Tunnel Vision (12 page)

TWENTY-SIX

Betty found the visitor request forms online, talked briefly with her mothers during and then after dinner, but still found herself lacking in the courage department. If she had half a backbone, asking them to sign the form and then drive with her and June to Jackson should have been no big deal. Neither would calling Jake, or telling the moms that this grounding thing was going to need a fast death if she was going to retain her sanity.

Instead of doing any of those things, Betty ate, then fled upstairs and returned to the visitor request forms. There was no way it was going to work, not unless she got the moms to sign off on it, or they got fake IDs. The visitor request required both a birth date and a valid Michigan ID number. Betty had the ID, but she knew that her birth date wasn’t going to hold water if she made herself a little older on the form. Getting a fake seemed about as likely as getting Andrea to sign the stupid form and then act as a jailhouse chaperone.

She kept a couple tabs open about Duke and Mandy so that she could at least lie to herself about working, but she just didn’t have the stomach for it. Mr. Evans’s words had been jarring, and Betty had felt sick ever since she’d spoken to her fourth period teacher, despite his kindness.

Betty doubted that Mr. Evans would really have failed both of them for her runaway routine the day before, but at the same time, he had told them he would be treating the assignment as if they were college students. As bad as it would have been to screw up everything for herself, Betty couldn’t even imagine how fucked up the situation would have left June.

Mandy was June’s aunt, after all—recently discovered family through pictures alone, but family just the same. Betty hadn’t really spoken to June about how much the investigation must mean to her friend, but she figured it had to mean a great deal. They had a real chance not only to get a great grade, but also to either free or further condemn a guilty man, and even more importantly, they could be the ones to find justice for Mandy. That she looked so much like June was just the icing on the cake, and also the reminder that, with just a bit of bad luck, any one of them could be Mandy.

There were dead kids on the news all the time and school shootings and jealous boyfriends and abusive parents and texting and driving and a million other things, but they had a chance to fix something that had gone wrong when they were barely alive. They couldn’t bring Mandy back, but ending the confusion over her murder would be the next best thing, and Betty knew she had almost blown it.

She needed to stand up and do what had to be done. And she knew where she needed to start.

Just tell the moms that you need to call Jake, dial his number, and be done with it.

Betty knew that would be the best thing for all involved, but still she kept her butt planted in her chair and left her phone lying on her desk.

Sick of herself, Betty turned her attention back to her desktop, checked her e-mail, clicked on www.punknews.org, bounced around on Reddit, and then her eyes fell on the card that Nickel had given her the day before in the park. She grabbed the card and flipped it over in her fingers a few times before clicking her mouse back to her e-mail tab and then clicking on “Compose.” She wrote:

Hi, I’m not really even sure why I’m writing this, but I’m the girl you met in the park yesterday. Not the one with the umbrella, the other one, with all the questions about Mandy Reasoner. I’m sure this is nothing you can help me with, but I never would have guessed you knew all that stuff either, so I thought I’d ask.

I need to talk to Duke, and I need to do it soon, so letter writing is out. I know my parents wouldn’t let me, but if I had a fake ID that said I was 18, they wouldn’t have to know. It would need to be a really good one, like good enough to fool a guard, but I don’t have a lot of money. I don’t know if this is something you can help me with or not, but I thought it couldn’t hurt to ask.

It was super nice to meet you yesterday,

Betty

Betty considered the e-mail for a few moments, then took a deep breath and clicked the “Send” button. She knew it was a long shot, but it was worth the risk. The worst that could happen is that Nickel would say no. Betty left the e-mail tab and went back to punknews. Nothing had been updated in the ten minutes or so she’d been there, but when she looked at her e-mail tab again she saw she had gotten a response. Betty smiled thinly, knowing it was far more likely to be junk mail than a response from Nickel, and then clicked on the button.

Hey. I might be able to help with what you want, we can negotiate cost. Meet me where you saw me the other day when you get out of school. Come alone.

N

There was something about the e-mail; even just how short and simple it was, was somehow exciting. Betty found herself already looking forward to meeting this mysterious boy again the following afternoon, though she was going to need to explain away her absence to Ophelia.

Not that a little fib to Ophy will be tough to pull off. Her head’s been in the clouds lately with the new painting.
Betty felt a touch of remorse at the thought. It was a little wrong to take advantage of Ophelia just because she was busy, but the whole grounding was pretty unfair. Betty didn’t like herself for doing it, but she knew that when given the option of not meeting Nickel or bending the rules a little bit, bending was an easy pick.

