The day everything happened, the hitting bottom as it’s known in our circles, came in June. One of those hot, rainy days where you feel like you’re breathing your own breath out of a paper bag. But weather was not the worst of that day’s evils. I’m pointing my finger now at Rose Dartell. Running into her that day would put the nail in the coffin. I’d give anything to have stayed home. If wishes were horses, like they say. We’d all have different shit to shovel.
Maggot and I were at the famous Woodway crack house where Swap-Out was still living with some other guys. People came and went through there like barn cats, you didn’t always bother with names. Maggot needed to get hooked up. For my own part I was okay, I’d scored a pity bottle of oxy off of Thelma at the funeral and had multiplied the investment. Pain clinic, first Friday of the month: loaves and fishes. But I drove Maggot over to Woodway and made the effort to be social. Had a chat with Swap-Out, asked if he still had any doings with Mr. Golly, which he didn’t, too bad. That man had a place in my heart. Then Maggot and the other crackheads got to the part of ring-around-the-rosy where they all fall down, and I went and sat outside, deeply cooked and making the best of it. Breathing the halitosis of summer, basking in the sick glory of that porch. The rotten mattress, the dresser with no drawers, the refrigerator on its side with its mouth hanging open, harboring a tiny waiting room on top of four black plastic chairs joined together. I remembered rescuing Martha from this very porch, a lifetime ago, and wondered what became of her. June would be getting her straightened out, for sure. Maggot and I weren’t crossing our path with June if we could help it.
Half the porch was taken up by stacked firewood that had been there so long, it was covered with a shredded sheet of white dusty cobwebs. I watched a mother rat run in and out of the logs, carrying her babies by their napes from one part of the stack to another. She’d appear with them one by one, all business, like she’s on the clock here, relocating her office space. How she decided one part of this wreck was less dangerous than any other, no guess.
A dirt-brown Chevy pickup came down the road, the first vehicle of any kind in over an hour, and surprised me by pulling up to the house. More surprise, Rose Dartell flung herself out of it, slamming the door and moving fast, carrying a pizza box.
“Damn, Rose. Did you bake me a pie?”
She pulled up hard to a stop. Her hair was different some way, less frizzed out, but the face was unchanged. That scarred-up sneer. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“I could ask you the same.”
“I work for Pro’s. That and the phone company, for a couple of years now.”
“Pro’s Pizza delivers all the way out here to fucking Woodway?”
“Regular customers. They pay cash. Any more questions, or can I do my job?”
“Knock yourself out.”
I wondered if they’d be paying her more than cash in there. She stayed long enough. Mr. Pro probably had no idea where all she was driving on his dime. I couldn’t help thinking of our last meetup, the dark highway pullout where Rose gave me the news of Emmy like a drink she’d spit in. I was just about to go in and advise Maggot that it was time to say grace and blow this dump, but she came back out. Sat down on the edge of the woodpile. Mother rat, look out.
“Did Fast Forward call you yet?” She mumbled it, lighting a cigarette.
“Why would he do that?”
She shrugged, wiped her runny nose with the back of her wrist. They’d tipped her in there, all right. “I don’t know why he wouldn’t. He’s always needing something from somebody. He’s back in Lee County, maybe you didn’t know.”
“Oh yeah? Whereabouts is he living?”
“This big old house belonging to some lady. They call it Spurlock around there, but it’s not really a town, more or less by Duffield. It’s a hard place to find.”
Rose flicked at something on the knee of her jeans, adjusted the strap of her sandal. Thunder was rolling around between the mountains to the east of us. Then the sky got a lot darker, in that sudden way that feels like a power outage of God. I lit a smoke of my own, since Rose hadn’t offered. We sat looking at the collection of vehicles that seemed to belong to the Woodway crack house. Some living, some dead, some fallen prey to target practice.
Rose blew out the last of her smoke and ground out the butt with her heel. “You know what, this is my last delivery and I’m going over there now.”
“To where?” My mind had wandered.
“To Fast Forward’s. If you want to follow me over there. Come by and say hello.”
I told her not to do me any favors.
“I’m not,” she said. “Actually, I’m thinking the next time he needs somebody to come scratch his balls, maybe he could whistle for you instead of me.”
Maybe, if I still bowed to the pull of the Fast Forward magnet. But I’d decided some while ago, if I spoke to the bastard again, it would not be in kindness. A fallen hero shatters into more sharp pieces than you’d believe. Emmy was the one that finally stuck in my throat. I tasted bile in my gullet. Then surprised myself by going inside to collect Maggot. We tailed Rose’s pickup out of Woodway.
Before we were back out to 58, rain started slapping the windshield in big fat drops. The Impala needed new wiper blades, but that was far down the list of what that Impala needed. The title transferred out of a dead man’s name, for a start. I squinted through the blur, wishing I were a hair more sober, and tried to keep a bead on the red taillights ahead. She turned off the highway sooner than I expected, on Dry Creek Road, which went no place you’d want to be. Not a sensible way to Duffield, but maybe it was like she’d said, his place wasn’t there exactly. About a mile in, we came on a stranded pickup halfway blocking the road. She edged around it, but I stopped, because I’d come across that vehicle stalled once before. This time I knew the owner and the damage was repairable. Hammer Kelly, left rear flat.
I rolled down the window and yelled hey. Not sure why rain makes you yell across six feet of distance, but it does. Poor Hammer, a drowned cat could not have looked more pitiful. Rain dripping off his nose, white T-shirt soaked like a second skin so his nipples and chest hair showed through. He pushed the wet flop of hair out of his eyes and stared at us, and I saw he was not a sober man. He had tools out but seemed stuck as far as next steps. I got out, assuming Rose would go on and leave us. She must have been watching her rear view, because she backed up.