Tomas
+1+
“Your wife if a bitch. She’s a pretentious uptight bitch, oh my fucking God”, Judson says on the drive over to the shop. I know I should defend Sofia’s honor but all I can fucking think about it getting high, “It’s my house, my kids what’s her fucking problem.”
Judson had yelled for me across the trailer that he was leaving early for work that morning. I looked like shit having no time to get ready. Luckily Sofia didn’t need to be in Petal Brook today because there was no way Judson would give her a ride to the bus stop.
While Judson went on about Sofia I was too busy texting Veronica, letting her know that I was willing to barter this one time and if she brought the rest of the pills I’d clear her debt. She sent a text back saying she’d bring the pills by sometime today. I could sell one to get Sofia gas money and use the rest for my pain.
Then what?
A voice I decided to ignore said.
I guess I could give Veronica another tattoo or steal some of Bobby’s stash when he went all manic and wandered out for the day, he never locked up his stash.
“So like…why didn’t you tell us Charity was there?” I asked Judson as he got on the bridge and headed for the Burger King off Route 4
“Does it fucking matter? You have no fucking idea, dude. I had to take full custody after Veronica’s grandmother passed away. Like no one gave me any instructions and it gets fucking gross sometimes… and I don’t want Katie to have to deal with it, so I do the best I can. No one helps me or told me what to do. I had to figure this shit out on my own and its expensive dude. But I provide for my family and your bitchy Petal Brook wife thinks she knows what’s best for my kids.”
“Sofia’s bored.” I say in her defense, “She just needs a project. Just let her practice being a nurse. She needs some new patient Elijah and I are getting too predictable…and it seems like you could use the help.”
“Fuck you, dude”, he says.
“I’m just saying don’t that have like homes…”
“I can’t afford that shit. The other kids will help when they are older.”
When we get to the shop Judson storms into the back. I can’t bring myself to work so I take a nap in my chair, suddenly I remember why I took those naps before. I try some of the bullshit pain management breathing exercises, but it makes the pain fucking worse, it’s like something is digging in and tearing out my nerves. I jump up whenever the bell rings but it’s never Veronica, just Judson’s dumbass friends and homeless guy wanting to use the bathroom. When my phone rings though I jump up and grab it.
“Veroni —“
“Tomas?”
Fuck. Sofia.
“Yeah? Yes?”
“Elijah’s won’t stop crying”, she whispers
I can of course hear him in the background but Sofia had never called me when he was having a tantrum.”
“Does he need to see a doctor?”
“I…we can’t afford that right now. He’s fine. It’s just…”
“Sofia?”
“No. I don’t know why I called. I think his stomach is just upset. I think we just need to go on a walk.”
“Sofia--”
“It’s fine. Good-bye.”
She hangs up before I ask anything else and I throw the phone across the shop.
“Dude”, Judson shouts.
I try to keep myself busy organizing
and re-organizing my station. The pain still has a hold on me but I kind of
deserve it. The craving for the next high has me ready to burst out of my skin.
Judson orders pizza again for lunch, when Judson opens the box of Hamburger
pizza I immediately vomit in the trashcan at my station.
“Shit”, I said rolling over to spit in the sink.
“I can get Bobby to get you some H”, Judson says, “I’ll buy and you can pay me back. Nobody wants to get a tattoo form a tweaker. You always go to hard, man”
“I got to kick this, now. If Sofia finds out I’m in so much trouble.”
“Yeah, well this is a fucking business so if you’re going to do withdraw, join the other junkies in the woods.”
Before I can tell him to fuck himself I start throwing up again. Coming back here was a mistake. Sofia had no confidence in the case, we were out of money and Venus wouldn’t have me in her shop if I was using. In the corner of the shop the ringtone I had set for Sofia started ringing.
“Drive me to Veronica’s”, I say to Judson, “She works night’s right? So she should be home.”
“I’m not your chauffeur.”
“Please. You know you want to see her. Unless you want Katie to know you are cheating on her”
“It’s just while Katie pregnant.”
“Is that how she will see it?”
He flips the shop sign to closed and grabs his keys
Instead of going up to her house Judson just lays on his car horn at the curb. Veronica’s mom peeks her head out the door and flips Judson off, she wraps her leopard print robe tight around herself, balancing her weight on a glittery cane. She’s only 50 but looks closer to seventy, my mom always said the eighties had been rough on her. Veronica shimmies past her mother and bounces down the driveway like a teenager. She’s in her pressed McDonald’s polo shirt and sparkly purple eyeshadow.
