A concrete park of skateboards swarming with rolling sounds. I push a branch out of our way and we stand together.
“Well, better not just wait here or we’ll look weird,” Care says.
“We are weird though.”
“Which shouldn’t help us, except we’re girls,” she says. “Nothing turns guys’ heads like random loose girls.”
She leads us over to a group of watchers and stands near them. Some look at us but no one talks. Care just watches, waits, eventually sits on a concrete bench atop a round concrete mound to skate on. I join her.
Soon, a kid walks up to us. He asks what’s up. He’s got short curly dark hair and tanned skin spotted with freckles, a face that looks like it’s permanently about to drool. Care shrugs and says nothing.
“Cool...” the kid goes, pausing long. “Never saw you here before.”
“You neither,” she cooly says, her eyes watching the skaters idly.
“Oh yeah? I’m here all the time but that’s cool.”
Care is quiet, then asks his name.
“Bean,” he says. “All my friends call me Bean.”
“Bean? Guess you look like a Bean.”
He doesn’t know what to say and fumbles his head around, then snorts and laughs stupidly. Care lights a cig. Bean looks longingly as she takes measured, slow puffs, her eyes decidedly aloof. She looks bored and sensual.
He works up the strength to ask her in a sort of faux deep voice, “Can I get one?”
Care blows a cloud, gives a little laugh. “Depends. Can you get me a dimebag?”
“Sure,” Bean says. “You smoke?”
She hands him a cigarette. “No, I just like the smell of it.” He only looks half-sure she’s kidding. “I need some real skunk weed, not some half-seeds Mexican brick shit.”
Bean looks uncomfortably at his cig till she groans and lights it for him.
“Come on now, I wanna smoke now, not later,” Care yawns.
“Cool,” Bean goes. “Just gimme a minute.” He walks off and Care watches the other skaters around us. A few stare. Bean sits down with a group far off, chatting.
“What’s up?” I ask her, sounding like Bean.
“Ha,” she shakes her head. “Just watching the field.”
Bean comes back over. “Hey, I found some shit that’s good. But he’s, like, gonna want more for it...”
“Of course he does.” Care says. “Tell him to come talk to me, then.”
Bean is a little surprised. He gets up and sits back down, gets up again. He walks back to the others and eventually brings one back with him.
A kid older than Bean but younger than us sits beside us. He has some patchy facial hair and dark hair and eyes that look sly but angry. Bean sits next to me. His cig’s gone and I give him the rest of mine. He thanks me and smiles dully.
The other kid is quiet. So is Care. Suddenly the kid laughs.
“So you need some good buds?”
“The best,” Care replies.
“Well try this.” He sparks a joint and rips it.
Care takes a hard puff, passes it to me. I take a little in my mouth and blow it out. Bean mouses a little toke, looking surprised it even got passed to him, and I pass it back. Bean is watching the other kid closely. It goes around the circle again to me, and I stare into it. Flashes of last night. The smoke wriggles and waves. My stomach turns and I feel my heartbeat. I hand it off.
“Don’t smoke much?” the kid asks.
“She’s on drug testing,” Care says. “More the silent partner type.”
“Partners?”
Care takes another puff. “Hey, what’s your name?”
“Hunter,” he says. “You?”
“Chastity.” She grins.
“Well you seem cool, Chastity. But if you want more of this stuff, it doesn’t come in dimes.”
“No prob,” Care says. “I don’t have any money anyway.”
Hunter glares at Bean, unamused. Bean lowers his eyes.
“Relax. I’ve got something better.” Care reachers into her pocket, producing two tiny hearts like Valentine’s Day candies, one blue, one pink. “You know what these are?”
He eyeballs them closely, nods. “They’ve been around before. They’re good.”
“Good?” Care laughs. “Good is blowing two and having a happy night. These are the ‘eat one and roll for hours’ variety- primo. Good? Pffft.”
“Okay, okay, so they’re good,” Hunter goes. “You trying to trade two for a sack?”
Care giggles. “I want cash.”
“Okay, ten bucks for both,” he says.
“Ten each,” Care replies.
“Fifteen for both, because I know they’re fire. I usually pay a couple bucks. Only idiots pay ten a pop.”
“Only idiots can’t sell pills these good for double or more. That’s what you’re gonna be doing,” Care declares.
