The Spider Inside (10 page)

Jim’s eyes were hot and dry, he felt as if he could almost
hear them squealing like rusted ball bearings in the sockets when he moved
them. His heart was pounding in his chest and the blood rushing through his
ears sounded like the ocean when you listened to a sea shell. In the gray light
of in-between he could still feel his hands shaking, his teeth feeling like
they had as a child when he had braces and he went in to get them tightened,
just this dull all-over ache that seemed like it would never stop.

He kicked the blankets off him into a tangle at the foot of
the bed and was almost instantly cold. He sat up and did his best to straighten
them and then covered himself once more.

He was too hot again. Out of frustration he sat up and
balled the oversized comforter into a soft, massive ball and threw it as far as
he could across the small room. It made it about half way, and landed with a
quiet flump. It was unsatisfying, and made him angrier. He wanted something to
smash, glass shattering everywhere smoke fire an explosion or something,
some-fucking-thing, an externalization of how it felt to be inside his body. He
tried to swallow and couldn’t. He grabbed the water bottle from the floor next
to the bed and took a drink. His back ached, shit his whole body ached, from
his stiff, tired fingers to his cramping feet. His spine felt made of heated
glass and wire twisted around a long string of hyper-sensitive nerves. He put
the water down and laid back, turning over and over in his bed.

He wished Cherry was with him. That would make things okay.
They could talk quietly to take each other’s minds off their misery. When she
wasn’t looking he could admire the little dip in between her neck and her
collar bone, the curve of her shoulder, the way what little light there was
would play off her hair. He needed her, needed her more than he’d ever needed
anything, he closed his eyes and tried to picture her lying in bed next to him,
tried to hear her soft but somehow gravelly whisper.

Perhaps his agony would have abated a little had Jim known
that a few miles away, in her own bed, Cherry was thinking about him, how she
should have waited for him before leaving, how she should have found a way to
give him a couple of her Valium, so he could feel what she was feeling.

Of course, since she had left the party she had crashed,
gotten up, and was now crashing again. She’d waited all day for him to call,
wondering had he left the party yet, was he okay, was he thinking about her.
She was comfortable while Jim turned in his bed, restless. While her physical
discomfort was a shadow compared to the blazing sun of Jim’s, she felt at the
core of her a feeling of alone that Jim could not have imagined. He knew
loneliness, sure he did, they all did, but no one is quite as alone as a
twenty-two year old girl softly crying herself to sleep, not even aware of her
tears as they coursed down her cheeks, wishing she had done something else just
a little different and ended up next to the one she loved, instead of by herself
in a bed that felt acres and acres too big. What she felt for Jim she had never
felt for anyone, and had never gotten the sense that anyone had felt that way
about her. No father to speak of, she’d never known him. Her mother was a nurse
and a drunk that treated her daughter like a patient, when she treated her like
anything.

The others in their crew...Soup, Nik, Two Step--the one she
liked the least which in itself was a problem because he was so close to
Jim--she knew they just wanted to fuck her. She didn’t even really doubt that
they would roll over on her to the cops if it would keep them out of jail. She
forced herself to see the good in them, and when they were all together she
felt a bond between them that seemed unbreakable.

But it was a drug bond, at least, that was what she told
herself at times like these, when the party was over and she was left trying to
put herself back together.

It was different with Jim, though. They’d fallen asleep in
the same bed many a time, often in each other’s arms, and he’d never been
anything but a gentleman.

She knew he wanted her, she could almost taste it in the air
around him. She wasn’t sure what was holding him back from taking her, but as
Cherry fell asleep with her tears not yet even dry on her cheeks she smiled,
having made herself a promise...a promise that, a few miles away, as he lay
wide awake and in pain, Jim was trying to make to himself.

Back at the party the music was mellower now that most of
the people were gone and those that were left were trying to come down. Sue had
run out of speed, and no one much wanted to go out and find more. Two Step was
afraid of someone going out to find more, because he still had some money and
he knew he would put an order in and the anticipation of having more would
spike his pulse a little and keep him awake long enough for the shit to arrive
and then he’d start all over again. He didn’t want to. He couldn’t think of
anything he wanted to do less. But he knew he would. He pondered this as he
sat, completely still for the first time in he didn’t know how long. It was a
like a long cold drink of water when you were really thirsty, he thought. He
rolled his neck and his shoulders and closed his eyes and tried to envision
each muscle group relaxing, one fiber at a time, and it made him feel better.
His feet weren’t tapping, his fingers weren’t drumming, even his mind had
slowed down.

