The Heroin Scene in Fort Myers

by Oliver Markus Malloy

  Once we got to the office, she went inside and I waited for her in the lobby. After half an hour she texted me: "You might as well go home. I'm getting arrested. I'm going to jail."

  "What?!?! What the hell happened?" I texted back.

  She told me later that they were watching her so closely while she was peeing, she wouldn't have been able to use the tube, so she just admitted that she had drugs in her system. She removed the tube and peed dirty. Her probation officer was really nasty to her. She started crying and yelled at him that he had no idea what she had been through in her life. Then she told him about Lucy's dad Dick raping her ever since she was a little girl, all her suicide attempts, and that Johnny had tried to run her over with a truck just a few days ago.

  The officer felt bad for her and told her he'd give her another chance, but as part of her probation, from now on she would have to go to mental health counselling at Salus Care on Ortiz Ave at least once a week, and to NA meetings at least twice a week.

  I had already gone home, when she texted me about three hours later: "I didn't get arrested after all."

  "Huh? What? Well, that's great! Do u want me to come get u?" I texted back.

  "No, I already got a ride. I'm gonna do a tattoo and then u can pick me up at 1 pm," she texted back.

  My spider senses were tingling again. I had been right in the middle of this. I was part of the story. I had driven her to probation, waited for her there, and we were going to spend the day together and celebrate that she passed the test. For her not to call me right away and tell me that she wasn't going to jail after all, and to call someone else for a ride, meant only one thing: she was fucking someone else.

  I didn't hear from her until 4 pm. Then she asked me to come get her. We went home, and she started getting dressed up in the bathroom.

  I sat down on the edge of the tub and tried to have a talk with her: "You've been acting really shady lately. You keep telling me you want to be with me, but I get the feeling you're seeing someone else."

  "No, I'm not! I swear!" she replied while putting on her make-up.

  "Well, if you are, just be honest about it, so that we are both on the same page. Don't make me think there is something between us if there's not. If you just want to be friends with benefits, just say so. It's ok, as long as we're on the same page," I explained.

  "No, I swear, there is nobody else. I'm not the kind of girl who sleeps around," she reassured me, while straightening her hair.

  She was obviously getting all dressed up to go somewhere. When she was done, she said: "Oh, my friend Jeanie just texted me. I have to babysit her kids. She is visiting her baby daddy in jail."

  I was suspicious. Why the hell would she get all dressed up to babysit? And why was she getting dressed up BEFORE she got the text to go babysit?

  She was frantically texting in the car, and then told me she would meet Jeanie at Walmart on Colonial and Ortiz.

  "Huh? Why would you meet Jeanie at Ortiz instead of at her house? If she's going to visit someone at the jail on Ortiz, she would have to drive you all the way back to her house first, and then drive all the way back to Ortiz Avenue for the viso. That doesn't make any sense."

  "Uhmm, she's buying some food stamps from me, so we're going shopping at Walmart first, and then I'll babysit while she's at the viso," Nicole replied.

  I knew Nicole didn't have any food stamps anymore. Lucy had told me just the other day, that she was mad at Nicole, because she had sold all her food stamps this month, and now they had nothing to eat. So Nicole was definitely lying about what she was doing at Walmart, and who she was meeting, and why. If she had simply met a drug dealer, she would have told me. So again, the only possible answer was that she was about to go have sex with someone.

  "So at what time is the viso?" I asked.

  "Uhh, at 7 pm, I think," she replied.

  I had been visiting Veronica in jail for almost two years. I knew exactly when the viso times were, and there is no viso at 7 pm.

  Nicole was still frantically texting. Then she said: "Jeanie is already done shopping at Walmart. Now she wants me to meet her at the Racetrac gas station on Colonial."

  "For what?" I asked. This was all complete bullshit. Even a blind person could see that.

  "She still wants to buy my food stamps, so we'll buy stuff at the little Racetrac store," Nicole replied.

