+1+
Va-Va-Veronica
Is what Judson called her when he first told me about her, back when I first started hanging out at Riverside Tattoo. He was twenty and she was ten years older but twice as much fun as girls our age.
She was t 6’1 with that rockabilly look some guys were really into, her lips were always bright red and she had this crazy mole she’d draw on the side of her cheek. She dressed like a thrift store pin-up girl and she knew how to have a fucking good time. I liked her way better than Judson’s ex and Evianna’s mom who was the world’s saddest meth head. The few times I wasn’t holding down three jobs I could hang out with Judson and Veronica and all my troubles would disappear.
When Veronica walked into the tattoo shop today I was shocked that Judson hugged her like their shouting match outside the trailer hadn’t happened last week, but then again they had been one of those hot-and-heavy or knock-out fighting type of couples.
“Look”, Veronica said once Judson let her go, “I’ve still got my Tomas Alexander original”
She pointed to where I had inked that crazy mole permanently on her face as a joke. It had been one of my first tattoos. I was like nineteen and it was done on a dare back before I knew anything about tattooing. The ink was doing some weird shit now, it was blurring and the middle was soft and lightening to a strange gray.
“I can do better than that now”, I said as she hugged me. She didn’t even do a double take at my wheelchair so I figured Judson had warned her. They must talk. Interesting.
“Tell me all about New York City”, she said flipping through my portfolio with the biggest smile on her face, “You know…I want to do like a martini glass on my arm.”
“Have a seat”, I said. I was so ready to put my needle to skin. Ready to lose myself in a piece of art so I wouldn’t think about the throbbing pain that was starting to come back or the fact that I had no idea how to touch a woman.
I’d felt so fucking good since I’d started tripling my dosage. I knew the shit was addictive so I limited myself to three a day. It made my pain disappear like a fucking magic trick. Last night I felt like I could do more than lie on my back and get a half-hearted hand-job like a teenager. I liked how familiar kissing her was, how with her shirt open I could see that first tattoo I’d given her. I felt a high that had nothing to do with the pills but of course I had to ruin it.
Apart of me wandered if Sofia kept pushing bullshit pain management strategies on me was because she liked that I was in too much pain to ask for sex. I’d almost punched Judson in the face after we dropped Sofia and Eli off at the bus station.
“You better hope she doesn’t get that lawyer to charge you with rape too”, he said turning up the air conditioner as we drove away from the bus station. I’d convinced Judson to stick around long enough to see Elijah and Sofia board.
“Shut up, Judson”, I said.
“You must be fucking desperate if you offered to lick her—“
“Seriously, shut the fuck up.”
“What that’s what it sounded like?” he said laughing. He knew better than to say anything to Bobby at the shop but fuck it, I don’t know what they say behind my back.
I looked at my blank sketch pad and realized Veronica was waiting for me to start drawing. Judson was also peering over from his chair. She wanted a martini tattoo. I kept it simple so it’d only be $80. I did an old school tattoo with soft lines and light detail. Once I got the stencil on, I got to mess with some of the bolder neon colors I’d purchased at a local convention last spring. That fucking olive was going to pop. Veronica seemed comfortable in the shop, like she must come here a lot. I know Sofia would want me to ask about their daughter . . . . But this was work.
I finished Veronica’s tattoo in two hours. I only took a short break and went into the disgusting bathroom to put an extra fentanyl up my nose, so I could work without the re-emerging pain distracting me. When the pain came back now it was with a fucking fury. I started slipping pills out and replacing them with vitamins so Sofia still heard the rattle when she shook the lockbox my pills were in. She hadn’t noticed I’d changed the code. Three was a sweet spot but four was a fucking miracle. I felt so good I could have gotten out of that goddamn wheelchair.
I had to admire the tattoo before carefully bandaging her up. It was cute I guess. Just super traditional, not my usual style but it looked good with the colors and light shading, it felt fucking amazing to know I could still make good art.
“See me when it heals, I want to take a picture of it for my book.” I instruct Veronica
I snap my gloves off and write up a receipt. I handed it to her and prepared for a fight over payment. I’d been so desperate to work I’d forgotten how unreliable people around here were when it came to money. Veronica fishes around in her Betty Boop purse and pulls out a Ziploc bag with pills.
“Here, there are 12”, she said.
“Come on Veronica, I need cash.”
“They have a street value of like 30 bucks each. I take them from Mama, Lord knows she doesn’t need them. She just whines to the doctor cause doesn’t want to go back to that school cafeteria.”
“I can’t sell again. I’m not going back to prison.”
She looks at me and gives me a knowing look.