When Two Step opened his eyes they wouldn’t focus at first,
everything looked as if he were standing too close to an Impressionist
painting. He turned on the couch to make a joke about this to Sue, more for his
own benefit, because fact was it scared him badly not to be able to see.
Everything clarified, the lines snapped back into place and he gave Sue a
little nudge with his elbow and realized she was asleep.

He smiled. What a great chick, man. What a great,
down-to-earth chick. Really knows what it’s all about. No one had ever been as
cool as Sue was. Who else would invite their best customers, her friends
really, over for a huge on-the-house bender? She was cute as hell too. Might be
after he got some sleep he’d give her a call, put in some one-on-one time,
maybe try and hit it. See if he could give the girl a taste of the dark
chocolate.

Two Step heard Soup and Tattoo Nik talking quietly and
turned to find them. Lance was sitting near them, staring. Two Step didn’t like
Lance. He didn’t know anyone that did, not even Summer, and she fucked the guy.
She’d said once it took her two days to scrub the stink of him off her, and she’d
still had the diseases he gave her to deal with. Two Step smiled a little,
noting that both Summer and Monster were gone. That was funny, Lance being left
behind by a fucking beast like Monster. Soup had once told Two Step he’d heard
that Monster had once put honey all over her snatch and let a dog lick it off
while four or five other guys sat around masturbating and throwing one dollar
bills at her. Soup had said after that she’d fucked herself with a wine bottle
and then let everyone jerk off in her face, sure for the money but also, Soup
said, she was just that nasty. The idea of Monster doing anything made Two Step
a little nauseous. He couldn’t think of a single instance in which she could
possibly do anything to make him hard.

Soup finished his conversation with Tattoo Nik, or rather,
he was interrupted by Lance and took the time to get away from him, leaving Nik
to fend for himself.

“What’s up bro?” Soup said and dropped down onto the couch
next to Two Step, landing almost on top of him, jostling him hard enough to
where he slammed into Sue.

“What the fuck, Soup!” Two Step said.

Sue let out a long, slow fart.

“Holy shit did you hear that?” Soup asked, and the two of
them tried not to laugh.

“Quiet,” Two Step said. “You’ll wake her up.”

There was another long, sputtering fart from Sue.

“Oh Jesus you smell that?” Two Step asked. “Get the fuck off
me, man, I gotta get some air.” He pushed Soup away and stood. Just as he was
walking away Soup’s hand snaked out and clamped down on his wrist.

“Wha--” Two Step stopped, the look on Soup’s face was what
did it. Dude was whiter than normal, and Soup was just about the whitest white
boy Two Step knew.

Soup turned and looked back at Sue. At first Two Step
couldn’t see what the problem was, she was just sitting there, like before,
still asleep and sure she be a farting nasty bitch, he might rethink trying to
get up in them guts now that he’d heard and smelled that action, but then he
saw the spreading darkness along her pants. He heard another long low fart and
it seemed like that stain spread everywhere, just like that, and the room
filled with a smell that Two Step could only compare to one other thing, to the
Porta-Potty on the job site he’d had to use for that one week last summer when
he was clean and trying to make an honest living working construction.

“Something gotta be wrong with her, man, to just sit there
like that,” Two Step said.

“What’s going on?” Nik asked from behind him.

“Sue just shit herself,” Soup said. “Like…
a lot
.”

“What?” Nik was then next to him, and Two Step could sense
Lance standing behind him.

“Don’t you smell that?” Soup asked.

“Oh Jesus Christ!”

“I wonder if…”

“Do you think she…”

“Is she even…”

“When’s the last time…”

“She aint moved in…”

“…breathing…”

“OD’d?”

Those last two syllables hung in the air, and no one knew
who spoke them. No one would ever admit it. It was just not something that you
said in their circle, which, after conferring later, led Two Step, Soup, and
Tattoo Nik to believe it had been Lance to speak such a dreadful curse.