I talked to Jason again, and this time he told the truth about what happened with us. What’s been happening when he comes over. I think I’ve probably known all along. I’m not even sure that D. would be mad at him at this point, most likely he’d just be pissed at me, because lately Jason has a ton of money for smack, and that’s all D. really cares about.

I hate knowing that about D. I hate that I stay, and I hate that I’m so weak.

Instead I just sit here and get high. I don’t paint anymore, I don’t go to shows—hell, I never even listen to music. I barely ever even write in this stupid thing. The only times that I even remember that I write a damn journal are when I’m so strung out that I actually start thinking like a human again. There is no reason why anyone should choose to live like this, but I’ll bet you anything that I’m high again later today and that all of this is forgotten.

Things I will do when I am sober:

1. Go to a show and be clean and happy, no matter how much I hate the music, my hair, or my scars.

2. Call Ben and apologize. Let him know how sorry I am, and that the world needs another Old Croix Road record. I helped them record that first demo by hooking them up with a friend who had a four-track, and that was the best thing I’ve ever done, and now I can’t even be around them. Not the way that I am now. Ben would try and help me, I know he would, and in my current state I’d just lie and steal until he never wanted anything to do with me ever again.

3. Do something positive to make other people know how dangerous heroin is. This is a hard one, because I don’t want to be one of those nuts that kids laugh at, I want to be their mom’s cool old friend who’s been there, done that, and survived.

4. See the ocean. Both coasts, either coast, don’t care. I want to take my shoes off and get in the water. I don’t care if it all just swallows me up, I need to do this.

5. Meet Claire’s daughter. This one might never happen.
☹

6. Be positive every single day, always think about using, and still never do it.

7. Write poetry that I’m proud of again. Pick up a guitar.

8. Remember that I am a good person, and know that I have worth.

9. Smile at Duke, and be so happy that we made it through all of this together. There won’t be many stories we can tell our grandkids, but who cares.

10. Live.

11. Live.

Fucking Jason. Or, I suppose: I’ve been fucking Jason. I was scared that it had happened once when I was too high to know what was really going on, but now I know the truth. Jason who I didn’t want to move in with us, Jason the felon, Jason the drunk, Jason the enabler. I thought it was a weak moment, but he said months, MONTHS. How the fuck is that possible? I honestly feel sick when I think about it.

I’ve been with worse men than Jason. Men that hit me or do things that I tell them are off the menu. Men that fuck me and don’t pay me, men that lie about wearing a rubber, men that take and take and take, but somehow this is worse. I can’t decide what would destroy me the most, if D. found out, or if D. knew all along.

I need help, I need some savior to just walk in the door and tell me to pick myself the fuck up, but I know that’s not going to happen. D. doesn’t even need me anymore, not since he broke down and started selling himself as well. He made money as a pimp, but he makes more as a rough-trade bottom. He hates me for that, I know he hates me for not being able to earn enough, like I could at first. Maybe that explains Jason, maybe D. gets off on seeing me used like that when I’m at my weakest. If that’s the case, then it’s the saddest revenge I’ve ever heard of.

I need help, but I’m too fucking weak to ask for any myself. I need my sister to come get me, I need Ben to come get me, I need any of those people that told me that they cared to come care right now. Right now my brain is begging me for that release, and my body is screaming for dope, and I know I’m going to tuck this away and get high.

I’m sorry to leave you like this, but I’m making a promise. Next time I pick up this journal, things are going to be better. I have no reason to lie to you, that would be like lying to myself, but next time things will be better. Maybe D. and I will be in rehab, or maybe just me. It’s not like D. is who he was anymore, or like he and I have what we did. Of course, I’m not what I was anymore, either, but I think I could be. There are boots on the stairs.

Kiss kiss,

Mandy

TWENTY-SEVEN

Betty sat waiting on the bench for Nickel to show up. Not telling June what she was doing had been the hardest decision she could ever recall making, but it had been necessary, and not just because she didn’t want to feel stupid if things didn’t go well. She was still dating Jake, and she was meeting some other boy after school, a cute boy, and she didn’t want to see the look on June’s face when she told her she had to meet him alone.

Thoughts of Jake made her feel sick. He’d been giving her space, but she knew that wasn’t going to last. He wanted an answer, and she had a bad feeling that anything other than the
right
answer was going to be catastrophic.
Why is he so wrapped up in me?
Betty knew the answer, though: because she’d made it happen that way. She had been the one singing the song he wanted to hear, filling his head with the things he wanted to believe, and certainly doing some of the things with him they both wanted to feel.

“How are you?”

