Ferocity Summer (10 page)

In one breath I said, “Bill-is-building-a-bomb-in-his-basement-he's-going-to-overthrow-the-government.” This was followed by an uncontrollable giggle fit, which Willow and Andrea joined.

Soon we were so drunk that it didn't matter what we said. It was all hysterically funny. I couldn't remember the last time I'd felt so happy, the last time I'd felt so free. I dared to imagine that it could always be like this, that the three of us could become inseparable best friends, always happy and laughing together with or without the consumption of controlled substances. An hour passed, or maybe more, before we finally emerged from the room, stumbling over our own feet and laughing hysterically. We came down the stairs into the living room, where Bill and Greg sat watching a movie on television with the volume turned down low.

“You're fucking drunk,” Greg said.

I can't remember anyone else saying anything until Greg dropped me off at my house and Bill told me he would call me. I'm not sure, but I think he might have attempted to kiss me goodnight. It was all very awkward.

I let myself into my house through the dark kitchen. I was about to head up the stairs when the light turned on in the living room. My mother was sitting on the couch waiting for me. My mother had never waited up for me in my entire existence.

“I want to know what the hell is going on,” she said.

I decided not to say, ‘So do I.' Instead, I stood in the doorway between kitchen and living room, where dark met light.

“There was a man here looking for you today,” she continued. “A man in sleazy-looking clothes. He must have been in his late thirties. He wouldn't leave his name.”

My mother got off the couch and approached me, and I instinctively backed up a step, into the darkness.

“Who the hell was he? Are you sleeping with him? Because if you are, there are laws against these things, and I will see that that motherfucker spends the rest of his life in jail, if—” My mother suddenly stopped and began looking at me with an entirely new, and equally terrifying, stare. This could not be good.

“Jesus Christ! You're completely drunk!”

Of course, I'd spilled vodka all over my shirt. It was probably oozing out my pores as well. I stank.

“Mom, I … ” But I didn't even know what to say.

“Go to your room. You're grounded!”

I didn't need to be told twice, and in fact welcomed the relief of escaping my mother's wrath, if only temporarily.

“For a long time!” she shouted after me.

July

I
couldn't remember whether I was alive or dead, but I figured I must still be alive because death could not feel this bad. My mouth tasted like stiff, starched cotton, like an obsessive-compulsive housewife had been laundering and ironing my tongue. The rest of me didn't feel much better. I tried to recall the events of the previous evening. I couldn't really remember anyone using me as a punching bag, but I was almost certain that's what happened. How else could I feel so bad? My head felt ready to explode, and I knew if I opened my eyes I would feel the unstoppable urge to vomit. It didn't matter, though. My stomach had no interest in being still.

I dashed out of the bed and ran, stooped over, to the bathroom, wasted two seconds to close and lock the door, and just about dove headfirst into the toilet. Everything I had ingested in the past twenty-four hours climbed up my throat and spewed forth into the toilet. Staring at the vomit, I recalled finding Willow on the front lawn, and the events of the night came back to me in all-too-vivid clarity.

Long after it was all over, I sat there on the cool tiled floor in front of the toilet, now purged of my nastiness. Everything hurt, and I was much too exhausted to move. I could hear the sound of footsteps coming down the hall, and then the knock on the door.

“And how are we feeling this morning?” my mother said in a sickeningly sweet voice. It was definitely too early for sarcasm.

I waved a middle finger at the closed bathroom door. It didn't make the beastie on the other side go away.

“When you finish puking up your guts, I want to talk to you. I'll be in the kitchen making breakfast. How does scrambled eggs and home fries sound?”

Fortunately, I had already emptied the entire contents of my stomach. I could hear the sound of laughter as my mother walked away. I promised myself that if I ever grew up and had kids, I would never be so cruel and callous.

I would have to go out there eventually. I would have to face her. She thought I was sleeping with Christian. That might have been funny. In fact, I could have laughed about it for a real long time if my life wasn't so completely screwed up. Instead, I had to figure out what to tell her. The truth was an obvious choice, but a bit problematic.
No, Mom, I'm not sleeping with him. He's an FBI agent. Yeah, he just wants to talk to me because the guy I am sleeping with is this big drug dealer.
Yeah, that should go over real well. Perhaps I would go from being grounded for a very long time to being grounded forever. No, clearly I had to come up with a completely plausible, nonthreatening story to tell my mother about Christian. My head, however, was hurting too much for me to come up with a convincing lie.

