I sit on the mattress. There’s even a sheet. I rub my temples. The pressure’s still there. It’s burrowing into my sinuses. I can’t stop hearing that baby’s coos. I need sleep or scante. I think about this room having been occupied a week before. Some kid had no doubt lay down in this locked cell to the chorus of shouts and cusses from his cell mates, tossed and turned, worried about his upcoming court date or maybe his sentence, thinking about everything unfair in the world—parents and race and money and drugs and the education system and getting caught just doing what he had to—and maybe sleep finally came, restful, all consuming, and, him being sober, unending.
Then I wonder what the fuck Maddie did when he woke up and nobody else did. How did he unlock his cell? Where were the kids who reanimated?
I may ask him but right now I don’t care, not really. I’m tired and I lie down, kick off my shoes. I can’t remember the last time I’ve slept. I yell that I’m closing my eyes for a minute. Typewriter yells that he’s about to bomb out the bathroom. Our hosts laugh. KK shouts that she’s taking a nap too. I take off my clothes. I have no boxers. I climb under the paper-thin sheet. It’s cold, but good cold, a toe-in-summer-lake-water cold, relaxing.
I’m rocking an orange jumpsuit with
RAMSEY COUNTY J.D.C
. stenciled in white across my shoulder blades. Type and KK are too. We’re sitting in the common room with the others eating rice. It’s the best food I’ve ever tasted. I eat what has to be close to a pound. We drink water. I can’t get enough. Derrick’s put on a shirt. I’m grateful for this. He doesn’t talk and I want to be like, Give me a fucking break man, like sorry we crashed your private party, sorry the fucking world ended, sorry you were the last safe place in the city. But I don’t. I spoon steaming rice into my mouth and it’s thick in my throat and thicker in my stomach.
We finish.
KK thanks them again.
Thank Maddie here, British Randy says.
Right.
Serious, this bloke right here let us in. All of us.
I remember my questions about what he did the previous Monday. I ask what happened.
People’s smiles fade. Derrick pushes his bowl to the center of the table. It’s definitely praying hands tattooed on his neck.
Sorry, I didn’t mean …
It’s cool, Maddie says. He rubs his buzzed head.
KK stands and collects the cafeteria trays.
Maddie says, I was in the detox holding cell. I got out after a day.
I’m nodding, not really knowing what the fuck is so bad
about that. We’ve been through a hell of a lot worse, me, KK, and Typewriter—killed who knows how many Chucks, my mom, KK killed Jared, that cooing baby—and I’m waiting for more and then it comes.
I wasn’t alone, he says.
Randy rubs Maddie’s shoulder. Maddie starts picking at a scab on his forehead. I was arrested with my younger brother, he says.
Then I get it. I picture a smaller version of Maddie turning, giggling, him probably not having enough scante in his system to make it through the night. I picture Maddie having no idea what the hell was happening, an attack, a what the fuck, a punch, and then him realizing that it was for real, that little Danny or Johnny wasn’t normal, wasn’t human anymore and was going to kill him. I picture Maddie’s hands around his younger brother’s throat, and I know a kid like Maddie isn’t a killer, just an addict, and I’m seeing him as me.
Had to deal with a few guards too, Maddie says.
Jesus, KK says. She’s standing behind him. I can tell she wants to console him, to tell him she understands.
Cell block C was closed, something about the AC being broken. So that’s where I went. Had an eight ball cornholed, got me through until these two showed up.
Randy nods. I stare into the hole on the side of his head. Randy says, Every other block is full.
Full?
Of them.
Bro, Typewriter says.
Not shit we can do, Derrick says.
Got earplugs, though, Maddie offers.
KK drops the trays and I’m up quick. I’m at her side, my hands on her shoulders. She bites the hell out of her lower lip.
It’s completely safe, Randy says. If they haven’t gotten out yet, they won’t. They’ll starve soon, anyway.
Fuck me, Typewriter says.
They’re locked in here. With us, KK says.
I’m like, We’re safe. We’re good. I wrap my arms around her. She’s rigid, everything flexed. Her big nose presses against my cheek.
Typewriter cleans up the dropped trays.
KK says that we need to go, that it’s not safe here, that she can’t fucking do it anymore.
Baby, we’re good. I pull her tighter. I realize I called her
baby
. I tell her this is everything we’ve been searching for.
She whispers, This is a fucking death trap.
Who wants to get their asses kicked at Monopoly? Randy asks.
Fuck that, Derrick says. He stands and I’m shielding KK from him and we make eyes and there’s nothing about this motherfucker I like and he says, Morning dose at seven.
