A Dark Road (4 page)

Chapter 6

McKay

Normally, I wouldn’t have to bother with making another batch so soon. Yet I told Louie that I’d have something extra for him the next time we met up. Louie is what you would call a freelancing and wholesale disruptor. And believe it or not, he’s a somewhat safe bet to work with--not that there are
safe
bets in illegal pharmaceutical--but he’s as
safe
as they get. I
only
sell ecstasy to him wholesale because I know where his meth lab is and the street corners his brother and cousin sell on.

The
only
reason Louie
allows
me to have my lab is because Frank doesn’t try to sell in his territory. Louie doesn’t have the resources to make ecstasy himself (i.e. his brother and cousin are idiots) so if he ever tried to get the pinch on me, I’d rat his ass out so fast his entire
familia
will be celebrating all their Cinco de Mayos in county for the next 10 to 15.

H
e still has the standard holders, lookouts, and muscle that any upper-level dealer would have though, so I need to be cautious. I can’t let Louie know that I barter to The Stooges, Frank that I deal with Louie, or the sheep and normals about any of it. It isn’t that hard to multitask when it comes to keeping the truth to yourself. I’ve found that the more you listen and the less you talk, everything generally gets easier.

Every once in a while
though, Louie will start talking to me like we’re a couple of co-workers around the water cooler instead of two dudes committing a series of felonies. My theory here is that he’s trying to entrap me, (probably wearing a recorder and trying to get me to admit something that he can later use against me to get a deal). Either that or maybe he thinks he can blow off steam with me because we’re in the same line of work. He’ll start telling me about one of his holders who disappeared for a couple of days and how he had to do things to various baby mamas…I always back out of the conversation as soon as possible without trying to seem disrespectful, but I never know if I’m doing it right. I mean, it’s bad to know subconsciously that I’m inadvertently responsible for deaths, stealing, prostitution, whatever. But don’t stick me with details too. It’s only one more inclusion I’m looking to be excluded from.

I
deally, I’ll get this to Louis by Halloween, and then that way we won’t have to meet again until after Thanksgiving. Even drug dealers and their chemists don’t like working around the holidays.

***

I give Dog dinner and tie him out back before I get started. Dog must love being the pet of a chemist. With the nasty vapors in the air, I make sure to only give him canned food, and since I’m paying extra for that, I figure I might as well go all out and get him the real good stuff that has its own special refrigerator section in the pet aisle.

Even with all the windows open, the house isn’t a real safe place to be. I kee
p Dog outside when I cook and then we sleep outside for a day or two while the fans air everything out, but I mostly do that for Dog’s sake and the smell. It’s one of my precautionary measures. I’ve got chemical hazard gloves and overalls that I stole from the waste management crew when they were working on the sewer lines and I never work if I’m real tired. I guess the only thing I ever really splurged on was a gas mask. I got it from a war retiree at a flea market last year. Its vintage, but that just means its better.

When cooking
, it’s important not to expose yourself to phosphate gas, which will kill you pretty quick if you give it the chance.

It’s
strange that the tweakers, sheep, and normals alike usually don’t know
why
meth labs are so dangerous; that they can all be so close to something and not understand
how
it works. But it’s the white phosphorus
with
the sodium hydroxide that makes the site deadly. And from living with Dog, believe me; I know the difference between my toxic and nontoxic gases.

Most of them also don’t know that when a cook isn’t
careful, white phosphorus can auto-ignite and blow up the lab, you, your Dog, and everything around you. And the reason you hear about so many labs blowing up is because most tweakers are using their own product while they’re cooking. With shaky minds and hands, they tend not to pay much attention to the batch right beneath their noses. Too busy itching and twitching…

See, it isn’t hard to ma
ke crank
if
you know what you’re doing. Making meth sober is easy, but making meth high is deadly.

There isn’t much of a difference between the normals and the sheep.

I distinguished the differences between them a long time ago
, somewhere between elementary school and junior high. Originally they were both the same, but you start to see the subtle differences between people that put them in distinct groups. Sheep are unique in the sense that their brains are literally like sheep. They don’t seem to have any concept of the long-term, or self-awareness. Sheep do what they’re told, when they’re told. They all follow each other around, wearing the same things, doing and saying the same things. A lot of the normals do this too, but sheep take this to the extreme. The only congruent thought a sheep has is how much more they can be like the person sitting next to them. But I guess that makes them less harmful than the alternative.

The normals
, on the other hand, are the quid pro quo kids. Their lives run on schedules and teacher recommendations. But this type of development is called ordinary, a proper way of seeking approval. Again, I don’t really get it. I do have respect for the normals in one regard, though. Each of them has a plan for their lives that tends to be dictated by a series of formulas. And I enjoy a good formula. No room for error. From what I understand, the ‘normal’ formulas go something like this: {college + (internship) + dating (+/-) dating = marriage} marriage. From a lot of conversations I’ve heard, the other formula goes like this: true love (∞) ≥ marriage + kid
s⁴
=happiness.

The closest I’ll ever get to the normals (or even the sheep
, for that matter) is in a cook. By sticking to my routine, and providing them with a product they secretly want (but won’t admit), I feel a little more connected. I mean, I know I’m not, but it’s a sort of sensation that I can fly on for a while, like when The Stooges are nice to me for the first couple of hours after I hook them up. I think it’s probably what the ecstasy users feel their first time, or an experienced PCP user: you know you’re not invincible, but that isn’t going to stop you from having unprotected sex with a stranger or jumping off the top of a building.