“The fuck?” Hunter half laughs. “I’m eating them, not selling them.”
“Eat as many as you want,” Care says. “But I’m talking bulk. Unless you’re too low-time...”
Hunter snorts. “How many you got?”
“A lot. More than you could buy.”
“You got 'em on you?” He eyes her.
“Maybe. But to be honest, you don’t seem to be up to it. Come on, Chloe,” she says to me. I take a second to calculate, then follow along, back toward the woods.
“Wait!” Hunter calls. “I’ll take what you got. At ten. How many can you do?”
“How much money you got on you?” Care asks.
“Uhh...” at least two hundred. And some weed...”
Care laughs. “Keep the chump-change. See ya around.”
“Wait, wait!... Shit, you’re a ball buster. How much do you want?”
Care whips about impatiently. “Here’s how it goes. You come back here same time tomorrow- no, let’s say noon. Bring at least two thousand, and then we make a deal. If I had time for peanuts, I’d sell to all your friends here for 20 apiece.”
“I don’t have two thousand sitting around,” he grumbles.
“Shit out of luck,” Care snaps.
“Okay, wait. I’ll bring my brother. He has the money. He won’t just buy 200, he’ll buy 'em all. Everything you got. He moved these ones before, and all kinds of stuff. He’d kill to get his hands on me again.”
“Good.” Care rubs her hands. “You tell him real clear. I come back tomorrow with 200 exactly. You bring $2000. Shit changes hands, then we talk next meetup and more product. You guys will be rolling in dough if you play your cards right.”
Hunter grimaces. “He won’t pay ten a pop though.”
Care looks him dead in the eyes. “200. 2000. Tomorrow. G’bye, Hunty.”
We walk again till we hear a shout. Hunter again.
“Lemme get one to try,” he grins. “For the smoke-up.”
Care grits her teeth and marches up on him, eye to eye. “Don’t get greedy with me,” she barks, then grabs his hand and slaps two hearts into his palm. “One for you, one for big brother, so you both know they’re good. Try ‘em out tonight. I’m sure you’ll get the pink one.”
Hunter pops one and pockets the other.
“200. Tomorrow,” Care reiterates. “Only you two, no one else.”
“Tomorrow,” Hunter agrees.
Care and I walk off into the woods.
“That was almost easy,” I say after a deep breath.
“Yeah,” Care says. “Easy usually means-” We hear a rustling behind us. Bean appears, staring dopily.
“What’s up?” he goes.
Care and I just look at each other. He comes closer.
“Well,” he stares at his feet, “I was just gonna tell you, like, Hunter’s brother Johnny, he’s called Bad John. He robs a lot of people. Like one time I gave H fifty bucks to get pot from Johnny and H just came back with a bag of moss and he’s like, ‘Oh sorry man, I didn’t even know.’ And I’m like, not about to go to Bad John myself cause he’s in with gangs and shit. And I heard he shot a kid who was banging his girl. With a shotgun, right through his window. So like, yeah, just saying...”
Care very calmly puts three cigs in the side of her mouth, lights them all, hands me one and places one in Bean’s mouth.
“You’re a sweet kid,” she says. “Stay away from people like that.”
Bean nods and thanks her. “Hey, could I get one of those hearts too? I’ll pay for it, I just wanna try...”
“Beat it,” Care says with a smile.
“Oh, okay...” he turns around. “Seeya.” He tramples back to the park. We continue walking back.
“Poor dumb kid,” Care says. “Dumb as a donkey. Type that’d end up in my field if the wrong hands got on him. Where are his parents....? Probably dopeheads... Disgusting...”
“Why didn’t you give him a pill? Or anyone else at the park? Word traveled fast at the party, then everyone wanted them. Seemed to work there.”
“No, no, no! That was a bad idea. All wrong. Okay, we do good at the party- that chick helps us move our stuff-”
“Jackie,” I interject.
“Yeah, Jackie. So everyone sees me with her, knows it’s our shit, because I traded her some for helping me make sales, and everyone else is getting fucked up on our unforgettable mind-blowing shit. Everyone’s having a good time, then the cops show. Uh-oh. We get out lucky. But half the kids there get busted with our shit on them. Cops interrogate 'em while they’re rolling face, everyone’s happy to talk because everyone’s they’re best friend, even Officer McQuestion. Maybe even Jackie talks because it’s her friends’ party and everyone’s throwing her under the bus. Now the cops got a description of us. They know our exact product. See where I’m going here?”
