted to connect. He held me and whispered, “Please.”

  I began to shake. “Don’t say that,” I said.

  “What?” McKay whispered.

  “Don’t say please to me.”

  We were so far apart there was no other way to make a connection, and so I moved away from him and rolled up my sleeve.

  It seemed I could not say no.

  Before McKay could form words into questions I had already said yes. Each demand, any request—none could I ever deny. I could not say no.

  I did not want to be involved in war with the Orphans; I did not want heroin; but I could not help myself—I still wanted McKay. And I believed the way to have him was to say yes. So I said yes to lies, and to the needle; so I agreed when I did not agree, so I wanted what I did not want.

  More terrifying than the effects of beatings or murder were thoughts of the effects of the word no. Would McKay leave me, would I be left alone, would I realize later that yes had been the correct answer all along, and didn’t McKay know more than I did anyway? Who was I to say no to him, especially when he needed me? When he needed me to say yes.

  It was heroin that was the mood we moved in, but I did not want the heroin to move in me. I could not be twice owned: not by McKay and heroin both. Yet, I was scarring my arm for him with tracks the way others had scarred their legs by carving McKay’s initials encircled by hearts. But I did not think it was heroin that McKay shot into my vein; I believed it was love; it was need; it was want. How could I say no? Both of us needed magic to make connections: I needed charms; he needed dust. What, finally, was the difference between the two? We were in need, and it was so difficult to make a connection that, when one was offered, I could not refuse. I dared not refuse. I held out my arm and I nodded yes.

  But on my tongue there was a different word.

  “That’s it,” he whispered. I closed my eyes and heard him whisper again, “Yes, that’s it.” But it did not seem as if he spoke to me, and so I did not answer.

  I felt the belt being tightly wrapped around my arm; I felt my breathing deepen.

  “You’re going to skin-pop it, yeah?” I said to McKay.

  He did not answer me. He stood by the sink, holding a lit match under the spoon.

  “McKay?” I said.

  “You’ll see how much better it is,” he said.

  Of course, I knew how much stronger, better the rush of mainlining was. But I did not want it; I did not want to be that high. “You’ll see,” McKay said. He held my arm now, he placed his lips to the vein that throbbed at the inside of my elbow.

  And I was certain, as I touched my hand to McKay’s face, and I was certain as he pulled the belt tighter still around my arm, that he needed me. McKay needed me with him and I did not think I would be able to say no; I did not think I would be able to speak.

  I felt the rush immediately, felt the warmth and sweetness of the heroin throughout my body, as if white powder had replaced all of the blood that flowed through my veins.

  It was good.

  “That’s better, isn’t it?” I heard McKay say, and I nodded.

  He loosened the belt and then removed it from around my arm. I felt very easy and slow; I leaned against the wall for support. I watched McKay’s back. He was at the sink again. In his mouth he held the tail end of the belt, which was now wrapped around his arm. He pulled it with his teeth until it was taut as wire.

  Starry stood up. She threw the raccoon coat about her shoulders. “I’ll tell you something,” she whispered to me. I looked into her pale eyes and the pupils were tiny as moth’s eyes. “He’s changed. He’s really changed, you know what I mean?”

  “He’s in shock,” I whispered. I could not tell if my words were intelligible. I knew I was slurring syllables.

  “Honey,” Starry said, “we’re all in shock.”

  “Are we?” I said. I wanted to sleep. I wanted to leave, because I felt if I did not leave I would have to lie on the tile floor and cover myself with a winter coat and dream.

  “You are wasted,” Starry said. “You are stone wasted,” she whispered, it seemed, in my ear. “Why you want to mess with this shit?”

  “Ssh,” I said to her. I did not want to speak.

  Finally McKay was finished. He cloaked himself once more in the black leather he had removed when he fixed himself.

  “You ready?” he said softly.

  “Who is waiting on who?” Starry said, opening the door and walking into the hallway. “It’s goodbye to the Avenue for me,” Starry called behind her. “Thank the Lord, it is goodbye.”