I daydream about doing both.

This imaginary human connection is
brought to you by the ‘red, white, and blue’ formula, because meth! Hey, it’s cheaper than dental care.
If crank were legal I could picture the red, white, and blue angle being promoted on TV, just like Pepsi. God Bless America: land of the free and home of the tweaked.

All
sarcasm aside, I think the entire process is incredible. There is the red
phosphorus
, and white is
the ephedrine or pseudoephedrine, while blue is usually the
iodine
.
Of course there’s a lot more to it than that, and I know it sound like some lame science jargon, but think about it—when you combine everything the right way and your timing is right, it makes these tiny rocks that go scourging through your system. It can change your metabolism, heart rate, instincts (whatever those are), reflexes, and thought processes within twenty minutes or so. Basically, if you use them the right way, they can change your entire life.

Sometimes when I’m cooking I pretend I’m not really cooking at all. Instead I make believe that I’m working on a cure for cancer or a vaccine for HIV or some shit like that. It’s stupid I know, but it makes the time go by faster and helps me stay focused. It’s like when I was a kid and Mom and I used to play dress up, only now my imagination is better and instead of doing something good, I’m creating a product that kills people.

But when I can’t get there (in my head
, I mean) and when I feel the most shitty about myself, I dig out the shoebox from my closet and run my fingers over the ribbons from science fairs. No sports trophies here. I try to remember Mom’s face when I won the little buttons and came skipping through the door with laminated certificates. And I tell myself that she didn’t leave because of me, that she still loves me, maybe even thinks about me.

And t
hen I put the box away and get back to reality.

Chapter 7

Hadley

With
the rotating schedule, the next day was both better and worse. It was better because at least I saw Simon during government and had gym. But it was much worse because it was like the first day all over again. I was forced to try and relearn the hallways and room numbers just like the day before. Again I found myself reaching for the pink schedule every other hour, trying to calculate which day I was supposed to have this class or that one, and if I was in the right place at the right time.

At least I managed to find the gym without any problems. Like Simon
, I was pretty excited with the idea of co-ed gym. With only females to compete with, there hadn’t been much competition at all back home. I wasn’t sure what the sporting rules here were, but I was still eager to play, but even more eager to win.

After changing and taking attendance, the coach lined everyone into teams for volleyball. It wasn’t my best sport, but I was
always decent at it once I got the hang of it. With the move and subsequent chaos of moving I hadn’t worked out in almost a week and I was desperate for some physical exercise. As the coach assigned positions, I was borderline excited until I saw who he assigned to be middle base next to me. It was one of the boys from lunch yesterday. Because he was shorter for a guy, the boy with the out-of-control-acne was in the front on my team.

I bore
d my eyes into the back of his head and saw that he was even more jumpy and ugly up close. His pus-filled zits were yellow on the back of his neck and threatened to boil over at any given moment. I retched at the sight, but my disgust didn’t stop the frustration itching at my fingertips. I remembered the way he and his friends had snickered at us, and the perv move they made, and I only wanted to stomp his nasty face in with my sneakers.

The whistle distracted me and
the volleyball went soaring into the air. The girl next to me hit it just before it landed on the ground, giving me a dirty look as if to say ‘pay attention.’ I braced myself and focused. I wouldn’t let that happen again.

The ball only came to me a few times
, but I (maybe a little too over aggressively) dove for it when it wasn’t in my territory. The gym coach had us rotate rows so each of us could have an opportunity to serve and my pulse began to race. I had missed the thrill of competition more than I first realized. But realizing this only made me angrier. The thrill of any sport was a great sensation, and like my home and friends, it had been ripped right out from beneath me.

A girl with red-rimmed glasses handed me the ball when my turn came to serve. I stepped back to the line of faded duct-tape that had been used as a marker for the server and surveyed the gym. The class had a total of twenty-three kids and the coach. The basketball nets were up, giving me ample room to serve the ball as high as I wanted to. I saw a relatively open spot on the opposing team and thought about it, but aimed for another semi-weak spot where two girls were staring off into space.
And then I saw it again, the back of the neck of that pervy boy from yesterday. I’m not sure what it was about that ugliness that inspired me, but it did.

The more I thought about it, the more I wanted to do it. Sure, he was on my team, and yes,
I would lose my serve, lose potential points for my team, and make myself look like a jerk.

Still, I knew the
instant I thought of it that it would be worth it.

I lifted the ball above my head in perfect serving position, only instead of aiming above an
d beyond the net; I struck it straight for the back of the short boy’s head. Thanks to the gym’s acoustics, the
thump
the contact made actually echoed.

“Damnit!
”

“Serve much?”
someone called.

A few people
laughed, though it was hard to tell whether or not they were laughing at me or the other kid. I didn’t have time to think about it though, before a voice called down from the bleachers.

“Come on
, Fuller, it’s not like another bump will hurt your pretty face.”

Everyone looked up at McKay and laughed. If they were laughing at me
, they now directed their humor at Fuller’s pain as he grumbled and rubbed the back of his neck.

I was so
hypnotized by McKay that I barely heard the coach blowing his whistle. “That’s enough out of you, McKay! It’s bad enough you didn’t dress-out again, I don’t need you interrupting my class.”

McKay was wearing jeans with torn knees and a black t-shirt.
Like yesterday, his hair was a mess and falling into his eyes. He looked down on all of us from the highest bleacher, smiling, just enough to reveal a dimple in his cheek.

It could have been my imagination, but I thought he was smiling at me.