“Did we have a date?” she asks Judson.
“We did”, I say, “I’ve been texting you all day.”
“Hey, Tomas”, she says, “You look like shit.”
“I need to get paid. Now.”
“I thought you wanted the pills”, she says looking at her phone.
“I did. But I need the cash now.”
“Look, Tomas I don’t have it. You can take it out of the state check Judson gets for Charity.”
I feel like that was directed more at Judson than me.
“Veronica, I trusted you. Come on.” I tell her
“Look, I had bills and I had Charity this week. I still have the china whites if you want them.”
“What the fuck are you talking about”, I say trying to stay calm.
“It’s just what it’s called”, she says.
“You said those where just your mom’s painkillers.”
“I said they were her pills”, Veronica says, “Her ex-boyfriend taught her how to make them to help with her migraines, but she usually just gets high off of them and starts stripping and curses at the neighbors all night.”
“What the fuck was in those pills?”
“Like, heroin with like a bit of car-something. Some fentanyl shit.”
“I fucking knew it. Shit, Veronica. Heroin. Really? That shit fucks me up.”
“You were already fucked up”, Veronica says.
She runs inside the house and comes out with the Ziploc bag and hands it out to me.
“I won’t have cash until I get paid”, Veronica says, “Here you can have these. Sell them up by the woods.”
I take the bag from her and count the pills obsessively. Each one was thirty bucks, each one was also ten years in prison. 180 dollars or 60 years in federal prison.
“Let’s go, Judson. Veronica you owe me. Why couldn’t you just pay me?”
“It wouldn’t have mattered if I paid you. You were already putting shit up your nose. Don’t blame me for that”, she says, “It’s just what this place does to you.”
“It does it to everybody.” I say more to myself.
“No”, Veronica clarifies, “Everyone uses, but it’s’ people like you and my mom or even Bobby who let it destroy you cause it’s the only good thing in your life.”
“You could have told me it was heroin.”
“You didn’t ask”, she says exasperated, “Jesus.”
She storms off without even acknowledging Judson and he looks so fucking hurt it’s pathetic. I hold onto the pills, feeling each one in my palm through the plastic.
+2+
Six pills later I can’t really feel my nose anymore but I’m okay with that.
The pain is completely gone along with the all-consuming guilt. I thank God for inventing opium or poppies or whatever because this I can manage. When we got back to the trailer I’d locked the door to the bathroom and stabbed myself nine times before snorting the perfectly crushed up pills. Afterwards I use the counter to balance on my unsteady legs and manager to stand for a few minutes.
When I make it back to the bedroom Sofia is holding a whimpering Eli. She rubs his back but he continues to cry. It’s a low cry not his usual wailing. Sofia’s eyes are glassy and I’m afraid she’s high too but her eye aren’t vacant.
Sofia continues to rub Elijah’s back but he keeps crying. I climb onto the mattress next to her and hear a slight crunch. Underneath the pillow is an empty container of the bright blue applesauce the girls like to eat.
“Katie said I could have it as long as Judson doesn’t find out.” Sofia explained, I know it’s not right because he pays for everything but Elijah was hungry and with our financial situation…I think it’s making him sick.”
I open the mini fridge and count the bottles of pills and Sofia’s water bottle. Without the cloud of withdrawal I think back to her phone call.
“Sofie . . . when is the last time you ate?”
“Martina’s taking me out to lunch tomorrow to go over the civil case.” She whispers.
“Sofia”
“…yesterday morning, but you said you had a paying client so I didn’t mind...”
Fuck
“I’ll look for another job tomorrow”, I decide hoping the guilt rushing up my spine doesn’t show, “I’ll figure this out.”
I just had to find some way to detox and I could apply at the convenience stores. I’d never been good at finding work, in the past my mom usually used her connections to find me jobs and I just never left them. Tattooing was the only thing I’d manage to do on my own. It was all I could do but now it wasn’t enough.
I called Judson on my cell phone and asked him to meet me in the kitchen. I waited by the counter and was surprised to see him coming out of Charity’s room. He didn’t’ seem pissed so I’m guessing Sofia kept to her side of the trailer today.
“Look Judson I’m short on cash ad Eli’s not feeling great. You know how our situation is. Is there any way you can help us out. I promise I’ll repay the favor.”
“Dude, you still owe me rent for your chair”
“I know but I mean it’s slow.”