  Once we got to the gas station, she jumped out of the car without even saying good bye. I knew what that meant. Her mind was totally preoccupied with what she was about to do next. She wasn't just meeting her friend Jeanie to babysit her kids.

  She told me she would only be gone for an hour or so. The jail visitations are only an hour max. I dropped her off at the Racetrac at 6 pm. By 9:30 pm I still didn't hear from her. I figured she just disappeared on me again. I was right. She disappeared all night. I didn't hear from her until the afternoon of the next day. She claimed she had fallen asleep and her phone had died. That's every drug addict's favorite excuse when they disappear to fuck someone for drugs.

  Later I found out that she had started posting escort ads on Backpage, and that's really where she was going. She had told me a dozen times she wasn't fucking anybody else, and then she got out of the car and fucked somebody else.

  It reminded me of how Veronica lied straight to my face, shaking with anxiety and battling her diarrhea, during our viso at the Salvation Army. She swore she'd never talk to Dee again, and as soon as the viso was over, she talked to Dee again. Or when she used to tell me over and over on the phone that she wasn't dating Wendy. And as soon as she hung up the phone, she went right back to dating Wendy.

  Or when Lucy said she wasn't talking to anyone else but me, and that I was the only person on her viso list, and then scheduled visos for 2 other people who were on her list.

  Or when Alice swore she wouldn't run away from rehab, and then she ran away from rehab. It was the same shit over and over. Patty was right.

  Anyway, later that night, Cassidy called me. She was whispering: "Please come and get me! I'm in Lehigh Acres. When I got out of jail early this morning, my baby daddy was sitting in the lobby, waiting for me. I had no choice but to go with him. He's really violent. I'm seriously afraid for my life. Please please come and get me!"

  This was another job for James Bond. I packed my gun, just in case her baby daddy was gonna try to kill her or me. Around midnight, I arrived in front of the address, where she wanted me to pick her up. When she saw me, she quickly ran over to my car, got in and told me to take off.

  She gave me Veronica's letter to Wendy. The letter contained the same retarded drivel she had written me and dozens of other people in the past. The funny thing was that Wendy's birthday was right after Thanksgiving, and mine was right before. Veronica wrote both of us almost exactly the same thing, that she was sorry she couldn't be with us on our birthday, and that she would make it up to us, once she got out of jail. And that she was looking forward to a life together with us. Comparing the two letters was like looking inside the mind of a deranged basket case.

  Cassidy stayed with me for the next few days, and was clean. We went out to eat with George, watched movies and I took her to the Coconut Point Mall, so she could fill out some job applications. She was doing good.

  Lucy had left some of her stuff at my house when I kicked her and Jasmine out, after I caught them in bed together. A book fell out of her bag. I noticed there were a bunch of her jail postcards in the front of the book. They were love letters to and from a bunch of different people.

  Once again she mimicked Veronica. She too had left a bunch of love letters from other people at my house, when I kicked her and Kim out, after I found them in bed together.

  The most ironic thing was that among Lucy's left behind letters, there was a reply from Snickers. The same girl who had written all those replies to Veronica.

  A few days later, I saw on the Sheriff's website, that Lucy, Jasmine and Wigger all got arrested on the same day. Jasmine bonded out
later that day, so I called her and asked her what happened.

  She told me Wigger got arrested while selling drugs at some club, and Lucy and Jasmine got arrested at a hotel room. Apparently the two incidents were unrelated. Lucy and Jasmine had been staying in hotel rooms together, ever since I kicked them out.

  Lucy was tricking on Backpage, and the security guy at the hotel noticed that a bunch of guys were coming and going all night long, so he called the cops. When they checked the room, they found drugs. Jasmine admitted that the Suboxone was hers, but Lucy wouldn't take credit for her drugs. Jasmine said Lucy threw her under the bus. She was pissed at her.