Two Step flicked on the overhead lights. The blue and green
tint from the lava lamp was gone and they could see the room in a bright
fluorescent clarity, so bright and final and horrible it might as well have
been the sun itself.

In this light there was no mistaken. Sue was dead.

Her face had swollen, just a little, and her face still held
a little of that ghostly blue tint that was now gone from everywhere else.

“She’s fucking dead,” Soup said.

Two Step stared at her, breathed in the stench of her voided
bowels, memorized the exact tint of her swollen face. He saw how her eyes
weren’t even all the way closed, but open just a little. How had he missed all
this when he’d been-

He’d been sitting next to her...

He’d even been thinking of fucking her! Two Step staggered
away from the others and made it to the kitchen sink in time to throw up.

This is worse, oh shit this is so much worse than Zig
,
Two Step thought. That had been bad, he still dreamed about it in fact but to
be sitting next to some girl thinking how fine she is and how you gonna come up
here and fuck a few days from now all this while the bitch is already dead and
not two minutes before she drops her guts into her fucking pants? Two Step
didn’t know if he would ever stop throwing up, if he would ever be right again,
feel good again, be clean again.

Eventually he looked up to see the others had stripped the
satchel off her body and were busy dividing up the contents. When he got his
share, Lance started going through her shit-soaked pants pockets, making Two
Step gag. Soup started unhooking the widescreen TV. Tattoo Nik went straight
back into the bedroom and Two Step threw up again, and it was mercy because for
that split second all he could think about was how he didn’t know he had this
much in his stomach but then it stopped and the bile was burning in his nose
and streaming from his lips and the smell of shit was everywhere, it was not
only in the room but it was in him, it
was
him, it was everything. Lance
started stuffing DVD’s into his clothes and Soup went out to put the TV in his
car and came back in and started unhooking her stereo and Two Step wanted to
puke again, wanted it with all his heart just so he could have that one split
second where he didn’t have to watch this, where he didn’t have to know what
was going on.

But he didn’t puke.

Lance scurried out like a cockroach when you hit the lights
and Soup was finished with the stereo and Two Step kept hearing this voice in
the back of his head, over and over, calling his name, Two Step hey Two Step
you fucking deaf yo Step! And it was Soup calling his name and Two Step shook
his head and looked over at him.

“Gimme a hand with this, huh? Grab the fucking speakers or
something.”

Two Step took a long slow breath.

“Come on, man, I grabbed up some gack for you too, man,
bitch was holding out!”

“What?” Gack? What was gack?

“You don’t think I’d leave you hanging, did you man? Know
something, we can get some great shit for the apartment man, load up, here...”
Soup put the CD changer down and dug through his pockets. He came out with a
familiar capsule and as he walked tapped some of it onto the webbing of the
back of his hand between the thumb and forefinger, then snorted it. He held the
capsule out to Two Step. When he didn’t take it, Soup shook his head and
stepped forward and put the capsule in Two Step’s nose, used a finger from his
other hand to close the other nostril and Two Step sniffed hard, once, hard and
fast and the lines that had been blurry only a few minutes ago were now
glowing; Soup claps him on the shoulder and smiles at him, which is rare for
Soup because he doesn’t like people seeing his cheap DOC dentures and Two
Step’s feet are still frozen to the ground but when Soup puts the CD changer in
his hands his feet begin to move, to move, all he wants to do is move move
move.

It took them less than ten minutes to clean out everything
worth taking.

Just as they were finishing Tattoo Nik came out form the
back room with a duffel bag in his hands, stuffed to the point of bursting,
pockets bulging.

“I’m out,” Nik said, and without breaking stride he hit the
door and was gone. The other two followed. In the car on the way back home, Two
Step was starting to wonder why he’d thrown up, shit it wasn’t near as bad as
when Zig shot himself, there was blood and brains and shit on the wall, little
pieces of skull and shit. All this was tonight was some dead white bitch done
shit herself after taking a shot she couldn’t handle. Too bad too, he thought.
Wouldn’t a minded throwing a shot up in there myself, had me half a chance.