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stardust-walker · 4 years ago

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High Hopes: Chapter 14

Previous Chapters: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

word count: 3443

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Dove wasn’t sure how long she’d slept for, but the sun was already shining and the RV was moving when she opened her eyes. Bleary eyed and still feeling tired, she rolled over onto her back as Carol shook her awake. “Mornin, sleepyhead,” Carol smiled a little as she brushed Dove’s hair back off her face.

Dove sighed as she rose into a sitting position. “How long was I out for?”

“A decent time,” Carol sighed as she sat next to her sister. “They wanted to wake you up when we were setting things out for Sophia, but I told them that you needed your rest.”

Dove scoffed and ran a hand through her hair before she pulled a hairtie from her wrist. “You’re one to talk about needing sleep,” Dove mumbled as she held the hairtie between her teeth. She was pulling her hair back as she listened to her sister.

“Shush. Daryl held true to his word. Made a nice big sign on the back window of a car and all that. Said someone should try to circle back at least once a day until she comes back,” Carol sounded confident in the efforts of the redneck and Dove couldn’t help but agree with her.

A few moments later, they came to a stop as people came filing out of a big farmhouse. Dove followed close behind Carol as she descended the steps. The members of the household stood back and Dove couldn’t help but observe them once she heard that Carl was alright. The older man, Hershel, stood close to a small blonde girl and a boy who had to be her boyfriend by the way she clung to his arm. The woman from the woods who had spirited Lori away to be with her son, an older blonde woman, and a tall young man with curly black hair all stood on the steps of the house.

Dove’s attention shifted to Shane as Rick spoke. “We would’ve lost Carl if not for him.” Dove paused for a moment before she followed Carol over and embraced Lori right along with her. The last thing she expected was to be pulled into another funeral, but that was what life had in store for them it seemed.

The dark haired man cleared his throat before he looked at the man who owned the house. “Hershel? Now that this is all handled…think we can do that thing for Otis now?” His words were careful and Dove saw the older blonde start to tear up. She could only guess who Otis was.

Hershel was a well spoken man and gave a nice service, even if Dove wasn’t so sure what she believed in anymore. Dove’s attention shifted to Shane again as Hershel attempted to direct him to speak. “I’m not very good at it, sorry.” Shane twitched slightly and Dove moved her hand up to clutch her necklace. Something about the way he was acting was just…off. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but it felt wrong.

“You were the last one with him,” Patricia began to cry again. “You shared his final moments. Please.” She began to plead and Dove stared at her feet. “I need to know his death had meaning.”

Shane stepped forward to speak and the whole group seemed to go silent. “We were about done. Almost out of ammo. We were down to pistols by then. I was limpin, it was bad. Ankle all swollen up. ‘We’ve gotta save the boy.’ See that’s what he said. He gave me his backpack, shoved me ahead. He said he would take the rear and cover me.” Dove’s gaze shifted around the group.

The dark haired young man from before clenched his jaw as he stared across the group at Shane. Carol reached out and Dove reached back and instinctively gave her hand a comforting squeeze. “And when I looked back…”Shane stopped and walked forward. “If not for Otis, I never would’ve made it out alive. That goes for Carl too.” Dove’s eyes locked with Dale across the group as the man with the curly hair shook his head and began to stomp back to the house. Dale didn’t look like he bought it either. Maybe she wasn’t crazy after all.

“Hey,” Dove turned slightly at the unrecognizable voice, only to see the young man from before. She raised an eyebrow as he approached; he looked less miserable than before but she couldn’t blame him. “Sorry if I spooked ya, Hershel just told me I should come get ya. They’re talkin about goin to look for that little girl.”

“Sophia,” Dove stated as she crossed her arms in front of her chest.

“Right, sorry…you’re her aunt, I think the sheriff said,” he raised an eyebrow at her.

“’S right. Name’s Dove…Sawyer,” she held her hand out and the young man shook it, maybe too enthusiastically.

“Julian. Julian Montgomery. Now you’re just gonna wanna head up to that silver car right up there. Maggie’s bringing a map for ya’ll to look at.” He pointed towards the small group gathered right in the spot he’d said.

“Thanks. Think you can help my friend Glenn over there put up his tent? He acts like he’s good at it but he really sucks,” Dove mumbled as she patted the younger man’s arm in thanks before she began to speed walk off.

“Sure thing,” she heard the man reply from behind her.

As she approached, she heard Hershel almost scold Rick. “Not you, not today. You gave three units of blood. You wouldn’t be hiking five minutes in this heat before passing out. And Shane, push that ankle now, you’ll be laid up for a month.”

Dove slid into the space between Andrea and who must have been Maggie and spoke up, “I’ll take Rick’s spot.”

Rick shook his head, “No I don’t think that’s a good idea. You should stay here with Carol and…”

“And what? Mope around and wish that I was out there able to do something? Besides, Sophia might not respond well to everyone. She doesn’t,” she trailed off and took a deep breath, “she doesn’t trust a lot of people. Odds of her coming out of wherever she is if she hears my voice are a lot higher than some strangers. No offense.”

There was a pause before Shane sighed, removed his baseball hat, and ran a hand over his now bald head. “Bird’s got a point.”

Daryl let out an annoyed grunt as he reached out for the map. “Look’s like it’s just me, then.”

Rick sighed and pinched his nose, “Daryl…”

“I work better alone,” Daryl said as he surveyed the map.

“Well that’s too damn bad, Dixon.” Dove felt her anger at the man flare up again. “Because like I said. It doesn’t seem like alone is gonna bring Sophia out of hiding anytime soon.”

The tension in the air was thick before Daryl spoke again as he pushed the map back over towards her. Dove caught Andrea’s eye and raised an eyebrow at her. The older woman just shrugged her shoulders. “We head back to the creek then. Work our way from there.”

Shane was going to go back to the road and Dove felt a little bit better about everything before Shane spoke again. “We can’t have our people out there with just knives.”

“We don’t just have knives. Daryl’s got his crossbow, I’ve got my crowbar. We’re fine,” Dove planted her hands on the hood of the car.

“Not saying you won’t be fine today, but what about tomorrow. Everyone needs gun training. We’ve been promising them,” Shane said. Dove rolled her eyes and patted the hood of the car.

“Alright well, you let me know when we’re heading out,” she pointed across the hood at Daryl before she turned on her heel and caught sight of Carol. She caught up with her as she started to set up camp. “I just wanted to let you know…I’m goin with Daryl to look for Soph.” She looked down at her feet as she heard Carol stop moving.

Carol sighed. “Alright. Just…please be careful. I don’t need to lose you too,” Carol looked up at her younger sister from her spot on the ground.

Dove chuckled and gave Carol’s shoulder a playful shove. “I think the only thing I have to worry about it Daryl leavin my ass out in the woods if he decides I’m too annoying.” She caught a glimpse of the man as he walked towards the house, so she leaned closer to her sister, a devious sparkle in her eye, “Or he pisses me off and I give him an old ‘one-two’ with old trusty here,” she waved her crowbar close to Carol.

Carol rolled her eyes and slapped the weapon away from her, “Just behave yourself and be careful, please.”

“Yes, mom,” Dove called over her shoulder as she turned and walked off.

Julian stopped what he was doing as he saw Maggie approach. He raised a hand in greeting, “Hey, Mags! You meet Glenn yet?” He called and a glare from Glenn went unnoticed as the brunette woman shook her head.

“No, but I was lookin for him.” Maggie turned her attention to Glenn. “I hear you’re fast on your feet and know how to get in and out.” Julian let out a quiet snort of laughter as Maggie continued. “Got a pharmacy run. You in?”

Glenn didn’t seem to know what to say and, thankfully, Dale interrupted. Julian tried to bite back another laugh once Maggie walked off to saddle up a horse for the new guy. Glenn glanced between the three men around him, “Horse?”

Julian couldn’t hold it in anymore and laughed, “Ever ridden one before man?” Glenn shook his head as a look of concern washed over his face. “Don’t worry, dude. It’s just like riding a bike. Except the bike is alive and can buck you off if you…”

“Julian.” A loud voice from the house interrupted his as the small blonde stepped out onto the porch and waved him towards her.

“Ah, nevermind. Let me know if you guys need anymore help later,” he nodded at the members of the new group. “Good luck, Glenn.” Once the young man was far enough away, Dale spoke up.

“What a strange boy,” Dale shook his head.

T-Dog rolled his eyes, “Man almost threw up when he saw my arm last night. Don’t think they’ve seen other people in months. Just let it go, man.”

Dove wasn’t surprised that she almost missed Daryl leaving and it was only by the good grace of Rick Grimes that she was able to catch him before he left without her. “It puts you off the hook. You don’t owe us anything,” Rick called over to him as Dove stopped behind the man with the crossbow.

Daryl paused a moment, “My other plans fell through. C’mon,” he walked past her with an angry look on his face.

“What was that all about,” Dove took long strides to keep up with the older man.

“Nothin, don’t worry about it. Now be quiet. I need to be able to hear out here,” Daryl grunted as he walked into the tree line.

Dove sighed as she stepped into the trees behind him. “Sorry, guess I’m a bit of a nervous talker,” she whispered.

“Haven’t noticed,” Daryl hissed back.

Dove chewed on the inside of her cheek to stay quiet as best she could. She wasn’t necessarily in the mood to be on Daryl’s bad side today. So, she took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and wrapped her thin fingers around the pendant that the same angry person had given to her last night.

“You alright back there,” Daryl turned his head.

Dove’s eyes snapped open and she felt heat rush to her cheeks. With a shake of her head, she let go of her necklace and moved to catch up to him. “Sorry, didn’t realize that I’d fallen behind.”

“You best keep up. Don’t need your sister on my ass for losin you while we’re out here lookin for Sophia,” he looked her up and down as she stepped up alongside him.

Dove scoffed and rolled her eyes, “Shit.”

“What?”

“You fucking sound like Carol,” she rolled her eyes and motioned for him to get moving again.

Daryl huffed as he started moving through the trees again. It didn’t take too long for them to reach a clearing. Dove, however, was surprised as she stepped out into the bright sunshine. She stared ahead and her heart leapt as she caught sight of a house. “You think she could be in there,” she turned her head to look at Daryl.

“Don’t know, could be. Let’s go,” he spoke quietly before he motioned for her to follow him. “Keep that thing close,” he pointed to the crowbar in her hand.

Dove nodded as she tightened her grip on the weapon as they approached the home. Dove felt her pulse quicken as they walked through each room. She wanted to call out for Sophia but she knew that wasn’t the best idea. A walker could hear them, then they would all be up shit creek. It was as Daryl picked up a can of tuna that she heard it. Something moved in the closet. She stared at it as the man slowly rose into a standing position and began to move towards the sound. All the horror movies she’d ever seen told her it was an awful idea, but Daryl pulled the little door open before she could protest.

A sharp exhale left her as she felt her sense of hope deflate like a balloon. There was nothing in the cupboard except for blankets and a pillow. She stepped up next to him and stared down at the small pile on the ground for a few moments. A hand on her arm snapped her out of it and she turned her head slowly to see Daryl put his hand back on his crossbow. “C’mon. Maybe she’s outside,” he was already out the door, calling for her before she even had a chance to move.

Dove’s feet carried her quickly as she ran out the door and towards the opposite end of the clearing from Daryl. She yelled for Sophia over and over again for what felt like hours but was really only minutes. Her hazel eyes started to fill with tears as she turned around and spotted Daryl. He had a white flower in his hand. What the fuck.

Daryl must have great hearing, she thought as he turned around once she started to approach. “Can you hold this,” he held the flower out to her. Her eyes widened as she stared at his hand before her gaze shifted back to his face. “It’s for your sister. A Cherokee rose,” he explained. Dove stared blankly. “You know, right?”

Dove raised an eyebrow, “The…state flower of Georgia?”

Daryl rolled his eyes and shoved the flower into her grasp, “Can’t believe you don’t know the story.”

Dove sighed as she began to follow Daryl back to their new camp. “I…I think I wanna hear the story,” she looked down at the flower in her hand as Daryl peeked over his shoulder at her. “I mean, if you’re alright with talkin in the woods and all that.”

Daryl paused for a moment, just long enough for Dove to keep up and match his stride. “Just an old wives tale, I think. Heard it from school…my mom, don’t really remember. Just remember the story.”

Dove chuckled and nudged Daryl’s arm with her elbow as they walked, “I don’t mind old wives tales. Just as good as any other story. I wanna hear it. If you got this,” she held the flower up, “for my sister because of a story or whatever, it must be a good one. You don’t seem like a man who does or says much if it doesn’t have a purpose.”

Daryl squinted at her for a moment before he turned his attention forward with a nod of his head. “Alright. But I’ll tell ya when we get back. Don’t wanna repeat myself.” Dove rolled her eyes and kept her mouth shut the rest of the walk back. He was doing a lot for her family, that was the least she could do for him.

