by LD Marr
A train pulled in, but I didn’t get on. Instead, I walked back to the stairs. The blood wasn’t puddled on the floor anymore, but the floor was stained with large red circles. Red footprints led out from one of the red circles on the side where the man had walked toward the stairs.
I followed the footprints around the black metal cage to the foot of the stairs. The bloody footprints continued up the stairs, fading near the top.
Then I turned and walked back to wait for the next train home.
Chapter 3
About an hour later, I unlocked five locks. Then I pushed open the door and walked into the Brooklyn apartment I shared with two other recovered addicts. It felt hot and stuffy after the being out in the cold, wet late November air.
My roommates Frank and Rita were sitting on the big plasti-leather couch in the enormous but mostly empty living room. Rita’s pale face was glued toward the television, but Frank got up off the couch and walked over to meet me in the hallway.
“Myrna!” said Frank. “You’re so late tonight. It’s almost midnight. We were getting worried about you.”
Frank’s brow was wrinkled, and his small round eyes focused on mine as if looking for answers there. I knew it was more than just the late hour that he was questioning. He was worried that I’d been out at a bar, or worse, taking drugs.
“Almost midnight?” I repeated.
It was dark, and the street had been deserted when I’d walked from the subway stop to the apartment, but I had no idea it was that late or how it got that late.
I took off my coat and boots without saying anything else.
“Are you OK?” Frank asked me with even more concern in his voice.
“She’s fine. Butt out,” Rita said from the couch.
She brushed a hand through thick brown hair, but she didn’t look up from the small black and white TV perched on its small stand several feet away. A big imitation-wood coffee table squatted in between the TV and the couch.
Frank put a thin hand on my shoulder and spoke to me in a lower voice.
“Do you need to talk about anything?” he asked.
“Frank. I didn’t slip. I haven’t been using. I know that’s what you’re thinking,” I answered in a whisper. “I got out at the wrong subway station, and I stayed there for a while, and I guess I lost track of the time. I really don’t know how it got so late, but that’s where I was.”
“I believe you,” said Frank. “But I’m still worried about you. Standing around in a subway station? It sounds like maybe you had a PTSD episode. Sometimes people like us have them, you know.”
“I’ve heard about that. And you could be right,” I said. “But I’ll be OK. I was just thinking about some things. I’m fine,” I insisted.
Frank didn’t look convinced.
“Come sit with us for a while and watch TV,” he said. “Rita’s here tonight. We hardly ever see her.”
Unsaid between us was the fact that Rita was often out late after her work day ended in the city. And she was probably drinking at the least.
“OK,” I agreed even though I hated television, and Frank knew that. “I need to put my stuff away and go to the bathroom, and then I’ll hang out with you two for a little bit.”
A few minutes later, Frank made room for me to sit between him and Rita.
“What’s on?” I asked.
“It’s Lives of the Wealthy and Powerful,” said Rita. “I love this show!”
I groaned inwardly. I hated the show, but I hated most of what was available to us on TV.
I’ll just watch with them for about fifteen minutes. Then I’ll say I’m tired, and I have to go to sleep, I told myself.
The screen showed two people sitting at a marble dining table set in plush surroundings. Then it zoomed in on a steaming plate of food.
“Yum!” said Rita. “Steak!”
The steak didn’t look that yummy to me. But it was something I’d actually never seen because there was no meat anymore. All the livestock animals had developed toxic mutations when the growth hormones farmers gave them reacted with the high levels of outdoor radiation. People who ate their meat died too. The mutations became genetic, so all the livestock had to be killed off.
“I didn’t know there were any more cows alive on Earth,” I said.
The host of the show spoke.
“Today we’re in the home of billionaire CEO Andre D’Augustine. Andre has his own underground livestock farm. His wealthy ancestors stocked it before the current levels of radiation affected the animals aboveground. So now he can eat meat anytime he wants it. What a lucky guy!”
A bulky man dressed in a white silk dinner jacket sat at the table next to the host. He cut into the steak with a sharp knife. Blood seeped out of the rare-cooked meat.
I felt nauseous. I put a hand over my mouth.
“His own underground farm! Can you believe that? I’d like a piece of that meat!” said Rita.
The man on the television lifted a chunk of pink meat to his mouth and chewed. Although I knew it was impossible, I could smell the meat. And it smelled exactly like the blood I’d just smelled in the subway station. The smell of blood with something else added—the smell of cooked meat.
I gagged.
Rita turned to look at me with a peeved expression.
She probably thinks I’m making fun of her, I thought.
But I couldn’t stop myself from gagging again, and I realized that I wouldn’t be able to control it this time. I got up fast from the couch and rushed into the bathroom.
“Are you all right?” I heard Rita ask just before I dropped down in front of the toilet bowl and began heaving the contents of my stomach into it.
“Myrna?” I heard Frank’s hesitant voice in the doorway, but I couldn’t answer.
I kept retching dry heaves long after my stomach was empty. I knew Frank was standing there, but I couldn’t look up at him.
Finally it was over. I sat on the hard-tiled floor and leaned my head back against the wall. My hair stuck to my head, and my entire body was covered in sweat.
