In your trailer, you grind, microwave, and snort two of the Oxy. You know you should just take one, but you need two. You do.
You sit on the couch and feel the warmth spread through you, the calm. You close your eyes and listen to the wind and think about how you’re still alive.
You only come around when you hear the buzzing of your phone. You find it in your jacket. There’s a fresh text with an image attached. You press the pad of your thumb to the sensor, and before you see that it’s from Claire Ann, the picture loads.
A young girl in pink shorts and a white tank top bares her teeth at you. She has blond hair going brown and a smatter of freckles on her nose and cheeks. She’s clutching her hands together and smiling with eyes squeezed shut, like someone just tickled her or asked her to goof for the camera. She wears a pointy party hat, poised over a cake with a candle in the shape of a 10. There are no actual words in this message.
You stand there for a moment staring at the small image. Then you click the phone to black. Outside the wind has died down momentarily, blanketing the trailer in silence. The best of the Oxy has worn off.
You punch the phone back on. You scroll through the Cs until you reach Claire Ann. You dial.
The line rings and rings. She sent the picture two hours ago, according to the time stamp. She doesn’t answer. Finally, her phone goes to voice mail.
“Listen to me, you bitch, don’t you ever fucking pull that bullshit again. You fucking whore. I’m fucking out here working. I’ll get you your money, so shut the fuck up and stop fucking harassing me!” Your voice hits a note of musical rage, and your hands shake when you scream, and fuck does it feel good to scream.
“Don’t you fucking send me that shit, you cunt! If you pull that fucking bullshit again, I’ll drive back there and fucking beat your face in, whore. I’ll fucking kill you. I’ll kill you and every little dick you’re sucking, slut. So don’t fucking call me! Or write me or text me or any-fucking-thing. You do it again, I’ll fucking cut your head off. I’ll stab you in the gut and fuck the holes.”
That note feels triumphant enough and you jam your thumb at the screen to end the call, but as soon as this is done you picture Claire Ann letting her mother listen or even the police, which reminds you of your six awful months in Muskingum County, and you know you’ve made a mistake, a bad one, and you scream and hurl the phone at the wall where it cracks and the casing snaps apart.
“Fuck!” you scream at the wall. You walk to the kitchenette. You walk back. “Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck!”
Your heart hammers. You’re sweating. Everything is too stark, too bright, as if you see in this moment the dismal hole of your home for the first time. The sad walls and empty cupboards and scattered fast-food bags and the smell of old pot and cigarettes. You understand where you are for the first time in your life. You’re the drop of water in the feedwater pump. You’re the one getting pawned, and whoever’s doing the bartering, they’re laughing because the joke is on you. You alone in your valley of bones.
You grab the baggie with the three pills from the drawer and begin grinding them onto a paper towel with the Dremel. You lose some of the powder over the side and curse loudly. You try to scoop it up with a wet finger, but it’s lost. You microwave the remainder, cut it into three lines on the kitchen counter with the debit card, and snort the first.
You pace around the trailer for fifteen minutes, but you don’t feel better. Then you snort the other two.
That works. You lie on the couch and feel okay for a while. You listen to the wind rattle your trailer.
When you open your eyes, the high has already begun to wear away. Tawrny’s warning about ODing rattles, makes its presence known, but you’d do anything for another pill. Those were supposed to last you at least through the week. You go to the cabinet above the sink. There’s a thin amber gruel left at the bottom of a handle of Wild Turkey. You chug this down, but it only serves to whet your thirst. Fuck the wind, fuck the snow, fuck the cold, you need to get drunk. That has promise.
But you’re out of money. Not even a buck or two for a bottle of King Cobra.
You pull your jacket on, thinking. You can’t call Casey because you just destroyed your phone. Steal whatever you can carry from a gas station and run? But you could get busted, which would be a disaster in terms of criminal record issues—not to mention your options would be limited to beer.
According to the clock on the microwave, it’s only 5:43, which means the blood bank is still open for another hour and seventeen minutes. You’re allowed to donate today.
Zipping up, you step into your boots and set off into the storm. Of course, your truck won’t start, as the fumes of the stolen gas fail to get it going.
The blood bank is usually about a ten-minute walk but it takes you thirty. The storm is something else. As soon as you’re outside, the wind hits you with a chill that’s goddamn near unbelievable. You pull on a toboggan cap but the wind cuts right through it.
You trudge through the dark, one foot in front of the other, sticking to the side of the road where you can see the headlights coming. The snow is already thick under foot. Each step sends you sliding backward, and it takes energy to make up the ground. You try to tuck your hands into your pockets and clutch your body. Past the Dairy Queen and the lumber supply. The stoplights sway wildly in the wind, bouncing frantically on their wires, the green glow falling across empty bone-white roads.
When you finally reach the strip mall lot where the blood bank does business, your entire body trembles uncontrollably. Your toes are chips of ice. Your ears have gone hot with pain even beneath the cap, and you lick the ice forming on the tips of the hairs that ring your mouth. The wind screams across the frozen desert. The parking lot lights barely cut through the whiteout. Jesus. It’s like a hurricane. A freezing fucking hurricane. Nearing the blood bank, you begin to understand that the lights aren’t on behind the glass. The offices are dark. You know you checked the time, you know it should still be open, and for a moment none of this makes any sense.
Then you see the handwritten sign taped to the inside of the glass: Closed for Christmas Eve and Day. Of course. Tonight is Christmas Eve.
The cold encompasses you, but not just physically. The blade of the night wind shears all thought, all memory. The wind senses your despair and almost takes you off your feet.
You try to turn your back, and it seems you could fall into the gust and it would keep you standing upright. Then you’re just turning pointlessly in circles. Looking off into the dark. Again, you have that sensation of seeing everything for the first time. The stores are all closed. The cars are empty and abandoned. It feels like you’re not wearing a jacket anymore. Just the freezing hand of the wind clutching you now, fingers puncturing your body, digging inside of you.
You have no energy to walk back. The cold has knocked the high out of you. You might as well sit down. Pretty soon you’ll get warm again. You’re about to do just this when a dim honk issues from across the lot. One of the cars you thought empty flashes its brights at you. Loping over, you almost stumble and fall. You manage to make it over to the driver’s side. The window hums down an inch.
“It’s closed.” A woman’s voice. “Thought it would be open but it ain’t.”
“Can I come in and get warm?” you shout over the wind. “Just for a minute? I walked here, and this is fucking crazy. I’m freezing.”
There’s a long hesitation. Dimly, you understand this is a big ask for a woman alone in a deserted parking lot with a stranger.
“Please.”
You hustle to the passenger side and, climbing in, you can feel the heater on full blast, pouring forth wonderful hot air. In the cocoon of the car, you rub your hands furiously, rip your boots off, and try to massage warmth back into your toes.