Dove let out a low whistle as she looked around the clean RV. “I cleaned it up. Wanted it to look nice for her,” Carol spoke from the small table. A smile crossed Dove’s face as Daryl reached back and took the flower from her. She was careful as she slipped past him and took a seat across from her sister.

“For a second, I thought I was in the wrong place,” Daryl replied. Dove reached across the table and gave Carol’s hand a squeeze.

“You’ve really outdone yourself this time, Care,” Dove patted Carol’s hand once more before she folded her hands on the table in front of her. Her eyes settled on the Cherokee rose that was now placed on the counter.

“A flower,” Carol asked.

“It’s a Cherokee rose,” Daryl motioned towards the flower. Dove raised an eyebrow at the older man expectantly. He had told her that there was a story, she didn’t want to have to ask. He sighed and stepped closer to the table. “The story is that when American soldiers were moving Indians off their land on the trail of tears, the Cherokee mothers were grieving and crying so much ‘cause they were losing their little ones along the way.” Dove caught herself starting to chew on her thumb nail as she listened to Daryl talk. A glance over at her sister showed that she was just as caught up in the story. “Ya know, exposure and disease…starvation. A lot of them just disappeared. So the elders, they said a prayer; asked for a sign to uplift the mothers’ spirits, give them strength and hope.” Carol’s gaze settled on the flower on the counter, but Dove’s focus didn’t shift from the man as he spoke.

Dove was good at picking up lies. She had to be in her old life before everything ended. She could pick up the slightest tell in most people after knowing them for a little while. But Daryl didn’t seem like a liar or insincere. She felt tears start to form in her eyes and she raised a hand to wipe them away as he continued. “The next day, this rose started to grow right where the mothers’ tears fell. I’m not fool enough to think there’s any flowers blooming for my brother. But, I believe this one bloomed for your little girl.”

Dove let out a quiet laugh along with her sister as a smile finally showed on Carol’s face for the first time in days. Once Daryl had left, Dove took a deep breath and spoke. “Damn that was quite a story,” she chuckled as she wiped tears from her cheeks.

Carol nodded her head, “Did you know about that?”

Dove shook her head, “Nope. Daryl’s the one who picked the flower for you and everything. I didn’t even know what he was talkin about when he mentioned it in the woods…I get it now, though.” Dove smiled at her sister. “Unless it was just an excuse for Daryl to bring you a flower because he’s got a crush on you,” Dove wiggled her eyebrows as she ducked to avoid a swat from Carol.

The short-haired woman shook her head as she let out a laugh, “You cut that out!”

“Oh come on, he’s not that bad,” Dove laughed as she tossed a crumb of food towards her sister.

Carol raised an eyebrow at her, “You been spending some time with him the past few days. Are you…what do ya call it? Projecting?” A sly look was on Carol’s face as she went back to her knitting.

Dove let out a loud, incredulous laugh as she shook her head, “See now that? That’s taking it way too far!”

It was strange, but it was the most at peace that Dove had probably felt since Sophia had gone missing. Still, she couldn’t help but feel just a little guilty for it. “You were right, back on the road.”

“Huh,” Dove tilted her head.

“If anyone’s gonna find Sophia, it’s probably a tracker,” Carol nodded her head.

Dove stood up and walked around the table before she settled back down and leaned her head on her sister’s shoulder. “I hope you’re right.”

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@crossbowking @momc95 @chaotic-gary-king-stan

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munsonsduchess · 4 years ago

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So, I re-watched The Old Guard, again. Just like my Mag 7 re-watch I made some notes, six pages of them to be exact which is why I’m gonna drop them under the cut so I don’t clutter up anyone’s dash with my mildest of observations and all my feelings for a sad alcoholic Frenchman.

I love how we’re introduced to everyone, Andy walking alone through Marrakesh and Booker speeding through the narrow streets on his bike. Are we supposed to think they’re strangers or do they know each other

Bookers little smile when he catches up to Andy like he’s so happy to see her again and Andy’s face lighting up to see him again too

Andy spent a fortune on a book because she knew Booker would like it. “First edition Don Quixote, that wouldn’t come cheap” “it didn’t”

“What brings you to Marrakech?” // “Family'' leave me alone I’m already sobbing

Andy honey they’ll still be able to see that picture in deleted photos but you tried and that’s what matters

Nicky and Joe!

Nicky is so happy to see Andy. That little smile. It’s adorable

“You look good” “you look ok” gentle family teasing is the best ok

“Boss”

It’s been a year since they saw one and other and they just love each other so much. No one touch me.

Nicky and Booker betting on the baklava and Joe just sitting there like “let him lose his money it’s fine, he won’t learn and it’s funny”

Everyone teasing Nicky for loosing and he’s just stood there like “no it’s fine ”

These are the best people for the job and Copley knows it and doesn’t care how much it will cost him. He has faith

Copley knowing Nicky is there and the little wave

Andy taking her axe with her. I love that axe

Just a group of immortals walking through the desert with swords and guns nothing to see here

“Peace be with you” those catholic teachings never quite leave

“It’s a trap!”

That has got to hurt. Those guys emptied full clips into them. Like I get the need to do a job and do it well but come on guys that’s overkill

This is what women want. Andy and her axe

Nicky still having faith there are girls

The picture on Copley’s desk. Like if you knew why did you have to go through this bullshit?

Andy has lived too long and seen too much

Like I know now that Booker knew what was happening or maybe he didn’t know the extent of it but him saying sorry did feel genuine

Andy is just all kinds of done. She didn’t want to do the job in the first place

Nile proving that yes you can be in a strange place and you can serve your country but you don’t have to be a dick about it

“Keep it respectful”

She made an effort to learn the language and learn the customs which goes a long way to establish trust

How traumatic must this have been for Nile? She always knew there was a possibility of being injured in combat or worse never coming home but to be injured so fatally and have your friend hold your life in their hands only to come back and be rejected because you’re an anomaly. A freak

Goes a long way to explain Booker’s feelings too

Nicky and Joe sleeping in the train car is something that is obviously so normal for couples and goes such a long way to show people how ‘normal’ queer people are

“What did you see?” “Part of a name tag” thanks Booker that’s helpful

“I felt her die”

“Everything happens for a reason boss”

Booker didn’t want to go after Nile. He didn’t want her involved

Nicky pushing for them to go after Nile. The emotional centre of the group, appealing to their own experiences and feelings from their first times

Andy is not happy and I can understand how she feels. Given their current situation bringing an unknown element into the mix is only going to complicate everything

“I know I saw her die”

No scarring. Nothing to suggest that anything happened to Nile

The seeds of doubt already growing amongst Nike’s friends and allies

Merrick looks like he should have been a doctor who villain who got his shit kicked in by Donna

Copley you asshole what did you think was gonna happen? They were just gonna get clips emptied into their bodies and let the mercs walk away? Use your big boy brain

Nile trying to come to terms with what happened to her. Everyone around her looking at her with suspicion. Even her Sargent who’s sending her away from more tests

The hostility in the barracks. The fact that her things are already packed.

Everyone knows what happened. Nile has never been more alone just like Nicky said

Trying to drown out the noise of the world and decompress and understand what happened“

But you can call me Andy”

Just casually steals a military transport. Nbd

MA’AM PLEASE I AM ALREADY GAY. Riding around in a tank top and shades like that is not helping

“These damn kids”

Zero hesitation in shooting Nile. This is a woman who has run out of every kind of fuck

“Why does it always have to be so goddamn slow the first couple of times?”

“You shot me” “yes honey now back in the car

”Andy might think she’s cold and heartless and only here to do a job but you can see how much she already cares about what happens to Nile

Soldiers. Fighters. Family

You know what I’m really glad they didn’t make Andy’s tank top skin tight or moulded to show off her body. That isn’t how she rolls

Andy is so proud that Nile stabbed her. Look at that smile

!Nile already having the makings of a plan within minutes of stepping onto the plane

Andy just like “god isn’t real, I’m real though and people thought I was god”

I wonder how many nights the group sat up until the wee hours discussing things like theology. Andy who was worshiped as a god. Nicky and Joe who fought in a holy war for their beliefs and Booker who probably had his own feelings on the subject

Andy being so chill about the crash. The best poker face

It was a good try Nile and look Andy is proud of you!

The smile on Andy’s face when she’s fighting with Nile gives me so much serotonin

Soft Andy. Who had to be tough to teach a lesson

Poor Nile. Coming to terms with what she is and the fact that she might never see her family again

Family dinner time!

Awkward family dinner time

Nicky and Joe staring at each each other with their puppy dog eyes “we’re meant to find each other”

Then Booker and Andy like “misery loves company”

Everyone’s just like “awh Nicky and Joe are so cute”

Andy reliving the people she’s fought with and lost

Booker knows just how much ‘help’ talking to ones family about the situation is

Booker do not put your finger on the trigger of your gun when it’s still in your trousers! You might be immortal but that’s gonna hurt a lot more

Oh no. Quynh.

Andy’s face. I can’t

Joe in tears telling the story“

Before me and Nicky it was just the two of them”

Booker knowing exactly how it feels to hang there for hours and not die or dying and coming back time and time again. Knowing how Quynh and Andy must have felt

I cannot imagine what it must have been like for Andy. To be with someone for so long. The only other person who understands you. To be ripped apart like that

“Why do you blame yourself” that’s not a nice question to ask people

The big emotional talk with Andy and Nile in the churchyard being interrupted by the gunfire

Andy being so afraid Booker wouldn’t come back and delegating to Nile who just accepts her orders

“Welcome back asshole” / “it feels like someone was dancing on my chest”

The banter

Nicky being banished to the table in the corner after 2006 is my favourite headcanon

“Wait for my signal” Andy is more pissed than ever at the people coming after her family

“Big wounds take longer to heal” Nile as a millennial presses x to doubt

The sheer emotion in Andy’s eyes as she fights. The tears. She’s doing this for her family.

Will I ever stop harping on about found family in this show? No I will not“

How can you even tell what the signal is?” One explosion later “oh wait nvm”

The wound on Andy’s shoulder probably doesn’t even feel like anything with the amount of adrenaline

The van. These two“

What is he your boyfriend?” Stanzas of Arabic poetry later, “he’s not my boyfriend he’s all and he’s more”

Nicky and Joe Horny on Main all day every day

These cocky little shits “can you remove the chains? no? ok”“

There’s a TV Joe!” “Champagne?” it’s not a field trip boys

“I used to keep my stuff here” in an abandoned mine she found in the 1150s or that’s when she thinks she found it

Nile being amazed by Andy’s ‘stuff’

Booker meanwhile makes a joke at the expense of his sister

Merrick really should have been a doctor who villain honestly. The grand gesturing the weird mood swings. He could have been great in a two part episode and then had to reckon with Donna

Donna Noble is my favourite companion don’t @ me

Copley beginning to have second thoughts on everything

Andy realising only now that she hasn’t healed from the fight in the church“

Just because we keep living doesn’t mean we stop hurting” I have a lot of Booker feelings ok“

I thought you were the brains of this outfit” oh honey no

Bookers family. Oh no.

No but really how hard must it have been for Booker. To know that his son, his baby was suffering from cancer such an awful disease all the whole cursing his father for being selfish, uncaring, cursing Booker and Booker can’t do anything about it. He’s immortal, he heals, disease will never ravage his body, but he can’t share it with his son. He can only sit and watch as death claims everyone he’s ever loved. Living with the fact that his family despised him at the end of their lives because they didn’t understand that his immortality is a curse.

I have a lot of Booker feels don’t @ me

The pharmacy girl though. Helping just because she could

Reaffirming the reason why Andy started to help people in the first place

A selfless act. A purely good deed. Nothing expected in return. An unselfish act

Andy’s wound and Lykon’s death causing Andy to come to terms with her own mortality

Merrick “prosperity data” and Copley “I’m sorry those are people not objects”

Nicky is not here for your bullshit

Malta Sex Vacation ™

HORNY JAIL

Family bonding time with Nile and Andy

Andy “whatever it takes” and Nile “not on my watch”

So what I want to know is obviously Booker was in on it from the beginning but did actively derail Andy looking into Copley after Joe and Nicky were taken or was he just genuinely having a hard time

Nile prioritising her flesh and blood family and Andy totally understanding because she’s doing this for family too“

You and me Book. Now and always” my heart can’t cope

Nile finding the empty clip. Realising what’s about to happen and going back for her new family because as much as she loves her flesh and blood family this one matters to her as well

Meanwhile Copley I guess got a tip off from Booker (?) and knew this was all going down

The conspiracy wall

Booker you bastard why did you shoot her in the back?