Frank held a washcloth under the sink and then handed it to me.
“Thank you,” I managed to say.
I took the damp cloth and wiped my mouth and then my face. Then I looked up at Frank who was bending down toward me with his hands on his knees.
“I haven’t been using, Frank. I swear,” I told him.
“I believe you,” he said.
“Can you help me up?” I asked.
I lifted my arms up toward him.
“Yes,” said Frank.
He grabbed my hands and pulled me up to a standing position. Then I walked to the sink and rinsed out my mouth while he held back my hair.
Chapter 4
A week later, it was time for Chloe’s appointment. I sat in my office on the thin cushion of my metal-backed chair. I couldn’t wait to hear how Chloe’s week had gone.
She’d always been right on time, but today she was a few minutes late. Anxiety reared its ugly head. After ten minutes, I went out to the barebones lobby to see if Chloe was there. Maybe the receptionist was busy?
But when I opened the door to his small work space separated from the client lobby by metal bars, Danno didn’t look that busy. He sat with his adjustable office chair tipped back. The colorful cap he wore to cover his chemo-balding head was askew, partly covering his half closed eyes.
“Hey, Danno. Has my two o-clock appointment shown up yet?” I asked him even though I could see Chloe wasn’t there.
Danno opened his eyes, blinked a few times, and then swiveled his chair around to face me.
“Nope. She’s not here yet,” he said. “I’ll send her right back if she shows. But you know sometimes they don’t. A lot of them don’t.”
The older ex-addict looked at me with sympathy in his large brown eyes, and I knew what he was trying to tell me. But I couldn’t accept it yet.
“I’m sure she’ll be here,” I said. “She’s probably just lat
e. I’ll wait in my office. Thanks Danno.”
“Uh huh,” he said.
I turned and walked out the door of his tiny workspace, getting away fast before he could see how upset I was. I sat back down on my chair and stared at the door. Waiting.
This can’t be happening, I thought.
But somehow, I knew it was. I knew that Chloe wouldn’t show up for her appointment. And I had a deep, unshakable feeling that something terrible had happened to her.
I know she was going to stay clean, so if she’s not here…, my thoughts didn’t want to go there.
But my gut had already gone there, and I was a wreck.
Ten minutes passed and ten more. By then, I’d gone into trance-like state. My eyes were closed when someone knocked on the door.
Hope flashed. I jumped up and threw it open. Sandra, the clinic’s manager stood there. Hope crashed.
I stepped back, and Sandra walked in. A tall, elegant dark-skinned woman with a hard past of her own, as everyone who worked at this clinic had. But she’d never told me anything about her history, and it wasn’t my place to ask.
“Myra, I don’t think your client’s going to show up today,” she said.
My mouth and eyes opened wide.
“No! No! I don’t believe that!” I almost shouted.
Then I flushed in embarrassment.
I’m so unprofessional! I thought.
“I know you’re upset. Why don’t we sit down and talk about it?” Sandra said, in her voice that always seemed to stay calm.
I sat back down in my chair, and Sandra took the guest chair. I was silent, not knowing what to say, and Sandra asked me the same question I asked my clients to get them talking.
“Do you want to tell me what’s going on? I know your client didn’t show, but can you tell me why you’re so affected by it?”
I wasn’t sure myself. My extreme reaction had taken me by surprise. But I took a breath and tried to explain.
“I really expected Chloe to be here today. Because when I saw her last week, she was doing so well. She’d stayed off drugs for a week, and she convinced me she wasn’t going back. So when she didn’t show today, I got scared that something bad happened to her. That’s why I’m so upset,” I said. “I’m sorry I got so emotional about it.”
I felt sniffy. I reached for a tissue from the box I kept on a small rickety table near the two chairs. Sandra looked at me and spoke again.
“Yes. This happens quite often. A client will clean up for a while and get our hopes up. Then they get back into the drugs and don’t make it to their next appointment. They might come back later, or not. It happens all the time. But you’re new, and I know it’s the first time it’s happened to you. It’s hard when you care about them, and I know you care. That’s why I hired you.”
I knew that Sandra had also hired me because of own my own drug-use past, but she didn’t say that. It was understood.
“You’re right that it’s the first time I’ve had this happen,” I said. “But I’m upset and worried because I don’t believe Chloe went back to using. I talked to her enough to know her, and I was sure that she was going to stay clean. So if she’s not here, I think something must have happened to her. Something bad. You know it’s not just drugs that our clients are involved with.”
“Yes, I know that,” Sandra answered. “If the drugs don’t get them, the human traffickers will. Those people are often the ones who get them hooked on drugs. A lot of these kids are homeless and hungry, and they’ll go with anyone who gives them a meal and a bed for the night. And sometimes, something goes wrong, and we never see them again. Either they end up in the morgue, or they just disappear. Is that what you’re worried about?”
She’d hit the nail on the head.
“That’s exactly what I’m worried about. And I have a terrible feeling about it. Can we report her to the police as missing? Or do something?” I asked.
