by Zhanna Slor
I grab the bill. The powder burns my nose as it goes up, and the chemical aftertaste pools in my mouth a moment later. My heart rate, which was already faster than I’ve ever felt it, is now working overtime. My teeth feel numb and alive at the same time.
“How did you meet my amigo?” the guy asks then. He relaxes into the couch with his arms raised and wide. I’m so relieved he isn’t forcing me to do more drugs that I tell him the truth.
“At a horrible party,” I say. “He was there taking wallets.”
He seems amused by the story. “And what were you doing?” he asks, with a smirk.
“Looking for a friend of mine,” I explain. In any normal circumstance I would have shut up then, but the coke is making every thought in my brain flow out of my mouth. “My best friend. Margot. She kind of ditched me for this guy, and I hadn’t seen her in a while, and I wanted to talk to her about that and some other stuff, you know, but then I got there and she couldn’t even get off his lap for a second.” My mouth dry, I swallow my spit and catch my breath. “So I leave and she follows me out, but not to apologize or anything, to tell me she’s moving and we all have to find new apartments.” I start shaking my head now. I know I’m in a room of men who couldn’t care less about me and Margot’s problems, but for some reason it’s sort of a relief to get it off my chest. I hadn’t really thought about it since it happened. I’d relegated it to the back of my mind, along with everything else in my previous life, before my dad cut me off and Tristan swooped me up into his world. “And that was all after I found out my dad cheated on my mom and might have had another kid with her. She’s been messaging me from Ukraine.”
“Damn,” Santiago says, the smirk moving from the corners of his mouth to his eyes. “That’s a lot.”
The other man still sitting on the couch with the other dogs shakes his head. “Women,” is all he contributes to this conversation. I sort of forgot he was in the room. I turn and scan my surroundings and suddenly notice that I am a woman alone in a room of men I don’t know. I find myself craning my neck, looking for Tristan to return.
“Don’t stress, chica,” the guy says. “I got a daughter your age. How old are you anyway?”
I swallow, my throat even dryer than before. “Nineteen.”
“Nineteen,” he says. “You’re practically a baby.” A look passes between Santiago and the other man.
“How old is your daughter?” I ask.
“I got four, can you believe it? The oldest just turned eighteen.” He taps his chest a couple of times, and gazes into the space ahead of him with genuine awe. It was a good call to ask about his children, I realize in the moment with a flutter of hope. “She’s an angel. Gonna rule the world one day.”
Everything stands perfectly still for a moment, and I start to think the danger has passed. I even forget what it is we are doing there. But then his thin friend with the half-shaved head returns with my drugs, and breaks the spell. He has two little baggies, which he places in my hand, making sure to touch my hand a little longer than necessary. I stifle the urge to cringe. I stuff the drugs into the front pocket of my backpack and put it back on my shoulders right away. Now I am starting to actually get annoyed at Tristan. He better hurry or I’ll have to get the hell out of here without him. If I am allowed to do that.
“What’s her name?” I ask, as an attempt to return to our previous casualness. “Your oldest daughter.”
“Isabella,” he says with a grin. “Real smart, like you. Not like her Papa. Don’t know where she gets it. It sure ain’t from that bitch of a mother, god rest her soul.” Here, he crosses himself. I want to ask what happened to this mother, but I’m not sure I want to know the answer. Then I regret not asking more about her, because Santiago chooses that moment to look behind him. A crease of uneasiness crosses his face. “What did this fucker eat before you got here?” he asks, forcing a small laugh. “Damn.”