I love this man but god damn

Booker wanting to be ‘normal’ because the memory of being rejected is still so raw

Suicidal tendencies in a 200 year old man

They’re both so upset by the whole thing. The betrayal

Book loves this woman with all his heart and soul. This is the woman who saved him and now she isn’t healing. She’s dying

Booker putting up so much of a fight so they wouldn’t take Andy

“I’m sorry Andy I’m sorry”

You might disagree with me but in my mind Booker never meant to hurt anyone. He didn’t want to be a lab rat. Didn’t want anyone else to be a lab rat. He just wanted to be ‘normal’“

All things die”

“Your time is coming” // “As is yours” Nicky is gonna fuck someone up

“I’m new” says Nile after shooting herself in the foot to make a point

Copley’s conspiracy wall or his fanboy wall for all the good Andy, Booker, Joe and Nicky have done

Copley’s grief at losing his wife being the driving factor for handing the group over to Merrick is tragic and heart breaking and just goes to show how much of a human story this really is

Nile said no guns Copley

Nile is here to save her family

“Those three men in there and I we’ll keep you safe” // Nile coming in guns blazing for them instead

Joe is going to kill Booker himself

“You and Nicky always had each other. All we had was our grief”

Everyone being so surprised to see Nile like “what the fuck?”“

Just leave me here” // “No man left behind”

Meanwhile Joe is fine with just leaving Booker right there to be the last lab rat

The groups concern for Andy who’s always been so strong

The concern. The subtle little head nods Andy does to let them know she’s ok

Andy spies an axe

Joe being so concerned for Nicky and making sure he comes back ok

Nicky immediately scrambling to his feet to go and help Andy

“What happened in 1934?” // “1834”

“Wait for the signal” “like the last one?” “Go big or go home!”

Arguing over who goes first and Andy just “if it doesn’t work our next time you can go first”

And there’s your signal

“You shot Nicky” Joe is not messing around when it comes to his other half“

You ok?” // “Everything hurts”

Andy has been immortal for so long she’s lost all sense of feeling human. Then Nile shows up to do just that. Remind her

Merrick calling Nile selfish like I’m sorry you entitled little shit what did you say“

Do you think he speaks Russian?”

YEET!

That one must have hurt

Nicky and Joe just like “wow the new girl is hardcore”

“Faster than the elevator”

Gotta save Andy’s axe

Nicky sits in the middle which is the actual worst place to sit in a car

Do you think they al rocked up to a hotel covered in blood like “don’t ask just give us a room and a shower”

Joe still seething at Booker through the pub window

Nile having to live with the fact that her family will never know what really happened to her. That they’ll all think she was KIA and whatever body they send back won’t be hers

The 100 year naughty step

I love that Nile was gonna let Booker off with an apology like “he didn’t mean it he’s just a sad alcoholic”

Nobody look at me. Ok. Andy and Booker saying goodbye on the shore. I can’t. This is it. This is the scene that breaks me

“I won’t see you again” // “Have a little faith Book”

Joe really wants to hit Booker. Probably did in the interim

The big picture“

Maybe this is the why Andy”

Andy laying down the law and Joe in the background like “yeah this isn’t a request”

Meanwhile in Paris. Booker is tired and just wants a drink

I am a fan of the scruff though

If that’s water Quynh definitely brought it in herself for The Drama ™

QUYNH THOUGH

#the old guard #long post #disjoined thoughts #i have a lot of booker feelings #i am not apologising for what he did #i just have a lot of feelings about the why #in which my fave is the traitor of the group #why you ask? wish i knew mate #duchess.txt

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justlightlysedated · 5 years ago

Text

oh, i know that love is all about the wind, how it can hold me up and kill me in the end (still i loved it)

"Are you okay?" Kyle asks, breaking the comfortable silence that had fallen between them while Alex went through the decoded files and Kyle went through the video footage that they'd gotten from Caulfield.

Alex looks at him, raising an eyebrow. "I'm fine?" He says, asking more than stating, and clears his throat a little.

"That's what I mean," Kyle says like Alex did a magic trick or something. "You keep clearing your throat. Are you feeling okay? Because we can't really afford for you to get sick right now."

Alex rolls his eyes a little, and clears his throat, again, and says, "I'm fine, Kyle. Probably just the air in here or something."

Kyle doesn't look like he believes him, but it's not like Alex is hiding some secret illness from him.

His throat has been bothering him more often than usual over the past couple of days, but Alex thinks it's the fact that the air is getting colder, or he might be getting sick, but the flu isn't anything to really worry about.

Kyle gets called into work and Alex loses track of the passage of time.

He only stops working because his alarm starts beeping that it's time to wake up.

He looks blankly at his phone and then reaches out and stops the alarm.

Alex watches the lockscreen of his phone telling him that it's five thirty in the morning until the screen goes dark.

His phone buzzes at the same time with a message from Kyle, Go the fuck back to sleep.

He's about to reply that he’s feeling very well rested, fuck you very much, when he feels the need to clear his throat, and instead coughs.

He clears his throat again, and shakes his head, swallowing convulsively. It feels like there is something stuck in the back of his throat.

He clears his throat again, and then starts to cough, harder and harder, until he’s covering his mouth with his hand, and leaning over the side of the chair, feeling like he’s going to hack up his lungs.

He coughs hard enough that it feels like something rips in his throat and then he feels something wet and more solid that saliva hit his hand.

He looks down at his hand, curiously, and feels confusion, but also a terrifyingly cold fear sink through him.

There are three petals in his hands that look like they belong to a carnation, white, stained pink with blood and a thin oval shaped, no more than an inch long and a quarter inch wide.

He looks at them for a long moment trying to come up with a rational explanation, but he draws a blank.

Maybe he’s been down here to long and his mind is playing tricks on him.

He goes to the bathroom and washes his hands, looking into his reflection in the cheap bathroom mirror.

There are bags beneath his eyes and he looks really tired, and when Alex tries to remember when was the last time that he actually slept, he draws a blank.

Maybe he is getting sick from overworking himself. But something inside of him just wants to finish with this whole Caulfield mess as soon as possible.

He pointedly keeps his thoughts away from the why, and clears his throat again before rinsing his mouth with some water from the faucet and then scrubbing his face to wake himself up a little bit more, scrubbing his wet hands through his hair.

He inhales deeply, and frowns when it catches in his throat and he has to clear his throat again.

He decides to stop at the pharmacy on his way back home and leaves the bathroom, turning the lights off behind himself. The flower petals caught in the drain, glow strangely in the dark light, but he doesn’t notice it.

* * *

Kyle isn’t exactly sure what happened, one second they were sharing a beer and Kyle was telling him one of his more raunchy medical school stories and Alex was laughing and then Alex started coughing, harder and harder and harder, until he’s leaning over in his chair, sounding like he’s gagging.

Kyle is thankful for the fact that they were at the cabin hanging out, because Alex starts to hack up mouthfuls of petals that spray out of his mouth and paint the deck in front of him in gruesome red and white.

Kyle watches him helplessly frozen for a second because in all of the things that he’s seen over the last couple of months, and even while he was in Med School, this is by far the strangest. But then his instincts kick in as Alex starts gasping like he’s not getting enough air, and he’s dropping to his knees beside Alex’s chair.

He puts his hands on Alex’s chest and pushes him back, trying to get a good look at his face.

Alex lets him and he wheezes weakly as he tries to catch his breath again.

He’s clearing his throat, like there is something still caught there, and there are four petals stuck to chin, one brushing his bottom lip, red staining the corners of his mouth.

He swallows convulsively, and blinks his eyes several times, and when he spots Kyle leaning over him, he grimaces.

Kyle frowns at him, but since he’s not actively dying in front of him, he moves back and sits on the edge of his seat, waiting until Alex catches his breath again.

Alex leans back down to grab his beer which he had set down on the floor, and Kyle watches him with eagle eyes as he winces as he swallows.

"It's just a cold, Kyle," Kyle starts, mocking Alex's intonation as Alex lowers the bottle from his mouth and sighs, long and tired. "Nothing life threatening about the common cold, Kyle. I'm sure it will pass in a few more days, Kyle. There's nothing to worry about, Kyle. I'm fine, Kyle."

Alex just rolls his eyes up to the ceiling and looks back at Kyle with an amused, but sheepish expression on his face.

"So I may have understated the gravity of the situation," Alex starts.

Kyle scoffs cutting him off. "You're coughing up flower petals, Alex. That's not only understating, it's also highly unusual and unheard of. Possibly alien."

Alex coughs, covering his mouth and a flurry of petals fall out from the sides, these are less bloody than the ones already spread across the deck.

Kyle looks at him pointedly and Alex just drops his hand, shaking it to get rid of a few stubborn petals.

"I'm f-" he starts and Kyle glares at him.

"I'm handling it, okay?" Alex says instead, looking at Kyle seriously. "I promise that if it gets to be too much for me, I'll let you run all the tests you want."

Kyle makes a face. "How about you let me run some tests, and let me monitor your vitals for one night and my peace of mind?"

Alex rolls his eyes again. "It's just flower petals. They're annoying, but I'll survive."

Kyle gives him a look, "You do realize that that's not normal, right?"

Alex gives him a look back, "What exactly about our lives is normal anymore?"

Kyle has to concede the point, so he takes a sip of his own beer and keeps telling the story, deciding to trust Alex for now.

But if this got any worse, Kyle was going to bring in the big guns.

* * *

Michael and Maria are in the middle of a faux argument, which Liz is pretty sure counts as foreplay, when she gets into the bar searching for one of them in particular.

She stops right next to Michael, pushing him slightly, so that it knocks him off balance and he has to sit back down on the stool instead of leaning across the bar showing everyone a perfect view of his ass.

He turns to her, a pissed off expression on his face, that turns into a mock glare when he sees that it’s her.

He opens his mouth to speak, but she holds her hand up in front of his face to stop him.

“I need your help,” she says, in her most serious no nonsense voice.

Michael looks at her in confusion, which Maria shares, and Liz doesn’t blame them, really.

She also hadn’t really noticed that anything was wrong until Kyle had forcibly opened her eyes by hiding her inside the exam room while he checked Alex over.

Liz stuffs her hand into the pocket of her jacket and grabs a handful of the bloody petals that had littered the examination table when Kyle had walked Alex out of the room, probably to do more tests, and throws them down on top of the bar.

Maria makes a noise like Liz kicked a puppy in front of her, and goes to get the disinfectant spray and a rag to clean up.

Michael on the other hand makes a curious noise, since she peaked his scientific curiosity, and pokes the petals.

“You found flowers that bleed?” He turns to her raising an eyebrow to ask what this has to do with him.

She shakes her head, and tries to get her thoughts together in the right order so that she can explain without sounding like she doesn’t know what she’s talking about, but that’s the problem.

She doesn’t know what she’s talking about.

All she knows is that it's happening to Alex, and Alex is sure that there is only one way to stop it, and he's also equally sure that it's too late.

He's resigned himself to dying, and Liz refuses to accept that.

"Alex is dying," she says, when she looks at Michael to see that she's losing his attention.

Michael goes preternaturally still beside her, and Maria seems to lose all the color in her cheeks as she comes to a stop right in front of them, a dishrag in one hand and the disinfectant spray in the other, eyes wide, lips slightly parted as she stares at Liz

"And he's refusing to actually do something about the problem-" she starts satisfied that she has his full attention, but then he moves, startling her and Maria, who jolts like she'd been shocked.

He sweeps the petals on the bar into his cupped hand, leaving behind the smear of blood and a few stragglers, and then he's stuffing his fist into his pocket and walking out of the bar without another word.

Liz watches him go, mouth hanging open, making disbelieving noises as she turns to Maria, who is looking at the space that Michael vacated with a frown.

She looks up at Liz after a long moment and tilts her head, looking at her intently before she sets the bottle and rag down on the bar and turns towards where she keeps the bottles of tequila.

Liz takes a seat on the stool she's leaning on and picks up the spray and the rag, cleaning up the bar of all traces of blood and petals.

Maria smiles in thanks and sets the bottle down and two glasses in between them before pouring the drinks and downing hers quickly.

Liz grabs her shot and follows suit, gasping wetly at the sting of the alcohol, and then she turns to Maria, who is looking at the door with an almost wistful expression before she turns to Liz and looks at her as seriously as she can manage.

"What's wrong with Alex?"

Liz licks her lips, and leans her elbows on the table. "I'm not sure."

Maria gives her a look like she can't believe that Liz is keeping secrets from her again, but Liz shakes her head rapidly, reaching out for Maria's hands.

"I'm really not sure," she repeats, looking at Maria, seriously. Maria just nods her head and squeezes Liz's hands once.

"All I know is what I overheard Alex telling Kyle. That there is nothing he can do, even if they had caught it earlier, and the only viable option is not an actual option. He didn't explain much more than that, so either Kyle knows what he's talking about, or Alex is deliberately keeping him in the dark."

Maria purses her mouth, and looks at Liz, expression complicated, a mixture of fear and guilt with just a hint of defiance.

"I saw Alex a few days ago, and he seemed fine," Maria says slowly.

