The shelves are already picked over. You roll up your sleeves, exposing the crucifix on your arm, and get to work, thinking about how things could be worse.
When you met Raquel in the parking lot of the blood bank on Christmas Eve, both of you were sagging toward rock bottom. You were snowed in for five days, and you spent the Come to Jesus Storm fucking and shooting up, then the next six months becoming a full-blown heroin addict. Until you found a fentanyl connection. Far more economical and a lightning high. Raquel made for nice company. She didn’t talk much, but she liked cooking and could whip up a decent meal. You hadn’t been with anyone in a while, and it was nice. Then you got the bright idea to break into a shoe store downtown. Coming out, the Coshocton PD had been waiting for you. You’d heard tell of a way to avoid withdrawal in jail, and you tried cutting a gash in your thigh and rubbing in the last of your score. All it did was leave you bloody and in withdrawal—aching, cramping, shitting, barfing in a cell—anyway.
You served your sentence where the loneliness got bad. Why bother with anything. Do your time, get free, get the purest product you could on the street, and go OD somewhere. Out in eleven months for good behavior, and you figured you’d never see Raquel again. To your surprise, she was waiting when you got out. She’d somehow come by a car but didn’t say how. The two of you drove straight home to score, and you OD’d. Not such a big deal, though, first responders carried Narcan everywhere now. It only felt like a strange blackout. Then you and Raquel were back in a motel, eating off a hot plate, getting fucked up every day on the dope you’d buy from Tawrny.
Love was a funny thing. You never thought you believed in it or that you’d find it or rather that it would find you. But Raquel treated you like you had some kind of value. When she came back from the clinic and told you she was pregnant, you thought of fleeing. At least it crossed your mind. The problem being there was nowhere to go. Your only people were in Dayton, and mostly they wanted nothing to do with you. You had no money. No way to get any. You’d be living under bridges if you tried to run.
“I’ll get rid of it if you want. I done it before,” Raquel said. You put your eyes in your hands. Of course, you thought of Claire Ann. She’d given up trying to get money out of you. You also knew who Raquel’s other gotten-rid-of-babies probably belonged to. Raquel had been living with an older man since she was a girl. She’d finally run away. “But maybe we should keep it,” she went on. “I mean, maybe this is a chance for us to get clean, get turned around, you know?”
“Turned around to what?” you asked bitterly.
She shrugged one shoulder, a limp, defeated movement. “I dunno. We get off junk. We get a place. Get a name for our baby. Maybe get married someday.”
“Sounds so simple.” You immediately regretted your tone. You could see the choke of tears in her eyes. Why did you have to be like this? Why did everything have to be like this? You took her in your arms but suddenly you were crying too.
You got through rehab somehow. You called your mom for the first time in years and told her what was happening. You told her you were going to be a father this time, and you were going to get clean. She wished you luck but clearly didn’t believe it. Raquel found a place in Zanesville that wasn’t like other rehab centers you’d drifted in and out of. Right in the middle of the city’s busted downtown was this brand-new complex with a garden the size of a farm and a park beside it. There were weird kites tethered to the building and way up in the sky, you could see little propellers whirring, some kind of portable wind turbines you’re told, along with solar panels that look like sunflowers sprouting from the ground. A mural of blue fire as you walked inside and a separate in-take office for the addicts. (It said above the door, bizarrely: WE’RE HERE TO HELP. DON’T WORRY, YOU DON’T HAVE TO BELIEVE IN CLIMATE CHANGE.) They started you and Raquel on a prescription and meetings. Later, they helped her out with job placement. Tougher for you because you’re a felon. It hurt to get sober, but you do it. Or at least you mostly do it. You haven’t touched an opiate for over two years.
Casey appears around the corner of Kroger’s breakfast aisle.
“Thought you was off today,” you tell him. Casey keeps getting fatter while also buying pants even bigger, and he never remembers a belt. He walks toward you hoisting them up every other step.
“I was. Julian called me in. Yo, you hear about Levi’s girl, Missy?” Levi Basset was a guy you two were friendly with. You, Casey, Levi, and Dick Underwood sometimes bowled or got beers when you had a night to spare. Now that you’d had all this time off junk, you were starting to remember what it’s like to have friends.
“Yeah man, she’s in the hospital. Her trailer got tipped last night in the storm.”
“No shit?”
“Broke both legs and her collarbone. Trailer’s totally trashed too, I guess.”
“That sucks a fat one.”
“You guys come through okay?”
“Yeah, didn’t touch us. Course Toby went fucking ballistic. He can’t sleep through that shit, so I can’t sleep through that shit. Saw this lightning come down—holy fuck. Now power’s out, of course.”
“Whole town’s out. They’re saying it’ll be back tonight.” He lifts his Kroger ballcap and scratches what gruel remains of his hair. “We didn’t even get the worst, all the tornadoes missed us. Near two hundred people dead or missing to the south, not to mention Indiana and West Virginia.”
“We still bowling tomorrow?”
“If it’s open.”
“Guys.” Julian appeared in the aisle. You hate this face of his, this exaggerated exasperation. He points to his watch. “My time. Not your time. We’re swamped here.” He says this so a dozen shoppers piling the last of the Lucky Charms into their carts can hear. Trying to embarrass you. To prove he’s the alpha in his stupid fucking grocery kingdom.
“Yep,” said Casey. “Just had a question for Keep.” Then to you, “I’ll see ya.”
You go back to unloading cereal boxes for $9.74 an hour.
When the rehab folks got Raquel her job at the McDonald’s, you still had only the one connection and asked Casey to set you up at Kroger. He was wary of getting burned after you worked your ass off to get that power plant job only to fuck it up. Raquel got enrolled in Medicaid and food stamps. You couldn’t get either because of your record and had to pretend you didn’t live with your family when the government came around. This also proved a problem in finding work. Your eyes went numb filling out applications, and no one ever called. You just marched to the blood bank twice a week to get your $35. You went back to Tawrny, explaining that you’d gotten clean, but all he said was, “Still can’t have you around product, kid. Glad to hear you’re doing well, though.”
You kept on Casey, and finally it paid off. Kroger fired a whole slew of people because they’d been talking with an organizer from the UFCW. The unions were suddenly flexing everywhere, encouraging wildcat strikes and other disruptions. The bosses were fighting back with companies that rooted around in your social media or whatever. Even talking union could get you blacklisted from every job in town. Good news was, suddenly, Kroger needed a lot of new workers. Casey got you an interview, and Julian barely glanced at the explanation of your incarceration. “I’ll start you part-time, fifteen hours a week, and if you’re on time and a hard worker, I’ll up your hours. Sound fair?”
You couldn’t believe how happy you were about this. You shook Julian’s hand and thanked him profusely. Raquel helped you celebrate that night by baking a lemon meringue pie.
You work from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. The store’s a madhouse. The ongoing argument between Coshocton and the summer storms has given the whole town the feeling of a battered wife. It feels like every last resident is there, elbowing each other for bologna and beans. You have to settle a dispute between two women who think they were first to the last container of hummus. You go home and find Raquel feeding Toby. Thankfully, the power is back. The previous outage lasted two days.