“Yeah...” I hadn’t thought of any of it. “I thought people don’t make deals with cops around here.”
“People will do whatever saves their asses. Kids especially. For every person in Piercing that’d would kill a narc they found out, there’s another fucker that is a narc.” She shrugs. “Anyway, imagine word’s gone out through Matty’s people and it’s hit the police, too, and now they’re sniffing for our scent hard, cause I know for a fact Matty would pay good money to get me back, just to punish me if nothing else. He has to be in control of everything, so our little great escape probably has his balls in a pretzel knot this very fucking second.”
“But would he work with the cops? I mean, it’s not like you’re his daughter. It’s their job to keep people like him away from you, not find you for him.”
She laughs maniacally. “You’re cute, but you really don’t get it. The cops are just another gang, maybe the worst one. They’re not out for your good or mine or anyone but themselves. But Matty using them to get me back... I don’t know, he always hated the cops, steered clear of them when he could. Probably because he knew they could squash him like a bug.” She stamps her foot in the ground, grinds it.
“But you never know, it’s like that saying, weird situations make strange bed-partners or whatever. Anyway, it wouldn’t be the first time they hunted down an escaped worker for the bad guys. Bounties go up, whoever gets it gets it. And the cops are in the best setup for that. They’ve got computers, lists, contacts, eyes everywhere.”
“Wow... We’re really on our own.”
“Yep,” she nods, puffing on her ciggie. “Now imagine this, too. Dryden survives. Maybe he gets word to them about what happened. Who knows? Even a cop-killer could be in with the cops, if the guy he killed was even a cop. Now they’re even closer on our scent. Now they know it was me and you, they know we’re still in town. THEN they get a call to the skatepark. Every kid there’s rolling balls. All the same pink and blue pills. Same description, two girls, blonde and brunette, short and tall, ugly and pretty... You’re the pretty one, obviously.” She winks. “We go back the next day. BANG! Trap shuts. They got us. All the bad stuff that comes after. The end.”
“Fuck.”
“Yup. I give that kid so much as one pill, it’s all he’s gonna talk about, taking his shirt off, rolling around the park. Then the next day, we either got a lot of new customers, or a SWAT team waiting in the woods. I’m not gonna take the chance. Here on out, we ditch this shit in bulk to people that know what they’re doing. Let them take the risk dishing it out on the streets. Couple big sales, keep moving around, stay out of sight, make our dough, and we’re done.”
“If we get this two-thousand, why don’t we just take it and ditch town with it and the rest of what we have?” I ask. “That’s a lot of money. We only need enough to make it out of here alive and get somewhere safe.”
“Yeah? So we run away with two and a half thousand dollars and maybe ten grand worth of drugs? We get caught with that and we’re fucked.”
“So we ditch it.”
“Oh, we just ditch the stuff, huh? The only valuable thing we have in the world? Okay, we ditch our only way to make money, then we’re on a bus to somewhere-that-isn’t-here with only twenty-five hundred bucks. It’ll be winter soon. We’ll need a place to stay and that costs rent, plus they can’t ask any questions because we look like runaways, so we pay for them to look the other way too. Then we need necessities. Food, blankets, booze, new clothes, hair dye, hell, grow beards- everything we need to survive and blend in.
“Not long, we’re running low and it’s the coldest part of winter. No money for rent. So we get normal jobs or start highschool so we have a warm place during the day. But wait, we don’t, because we don’t have IDs, birth certificates, nothing. And our names sound like a duo from a fake punk band. What then?”
“So we risk keeping the drugs, seal up the weed so it doesn’t smell or ditch just that, but still get on a bus, skip town. Sell the stuff wherever we end up and figure out more money later,” I suggest.
Care shakes her head. “This is the only place I know. The only place we can walk up to some stoners skateboarding and put together a bulk deal the next day. Everything else is books and movies. How about you? You feel comfortable going into the big unknown world without at least some money stashed away?”
“Not like I feel comfortable here, either.”
“We leave town with all this shit and not enough money, we’ll be sitting on, ha, what you’d call a major liability. One that’s too big to just throw away, but too dangerous to do anything with. I’d probably fry my brain smoking rock and eating all the E while we froze to death in a dumpster. Or for all I know, the rest of the world is just as bad as here, minus knowing shit about it.”
