Vein Fire (8 page)

CHAPTER  9

Face  down  in  a  hamster  cage

Hannah hadn’t seen Matt or Jared in four days, but she came home late—on purpose, trying to avoid Jared and she didn’t bother calling Matt. She felt fucked and dumped, and it hurt. Her week at work was slow. Donna was on vacation, visiting her mother in Philadelphia, but Bob offered to take her to lunch on Friday like they usually did. Afterwards, they sat in his truck behind the dumpsters, passing the fat rolled joint between them.

“C’mere,” Bob said as he pulled Hannah’s head towards his. “It’s shotgun time.” The joint was backwards and in between his lips as he blew out. A string of smoke quivered before Hannah sucked it in and sharply inhaled.

Hannah pulled her head out of his grasp and coughed. “Fuck me, that’s hard on the lungs.”

“Okay.”

“What?”

“Okay, I’ll fuck you.”

“Ha-ha, Bob.”

“How ‘bout you give me a little head?”

“Are you kidding me?”

“No. C’mon. I’m fucking hard.”

“What about Donna?”

“We won’t tell Donna.”

Hannah placed her hand on the door handle. Bob unbuttoned his jeans and slid them down a few inches. His erect cock popped out of his underwear and pointed up.

“C’mon, Hannah. I waited a long fucking time to get you alone.”

Hannah knew she should leave—she should bitch him out for even imagining cheating on Donna. Instead, she slid across the seat of the truck and put her mouth on his cock. It tasted bitter and sweaty and his hand engulfed the back of her head until it forced her deep into his curly hair.

This is like being face down in a hamster cage,
Hannah thought. She squeezed tears through her tightly closed eyes and concentrated on getting him to finish. Bob dug his hand into her shirt until he freed one of her tits, pinching the nipple with the same intensity in which he thrust her head on his cock until he blew his load into her mouth.

When he was done, he let her up and she gasped for air. Her face w
as red and there was cum smeared around her lips. She wiped it off with the back of her hand and smoothed her hair down.

Bob buttoned his pants, “I’ll drive you back. I gotta get to work—we’ve been short a guy all week. Hey, you know—your friend Matt. Did you know he got arrested?”

“What? Matt got arrested?”

“Yeah, on Sunday. He got picked up in Pittsburgh buying H.”

“H?”

“Yeah, you know, heroin.”

“Well, when’s he getting out?”

“He was supposed to get out today, I’m not sure.”

Hannah felt dumbstruck. She wondered if Jared had known, and she also wondered if he invented Marilyn. Bob dropped her off at City Hall and she stood on the sidewalk, looking up at it. The old, massive stone building had gargoyles perched on the roof’s four corners. They were watching her, watching them.

Hannah went to the bathroom and washed Bob’s scent off of her face with medicinal smelling hand soap. She gargled with orange juice—the only thing she had—and let it penetrate the film of his semen on her teeth before she spit the juice into the sink. She turned and looked
at the toilet and considered sticking her finger down her throat to vomit what remained of Bob into the toilet, but the thought of tasting him again sickened her. She looked at herself in the mirror; she felt only disgust with herself. The sleeves of her shirt were pulled up and she saw all of the red cuts she had made that week, stupidly over what she felt was Matt’s rejection.
More scars that can’t be hidden. Dumb fucking bitch. How the fuck will anyone think you’re pretty with all of those scars? But Bob said he had been waiting. Did he find her attractive? A week without Donna riding his cock…she often spoke of their active sex life—maybe he just wanted to be satisfied.

She seemed in a daze the entire day. She felt guilty for sucking Bob’s dick, but also for not knowing Matt was in jail.
Stupid! You should have gone to his fucking house. You could have helped him. And Jared—did he know about Matt’s arrest?

Hannah left work at the end of the day and drove to Matt’s house. After two knocks, he answered the door, wearing only a tight fitting t-shirt and boxers. The fabric took notice of each
move his lithe body made, and so did Hannah.

“Hey.”

“Hey. Can I come in?”

