“Competition for what, though?” she scowled. “To hold a grudge, especially one founded on something so juvenile, is preposterous.”
“Have you met Mason?” Carl asked sarcastically. “Juvenile and asinine is kind of his thing, in case you haven’t noticed. I think your very existence threatens his hold and his authority on this town.”
Maggie scoffed. “If anyone has authority in this town, it would be you, Carl, not that walking bottlebrush.”
Carl had to chuckle at her description, but, in truth, he never thought about it that way. Of course, he had the highest authority in commanding basic crime fighting, but when Maggie mentioned his place in the hierarchy, he had to reconsider just how significant his position really was. He had never really thought about it, except that one time when he’d had to arrest Maggie on order of the mayor and the reverend. He recalled how he had disagreed with the charge at the time, but had to arrest the innocent woman nonetheless. It was demeaning. Now it resurfaced as a burning question inside his head.
You have been treated rather like a lackey by the mayor, you know, his inner voice admitted. And who was giving the order? That goddamned preacher, that’s who. Admit it.
“I’m afraid you are putting more stock in my position than is warranted, Maggie,” he replied coyly.
“But it is not my opinion. It is a fact. The sheriff should obviously have way more concrete authority than a minister,” Maggie argued, already imagining what Reverend Mason was thinking about her. “It is downright ridiculous. All of this.”
“All the more reason to carry on with your life, Maggie. Ignore him. He is just sour and trying to bring you down to be as miserable as he is,” Carl advised casually, fumbling for a cigarette. “You just keep helping me sort out this drug epidemic problem, helping me find the source, and don’t even give him a moment of your time.”
13
Carol dragged Billy by the arm, but he was too stubborn. The sixteen-year-old boy was annoyed with her, because he was hoping to get one more hit of Green Dragon from their dealer.
“He’s not coming, Billy,” she sneered. “Give it up. Let’s go.”
“Go where, Carol? Huh? This is the best place to be, the only place open late. If it’s past your bedtime, just go home,” he told the fifteen-year-old girl, but she was adamant.
They were outside the local gas station again, hanging out with some other kids who enjoyed the same high as they did. A few hours before, they had gotten a call from their dealer that a new batch was in and anyone who brought a friend got a ten percent discount. Billy had brought Carol, his on and off girlfriend, depending on his mood and her availability. He had to wait and she was bored.
Carol was a delicate little thing who looked about twelve years old when she took off her makeup. Her youthful look was what made her prettier, her big blue eyes prominent under a lush cascade of long brown hair that met her elbows.
“I’m bored. Let’s go break into Tina’s house,” she suggested zealously, her wild streak beckoning.
“Who the hell is Tina?” he frowned, already certain that he was not going anywhere.
“My old babysitter,” she laughed. “She is an alcoholic, so she has the best hard stuff in her kitchen. I know, ’cause I’ve seen it myself. Come on. She’s at her boyfriend’s house tonight, so we can get in without getting busted.”
“I am waiting right here and you are waiting with me. I’ll get us something so much better than pathetic alcohol,” he assured her with a self-assured scoff.
“Nothing is better than a good stiff drink,” she winked.
He pulled his arm free of her grip. “Let go, dammit.”
“What is your problem?” she whined. “This place is boring. You know me. I like a thrill, a rush of trouble. Nothing is happening here.”
“Just wait, will ya?” he shouted at her. “Trust me, this is going to be awesome. You’ll never care about whiskey again.”
Carol wanted to believe him. The young skinhead always impressed her with his resolute way of dealing with things. Carol was a wild girl who liked a thrill ride, but it was Billy’s military surplus attire that got her hot. Of course, at her age, any boy who acted tough was a winner, feeding her need for excitement and rebellion.
A car pulled up at about a quarter to eleven that night. It was a lump of scrap metal, its driver invisible behind the tinted windows, but all the usual local kids knew who sat in the back seat. Like a frenzy of hungry sharks, they instinctively flocked around the old car, circling it for the chum inside. Money at the ready, they all scrummed around the sinking back window, while Carol looked on from the wall of the garage shop.
