“Not while I had them.”
“Well, this other guy is hurting people with them.”
“Like I did,” Debbie said sourly, half to herself.
“Nobody is perfect, Debbie. I also made mistakes. One needs to learn from them and move on.”
Debbie looked at me with surprise. “I always liked you, Jim. I never intended you to be a victim of the tickets. I didn’t intend for Camille to be, either. I was young when I found them—that’s my only excuse. I got rid of them because I wanted to make sure that Vinnie couldn’t use them, either by stealing them or forcing me to use them in despicable ways.”
“When did you first come upon the tickets?”
Debbie rolled her eyes and sighed. “A man gave me one when I was nine.”
“What did he have you do?” I asked.
“What do you think a middle aged man would ask of a nine year old?” Debbie asked. “He got my cunt and my ass that day. He stuck it in my mouth and I puked.”
This was more information than I really needed.
“He only did that to me once. I guess he was only interested in child virgins. The guy didn’t live far from where I lived. He was hit by a car or something when I was fourteen. I found the tickets soon after he died.”
That’s how Debbie figured that Camille would have gotten them next.
“Can I hand you a ticket to see if they work on you still?”
Debbie looked me straight in the eye. “Not if you want to retain your tiny prick.”
I noticed that females that knew about the tickets harbored castration ideas when somebody suggested them receiving a ticket.
I didn’t press my luck. “Thank you for talking with me, Debbie. You’ve given me some information. May I tell Cammy your story?”
Debbie shrugged. “Yeah. Tell her that her big prick of a sister is now a stripper and a whore. She’ll love that.” Debbie’s sarcasm hung heavily in the air.
Maybe that wouldn’t be a good idea.
I pulled on my jacket, and as I left I turned and said, “It was nice talking with you, even if I didn’t find the information I needed to know.”
Debbie shook my hand.
After the handshake, our hands separated and one of my tickets dropped down. I quickly bent down and picked it up.
“I needed to know if it would work on you,” I said.
Debbie looked as if she was about to kick me in the family jewels. I quickly left the apartment, hearing Debbie cursing me as I left.
It was a lonely flight home. I decided that flying without Kristen, even in first class, just plain sucked.
I arrived at the airport at six in the evening. Camille and Kristen were there to greet me.
The first thing I noticed was that a tension I once saw between Kristen and Camille was no longer present. In its place was a closeness. I smiled.
“Debbie called my mom,” was the first thing that Camille said when she saw me.
“Oh?” I said.
“She left a message for you. She says, ‘Thanks.’”
I smiled. I think the fact that the ticket I palmed when I shook Debbie’s hand didn’t work on her might have cut through her fear of them.
Kristen didn’t bother to speak, she simply pulled me into a hug and a deep kiss that lasted minutes. Boy, I found myself really missing Kristen—even if it were just most of a day—and I tried to put as much into a kiss as Kristen did.
“Can I have some of that?” Camille asked with a smile on her face.
“Of course, Cammy,” Kristen said, and pushed me toward Camille.
Camille’s kiss wasn’t as romantic as the one that I shared with Kristen, but it was quite friendly.
“What did you say to Debbie?” Camille asked. “She really sounded different.”
“I asked her the story about the tickets,” I said. “I didn’t get much information, but she told me what happened after she moved to New York.”
“What was the ‘thanks’ about?”
“Despite the fact that she told me she didn’t want me to try to hand her a ticket, I tricked her and it didn’t work on her. I expected that.”
“Oh,” Camille said, a bit surprised.
“The ‘thanks’ was that she no longer fears the tickets. Maybe she will find that she doesn’t need to drink to forget them, but her life is a hell of a lot less than a dream come true for her. I’ll tell you her story some other time.”
Camille nodded.
“I have a question, Cammy. Do you know anybody named Donna?”
“There are a few people with that name at school,” Camille answered.
“Debbie mentioned her name.”
“Oh, Donna!” Camille said. “That used to be her best friend.”
“Used to be?”
“They got into a fight, and I think Debbie never made up with her. Donna died quite suddenly afterward, and Debbie was a bit of a wreck for about a month.”
I felt a coldness hit the pit of my stomach. “Did this happen before or after Debbie had her tickets?”
“A bit after,” Camille said, nervously looking at Kristen. Camille was still under some sort of restraint against talking about the tickets in front of anybody but me. A moment later, Camille shook her head. “Debbie hid the… them… after Donna died.”
Camille seemed to realize what I was asking and her mouth hung open. “No! Debbie wouldn’t have… I mean, this was before she got mean!”
Kristen’s eyes were wide as she heard this interesting bit of news. I could also see in Camille’s eyes that she made the same realization that I did: Debbie did something to Donna with the tickets, and that’s when she got scared and stopped using them, if only for a few weeks.
The three of us were silent for about five minutes. I just learned that the tickets could have even more terrible repercussions than the feelings of guilt that I had over using them.
“It’s getting late,” Kristen finally remarked.
“Let’s stop somewhere for a quick bite and head home. Even though I’ve been sitting most of the day, I’m still beat.”
“I’m not that hungry,” Camille said.
Neither Kristen nor I answered Camille. I now wondered how I would ever tell her the story about her sister, and how she was not just a stripper and a whore, but quite possibly a murderer. No wonder why Debbie continued to live in the hell hole she dug for herself. I thought I had feelings of guilt.
We left the airport and drove home, mostly in silence.
We were about halfway home when Camille, of all people, broke the silence. “Any ideas about your friend Tim?”
“He’s not my friend,” I pointed out.
“You don’t think he’s mine, do you?” Camille shot back.
I shrugged. “You blew him, not me.”
I immediately regretted my remark. I saw Camille redden and a look of anger shot across her face. After a few moments, however, she nodded. “Yeah, I guess. The next time, he’ll feel what teeth really feel like.” Camille made snapping sounds as the top and lower half of her mouth connected repeatedly.
Instinctively, I shuddered at the idea. I figured that resorting to physical violence would not be a good idea, but Camille did have an effective solution.
“I’m sorry, Cammy,” I said. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
Camille nodded but didn’t answer me.
“To answer your question, I haven’t come up with any ideas regarding Tim. In that respect, my trip was a waste of time.”
Camille nodded again.
We continued in silence, and about five minutes out of town, Camille said, “I’m sorry I got angry, Jim. I didn’t mean to imply that Tim was your friend.”
“Friends?” I asked, hopefully.