“Yeah,” he said, stepping aside and letting her in.

“Bob told me you got arrested. Are you okay?”

Matt laughed, “Yeah, I’m fine.”

“What happened?”

“I was in Pittsburgh buying shit and I got pulled over after my first stop.”

“Bob said it was heroin.”

“Yeah, well Bob has a big fucking mouth.”

“Is it true?”

“Yes, Hannah, it’s true.”

“How did you get out?”

“My mom
posted bail.”

“Oh, fuck.” Hannah knew Matt’s mother didn’t
have the money to make any amount of bail.

“Yeah, it cost a fuckload to get her car out of impound. She convinced my grandma to drain her savings and get one of those payday loans so she could come up with the money.”

“Shit, Matt, I’m sorry. What’s going to happen now?”

Matt laughed, “I wait for my hearing notice to come in the mail.”

“What about a lawyer?”

“Public Defender, baby.”
Matt flopped onto the couch, picked up the remote, and shut the TV off. Luckily, the first guy didn’t have much shit to sell me so I got busted with very little H.”

“That’s good, at least—and your mom?”

“She’s pissed as hell, but I’m gonna pay her back.”

Hannah took her coat off and sat on one of the chairs. “I have some money in savings if you need help.”

“Yeah? How much?”

“About five thousand dollars.”

“Shit, Hannah. You’re like an old fucking lady stuffing money into an account, huh?”

Hannah looked down. The comment upset her and reminded her of the things Matt used to say to her when they were kids.

“Hannah, don’t take that the wrong way, c’mon. It’s a good fucking thing.”

“It is?”

“Yeah, rainy day and all that shit.”

Hannah smiled.

“When could you get that money out?” Mat slid to the edge of the couch and faced Hannah.

“Um, the bank closes in an hour, so before then, or tomorrow for sure.”

“Could you lend me that money and give me a ride? If I borrow some of it, I could make it back over the weekend and repay you by Monday or Tuesday at the latest.”

“You could? How?”

“Same way I was gonna make it before I got arrested.”

“You’re gonna buy drugs?” Hannah exclaimed. “But you just got arrested.”

“Yeah, well I guess I didn’t learn my lesson.” Matt sat back on the couch. “I know it sounds risky, but it really isn’t. I could double the money in a few days. That way I could pay you and my mom back. C’mon, Hannah. My little brothers are gonna starve this fucking month.”

Hannah sighed and thought while Matt eagerly looked at her. “Okay.”

“Yes!” Matt jumped up and clapped his hands once. He grabbed Hannah and kissed her on the cheek. She smiled, and they immediately left the house.

There was a brief discussion over who should drive, but Hannah argued they’d be less likely to get questioned if they were pulled over and she was the driver. Matt agreed, and they headed for the city.

Hannah didn’t bring up the subject of Marilyn or Jared. She swore silently to herself over forgetting to stop at home and let Skye outside. She shrugged off the thought and with each passing mile, forgot about Bob.

They made three separate stops for the drugs—the first was for weed and coke, the second for bricks of heroin, and the third was for Percocets. On the way down, Matt had removed the panel behind the glove compartment and stuffed everything inside except the Percocet—they wouldn’t fit. He removed his sock, dumped the pills into them, gently lifted Hannah’s breasts up, and tucked the
sock under them so her bra held them up.

“Don’t worry, they’ll be safe there.”

Hannah smiled. He had touched her and she trusted him.

They were nearly home when Hannah asked Matt if he wanted dropped off at his house. The conversation had been light and fun, but Matt seemed puzzled.

“Aren’t you coming in?”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know if you wanted me to.”

“Hannah! God, you’re so—well you’re always apologizing and shit. Of course I want you to come in. What’s wrong? Don’t you want to?”

“Yeah, I do, it’s just that I’m worried about my puppy.”

“I didn’t know you had a puppy.”

“Yeah, I just got her. She’s been alone all day.”

“Fuck, yeah, stop and we’ll grab her and take her to my house.”