Shaking her head and rolling her eyes, she waited for Billy to get his stuff so that she could drag him to her former babysitter’s house for an adventure of her own. She was leaning against the dirty wall, looking up at the starry heavens over Hope’s Crossing, curbing her impatience. At last, the small skinhead with the bad boy attitude sauntered towards her, but this time, he wore a big smile she welcomed.
“Finally,” she grunted with a sigh. “Can we go now?”
“Yeah, we can go. But first, we are going to have some fun,” he announced, pulling her to the side in the shadows. The tiny streak of light from the shop provided enough light for Billy to open his bottle of Green Demon and lift a small amount onto his nail.
“Okay, what is that?” she asked.
“This? This is the thrill you have been waiting for, Cee,” he grinned, offering her a bump.
Carol had never snorted anything, so she was reluctant at first. Billy did not waste time waiting for her to give in and he quickly took a hit of his own, sniffing like mad until his eyes watered.
“Geez, dude, that looks terrible,” Carol groaned. “Are you crazy?”
“What’s the matter, Cee? I thought you were like the wild chick here, but you don’t want to take even one hit of GD? Maybe you’re all talk after all,” he sniggered, making her mad.
“Hey, you know I am the wild chick around here,” she defended fiercely. “I don’t have to prove it to you by shoving shit up my nose,” she bragged.
Billy just smiled, motioning with his head toward a group of kids standing nearby. Carol watched as two other teenage girls cut a line on a car hood and snorted the lot in one go.
“Looks like you’re not as badass as you think, babe,” he chuckled, sniffling.
“Hey, man, screw you!” she frowned. “I can take this any time I want.”
Billy knew he had her attention. He held out the bottle, wiggled it in front of her, and simply said, “Prove it.”
Carol had to uphold her reputation as a thrill seeker. She had never done anything worse than smoking a bit of weed with her late brother or drinking stolen liquor, but she could not back down now. In Carol’s young mind, she would shut Billy up by snorting a line and that would be that. After proving herself she would not have to listen to his mockery anymore. In fact, once he had seen her use, she would be able to pretend that she just preferred weed or alcohol and be done with this stupid new Hope’s Crossing trend.
“Cut me a line then,” she risked the lingo, having heard it said in a movie or two before. Carol sincerely hoped that it was the right term, otherwise she would be the laughing stock among all the kids who used Green Dragon. Fortunately for her, few of them were veteran drug users and they promptly accepted the girl’s statement.
Billy clumsily cut her a line on the toilet lid in the restroom, but Carol did not recognize his ineptitude. Both were new at this kind of drug. Even though he knew a little more than her, he too was a novice and his fumbling went unchallenged. To impress her, he took another line.
“See? That’s how you do it,” he instructed after the strip of powdery herbs disappeared up his nostril. Carol cringed at the thought of doing that, but she had to prove herself. She took a deep breath, hid her disgust, and just did it. It was deeply unpleasant and shockingly potent. Carol felt the khat burn up her ocular cavity.
/> “Oh my God!” was all she could utter while the tears welled in her eyes, her sinuses on fire while the bitter drip punished the back of her throat. “That is disgusting!”
Billy laughed heartily, but he was proud of her. “There ya go!” he cheered, examining her devastated reaction. “I told you this stuff would rock your world, right? Right? Right, Carol?”
“Shut up! Just shut up and let me catch my breath!” she whined, her mouth agape as she tried to compose herself under the onslaught of the sharp sting in her eyes and nasal passage. It was not long before the delicate young girl started feeling the hair on the back of her scalp begin to stand erect. The skin all over her head grew taut as the first wave of it came, the Green Demon stroking its hand over her head.
“Cool, huh?” Billy encouraged, his eyes watery and his nose red from the reaction.