Liz gives her a sad smile, "It looks like we're both being crappy friends now. I got so caught up in trying to get Max back and dealing with Rosa and work that I haven't talked to him in weeks, let alone seen him. And you-"

She cuts herself off grimacing, and Maria squeezes her hands again before she lets go.

"And I was too busy ignoring all of the signs that he wasn't doing well because I didn't want it to be true, because if Alex wasn't fine then that meant that I made a huge mistake."

Liz sighs and gives Maria a look, "Falling in love isn't a mistake."

Maria bites down on her lip.

"The mistake comes from letting it get in the way of your friendship."

Maria sighs, "I didn't mean to, but being around Alex made me feel guilty about being happy about being with Michael, and feeling guilty made me feel pissed off because none of this would've happened if he had just talked to me, but feeling pissed off made me feel guilty all over again, because it's not Alex's fault that he was in love with Michael any more than it's mine for falling for him without knowing about their past, and feeling guilty made me even more pissed off, because it made me doubt that being with Michael was even a good idea, and the cycle just repeats itself, and it started to taint my feelings about being with Michael, so I just started to avoid Alex."

She blinks her eyes, and Liz can see that she's trying not to cry.

"And I only did that because I thought all we both needed was time to get used to the new normal, but we're running out of time, aren't we?"

Liz shakes her head immediately.

"No," she says, with as much conviction as she can infuse into the word. "We're going to figure this out, together. Even if Alex is too stubborn for his own good, and doesn't cooperate. I'm not losing anyone else. And you aren't either okay? We'll fix this, and then we'll fix things between the three of us. We've been friends forever, a guy and a life threatening disease is not going to get in the way of that."

Maria is nodding her head at her, feeling Liz's confidence, and she opens her mouth to say something when Liz phone rings in her pocket.

She gives Maria an apologetic look and takes the phone out of her pocket.

She sees Kyle's name on the display, and her heart jumps into her throat.

What if it had gotten worse? What if it was already too late and Alex was-?

Before she can psych herself out too much, she answers the phone.

"What-?" She starts to say, but an explosion of noise makes her pull the phone away from her ear.

"You told Guerin?" She can just make out Kyle hissing into the phone, over what sounds like Alex and Michael arguing.

Liz looks to Maria and wonders if that's just how Michael shows his affection, by arguing with the people he cares about.

She puts the phone back to her ear, "We need all the help we can get."

Kyle exhales roughly, and Liz can just imagine him, dragging a hand across the top of his head.

"You should've told me before you did that. The last person that Alex wants involved in this is Guerin."

Liz makes a face and she doesn't look at Maria as she speaks.

"You do realize that in Alex speak, that means that Michael is most likely the one who can figure out what he's trying to hide."

Liz can just imagine the look on his face as he thinks that over.

"Once again, it was none of your business, Guerin!" She hears Alex snapping in the background.

"You're dying," Michael says, like that's all the reason he needs to get himself involved.

"We're all going to die sometime!" Alex answers back.

Michael makes an enraged noise back at him.

"Not from something that can be treated," Kyle interjects, voice sounding as pissed as Michael seems to be.

There is a perfect drop of silence over the phone, so absolute that Liz thinks that the call must've dropped, and then Michael speaks, and she can hear the glassware in the lab shaking with the effort he's exerting to keep himself under control.

"What is he talking about?" He asks.

Kyle makes a noise that tells Liz that Alex is probably glaring at him.

"Nothing that concerns you," Alex responds, sounding cool as ice, while Michael sounds like a volcano about to erupt.

"Alex, if you know how to fix this-" Michael starts.

"There is no fixing anything," Alex says, cutting Michael off. "You can't pick up the pieces and try to duct tape me back together, Guerin. It's far too late for that."

"Alex," Kyle says in a soft voice. "We're just trying to help. We care about you-"

Alex laughs a little derisively and Liz frowns at the phone, looking at Maria who is watching the phone with a furrowed brow, leaning over the bar so she can hear the conversation.

"You have a really funny way of showing it," he snaps. "I'm leaving now."

"No," Kyle starts and stops.

"You're not going anywhere until we figure out what's wrong with you and how to fix it," Michael says voice deadly serious.

"And how exactly are you planning on keeping me here?" Alex asks, like he's honestly curious how Michael would accomplish that.

"Don't think I'll have a problem with that at all," Michael drawls, voice coming out a weird mix between flirty and pleading.

"Without using your abilities?" Alex asks, and before anyone else can say anything, Liz hears the sound of glass breaking and a whoosh, and then coughing which doesn't sound like the hacking cough Alex had hacked up earlier, and someone saying Alex's name and then the call drops.

Liz looks up at Maria who is looking at the phone with a thoughtful expression on her face.

"I have to go," Liz says putting her phone back in her pocket and looking at Maria who gives her a strained smile. "I will call you as soon as we know anything."

Maria just nods her head, "I know."

Liz gives her a brief smile and leaves the bar.

* * *

Michael stares at the x-rays with a furrowed brow, darting his eyes up at Kyle, who is looking at him seriously.

Michael hasn't said anything since Alex darted out of the door. It had taken him ten seconds to realize that the vial of yellow powder that Alex had thrown on the ground, was just that, yellow powder, but by then Alex was already gone.

“This is impossible,” Michael says, because someone needs to point that out, first.

Kyle blinks at him twice and then sighs. “Okay, look. I’m going to need you to process this a lot faster. It’s happening. I’ve seen it happen. I’ve been monitoring his vitals since November-”

Michael’s head snaps up at that, and he looks at Kyle who stops speaking when he gets a good look at Michael’s face.

“This has been going on for months,” Michael says incredulous and disbelieving.

At that moment Liz walks in through the door, tying her hair up into a ponytail as she turns to Kyle and Michael, “So what’s the plan?”

Kyle gives her a look, “I’ve been trying to catch Guerin up to speed, but the alien is saying that it’s impossible.”

Michael makes a face at Kyle, making mocking noises and looking back down to the x-rays.

As impossible as it seems, there are flowers growing inside of Alex’s lungs.

Michael can see the tiny spikes of roots growing into the soft tissue inside of his lungs, growing into tangled vines that were blooming with flowers made up of millions of petals that fell away everytime they were slightly disturbed.

“Show me everything,” Michael says, turning to Kyle and Liz who both turn to him at the same time.

Kyle just nods his head and walks out of the lab, while Liz takes her jacket off and slides on her lab coat.

“This has been going on for months,” he blurts out, and Liz freezes momentarily, before turning slowly to face him. “How did I miss it?”

“Alex didn’t want anyone to know,” is what she responds with. “We all missed it. It wasn’t just you.”

Michael wants to protest that he isn’t just anyone, but he bites down on his tongue, because that’s not exactly true anymore.

“Kyle knew,” Michael says, sounding sullen, and Liz just rolls her eyes at him and walks over to the desk, where the x-rays were lying on.

She makes a face as she picks one up.

“Kyle says he found out by accident,” Liz says, as she looks at the x-ray with a thoughtful expression.

“Well then why didn’t he tell anyone?” Michael says turning towards Liz.

“Because Alex asked me not to,” Kyle says as he walks back into the room with a filing box. “And even though I didn’t agree with it, he really did have a handle on the situation. But it’s gotten progressively worse over the last two weeks.”

Michael feels his heart skip a beat in his chest, but he shakes his head and forces his thoughts to concentrate on the present.

Kyle sets the box on top of the table, and Liz and Michael immediately move to open it, pulling files out.

"Give me the x-rays," he says, "You're the only person who can read Kyle's atrocious handwriting."

Liz nods and they divide the files between them, while Kyle turns on his laptop.

Michael looks at the first couple of x-rays and he sees exactly what Kyle means immediately.

Each x-ray is dated every two weeks, and the ones from the first couple of months show small flowers, nestled at the bottom, no vines in sight, but they suddenly appear in the x-rays dated two weeks ago and Michael doesn't have to look at the exact date to know that the time matches up perfectly.

"I looked up some similar sounding stories, but the only ones I found involved people accidentally inhaling seeds, but nothing as extensive as this."

"Do you know what kind of flower it is?" Liz asks, as she pulls out a plastic bag full of petals.

"I tried," Kyle said, "but I keep drawing a blank, the shape of the petals is strange to any of the flowers I found that sort of matched, and they kind of glow in the dark."

Both Liz and Michael look at Kyle, blinking in unison before they turn to each other.

"Definitely an alien thing," Liz says as Michael nods along.

"And if Alex knows how to fix the problem," he bites out.

"Then that means that the information must be in the Caulfield files," Kyle finishes his train of thought.

Michael makes a face at that and Liz smiles triumphantly.

"You two stay here and try to find a non alien solution to the problem, I'll go check the files," Michael says and moves before either of them can protest.

He gets into his truck and just drives.

Michael's phone starts to ring in the pocket of his jacket but he ignores it already knowing it's nor either Isobel or Alex.

His fingers tighten around the steering wheel and as much as he wants to force himself to stay in the present, he can't help but think about exactly what happened two weeks ago.

Arguments with Alex weren't a new thing. They had been getting better at actually communicating without turning it into an argument, but even sort of becoming friends hadn't stopped that particular habit from taking over.

Another habit that seemed difficult to break was the fact that when either of them got backed into a corner they lashed out with the most hurtful thing.

Michael hadn't meant to say it, but he'd spent the morning arguing with Isobel and the afternoon arguing with Maria, that when Alex appeared, Michael lashed out immediately instead of listening to what he was trying to say.

“Can we talk?” Alex had asked, voice hoarse and sounding just a little bit desperate.

Michael had leaned back in his seat, dragging his eyes up from Alex's feet to his face in a slow deliberate crawl.

He had noted that Alex looked tired and a little worn around the edges, but there was a look in his eyes that had Michael's guard up immediately.

"We really don't have anything to talk about," Michael had drawled looking away.

Alex had cleared his throat and had sat down beside Michael, making Michael’s gaze go to him involuntarily.

“We have tons to talk about, but there’s just something I need to know, and then we don’t have to talk about anything else.”

He had cleared his throat again, and Michael remembers thinking that he had sounded like he was getting sick.

He had stayed quiet for a long moment, just staring out at the road at the odd cars that crossed the street every now and then at this hour of the night. Michael remembers thinking that it had seemed like he was savoring the moment for some reason.

“Are you happy?” he asked, turning to look at Michael, and Michael had felt the question like a punch in the stomach.

Isobel had told him that morning that while he may be content pretending to be happy, she wasn't going to spend the next ten years living in another comfortable lie like him and Maria had accused him of just going through the motions with her, after Michael had asked if they were still going to go to the Drive In that Saturday.

Michael hadn't known what to say in both instances without putting his foot in his mouth, so he'd stayed quiet, but he always knew what to say to Alex, whether it be good or bad.

“Why?” he asked Alex, the tone of his voice, caustic and mocking. “Hoping that I’m miserable so that you can come to my rescue, and fuck me up some more?”

Alex’s brow had furrowed, and had shaken his head, and he had leaned forward in his chair. “What? No, I-”

“Sorry to disappoint you,” Michael had kept going, talking over Alex. “But I’ve never been happier, and I’ve never felt more loved. I’m not pretending to be happy or going through the motions, so you don’t have to worry about me.”

Alex had just nodded his head and left soon after that, clearing his throat way too many times, and Michael had felt a pang in his chest at the look on his face.

Thinking about it now, Michael could see how someone who didn’t know what his day had been like, could take those words that he had said to mean something else.

He could see how Alex could’ve taken the words to mean that that’s what he’d been doing with him, pretending and going through the motions, but it was too late to take it back now.

And thinking about it now also helps him see that that was Alex telling him goodbye.

His fingers clench around the steering wheel, and the engine protests loudly as Michael pushes the truck harder without pressing down on the gas.

Michael tries not to think about the fact that Alex knew that he was dying back then, and hadn't even tried to push Michael into having an actual conversation, had just accepted that Michael was happier without him and would be okay if he died.

And that’s what’s bothering him the most about this whole thing. That Alex actually thought Michael would be okay if he died.

His phone rings again, jolting him out of his thoughts and he just sighs and pulls his phone out of his pocket.

Maria’s name flashes across the screen, and he furrows his brow, wondering why she would call, when she barely even ever calls him.

He answers the phone.

“Finally,” she says. “Jesus, Guerin. I called Kyle and Liz. Get to the cabin. Alex is getting worse.”

Michael doesn’t answer as he drops the phone and pulls an illegal u-turn and pushes down on the gas, pushing the truck even harder.

* * *

Maria barely waits before Liz is out the door before she’s calling Juniper over and leaving her in charge. She tells her that she has a family emergency and that she’ll be back in time to close down the bar before she grabs her keys and heads out of the door.

She gets into her truck and pulls out of the parking lot taking the road that will lead her out of Roswell.

She's not entirely sure why, but she has a gut feeling that that is where Alex is going to end up, at his cabin.