The phone rang, shattering my feeble attempt at concentration. It would be him, Christian, I thought, and no matter what he said to my mother it would be the wrong thing. Perhaps I should just try climbing out the bathroom window. It was only the second story. I could probably jump without breaking any bones.

“It's for you!” bellowed my mother from downstairs, as if I didn't already know that.

I pulled myself up by grabbing the countertop and made my way out of the bathroom, back to my bedroom. As I crawled into bed, I reached for the phone on the table next to me.

“Hello,” I said. My throat felt like I had hiked across the Sahara Desert and run out of water halfway. I waited to hear the click of my mother hanging up the other phone. It didn't come. So it was going to be like that. “I can't talk now,” I said.

“How come?” I was surprised by the voice. It was only Bill.

“Oh, it's you,” I said.

“Who did you expect?”

“Let's not go there. You might have waited until a decent hour to call me. I'm not feeling so hot this morning.”

“I don't think most people would be if they drank as much as you guys did last night. What were you thinking?”

“It wasn't really a conscious decision.”

“Right. Well, I was just wondering if we could meet somewhere to talk. Alone.” To talk? I recalled his pathetic little attempts to touch my leg in the back seat of the car. To talk. Guys were so pathetically easy to read.

“I don't think I'm gonna be able to make it,” I said. “I've been grounded indefinitely.”

“Oh,” Bill said. “Bummer. It was just that I may have some new information about J. R. for you to consider.”

J. R.? What the hell was J. R.? I knew it was early in the morning and I was a little out of it, but I didn't know anyone named J. R.

“What are you talking about?” I asked.

“Use your head. Think backwards. You have to take precautions, you know. Your line is probably bugged. Hell, mine's probably bugged as well, but not by the same people.”

J. R. … R. J. Randy Jenkins. I didn't even want to think about Randy. It made me as sick to my stomach as the thought of food. I didn't want to think about the FBI or bugged phone lines, either. These things could hardly be counted as reality.

July

W
illow and I sat on her dock with our feet dangling in the water. The sun beat down on us and the air was thick with humidity. The water felt cool on our feet, but it was hardly enough. Childhood games of Marco Polo, played in the cove behind Willow's house, came back to me.

I remembered a little girl named Lydia who used to live next door to Willow. I remembered she always used to peek when it was her turn to be Marco. I hated that. I always hated cheaters. One day, I threw her sandals way out into the middle of the water. They sank, never to be seen again. I got in trouble, of course, but I didn't really care. I knew in my heart that Lydia had deserved it. It didn't matter. In the end she won. Her mother bought her a brand new pair of sandals.

“So, are you and Randy still … ” Willow began deliberately, not finishing her sentence.

“Um, I don't know. He's been busy. Willow, do you know—”

“I'm just so fucking sick of it,” Willow said, cutting me off. I didn't know what she meant. I waited, but she didn't say anything else.

“Sick of what?” I finally asked.

I heard our distant voices crying “Polo!” across the vast reaches of time. When did we outgrow Marco Polo? It seemed like a million years ago. I couldn't even remember what it was like to be a kid.

“I wish I was more like you,” Willow said.

“Why the fuck would you wish that?”

“You're just so calm and cool. You don't let things get to you. I wish I was half as strong as you.”

“You're crazy. You've lost it.” Suddenly, I hated myself. My supposed best friend didn't know a thing about me. She didn't have the first clue. “Remember that weird guy at Johnny's Quik Mart I told you about, the one with the Hawaiian shirt?”

“Sure,” Willow said.

All I needed to do was tell her everything. Maybe it wouldn't return us to our Marco Polo days, but at least it would restore the link between us. At least I wouldn't feel like the cheater, the Marco peeker.

“I found out how he knew my name. Turns out Joe Bullock paid the guy to come into the store and creep me out.” I heard myself say the words. They came too easily. I didn't even want to say them, but my mouth had a will of its own. It was kill or be killed, and backed into my own corner, I was willing to do whatever it took to win. Willow wasn't the enemy, though, or maybe she was, I didn't even know. Everything was such a complete and total mess. I wished I could call a time-out to give myself a chance to sort things out and figure out what was what. There are no time-outs in life.

“And you were all worried,” Willow said. She believed me, and I hated myself for how easy it was to deceive her. “I told you it was probably nothing. Didn't I tell you?”

“Yeah,” I said. Jesus, what now? What were we supposed to do now? Somewhere down below, at the bottom of the lake, the remains of Lydia's sandals lay, algae-encrusted and disintegrating. I wanted to join them in their peaceful resting place. Christ. “So what now?” I asked aloud.

