Be Not Far from Me(27)

Not that Duke would act like that, but he would take another girl into the woods, which is a whole different kind of problem, and maybe if I had a mom I could go home and talk to about it I would’ve done exactly that instead of punching him in the face and running into the woods, drunk, ending up with half a foot and high on oxy in an old meth lab wearing a dead boy’s hat and wrapped in a moldy blanket.

And the worst part is, I consider this an improvement.





Day Six




The dead bit of my foot is rotting by the door. It’s getting warmer, and the camper works like an oven, my foot a bad piece of meat, cooking slow in the heat.

I wake to the smell, sunlight slanted at an angle that tells me it’s late afternoon, and my tongue so dry it’s swollen. The flask sits on the floor where I left it, miraculously intact after my kicking fit. I sit up slowly, deciding if I’m drunk, high, or coming down from both. It must be the last because even though I’m woozy my foot hurts like shit set on fire. I unwrap the bandage to have a look.

I’m swelled still, but the red lines of infection might be retreating. I tilt my foot in the sunlight, trying to gauge if that’s true or if I’ve suddenly decided to be an optimist. But I think I’m right, and somehow the swelling looks less angry, which I know is hardly a medical term but is somehow completely accurate.

I slide to the edge of the mattress, good foot first, and put my heel down in my own blood, now tacky and drying. The floor is covered, and it sticks to me like syrup as I get down on my butt, scooting over to the flask and the one granola bar I’ve got left. I crawl past the piece of flint, still stuck into the linoleum like a tombstone for my foot.

My foot thumps like my heart decided to vacate my chest and move down there, so I lean against the wall, propping it onto the counter and wiping my hands as clean as possible on my jeans. I swig back what’s left of the water even though it’s flat and stale, and try to figure out how long I can afford to stay here.

I don’t know whose setup this is, but I do know that nobody stays away from this many pills for long. Judging by how my uncle Chuck was dealt with for making junk meth on the side, I don’t think the owner of this camper will take kindly to me knowing where their stash is kept, or kicking in their door, for that matter.

I’m a girl alone where she doesn’t belong, and one who will be presumed dead in a week or so. If someone were to finish off that process a little more quickly than nature intends and dump my body elsewhere, nobody would think anything of it—and that’s if I ever got found in the first place.

The pill bottles are still strewn across the floor and I reach for one, feeling a little tug of resistance as my dried blood tries to keep it. The label’s been torn off to hide who it was stolen from, but the date it was filled is still up in the corner. I count backward and figure out that it was filled maybe ten days ago, which means somewhere between then and now it got up to a ridge in the woods and somebody is going to be coming back sooner or later to fill all these little sandwich Baggies with something that doesn’t belong between two slices of bread.

I rest my head against the wall, rolling the bottle back and forth across my palm and shifting my foot on the counter. There’s a chance that the person who comes up here to count pills is decent, like my uncle. Just someone who needed to make a buck and cashed in on the only industry we’ve got left. They might give me the shirt off their back—literally—to cover my nakedness, draw me fresh water and other biblical stuff and then take me to the ER, which isn’t so Jesusy but would be a lot more helpful.

They might.

Or they might drag me out of here screaming, beat what’s left of me into a pulp so that only my dental records can identify me, or not worry about anybody ever finding me and end it quick with a bullet to the head. I run my tongue over my teeth at the thought, dislodging the last crumbs of granola. I don’t know how long I’ve been here, but I do know I’ll leave on my own accord and not one drop of my blood spilled that I didn’t shed myself.

I also can’t live on meth and whiskey, the only things they seem to store out here. Wherever I am is a far piece from anything else, and food won’t find me. I’ve got to go to it. Might as well be headed toward something while looking for food, rather than waiting for a drug dealer to show up and hoping he won’t kill me and brought more granola.

“One more day,” I say into the hot, close air of the camper. “You get one more day.”

I find my dead bit of foot and put it in a sandwich bag.

There’s a weird comfort in having all of me back in one place as I crawl onto the mattress. I’ve got an oxy in one hand and the bag in the other; I dry-swallow the first and hold the second close to my chest.

There’s a small TV in the corner, sitting precariously on a shelf that wasn’t built to hold that kind of weight. It’s the only kind of TV I’ve ever had, the heavy ones with so much ass on them you’ve got to wrap your arms around them to pick them up. No flat-screens in my family, no sir.

The screen can’t show anything but a reflection now, the slats of the blinds and the moonlight coming in. Makes me think about being out with Meredith and Kavita one night, driving around looking for a field party. Jason and Duke were supposed to meet us at the gas station, but Uncle Chuck said they’d already come and gone and neither one of them was answering their phones, so we headed out to the back roads to find them ourselves.