I was called to the counter. I took a piece of paper out of the envelope and unfolded it and handed it to the teller: “I received this in the mail yesterday.”
The teller read the note; then she put some money on the counter. I took the money and the note, and I left. Once I was in the street I started running. I turned the car around and threw up all over myself and drove to North Park. If I made a right I’d be in Cleveland proper in about twenty seconds. If I made a left I’d be where rich people lived. I took a left and drove through Cleveland Heights. I laughed when I got away. When I passed Lee Road I knew I was home free. It was as if nothing had happened. I got home and Emily and the dog were on the couch. Emily had her eyes closed. I walked into the living room and got all the money out of my pockets.
“We need to get some dope. Right now.”
She said, “You’re such a badass.”
I called Raul and said I’d like to meet up with him immediately. He said he’d meet me at the Subway at Mayfield and Warrensville. I got changed and Emily and I hit the road. Raul was actually on time for a change. Emily got in the backseat. I was so glad that I wasn’t in jail and that we had lots of money. I bought all the heroin that he had in his pockets. Seven grams. Raul got out and Emily and I got off in the car. Big motherfucking shots we did. And our hearts were beating their wings slowly. We were saved. We felt like angels must feel like.
Seeing as we were both hungry we went to Subway and ordered some sandwiches. We ordered big. We even bought some of those cookies they have by the register. I tipped the sandwich artist $20. He said he liked my T-shirt.
Emily and I shot a fuckload of dope that night. We weren’t worried; we knew we’d have it all next week and the week after and maybe the week after that.
I got a call from Joe. I hadn’t heard from Joe in over a year. I said, “Joe, how the fuck are you doing? It’s so fucking good to hear from you.”
“Did you—uh—rob a bank today?”
“…No. Why?”
“They’ve got a picture of a guy who looks a lot like you on the news, and he robbed a bank.”
“…Oh. Man, that’s weird—No—Yeah, that definitely wasn’t me. Strange. Huh…Hey, man, I’ve got to go, alright? Okay, yeah. Listen, I’m gonna call you though….Okay, later.”
The news was over, so I went online. One of the stories on the home page of the local news channel was about the bank robbery. I clicked on the story and saw a surveillance photo of me that was pretty clear. I may as well have sat for an oil painting.
“I’m going to jail,” I said.
Emily looked at the picture: “Holy shit.”
“I’m fucked,” I said. “Shit…Fuck…Fuck…But who the fuck watches the Saturday local news broadcast? Nobody, right? No….No. I’m alright. Look. It says they’re looking for a guy who’s six three. I’m five eleven. Fuck. Look at the fucking picture though. But you can’t really tell it’s me, can you?”
I shot half a gram of heroin to calm myself down.
I looked at the picture again.
“No,” I said. “We’re alright.”
Getting rid of the money wasn’t going to be a problem. Our rent was past due and we owed eleven hundred dollars. Eleven plus the seventeen hundred. Plus the five hundred I owed Pistol and the five hundred I owed Black. That was thirty-eight right there. That left just thirty-five and that would be gone in three weeks.
I slept well for the first time since I couldn’t remember.
* * *
—
SUNDAY. I woke up and did a nice-size shot of heroin. I rolled out of bed and went down to the kitchen, cooked up the shot, and put it in a vein on top of my left foot. It itched some.
The actual getting high part of heroin was fine so long as you had a tolerance. It was more or less safe as milk like that. The first twenty seconds were quite fine, especially when you were getting off first thing in the morning. The only thing better than the first shot in the morning was the first shot after you’d been sick for a day or two. In those instances the 180-degree turn from abased wretchedness to resplendent consolation was something like a miracle.
The dope came up from my foot, the rush came on, and my blood sang nicely with it. My brain humming away. I sat in my blue chair and smoked a Pall Mall and thought about my problems.
I called Raul and told him I wanted to buy half an ounce of heroin. He said he was in Akron but he could do it when he got back and he’d call me as soon as he did. I took a shower and put on my cleanest clothes and drove out to visit my parents. My dad was in a good mood that day for some reason I couldn’t have guessed at and my mom was trying to be cheerful and fussed over me and I felt bad. I was uncomfortable in comfortable places. Nice people looked so nice when you were on heroin.
“How’s school?” my mom asked.
“It’s okay,” I said. “Most of my professors are alright. One of them’s a prick, but the other three are good.”
“Well, I’m glad that things are looking up,” she said.
I said I was doing good as far as my GPA, better than I’d done in a while.
“How much more do you have to do?” my dad asked.
“I can get done in three semesters. I might have a credit hour or two left after that. But not much.”
My mom asked if I was staying for dinner.
I said I was.
My dad cut up some leftover roast beef for their dogs. My mom did the dishes. I didn’t ever have to do the dishes since I got back from Iraq. My mom thought I was a hero. I wasn’t. But then I didn’t try to correct her. Not that I wanted to lie by omission about being a hero. I just didn’t want to have to explain anything.
It was dark when I drove home. I shot the last of my heroin. Emily and I had done three and a half grams apiece in a little over thirty hours. Seven hundred dollars.
Raul didn’t get back from Akron until ten o’clock. He called me from his girl’s apartment and said he had what I’d asked him for. I got the money together and I went out to see him. I called him when I got there. He came down. He got in on the passenger side. “Any of your people watch the local news?” I asked.
“No. Why?”
“They had a picture of me on there last night. It was very clearly me.”
“I didn’t watch it.”
“Yeah. It’s just got me worried.”
“I robbed a guy at an ATM machine once,” he said. “They had a picture of me on the news but they never caught me.”
That was comforting.
I said, “I figured it’s probably not a big deal. If I don’t hear about it in the next couple days I’ll never hear about it. I can’t be doing this shit though. The shit’s just too fucking dumb. You got that half?”
“Yeah, I got it,” he said. “This shit’s supposed to be pure fire. Be careful with it. I bought it down in Akron today. That’s what I was doing. It’s double-bagged because it stinks like straight heroin when you open it up.”
I didn’t check the bag. I had done right by him. We had robbed some shit together. I had bought a lot of grams from him. I figured if he was going to rip me off he’d have done it already. When I got home I found out I’d paid Raul thirteen hundred dollars for half an ounce of instant mashed potatoes. I called him. I said, “Raul, you know this is instant mashed potatoes, don’t you?”
“I’ll make it up to you,” he said.
And he hung up.
Emily said, “What are you going to do?”
“Realistically there’s nothing.”
“You’re going to let him get away with that shit?”
“Yeah pretty much.”
“Those guys don’t respect you.”
“No, I don’t imagine they do. Still you’d think just on principles of human decency he’d have had better manners than that.”
“You should fucking kill that motherfucker.”
“Eh.”
I had a theory. My theory was that I was a piece of shit and deserved it when bad things happened to me.
Was I bitter?