Before Carol could say anything more, their companions took off running. Some of the older boys, college kids on holiday, shouted, “Five-o, guys! Five-o is coming!”
Others yelled, “They picked up Haley and Jensen! Now they are coming here!”
Billy scampered away, leaving a stunned and bewildered Carol behind. The poor girl stood confounded as all the other kids took off in all directions, bolting into the darkness, down the alleyways and into cars that sped away.
“Billy! Wait for me!” she shouted in vain. He was spooked at a pair of headlights coming around the corner and left her behind in fear of being apprehended.
Carol was too slow to flee, but she did not have to. The car that had all the others fleeing was nothing more than a taxi ferrying two tourists to the B&B on the next block. Relieved, she strolled back home, lamenting Billy’s indifference to her safety. The Green Demon gripped her little heart, firing it up into a frenzy that made her feel like she was on a roller-coaster.
“Asshole,” she mumbled as she walked home. “I will never do something to please him again. Moron. I hope they get you, Billy Mason! I hope they get you!”
Her voice echoed through the night, too brief to evoke complaint from the residents, but Carol felt horrible. Tremors took control over her limbs and she felt ice cold as the drug took effect in her adrenal system. Carol could not deny that it felt good during the times her heart did not explode in her chest, but she was disappointed that her adventure had ended so abruptly with her boyfriend gone.
Billy had no care for Carol. Not now. He hoped that she would not be arrested like the others who had been grabbed just moments before they partook of the new batch that had hit Hope’s Crossing, but that was as far as his compassion stretched. Walking behind the others, he could hear that it was the second arrest in as many days.
“Yeah, man, Sheriff Walden is a beast! He’s got eyes everywhere. We gotta lay low for the next few days,” Billy heard one of the college guys tell his friends.
Soon, they turned into one of the yards to continue their vigil in the young man’s house, and Billy was left to walk alone. He kept walking, feeling the euphoria of the Green Demon kiss his senses. Wandering further past the boundaries of Hope’s Crossing, Billy was too wired to go home. His night had just begun and there was too much to do before the comedown.
At the height of summer holidays, the roads were bustling with traffic even after hours and he loved the stars that floated in the darkness where the motors roared. Rubbing the smooth surface of his scalp, young Billy sank the remainder of his bottle of Green Demon into the right pocket of his cargo pants. His senses sharpened, but his mind played tricks. As he walked along the main road that connected Hope’s Crossing with the outside world, the stars grew brighter.
“Whoa!” he exclaimed, trying to touch one of the bright stars moving past him, but he could not reach. There was a Milky Way of stars floating past him—some slow, some fast. The boy felt excited, trying to touch at least one before carrying on walking on the sidewalk, because they came in clumps of pretty lights. Billy made it a game. He had to touch a star and see what it was made of. In the beautiful river of light that whooshed past him, young Billy stepped off the sidewalk to touch his star.
“You will sit here until you tell me who your supplier is,” the sheriff’s voice thundered in the interview room. Before him, two young people were seated, looking terrified, yet they refused to give Carl Walden what he asked.
“It’s true, Sheriff,” the one kid said. “We got it from someone who got it from Corey.”
“Hogwash!” Carl shouted.
It was shortly before 3 a.m., but he was too furious to be tired. Just like his detainees, he was wide awake from the surge of adrenaline that coursed through his body. Carl was fed up with the dead-ends and obstinate children he had to deal with. For a brief moment, he wished he could just pull his sidearm and threaten them properly.
“You are wasting my time and if you keep wasting my time, I am going to host a nice little sleepover here in the cells,” Carl snarled. “I will not let you go until I have a name.”
“But we told you, Sheriff,” the girl tried through chapped lips, her eyes wide and mouth dry, “it is Maggie Corey’s mix.”