“Maybe you should have sold that china”, he said low enough that the girls didn’t hear.
“What? And get another fucking felony?” I said.
Judson opened the fridge, which I now noticed was very organized, everything had marking and numbers on it. He placed a jar of peach-pear baby food and a carton of milk on the counter. I couldn’t even make eye contact with him as he closed the fridge and went back to his room.
Sofia was asleep so I work up Elijah, which was always a big mistake, and once he stopped fussing I got him to eat a jar of the baby food. I put some milk in his bottle even though we were starting to suspect he was lactose and tolerant.
“You should drink some milk”, I said shaking Sofia.
“I’m fine”, she says pushing me away.
“Sofie…"
“I said I’m fine.” she snaps and goes back to sleep.
What next?
A distant voice in my head says louder.
+++
When I said if I’d never left Riverside I’d probably would have died before making it to 25, that was a fucking lie.
I’d be here.
Judson had been icy to me the next morning, I waited around the living room until he rolled out of bed at 10am. He drove to work and cursed out the McDonalds driver when they told him breakfast was over. He tossed a cheeseburger my way but I couldn’t bring myself to eat it.
Somehow Sofia found the motivation to get up, get herself dressed and walk herself to the bus station. I begged her to wait for Judson to wake up but she couldn’t be late to her meeting with the defense side.
Bobby never showed up and Judson and I spent the entire day staring at each other and smoking pot one of his friends had given him. It did shit for my pain and burgeoning withdrawal but I felt…better. Even though I was starting to feel sick, I got up and went down the entire strip mall to see who was hiring, which was a dumb thing to do while blazed. Some of them side-eyed my wheelchair, my only good qualities was my impeccable handwriting and WOTC tax credit.
“You really want to leave the shop”, Judson ask while I filled out the applications at the reception desk, the pen kept slipping through my sweat soaked hands.
“There are no fucking clients, why do you even stay open”
“Some people depend on this place and I promised Virgil.”
“He’s 58 with 34 years to go--he’s going to die in jail.”
“Fuck you”, he says as if that had never occurred to him.
“Sorry”, I look back over the sparse application.
“Why don’t you apply for disability?”
“I have a job”, I say and for the first time I remember that I do have a job, in a clean prominent tattoo studio that I love. With an amazing boss and talented co-workers. This was all supposed to be fucking temporary.
I spent the rest of the day hiding in the back throwing up bile. The only bright spot in my day is when Sofia calls to tell me Martina picked her up for lunch. I’d never come down this fast when I younger and I wonder if it had something to do with my meds. Judson sticks is head in and watches me.
“Dude”, Judson says after I’ve spent an hour in the back throwing up.
“Don’t dude me. I need to make some fucking money. ”
“One of the guys down at the bar told me there is an open construction site where you can get tools ad shit to sell. It’s not hurting anybody”
“I can’t steal. My mom would kill me if she was still alive”
“Dude I can’t fucking help you. You said you were good for three months of rent when you moved in. Not to mention you haven’t paid your chair rental.”
“You said summer was a busy time at the shop.”
“I mean…usually it is”
He was such a fucking liar.
We stayed open until 8pm, while we are packing up…I get an idea. A bad idea. I ask Judson to drop me off at the bar down by the bridge. He looked at me sideways but doesn’t say anything. He is quiet the whole way there and drops me off without a word.
After Judson drops me off I roll myself along the gravel pathways to the bus station. People were settling into makeshifts tents on the outskirts of the station for the night. I could smell the grimy mix of crank and sick. I knew if I wasn’t careful I’d be settling in with the junkies.
I circled the massive parking lot where some developer had imagined a commuter lot would be, but there were never more than three cars parked out here.
Two white range rover are on opposite corners of one section of the lot and a group of girls are between them listening to music on an iPod. The guys in the cars are eating out of Styrofoam containers and keeping an eye on the girls.
I stay out of their way and roll along the other end of the parking. I’m not alone in the parking lot. I recognize the customer service lady from the grocery store my mom worked at for a week before getting fired. They’d stayed friends because my mom was a charmer. She lived on that charm.
The woman notices me and pretends to text on her phones, my phone is all out of minutes so I just roll slowly back and form. I stop short when f eel someone grab my chair and turn it around, and I think about the prayer my mom made up just before shit like this went down.
I don’t know who they are. But I can tell they aren’t a tourist and not from this side of town. I don’t care of think about this. I just blow the guy for fifty bucks.