VOICES FROM THE FIRE: Jack Henry & Dillinger

A Drug Story

Fat Freddy tells me he is out of the game. Fentanyl, he says, fucked everything up. But you can still get high, still get by, just test your shit before the party begins. Small time motherfuckers don’t care and those motherfuckers are the ones that die.

Hustling down to a different part of town, a companion in his black cloak points a boney finger up toward an old building with a red front door. Three floors up, down the hall to the right, knock three times, door opens. C’mon on in, a tall woman with a delicate figure holds the door wide, I walk inside, and sit on a ratty leather couch. TV blares, no one cares, a baby cries in the distance.

It’s a quick exchange. She produces product, I produce currency. 

I can test it, if ya want?

Fentanyl free maybe, test strip seems to suggest. She hits a bump, smiles. I wait. Nothing. Just a smile. Jagged teeth, thin lips painted bright blue. Dirty blonde hair.

Try it. I have Narcan if you’re trippin.

I stare into dead cat eyes. Acne scares litter gray skin. She might have been something sometime to someone but those days passed in a whisper.

Yeah, okay.

First bump floats, second hits home, third tells me a story as I fold back into the ratty leather couch. 

Good shit,   right?  She takes a bump off my cut, then another. Dealer’s gotta steal.

Mmm.

Suck your dick for another twenty.

I do the math, make a choice, snatch up my thick glassine baggy, turn for the door.

For free then?

Think about honor, doing the right thing, not taking advantage, not being a piece of shit amoral motherfucker, unsnap my pants.

On the street, chasing back to my hiding, Fat Freddy walks up. Says, hey man and where’d you score? And I say, that crazy girl we went to high school with.

No shit?

No shit?

She still at it?

Yeah, seems so.

Musta dropped outta college.

Must have.

Full scholarship and all that.

All that.

Ain’t life a motherfucker.

Indeed.

Back in my shack, little room above a liquor store in Koreatown, alone in the dark, spilling out fat lines of white powder across a dirty formica top kitchen table, sun well past setting, TV screaming out infomercial information, dogs barking in the alley, I do not hesitate or contemplate, tube up an old twenty-dollar bill, hold it to a nostril, and inhale each line, slow, one by motherfucking one, by one, by one.

~ THEN ~

Knock at the door. 

I hear it.                I cannot

…move. 

Or. 

Turn. 

My. 

Head. 

Toward the door. 

(coke makes it slow)

Knock at the

…door. 

Hey man! 

A voice

…familiar.            But. 

Not familiar. 

Open the fuckin door, man. It’s Johnny.

I

don’t

move.

I

just

stare

out my window.

Motherfucker, I know you’re in there.

Johnny?

Only atoms crashing against each other in the channels of my ears make a sound.

Well fuck you then.

.

Footsteps. Crash against hardwood floors. Other doors close. Onlookers and videographers disappear. Silence.           Silence.                         Silence.

The grip loosens and I shake awake. My head hurts [Grab your reader’s attention with a great quote from the document or use this space to emphasize a key point. To place this text box anywhere on the page, just drag it.]. Tubed twenty-dollar bill in my hand. Fat lines wait in front of me on a dirty formica top kit

chen table. A baby cries in the distance. The baggy is empty. I hit each line.

            Hard.

Boom.

Boom.

Boom.

Boom.

Frozen. Again. My mind. Dead. Numb. 

There is nothing. 

Only the ants marching through my veins. 

I am electric. 

Informercial information. 

Rain begins to splash against dirty windows. 

Copper ceilings twinkle. 

My phone vibrates. 

Answer your fucking door. I know you’re in there. 

I touch my phone. It’s magic. I lick the screen. 

I lick the residue off the formica top kitchen table. 

I piss myself. My mind. Dead. 

Numb.

Three floors up, down the hall to the right, knock three times, door opens. C’mon on in, a tall woman with a delicate figure holds the door wide, I walk inside, and sit on a ratty leather couch. TV blares, no one cares, a baby cries in the distance.

Back again?

I was here?

Yeah, three days ago.

The exchange is quick. I don’t ask for testing. We share bumps. One, two, three. I unsnap her pants, she unsnaps mine. There is no mention of further compensation. My cock is worthless. I lick her pussy. We share bumps. Four, five, six.

