Chaingang

He'd slept until nearly 1:00 P.M., coming awake, in search of Darvon. His head was a swamp. There were too many gators and snakes loose in there. He downed two Darvon capsules, washing them down with warmish Olympia Light. By the time he popped the top on his fourth Oly, the Darvon had kicked in and he thought he might live after all.

The stash was empty. There was nothing in the pantry. He put on the shirt he'd worn the night before and extracted a small vial, which was nearly empty. He tapped coke out, straightened it into a line, and did it, rubbing his gums with residue and licking his finger.

That's when he suddenly remembered the deal, and the pressure of it snapped him into action. He had fourteen dollars in his greasy blue jeans. He found a crisp hundred in the dictionary (i-MUR-jen-see: Noun. An unforeseen set of circumstances. A pressing need). When he realized that in the entire world he owned the cabin, a half acre of worthless hill, and the awesome sum of $114, he realized what a world of trouble he was in and lurched out into the depressingly wet day.

October spruce trees stood alongside the pathway up Waterworks Hill, boughs heavy with moisture. Hillside milo, russet and golden, seemingly untended, fought to stand tall in fields of rampant blotches of relentless weeds.

Gray clouds the size of aircraft carriers trailed damp tendrils over the upturned face of the Missouri countryside that flanked the hill above the small town waterworks.

Royce Hawthorne had a guy who wanted weight. David Drexel—money in el banco. Drexel was so frightened of copping burn, he'd come to Royce for the connect. Homeboy Royce with a rep for dealing and using, emphasis on the latter. Drexel had not blinked at the tab.

Royce could buy weight from Happy. Keep a piece of the rock for recreational usage, turn the balance for a solid profit. Free enterprise in microcosm—right? On the surface it was too cool.

Never mind that it put Royce-baby in a world of shit. That it might hang him up by his num-nums. Why quibble over the little details?

Happy said he would do the thing, but Royce “better not be jerking his chain.” No way, Royce promised. You get it—I buy it. How had he let himself get squeezed into this nasty jackpot?

Today Mr. Happy was coming with the Right Stuff. Three thousand down. He'd carry Royce for the balance due. If Royce pulled a hundred-dollar bill out of his pants, he might as well pull his cock out too, and piss all over Happy's $550 kicks.

Happy would have his goon break Royce's knees, stand him in a fifty-five-gallon Treflan drum full of Sakrete, and drop him into the deepest part of Bluehole Trench. That is—if Happy was in a good mood. The man had all the forgiving warmth of a napalm strike.

“The thing"—as he often thought of it—hovered over him, even while he slept. Within minutes of waking he'd always be slammed back to reality by the dangerous game he'd been coerced into playing. What had it taken to pressure him into becoming a secret player, this guy approaching the big three-zero whose sum total of accomplishments was the shack of a cabin, cool enough in summer but freezing in winter, and a funky cocaine jones the size of a big fat dog? It hadn't been easy to bollix and jumble up so many parts of a life that had once been brimming with potential, as his parents, teachers, friends, lovers, and employers had often said. It had taken an iron will, a steely resolve, and the flinty maturity of a nine-year-old whacked out on LePage's Model Airplane Glue. It had taken a mutha of a jam-up.

“Yo, Royce,” Vandella the bartender said. “You up early."

“Ten-four,” Hawthorne said, shedding his raincoat and tossing it carelessly in the direction of a Rockhouse coat hanger, holding his fingers apart so Vandella could start pouring.

“Hee ya go.” He wiped the bar around the shot glass. “Beer back?” He asked.

“Yeah.” Royce tilted it back, almost gagging on the taste. Not swallowing the whole shot. The dirty version of “Louie, Lou-eye” blasted from the juke, a three-thousand-dollar Rockola. He gratefully grabbed the cold Oly in his left hand, tilting it and sucking on it, then downing the rest of the shot and washing it down with beer.

“Again?” Vandella jittered behind the bar, singing, “Stick my finger in the hole of love,” as he cleaned a glass.

Royce nodded.

“Happy been in?"

“Not since I been here."

“How long you been here?"

“All fuckin’ day.” They both smiled. They had a routine. Royce drank another shot of tequila. Cuervo in the right, Oly Light in the left, a two-handed drinker he was. None of that lime and salt and ritual, just put down four or five Mex-Tex boilers and get some hair on the bear.

He carried the next pair over to the open blackjack table when he saw who was filling the card shoe. Only one dealer had come in to work so far, the older woman everybody called Tia.

“What's your pleasure, sir?” she asked, professionally. Then she looked up, and his presence registered in her eyes.