A little, of course.
But a loss was a loss. You didn’t ever get it back. Even if you recouped the money, the injury was still done. What was best was to write it off. So long as you didn’t give a fuck you had them beat. Only a thirsty no-account fucking loser would resort to such tricks as selling a half ounce of instant mashed potatoes. So why countenance it. Countenancing it wasn’t about to put dope in our veins. Morning would come soon. On its heels would ride the sickness. Moves had to be made. It was almost midnight.
I called Black. No answer.
I called Pistol. He picked up.
“Sorry to be calling so late,” I said, “but if you could come through I’d take four right now for your trouble.”
He said he couldn’t do it. “It’s been dead out here all day.”
“Shit. Well hit me up whenever you get things together tomorrow. I’ll take four for sure.”
“Alright.”
Rider’s phone went straight to voice mail.
Nobody got on again until Tuesday and we were sick sick sick.
CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR
Raul had said he was going to give me back some of the money he’d ripped me off for. He was going to pay me back in heroin. Which was fine because if he gave me cash I’d have just spent it on heroin anyway. Six of one, half dozen of the other.
It was night. He called and said his kid was in the hospital and he was going to be running a little late. And he was either on the way to or from the hospital when he was pulled over. He called me again. It was hard to hear him. “I’m about to get arrested,” he said. “They’re searching my car right now. Go to my mom’s house and tell her I got locked up.”
The line went dead. I put my coat on and left. I was at Raul’s mom’s house ten minutes later. I knocked on the side door. Nobody answered so I kept knocking. Eventually she opened the door.
I said, “Sorry to bother you, ma’am. But Raul called me a few minutes ago and said he was getting arrested. He asked me to come and tell you.”
“…Okay.”
“When I talked to him he said the police were searching his car and they were going to find some heroin.”
“Okay.”
“Let me know if there’s anything I can do.”
“Sure. Thanks.”
She closed the door lightly and then locked it. Pistol pulled into the driveway. I walked up to his car. He opened the driver door.
“What are you doing here?”
I told him what happened to Raul.
Pistol didn’t say anything.
I said, “Do you have one you could spot me until tomorrow? I left in a hurry and I didn’t bring any money with me. I’ll definitely have you tomorrow though.”
He didn’t say anything.
He weighed out a gram.
I said thanks and I walked to the curb where I was parked and I got in my car and drove away. I thought about my theory again. Let me know if there’s anything I can do. I was a real asshole. I’d been at those people’s house trying to act like I was worried about Raul when the truth was I couldn’t give so much of a fuck about a guy who wouldn’t have pissed on me if I were on fire. And they knew that. I thought, Was I just being polite? And the answer was no, I was just being full of shit. What a fucking ghoul I was. And then I didn’t know what their fucking problem was either, how they’d both acted like it was my fault. And that’s how it is. The very same who bleed you dry and fuck you are as bitter toward you as if you were getting over on them. And they’re half-right, and they’re half-wrong. This is what we do to each other.
CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE
Rider said he knew a bank in Bath, Ohio, that would be perfect to rob. This was more of Rider’s bullshit. Like I’d forget he wanted me to kill a guy in Bath for him. He really thought we were going to drive out to Bath and I’d say, Okay, Rider, where’s the bank? and he’d say, Change of plans, we’re gonna go murder this nigga instead.
Rider was a piece of shit like that.
I told Rider he could drive if he wanted but I was going to rob a bank downtown. I went to pick him up in the morning. He was with Pistol. Pistol had brought a pistol for me, and he spotted me two grams of heroin. I said I’d bring him some money in the afternoon.
It was a school day and Emily was over at the school and I wanted to make sure she got her share of the heroin in case I went to jail. So we stopped there first. She came out of the main classroom building and met us in the parking lot across the street. I asked Rider to let her have the front seat, and he did.
“Is it good?” she asked.
“I haven’t done any yet,” I said. “Pistol calls it Gunsmoke.”
“Gunsmoke?”
“That’s what he calls it.”
Emily and I shot up. The heroin was tremendous. It was black in the syringe. “Well,” I said. “That’s…really…fuckin nice. He must have made a mistake.”
“Mmm…” Emily sighed. “This is some good shit.”
I lit a cigarette and said I should be going. “I’ll pick you up tonight.”
“Okay,” she said. “Be careful.”
“I will, my love. Have a good afternoon.”
Rider said we were the coolest white people he had ever met. Emily went back to school, and Rider asked to borrow my phone real quick. I gave my phone to him. Somebody picked up and Rider said, “Hello…Yeah. Right now. Yeah, I’m about to do it right now.”
He was trying to sound like he was fine with it, even happy about it, but you could tell he was scared as shit. When he got done with the phone I asked him if he was sure he was good and he said he was. I dug around in the backseat looking for something to wear. Rider got in the driver seat. I lit another cigarette and told him I was ready. I had put on some Adidas track pants and a black fleece jacket and a balaclava.
He said, “You look mentally ill.”
I said, “I am. Let’s go.”
The bank was only a few blocks west. We parked across the street out front and down a ways, facing east. “Keep the doors unlocked,” I said. “I’ll be back in less than two minutes.”
I crossed the street. The pistol was in my waistband and neither of the two pairs of pants I was wearing was having an easy time staying up. So I only had one free hand. I went into the bank and moved to the counter. The bank was empty except for one teller—a woman—and two men—the manager and a client. I ignored the two men. They ignored me. They were talking business. I gave the note to the teller. She tossed some ones banded to a fifty onto the counter. I looked at her. She had a fat face and she glared at me with little red pig eyes. Her name tag said Sheina. I said, “Sheina, don’t be ridiculous. You’re better than that.”
She cleared out the cash drawers and I was feeling an ocean of sympathy for her. There were oceans inside of me. It wasn’t her fault she had little pig eyes. I knew that. You get the eyes you get. You don’t have any say in it.
We were on the freeway, and Rider wanted to see the money. I started going through it and counting the bands and fanning out the loose bills and handing him half as I went along. He kept saying, “Gimme more. Gimme more. Gimme more.”
There was a lot of traffic. We were as good as gone. Things were going well. Then Rider changed into the exit lane.
“Stay on the freeway,” I said. “Take it to two seventy-one.”
But he wasn’t hearing me.
“Stay on the freeway, Rider. What the fuck are you doing, man? Don’t get off here.”
He ignored me.
“Stay on the fucking freeway, man.”
He got off the freeway. Three exits down from where we had got on. And there was a police car rolling up at the bottom of the ramp. Rider started screaming: “OH, FUCK. OH, FUCK. NNNO. NNNO.”
I said, “Goddamn stay cool, man. Just go slow. We have nothing to hide. We’re just minding our own business. He won’t chase us if we don’t run on him. Look. We’re cool. He’s just sitting there. We’re cool. Just go slow. Don’t run on him.”
The police car stood still. Rider was hyperventilating. We drove through the intersection. Then he veered onto a residential street that ran off of Superior. Three quarters of the way down he threw the car into park.