“Where?”
“At the drugstore.”
“The Childress Rite Aid?”
“Yes.”
“Let me come with you,” I say. “It’s late.”
“You have school tomorrow. I’ll be fine.”
“Mom. Are you going to get more vodka? You can tell me the truth. I won’t try to stop you. I just want to know the truth.”
Mom will not look me in the eyes. “Going to the drugstore. I just need some Pepto-Bismol. I’ll be back in a few minutes. You just go to sleep,” she says before she starts walking away from me, staggering a little.
I know that I should stop her, that I should maybe follow her to make sure she is okay, but I’m only seventeen—I’m still a girl, just a stupid confused chick—this is nothing new, and I have nothing left in my tank. I’m on empty, and so I go back into Hello Yellow and cry myself to sleep without even praying first. Sorry, JC.
CHAPTER 12
When I wake up, the streetlights are off. “Mom?” I say.
Silence.
“Mom?”
Somehow I know she is gone.
My heart is pounding.
I stand.
Slowly, as my eyes adjust to the darkness, I feel every seat in the bus with my hands and keep on saying, “Mom? Mom? Mom? Mom?”
BBB sniffs the entire bus floor.
Mom is not on Hello Yellow.
I know it is after eleven, because there are no streetlights on, but I have no idea how late it is. Mom goes out to the bars all the time, but for some reason, I have this very bad feeling that something horrible has happened. I can’t really explain it—I just instantly know, or maybe I just feel it in my gut.
“Come on, B Thrice,” I say, and then we leave Hello Yellow.
I know Mom went one of two places: Charlie’s Pad, which is the bar on the edge of town, the first bar in the ghetto; or the liquor store next to Father Chee’s church, where they sell big plastic bottles of vodka for very cheap—less than half the prices charged in Childress, plus the store in the ghetto is open later.
I’m not thinking too clearly right now—granted. I just know that something bad might have happened to my mom, so I’m sorta on autopilot—walking super fast.
I go right by Private Jackson’s house, walk a few more blocks, and then I am in the ghetto, trying to open the metal front door to Charlie’s Pad. The neon beer signs behind the high windows—which are covered with mesh wire to keep out burglars—those signs are off and the door is locked. “Hello?” I yell. “Hello?”
No one answers.
“Hello! Anyone in there? Mom? Mom!”
“Shut up, bitch!” someone yells, but when I turn around no one is there.
I don’t see anyone on the streets.
Just trash swirling in the wind.
If the bar is closed, it must be well after midnight—I know this much. And since the bar is closed, the liquor store is definitely closed, but for some stupid reason, BBB and I start walking toward the liquor store very quickly, as if we might actually find my mom there.
I’m desperate.
I’m a little loopy tonight.
I’m alone.
I’m scared.
I’m stupid.
I pass a crazily bearded insane-looking homeless man who throws an empty beer can at me and yells, “Catch a cat by the tail ’till you spin around and drown! Catch a cat by the tail—”
BBB and I start running.
The icy wind cuts my face.
I hear car alarms going off in the distance.
When I get to the liquor store it is closed and the doors are chained shut. No one is around.
For some stupid reason I bang on the doors, yell, “Mom?” and then I bang on the doors of the Korean Catholic Church, and yell up to Father Chee who lives above the church, but no lights go on.
Then I remember where I am and what time it is.
I start to get really scared, especially when this crappy-looking car—with silver rims and tinted windows and booming bass and neon-pink lights that make the road under the car glow—this crazy car pulls up and idles right next to me.
I start to walk down the street, back toward the town of Childress.
The car follows, going only as fast as I can walk.
It follows me for an entire block—rap music blasting—before BBB and I start to run.
When I get halfway down the next block, the car speeds up and turns, and then screeches to a stop, cutting me off at the corner.
The door opens and this tough-looking white dude with a blond spiky haircut and too many gold chains gets out.
“Where’s the fire? Where you going so fast, little girl?” he says, smiling at me.
He’s wearing a white tracksuit that is very baggy.
Because I am so tired and confused and worried, I start to cry again—like a wimp.
“Don’t cry. It’s okay,” he says, taking a step toward me, moving very slowly. “What’s wrong?”
BBB is now barking at this man skeptically. Like Ms. Jenny, B Thrice is a good judge of character, but for some reason I want to believe that this guy is not evil—that maybe JC is sending me some help.