She makes it there before him, and he stops walking the second he sees her.

She stands up from where she'd been sitting at the top of the stairs and Alex opens his mouth to speak, but before he can say anything, he coughs.

His eyes go a little wide, and he turns away from her. All she can see is his back shaking as he coughs, hacking painful sounding coughs that make him bend over with the strength of it. He's inhaling wheezily, like there is something stuck in his airways.

She takes one step over to him and then he coughs hard and out fly dozens of white petals, streaming out from his mouth.

Maria freezes unable to actually believe it, and only moves when Alex drops to his knees as he starts to gag.

Maria drops to her knees beside him, and rubs her hand up and down his back, trying to figure out what she could do.

Alex coughs, hard enough that it sounds painful, and out of his mouth falls a fully formed flower, just the bud, made up of hundreds of white petals.

Alex stops choking, and starts breathing easier, still a little bit wheezy, and he leans forward, pressing his forehead to the ground as he catches his breath.

Maria stares at the flower as the petals rustle in the light April wind, and she thinks about something her mom told her the last time that she visited her, the same day that she had seen Alex last week, love grows roots, and if we're not careful they could end up suffocating us.

Maria had assumed that she was being metaphorical, but Alex had apparently taken it to the literal extreme.

The thought that it being Alex's feelings for Michael that had him like that, left Maria feeling a little bit like she was the one coughing up flowers.

But no, there had to be a non Michael related explanation to this, even if it's an alien one. Whatever was going on with Alex could not be about Michael, because Maria doesn't really know what she'll end up doing if Alex isn't coping as well as he projects to be.

Alex leans back up, and seems to steel himself, inhaling deeply, and it's almost like Maria can feel a wall coming up between them.

He turns to her, and Maria can see it in his face that he's going to do his best to lessen the blow of whatever it is that is happening to him, but Maria has never been someone that needs to be protected, especially not from her own feelings.

"No," she says before he even starts speaking, and he just looks at her with a furrowed brow.

"We're going inside and you're drinking an entire bottle of water, and then you're going to tell me the truth, deal?"

Alex just stares at her for a long moment before inhaling carefully, and nodding his head once.

He doesn't protest as she helps him to his feet, and doesn't say anything as she pushes him back to sit on the couch and then gets him a bottle of water from the fridge.

She hands it over and sits down on the edge of the coffee table, staring as he swallows the water, wincing like his throat is tender.

He drinks about half of the bottle before he caps it again, and sets it aside looking at Maria.

Maria stares at him and really looks. He's pale, but more on the clammy I'm really sick side, than the I haven't seen the sun in months one. The bags beneath his eyes should have their own PO Box address, and there seems to be something permanent about the way his mouth is tilted downwards, like he's been frowning a lot.

She finds the corners of her mouth dipping even more as she studies his face, and she can feel the guilt settling uneasily in the pit of her stomach.

"I don't know what you want me to say," he says after a few minutes of staring in silence.

Maria purses her mouth and looks at him seriously. "The truth."

Alex winces and clears his throat, grabbing the bottle of water and drinking some more.

He gives her a half smile that immediately falls off his face, "The truth about what?"

Maria tries not to grit her teeth too hard as she realizes that there must be a lot of things that Alex is keeping a secret.

She had thought that after the mess that came out of him keeping Michael a secret for ten years, he would've known better.

But clearly, he doesn't.

"Are you dying?" She asks, and Alex just closes his eyes, inhaling deeply like he really doesn't want to deal with this, like he actually thought that he could quietly fade away into the night and no one would care.

He opens his eyes again, and Maria tries not to let it show how pissed she actually is right now, but she can tell that Alex can tell.

"Yes," he says, simply, like he can't be bothered with a longer answer.

Maria expels a harsh breath and resists the urge to reach out and shake him.

"Okay," she says. "I'm going to need you to stop pretending like this is normal and okay and like no one will care if you die, and tell me what the hell is going on."

"I'm not pretending anything," Alex responds leaning back in his seat. "I've stopped pretending. I'm too tired to keep going through the motions, and frankly, I'm dying so I don't need to pretend anything."

Maria furrows her brow, feeling like the words he's using are familiar but not really remembering where she's heard them before.

She understands what he's trying to say, however, which makes her pissed off, feeding into the guilt she can feel making knots in her stomach.

She just shakes her head at him, not really wanting an argument, but feeling like the only way to get through to him would be to fight, which tells her a lot more about his relationship with Michael than he ever has.

"Alex," she says, and he just blinks at her, like he's already heard all of her arguments and already has an answer for anything that she's about to say.

Which pisses her off.

"Is this about Michael?" She asks, throwing the question in his face, and watching the way it affects him before he shuts it down.

She can tell that it is, but he just lies to her face, clearing his throat slightly.

"No."

"You're lying," she tells him through gritted teeth.

He just exhales roughly and lifts his hands to his face scrubbing his fingers across his face and into his hair before he nods his head once, like he came to a decision.

"Someone should know the truth," he tells her, leaning back in his seat and just looking so tired that she really just wants to bundle him up and put him to bed. "It might as well be you."

"Were you hoping it to be Michael?" She asks, and he just exhales roughly and gives her a look, and she just raises her hands in defense and sits up, letting her hands fall to tangle her fingers together on top of her lap.

"No," he says, answering her question, which surprises her slightly. "I don't want Michael to know about anything that I'm about to tell you."

Maria licks her lips and nods her head once, raising an eyebrow to give him the all clear to speak.

He clears his throat, and has to turn his face away from her, and he covers his mouth with his hands as he coughs, but the flurry of petals explode from beneath his hand, sending the petals everywhere, some even landing on Maria.

Maria brushes the petals away from her hair, and they feel soft and fragile, but she hisses when she feels the edges of the ones that aren't wet with saliva, giving her tiny papercuts across her fingers and palms.

She looks at the tiny cuts and then looks at Alex, who is shaking the petals away from his hands.

She opens her mouth to speak, but Alex clears his throat and starts talking.

"It started a couple of days after Max died," he starts, and Maria gets a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach, vile and spiky, making the guilt feel even worse.

"I thought I was just spending too much time in bunkers, that the humid air probably messing with my allergies, so I just ignored it. Even after the first time I coughed and found flower petals on my hand, I thought that I was probably tired, and seeing things, so I ignored it."

He inhales carefully, and in the quiet stillness of the cabin, Maria can just make a sound like wind rustling through leaves.

"It got pretty hard to be in denial," he says, giving her a half smile. "But I had a handle on it. I knew it wasn't normal, and could probably be alien related, and after agreeing to let Kyle run a few tests to determine that it wasn't life threatening, I decided that it wasn't a priority."

Maria bites her tongue down on the question of what could possibly be more important than his health, but she had a feeling that she already knows the answer.

"A couple of weeks ago," he continues carefully. "I was looking through some files because Liz asked me to search for something to do with the vegetation that had been recovered from the ship when I found the picture of the flower. Confirming that at least the flower was alien in origin."

He clenches his jaw and gets that look in his eyes like he's about to tell her something that she's not going to like.

"Finding out the name of the flower, peaked my curiosity so I went looking through all the files we've managed to retrieve from Project Shepherd, and found out exactly what was happening to me."

Maria licks her lips. "That was really vague."

Alex sighs. "I know."

He inhales carefully again, clearing his throat a little, and then swallowing hard.

"The Antarians called it, veolut en carre which as far as I was able to translate, roughly means, the vines of the heart. It's the flower that is traditionally given to the one left behind. Usually used in funerals and given to widows."

Maria swallows heavily, trying really hard not to jump to conclusions, but it's incredibly difficult not to.

"In the files I found out that the scientists in Caulfield call it, the disease of the brokenhearted," he says and Maria's eyes fall shut, tight.

"And it's the only proof they have that aliens landed here before the crash of 1954, since there have been reports, that Project Shepherd made sure to have the only copies of, of people dying by suffocation, surrounded by flowers, and autopsy findings that state that the patient's lungs were entirely overtaken by a floral bush."

Maria inhales deeply and opens her eyes, to see Alex looking at her with a furrowed brow, like he's worried how this is going to affect her, instead of worrying about himself.

She feels a pang in her chest and she wonders if he would've just taken it and beared it if Maria wasn't a part of the equation.

"None of that explains much of anything," Maria tells him, and he just sighs.

"It doesn't explain why you're suddenly dying, after months of it not being life threatening."

Alex clenches his jaw again, "There are two ways to get rid of the problem. The first one isn't even an option I would consider, but the second one was doable, in a sense."

He inhales deeply, and there is something that looks a lot like guilt swirling in his eyes.

"I went to Michael," he admits. "To ask him if he was happy, because I refuse to do or say anything that will jeopardize that, and if I told him the truth, it would cause nothing but issues. So I asked and he told me that he has never been happier, and I let it go."

Maria wants to tell him that he's being vague again, but she doesn't.

"What is causing these flowers to grow inside of your lungs?" Maria asks, since it looks like she'll need to ask pointed questions for Alex to give her the answers that she wants, and she can't actually believe that that is a sentence that came out of her mouth.

"It doesn't happen to everyone who's had contact with an alien," he says quickly, trying to reassure her. "There are other things that I don't really want to get into right now, but it's caused by unrequited love."

He stops speaking, and Maria is thankful for that. She needs a few seconds to store that information for later, but at the moment there are more important things that she needs to know.

"Okay, so what's the option you wouldn't even consider?" She asks, and a small part of her hopes that it's something to do with asking Michael if he still loves him, because she would hope that Alex would at least let her know if he was going to go ask her boyfriend what he feels for him, but a much larger part of her knows that that's not it.

"An operation," he says, and Maria feels a small spike of hope, before she remembers that he has already said it wasn't an option. "You remove the flowers by the roots and that solves the problem."

"But?" She asks when he doesn't elaborate.

"But," he says, giving her a wry smile, before it falls off his face and he gives her a serious look. "If you take the flowers out at the root, it also takes with it the feelings that caused it in the first place."

Maria blinks a few times, trying to parse out how this would be a bad thing, and then the whole thing hits her like a bag of bricks in the pit of her stomach, and for a second she feels like she can't breathe.

"You're still in love with Michael," she says in a breathless voice.

Alex gives out a disbelieving laugh, like he can't believe that she actually thinks that he got over Michael.

Maria glares at him, because she wouldn't have been thinking that if he would just talk to her about the important stuff every once in a while, but she's starting to realize that Alex thinks that all of his relationships are a one way street.

She opens her mouth to speak, but the words catch in her throat, when the irritating huffs of laughter turn into a cough, and then he's gagging, leaning forward suddenly enough that it makes Maria scramble backwards, her boots dragging along the edge of Alex's wooden coffee table as she climbs fully on top.

Alex just coughs and coughs and it sounds horrible, like a sound from a nightmare, and it gets even worse when he spats out another bulb full of petals, bloody petals, and then reaches up with his hands to continue to pull the rest of the flower out of his mouth, stem and leaves and thorns and all.

Maria feels like she might be sick, but she inhales deeply, several times, while Alex pulls the rest of the flower out of his mouth and lets it drop to the ground in front of him.

It falls with a sickening thud and Alex spits out a mouthful of blood.

She stares at him for a long moment while he gets his air back.

"That looks like it hurt," she says, to break the silence.

Alex makes a noise that could be a laugh.

"I've been through worse," he responds with a groan as he leans back in his seat.

He looks a little dazed and his mouth is stained red at the corners, and he's dying, and Maria doesn't understand.

She feels helpless, and it's not like she can force Michael to tell Alex that he loves him, and it's not like she would know if he did or not.

Michael had told her once that Alex was an off limit topic between them. He said that it was in the past and he was looking forward to the future, and Maria had accepted it.

She had actually believed that they had a chance to actually be something great, something more.

But somewhere between finding out about Alex and finding out that he was an alien, something had fizzled, and no matter how hard she tried, she just couldn't get that spark back.

There were sometimes when it felt like she might, but most of the time, it just felt like Michael was following steps he found in a book on how to have a perfect relationship, going through the motions-

She stops the thought short and looks at Alex, who seems to be doing deep breathing exercises, but she can practically feel how hard he's trying not to cough.

"Is it worth it?" She asks, and his eyes snap open and he looks at her like he'd forgotten that she was there. "All that pain you're going through. Is it worth it? Wouldn't it be better to just get rid of it all once and for all?"

Alex just looks at her like he doesn't understand. "Of course it's worth it."

Maria nods her head once, and stands up, "Well, I don't accept that. I don't accept that you're just going to let yourself die like this in this horrible, painful way. It's terrible, and nothing is worth your life, Alex. You can fall in love with anyone. It's not a once in a lifetime thing."

Alex shakes his head at her, getting to his feet, and there is some color in his cheeks, and Maria swallows hard, but she doesn't back down.

