not of a main concern to his probation officer, the
cocaine was. When his probation officer told Jack
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that he had tested positive for cocaine -- which he
had confided to me that he had been using for
nearly the whole school year when I confronted
him about his mood swings – he ran from the
probation office and stayed on the run. He
evaded police custody for months, and when he
was finally caught, he was placed in foster care in
lieu of Juvenile Detention. Since his original
detention was in a different county, I did not get a
chance to see Jack during his brief incarceration
before he was shipped off to foster care.
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Matthew rolled over and woke me up. He was
pleasant, well rested and wanted to play. I’d only
been asleep a couple of hours, and my whole
body ached.
“Ya wanna do a puzzle?” he asked in a hoarse
whisper.
“Hold on,” I squeaked. I knew I had to wake up
before he threw a tantrum. If Matthew didn’t get
his way with me, he would scream and wake up
Bobby, and that would be worse than getting out
of bed exhausted. Bobby loved and coddled
Matthew to the same degree that he hated and
tortured me. I have tried to work it out myself,
and I even asked Debbie before she died, but
there was no real reason. It’s just the way it was.
I crawled gently from the bed and laid myself out
on the floor beside Matthew where he had spread
the pieces of the Star Wars puzzle. We had put
together this puzzle hundreds of times, and we
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were both excited each time we saw the finished
picture on the floor. We lay together on the floor,
flipping the pieces face up without talking. We
rarely spoke to each other inside the apartment.
Fitting together the pieces, we were lost in the
task as the puzzle came together. The door
opened, and the silence was broken. We both
snapped to attention. Scrambling to our feet, we
heard Debbie’s voice before she entered the
room.
“Matthew, get dressed if you’re gonna play. Greg
come here. Bobby wants you.” She looked
nervous as she stretched her arm toward me. I
hesitated but knew there was no escape. I walked
to the door and followed her out without reaching
for her hand.
“It’s gonna be alright. We just need you to cook
for us real quick,” she whispered.
Bobby was sitting on the couch in the living
room. The television was on, but he wasn’t
watching. His legs were kicked out as if he had
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collapsed into position. He looked over his right
shoulder at Debbie and me coming toward him.
Without a word, he raised his mighty arm over
his head and pointed to the stove. Turning into
the kitchen area, I saw the milk crates already
stacked in position in front of the oven door. I
climbed up into my place and hiked up my
underwear. I was too little to reach the stove on
my own, so I used three milk crates as steps.
The bag of heroin sat on the counter next to the
works I had been taught to use about a year
earlier. At first I had been clumsy and wasted
Bobby’s dope and therefore his money. He sold
heroin out of the apartment and always had a
large stash on hand, but he easily became angry
when I cooked it too long, making it worthless.
The beatings that followed each mistake taught
me to be more careful, and I soon learned how to
cook, load, and spike heroin. Cooking it up and
loading the needle were routine and automatic.
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Spiking the needle into Debbie and Bobby always
made me nervous.
I leaned over to my right and turned the faucet
on to a soft drizzle. I caught some water with an
old glass eyedropper and quickly turned the water
off. Leaning back to the stove, I turned on the
front burner and picked up the pot, a
straightened paperclip wrapped around a large
metal bottle cap. I cooked up the heroin and
water and loaded it into the syringe. Debbie came
to me quickly and grabbed the syringe from my
hand. With the job done, I turned off the burner
and climbed down from the crates. I stood
motionless, waiting for a sign of what to do next.
Would I have to spike them too, or could I go
back to the puzzle?
Bobby was already tied off when Debbie handed
him the needle. She spun her head, and her wild
red hair flew in front of her eyes. She brushed it
aside and looked at me, frantically waving me
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away back to the bedroom. No words were ever
spoken.
Back in the room, Matthew was dressed and the
puzzle was put away. I wondered if he’d let me
sleep if I got back into bed.
“We can’t go out yet,” I told him. “Did you finish
the puzzle?”
“Yeah. You gettin’ dressed?”
“I wanna go back to bed.” I hung my head and
feared his response.
“I’m gonna play Men, I don’t care what you do.”
It was then that I noticed the action figures set up
on the floor by the closet. I got into bed and
curled into a ball. I pressed my knees into my face
trying to block out the sunlight flooding through
the curtain-less windows. Bobby and Debbie
would be out for a while, and I knew we weren’t
allowed to leave the room until they came to get
us. The coast was clear. I fell asleep quickly.
“Let’s go assholes, we got work!” The door closed
as quickly as it had opened.
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Bobby’s voice woke me from sleep. When I
opened my eyes, I saw Matthew asleep on the
floor where he’d been playing. My body stil
ached, but I felt better from the sleep. Crawling
from bed, I dragged myself slowly to the closet. I
pulled on my pants and found a shirt. Matthew
was already out the door, as I pulled the shirt
down over my bruised belly. I grabbed my
sneakers and walked into the living room.
Debbie stood fully dressed in a colorful blouse
and jeans. Her platform shoes made her seem
large and dangerous. Bobby was sailing through
the small apartment, gathering the familiar tools
that remained scattered among the mess in the
room. On the couch sat two men I had never
seen before. They passed a joint between them,
and I watched as they flipped the ashes on their
pant legs. Bobby ignored them, as he dumped
tools onto the couch beside them; they didn’t
move or seem to recognize that he was there
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either. Matthew and I stood silently, watching
and waiting.