Remember high school, she says randomly. She pulls on a black Motley Crue concert tee-shirt over her skinny body, bones pronounced, flesh tight, and then says, those were the days, right? And then pulls on her dirty jeans. You can put that away¸ points at my flaccid cock poking out of my unzipped pants.

I stand. Adjust myself.

I didn’t like high school.

I think you liked me.

You were pretty then.

We all were.

I shit in the alley, behind a dumpster, a yellow cat watches me, then turns away, and the moon starts its mercurial dance across a northern sky. There are no clouds. It is cold. My breath hangs in the air. I am an addict.

Knock at my door. Open up! Police! I glance around my room. Nothing to hide. Clean and neat after a three-hour manic binge. Police! Open up! A few steps toward the door. Sudden thought. One last stash. Sugar jar. I laugh. Stupid hiding place. Open up! Police! We know you’re in there. Lady downstairs said you were. Hide the fat baggy in a cereal box, in a cabinet above the stove. Rethink it. Hide it in the freezer, under a frost-bitten pizza box. Rethink it. Hide it in an empty soda can and toss it at the top of a trash can. Open the front door.

You Jack Henry?

Yeah…ah…yeah.

Can we come in?

Warrant?

One cop in plainclothes, the other in blue. They look at each other and shake their heads.

This ain’t about you and we don’t give a single shit about whatever you might be holding.

Not a single one? Ummm. Okay.

They step in. Blue cop shows me a picture, asks if I know her. Dead woman. OD. Gray skin, acne scars.

No. Don’t know her.

Yeah?

Yeah.

You sticking with that?

I think about it. I know who it is. Three flights up, down the hall to the right. High school. Baby crying in the distance.

Yeah, okay. We went to high school together. A while ago.

Yeah? Just high school?

Yeah.

Plainclothes starts to wander around my small space, poking, prying.

Yeah, okay no, I say. Blue looks at me, thinly. Plainclothes looks out the window. A dog barks in the alley. Wind rattles the window. Okay so I may have hung out with her recently. I smile, raggedly. Blue smiles. Perfect teeth. You know. Just friends. Plainclothes peers at the formica top kitchen table. Sort of dated. Blue writes something in cop book. We fucked; you know. On occasion.

Enough, Blue says. Holds up his hand for clarity.        

We need someone to identify the body. Down at the morgue. Plainclothes says in a slur, walks up behind me, his breath thick and hot on my neck. You know her family?

I don’t really know her name.

But you fucked her?

Yeah. Well, tried.

Enough, Blue says. Steps back, twists the doorknob, pulls the door open. He’s just a junkie fuckwad.

Yeah. Plainclothes starts toward the door. Hiding your shit in an empty soda can isn’t smart.

Yeah?

Yeah. Plainclothes steps close, too close, breath hot, smells of pastrami or his boyfriend’s asshole or something. Unless you know how to cut it out?

Just twist.

How’s that?

Just twist the can…open.

I gesture.

Yeah, fuck you.

Door shut, locked. I race for the trashcan. And twist and twist and twist.

Fat Freddy posts up against a wall, around the corner, down the street from my hiding above the liquor store in Koreatown, smoking a cigarette, picking dirt from his fingernails, glancing around behind black shades, 9 mil tucked under his belly.

            Hey, I rasp, walking up slow, calm, not a care in my skull, only blue skies and paper dolls. You holding?

            Naw.

            Out the game?

            For real, motherfucker.

            I’m thinking bullshit.

            Yeah?

            For real, Freddy? Motherfucking real?

Post up next to Fat Freddy, bum a smoke, strike a match, suck it down, burn my throat, exhale long, pretty woman slinks by, no eye contact, I stare at her ass, smile, forget, remember.

            Maybe I am. Your dead girlfriend left a vacuum in the supply chain.

            Supply chain?

            Fuckin A right, man. Big hole. She moved product.

            She sucked my dick.

            Why?

            I dunno. I let her.

            For real. As you would.

            As I would.

Unhoused American rumbles up, sticks his dirty hand out, change, spare change, can’t make eye contact, looks away, Fat Freddy pulls crumpled bills from his coat pocket…Now fuck off, man. Fuck the fuck off.

            Nothing said. Blue skies bleed toward black. Paper dolls burn.

            Fat Freddy says, so and I say, so, and we walk away.