  A day or two later, Lucy bonded herself out of jail, and called me to pick her up. I told her Cassidy was staying with me, and she was sober, so I asked Lucy to promise that she wouldn't do any drugs in front of Cassidy: "Can you not do drugs? At least for a few hours?"

  "Yeah, don't worry. Just come get me," she replied.

  I picked her up at the jail and we were going to head home, when Lucy asked me to make a stop at the Howard Johnson.

  "For what?" I asked. Of course I knew the answer.

  "I just wanna get a D," Lucy replied.

  "But you just promised on the phone that you would not do any drugs while you're staying with me. I don't want you to make Cassidy relapse," I said.

  "Come on, you know I lied. I just wanna do a pill now, and then I'll be straight."

  Then she started asking me questions about Cassidy. I could tell she was jealous that some other girl was staying with me: "Where am I going to sleep? Does Cassidy think I'm just some whore to you, or does she know I'm your girlfriend? You better tell her that I'm going to be sleeping in your bed with you."

  I told her that wasn't necessary. Cassidy had a boyfriend, who was in the Salvation Army rehab program, and I didn't need to announce ahead of time that Lucy would be sleeping in bed with me.

  When we got to the hotel, she disappeared in some dope boy's room for 20 minutes. I figured she was fucking him to get some drugs. I was totally disgusted and left.

  She called me back after I had already driven half way home.

  "Why did you leave me stranded like this?" she asked.

  "I'm not gonna sit in the parking lot while you fuck someone else. Sorry." I hated that she really didn't get, or didn't care, how much it hurt me when she did this shit.

  "I wasn't fucking him. I just smoked some crack in his bathroom. I swear! Please come back and get me. I don't want to stay here. I want to stay with you."

  So I turned around and picked her up.

  Then she said now she needed to go to Liberty Bailbonds on Fowler Street, and drop off some money, or she'd get sent back to jail.

  She had a jail check for $100, but Liberty wouldn't accept it. They told her to cash it first. So I drove her to a gas station, she got the money, and we headed back to Liberty.

  Afterwards she told me she needed to pick up her clothes from Jasmine. For some strange reason, Jasmine was now sharing a room with Nicole, even though they didn't even know each other.

  As it turned out, Lucy's sugar daddy Cho had been buying his crack from Wigger, so Jasmine had run into Cho a few times, when she was riding around with Wigger. When she had nowhere to go, she called Cho, and he told her to stay with Nicole. He knew that she was Lucy's aunt and also an addict, who was staying at a room at the Days Inn in North Fort Myers.

  When Lucy and I arrived at the Days Inn, she disappeared in another hotel room. I texted her that I wasn't going to wait yet another 20 minutes.

  Cassidy had asked me if it was ok if her cousin Claudia came to visit her today, and now they were both at my place together, without me, because I was driving around aimlessly with Lucy. I had briefly met Claudia, but I really didn't know her from a hole in the head. I didn't want to come home and find out that Claudia robbed me. So I was only going to quickly pick up Lucy from jail and take her straight home with me. I wasn't going to chauffeur her around on a bunch of drug errands all day. We hadn't even been talking to each other anymore since I had kicked her and Jasmine out. I really only picked her up from jail, because I didn't want her to be stranded.

  I texted Lucy: "If u don't come out of room in 5 minutes, I'll leave." After 10 minutes I texted her: "That's it. I'm leaving. Bye."

  Suddenly Nicole texted me back: "Can u give me a ride across the bridge?"

  "Sure," I texted back. "But u gotta come out RIGHT NOW. I'm just about to pull out of the parking lot."

  Nicole came running out of the room and down the stairs. Lucy followed her. I hadn't seen Nicole in a few days, because she had disappeared all night when she said she was only going to do a tattoo for an hour. I had been hanging out with Cassidy since then, and we ended up getting pretty close.