And minus the psychos you think are hunting us.
“Worse, maybe the real world is like the Brady Bunch and no one’s fiending for drugs in whatever paradise we end up in,” she says.
“The Brady Bunch...?”
“Just some dumb old show. Think Matty made me watch it as some kinda sick joke. Anyway, doesn’t matter. I’ve thought about it and this is the only way I see. Trust me, this town’s the last place I wanna stay a second longer.... but... if you’re gonna go...”
I look in her eyes. They’re hopeful and probing.
“I’m not leaving without you.” I sigh deeply. She smiles and hops ahead.
“Don’t you ever think about going to a place for people like us?” I ask. “Not the police, but some type of agency or authority? I don’t know... There’s got to be someone good who can do something.”
She laughs deeply as we reach the campsite and climb in our paltry tent home. “All those missing kid centers, foster homes. You know how many me’s come from them? For all I know, I came from one. Man, might as well go to the police.” She looks straight in my eyes. “Look, there’s nowhere for people like us. No one’s gonna save us but us. Best to get that through your head.”
I stare into her eyes blankly. Suddenly she laughs. “Ah, you’re too good. Get in here, I’m gonna drink for a good sleep tonight. I need to be strong for tomorrow morning. Come on, get in, have some gin... How is it? Good, yeah?”
I swig and cringe. The warmth goes to my face. “It tastes like juiced pine needles.” My stomach quivers, but I drink some more before I hand it off.
“That’s the best part!” she exclaims. “And you know why?” She swigs a ton from the bottle like it’s water. “It is made from pine trees. Or their berries. I guess pine trees have berries? I don’t think it’s from the pinecones. Anyway, the guy that told me that was a real prick, but I swear, solving that mystery changed my life. I mean, if you were sucking down some booze that tastes like chicken, wouldn’t you be sitting there every day wondering why it tasted like that? Is it really made from chicken? How did they do it?”
“Do they really have chicken booze?”
“Nah, I think I would know about it,” she says. “But maybe we could make our own.”
“Doesn’t sound very good.”
“True, or they’d have it already. But if they can make pine tree booze, then we’re already having a merry Christmas... Do you know how they make booze? Man, it’s this whole thing... Hey, what’s with you?”
I look up. “I’m just thinking about tomorrow. Bean said he robbed and shot people, that guy John. What if he robs us?”
“No one’s gonna rob us. We’re on our A-game now, and these are just kids. I mean, don’t let that fool you, but at least it ain’t the Mob.” She points and shoots with a finger gun. “Plus that’s where you come in. You pack the baton and if things go sour, pull some more ninja stuff.”
“Care, I don’t think I can just do that.”
She hums thoughtfully then snickers. “Well, you do have a mixed record I guess. See, someone was talking about fighting with knives one time. His main point was don’t, because both people usually die... but, uh, we’re gonna skip over that part. His other point was knives beat hands, bats beat knives, and guns beat them both. So as long as they don’t have a gun, you got the club, I got a knife, we’re all set.”
“And if they have knives and clubs?” I ask. “If they have a gun?”
“They’re fuckin’ highschoolers! I mean, this is Piercing, but what’re the odds? Plus, no one wants to throw away a good connect, so long as they think our stuff will keep coming. It’d be bad business to fuck us over for one score.”
“I don’t know. I’ve seen a lot of bad business since we met. The people here are more voracious than they are smart...”
“Voracious, I like that word. Well, you tell me, do we pull out now and no-show? And if we do, where do we go next? Will it be any better than dealing with some soft-ass skater kids?”
I’m silent. I can’t say she’s wrong. I can’t think of anything better. I can’t think of much at all.
“Yeah.” She cleans the dirt from her nails with the tip of her small camouflage-pattern pocket knife. “I’m thinking about it all a lot and it’s the best I can come up with. Let alone how we get rid of the other shit...”
Pensive silence that brings nothing but fragments of thoughts.
“Welp!” She swigs the gin and starts rolling a joint. “I guess that’s it. You want more mushrooms to pass the time?”
“No thanks,” I shudder.
“E?” she asks. I shake my head. She puts the bottle in front of me. I shrug and take some more. Her joint starts filling the tent with billows of skunky herby smoke and I wave that off too.