I want KK to believe me, to return to how she was ten minutes before, grateful to have warm food and shelter. I tell her she can be on my team.
You good?
She nods.
We sit at the table and Randy sets up Monopoly. Maddie calls the top hat. Typewriter says to stay off the wheelbarrow. KK’s the dog. I’m the iron. I haven’t played this game since
I was a kid, but I remember the rules, the strategy, the idea that you have to spend money early to make money later. I pick up a railroad. We’re rolling the dice, buying things with fake money, building empires. We’re barely talking; immersing ourselves in the game is easier. Baltic Avenue, Atlantic Avenue, Electric Company, Community Chest. KK smiles when she lands on Park Place and buys it. Things are better. Go directly to jail, do not pass go. We can relate to that. Everyone holds their money in their hands. I guess old habits die hard. It’s pleasant. Maybe we started playing because it seemed ironic, but really we love it, the idea of taking over the world. Everyone does. It’s as American as cheerleaders and missionary sex. Strangling the competition, the American way. Randy catches me staring at his missing ear and I feel like a dick. His hand goes up reflexively to shield it. I roll the dice. He says, Few years back.
What’s up?
My ear.
I’m not sure—
He laughs. He says, It was one of those moments.
I know what moments he’s talking about.
Knew cleaving off the old ear was the only way to stop.
He tries to smile and KK takes his hand. He says, Obviously didn’t work. Guess I should be thankful for that fact, otherwise I’d be dead.
KK says, We’ve all been there.
Don’t see you missing an ear, Randy says, like it’s a joke. We’re silent. KK speaks the truth—each of us has had those moments when all you want is your life before you took your
first hit, and you want this so badly you cut off your own ear, burn your stomach, or just keep upping and upping your intake, moving from snorting to smoking to shooting.
It’s bad out there, huh? Maddie asks.
Typewriter shrugs. Tells him it’s more of the same.
For reals, KK says.
Chase?
I look at Maddie. He’s staring like I hold some answer he needs to hear. I say, Yeah, it’s pretty fucking bad.
I move seven spaces to Oriental Avenue and buy it.
Is everyone turned?
No. Not everyone. I’d say the majority didn’t make it through the first night.
Maddie fingers an infected cyst. He’s probably wondering about his family and, like me, wishing them a peaceful death, together, sleeping.
And just like that, the mood’s shit. That’s how it always is among tweakers. Ecstatic to miserable in less than a second. Either too much scante or not enough or a thought that burrows into your brain and becomes an itch and then a fully colored panorama and then it’s real, that vision like a DVD skipping, over and over and over again.
Need to find a cure and shit, Maddie says.
Randy smiles. He’s missing the back two molars on his right side. I wonder if he can still hear out of his cleaved ear. He says, And I need a rim job from Queen Elizabeth.
We laugh. Type rolls the dice to see how much he owes for landing on Water Works. I’m thinking about the word
cure
. I’m thinking maybe I’ve already found it. Maybe it’s copious
amounts of scante. Shit worked for Typewriter. He was seconds away or maybe already turning and I saved him and maybe we just need to be able to produce tons of dope and our world would be restored. I mention my theory.
Bullshit, Randy says.
I’m like, What’s bullshit? That scante starves this shit off? That we’re alive because of meth?
So what are you suggesting? Randy asks. That we just find a Z—
Z?
Typewriter says.
Walking dead.
Call ’em Chucks, like Chucklers, Type says.
Randy runs his index finger over the cavern on the side of his head. He’s like, So, we find a
Chuck
, and just shoot him full of our limited supply of dope?
Worth a shot, Maddie says.
Type shakes his head and KK fiddles with her hotel on Park Place. Randy says things about the Chucks being oxygen starved, not to mention their thick blood and strips of missing flesh. That there’s no way to reverse damage like that. I’m not really listening. I’m thinking this could all be over with, the fucking apocalypse, the Chucks, the need to carry guns and cry when we hear laughter. I’m thinking about inventing the cure, administering it, our numbers growing, me saving the fucking world. And then I think about the Hindu dot I put between my mother’s eyes. The baby with Crayola blue eyes. If there is a cure, it came too late. I’ve already done shit I can’t take back. The story of my fucking life.
Could use the Chuck in the interrogation room, I say.
Randy says, Bloke’s looking for a Nobel Prize.
Dr. Kevorkian motherfucker, Type mutters.
Not trying to be part of this, yo, KK says.
Me neither, Type says.