“You ain’t gonna sell them anyway”, Veronica and I stare at each other for a long time, “You’ve been hovering over me all day. Your nose is scratched up because you’re a dumbass Tomas Alexander who is too afraid of needles.”
I brought my hand to my nose and wondered if Sofia would notice. Fuck.
“I’m not afraid of needles”, I just don’t want another strain of HIV, thank you very much.
“Come on Veronica. I need the money”, I look to Judson for help but he just turns back. I look for Bobby but he’d gotten high and wandered out of the shop again.
I just started cleaning my station and push the pills away. If I stopped with the pills now I could probably avoid withdrawal. If Sofia even knew what I’d been up she was going to fucking lose it on top of all the other shit she was dealing with
“I get paid tomorrow I’ll drop the money off with Charity.” Veronica says
“That’s your daughter?” I ask. My hand is shaking which is no good for a tattoo artist. I couldn’t be crashing this fast. No fucking way.
Judson turns to face me and I’m not sure how to talk about Charity without offending him.
“Yeah”, Veronica says.
“What is she like two?” I ask casually.
“Doesn’t matter”, Judson cuts in, “She’s basically an infant”
“She’s Three and half”, Veronica says, “Tyler is nine, he’s up with is dad in Memphis. You remember him.”
“Kind of”, I said not remembering Veronica’s son at all. Maybe it’s the drugs but I think it’s fucking hilarious that Evianna and Charity (like Judson and I) are a couple months apart in age.
“You heading out”, Judson asks Veronica.
“Yep”, she says putting on her shades. I liked Veronica and all but it didn’t seem fucking right that she could leave without giving me anything for my work. Fuck it.
“I’ll take 3 pills today, but I want cash tomorrow.”
“Yes, sir.”
She shakes out three pills and I clutch them in my fist like I’m going to lose them. Veronica casually turns on her heels and heads to the bathroom in the back, Judson follows. I’m too busy getting high to notice they are back there for a really long time. I mean I can obviously hear the sex but I’m too busy raiding the syringes I use to inject my tattoo gun for a clean one.
Look. I know this isn’t me. I know it’s the hold the drugs have on me but…it’s also the throbbing numbing pain. I need the pain to go away so I can fucking think. No one deserves to be in this much pain all the time. I’m just granting myself some mercy. Some relief. I know it’s the pills but I suddenly find it funny that anyone could walk in to see me shooting up and I wouldn’t give a fuck.
“I win that fucking bet”, Judson says when he comes out from the back. I nearly jump and stab myself. I’d collapsed most of the veins in my left arm years ago, so I have to focus to find a one underneath the dark ink my on my right arm.
“It’s all right”, Veronica says rubbing my shoulders, and “Working in this shitty place you deserve it.”
“…I’m in a lot of pain”, I admit, “It’s not like that.”
The tingling warmth his me instantly, I let out a few breaths as the pain in my legs disappears. It just floats the fuck away. I feel so comfortable and safe for the first time in forever. I feel loved in a way I haven’t since my mother died and that is fucking pathetic.
Judson decides to close up the shop for the day and the three of us head across the bridge to the Riverfront Pier. It’s Saturday night and the pier is flooded with tourist and locals. Judson tries to park in a handicap space and I explain to him it doesn’t work that way.
We meet up with a few other people wasting time on this side of town, we don’t look like tourist and mostly locals notice us. People from Riverside just look rough with second-hand clothes and dirty cash. You can also tell the people from Petal Brooke. The girls all have neat glossy layered hair and designer bags from Dillard’s, the guys are clean cut and drink beer instead of the hard stuff.
We end up in a massive three story restaurant and bar with live music. There is a set of college girls (I can spot them easily now) sharing a table wearing sundresses and drinking pina coladas. That is without a doubt the type of girl Sofia would be if she’d stayed on the right side of the track. Not tired, broke and homeless with a screaming baby.
I wonder if Sofia saw Judson and thought that’s who I’d be if I hadn’t run. Twenty-five with a bunch of kids, a beer belly, a massive collection of knock-off graphic tees and defrauding the government for a disability check. Fuck, I wasn’t that smart or good with women. Maybe I’d just be another dead junkie in the woods. I shake myself out of it and have a good time. There is a band playing that I guess I kind of like now, but I like everything when I’m high. Judson pays for drinks and food, I spend half the night talking about tattooing with a guy from high school who did not give a fuck, but I was too high to care.
We head back to Riverside just after midnight. Judson stops at the Wal-Mart to buy some snacks for the ride back and gets some candy for his girls, Garnett and Katie. Veronica tease him mercilessly for being so whipped by a teenager. I don’t buy Sofia anything because I don’t have any money.