            Follow Fat Freddy down the street, through a red door, up three flights and down the hall to the LEFT, knock twice, hello, c’mon in.

            The exchange is quick…

I shit in the alley, behind a dumpster, a yellow cat watches me, then turns away, and the moon starts its mercurial dance across a northern sky. There are no clouds. It is cold. My breath hangs in the air. I am an addict.

Knock at my door. Open up! Police! I glance around my room. Nothing to hide. Clean and neat after a three-hour manic binge. Police! Open up! A few steps toward the door. Sudden thought. One last stash. Sugar jar. I laugh. Stupid hiding place. Open up! Police! We know you’re in there. Lady downstairs said you were. Hide the fat baggy in a cereal box, in a cabinet above the stove. Rethink it. Hide it in the freezer, under a frost-bitten pizza box. Rethink it. Hide it in an empty soda can and toss it at the top of a trash can. Open the front door.

You Jack Henry?

Yeah…ah…yeah.

Can we come in?

Warrant?

One cop in plainclothes, the other in blue. They look at each other and shake their heads.

This ain’t about you and we don’t give a single shit about whatever you might be holding.

Not a single one? Ummm. Okay.

They step in. Blue cop shows me a picture, asks if I know her. Dead woman. OD. Gray skin, acne scars.

No. Don’t know her.

Yeah?

Yeah.

You sticking with that?

I think about it. I know who it is. Three flights up, down the hall to the right. High school. Baby crying in the distance.

Yeah, okay. We went to high school together. A while ago.

Yeah? Just high school?

Yeah.

Plainclothes starts to wander around my small space, poking, prying.

Yeah, okay no, I say. Blue looks at me, thinly. Plainclothes looks out the window. A dog barks in the alley. Wind rattles the window. Okay so I may have hung out with her recently. I smile, raggedly. Blue smiles. Perfect teeth. You know. Just friends. Plainclothes peers at the formica top kitchen table. Sort of dated. Blue writes something in cop book. We fucked; you know. On occasion.

Enough, Blue says. Holds up his hand for clarity.        

We need someone to identify the body. Down at the morgue. Plainclothes says in a slur, walks up behind me, his breath thick and hot on my neck. You know her family?

I don’t really know her name.

But you fucked her?

Yeah. Well, tried.

Enough, Blue says. Steps back, twists the doorknob, pulls the door open. He’s just a junkie fuckwad.

Yeah. Plainclothes starts toward the door. Hiding your shit in an empty soda can isn’t smart.

Yeah?

Yeah. Plainclothes steps close, too close, breath hot, smells of pastrami or his boyfriend’s asshole or something. Unless you know how to cut it out?

Just twist.

How’s that?

Just twist the can…open.

I gesture.

Yeah, fuck you.

Door shut, locked. I race for the trashcan. And twist and twist and twist.

Fat Freddy posts up against a wall, around the corner, down the street from my hiding above the liquor store in Koreatown, smoking a cigarette, picking dirt from his fingernails, glancing around behind black shades, 9 mil tucked under his belly.

            Hey, I rasp, walking up slow, calm, not a care in my skull, only blue skies and paper dolls. You holding?

            Naw.

            Out the game?

            For real, motherfucker.

            I’m thinking bullshit.

            Yeah?

            For real, Freddy? Motherfucking real?

Post up next to Fat Freddy, bum a smoke, strike a match, suck it down, burn my throat, exhale long, pretty woman slinks by, no eye contact, I stare at her ass, smile, forget, remember.

            Maybe I am. Your dead girlfriend left a vacuum in the supply chain.

            Supply chain?

            Fuckin A right, man. Big hole. She moved product.

            She sucked my dick.

            Why?

            I dunno. I let her.

            For real. As you would.

            As I would.

Unhoused American rumbles up, sticks his dirty hand out, change, spare change, can’t make eye contact, looks away, Fat Freddy pulls crumpled bills from his coat pocket…Now fuck off, man. Fuck the fuck off.

            Nothing said. Blue skies bleed toward black. Paper dolls burn.

            Fat Freddy says, so and I say, so, and we walk away.

            Follow Fat Freddy down the street, through a red door, up three flights and down the hall to the LEFT, knock twice, hello, c’mon in.

            The exchange is quick…

a baby cries in the distance