There are places where things like love and hope exist but this place isn’t one of them.
The city is corrosive, like a demon is buried underneath it and the land demands blood.
I’ve struggled with telling this story for a long time because even though it’s been a year now, it never gets easier because she was my best friend and hope is the most dangerous drug there is.
She’d lived a good life to this point: hot-shot boyfriend, doting parents, dependable friends and a volleyball scholarship on deck at a state school.
Everything was perfect in those nineteen years.
But nineteen minutes with Manny changed all of that.
She wasn’t even supposed to go to the party.
She told her roommate she had an exam in the morning and wanted to stay in and study. But a little needling by the roommate made her cave. Dorm life had taken its toll and one party wouldn’t hurt.
The only boy she ever had sex with back in high school was the boy she had dated since eighth grade. His name was Josh and he was a thousand miles away and played football for a small college in Iowa and they were still a long-distance couple on the night of this party.
But Manny changed all of that, too, and when Josh found out, he ate himself a lead snack.
Nine months later, she bore mini-Manny– his son, Javy.
Manny didn’t show up at the hospital and didn’t sign the birth certificate because certain men make ill fathers and it didn’t surprise her that she never saw him again after the party.
The birth was rough on her and she suffered a third-degree tear and was put on pain meds for the first few weeks to cope with the agony.
The doctors had stitched her back up but the pain was unflinching and her mother had to help out with the baby for a while and her schooling was put on hold until she could get back on her feet.
Javy was a feisty newborn. Cried a lot and the doctors claimed he was colic.
Soon, she began using the pain meds for more than just a barricade for the hurt because the pills made her function and more importantly, acted as a numbing barrier to help drown out Javy’s incessant screaming.
She began doubling-up and when the prescription dried-up, she asked around and someone told her they knew a kid who sold pills and she got a number and a name and the name made her flinch and think twice.
By then, Javy two months old and she kept her addiction hidden from her parents pretty easily.
But that was starting to change, too. Her parents grew concerned when they noticed she wasn’t acting herself.
Her mother was having to take care of Javy more than her daughter because all the girl wanted to do was sleep and when she wasn’t sleeping, she would leave the house for hours.
When she came into the city to meet him, Manny didn’t even remember her face when he saw her for the first time since the party.
She was just business. A transaction and a service.
She never realized how expensive it was going to be without daddy’s insurance to pick up a tab and she told Manny she didn’t have that type of money and he wasn’t in the mood to jawbone price and he wasn’t the kind to waste time and effort and he began to walk away and she grabbed his arm in desperation and pleaded with him to work with her and she decided to jump into the deep end.
Manny eyeballed her like she was chum in the water and he lit a cigarette and she watched the cherry glow red like the eye of a dragon.
He asked her if she was good to go and she said yes and he asked her how bad she wanted to get a pocket of high and she said the worst kind of bad and he told her he could get her a month’s worth of pills but she had to come with him and she agreed and then they walked a few blocks.
He led her through a labyrinth of inner city streets and alleys before they crawled through a broken window at the back of a darkened warehouse.
Inside, three cholos were waiting for her.
She asked if these were the guys with the pills and Manny told her no that it was her money or their time and it was then she realized what she was gonna have to do.
Manny had the first crack at her, and then another guy, and then another guy until all of his friends popped off and one of them told her a honey like hers would lead even the most righteous astray.
She didn’t leave with dignity but she left with what she came for and it beat staying home listening to Javy wailing all day.
The pills were supposed to last a month but thirty days became six and then she was on the phone with Manny again.
The pills got too expensive and she didn’t want to become the whore who couldn’t turn the trick so Manny gave her something else, something cheaper and just as effective.
That night, Javy lay in his crib screaming because he hadn’t eaten in nearly ten hours and she shot-up in her parents downstairs bathroom for the first time and the warm, glazed bliss of Mr. Brownstone made her fall in a different kind of love.
She chased that high for the next few days but the shit ain’t never felt the same as it did that first time and she would go into the city enough times that Manny remembered her face now and she got to wondering if she should tell him about Javy but she didn’t want to rock the boat.
She didn’t want to break bread with the motherfucker but Manny exactly ain’t the type to play Father Knows Best.
Baby Daddy was her dealer and she couldn’t risk wasting their relationship like she had wasted all of the others who had once been important.
Her parents knew something was up and they wanted to get her some help and they had a secret meeting with a counselor scheduled on a very hot and humid July day.
