The Dead Women of Juarez (10 page)

Smoking
motivosa
outside was one thing, but Kelly knew to keep this indoors. He closed the windows and put down the blinds and in the still air the smoke was like acid fumes in his eyes. When the heaviness came and all the nerves went out of his body and all he could do was lie on his back in the bedroom and stare at the insides of his eyelids, Kelly realized that it was impossible to remember this kind of high; every time it was all new and just as wonderful.

Going back to the woman in the
norteño
bar wasn’t an option, but there were other places to get what he wanted. He stayed clear of anyone he recognized, any of the faces that surrounded Estéban, because even though he was on the other side now and falling away, he still had some pride.

The phone rang, but he didn’t answer it. No one came to the door, which was just as well because after a while if Kelly didn’t have to leave the house for anything he chose to walk around in a pair of underpants. The same underpants every day, and nothing else. The itching didn’t bother him because it was gone the moment he tapped a vein.

The
farmacias
gave him what he needed for his works and
Mexican strangers provided the rest. Kelly knew he didn’t have the money to go on like this forever, or even for very long, but it was all temporary, anyway; he needed to get over Ortíz and the
palenque
and when that happened he would get back to doing what he was doing before. All the good things were still there… just delayed.

Kelly slept a lot and when he was awake he was tired. A dose of
chinaloa
put him into a limbo where there was no time or place and no need for worry. Once Kelly woke up in a puddle of cold urine. The sheets and the mattress were soaked through. He stripped off the sheets, piled them in the corner, and put a towel over the wet patch. It didn’t occur to him to take off his soiled underpants, and by the time he remembered he was already headed back down the rabbit hole and it didn’t matter anymore.

His refrigerator emptied out, though he was barely aware of eating. He lived with a stranger who was only home when he was out. Things would move or get broken or just disappear and Kelly had no memory of how or why. This would bother him when he was straight again, but not right now. Just a few days more and he would be ready to start fresh. How many days it had already been, he wasn’t sure.

Kelly wandered into the living room. He knew it was morning because the sun was coming up behind the GM
maquiladora
. Something beeped at him. He was bleary and the room was unfocused. He smelled musk and rot and his mouth tasted foul. A red light blinked on his answering machine. Kelly watched it and the machine beeped and he put things together.

Messages reeled off, but they were less interesting than the beep and the blinking light. Kelly rummaged in the refrigerator for something to eat. He found only half a stick of butter, so he sucked it like an ice pop. Paloma talked to him through the little speaker. Hearing her voice made him feel angry, but whether at her or at himself, Kelly didn’t know, and not knowing made him angrier.

“Bullshit fuck,” Kelly told his empty apartment. He had a mouthful of butter. His stomach rolled over.

Walking from room to room was a trial. Kelly was exhausted already. He slumped onto the couch, the last of the butter softening in his hand while Paloma kept talking and
talking
and wouldn’t shut up. This wasn’t forever and Kelly didn’t need her riding his ass to quit. Anyway, there was using and there was
addicted
and he knew the difference between them. Was he talking out loud?

Kelly threw the butter away. It splattered on the glass of the back door. “
Shut up!
” he yelled, and Paloma’s voice went silent.

He curled up on the couch. Down in the pit of his stomach where the sickness curdled, Kelly felt lonely. The quiet was too quiet for him now, and his mind was too clear. His works were in the bedroom, but getting there was a marathon Kelly wasn’t prepared to run. He would sleep here for a little while and then he would go there. And this would be the last of it before he stopped, because he was too close to the line.

“Paloma, just shut up,” Kelly said. “I’m okay.”

E
STÉBAN CALLED WHILE
K
ELLY SLEPT
:

Hey, man, where the fuck are you? Listen, you need to call me, all right? I don’t know what your deal is, but if you and Paloma decided to run off together… that shit’s not right. You got everybody worried, okay? You get this, you tell Paloma to call me
.

And don’t you do nothing stupid like getting married, okay? Just call. Okay, just call me wherever. Okay
.