"I can't," he says, voice trembling a little. "You don't think I've tried. I've tried everything. It's been over ten years, and I just can't seem to ever make it work with anyone else, not that I can manage to make it work with Michael either, but with everyone else, there's just this feeling of like, static, like they're on a different frequency-"

"Like you can't connect," she says, and he nods his head at her.

"With Michael," he says and swallows hard, wincing a little. "When it's just the two of us, and I forget that the world outside exists, everything is so clear."

He stares at her with wide eyes, and then blinks rapidly, looking away, looking to the side and shaking his head.

"But it's not like it matters-" he starts and then he chokes, and Maria reaches out to grab him before he collapses on the floor.

"You're getting worse," she said, pulling her phone out of her pocket. "I'm calling, Guerin."

"No," he manages to get out, garbled, through a mouthful of flowers. "Kyle "

Maria is already calling Michael, but she'll try Kyle next.

Alex drops to the floor, on his hands and knees and Maria closes her eyes and looks up to the ceiling as the phone rings in her ear.

She hopes and prays that Alex will be okay.

She hopes that it's not in vain.

* * *

Michael bursts into the cabin, slamming the door open before he clears the balcony.

He stutters to a stop when he sees the macabre aftermath on the living room floor, a flower, stem and all, in a pile right by the coffee table, and even more of them leading to Alex's bedroom, surrounded by thousands upon thousands of metals.

He's not prepared for the worst and is really hoping for the best when he pushes Alex's bedroom door open, and he very nearly collapses in relief when he finds Liz and Kyle hovering over Alex, who is breathing shallowly, but still breathing.

He holds on to the doorjamb and it creaks in protest.

Maria appears suddenly in front of him, blocking his view of the bed, and his gaze focuses on her, and she looks pissed off and scared and there are flower petals caught in her curls.

"Fix this," she tells him in a no nonsense voice, and Michael really doesn't know how she expects him to do that. "You have to tell him to get the operation."

Michael looks at her blankly for a second, and he opens his mouth to speak, when he hears Alex speak.

“No,” he’s saying, and his voice sounds raw and wet.

Michael looks away from Maria, and finds Alex immediately, eyes closed as he lies back, brow furrowed like he’s in pain.

“There are no other options,” Kyle is saying. “You’re at the end of it. You told me that we could talk about it now.”

“No,” Alex says again, more firm but just as painful sounding.

“This operation is the only thing that can save your life,” Liz tries next.

“What operation?” Michael blurts out, finally finding his voice.

Alex’s eyes snap open, and they find him immediately, and he exhales, and a flurry of petals fall out of his mouth.

Before anyone can say anything, or Michael can repeat his question, Alex coughs, and makes a low strangled noise and then leans over the bed and coughs and gags and chokes and Michael stares in macabre fascination as Alex pulls the flower out of his mouth. He makes another low strangled pained sound and as the rest of the stem comes out of his mouth, with it comes enough blood to tell Michael that Alex most definitely needs to stop being a stubborn idiot and listen to the doctor.

Alex coughs and spits and more petals fly out of his mouth.

“No,” he says on a heaving gasping breath before he’s choking and dragging another flower out of his mouth.

“Are you just going to stand there and watch him die or are you going to do something about it?” Maria says, pushing him backwards and making him snap out of it.

Michael looks at her, and she looks terrified.

Michael just nods his head once and walks over to the bed, pushing Kyle aside, who protests immediately and dropping to his knees right next to Alex, barely avoiding the pile of flowers and blood.

“Alex,” he says, and Alex groans and presses his face to the side of the bed.

He’s leaning awkwardly, and looks like he just might fall down to the floor, but Michael plants one hand right by his waist, and says his name again.

Alex inhales deeply, seemingly holding his breath, before he opens his eyes and turns to Michael.

Michael lifts his hand towards him, and Alex stares at him for a long second like he’s trying to make sure that Michael is actually offering what he thinks he’s offering, and Michael just stares back at him, trying to project as much openness as he can instead of the debilitating fear that keeps paralyzing him and making him want to flee in equal measures.

They need to have a conversation, and they need to have it while Alex isn’t actively dying, and they need privacy and Michael knows only one thing that can offer both.

Alex swallows hard again and he lies back on the bed, his breaths coming in fast and short, blood dripping from his nose, and Michael knows that they’re running out of time.

Michael kneels up and takes Alex’s hand between both of his, and he exhales carefully and closes his eyes, concentrating.

With Alex it’s always so easy to connect, even easier than it is with Isobel or Max.

Michael refuses to think about the why, and pulls Alex into his head.

It always takes him a second to get used to being in the mindscape, a second where he has to get used to the strange sensation of floating but also being trapped by gravity.

He hears Alex take in a breath, and then he gasps, a little like he's in shock, and pulls away from Michael.

Michael opens his eyes then brow furrowing in confusion and then his mouth drops open a little in shock.

Alex is covered in vines, except for his face, pressed close to his skin, like they're embedded, the leaves rustle as he moves around trying to see how far it goes, and the flower petals fall, making it look like a tiny flurry of snow.

He turns to look at Michael who doesn't know what the hell is going on, but they don't have time to figure that out.

"Why won't you let Kyle do the operation?" He asks as soon as Alex turns to him.

Alex shakes his head, and Michael steps forward, frowning when Alex takes a matching step back.

"Alex," he says. "Either give me a good enough reason not to or I will knock you out and carry you to the hospital myself."

Alex makes a low frustrated sound and takes several steps backwards and then paces in place for a few seconds where Michael can literally feel every second pass, like a loud drum banging in his ear.

Alex breathes in deeply, and then turns to Michael, locking their eyes together, making it impossible for Michael to look away even if he wanted to.

"The operation would work, taking the flowers out by the root, would fix the problem, but-" he stops and looks away from Michael momentarily, before looking back at him, expression more determined than before.

"But," he says again, and he's holding himself so still that he's actually shaking with the strain, and petals are falling to the floor, but Michael still can't look away from his face. "It would take with it the feelings that caused it in the first place."

Michael stares at Alex, and tries to figure out why that would be a bad thing.

Alex sighs and moves his hands to his face, only to freeze as he catches sight of the vines curling around his fingers.

"Alex," Michael says, and he doesn't think he's ever said Alex's name as much as he has in the last hour. "Just spit it out."

Alex laughs, a huff of laughter that makes Michael frown immediately.

"I don't think you actually want to know, Guerin," he says, letting his hands drop to his sides.

Michael tries not to get defensive immediately.

"Of course I want to know," Michael says. "I wouldn't have asked you otherwise."

Alex shakes his head. "You told me that you're happy and that you're loved, so it doesn't matter the why or the how."

Michael takes a step towards him, "I knew that that day had something to do with this. You got worse after you came to see me, didn't you?"

Alex doesn't reply, only swallows hard, looking away, but to Michael that is answer enough.

Michael tries not to tear his hair out. "I don't understand. What do I-?"

Michael stops speaking as Alex looks back at him, eyes wide and shining bright, and he feels the air catching painfully at the back of his throat, and his fingers itch with the desire to reach for him and pull him in close.

"What do you have to do with this?" Alex finishes for him, and there is something in the tone of his voice that tells Michael that he's done beating around the bush.

"Nothing," he breathes out. “And everything.”

Michael swallows hard and just looks at him, impatience making him a little jittery because they are running out of time, but he waits Alex out.

“Because you’re an alien,” he says, and Michael tries not to flinch away from the accusation. “Because you weren’t careful enough the three times you dragged me into your head. Because psychically you don’t let anyone go. Because we formed a bond that you rejected. Because I had hope for months, that maybe things between us would get better, would get to a place where we could eventually try again, but you took that away from me too.”

Michael shuts his eyes, feeling every single word like a punch in the chest. He aches with it, and he wonders if this is how Alex felt when Michael had accused him of being the worst thing that had ever happened to him.

Michael feels hands on his shoulders, and opens his eyes to see Alex standing right in front of him.

“But it’s not your fault,” he says looking at Michael seriously, and stressing every word. “You didn’t ask to be an alien, and you didn’t know what would happen, and it’s not your fault that you don’t love me anymore.”

Alex shudders, eyes falling shut, and Michael can hear the rustling as the vines move and the petals fell to the floor, and Alex gasps quietly, and Michael’s eyes drop to his throat where he sees the vines crawling higher, a flower blooming right by his ear.

“That’s what this is about?” Michael asks, and Alex’s eyes open.

“These things are killing you because I don’t love you?”

Alex shudders again, and Michael exhales roughly not really needing Alex to give him a concrete answer.

He pulls away from Alex and tries to think clearly, but he can’t, not when there is a ticking time bomb in his brain reminding him that they don’t have the time.

“This doesn’t make any sense,” he says, and Alex just blinks at him. “You’re dying, and the only way to fix the problem is for you to remove these things that are growing inside of your lungs, but you refuse to because it will take away how it feels to know that I don’t love you?”

Alex huffs out a breath, and he rolls his eyes a little, and Michael gets defensive immediately.

“For a genius, you can be such a dumbass,” he says, sounding fond for some reason, and confusing Michael enough that all he can do is stare.

“The scientists stationed at Caulfield called it, the disease of the brokenhearted,” he starts, and Michael freezes, feeling his heart stall in his chest. “It only occurs when the bond is unrequited.”

“Alex,” Michael says sounding a little breathless, and lot confused.

Alex swallows hard and looks at Michael, eyes honest, lashes wet.

“I love you,” he says, and Michael gasps, feeling the words hit him right in the pit of his stomach. “I love you, and I would rather die than ever forget that.”

Michael blinks, feeling a little dazed, like Alex knocked him over the head with a brick.

His heart beats in his chest in time to the words echoing in his head, I love you, I love you, I love you.

Michael feels something brush against his consciousness, like someone is trying to call him back to his body, but there’s still one more thing that he needs to know.

“What was your first option?”

Alex lets out a breath and closes his eyes shaking his head, but Michael doesn’t really need an answer. He thinks that he already knows.

And it’s so crazy that Michael can’t help but huff out a laugh, smile widening when Alex’s eyes open again and he looks at Michael in confusion.

“For a genius,” Michael says a little mockingly. “You can be such a dumbass.”

Alex furrows his brow, not understanding at all, but Michael doesn’t feel like clearing anything up.

“I never look away,” he says instead, and Alex immediately takes a step back, shaking his head in denial. “I told you that.”

“No,” Alex says. “You told me that you didn’t love me.”

“I was lying,” Michael says. “And you knew that I was.”

Alex shakes his head again. “You said that I was the worst thing to ever happen to you.”

Michael nods his head. “And you’re also the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

“Stop,” Alex says looking at him a little desperately, but Michael doesn’t.

He steps close again, wrapping his fingers around Alex’s arms and tugging him in close.

“You’re happier without me,” Alex whispers. “You said that. That you were happier, and you never felt more loved, and I don’t want to mess that up for you.”

“The only way that you can mess anything up is by dying, Alex,” Michael says, tone insistent as he pulls Alex in a little closer.

“You can’t do this to Maria,” he says then, looking at Michael pleadingly. “She loves you, and you’re happy with her. You’ll forget all about me eventually-”

“No,” Michael says, cutting him off, and Alex shuts his eyes. “I won’t forget about you. I haven’t been able to. I have a good woman who loves me and who makes me happy and still you’re all I think about.”

Alex shakes his head again. “You can’t.”

“But I do,” Michael says, and he waits until Alex opens his eyes again, distraught, but Michael can see the cautious hope that he doesn’t want to give into in the way he pulls his bottom lip into his mouth, staring at Michael intently.

“I love you,” he says, and Alex’s mouth falls open slightly, eyes going a little wide.

“You-” Alex starts, shaking his head, but Michael pulls him in even closer, pressing a kiss right against the curve of his cheekbone, lips brushing against the skin softly, making Alex’s words die in his throat.

“I love you,” he breathes. “I never stopped. I never will. And I promise to spend the rest of my life reminding you, over and over.”

Alex whimpers low in his throat, and he reaches for Michael, hands tangling in the collar of his shirt.

“I love you,” he says again, and Alex drops his forehead to Michael’s exhaling roughly, and he’s so close that Michael feels it when the vines start to move, seeming to shrink and shrivel like they’re dying.

“I love you,” Michael says again, and Alex makes a relieved sound at the back of his throat, and Michael closes his eyes and drags them out of his head.

* * *

Alex gasps, air flooding his lungs so fast that he almost chokes on it, moving his head to the side and coughing weakly, feeling his throat ache, but not like something was stuck.

He’d gotten so used to fighting for every breath over the last couple of months that breathing easily sends a shock through his system.

He opens his eyes and sees Liz, looking at him in shock, with tears staining her cheeks.

He smiles weakly at her, and she smiles back like she can’t help herself.

Alex feels someone squeeze his fingers and he turns to find Michael staring at him expectantly.

