Kobe (3 page)

              "Just break my heart," I said.

              I picked Emmaline up and threw her into the bathtub. The hot water pelted her angelic skin and soaked into her strawberry blonde hair. She choked and swallowed bubbles until her lungs filled up with water.

              Then it stopped.

              I sat with my back pressed against the cement wall, and it happened. I was able to cry again.

              Like the first time.

              Her eyes looked like glass this morning. Lifeless. Broken. Katie was Emmaline, was everyone else I've murdered. The game is over. Our anniversary will come again, and briefly, I'll be able to bring back the happiness that was stolen from me.

          
 
Chapter IV

What Reagan was Talkin' 'Bout

              Empty cigarette packs blow in the wind like tumbleweeds as the sun rises over the Manor Carryout parking lot. Skaggs paces near the side of the convenience store, careful not to step in front of the window. Loitering is a quick way to get the police called in this part of town. He kneels down, picks up a half smoked cigarette butt and lights up.

              A momentary calm.

              Like clockwork, as soon as the flame burns down to the filter, the anxiety returns.

              Skaggs isn't difficult to pick out of a crowd. Abscesses hide beneath puss filled pimples and his skinny arms and legs suggest an infomercial level of malnutrition. The look of his dark black hair is wet, greasy, like it was dipped in trash can water and left out in the sun to dry.

              He's the Bayside beauty queen.

* * * * *

              Jaybird pushes the convenience store door open and walks outside. His large aviator sunglasses shield him from the morning sun. Another white man raised and molded in an urban lower class community.

              His knuckles are the size of walnuts from the heads he's had to crack open growing up in Bayside Commons. A checkered past he's proud to have at his heels.

              Jay notices the stench from Skaggs before he sees him.  "Goddamnit," he mutters under his breath.

              "What up, Jay?" Skaggs yells, his unique aroma stems from poor dental hygiene, among other factors. The junkie smiles with cracked teeth, exposing rotting enamel around his puffy red gum line. A root canal isn't on an addict's priority list, but it could do Skaggs some good with the ladies.

              Jaybird looks towards Skaggs but not at him. He hates this piece of shit. Junkies are the reason he got out of the cocaine game in the first place. He just wants some peace. Potheads don't hassle him at sunrise.

              "I ain't gonna serve you," Jaybird opens up a pack of Krisp menthol cigarettes. They have a recessed filter, to offer a nice bump of dope in a jiffy. A trick from his younger days when he used to dabble in his own wears. He lights up and walks past Skaggs to a black Escalade.

              "What the fuck ya mean you won't serve me?" Skaggs yells, "I just want some blow," the addict runs up to the SUV. "You got the best in town, homie." His lips are cracked in the center from dehydration. Blood and scabbed skin are like junkie lipstick in Bayside. His eyes are mere reminders that a soul used to reside inside, but the dope chased it away.

              Jaybird thinks about splitting his head open, swelling up those vacant eyes. What kind of idiot yells about coke in the middle of a parking lot?

              "You and Leroy been actin' a fool lately," Jaybird says, "breaking into houses, stealing purses, anything you can do to buy dope. We got a social stigma attached to this part of town. I'm tired of you morons feeding fuel to the flame."

              Jaybird opens his car door and scoots in. As soon as the key twists the ignition, the bass thumps so hard pebbles pop up from the parking lot.

              "Jay, you's a fuckin' dope dealer, man!" Skaggs spits the words out along with little pieces of phlegm.

              "First of all," Jaybird says, "I'm not a drug dealer, at least not some clown on the corner holding weight. If I was, I wouldn't even sell you a blunt.

              "Go ask that fool Billy, he'll serve anyone. You need to get some scruples. You rob someone I care about, I'll stick my foot so far up your ass my toes'll tickle your tonsils."

* * * * *

              Curt drains the water from the bathtub. Katie's face is still beautiful even though it's a bit blue. Her veins are like a roadmap under pasty flesh.

              Her expelled bodily fluids wash into the sewer as Curt scrubs her clean, careful not to tear her fragile flesh. He dries his dead lover with a towel and begins to brush her tangled, yellowish-red hair.

* * * * *

              Skaggs, lost and shaky, shuffles behind the Manor carryout. His skinny frame squeezes through a hole in a chain link fence. On the other side is Bayside Apartments. The ghetto of Kobe. It isn't a third world country or the projects in Detroit, but it's the worst area in this small town.

              Skaggs trudges through the tall grass until he reaches familiar territory, Apartment building F. Where he lives, but more importantly, where he can score dope.

              The burgundy carpet squishes underneath Skaggs' worn out running shoes. The stink of stale beer and vomit overpower the average red-blooded American. Not Skaggs. He's seen and smelled it all.

              He stops in front of apartment 1408. Although a bit apprehensive, he knocks.

              No answer.

              He pounds louder until he hears the sound of shuffling feet, then cranes his neck and leans his ear against the door.

              "Who the fuck?" a gruff voice calls out.

              "What up, Billy? It's Skaggs."

              "Goddamnit! It's seven o'clock in the fuckin' mornin'!"

              "You're already up now." Skaggs smirks in the hallway.

              Billy, a mass of high school muscle underneath a thin layer of flab, opens the door. "Da fuck?" Billy asks in between yawns.

              "I need some shit, man," Skaggs says.

              "Whatcha need?" Billy's throat scratches the words out.

              "Some of that Bobby Brown, brotha."

              "You're way too white, and it's way too early for you to talk like that." Billy staggers to his couch. He picks up a blanket and covers his half naked body.