“McDonalds,” I lie, because I know when he has eaten it in the past he also spent a lot of time in the bathroom. “He didn’t feel well after.” This must not be an uncommon reaction because the guy nods and doesn’t push it. He reaches over to the table and takes out a cigarette, and offers me one. It’s almost like he offered me a lifeboat, I’m so happy to take it. But maybe my McDonalds lie wasn’t as good as I thought, because I catch a look pass between the men, and soon the other one is up again. Presumably to check on Tristan. My mood towards him shifts from annoyed to furious. He put me in a terrible position. He claimed to know where the money was. If he does, then what is taking him so long? Not to mention he broke his sobriety over this dumb plan. I stand up under the premise of going to the pet one of the dogs on the couch opposite ours, the black boxer-lab. I need to put some space between me and Santiago. “Is she friendly?” I ask, walking over more spilled trash and another bong and what looks like a broken guitar being used as a table.
“As a housecat,” he laughs. I pet the other dog instead. The coke recycles my emotions in waves, like a Ferris wheel, for moments terrifying me, and then filling me with a confident joy that is totally out of whack with the present situation. It throws my intuition completely off, and I don’t even feel that there’s a man hovering behind me, until his hand has grazed my backside.
I can’t help but jump a little. Then I correct myself and move to sit next to the dog. I try to tell the dog to save me with my brain. But Santiago seems to merely be having fun with me. He lets out a brief chuckle and picks up an ashtray that is sitting on the table next to us. Then he returns to his previous seat on the couch and pretends like I’m not even there.
Petting that dog like it’s my only lifeline, my anger returns with a vengeance. I keep the cigarette in my hand and smoke it slowly in case I will need to use it as a weapon. It’s gone quiet and still in the living room, and this isn’t a good sign. Any moment they are going to start looking for Tristan, and any moment they will find him somewhere he shouldn’t be. And in the midst of all these contradicting emotions and worries I somehow find a moment of clarity: that my life has gone completely off the rails. That I need to get away from everything that is keeping it off the rails; Milwaukee, Riverwest, and most of all: Tristan. Of course, this is the moment Tristan chooses to make his reappearance. He materializes, as if out of nowhere, and sits beside me on the couch. He puts an arm around my shoulder and squeezes. I have no idea if he found the money and if so, where he is hiding it.
“Sorry, man,” he says. “Something wasn’t sitting right.”
“We’ve heard,” Santiago says pointedly.
So quickly I wonder if I imagined it, I feel Tristan’s arm move down from my shoulder and deposit something into my backpack. Then he stands up like a bottle rocket, and pulls me up by the arm too. “Well, thanks for the hospitality, man. Appreciate it.”
“Anytime, amigo,” Santiago says. “I was just getting to know your girl. One more before you hit the road?”
“Sure, man,” Tristan says without hesitation. To my total surprise, Tristan and the man do another long line of coke. As if we are only here as party guests. This one, unlike the first, seems completely unmotivated by pressure. He wants to snort more coke. He isn’t being forced. My anger turns to outrage. Has he been coming here and doing drugs for the last few weeks, and I just didn’t know about it? How else are these two so friendly he knows where the money might be? I decide I’ve had enough. I came as a decoy. There is no way I am sticking around here and watching him get high.
“I’m going to go unlock the bikes,” I tell Tristan as he remains hovered over the table. “Okay?”
“See you in a sec,” he says without looking up. I’m pretty sure he does a second line of coke but I don’t stay long enough to find out. I walk straight for the front door and open it.
I am half expecting someone to follow me and chase me out the door, but when I turn around, no one is looking my way at all. Someone has even started a joint. Could he really be getting away with such an abysma
l endeavor? Is he going to stay and smoke with them? I know in that moment that Tristan was right: Drug addiction is a prison with no room for visitors. There’s no space for others. And that includes me.
Whatever. At least I made it out of that house in one piece. I practically run across the street, past the barking dogs and the caved-in porch and whoever is left out there smoking, if there’s anyone at all. The cold winter air has never felt so good on my skin, after what I experienced inside. That level of illegality is a step way too far for me to take. Skirting the rules a little is one thing; but now we are flirting with actual felonies and prison time. Even if I didn’t do the drug dealing or the stealing, I could easily be considered an accessory. What if the guy took my picture when I wasn’t looking? What if there are cameras? Had Tristan even considered that? How did I let myself get so sucked into this bubble? I need to be as far away from this place as possible. Even if it means leaving Tristan in there alone, and abandoning his bike without a lock. If a stolen bike is the worst thing that happens to him today, he should count himself lucky.