  “Let’s go,” McKay said to me. He held one arm around my shoulders. I leaned close against him and rested my head upon his chest. We followed Starry through the pool hall, past sharpshooters aiming cues, and into the street. My knees felt weak, and the air seemed incredibly cold.

  “The Arctic,” I said, and I shivered even though McKay held me close as we walked.

  Starry stopped before she reached the MG. She stood on the ice, in the night; her eyes were closed. I had to be sick.

  “McKay,” I whispered. I moved away from his arm; I knelt by the side of the Chevy. I felt ice at my knees; I bent my head. I could feel McKay was still beside me. “Go away,” I said.

  “I won’t,” he answered.

  “Goddamn it, go away,” I said. I wanted to be sick alone. I vomited several times; I did not think I would have the strength to stand; but I stood. McKay opened the Chevy’s doors; he sat behind the wheel and rested his head on the upholstery. Starry was now in the red MG, which was ringed with a cloud of marijuana smoke that had filtered through the open car windows into the night. I stood alone in the parking lot of the High I-Cue Pool Hall and looked at Starry. Perez had started his engine. When Starry noticed that I stared at her she rolled her window up. She did not smile; she did not wave. There were no words of goodbye between us. She only rolled her window up and shook her head.

  Perez drove away; the sports car’s black exhaust and the odor of marijuana lingered in the air. She would not be back—she had no reason to come back. I watched the taillights disappear on the Avenue; and then I realized I was cold. I realized just how cold I was. I got into the Chevy and closed the door. I could not tell if McKay knew I was with him now or not. His eyes were closed; his head nodded far down on his shoulder.

  I whispered his name once, but I did not call him again. I waited for McKay to open his eyes. He swallowed and rubbed at his nose. He lit a cigarette for himself and one for me. My fingers were like rubber. I dropped the cigarette on the floor of the car; I leaned down and found the burning tobacco.

  “Let’s go home,” McKay said. We finished our cigarettes, and then McKay started the engine. I fought to keep my eyes open, but the lids were so heavy I could not help but rest my head back and close my eyes. I did not
know McKay was watching me until he reached out his hand to touch my shoulder. I jumped slightly at his touch; I opened my eyes wide to see his dark stare upon me. His hand rested gently on my shoulder, but I moved away from him. I had to open the window and breathe in night air, for I feared I might be sick once more.

  TWELVE

  STARTING OUT

  1

  “I just don’t trust that cocksucker,” McKay said as we drove in the Chevy down the Avenue toward the clubhouse of the Orphans.

  “You’re just nervous,” I said.

  “The hell I am,” McKay said. He rubbed at his nose and lit a cigarette as we waited for a red light to turn. The burn on his face had healed, but a thin scar now lined his left cheek.

  “O.K.,” I said. “O.K. You’re not nervous.”

  In three days McKay had finished the two spoons of heroin stolen from the Dolphin, and now he was to begin dealing for Baby Perez.

  “McKay,” I said. “Perez will be there.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” McKay said. “And if he’s not?”

  “He’ll be at the clubhouse,” I said. If Perez failed to show at the appointed time and place, McKay would be strung out with no money and no dope. “You’re gonna be a working man, finally,” I said.

  “Bullshit,” McKay said.

  “You’re gonna be working for Perez,” I said.

  McKay laughed. “So now I can list my occupation as ‘pusher’?”

  “It’s a start,” I said.

  McKay detoured at the White Castle to pick up some Cokes. We sat in the Chevy with the headlights switched on.

  “Well,” McKay said, after he had ordered from the waitress who appeared at the car window. “I better have an occupation that makes money, with two habits to support.”

  “What two habits?” I said as the waitress reappeared with two large plastic cups.

  “Yours and mine,” McKay answered. I was silent while he paid for the Cokes, rolled up the windows, and restarted the Chevy.

  When we had rolled out of the White Castle driveway and were once again on the Avenue, I said, “You’re crazy. I don’t have a habit.”

  McKay laughed. He steered the Chevy with one hand and drank with the other. When he shifted gears, drops of Coke fell onto my leg.