Читать книгу JUNKIE II - Shawnda Christiansen - Страница 8

That a nightmare. My life—a nightmare, a train wreck. A long line of endless bad choices, that’s me. I have a really hard time remembering how it is that everything skipped

so far off the tracks. Honestly, even the simplest memory of how I got here, handcuffed to this hospital bed, is kinda sketchy. I never saw this coming. I mean, I’m usually pretty good at seeing the upcoming twists and turns, but not this one.

“How are you feeling, Corbin?” said my attending nurse. I looked over at her and couldn’t believe my eyes. It was Melissa. I have known this girl since she was in diapers. Now, now that I have lost it all, now that I am the property of someone else, it has to be her? She’s even got the nerve to smile at me as I lay here, handcuffed to this God-damned bed.

I may as well be standing in line at a homeless shelter, begging for a plate of food. That is how low this is. The disrespect. The disgrace, humiliation, powerlessness, the loss, and this bitch is smiling at me, “Oh, just fucking peachy,” I said to her with a scowl. “Best day of my whole damn life!”

I always win; I always have the upper hand. I am always in control. You see, control equals ownership, and I always made it a point to possess everything around me. Or at least, as much of it as I possibly could.

I remember seeing June Taylor standing in my living room, acting as if she hadn’t been a homeless junkie sleeping in the post office for years. I remember her starting to poke around in my whole operation. I remember.

June, the junkie I had given so many chances to. June, who I had helped over and over and over again. Her?

It really had to be her?

Her and her buddies who banded together to be pains in my ass. They ruined everything.

Lives were lost, lives that could have been spared, but those lives were nothing compared to the carnage bestowed upon this town if the Cartel found out that the whole operation was exposed.

This place was going to burn, starting with me, like literally me. “My chest feels like hellfire over here; you got any drugs?” I said to my nurse.

“I’ll go talk to the doctor,” Melissa said.

“Make it snappy,” I said to her, as rudely as the driven snow.

Listen to me, talking to her like that. I’ve known that girl her whole life for Christ’s sake. Now I lay here, handcuffed to the God-damn bed, my chest on fire from that freight train mercilessly colliding with my heart at warp speeds, while she caters to me like I’m some kind of an invalid. I can’t even believe it. That junkie whore ruined everything.

“Sh-sh-sheriff- um, I mean, Corbin?”

Oh, and him! Deputy fucking Walker. This pansy-ass bitch has a lot of nerve. I thought he was on my team. I owned his ass. I had him under control.

“What!” I looked at his pussy ass standing in the doorway of my hospital room. “What the fuck do you want?”

He stumbles into the room, like the lazy, underachieving kid that was picked on his whole life, till he finally got himself a badge and now thinks he’s all that and a bag of potato chips.

“How’s it going?” he slightly stutters as he awkwardly inches his way into the room.

This fucking guy ruined everything that I had going. Everything. He’s the last person I expected to see stumbling into my hospital room. “How do you think I’m doing?” I shouted at him.

He hung back by the door, too scared to walk in.

“You look scared; that’s smart. You got good reason to be. You oughta be three states to the wind right now.” I smiled at him with a seething hatred. “While I sit here trying to get the tire tracks off of my back.” I laughed, but it wasn’t funny.

“I’m so-so-sorry,” he stuttered, shaking like a scared child.

“Cut me loose and maybe I’ll forgive ya!” I rattled my handcuffed hands at him.

“I-I can’t do that.”

“Well then, why in the hell are you here?” “I needed to, um, talk to you.”

“Spit it out.”

Deputy Walker grabbed a chair from the corner and spun it around as if trying to put a barrier between us. “I just couldn’t do it anymore.” His face flushed red. Standing up to me must be the hardest thing he’s ever done.

Why did I ever deputize his ass? Why did I think this pansy could ever handle the responsibility of working under me? It was simple. He was weak. I knew it the moment I laid eyes on him. He was easy to control.

I guess he got hungry. Hungry for power, hungry for ownership; then he turned on me. The things we try to own will always turn around and try to own us. “So how’s it feel?” I asked.

“You have the right to remain silent, anything you say—” “Seriously?” I balked.