The unexpected voice made her jump, and when Betty looked up she saw that Nickel had managed to sneak up on her a second time. “I’m doing good. You?”

“I’m OK,” said Nickel. “Been better, but I’ve been worse, too.” Nickel sat next to her on the bench, not too close, but close enough that Betty could smell him, a scent of fabric softener applied thickly, and something else that was indiscernible but familiar. “So you want to go meet Duke Barnes and you need a fake ID, huh?”

“Are you going to tell me you think my idea’s stupid and I’ll get caught?”

“You might get caught, no doubt about that,” said Nickel, “but I don’t think it’s a stupid idea at all. Prison will be an eye-opener for you, I’m sure.”

“Have you been?”

“Not prison, no,” he said. “But close enough to it that I know I don’t have any reason to rush to one.”

“I never thought I’d have a reason to, either.”

“I bet most inmates don’t until they get there,” said Nickel. “I bet that goes for visitors, too. When you think about it, prison as a theory is even worse than the reality can be. If your behavior is so out of whack with how the rest of society wants to live that you have to exist in a cage, well, that’s pretty jacked up.”

“I never thought about it like that,” said Betty. It was true, though; the way he described it made it far worse than anything she could have imagined.
Is that really how it feels, like you’re some dog that has to be penned up so it doesn’t bite?

“I have,” said Nickel. “I was in foster care for a little while, and then later on, briefly in juvie up north. Everything worked out, but man, if that was bad, then prison has to be a special kind of hell.”

“What were you in juvie for?” Betty asked, regretting the question as the words spilled from her mouth. That was the sort of thing you just weren’t supposed to ask someone. It was like commenting rudely about religion in front of strangers. “I’m sorry,” she said, her cheeks betraying her embarrassment. “That was rude; you don’t have to answer me.”

“Nah, it’s good,” said Nickel. “Besides, the truth is pretty boring. I thought I could trust someone I couldn’t, and as a result I got locked up for a hot minute. It could be worse. At least I’m not there anymore.”

“Were your folks pissed?”

“Not at all,” said Nickel. “I think my dad was probably a little proud.”

Betty didn’t know how to react to that. How could his dad be proud his son got locked up?

“None of that matters, though,” said Nickel. “Do you just need an ID for you?”

“My friend June wants one, too. Like I said, though, we don’t have a ton of money, so maybe we’ll just get one of them. Do you know how much it will cost?”

“It won’t cost you a penny. I’ll be doing most of the work.”

“That sounds really great,” said Betty. “I just don’t want you to get the wrong idea about anything. I mean, I totally appreciate that you’re offering to help with this, but I’m not looking for a relationship right now, OK?”

“Me either. I’ve got way too much going on for something like that.” Nickel looked at Betty and for the first time she really saw into his eyes. There was something fragile in there, something far from the surface that had been broken more than once. Despite what she’d just said, in that instant Betty wanted to grab him and wrap her arms around his body, and then the moment was over as if it had never existed at all.

“Anyway,” said Nickel, “the only problem is going to be finding a place to take your pictures for the IDs. I’ve got a good camera and the right color blue for the background, but I don’t have a good spot to take them right now.”

“Can we do it here?”

“Not if there’s any wind,” said Nickel. “Plus shooting with a background outside is going to look supershady. There aren’t a lot of observant people around here, except for Eyepatch, but it would still be a risk we don’t need.” Nickel shook his head. “I’ll come up with something, and I already have the template, so all we really need to do is get the pictures. The rest of it will be supereasy.”

“You have a template for Michigan ID cards?”

“Yep,” said Nickel. “You never know, it can come in pretty handy. Like I said, though, no good without some pics, but I’ll e-mail you when I settle on somewhere.”

“That’s seriously so cool of you. If you change your mind and you want some money, just let me know, OK?”

“Completely unnecessary,” said Nickel with a wave of his hand. “Like I mentioned, I’ll be doing the work. I will ask you for a favor, though.”

“What’s that?”

“Assuming you don’t get arrested, I want to know what Duke has to say. I think it could be pretty damn interesting to hear what he’d really be willing to talk about when confronted with a few questions face-to-face. I’ll try and get a few loose ends wrapped up just in case there’s any exploring to do when you get back.”

“Of course I’ll tell you what he says. But what do you mean by exploring?”

“We might have to go check some stuff out, depending on what he says, and if that happens, I want in.”

Betty nodded. She wasn’t sure why, not exactly, but something about Nickel being around for whatever might happen made the prospect a lot less daunting.

“Absolutely,” she said, and when she smiled at Nickel, he smiled back.