The Vanishing Year(10)

Sometimes, it was too tempting to take more than I was supposed to for myself. I started charging them double, literally eating the profits. What did they care? A twenty was as easy to hand over as a ten, and then at least they didn’t have to worry about change.

I called Mick, needing almost double the supply, running a game with myself. Meanwhile, I was getting higher and higher every day. Two pills a day. Four. Then two at night. All the while spending my nights at the bar, my nose buried in a tumbler of vodka. I didn’t even bother with the lemon anymore.

“What am I gonna do with my life, Mick?” I was whining.

“Bury your mom. Live in her apartment. Get a job.” He shrugged, a toothpick between his teeth. “It’s what people do, Hilary.”

I didn’t need life lessons from Mick. He was a bigger mess than me. I threw what little money I had on the bar and stood up and wobbled. Mick stuck his arm out and caught me. He led me out the door and we walked the four blocks to Evelyn’s apartment.

In the morning, I crept out and vomited in the street. Maybe it was the booze, maybe it was the pills. Mostly it was just me and my self-loathing. In oblivion, the pain in my stomach went away. I could eat, albeit small amounts. If I stayed high enough, I no longer felt high. I felt normal. Functioning. I could conduct small talk with the sales clerks and passengers on the bus, cabdrivers and people in elevators. The pills became a necessity. They kept me feeling normal. They calmed my racing heart and the all-encompassing anxiety.

My money stack was growing, but it still wasn’t enough to ward off the eventual eviction notice. I thought about throwing a few hundred dollars to the landlord, a fat, greasy bald man I’d seen lumbering around the hallways knocking on other deadbeat’s doors. I thought about taping an envelope to the door in good faith. I worried it would get stolen. Sometimes details hang you up, propel you to inaction. More purgatory.

I started partying at night with Mick. We ended up at some guy’s apartment, whose name I never knew, and they passed me a pipe and I smoked it. It was the easiest four hours of my life. I felt free, like it was all going to be okay. I felt beautiful. I felt accomplished, like I could just go back and finish college, maybe even that night. Everything felt so goddamn possible, where all I had gotten used to seeing was depressing impossibilities.

I woke up on the floor of Mick’s room the next morning, sticky and sour and sweating. He was gone, but in his place, in his bed, sat a young girl. Had to be sixteen. Fifteen. Too young. My bowels churned. Whether it was from the comedown or the girl, I didn’t know.

“Who the fuck are you?” I was pissed. She was so goddamn young. She shrugged, but she looked terrified, pressed her back up against the headboard, staring at me with bulging black-rimmed eyes.

I went to the living room and called Mick, left a colorful message. When I turned around, there she stood, all gamine and doe-eyed.

“How old are you?”

“Eighteen.” Her mouth twitched.

“Bullshit,” I hissed. She barely had breasts. I was struck with a stupid, irrational idea. “Come with me. Let’s . . . go somewhere. Coffee. Whatever.”

She looked at me like I’d lost my mind. Too jaded for her age. “You’re a crazy bitch if you think I’mma go with you.” But her shoulders rounded.

I could feel it: It wouldn’t take much to convince her. How could I save someone when I couldn’t even save myself? Please, I mouthed. She stepped away from me, her eyes wildly scanning the room.

“I need help,” I said. It wasn’t a lie. “What’s your name?”

“How the fuck am I gonna help you? You’ll get me killed.”

“Let me help you, then. How old are you?”

“Fuck you,” she whispered, and then pulled down her lower lip. A black brand on the wet, pink skin. One word: JAREd. Inked by an amateur, the lowercase d crooked and dangling off the corner like it could fall right out of her mouth.

There was a knock at the door and her eyes went wide, terrified. I flung it open to a hulk of a man who reared back, not expecting me. His wide, flat nostrils flared, his eyes slit, thin as razor blades. On the left side of his face, from chin to forehead, was a long, fat scar, as red and furious and flashing as his eyes. He leaned in close, smelled like cigarettes and weed. He had on a light black jacket, the silver glint of a gun on the inside.

“Who are you?”

I backed away from the door. My teeth ached, my jaw felt clenched shut. I pressed my palm flat against the door and reached my arm out to her.

The man grabbed my hand away, twisted it behind my back until I yelped in pain. “Don’t you fucking touch her.”

She scampered past me, shooting back one empty, haunted look. Dark eyes, still and deep as a quarry. She buttoned her shirt as she ran. The man followed her out and once they reached the dusty sedan, pushed her roughly into the backseat, where at least two other girls were waiting.

As the car sped away, I wrote down the license plate, sure it would get me nowhere. It was most likely stolen. I felt like I’d been doused with ice water. I looked around: a month’s worth of newspapers, ashtrays, and cigarette boxes. Clothes everywhere. Garbage on every flat surface, flies buzzing around the mouths of sticky, empty liquor bottles. The filth. It all became crystal clear in that moment. I was part of this. I was as much a lowlife as Mick. Only steps away from being abused, like Evelyn, like that young girl. I saw, for the first time, my own greasy complexion, the whiteheads that dotted my hairline from the drugs, my ragged bitten nails from nerves, the dirt on the knees of my jeans.