“Bullshit! And you know it!” he retorted. They looked at him with blank eyes. Carl sat down opposite them and continued calmly. “Do you guys know where I just came from while you were sitting in the cell waiting for me? I was on a call out to the interstate. Billy Mason was hit by a car on the highway tonight. That’s right. While you were sitting here, mute about who is distributing Green Demon and protecting your supplier, one of your friends wandered into traffic on the interstate! High as a goddamn kite!”
They exchanged shocked glances, but they said nothing.
“Now tell me who is making this drug before someone else plays on the undertaker’s porch,” he pressed.
Billy Mason was, in fact, in the hospital with serious injuries, but Carl made his detainees believe that the boy had lost his life, if only to get some information from them. Yet they still insisted that Maggie Corey was responsible. They persisted with the notion that she had the same bottles in her shop and that she was supplying them.
“She is the one, Sheriff,” the girl wailed. “You know that she knows herbs and all that. Who else would it be? It is so obvious that it’s Maggie Corey.”
Carl buried his hands in his hair. His previous interview with two girls arrested the night before had culminated in the same frustration. He knew that Maggie was not at the bottom of this. That was irrefutable, and still the previous interviewees had suggested that she was holding out on them, having a solid stash in her greenhouse. Carl Walden knew that the kids were protecting the real dealer at all costs, fearing that their supply would be cut if he was arrested. It was a genuine fear the kids had, but in the process, they made Maggie look really bad.
“I will not stop until I know who is hiding behind you kids,” he warned. “By God, if I have to arrest you all and keep you here to get the truth out of you, I will.”
14
With the drug problem escalating seemingly beyond control and young people taking to Green Demon at an alarming rate, the people of Hope’s Crossing became increasingly concerned about the impending casualty rate. They expected the worst was soon to come, expecting to lose their children and friends to the enslaving effects of the evil substance that had been unleashed on their town.
What was once a beautiful setting for tourist attractions and postcard pictures had now diminished into a seedy small town of loitering delinquents, high on drugs. They had become a danger to themselves and the tourist trade, having robbed several transients and visitors for drug money. Sheriff Carl Walden was inundated with complaints, calls, and peaking crime, the highest in decades, and it made him look bad.
Locals started staying in on the warm summer nights, not daring to venture out for walks. They feared being harassed and attacked by young people on Green Demon, thus leaving the streets barren and populated by juvenile criminals. Desperation drove them to robbery and burglaries when the drug delivery was sometimes delayed, a
nd it drove them crazy when they could never locate Corey’s Herbs and Simples when they ran out of stash.
“Hope’s Crossing has become a hotbed for crime, Sheriff, and we need to do something quickly. We are losing our status as one of the prettiest and safest towns in New England because of this and it is all happening on your watch,” the mayor told Carl, trying to slather on the shame.
“I am perfectly aware of the problem, Mayor,” Carl rejoined, hardly hiding his vexation at the passive aggressive insult. “Maybe if you got me more manpower, this would not be such an impossible task. How am I supposed to clean up the streets and investigate the chain of command in this drug ring if I am too busy with noise complaints and menial assignments fit for a goddamn rookie? The workload ratio to available men is completely illogical, so please, explain to me how you expect me to curb the criminal activity in this town.”
The mayor of Hope’s Crossing was only in his position through nepotism, as was the case with most positions of authority held on the town council. He was thicker than a Mississippi quagmire, but he had been elected due to the influence of the church, where he attended without fail every Sunday. Not only did he not have any tertiary qualifications, but the mayor had very little knowledge of the law in itself. Everyone tolerated him because he was related to the more prominent barristers and doctors in the county. Thus, he had very little to say in response to Sheriff Walden’s statement. The mayor quite literally did not have an answer, and Carl knew that he would have to lodge this very complaint for years before it would be dealt with.
“I’ll see what I can do about more recruits, Sheriff, but for now, please try to dampen the rapid spike we are experiencing by making a few more arrests, okay?” the mayor rambled.
Carl shook his head. He did not even bother to answer the remark for fear that he might erupt in a fit of anger and tell the mayor exactly what he thought of him and his troupe of primates serving on the town council.
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