The meeting was planned for around noon and right before her parents left, the mother checked in on the girl and Javy.
She tried waking the girl up and told her that Javy was out of formula and that she would need to go to the store and pick some up.
Javy wailed in his crib.
The baby was starving and puckered his lips at the very brush of anything against them and the girl’s mother gave passing thought of taking the baby with her and her husband to the intervention.
But she didn’t. Instead, she gave the newborn his pacifier and left.
An hour later, the girl awoke to Javy screaming bloody murder in his crib and she cried out for her mother to come and feed him but no one was there.
Worse, she needed a fix.
She called Manny but he didn’t answer and she panicked and grabbed her car keys and the crying baby and loaded up the car.
It was a sweltering hot Midwest day and the girl cursed God as she started the engine.
She barreled down the freeway, RPMs screaming eighty-plus.
The gas light came on and she didn’t know if she would have enough gas to get into the city and she cursed a higher power some more.
Javy was strapped tightly in his car seat, hungry, tired, sweating and beat-red.
She lit a cigarette and rolled the windows down as she drove ten more reckless miles into the city.
Javy screamed the whole way and she yelled at him to be quiet and that she was almost there and that once she was there everything would be alright again and then she began to cry because she didn’t know if she believed that herself.
As they crossed the bridge that led into the city, there had been a bad accident and traffic was slowed to a standstill and she banged on the steering wheel with a fist in frustration and Javy kept on screaming and she tried to turn up the radio to cover his grating hollering but it only made her more angry.
A misty haze rose from the tarred streets, thick humidity almost visible, as if the road was smoldering and a radio DJ came on and told everyone to stay cool and stay indoors if possible as the heat index was up near a buck-twenty and climbing.
Traffic inched along and Javy’s screaming was insufferable and she screamed at the kid that she just wanted a fucking taste.
Her brow dripped with sweat and her t-shirt began sticking to her skin and she didn’t want to turn on the AC so it wouldn’t burn up what was left of the gas tank but she couldn’t take the choking hot air and rolled up the windows and cranked the AC.
The light on the gas gauge was now blinking and she hurriedly tried to call Manny on his cell again. This time, he answered and she was crying and Javy was still screaming.
She made it across the bridge and got off the exit near MLK Boulevard, driving down sinuous roads to meet Manny at the warehouse.
She parked and turned off the car because she didn’t want to waste gas and told Javy she would be right back.
She ran inside and Javy remained in the car, his arms and legs flailing about.
She entered the warehouse without any money and Manny pointed a gun at her and made her get down on her knees and he asked her if she believed in God and she said there was no such thing as Heaven, just that the other place, and he knew the one.
That’s when she put Manny into her mouth and he got off there and then he gave her what she really came for.
She was gone almost twenty minutes and she came back to the sweltering car, where Javy was still crying but not as enthusiastically and his color wasn’t right.
She didn’t start the car yet so as still not to waste the gas.
She was sweating profusely but that didn’t matter because she was prepping the remedy to fix all of her problems.
Javy was getting quieter and quieter and she told him he was such a good boy for being so quiet and that mommy was almost to the end and then she would feed him when it was all over.
She said all of this as she tied a homemade tourniquet around her arm and put the smack on a spoon and she brought the flame of the lighter underneath the spoon until it was all cooked and ready to go.
She wiped the sweat from her brow and prepped the rig and dug it into her arm and watched the syringe fill with blood.
Then she mainlined and the dope rounded third and hit home and she could smell it going in and if you know, you know.
The spike dangled and she closed her eyes and her mind when snap, crackle, pop and dreams went fade to black.
Just as she was nodding off, Javy whimpered and it jolted her awake and she was dripping with sweat and her vision doubled and she suddenly started to shake.
Her skin was screaming like her insides were swelling thick with tar and she knew something was wrong and she let out a scream like a war cry from a God and she tried to start the car, but the engine gurgled and stalled.
She got nauseous and vomited on the passenger seat and her eyes began to roll and she tried to start the engine again but she couldn’t turn the key and she began convulsing and there was foam coming out of her mouth and her eyes glossed over in a fog and she shook violently and cramped up and fell back against the headrest.
Then she was still.
The last thing she saw was the temperature gauge in the car.
101 degrees outside.
And the last thing she heard before she went deep-six was Javy, his screams echoing into her abyss as he baked all alone in the fiery sun.