“You can open the window flap if you don’t wanna get hot-boxed.” So I unzip the window of the tent. The air is cool but fresh.
“So, plan is...” she coughs. “Plan is, you stay near the main guy. I’m sure his brother will be there, so the big bro will probably be the main guy. If you can be in swinging reach of both of them, even better. But don’t be obvious. You’re quiet, we’re girls, so they probably won’t expect much as long as they don’t see weapons or guys around. They won’t expect anything from you. When the big guy shows the cash, I show the bag. We hand off at the same time because he’ll be afraid of me running, but you gotta make sure they don’t just grab and go, either. If anything feels weird, we run. Don’t walk, run. God forbid we get split up, we meet right back at camp. We got the baton and knives, but we don’t want it to go to that. Remember what I said about knife fights?”
“Everyone dies,” I say.
“Exactly, and even in Piercing, a stabbed kid turns a few heads. We don’t want the attention.”
“Got it.” I draw the baton and extend it. I haven’t opened it since I Dryden half-dead. Dried blood along its black metal ridges. I spit and wipe it away as best I can.
“You remind me of them wiping blood off their swords in the movies,” Care remarks.
“Oh.”
She sighs. “I’m sorry I put us in that situation with Dryden. Stupid... drinking that shit. Stupid trusting him. I should be dead.
“No! You shouldn’t be dead, Care. That’s the point... You asked me how it felt? It felt like nothing. Like beating a human to pieces. But... it felt good to know that... winning meant you were safe.” I take a deep breath. “So if we have to do this deal, if you really think it’s the only option... then we do it.”
She blows a cloud of smoke in thought. “Got a bad feeling about it in your gut?”
“My stomach hasn’t felt right for as long as I can remember. Not my head either.”
She shrugs. “Drink more.”
I look at the gin and toss it on her sleeping sack.
“Maybe... something else?” she asks. “Letsee what grandma’s got in her purse... tequila? Matty used to call it ‘Mexico Juice.’ Always liked it once I got used to it.”
The bottle is fat and intricately designed, with a cork like a pingpong ball, but I grimace as I stare into the golden liquor.
“Siiiick! Don’t get grossed out, but it’s one of those fancy ones with a worm inside. Look, there’s a real worm floating in there!” She jiggles the bottle and a stiff maggot-looking bug an inch long dances at the bottom.
“You talk a lot about Matty and all the people that hurt you...” I think aloud.
Care grows silent, sits back with the bottle. Eventually, she pops the top and chugs some, hands it over.
“Not like you talk a lot about yourself, hun,” she coldly says.
“Sorry.”
She shrugs. “Hey, you’re right. Guess I’m a blabbermouth now that I’m allowed to talk.” She belches. “And a drunk now that I can drink when I want, and not just when someone gets off on getting me wasted and watching me throw up on their dick.”
“I didn’t mean it like that, it just makes me sad sometimes, that’s all.”
“Hey, no problem, girl. Mmm, gin, fancy...” She grabs the bottle. “See, I never had almost anyone to talk to but Matty, and he was always complaining or calling me stupid. Not good at conversation, ol' Matty!” She swirls the bottle. “But sometimes a client ends up talking to me. After they’re finished, of course. Maybe they think it’s polite or something, think we’re building a bond. Maybe it’s just part of their ritual. Maybe they’re feeling talkative and just wanna get the most out of what they paid for me.”
She drinks gin. “Whatever, it’s almost always crap when they talk. And what am I supposed to do but sit there and act sexy and cool? Not like when I was a kid. I’d cry. Not anymore. At least not when anyone’s around. But they sit there next to me or across the room and maybe just one thing they say sticks with me, because at least they know what the outside world is like. Something about the weather. So I wanna know more about weather, ‘cause I usually only saw it from windows. Someone jokes about a book called Lolita or something and suddenly I wanna find it. I never do, but I get into reading.
“You know the church we met in? Matty would take me there to load up old chairs or whatever, all the while I’m sneaking whatever I can grab.” She pauses, stares into the near-empty gin. “You know why I don’t like God? Not because I don’t believe He might exist. It’s because His songs in the hymn books are fucking gay and retarded. I don’t want Him to exist, not because that means He completely abandoned me and a million others, but because I read the biography and He sounds like shit. Charles Manson and Ted Bundy had charm. What’s His excuse? And we’re all supposed to be so impres