  Anyway, Nicole was quicker than Lucy. When Nicole got in, she had a really sad, guilty look on her face. She knew I was mad at her, because she had been ditching me so much lately. She hugged me, gave me a kiss, and told me that she loved me and that she was sorry for the way she had been acting lately. I knew it was the drugs that made her act so grimey and unreliable, so I didn't say anything. Then Lucy got into the backseat.

  I thought Nicole wanted a ride across the bridge to go home to Lucy's grandfather's house. But instead, now she and Lucy were arguing about where to get the biggest bags of heroin for their money. Lucy convinced Nicole they should go back to the Howard Johnson.

  As we approached the Howard Johnson, I realized that Nicole would ask me to drive her back to the Days Inn, and Lucy said she wanted me to take her to yet another place, to get her clothes, because Jasmine wasn't at the Days Inn anymore when we got there earlier. This was getting ridiculous. I wasn't a fucking drug cab. I just wanted to go home. I had been driving Lucy around for hours now.

  When she and Nicole got out of the car and disappeared in the dope boy's hotel room, I just left.

  Lucy and Nicole both called and texted me, asking me to come back, but I was sick of this shit. I just went home.

  The next day, Cassidy was meeting up with her boyfriend at the Salvation Army, and Lucy asked me to come get her at the Days Inn. When I walked into the hotel room, Nicole and Lucy were in the middle of shooting up. I had seen Lucy do it so many times, but she was still shy about it. She felt dirty and disgusting when she shot up, and she didn't want me to see her with a needle in her arm, because she was ashamed. She tried to hide in the bathroom.

  Nicole used to be very shy about it, too. But she had slept over at my place so many times by now, and we were so comfortable around each other, she was not shy in front of me at all anymore, about anything. She walked around my house naked, pretended to be talking with her butt cheeks, danced her funny little dance while singing along to her favorite rock songs, let me see her without make-up, and shot up in bed right next to me.

  While Lucy was walking into the bathroom to shoot up where I wouldn't see her, she noticed that Nicole was sitting on the bed across from me, and sticking the needle in her arm.

  She was surprised, and said: "You're gonna do that in front of Oliver?"

  "Yeah," is all Nicole said. She was busy.

  They were texting and answering their phones, introducing themselves by their hooker names. They were obviously both tricking on Backpage together now. They offered guys two girl specials.

  Abby and her sister Tabby used to fuck guys together. And apparently now Lucy and her aunt Nicole were doing the same thing. I didn't want either one of them to trick on Backpage. I couldn't stand the thought of them fucking some guy together. I know, I sound like a hypocrite, because I was having sex with both of them. But that was different, because I really cared about both of them. And it's not like I was in bed with both of them at the same time.

  Then I started getting pissed at Lucy. It was bad enough that she was tricking on Backpage. But now she had dragged down Nicole to her level, and she was now doing it too, even though a few weeks ago she had told me she could never bring herself to have sex with r
andom guys for money, because she wasn't the kind of girl who sleeps around. She said she wasn't like Lucy. But after spending a few weeks with Lucy, now she was exactly that kind of girl.

  Lucy had said she wanted to talk to me, about us, about rehab, about the future. But once I got to the hotel, she and Nicole were busy getting high, and answering their phones to fuck other guys. I couldn't take it anymore. I needed to get out of there.

  Then Nicole told me she had a call in Bonita Springs, and asked me if I would give her a ride there on my way home. I didn't think she was seriously asking me to drive her to go fuck someone else. I thought she was trying to find an excuse to come home with me, without Lucy getting suspicious. I agreed to drive her.

  Lucy didn't want Nicole and me to leave without her. She said she wanted to come with us, because she wanted to stay with me, while her aunt was going to fuck some guy in Bonita Springs. But when we walked out the door, there was some weasely guy with black, greasy hair waiting in front of the door. Hey nodded at me with a grin and said "aayyy," like he was The Fonz from Happy Days. I just wanted to punch that douchebag in his stupid face. He was here to fuck my sweet little Lucy. I couldn't take it. She told him to hold on for a second, and closed the door again.