C
HINALOA
WAS SUPPOSED TO TAKE
away pain, but it was a cheat because the pain didn’t disappear. Instead it was all put on hold, kept in a secret place, and when there was no room for the pipe or the needle anymore,
chinaloa
gave it all back because
chinaloa
was a bitch that couldn’t stand to be jilted.

Kelly hurt behind the eyes and deeply into his skull. His stomach was a knot and he heaved over and over again even though there was nothing in there except something clear and acidic and nasty. His shoulders hurt and his knees hurt and anything that could swell or bend or stab him with shards of broken glass came alive and punished him.

Even smells assaulted him. Kelly hated the odor of his body. He showered six times in a row and scrubbed himself until his skin was raw, but the rot-stink wouldn’t go away. It was the dope working its way out of his blood and through his flesh and seeping into the air he breathed. He could not brush his teeth often enough.

The worst was not being able to think straight. He couldn’t ask himself
why
and he couldn’t remember anyway. Hot screws were jammed into the base of his skull and he could not speak or dream or even move. When he slept now he slept for relief, because only then could he earn some distance from withdrawal. He was dying.

But no, he wasn’t dying. Dying was easier than detox. He knew this already, had been in this hell already and told himself he would
never go back, but he had and he was and it would end when it was damned good and ready and not a day or a minute or an hour before. Kelly
wished
he were dying; that much he could hold onto.

Footsteps on the landing outside his apartment were thunderous. When the work-whistle sounded at the
maquiladora
across the way, it broke Kelly’s skull in half. He dreaded a knock on the door because it would tear him apart and he would have to scream. A scream
would
kill him.

No one knocked. Even the phone didn’t ring anymore. Kelly knew when he got his thirst back that he was going to live. He drank one glass of water after another until his stomach bloated. He pissed like a river through a broken dam. The hurt faded. He put on clothes and even went outside to sit by the heavy bag.

Finally he could eat,
had
to eat, but he got nothing from the store except rice and corn tortillas in the hope that he could keep them down. He ate and threw up again, but the second time he did keep it down and the time after that, too. Once he finished a bowl of rice and he wept with the bowl clutched between his hands so tightly that his flesh blanched white.

He shaved his face and left bloody nicks behind because he did not want to look at himself in the mirror. His weight was down, but not healthily. His clothes were loose on his frame.

The apartment was filthy. Nothing was picked up and nothing was put away, so the floor was strewn with wrappers and empty plates and everywhere a bottle or a can could be perched it had been done. Opening the windows wide let the smell out, but the mess remained.

He listened to his phone messages again. Once he had to pause and he cried with his hands over his face. He cried because he was ashamed and he was ashamed for crying. It took an hour to get through to the end.

Estéban answered the home phone. It was before noon, but he was awake. “It’s me,” Kelly told him. “I want to talk to Paloma.”

“Paloma? Hey, what the fuck? I been trying to get you for a
month
,
cabrón
! I come by your place, I call you on the phone… don’t be playing that shit with me now. Where’s Paloma?”

“I didn’t… you didn’t come by here,” Kelly said.

“The hell I didn’t! I banged on your door for a fucking hour. Where’s my fucking sister,
pinche?
”

Kelly put his hand on the kitchen counter. He felt off, like the floor was shifted, and he wanted to sit down. “She’s not here. She… she called me a few times.”

“When?”

“I don’t know.”

Kelly heard Estéban breathing on the other end of the line, taking shuddery breaths. Kelly felt cold. “This is not funny,” Estéban said at last. “You tell me where she is.”

“I don’t know. I swear to God, I don’t know. Listen… I fucked up, man. She called me—”

“She was
worried about you
, bro! We all were. I heard some shit and I don’t believe it: something about you buying horse. Somebody tells me that, I say they’re full of shit because you don’t touch that no more. Paloma says she’ll go see you and then nothing. Tell me what you said to her.”

“I didn’t say—” Kelly began.

“Did you hit her? If you fucking hit her and she ran off,
cabrón
, I will put a knife in you.
¿Entienda?
I will stick you in the fucking ground, bro. I will fuck you up.”