Judson pulls up in front of Veronica’s house first, it’s got a pink painted door with black leopard spots on it. Judson gets out to help her in and it fucking kills me how Judson gets all these hot girls. It’s got to be the red hair because he can only kind of draw.
I feel something crawling on me and I try to brush it away, but it crawls under my pant leg and bites me. I’m a few seconds from flipping the fuck out when I realize it’s just the pain coming back for me.
Judson jogs back out to the car with a bundle of blankets and I sit up a little straighter. Judson settles Charity down in the backseat and I hear a small rhythmic puff puff puff of an oxygen machine. He clicks her into the seat belt and jogs to the front seat.
“I thought Veronica was bringing her back tomorrow with my money.” I try to sound calm
“She said this was easier since I was already here. She said she’ll bring the money when she gets paid next week.” Judson explains
Fucking Veronica. If only I was as smooth of a talker as she was.
“Judson, what about a car seat.” I gesture to Charity in the back.
“We’re not getting on the interstate or anything...”
Judson keeps the music down as we drive back to the trailer. In the rearview mirror I can see the shine of Charity’s s vacant eyes. Her long thick dark brown hair is in tangles, she has a round face with small features and freckles just like Judson. She pulls her face into expressions, it seems involuntary and looks a little painful. Her body is slumped in the seat like a doll and completely still. I feel sick and I know it’s not just the drugs.
“So…what about Katie?”
“Huh?” Judson says. He swerves and I look back at Charity. She’d shifted a little but doesn’t right herself.
“I mean you and Veronica?”
“We’re just messing around”, He said, “Sides it’s healthy for Charity to see her parents together.”
I was high, but that made no fucking sense.
“I thought you said she’s like an infant”
“Yeah, but still . . . also sex with pregnant chicks is weird, dude. Like you can’t bust a nut to that. Course you can’t bust a nut to anything”
“Shut the fuck up”, I said but my heart wasn’t really in it.
I roll my eyes and feel the pain creeping back up on me. It’s ten times worse that it’s supposed to be. I can’t fucking sleep like this. I’m not going to fucking sleep like this.
“Can you pull over?” I ask.
“Just puke out the window.”
“Just come on.”
He pulls over at a BP station, I get out and roll over to the bathroom. The lock is busted and it smells like vomit and weed. I close the toilet lid, dig out the disgusting metal spoon I taken from Judson’s shop and one of my own needles from the bottom of my bag. I work fast but my hands can’t stay still. When I inject myself a calm comes over me. A familiar calm that wasn’t like fentanyl, but it was like my old friend heroin. There had been a bit of blue ink on the needle I used that left a small dot on my forearm. It stood out on my grayscale sleeve and I tried to rub it away. No luck.
I wait to see if I’m about to OD in a gas station bathroom but I feel good. I feel invincible in a way I knew only heroin made me feel. I’d taken the pills Veronica gave me so quickly I hadn’t really inspected them. They’d looked like fentanyl but the texture had been kind of weird?
What next? I ask myself.
I had forgotten this part. The part about finding the next high. Because this was all temporary. The best things in life always were.
I wash my hands and head back to the Jeep but the car is empty. I turn around and see Judson inside the gas stations grabbing a hot dog and coffee. Some of his buddies from the neighborhood are inside and they are just fucking around as usual.
I get back in the car and see Charity is still in the back seat. The car is on and the A/C is running on high with a cloying pop station playing. Her skin looked healthy and she wasn’t visibly bruised or anything. Her blanket had slipped and she looked so slight in her oversized Minnie Mouse pajamas. She wasn’t exactly clean and her nose was red where the oxygen tube lay. She should probably be in a home, Judson was probably on a waiting list for state funding. He probably hadn’t told us about her because he was afraid we’d judge him.
“Sorry”, I said to her, “Sorry, let’s get you home”
I laid on the horn until Judson came running back over, I glanced quickly in the backseat and saw one of Charity’s thin arms was swiping against her ear.
“Sorry.” I said again.
+2+
Sofia
I woke up at 2am just minutes before the door to Judson’s Jeep slammed shut. I hadn’t been able to get much sleep. My mind had been unsettled and I’d considered taking half of an emergency sleeping pill Dr. Lane had prescribed. The soft blue light form the nightlight by Elijah’s travel crib showed him softly sleep. I watched carefully as he little chest rose and fell. It wasn’t really quiet in the trailer, but after a few weeks I could now tune out the TV without even thinking. Although Every now and then a loud laugh track broke through.
I looked out the window as Judson and Tomas made their way inside. I froze when I saw Judson carrying the bundle of blankets. I pretended to be asleep when Tomas came into the bedroom. He lowered himself out of the wheelchair and was snoring after just a few minutes.