“Really? You wouldn’t mind?”

“Fuck, even I like puppies.”

CHAPTEr  10

Carpet  Angels

&  Chasing  Dragons

Skye had to pee so bad, she was shivering. Hannah let her outside and checked for accidents on the carpeting, but there were none. She ran upstairs and brushed the final traces of Bob off of her teeth. After she let Skye inside, she grabbed two clean bowls from her cupboard and some packets of dog food. With Skye in her arms, she returned to the car and handed the dog to Matt.

“Hey, she is cute. What’s her name?”

“Skye.”

“Skye? That’s a cool name. Did she piss all over your house?”

“No. I even looked but couldn’t find anything.”

“Fuck, she must be one smart dog to get housetrained so fast.”

They drove the few blocks to Matt’s house and he instructed Hannah to park in the back. After he unlocked his door for her, he returned to the car, and removed the drugs. Skye happily ran around the house, smelling things before settling on Hannah’s lap.

Matt came back in with his purchases, dumped them onto the coffee table, and motioned with his fingers for Hannah to give him the Percocets. She pulled them from her bra and handed them to Matt. He emptied them out of his sock, onto the table, and put his sock back onto his bare foot.

“Can you count these for me?” he pointed to the pile of yellow pills. Hannah knew them well; she had bottles of them in her bathroom. She picked her prescription up every month, but rarely took them. In fact, Bob and Donna took them more often than she did. She knelt on the floor and began counting them into piles of ten.

“These are worth money?”

“Yeah—I’ll sell them for about five bucks a pill. Why?”

“Just wondering.” Hannah decided not to t
ell Matt about her stash.

When she finished, Hannah took the bricks of heroin apart and Matt weighed marijuana into sandwich baggies. The bricks were wrapped in pages ripped from porno magazines. Cocks rammed holes and ridiculous expressions decorated painted faces. Inside were tiny wax paper stamps filled with a small amount of brownish powder. Hannah counted them into buns—groups of ten, and placed a rubber band around them.

“Be careful with them—they’re small and easy to lose.”

“I will.”

“I should make you strip down to your underwear like they do with the putas in trailers where they bag this shit up.”

“Why do they do that?”

“To make sure they don’t steal anything.”

“Why would I steal something I bought?”

Matt smiled, “I was trying to get you down to your panties.”

Hannah laughed and kept counting. Skye trotted over to Matt and he picked the dog up. “Hannah, you know this isn’t a puppy, don’t you?”

“No, it’s a puppy.”

“No, it’s a fucking Pomeranian. They don’t get any bigger than this.”

“Oh,” Hannah said quietly.

“So where’d you get the mutt?”

“Jared got her for me.”

“Jared?” Matt put Skye down and cocked his head sideways at Hannah. “
Jared
gave you a dog?”

“Yeah, he said his si
ster’s friend had puppies and they were going to kill the runt if they didn’t find it a home. He brought it to me.”

Matt’s head cocked even further. “His
sister
?”

Hannah continued to count stamps and didn’t look at Matt. “It was his sister’s friend’s dog who had puppies.”

“Hannah, Jared doesn’t have a sister.”

“Oh,” she whispered
.

Matt stood up and grabb
d a piece of paper off of the top of his television. He read it for a second, picked Skye up, and examined her. “Did she come with this collar?”

Hannah briefly raised her eyes and looked at Skye. “Yes.”

Matt handed the paper to Hannah, but she hesitated to take it. “Some old lady came around today passing those flyers out. It seems as though she’s missing her Pomeranian named Bebe.”

Skye barked. Hannah read the paper and set it down. “I don’t care where she came from; I’m not giving her back.”

“When did he bring the dog to you?”

“Sunday afternoon.” Hannah was reluctant to give any of the details out. She kept counting the stamps and didn’t look up.

“Hannah, for fuck’s sake. Don’t tell me you let him in.”

“Yeah, I let him in. So what? Big fucking evil that he is just brought me a puppy, watched a movie, and left.”

“You watched a movie with him?”