Kelly’s temples throbbed and he rubbed them. Estéban ranted in his ear. He was dizzy and the floor canted more and more. If Estéban would just shut up, he could think, but Estéban wouldn’t and the torrent covered Kelly over.

“Hey, are you still there?”

He was on the floor by the phone with the receiver still pressed to his ear. “I think I blacked out,” Kelly said.

“I’m coming over there.”

“No. I’ll come to you,” Kelly said, but Estéban had already hung up. He put the phone away and tried to clear up. Two big plastic
trash bags were full in ten minutes. Kelly threw out his old sheets. The bedroom still reeked of ammonia. The mattress showed a brown-stained outline of where Kelly’s unwashed body slept and sweated and dreamed
chinaloa
dreams. It was ruined; Kelly would have to get rid of it.

When Estéban came he pounded on the door. Kelly opened up and Estéban bulled past. “Paloma? ¿Paloma,
está aquí
?”

“She’s not here,” Kelly said.

Estéban checked the apartment. He came back to the living room and Kelly saw that he’d lost weight, too. Dark grooves cut in beneath his eyes and his hair was unkempt. He hadn’t shaved in a few days. His clothes were rumpled as if he had slept in them. Estéban looked as if he was about to cry. “Where is she, man? Just tell me where she went. I promise I won’t do nothing to you if it’s your fault. You broke up with her, she broke up with you… it don’t matter.”

“She’s not here,” Kelly repeated.

“What the fuck do you
mean
she’s not here?!?” Estéban smacked the phone off its receiver. He kicked the front of the refrigerator and left a dent. Kelly’s few dishes were by the sink, gathered unwashed. Estéban swept them onto the floor. “What did you fucking do to her? Where the fuck did you
go?
”

Kelly stood by the door. It was still open, and he hadn’t moved even to push it shut. He felt rooted. The shattering dishes didn’t make him flinch. He was aware of his pulse rushing in his ears. “She didn’t come here.”

“You said
I
didn’t come here!”

“I didn’t hear you,” Kelly said. His throat hurt and his voice pitched higher. “I was high, man. I got messed up. If she came… I didn’t hear her.”

“
¡Mierda!
”

Estéban kicked the refrigerator again and the door popped open. Kelly’s stack of plastic-wrapped tortillas was there half finished. The rest was empty, stained yellow by the little light, and forlorn.

When Estéban came at him, Kelly didn’t try to get out of the way. Estéban grabbed Kelly by the front of his shirt. His expression was twisted, frantic, and now he did cry. The whites of his eyes were bloodshot. “She said she was going to
see
you!”

“I didn’t hear her,” Kelly wanted to say, but he only whispered.

“What the fuck, Kelly? What the
fuck?
” Estéban shook Kelly and the tears came freely. “Why won’t you tell me where she went? Just tell me where she went, Kelly, so I can go get her.”

“I don’t know where she went,” Kelly said.

Estéban didn’t let go; he buried his face against Kelly’s chest and sobbed. Kelly put his hands on Estéban and they clung to each other. Kelly shook all over as he cried and a part of him was ill at ease when his tears fell into Estéban’s hair, but there was no time for that.

“I want to bring her back home,” Estéban said.

“I know,” Kelly said because it was all he could say. “I know.”

T
HE MATTRESS STANK SO BADLY THAT
Kelly couldn’t stand to sleep on it. He put a pile of gym clothes on the floor of the bedroom and used his training gloves for a pillow. Estéban crashed on the couch. They shared Kelly’s tortillas and rice for dinner and made little conversation. When Kelly fell asleep that night, he heard Estéban weeping quietly to himself.

In the morning they would go to the police. That much they decided on. They would get cleaned up and dress right and when they made their report they would be taken seriously. Estéban had a wad of American bills; he would pass a couple hundred bucks to the man in charge. That, too, would be taken seriously.

Kelly had dreams. Maybe they were of Paloma and maybe they were nightmares, but he remembered nothing about them. He slept longer than he intended, and when he stirred he heard Estéban moving around in the front room. “Why didn’t you wake me up?” Kelly called. He went to the bathroom and washed and dressed in the clean, button-up shirt with a collar that he saved for Sunday meals with Paloma.