Alex just breathes in deeply and finds himself smiling at Michael, who just huffs out in relief and then pushes into Alex’s space, to pull him into a hug, pulling Alex to sitting position, and burying his face in Alex’s stomach.

Alex automatically places his hands in Michael’s hair, trying to soothe him and jumps a little when he feels someone wrapping their arms around him from behind.

He smells Liz’s coconut shampoo as she presses their heads together arms wrapped around his shoulders, hands clasped right across his chest.

“What?” Kyle asks sounding confused.

Alex looks at him and he gives him a half smile, and Kyle exhales roughly.

“You take decades off my life and you don’t have the decency to at least let me try to save you?”

Alex would speak, but while he doesn’t feel like he’s fighting to breathe, his throat still feels rough.

He just stares at Kyle, who rolls his eyes before he drops on the bed and pulls both him and Liz into his arms.

It’s a little awkward but Alex doesn’t say anything as Kyle exhales in relief like Alex really did scare him.

There is one person missing, and when he looks for her, he finds her standing awkwardly by the door, staring at the way Michael is holding on to him like she’s finally figured something out.

He clears his throat, and everyone reacts.

Maria’s eyes snap up to him, and Michael’s hands dig into his back, and both Liz and Kyle basically stop breathing.

“Sorry,” he says, wincing a little, but doesn’t look away from Maria.

Maria stares at him for a moment longer, before the look on her face cracks, and her eyes fill with tears and then she’s also crawling on the bed and wrapping Alex up in his arms, from his other side.

Alex feels completely smothered, and a little uncomfortable, but he knows how close it got.

He can give them this for a few more seconds. He has a feeling that they all need it after the day that they’ve had.

After a few minutes, he starts to feel more than a little uncomfortable.

Kyle and Maria notice immediately and let him go, sitting back on the bed, close enough that they’re still touching him in some way but not smothering. Liz tightens her hold on him marginally, pressing a kiss to his temple.

“Never do that to me again,” she whispers trying to sound stern, but the relief in her voice just makes her sound fond.

“I promise,” he tells her, reaching up with one hand to pat the back of her clasped hands.

She lets him go and leans next to Kyle, dropping her head on his shoulder, and closing her eyes. “I feel exhausted even though it’s like not even dark out yet.”

Michael doesn’t let go, and Alex doesn’t know if he actually wants Michael to let him go.

Maria clears her throat, and everyone’s eyes snap to her immediately, Michael included, even though he tightens his hold on Alex even more.

“I’m okay,” she tells them, but Alex can already feel Kyle clearing his schedule for tomorrow morning so he can check her out as well as make sure that Alex is actually in the clear.

“I’ll be the judge of that,” Kyle says, and Alex can feel him moving to get off the bed. “Tomorrow,” he says pointing at both Alex and Maria. “I want the both of you in my office, ten am sharp.”

Alex shares a look with Maria and they both turn to Kyle with one eyebrow raised.

“I had no idea you felt like that, Valenti,” Maria says, and Alex opens his mouth, and closes it when Kyle glares at them both.

“Don’t you two start.”

Maria just snorts and Alex bites down on a smile.

Liz pushes Kyle towards the door, “Come on, I’m sure Alex has a secret imported vodka stash somewhere that we can raid.”

Before Alex can protests, Maria is also scrambling off the bed and joining Liz and Kyle, wrapping her arm around Liz, and she doesn’t look back as they walk down the hall, but Alex can see how tense she is.

After a few seconds, where Alex hears the shouts of triumph as they find his secret imported vodka stash, Michael finally pulls away from him, leaning back on his heels and letting his hands fall to his lap.

Alex stares at him for a second, looking at the messy, frizzy curls on top of his head, and he can still hear Michael’s voice, strong and sure telling him that he loves him, and the certainty of his face and the honesty in his eyes is enough to give Alex that hope back.

But he can still see Maria’s face as she realized that her relationship with Michael had a part to play in what was happening to him.

Alex inhales carefully and reaches for Michael, fingers curling into his hair, and Michael lifts his face to look at Alex.

Alex stares at him and very gently slides his hands down to cup his face.

Michael closes his eyes leaning into the touch, lips parting slightly, and Alex has to bite down on his lip to remind himself that he can’t kiss Michael.

At least not right now.

“We have to-”

“Talk,” he says, blinking his eyes open and looking at Alex with an expression so soft and full of wonder that Alex feels a little bit faint. “I know.”

He shakes his head a little. “Yes, but you have to talk to Maria first, and decide what it is that you actually want, and only after all of that can you make good on your promise.”

Michael stares at him for a long moment before he kneels up, and Alex’s breath catches in his throat, but Michael just presses a kiss to his cheek, so soft and sweet, but it leaves Alex aching for more.

“I love you,” he whispers, and Alex gasps, eyes falling shut. “I’ve already made my choice.”

Alex presses his cheek to Michael’s and closes his eyes tight, before he pulls back.

Michael moves at the same time that he does and they both stop short, noses barely touching.

Alex looks into Michael’s eyes, and Michael looks into Alex’s, and he feels overwhelmed by the amount of love he can see shining out of Michael’s eyes, but he loves the way it makes him feel warm inside.

Alex doesn’t know how long they stay there, just staring at each other while Alex basks in the warmth of knowing without a doubt how Michael feels about him, but someone clears their throat, and they both flinch, pulling away and looking over to the door.

Kyle grins a little sheepish, but there is something a little disapproving in his stare.

“We’re heading out to let you rest,” he eyes him intently as he speaks. “Drink plenty of fluids and I’ll be giving you something tomorrow to help you with your throat.”

Alex nods his head, and tries not to feel too disappointed when Michael lets him go and gets to his feet, groaning a little as he walks around from kneeling in place for a bit too long.

Kyle nods back at him and turns to go.

“Wait,” he says, and Kyle stops and turns back to him.

“Thank you,” he says.

Kyle just smiles back at him. “It’s my job to keep you healthy. You have to stop making it so difficult.”

Alex just rolls his eyes good naturedly, and watches as Kyle leaves.

Liz bounces into the room, holding a fifth of vodka beneath one arm. She presses a kiss to his forehead, “I will also see you in the morning, ten am sharp.”

He smiles at her, and she just waves as she turns and follows Kyle down the hall.

Maria walks into the room, and Michael excuses himself without a word as he walks pass her and down the hall.

Maria stares at him in silence for long enough, that Alex starts to fidget. He hears the sound of Kyle’s car turning on and pulling out of the driveway which propels him to speak.

“I’m sorry,” he says, and Maria furrows her brow. “It was never my intention to do anything that would come between you and Michael.”

Maria’s face clears and she shakes her head at him. “You didn’t. Things with Michael haven’t been working out the way that I had hoped they would. I thought that maybe what we needed was time, but I don’t think anymore that this is one of those things that will be fixed by time.”

She walks over to him slowly, and sits down beside him, wrapping her arm around his waist and tucking her head into his neck.

Alex wraps his arm around her shoulders and holds her tightly, feeling tears prick behind his eyelids.

“Be good to him,” she whispers, so low that he almost doesn’t hear her. “Or I’ll kick your ass.”

Alex just tightens his hold on her, and doesn’t say anything.

She presses a kiss to his shoulder and then lets him go, getting to her feet and sending him a smile. “See you in the morning.”

Alex smiles back at her. “I’ll bring some fresh blueberry scones.”

She makes a happy noise at the back of her throat and then turns and leaves.

Alex doesn’t wait for Michael to come back and tell him goodbye.

He gets to his feet, wincing a little as he bends to release the pressure of his prosthetic. He feels like he’s been wearing it too long, but first, he needs to at least take a shower, then he’ll worry about everything else.

He takes his time in the shower, and when he gets out, and wipes the steam away from the mirror, he stares at his reflection.

He does look tired and like he could use at least three weeks of sleep, but unlike the time when all of this was starting out, he doesn’t feel like he’s at the end of his rope.

He walks out of the bathroom, a towel wrapped around his waist, to get to the clothes in his dresser and when he darts his eyes out of the window, he freezes momentarily.

Maria and Michael are sitting on the tailgate of her truck, and he’s speaking, and Maria is listening to him with a serious expression.

Alex turns from the window and walks towards the dresser.

He wasn’t really expecting Michael and Maria to have this conversation right now. He had figured that he would have to wait at least another week before Michael told him what his decision actually was, even after he said that he had already made his choice.

Alex gets dressed, and throws his towel over his shoulder, grabbing his crutch from where it had been leaning on the wall so that he can actually get to the kitchen without having to use the wall for balance.

His eyes dart back outside of the window, and this time they are standing, and Maria is placing something in Michael’s hands, before she leans up, and presses a kiss to his cheek.

Alex looks away and makes his way to the kitchen.

He jumps slightly when he hears Maria’s truck start up and leave, and goes and grabs a glass of water.

He downs the whole thing, and sets the cup down on the counter, waiting for the sound of Michael’s truck to start up, but it doesn’t.

But Michael also doesn’t appear at the doorway.

Alex worries his bottom lip and then exhales slowly.

He’ll give Michael all of the time that he needs.

Right now, Alex wants to clean up the mess on his floor and then take a nap, but not necessarily in that order.

He knows that if he leaves the mess that it will stink up the place later, but as soon as he thinks about sleeping, he starts to yawn.

He exhales and just walks towards his room.

He’ll lie down for a second and then clean up.

Alex swears that he’s only just closed his eyes, when he feels the bed dipping beside him.

He turns towards the movement, blinking his eyes open and is surprised by how dark it is.

He looks at Michael, who is settling himself beside Alex, and jolts a little when he sees that Alex’s eyes are open and on him.

Alex doesn’t say anything, and Michael just stares at him carefully, before he moves closer, sliding one arm beneath Alex’s head.

Alex turns to him, and wraps one arm around his waist, and Michael takes that as permission to wrap himself around Alex like an octopus.

Alex lets him before he tries to get comfortable and then he buries his face in Michael’s hair.

He smells faintly of sweat and slightly sweet like he uses Liz’s coconut shampoo, and also a little bit like bleach and lavender scented disinfectant.

Alex doesn’t really have to wonder why, he just wraps his arm tighter around him.

“We’ll talk in the morning,” Michael says in a low voice. “I promise. I just, need to hold you right now.”

Alex doesn’t say anything, he just inhales as deep as he can, filling his lungs with air, and he exhales closing his eyes and falls asleep.

#malex fic #references to miluca #alex being a disaster emotionally and michael actually being emotionally mature #oh how the turntables #i looped 'moments passed' while writing this whole thing #so be prepared #i promise that i don't actually kill anyone no matter how close it seems to get #and i hope the climax isn't as anti climactic as i feel it is #tw body horror #tw blood #tw hanahaki disease

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fyx-ation · 3 years ago

Text

To add my own experience to the many given...

About ten years ago, I finally had my gallbladder removed because it was an asshole. Before this, however, I was having gb attacks nearly every day for almost 9 months. I had had them before then, but I thought I was just having a weird bloat or indigestion or something (I had no idea what was going on until they started getting severe and regular because my gb was probably loaded with stones by then). So, every gb attack felt like my organs were rebelling and I wanted to die. The most severe ones, which lasted for 3-4 hours, would send me into a trance-like state because I had no other way of coping with the pain. I was still in pain, but I was disassociating so hard that my mind popped out of my body and looked down on it like, "Feels bad, man."

Naturally, I was reading up on anything I could do to deal with it. I was vomiting from the pain and just to stop my body from trying to digest because the bile ducts doing their job was agony. FYI, there ain't shit you can do for a POS gb. No cleanse, no diet change, etc. Once it's a POS, it's a POS and it has to come out.

When my insurance finally kicked in, I had an appointment ASAP to see what was going on. Long story short, yes, bad gb. Even though I was having excruciating attacks on the regular, I wasn't prescribed anything or even suggested anything for the pain.

So, a while later, I finally have the surgery. Snip snip poke snip snip stitch stitch. A week or so after that, my dumb ass tried to go to work. I was like, "I'm young. I can bounce back from this!" Nope. I broke down crying at work because I felt like I had ripped something open. My mom had to come get me and take me to the ER.

So, here's where I get really pissed off. My nurse was super duper extra-ordinarily dismissive. I'm sitting there in one of the private cubicles, on the bed, legs crossed, staring into the abyss while I try not to cry. I am in my trance. She comes in with 2 cups of the contrast crap you have to drink for a scan, all the while telling me of the surgeries she had and how it wasn't that bad. Bruv. She disappears and I chug the first cup. I mean, I made it disappear. I am so fucking done with this place already. I would prefer a brick to the face than to be in this pain or deal with this woman. She comes back and says, "You know you have to drink both of those... Oh." My mom shows her the empty cup while I'm halfway done with the second. I think that's when they finally shot me up with something. I don't even remember what. Did the scan, doctor informs us they didn't see anything on the scan (can it even show opened stitches? I have no idea what they were looking for), I get a prescription, and we leave. I remember very little after that... just throwing up all the crap in a pharmacy parking lot while I got a small bottle of hydro-morphine filled (I'd been prescribed lortabs by the surgeon, I think... which really do fuck-all for me. Might as well eat tums, honestly).