“Don’t leave. As soon as we get back, we’ll split
up what we got and I’ll give you the car. It won’t
be a couple hours. Don’t let anyone in.” Bobby
barked at the two men, but they just sat there
inattentively.
“Gotdamn it, what’d I just say?”
“Fuck man, I heard ya. Don’t let anyone in. Got
it. I need that car tonight, don’t lose it.” The man
never looked at Bobby as he spoke.
Bobby walked in front of the two men and bent
down to put his face in theirs.
“Don’t leave this fuckin room. I
will
be back.” He
raised his hand, and I thought he was going to hit
them, but he just grabbed the joint and hit it a
couple times before passing it back.
Debbie handed him a duffel bag from behind the
couch, and he frantically jammed all of the tools
into it before zipping it up.
“You got everything?”
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“Where are the keys?”
“Gimme the keys.” Bobby put his large hand out
in front of the men. One of them dropped the
keys and looked up for the first time.
“We’ll be here, have fun.”
Bobby heaved the bag from the couch with his
right hand and slung it over his shoulder. As he
walked around the couch, he seemed to notice
Matthew and me standing there by Debbie. He
walked toward us and reached out and stroked
Matthew’s silky blonde hair.
“You ready for some work? It’ll be quick and
fun.” His eyes sparkled as he spoke to Matthew.
Without looking at me, he swung the duffel bag
into my chest and demanded, “Carry this shit.”
With Matthew’s small blonde head cradled in his
left hand, Bobby guided him past Debbie and
toward the front door.
“Woman, get yer ass over here and let’s go,” his
voice was calm but impatient. Matthew looked up
at him with awe and admiration. Debbie glided to
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the door and reached in front of Bobby and
Matthew to undo the multiple locks and chains
on the door. When the last chain dangled from its
cradle, Bobby took control and opened the door.
Still guiding Matthew by his head, he walked out
the door. Debbie trailed behind, and I followed,
closing the door behind me. I could hear the door
being locked and the chains fastened, as I started
down the steps. I hefted the duffel bag filled with
hammers, pry bars, wrenches and screwdrivers
down the three flights of stairs, as Bobby laughed
with Matthew and Debbie about the “new” car.
Outside, the day was bright, and my eyes hurt
from the glare. Just outside the doorway of the
building sat a Volkswagen Beetle that Bobby was
showing off to Matthew. There was pride in his
laughter. As I approached the car, Bobby turned
toward me, grabbed the bag from my hands and
threw it in the back seat next to Matthew.
“Get in,” he ordered. The enthusiasm I had
heard earlier was gone when he spoke to me. I
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resented Matthew for the difference in our
treatment.
Bobby had a hard time getting the car into
reverse, and he began to get angry. He yelled at
the car, and he yelled at the two men in the
apartment for stealing it. The car jerked
backward, and I hit my head on the side window.
Bobby turned to look at me and laughed.
Suddenly he was happy again. I cowered in the
seat, holding my head while trying to hide from
his view.
We drove in silence for a while, and when I
finally looked out the window, I saw trees lining
the streets, and houses with lawns. We were
nowhere near the Village, and I knew what was
coming. Bobby pulled the car over in front of an
elegant apartment building with bushes beneath
the windows of the lower apartments and a fence
around the lush green lawn. I didn’t like being so
far from home.
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“This place has a few condos on each floor. You
two run down the hall and knock on each door as
you pass by. The stairs are at the end of the hall,
hide under there and count what doors get
answered. Got it?”
“Okay,” Matthew and I replied in unison.
“We’ll be in in a minute. Don’t say a word inside
that building. Take the bag with you. Go!”
Debbie turned in her seat and looked at us from
behind large brown sunglasses. I wondered if she
could really see us. She reached back and rubbed
each of our shaggy heads as we got out of the car.
I lugged the bag over my shoulder with both
hands.
Matthew and I took off running as soon as we hit
the sidewalk. We knew we had to look like two
wild kids playing a game to make this work. We
raced up the sidewalk, but I lagged behind under
the weight of the bag. Matthew jumped up the
small concrete steps to the large front door of the
building. He slammed his right shoulder into it
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while turning the knob, trying to make as much
noise as possible. If there were any sleepers in the
building, we needed to wake them up. He threw
the door open wide and waited for me to make it
up the steps. Sore and encumbered, I was moving
as quickly as possible, but I could see the
frustration on his face.
“Come on,” Matthew prodded. He glared at me
and then smiled, as he looked behind me to the
car.
His impatience didn’t help me carry the bag, but
I knew Bobby and Debbie were watching, so I
tried to quicken my pace. At a slow hobble, I
made it up the steps and into the building. There
were a few doors on each side of the short, wide
hallway. Suddenly energized, we ran down the
hall and banged on each door. Matthew got all
the doors on the left, and I hit the ones on the
right, swinging the heavy bag into each. There
was a loud metallic clang each time the bag of
tools rammed into the center of a door. Running
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as fast as we could, Matthew and I collided at the
end of the hall. Slinging the bag under first, we
dove under the stairwell and kept quiet just as
we’d been told. We poked our heads out - trying
not to laugh - so we could count any doors that
opened. Not a single one of them opened and we
heard no noise. Leaving the tools beneath the
stairs, we ran out and hit each door two more
times, once going and once coming; then we were