“I have been sworn in as Sheriff.” He choked a little on his words, looking around the room with the guilt of a child.

“My old girlfriend used to babysit this little toddler who didn’t like to go to the bathroom. One time, we took him with us to a coffee shop. I looked down at him. He was so cute, but his eyes had a certain glow to them. He was looking around at everyone, like, checking to see if any of them were looking at him, and then I watched him fidget with his pants as he let loose a little turd onto the coffee shop floor!” I laughed. Walker laughed with me.

“You’ve got the same look on your face right now” I was laughing so hard I felt a little tear roll down my cheek. He was still laughing with me, always the best tension breaker in the room.

“I was gonna pick up the turd, but some old lady stepped on it before I had a chance. I watched it squish under her shoe. It was about as flat as a pancake, except I don’t think your head will look so flat when it’s propped up on a stick.” I laughed a little more.

The color drained from Walker’s face, and his eyes filled with terror. “I told you, I’m sorry,” he pleaded.

“You need to listen to me. That is what THEY’RE gonna do to you, unless I stop them.”

“I can’t cut you loose,” Walker said. “Bumbling, fucking, idiot,” I said.

I don’t know who I’m more disgusted with, him or myself. So here it is.

The naked truth.

It’s all about rights, ownership and control. Every puppet has its strings, and every puppet, a master. When Walker screwed me over he screwed over Hunter Slip. The head of the cartel, the drug dealer of all dealers. “This control you have right now, or I guess I should say you think you have, is nothing more than an illusion.”

“I can handle anything they throw at me,” Walker said.

“Sure, puppet, they’re coming, they’re cleaning house, and they will annihilate every man, woman and child connected to that Pharmacy. This whole fucking town is gonna bleed, and that is on YOU!”

“No.” He shook his head as he got up and started pacing back and forth. “It’s you who made this mess,” he said.

“Apples, oranges—I’m sure it’s all the same to them,” I said.

Even though I was the one in charge around here, even though I had all the power and control, even though I clearly owned the town and everyone in it, I was someone’s puppet too. I didn’t want to be anyone’s puppet. I wanted full control of the entire world, or at least, my world. The moment I learned the truth, the truth I hated to admit to myself or anyone else, I came unhinged.

I made some bad choices; these bad choices led me down a path of, well, a path I hate to think about. Thanks to some proverbial side roads, traffic jams, intravenous drug use, inability to let go, the plan was taking a bit longer to wrap up. Now, it was all falling apart.

“I’m not going to—”

“GET THE FUCK OUT!” I shouted at Walker’s pansy ass as he tried to say something else.

Melissa walked back into the room. “Got some meds for you,” she said as she tried to steer around Walker.

“Get out of the fucking way!” I shouted at him.

I glared at Walker, still standing there. He awkwardly turned to leave and ran into some orderlies with a food cart.

“Get! Ya bull in a fucking china shop!” I shouted at him as Melissa stepped in to give me my meds.

“I wasn’t sure if you’d be up to eating anything, but this medication is best with food,” she said.

“Thank you, sweetie, I am a little hungry.” I rattled my handcuffed hands. “Are you planning on hand feeding me, or—”

“What’s wrong? You can’t eat by osmosis?” Melissa giggled a little as she pulled a

handcuff key out of her pocket. That right there, that key, that is the holy grail of all keys.

The keys to the kingdom. The keys to my kingdom. The plot twist of the day.

Maybe I still had a shot at setting things right?

I figured I could just wait until she let one hand loose, then I ask her to adjust my pillow? She’ll lean in, I’ll crack her skull into my bed rail, help myself to the key, and kill every single man, woman or child who stands in the way. Well, maybe not the children, and probably not the women and hell, probably not anyone.

I honestly do not find, and never have found, any joy in killing people. The ends just— they have to be met. I am a winner. I am in control. I make my own destiny, certainly can’t leave it up to fate. Sadly, that has led to killing a couple of people in my day. It’s not something I’m particularly proud of, unless they have it coming. If they have it coming, well, then it’s just game on.

We’d have to play this one by ear.

“Which hand do you prefer to eat with?” she asked.

I watched her as I thought about my plan. The timing was too risky, what with the orderlies there and the door propped open. I am a patient man. I’ll wait.