My hands are shaking so hard it takes me four tries to get the bike lock off, and Tristan is still not out. I get on August’s bike anyway; I decide I will wait one more minute. The dogs are going nuts, and even though the men are off the front porch, I know they’re still close by. It’s quiet outside, but that doesn’t fool me. It’s a tense sort of quiet, not one of calm. The coke has nearly left my system already, and I am pure adrenaline now. I need to get on this bike and move. Right as I’m about to start pedaling, Tristan starts running toward me at full speed, followed by an angry dog nipping at his heels and then the thin man, who is holding a gun. The gun goes off before I have time to even think to duck. A bullet whizzes past both of us and hits the tree across the street. Lights start to go on around the house in windows that were previously dark. I know I should start moving but now I’m totally frozen with fear. I just stare at Tristan and don’t move. It takes Tristan pushing my backpack to get me to notice. I still don’t move, and he keeps pressing me. Finally I start pedaling, to put a stop to the pushing, but almost fall off the bike because my legs are so wobbly. They feel filled with water instead of muscle.
“Anastasia,” he whispers. “You’ll have time to be scared later. Right now, we gotta get the fuck out of here.”
The man shoots at us again, the bullet landing in a different tree. “Don’t you fucking show your face in this town again or I’ll really kill you!”
“I didn’t do anything, man!” cries Tristan.
“José saw you, man,” the guy says. “Fucking dumbass junkie.”
I look at Tristan, a question in my eyes. “He didn’t see shit, don’t worry. Just that I went into the room.”
The guy is still out there, and is getting angrier by the second. But he’s also barefoot and coatless and doesn’t want to walk through the piles of snow that now separates us. He points the gun at his dog, and says, “Get him, Michael Jordan!”
The dog reaches us in a second and starts growling and barking in circles by our feet. Tristan kicks it, but this only makes the dog angrier. I see the dog’s mouth latch onto his ankle.
“Anastasia, go!” Tristan says, trying to shake off the dog. Something about the dog breaks the spell I’m under, and I am no longer frozen in place. I start pedaling again, with more success this time. I don’t look back even once, I just bike. I bike faster than I’ve ever biked before and probably ever will again. I don’t notice the cold gushing against my ears because I’ve somehow misplaced my hat in all this mess. I don’t notice my frozen toes, which are soaked from the snow and slush. I don’t notice that Tristan isn’t behind me. I barely notice the tears rolling down my face. I don’t stop to notice anything, not until I reach Riverwest. Then I slow down. Then I look around. Then I stop. I drop my bike on the corner of Center and Pierce, and sit down on the freezing earth, so out of breath I start hyperventilating. I lie down on the wet ground, trying to catch my breath. I am totally spent, but I am also so relieved I could laugh. I even do start laughing, but because I am lacking in oxygen it only turns into a cough. It is in this state, lying prostrate on the ground in someone’s front yard, when I notice a man standing over me like an angel. His dark hair is surrounded by the yellow glow of a streetlamp, and he smells like sweat. He smells familiar, actually. It isn’t till he pulls me up by the arm that I realize who it is. Not Tristan, coming after me. Not his drug dealing friends.
Liam.
ANNA
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CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
“Anna?” Liam asks, a Camel Light hanging out of his mouth and a forty in his hand. Once I am standing again, he looks at me curiously. “What the hell happened?”
When I don’t immediately respond, he walks me and my bike half a block over to the back of his house where there is currently a show going on. He sets the bike down in the yard, and by then my heart has slowed down enough to realize what nearly just happened to me. “Holy shit, girl,” he says. He reaches around me for a hug. “You’re shaking like a leaf.”