“We can, but we don’t often do that,” Sandra answered. “Sometimes that can be worse for them.”
“Worse how?” I asked.
“Because when we report our clients, the police run facial recognition scans on the video monitoring inside this building to find out who their parents are. Then the police notify the parents. It’s up to them whether or not they want their kids to be looked for. The parents need to have money or influence, or that’s not going to happen. But if they want their kids found, and they’re willing to pay for it, the police can find them. They’ll query the faces videotaped here in our clinic with the monitoring tapes of the entire city, and something will match up if they’re still in New York and still alive.”
“If the parents were rich, wouldn’t they have already paid to have their kids found if they wanted them?” I asked.
“I’m not saying it could never happen, but it’s unlikely. Someone would have to be insanely wealthy to afford a data search of the hundred thousand cities in this entire country. But when we narrow the range down to just our city, it becomes more doable,” Sandra answered. “Doable, but not necessarily a good thing to do.”
“OK. I understand why that could be bad,” I said. “Because they’ll be sent back to an abusive situation. Right?”
“Yes. That’s the reason,” said Sandra. “We make our clients sign an acknowledgement that they’ll be videotaped in here. But they don’t worry about it because they know everywhere they go on the streets, the subway, stores, and anywhere run by the government has video monitoring. And the government isn’t going to check that video unless some crime is committed that they actually care about. Or if someone has a lot of money. I doubt if most of our clients come from wealthy families. Do you know anything about Chloe’s family?”
“No. I don’t. She never wanted to talk about them, and I didn’t press her,” I answered. “I assumed they were the reason she ended up on the streets though.”
We looked at each other for a few moments. Recognizing the pain in each other’s eyes. Then Sandra spoke.
“I’ve only reported one missing teen ever. And I’ll always carry the guilt with me for what happened to that boy when he was sent back to his family. He’s dead now. That was the last time I reported any of these kids. But you’re Chloe’s counselor, so I’m going to let you make the decision. It’s up to you. Do you want me to report this?”
More silence. I dropped my face into my hands.
I’m only eighteen! Why is she putting this awful burden on me? I asked myself, even though Sandra had just explained why.
“You don’t have to answer right away,” Sandra said. “You can take all the time you want to think about it.”
I dropped my hands down and looked at Sandra again.
“But you know that the longer we wait, the more likely it gets that she’ll never be found,” I said.
“Yes, we both know that,” Sandra agreed, putting the responsibility back on me.
Sandra sat back in the hard chair and rested her hands on her knees. Waiting patiently for my answer. I sat back in a similar position.
OK, I told myself. It’s up to me. I’ve got to stop feeling sorry for myself and make this decision. Should I report Chloe? Should I let this go? Is she really in danger?
A strong, weird feeling rose from deep in my gut.
She is in danger! I thought.
Somehow I believed that to be true even though I had no proof or evidence. Every ounce of me believed it.
“Yes. Report her. I want you to,” I said to Sandra with no hesitation in my voice.
Sandra sighed deeply. In that sigh, I heard a mix of sadness, resignation, and also relief. But I was confident now about my decision. Scared but confident.
We both rose from our chairs, and Sandra reached out a hand to me. The only physical gesture we were allowed to make. I took the hand and held onto it. Tears threatened to flow, but I held them back. Sandra squeezed my hand and then turned to leave without saying anything more.
Chapter 5
Another week later, I s
at in my office across from a new client. A slight sweat gleamed on the tan face he hid behind long dark hair. The sweat of a recovering addict.
“I’m so happy that you decided to come here, Laz,” I said. “I know it can be scary to trust people you don’t know and tell us you’ve been using drugs. Am I right?”
“Yes,” said Laz.
He lifted a hand to wipe the hair from his face and looked at me with still bloodshot green eyes.
This is how Chloe looked at her first appointment, I thought.
A week after reporting her missing to the police, there’d still been no word. Each day, my apprehension grew, but I focused back on my newest client.
“I know it was hard. And it’s great that you’re ready to make a change. I just want you to know that we’re only here because we want to help you. That’s all we care about,” I said.
“OK,” said Laz in an unsteady voice. “I believe you.”
“I know that right now you might not completely believe me, and I wouldn’t blame you for that,” I said. “Because maybe people have told you that same thing—that they only want to help you—and then it turns out to not be true. They even end up hurting you. Has that ever happened?”
“Maybe,” Laz answered.
He leaned back in the hard chair and crossed black pseudo-leather-clad arms over his chest. Hair fell over his eyes. I guessed that he didn’t want to talk about that right now.
“Well, I hope this time will be different for you,” I said. “Anyway, you’ve had three days of withdrawal, and now you’ve been through the worst of it. How are you feeling?”
“OK. I guess,” said Laz. “Kind of weak and sweaty.”
The eighteen year old lifted a hand to brush back hair again. Just from one side.
“Well, that’s to be expected,” I said. “It’s going to take a while for everything to get out of your system. And it still can be hard even after that. There might be pressure on you to go back to using. But you must want to quit because you came here and went through detox. Can you tell me why decided to do that?”
“Uh, I don’t know,” said Laz.