              Skaggs follows him in and shuts the door. Beer bottles, bongs, and empty pizza boxes litter the dealer's apartment.

              "So can you do anything for me?" Skaggs puts his hands in his pockets and rocks back and forth on his heels.

              "I only have a little bit of heroin, and that's my personal stash. I got some Xanax, a couple Adderall," Billy pulls out a cigar box looking through his leftovers from a busy Saturday night. "I got some loud, I always got that."

              "I need heroin, and maybe some coke if you got it." Skaggs says.

              "You and Leroy always speedballin'. Shit's gonna blow up your heart one day. Why don't you just smoke? I'll give you a blunt of Kush for like ten. I got the best weed in the building."

              "No coke?"

              "Motherfucker. It's Sunday morning," Billy puts the cigar box on his coffee table, "The goddamn day ain't even started yet. I sold out of party drugs by like, three am. No molly, no acid, no shrooms, no coke." Billy takes a cigarette out of a pack and lights it up. 

              "Mind if I get a shot?" Skaggs pleads.

              "I just told you, I only got personal. I never want to be in that bind where I'm starting to quiver like some... junkie." He ashes his cigarette and lies back into his couch. A layer of fat squeezes over his six-pack.

              "Just one shot?" He begs for it like a starving puppy.

* * * * *

              Zed monitors the gauges on Leroy Brown.

             
'As an upholder of the law, I see more evil go unpunished than I see good prevail'.

              That's what big brother Judd preaches. The government gives people trials. Innocent until proven different. Bullshit. Leroy's a menace with more than just a criminal mindset, he's a sick puppy.

              The type of guy you have to watch around your kids. There isn't much you can do with a lowlife like Leroy, except make him into award winning BBQ.

              Leroy's sweat and blood drip down the drain, along with shit and piss through catheters, both rectal and urinary. It makes it easier for clean up.

              Zed adjusts the feeding tube lodged down Leroy's narrow throat.

              The shack is only a quarter mile from the Pitt. The restaurant was built on the interstate for obvious reasons, and the smoke shack was the original house on the property. Zed built a much larger home when the restaurant took off.

              Over the years, to help transport the protein, Zed built a tunnel from the shack to the Pitt. Zed loads up a cart with eight foil pans of ribs and makes his way through the tunnel.

* * * * *

              Billy shifts his jaw to the side, he wants to knock a couple of those rotten teeth out of Skaggs' melon for waking him up at the crack of dawn. However, the businessman in him understands that Skaggs gives him hundreds of dollars a week.

              Double taxed.

              No one else in the Bay will serve the ugly freak, so Billy reaps the rewards. He leans back on the couch and examines the situation. He knows this fool, sure, but you should never trust a junkie. He grabs a desert eagle from behind the couch cushions. Just in case. "Whatever man," Billy puts the gun on his knee in plain sight, "it'll be twenty dollars."

              "For one hit?" Skaggs' eyes stretch open.

              "The economy crashes until at least two pm. I'll let you know as soon as I get supplied, but if you want a hit, I'll sell you one for twenty bucks. Then you get the fuck out and let me sleep. Take it or leave it, but hurry up so I can go back to bed."

              "I'll take it." Skaggs pulls a twenty out of his sock. "You seen Leroy?"

              Billy looks at Skaggs in disgust. "Yo. You better lay that cash on the table, you stank smellin' mutha-fucka!  I ain't takin' no sock money from you, at least not hand to hand, I'll wipe that shit off after it airs out."

              "Fine dude, I'll put it on the table." Skaggs does as he's told. "Anyway, Leroy went out on a run to get some cash, and never came back. I been watching round and I know people thought he was an asshole, but I don't think anyone 'round here woulda clapped him. I think Judd killed him, man."

              Billy doubles over with laughter.

              "Judd killed Leroy? Sure man, cause a junkie would never steal from another junkie, right?"

              "Leroy wasn't like that." Skaggs shakes his head. "It's possible Judd took him out to the city limits and put one in the back of his skull. Cops're crooked, I'm just sayin' it's possible."

              "Yeah it's possible," Billy shrugs, "it's also possible your mom's cunt smells like cool ranch Doritos, but I don't put my nose in other people's bidness." Billy puts a tiny amount of dope into a crack sack and hands it to Skaggs.

              "Mind if I shoot up here?" Skaggs asks.

              "You can't wait ten minutes to get upstairs to your apartment?"

              Skaggs looks down at the floor.

              "Whatever man, at least take yer nasty ass to the bathroom."

* * * * *

              Once he's in the bathroom with the door locked, Skaggs reaches inside the bottom pocket of his cargo shorts. He retrieves a small case with a zipper on the side. Inside the case are his essential tools for survival, his narcotic cooking equipment. He sets up the works on the bathroom sink and ties off. The sweet smell of melting heroin soothes his weary mind, but not as much as the warmth crawling through his body after he mainlines.

              Once the ritual is complete, Skaggs staggers through the hallway back to his dealer's living room.

              "You gonna be good for the rest of the day?" Billy asks.

              "I'll stop by at like three, but I ain't too sure if I'll be able to hold out for that long," Skaggs answers with a frog in his throat.

              The sour truth swells inside of him. He knows he isn't much. Not even worth the twenty bucks he stole from his mom's purse.

              The smack swims through his veins and attaches itself to his heart, his mind, his inner child. It takes more and more of the dope to make him whole. Hell, he wasn't whole to start with, but the heroin never made fun of him. It never beat him up in school. Never laughed at him for having bad skin or greasy hair.