“Let's go back to Pablo's.”

“I thought you said he was a flake.”

Willow just shrugged.

This time, we took the direct route. Maybe Willow had remembered how to get there. Maybe she was in a hurry. We turned at the garden gnome and the car climbed up the long, steep driveway. It was the yellow
NO TRESPASSING
sign that first made me suspicious. Then, when we got to the top, I could see that the house was all boarded up, all the windows, the front door, like it had been abandoned for years.

“Something's happened to Pablo,” Willow said.

“Maybe he left a note.” I got out of the car, Willow following not far behind me.

There was no note. We wandered around the side of the house and into the backyard where we found Pablo sitting on the back steps. He looked a little dirtier and scuzzier than last time, but otherwise not much different.

“Hey,” Willow said. “What the hell's going on?”

“They threw me out,” Pablo said. “Can you believe that? Back taxes or some shit. I'm like so bummed.”

“How long has it been boarded up like that?” I asked.

“Few days, I guess,” Pablo said. “Hey, did you bring me anything?”

“I think I've got some chips and candy in the car,” Willow said. “I'll go get them.” She went back around to the front of the house.

“Your friend, how's she doing?” Pablo asked.

“Fine, I guess.”

“Yeah? She don't look so great. Her eyes, you know, they look a little off. She might want to take it easy, you know, not so much partying.”

So Pablo the Perpetually Stoned was saying that Willow was doing too many drugs. I found this interesting, might have even laughed if it wasn't so goddamn true.

“You don't have a hammer or nothing with you, do you? We might be able to pry those boards out so I can get back inside.”

“No,” I said. “But won't they just kick you out again anyway? They'll probably put you in jail or something.”

“Nah, probably just fine me. They're nothing but a bunch of money-hungry capitalists.”

Willow returned bearing junk food.

“Cheese doodles,” she said. “And stale corn chips. The gummy worms all melted together from the sun, but I think the sweet tarts are okay.”

“Starburst, looks like your friend is a regular junk food addict.”

“Not addict,” Willow said. “Aficionado.”

“Denial,” Pablo said as he began to eat the cheese doodles, “is a junkie's best friend.”

July

J
ust after I stepped out of the shower, I heard someone repeatedly pressing the doorbell. It had to be Willow. No one else could be so annoying. I threw on my clothes, still pulling them on and buttoning as I ran through the kitchen to the door.

“You are so annoying!” I yelled as I flipped the deadbolt and pulled the door open.

Christian Calambeaux stood on the front stoop.

“Hi, Priscilla,” he said.

“You shouldn't come to my house,” I said. “My mother thinks I'm sleeping with you.” Christian shrugged. “What do you want?”

“To negotiate.”

“Negotiate what?”

“The terms of your cooperation.”

Today he actually was wearing a pair of jeans with one of his trademark Hawaiian shirts. He also had on a pair of ridiculously ornate-looking sandals.

“Why would I cooperate?” I asked.

“You've got nothing to lose.”

“And nothing to gain.”

“That's not true. Have you eaten lunch?”

“No.” It was ten after eleven.

“Let's go. My treat.”

When Christian pulled into the parking lot of the Budd Lake Diner, my reservations began to flare up. I might see someone I knew. People my age frequented this place. People who knew Randy frequented this place. I thought it would be immediately apparent just what I was doing in a restaurant with a man whose shirt depicted parrots and surfboards. I thought everyone would be able to see that I was on the verge of selling out my nearest and dearest for a little extra spending money. I remained seated when Christian got out of the car.

“I'm not very hungry,” I said.

“I'm starving,” he said. “Come on.”

Against my better judgment, I followed him inside. As I walked past the newspaper boxes out front,
USA Today's
“Ferocity Epidemic” headline caught my eye, but it was the
Star-Ledger
headline—about a total of ten convenience store hold-ups in the Garden State over the past few weeks—that made me pause long enough to read the first couple of paragraphs. There was a theory that the hold-ups might be related to similar burglaries that had occurred in New England earlier in the summer. Perhaps I'd picked the right time to quit the business. Maybe I was in the wrong line of work entirely. How many convenience stores did you have to rob to be able to afford a new life?

“You coming?” Christian asked. He was holding the door for me. I jogged up the steps.

“So, what's the deal with your clothes?” I asked when we were seated in a marginally discreet booth and handed menus that neither of us opened.

“It's so I blend,” he said. “So I don't look like a cop.”

