What good woulda that done?
Johnny!
He knew how it’d end up. I told him often enough. Now get your mother another bottle, hon.
Another bottle, and another, was the way it had been going, and the way it continued from then until Johnny’s sad funeral. Three fuckers had shown up an hour after the last mourners had left, when Jayne was still kneeling beside her only brother’s grave watering the soil with her tears. They’d sauntered past her and stood beside the grave, then pulled pistols and fired three quick shots as some sort of fucked-up salute. Jayne had stood to run after them, beat some sense into their twisted, drug-addled brains, but her legs had folded beneath her as her muscles cramped, driving wedges of pain into her brain. They’d laughed as they ran away, and she’d woken later with paramedics tending her along with the old lady who’d found her and was fussing around nearby.
Next day, she’d remained at home long enough to pack some clothes and steal a thousand dollars from her mother’s back-drawer stash. Then she’d called her school sweetheart Tommy and told him she was leaving LA to live with her cousin in Birmingham, England.
‘It’s been a lovely day,’ she said. ‘Thanks.’
‘Only did it ’cos I want a blow job tonight.’
‘Yeah, right.’ Jayne laughed, and the freeing of tension lessened the pains in her neck. Complete relaxation is the key, one specialist had told her, while another had said Exercise as much as you can, gently and often. Walking in the hills with her love gave her the best of both options.
When Tommy had said he’d come with her, she’d seen a whole new future opening up. They’d got as far as Knoxville, fallen in love with the place, and stayed. On days like today she was living in that future, bright and secure as if she awaited the fate of a normal person, not someone destined to die young. The churu was an insidious beast, kept at bay by a morning massage while it ate away at her from inside.
‘No, I mean it,’ Tommy said, mock serious. ‘I need head. I’ll be sitting on the sofa, and you can have a floor cushion so you’re comfortable.’ He took a small tin from his pocket and extracted a ready-rolled joint. ‘Hands free.’ He tucked the joint in the corner of his mouth, a poor James Dean. ‘Then if you’re lucky, baby, I’ll return the favour.’
‘Nah. American Idol’s on tonight.’
The joint tilted groundward. ‘A man knows where he stands.’
‘Yeah.’ Jayne squeezed his hand, and he squeezed back before letting go to light up. She turned away to look down over the hillside towards the car park and the lowlands beyond. The trees cast complex afternoon shadows and in the distance she could just make out the haze of Knoxville. Closer by were several smaller towns they’d driven through on the way here, set in the landscape like diamonds on felt. She caught a whiff of pot and walked a few steps, trying to blink away the memory of Johnny. Usually she could successfully avoid dwelling on the past, even when Tommy’s smoke took her back home for a few brief, intense seconds. But today Johnny grinned at her and showed her his latest gang tattoo, a mark he’d got for robbing a drugstore the previous week. There was pride in his smile, and disgust in her voice as she chided him, though now she couldn’t even remember the words. Her memories were tainted by the alcohol haze of their mother as she breezed into the room, unaware of either of her children’s lives.
‘Sorry,’ Tommy said. ‘I know you don’t like it.’ He held her arm, having already inhaled most of the joint and stamped it out.