I stood up and went into the hallway barefoot and grabbed my toiletry bag from the bathroom. I tip toed over the girls and Garnett who were sleeping in the living room, I went pass the kitchen to the other side of the trailer. Judson’s bedroom door was closed, I could hear the faint hum of the TV playing over Katie’s giggling and the sound of the bed creaking.
I slowly opened the door to the kid’s room, I expected it to be locked but the door swung open easily. The TV on the rolling cart was playing a Tinkerbell movie.
The little girl was laying on top of the canopy bed surrounded by pillows and stuffed animals. Up close I could see she had Judson’s pale complexion and huge dark brown eyes like I’d glimpsed on Veronica. Her eyes moved back and forth but didn’t seem to focus on the movie. I inspected the oxygen machine she was hooked up to and listened as it puffed every few seconds.
I studied the yellowing oxygen tube connected to the tank and carefully removed it from her nose. She began to gasp for air so I put it back in. I dug around the pile of medical supplies, toys and diapers by the bed until I found a handful of used oxygen tubes.
I unwrapped her from the layers of blankets and her eyes focused on me. The way she seemed to register me and the room around her made me think she had the development of a much younger child.
The diaper she was wearing needed to be changed hours ago, and she had an ugly diaper rash that was slowly healing over. I wrapped her back up in the blanket and took the tubes with me.
When I got back to the bedroom Tomas was sitting up and pulling on a long sleeve shirt.
“Sofia”, he said, “What were you doing? We aren’t allowed on his side of the trailer.”
“I just went to say hi” I said,
“Then what are you doing with those?” he gestures to the oxygen tubes.
“I’m just going to clean them, they are filthy and that could lead to infections…are you shaking?”
“I’m just cold”, he said.
“Tomas?”
“I don’’ know. I’m just really tired.” Tomas turns to face the wall.
“Maybe it’s all these late nights with Judson”
“He’s my ride. I’m just going with it and hopefully he will forget I owe him money for my chair”
“Well, I just want to clean these. Just go back to sleep and pretend you didn’t see anything.”
He sighs and pulls the blankets up around himself.
“He name is Charity”, He says as I head for the door.
I head into the bathroom and fill the sink with warm water. I toss in a disinfecting tablet from my first aid kit and let the tubes sit in the warm foamy water. I pick up Elijah’s baby bath up and fill it with warm water and some baby bubble bath, then head back into the kid’s room.
The credits were playing on the TV in front of Charity’s bed and I put another DVD from the stack in the corner of the room and set the tub of water down by the bed. Charity’s eyes went from the screen to me, her expression was blank but I suddenly felt a flood of guilt.
Was I like Allen Fenton? Overstepping? I’d never worked with children before so I was just going with instinct. To compensate I gently narrated everything I am doing.
“I’m helping Judson-- your Dad. I’m just giving you a bath so you can be clean”, I wiped away an orangey artificial cheese powder from her hands and chin, and “I’m taking the yellow off your oxygen tube to make the air fresher. Then maybe I’ll find you something clean to wear. I’m studying to be a nurse and I want you to be comfortable, that’s all.”
The TV seems to distract her while I clean. I change her diaper and the red diaper rash on the side of her legs looks itchy and uncomfortable. I tip-toe to the other side of the trailer to get some of Elijah’s’ rash ointment. Tomas is sitting in his chair with a q-tip and is cleaning the attachments on the oxygen tubes.
“Thank you”, I said
“I needed something to do with my hands.”
“While you are up, I really need gas money for the car. The bus is sweltering and I don’t think it’s good for Elijah. He was so dehydrated when we got to Martina’s, plus I have to cross a busy street to get to her office.”
“What about your credit card?”
“It’s maxed out. I paid for my fall intersession classes”
“I’ve got a client paying tomorrow, “He says rubbing at a spot on his arm.”
“That’s good”, I said finding the rash ointment in my bag, and “I was getting a little worried. Katie has been sharing diapers…and food and stuff. But I know she’s also on a budget too...”
“It’ll be fine”, Tomas says.
I take the oxygen tube back to what was essentially is Charity’s room and quickly replace the yellowed one with a clean one. I lift up her shirt to inspect a ghastly incision on her stomach. She’d been on a feeding tube at some point.
I think about the similar scar on my stomach. I wonder if I showed it to her if it would make a difference. I run comb through her thick hair and try to pick the leaves out of it. At least she got to be outside at her Mom’s house. I clean off the TV then neaten up the items thrown around her bed. I carefully separate the medical supplies from garbage. I also make up the rest of the kids beds before leaving, telling myself it would have been to exhausting for Katie to do.
When I crawl back into bed with Tomas I feel better, like with all my time here I’ve finally done something. I know now that I need to get through this, make it back to New York and be the best nurse I can.