I’m still too in shock to speak. I’m about to take my backpack off my shoulders to look for cigarettes, when I realize I don’t have my backpack. Either I dropped it in the scuffle, or… or Tristan took it from me as I biked away. I guess I can add that to the things I am furious at him about. Whatever, I say to myself. I’m done with him and this entire thing. He can have it. As soon as I regain the feeling in my legs and lungs and heart, I’m getting out of here and never looking back. First, I swallow some air and try to find my voice. Liam takes out two cigarettes from his pocket, one for each of us, and even lights mine. Without asking, I take a sip of his beer. When he doesn’t protest, I drink the entire thing. It’s more out of intense dehydration than anything. I generally detest beer. But my water is in the backpack that’s no longer on my back, like so many other things.
“Are you okay?” Liam asks again, looking at me with genuine concern. I nod at him. He takes a seat on the elevated deck and motions for me to follow so I do. For a moment we sit there in silence and watch while in the yard, someone has started a small bonfire, and people begin gathering around plastic lawn chairs, getting louder by the minute. A typical Wednesday in Riverwest. Well, for everyone other than me.
“So…um…” I start, wondering how I can explain this. And I realize the truth would actually work. “I got robbed, I guess?”
“No shit? Are you okay?” he asks. In his glasses, the reflection of the fire twists and curls, then disappears. My heart soars so high and so low in one moment it turns into some kind of numbness. I take another last sip of his can.
“I will be,” I say. I mean it, too. It’s the worst night of my life, but in some ways it’s the best, because I’ve learned exactly where my line is. And that I don’t have to go down this road just to prove something to someone who isn’t even watching.
“Here,” Liam says, reaching into his coat pocket for a flask and handing it over. I take a long, long sip, feeling it burn all the way down my throat. The whiskey is a better repellent of the coke that is still in my system. It succeeds in taking my heart rate down a notch, but barely. The coke is really potent. I’m so afraid of my own body I never want to do another drug again. Also, now that I’ve seen where it can lead, I am extra done with drugs. If I find a way to do what I want with my life and get meaning from that, I won’t need it. This is all very clear to me in a way that wasn’t before.
“You want to tell me what happened?”
I shake my head. “It’s a long story.”
Liam lets out a little grunt, then continues to smoke his cigarette. He pats me on the leg in a friendly, not sexual, way. “All right.”
“Sorry, thanks.”
We sit there in silence for a while, at least the length of two or three songs, before Liam speaks again. “Where the hell have you been, lately?” he asks. The way he asks is almost shy. He seems uncertain, which is unlike him.
“I feel like I haven’t seen you in months.”
I shrug. “Around.”
Liam narrows his eyes. “You didn’t answer my calls.”
“When did you call?” I ask, dumbfounded.
He shrugs. “A bunch of times. I wanted to know what you’ve been up to.”
I nod in understanding. “Melanie left you again.”
“Now why would you assume that?” he asks.
I let out a sigh. I do not have the energy for that conversation. It’s enough that I had to compete with her once already. A month ago it was all I could think about, but now? A relationship with Liam is the furthest thing from my mind. Instead of answering, I watch as a bunch of metal heads in studded leather coats stream into the backyard, drinking cans of beer and smoking something that’s not a cigarette over the bonfire. Liam takes a long sip from his flask, then licks his lips. Two of the punks by the fire look in our direction like they might know us and come over. But I’ve never seen either of them before.
“Friends of yours?” I ask Liam, after they’ve checked us out a second time. I look closer, and they don’t look familiar to me at all.
“No, I think they’re looking at you. That’s why I’ve been calling,” Liam says. He reaches into his back pocket and produces a piece of paper from his duck taped wallet. On the paper is a drawing of a face.
My face.
“Doesn’t this look just like you?” he asks. I look at the drawing again, and have to admit it really does have a strong resemblance to me. Almost as if they got me to draw the thing myself. I read the text at the bottom. It says: “The Milwaukee Police Department is searching for a person of interest in several local robberies. If you have seen this woman, please call the number below.”