She stepped in and un-cuffed my right hand.

“Ah, finally,” I said to her, as I scratched my nose. “Been trying to scratch that itch with my shoulder for a while now but it just wasn’t cutting it.”

I watched the key to the kingdom fall back into her pocket as the orderlies stepped in and put a food tray on my little bedside table: turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing and cranberry sauce. “Looks like a holiday feast,” I said to the orderlies, trying to be pleasant.

“Yeah, Christmas dinners are always nice around here,” Melissa said. “Christmas?” I was honestly kind of surprised.

She smiled at me as she handed me the pill cup with a small, one- ounce paper cup of water. “Percocet,” she said as I dropped the pill into my mouth.

Then I accepted the little tiny cup of water from her. “This is barely enough to wet the whistle; can I get a little more?”

“Sure,” Melissa said as she walked over to the sink.

I surveyed my quarters while she was away. The two orderlies were tidying up the room. The door was open enough to see there was a guard on detail, just outside the room. Lots of people lining the hallways. It seemed a lot busier than I would expect. “Damn, happening place, eh?”

“It’s always like this around Christmas. Carolers come in to cheer everyone up,” Melissa said.

“Ahh.” So I had a hallway full of carolers to contend with too.

Melissa returned and handed me a large pink cup. “Do you need or want a straw?”

“Nah, this works.”

I took a big swig. “Can I get your help with my pillow, though?” “Sure.” Melissa leaned over and helped me adjust my pillow as I slid

the key out of her pocket. “Tell me when.” “That’s perfect, sweetie, thank you.”

“Anything you need, just push the button.” Melissa handed me a little plastic contraption with a button on the tip of it. “Try to eat as much as you can. I’ll be back to check on you a bit later.”

“Thank you, sweetie.” I patiently waited for her to leave as I slid the handcuff key under my right thigh.

Once she was gone I started to reach for the key, then my damn door opened again. “Can’t a man get a little privacy in here?” I said, agitated. Sonny walked in, pushing a broom and wearing a janitor smock. Sonny, of all people. He’d been on JD’s crew for a while, which meant he was on my crew. I didn’t spend a whole lot of time palling around with the help, but I figured he was in a world of trouble, just like the

rest of us.

This game of drug running is always about ownership. As long as I was in charge and he was a player, I owned him. Now that it seemed I might not be in charge anymore, it was anyone’s guess who owned Sonny. “Who’s in charge around here anyway? They seem to let all the riff-raff in,” I joked, gauging the score to see if my day was about to get a whole lot worse.

“How’s it going, boss?” he said.

“How’s it LOOK like I’m doing?” I rattled my handcuffed hand at him.

“Looks like a rough day,” he laughed as he approached the bed table. He grabbed the fork and played with the mashed potatoes. “Hospital food looks better than expected.”

“Help yourself.”

“Nah man.” Sonny set the fork down and locked eyes with me. “Slip’s here. Got a bounty on you, your family, and that chick June.”

“Well, I ain’t got no family left and he can have that bitch. But you gotta know he’s not stopping there, man; he’ll go after everyone involved, including you and yours. Help me bust outta here and we’ll go clean up this mess together.”

“Nah man, there’s cops everywhere, and carolers too, oddly enough.” Just then the carolers started singing out in the hallway.

“That is odd, or maybe it isn’t. I don’t really remember being in any hospitals on Christmas,” I said.

“What happened anyways?” he asked.

“You win some, you lose some. This time I lost; it’s as simple as that. But it’s not too late to clean up the mess. Let’s work together,” I said as I looked him up and down.

“I got amnesty,” he said.

“You really believe he’s gonna honor that? He’s losing millions of dollars right now. He’s gonna wanna take a little ass for that, and trust me - that means your ass, too.”

“I figure my odds are better this way,” he said.

“Well then, what are you waiting for, sweetheart?” I smiled and winked at him. “Let’s rock and roll.”

Sonny lunged at me with a knife.

I captured his arm between my right knee and right hand. His bones cracked on impact.

I kneed him in the face with a hard blow, sending him and his knife to the floor, un-cuffed myself and launched up off the bed.