“Blend?” I asked. “On what planet do you blend?”

“I'm just an average guy, relaxing on vacation.”

“This is not a part of the world where anyone chooses to spend their vacation.”

“Hey, there was a time when the lakes of bucolic northwest Jersey were a pleasant getaway from the hustle and bustle of urban life.”

“Yes, but then they invented the automobile.”

The waitress arrived and took a beverage order.

“What makes someone decide to become a cop?” I asked.

“A sense of altruism, I suppose,” he said. It wasn't much of an answer. Perhaps sensing my dissatisfaction, Christian added, “It pays well, and it feels like I'm not just wasting my life away.”

“Operative word being ‘feels'?” I asked.

“I can make a difference in the world,” Christian said. I was positive he'd stolen the line from a public service announcement.

The waitress delivered drinks. Our menus were still unopened, and Christian told her we needed more time to decide. He began adding sugar to his coffee and didn't stop. I watched as he added packet after packet. It was amazing the man still had a full set of teeth.

“You think you can make a difference, but I don't see how,” I said. “I mean, even if I cooperate with you, and even if I give you information that puts Randy away, and some of his associates, too—so what, right? I mean, they're not really bad people, and their removal from law-abiding society won't change the world any. It'll just create some openings for enterprising young drug pushers to fill.” I stopped because I saw the waitress hovering, probably determined to take our order so that she could go out and have a cigarette.

“My sister died of a drug overdose,” Christian said. This confession sent the waitress scurrying to some other table where the conversation was far more banal.

“I'm sorry,” I said.

“It was because of someone like Randy Jenkins that she's dead. She was nineteen.”

“But that's not true,” I said. As soon as I said it, I knew I shouldn't have. Dead sisters weren't something you wanted to mess with. He'd just poured out his soul to me and I had to go and get all contrary. “What I mean is, you can't blame a drug dealer for your sister's overdose. I mean, she's got to be at least partly responsible for her actions.”

“If someone hadn't been there to supply her, then she would still be alive.”

“I think you're ignoring the laws of supply and demand.”

“Excuse me?” he said. His face had taken on a bright pink hue. Why the hell couldn't I just shut up?

“As long as there is a demand for narcotics, you can arrest all the drug dealers you want and it won't make a difference. There will just be more to take their place.”

The waitress descended upon us again, determined not to be put off by dead sisters or lame excuses.

“Feta cheese omelet,” I said. “White toast.”

“I'll have a BLT,” Christian said, “and a cup of broccoli soup.”

The waitress walked away. Christian stared into his coffee. I scanned the diner for familiar faces. I didn't see any.

“So, why should I join you in your quest to save the world?” I asked.

“Do you always have such a negative attitude?”

“I'm realistic. It's not my fault some people would rather live in fantasy land.”

“I did my homework,” Christian said. “I know you were with Randy last summer on the boat.”

“It's pretty much common knowledge,” I said. “Even if the newspapers couldn't print our names.”

“Yeah, well,” he sighed. “I don't hold it against you. Everyone makes mistakes.”

It
wasn't long before our lunches arrived. I shoveled food into my mouth even though I wasn't hungry. I could feel Christian staring at me, but I didn't look up to meet his gaze.

Soldiers were dying—General Sherman's men, fine fighting men. There was so much death in sight, all around him, year after year. If it kept up long enough, he might be next, shot down in battle, gasping out his last breath on some bloodstained, godforsaken battlefield. Someone needed to bring this bloody mess to an end. Enough was enough. If nothing else, he needed to save himself from a premature demise. I wonder what it felt like when Sherman made the decision to unleash his hellish fury on the South. Did it feel like every last shred of humanity was suddenly sucked from his body? Did he feel as empty and soulless as I did, right then in the diner?

“Get me out of going to court and you've got yourself a narc,” I said.

“What?” Christian asked.

“The trial,” I said. “Get me out of it, and I'll help you.”

“I can't do that,” he said.

“That's bullshit.”

“It's a different matter,” he said. “It's not related.”

“Randy was there,” I said. “It's related enough. You've got the power to pull some strings. If you can promise me I don't have to go to court, then you've got my cooperation.”

“I can't make a promise like that.”

“Well, then, I don't think I can help you.” I stood up.

“Sit down,” he said. I didn't move. “Look, I'll look into things. I'll see what I can do for you, but in the meantime, you have to show good faith. You have to help me.”

“Fine,” I said. It felt like I had just made a deal with the devil, but I didn't care.