Fuck it, Randy says, if your mate wants to play scientist, let him. I’ll run it by Derrick in the morning.
I smile and then it fades and we’re quiet. I hold play money in my sweaty hand.
Maddie stares at me. There’s a light pus dripping out of his worst pick mark. He says, I just don’t get how the hell … I mean, how’d you guys … you know?
I don’t want to go into the whole thing—the little girl, Svetlana, the trucker, Walgreens, KK and Jared, the Albino and the Canadians, my mom, Cheng, that cooing baby. He doesn’t need to hear this. I feel bad I asked him about his story, dredging up the killing of his younger brother.
I say, Junkies are about the most resourceful motherfuckers on the planet.
Cheers to that, mate, Randy says.
We raise our cups of water in a toast. KK says, To walking dead motherfuckers like us.
The earplugs don’t work worth shit so I’ve taken them out and lie on my cot listening to a symphony, an unbearable symphony, of giggles echoing from down the hall into our grouping of cells. The laughter penetrates my mind, my sleep,
my consciousness. It reminds me there’s no way out. No end. Nothing we can do to get away, and I hear the gales, am able to start to catalog the different sources, and I’m giving them names—Jerome, fourteen, second-degree felony for possession of a firearm; Andre, sixteen, first-degree felony for assault with a deadly weapon; and then me years before, Chase, sixteen, two counts of second-degree felonies, possession of narcotics, intent to distribute.
I hear bare feet on tile. I tense for a second until I see KK’s skinny frame in my doorway.
You up?
Yeah.
Fuckin’ awful.
I know.
I raise one arm as an invitation. She walks into my cell wearing a pair of panties and a wifebeater. I move my back against the wall and she crawls under the thin sheet. She smells like BO and yeast and she takes my left arm and wraps it around her waist and then brings my hand to her face. I breathe her in. I pull her tight. I’m naked and the head of my penis rubs just under the elastic of her underwear. I tell myself to stay calm. My dick isn’t feeling it. I tell her I have earplugs if she wants. Maybe she feels my hardening dick because she pushes backward and I’m telling myself she just needs safety, she’s scared, she isn’t on board, and we hear giggles and roars and laughs and she raises her left leg an inch or two and my penis slides between her thighs.
You think it could work? she asks.
A cure?
Yeah.
Fucking hope so.
I kiss her vertebrae.
This is met by the softest of exhales.
What I’ve wanted is finally happening and I’m kissing her neck, telling myself to go slow, to cherish this moment, to not freak her the fuck out. She turns. We kiss. Her breath is rot and so is mine and it doesn’t matter and we’re kissing with tentative strokes of our tongues and it’s years before, the psych ward, our apartment, and I ask if she really wants to do this and she tells me to be quiet. She’s on top of me and she’s wet and tight and I trace her nipples with my tongue and I tell her I love her and she has her eyes closed and goes faster and I tell her again and she leans forward and our noses touch and she tells me she loves me too. The slapping of our skin matches the howling giggles. She’s going faster, faster, and I cup her head with both of my hands and she’s gasping for air, biting the tip of my thumb, and her body tenses, the edge of her upper lip curling, and our rhythms match each other, everything the release of dopamine, our scarred synapses once again firing.
She rolls off me. She assumes the position of little spoon. I’m having trouble not smiling. She asks if I came inside her and I lie and she laughs and says, I can feel you drippin’ out of me, yo.
Such loving pillow talk.
Speaking of, you’re hogging it.
I move backward and she puts her whole head on the deflated pillow.
I’m a ball of fucked up. I think what we did was amazing and I imagine a baby growing in her belly and her giving birth with no doctors, nothing sterile, about her somehow surviving, and the three of us a family. Then I think about having to shoot my newborn up with drugs and this seems like the saddest fucking thought ever. Not so much abusing my baby. But that we’re done as a species. There’s no way to reproduce. No way to ensure our offspring make it out of the womb and no way to cultivate their minds and bodies. Even if there is some sort of cure, we’ll still have to shoot crystal every day. A baby couldn’t take that. So we’re it. Pockets of motherfucking junkies around the state. Around the country. Probably other countries too. All of us hunkered down wondering how much longer until the next thing goes wrong. Until we’re out of ephedrine to break down, or ammonia, or HCl. Until the power grid fails. Until we can’t stand our lives and slit our fucking wrists. We’re it. The six of us here multiplied by every major city and then rural areas like the Albino’s farm. I bet altogether there are under a thousand of us. A thousand people who couldn’t handle it when the world was normal, that’s who’s left to keep our species alive.