“Yeah,
Pet Semetary.”

“
Pet Semetary
? Nice choice for a first date.” Matt spit the words out.

“It wasn’t a date. He’s
your
friend, remember?”

“Hannah, stop your fucking counting.” Hannah looked up at him. “Jared’s fucking nuts. He’ll hurt you, if not kill you, so you need to stay away from him.”

“You keep saying that, but he seems pretty fucking harmless to me.”

“He’s already killed two people. Do you want to be number three?”

Hannah looked at the drugs on the table and then met Matt’s eyes, “No.”

“Then you have to listen to me. Jared stole some old lady’s dog and brought it to you because he figured I’d tell you to stay away from him.”

“Well I’m not giving the fucking dog back.” Hannah picked Skye up and put her on her lap, petting her.

“No, you don’t have to give the dog back, but let’s buy her a new collar…maybe get her fur shaved so she looks different, okay?”

“Like a lion.”

“What?”

“I want to get her shaved like a lion.”

“Yeah
, like a lion.” Matt placed a hand on Hannah’s face and smoothed her hair back.

“She’ll look cute as a lion,” Hannah said.

“I’m just trying to look out for you, okay?”

Hannah nodded and stopped petting Skye. Matt moved closer to her, and she thought he might kiss her, but he didn’t. He leaned back and Hannah resumed counting.

“I’m gonna roll us a joint, then we can stop counting until tomorrow.”

“Sounds good.”

Matt broke the buds of the weed up, and removed the stems and seeds. The rolling paper was thin, and creased easily between Matt’s fingers. He sprinkled the marijuana on the paper, carefully rolled it, and licked it to seal it.

“Fuck, this shit is sticky with keef. Here, suck it off of my fingers.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, no sense in wasting it.”

Hannah moved closer to Matt until her mouth met his outstretched fingers. She sucked the sticky keef from them with her eyes closed.

“Now that’s a beautiful sight.”

Hannah opened her eyes and moved back to where she was sitting. She smiled at Matt, but looked down quickly.

“Maybe later, eh?” he chuckled and resumed rolling the joint.

They smoked the joint as they cleaned the drugs off of the table, and then Matt took them upstairs to his safe. He came back down and Hannah could see his gun shoved into the back of his pants.

“You have a gun?”

“Yeah, I had it with me when we went to Pittsburgh. Listen, don’t be pissed. I didn’t want to risk losing your money.”

The gun frightened Hannah, but Matt had been so nice to her all night. She just smiled. He threw a small tied up balloon on the coffee table.

“We gotta try this.”

“Try it? What is it?”

“It’s tar heroin. I bought us a little bit for tonight.”

“You mean we’re going to shoot it up?”

“Nah, that’s for junkies. We’re gonna smoke it.”

“You can smoke it?”

“You can smoke anything, but we’re going to chase a dragon.”

Matt went into the kitchen and came back carrying a few things. He took out his pocket knife, carefully slit the balloon open, and put some of the black tar onto a square of aluminum foil. He rolled a subscription card from inside of a magazine into a funnel and handed it to Hannah. “You first?”

Hannah smiled. “Wait. I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“I’ll light this until it cooks and then you suck up all of the smoke that you can through that funnel. Okay? Ready?”

Hannah nodded her head, but wasn’t sure if she was ready. She sat next to Matt and when he held his lighter under the foil, she tried sucking up as much of the smoke as her lungs could swallow. She didn’t want to disappoint Matt.

*

The carpet felt like moss under her body. Hannah moved her arms and legs, “Look, I’m making snow angels.”

“But there’s no snow, Angel.”

“Look, I’m making carpet angels.”

“Yes, you are.”

Hannah giggled and closed her eyes. The carpet was swallowing her into a sea of glowing jelly fish, and then spitting her back out to Matt. Spit and swallow, swallow and spit. She didn’t know how, or when she had lost all of her clothes; she only knew she felt like heaven.

“You grew up pretty,” Matt br
eathed into her ear. She smiled.