I told my surgeon about all this when I had my follow-up, and he said I appeared to have healed well--I just probably overdid it trying to work too soon. He also said my incision was bigger than most because my gb was absolutely stuffed with stones. One of the biggest he'd seen. COOL.

He was a good doctor, I have no complaints toward him. But my GP, who initially diagnosed me and had me get an ultrasound to confirm, never had it cross her mind to do anything about my pain in the meanwhile. The ER nurse, someone who probably sees people in pain more than any of us will in 10 lifetimes and should fucking KNOW when it needs attention immediately, can fuck right off. I know that doing the same job over and over desensitize you to a lot, but don't lose your fucking empathy. Just cause you might deal with drug addict weasels who just want 'scrips doesn't mean you get to treat everyone like they're a weasel.

God, I hope someone ran over her toe with a hospital bed that night, and she lost her toe nail. I'm still bitter about this shit a decade later.

im so sick of tiktok nurses and doctors trying to mock their patients for coming in and saying their pain is at a ten but not performing the pain for them

every time ive been in the hospital near death i was simply too exhausted to perform pain for these people. it was a ten on the pain scale but they thought i was faking it for whatever reason until they got my lab tests back and realized i would need to be checked in for quite a while

like maybe you, able bodied young doctor/nurse who has never experienced chronic pain and disability cannot fathom me rolling up near death and a flat expression unable to scream and holler about my agonies but I assure you some of us are just too fucking tired to scream about something we generally live with every single day

on god wanna punch the smug off their faces.

#the pain scale #severe pain #patient neglect

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eyelidsi · 8 years ago

Text

The first thing to note is that I was alone when I had that seizure in a World Market in Harvey. I was alone before it happened, and while it happened, and after it happened too. Not alone in the World Market, I mean alone everywhere.

I’d just left my husband in Chicago, packing as much of my stuff into my CR-V on a day that is was snowing. I made so many trips from my apartment to the car that the snow around me turned to a dirty icy slush that lapped at my calves. He helped me. I knew I was leaving for good deep down, knew he wouldn’t be following in the coming months like we’d planned. He didn’t know. If ever a person could be blindsided, he was. Simultaneously the bravest and most cowardly thing I’ve ever done.

I don’t have answers when people ask me what changed. All I know is that for twenty-three years, I saw my depression as a shameful secret, something I shouldn’t disclose to others, something I should fight against to make sure it didn’t dictate my life in any substantial ways. And then one day I realized I couldn’t fight it, not like that. I would never conquer it. I needed - instead of repelling it - to integrate it into my lifestyle. And everyone that didn’t agree with this notion needed to be out of my life.

This caused me to make the hardest decisions of my life, decisions I know other see as selfish. They were selfish, as selfish as decisions could possibly be. And by this, I mean that if I hadn’t made them I wouldn’t be able to keep myself alive. I am sure that if I had remained stagnant, I would have physically removed myself from the world. There’s this longing and peace one gets at times like this when they look at that soft thin part of their wrists.

And I know still that many people think these decisions were poor decisions, rash decisions from an angsty silly little girl who thought she was in crisis, but who was undeserving of crisis. But I have never regretted those decisions. Not once. And for someone who has lived their entire life with crippling guilt, this is major.

And now here I was standing in a store 20 minutes drive from New Orleans, just staring at shower curtains. I’d never lived somewhere so nice, that lonely little shotgun I rented for three months, probably 1200 square feet of space with a mattress on the floor and a couch in the living room and a few records on the windowsills - the rest just empty space. The shower was the tallest shower I’d ever seen, so the sad curtain I’d brought with me fell about three feet too short, scattering water all over the floor.

So I was looking for a new shower curtain, and I started feeling faint. I turned around, now facing a shelf of soap. I was turned fully around facing that shelf of soap but I was still seeing shower curtains. And I remember thinking this is weird, I’ve turned around to look at the soaps but I’m looking instead at the shower curtains, like a double exposure. And then I thought, I am seeing out of the back of my head and how strange.

I have a brief memory from the concrete floor, looking upward with too much light above me, strangers’s faces hovering above mine, almost comically, and then I’m in a hospital bed. I’m not really sure what happened in the hours in between.

I was sitting in a rollaway bed in the hallway of an ER. It took me a bit to realize that I’d lost my glasses and that I’d also pissed myself. I think I fell back asleep. I was embarrassed and alone and wanted so badly to not exist at that moment. I remember a doctor asking me questions but I don’t remember what the questions were. I remember going in to a room and having my head scanned. And I remember watching tv in a tiny room while I waited for the results and wishing that the Three Stooges were on, because the last time I was hospitalized was when I was pretty young that’s all I watched in bed. I can’t remember what I was watching instead.

They said they didn’t know why I had the seizure. I’d never had one before. The doctor said it was probably stress, which I found curious because I’d been stressed my entire life.

They sent me home. They asked if they could call someone to come pick me up but there was no one. So they called me a cab and told me to go home, but instead I told the driver to please take me to the World Market parking lot, hoping she couldn’t smell me from the front seat. She asked a few questions that I didn’t respond to and dropped me off. I picked up my car and drove back to my empty house on Banks Street. I childishly assumed I’d be scolded for driving myself home, but there was no one around to give a shit. I can’t remember if I called anyone about this. Maybe my mom. I parked my car and took a shower with my short shower curtain spraying water all over the floor and I crawled in to bed and fell asleep naked.

I was on antidepressants in one form or another for ten years. Not on and off for ten years, but steadily and willingly taking antidepressants daily for an entire decade. Somewhere around the time of my seizure, I stopped taking them. Abruptly. Which was another thing I expected to be chastised for, but no one followed-up when my prescription expired. I can’t remember exactly when I stopped and I’m not sure it was a conscious decision, it definitely wasn’t a sound one. One day I was taking my prescribed doses of the Ability and Zoloft cocktail doctors had perfected over the years. One day I wasn’t. I continued to pick up my prescriptions at the pharmacy, I think for another 5 months. I have a stockpile in my medicine cabinet even now. There must be hundreds of pills all huddled together in plastic containers.

There were incredible withdrawals. I felt consistently nauseous for at least 6 months. I lost 15 pounds, which if you knew me, you’d ask where those came from, but regardless, they’re now gone.

After, I felt like a few things changed.

I can’t tell if these are all in my head, but I was never able to distinguish irrational thoughts from rational ones anyways, that the whole point of my anxiety. Before, I had a very good singing voice. Not that I sounded particular beautiful, but I could find notes and harmonies without thinking. Now, though I can carry a tune, I find myself stumbling into using notes that don’t make any sense with the situation. And this makes me sad.

My memory is not as sharp anymore either. I’ve always felt like I’ve had an incredible memory, bringing up tiny details from years and years before. Now, my short term memory struggles. And memories feel fuzzy at best. I can’t remember details which is scary.

These few reasons contribute to why I have this nagging feeling that I’m actually dead.

It sort of feels like the short stint I spent living in London. It was a beautiful city, but it was just enough off from America that it felt awkwardly and outstandingly foreign. I never did quite feel relaxed there, like I was living in a mirror version of my world.

It sort of feels like that, except that instead of London, I feel as if I might be living in death, dead in death.

I heard about Cotard disease once on the radio a few months after my seizure and something about it made sense. I haven’t quite figured out why or what makes sense, but there’s something there. I often feel like I’m not planted in reality, drunk without alcohol, unable to pin anything down in my head. Like I don’t think I myself am real.

Also during this time, I cut a foot off my hair, got into four car accidents, spent my nights and early morning with a bottle in the French Quarter, started posing for my own nude self portraits and adopted a cat. I think to outsiders, it probably looked like I was losing my mind. The thing about that though was that I had lost my mind a long time ago but as just now allowing my madness to manifest itself as a form of release.

It’s not like I could become un-crazy.

Around then, I also started neurotically taking showers, about three a day. They were safe, a sanctuary. I would cry and contemplate death, but my tears mixed with the water and somehow felt at home. I had severe panic attacks, I’d never had ones like this before - an open window of time in which one feels like they are certainly about to die.

That’s the weird thing about anxiety in this way, a person’s willingness to die but their fear of misunderstanding it.

#depression #anxiety #spoonie #chronic illness #death

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notesfromthepen · 6 years ago

Text

Rigged

RIGGED (Written in 2017 and is a A prequel to The Clinic)

CHAPTER 1

Waiting on your H dealer, when it's been 24 hours since your last fix, is like waiting on the results of an AIDS test after a Xanax-fueled tour of the world's sleaziest brothel.

Anxious? I'd say so.

The cold sweat beading up on my lower back, and the increasing frequency of the chills spreading across my clammy skin, reminds me that it's been way too long since my last dose of "medicine." This is my first trip to the pharmacy tonight, making it the most crucial as well.

In case you've never been dope-sick, and waiting to score, allow me to try and enlighten you. The physical part is what you hear about most frequently—probably because it's absolutely horrific. Imagine the worst flu you've ever had, combined with the aches and pains of a high speed collision. Newly aware of every inch of your biology, you discover pain in places previously unknown to exist. The individual striations in every muscle scream for relief. Every cell of your being becomes dedicated to the sole purpose of ending the misery. You inevitably realize there's only one solution—and waiting for it is torture.

In addition to the physical aspects of withdrawals, are the mental components of this living hell. First, every sensation is heightened to unbearable levels. Which might not be so bad if every sensation didn't already make you want to jump off the roof of the nearest office building. Every imagined discomfort leads to a string of terrible emotions; discomfort to anger, anger to rage, rage to acceptance, acceptance to depression. Count yourself lucky if it stops there.

Uncomfortable? To say the least.

The sweat behind my knees is making my already clammy skin stick to the dilapidated faux-leather seats in this piece of shit rust bucket! The sensation has me on the verge of snapping. If I had the energy, I tear this fucking car to pieces.

As with everything in my life, my opinion of my car is determined by the chemicals in my system—or lack there of. Currently I'm feeling a bit pessimistic.

The problem with Hondas are that they refuse to die. Like an eighty year old supermodel, trying in vain to be fully useful, she works when she can and never misses the chance to complain, but the memories and pity are just enough to keep her around.

All this waiting is excruciating. It's enough to make me wrap my lips around the first firearm I can get my shaky junkie hands on. The only thing keeping me from pulling the trigger on that idea, is the knowledge that sweet, sweet relief is just around the corner.

Hopefully.

Nothing about this lifestyle is ever a sure thing.

When you're selling a product like heroin, you don't exactly have to be punctual—or reliable. It's simple economics: the demand side, colossally outweighs the supply part of the equation.

So with nothing left to do, I curse my life and wait. I'm sitting here, with baited breath, waiting for Tina's phone to ring so we can find out which apartment we're meeting D at, so we can finally get our meds and get the fuck outta here. We've already been here for twenty minutes, and I'm starting to count the seconds.

Oh, by the way, Tina is my current companion and possible codefendant on this mission in misery.

Tina is one of the numerous and interchangeable drug buddies one acquires in this line of work. Nothing brings odd pairings together like addiction. The only thing that me and Tina really have in common is our drug of choice—which in turn, means that we have practically everything in common. She's currently sitting shotgun in my elderly supermodel of a car and she's just as anxious and dope-sick as I am.

Everything and especially everyone in a junkie's life serves a purpose. Today, Tina's purpose is that we're using her dealer.

She's been talking for the last ten minutes straight. And even though I'm her only audience, she's not talking to me as much as she's talking at me. Which is fine, because I tuned her out ten-seconds into her diatribe. Being an addict leaves very little room for any non dope-related business. Because of our isolation, only snippets of what she's saying makes it through our respective bubbles. The bits that are making it through, only do so, because she's growling her words.

"Asshole's always late!..

"Tired of this shit.

"Creepy fuck...someone should just...

"Touching me...

"Deserves it..."

The only other sound, in this Honda on life support, is the white-noise of fast food wrappers and empty Red Bull cans being shuffled around in our endless attempt to find a more comfortable position for our legs, a position no dope-sick junkie in the history of the universe has ever found. Just as I think I can take no more—on the verge of losing my shit—it happens!

Tina's pocket glows white-hot. My heart does that rollercoaster drop of anticipation. In the time it takes her to fumble in her pocket to answer her phone, my withdrawal symptoms have become slightly more bearable; a welcomed light at the end of a horrific tunnel. Before she can answer our electronic lifeline, I'm hammering her with questions:

"Who is it?

"What's up?

"Is he almost here?"

She holds her index finger up in the universal sign for: Gimmie a fuckin' second.

I hold my breath.

She doesn't have to say anything for my cold sweats and back pain to come rushing back. It's written all over her. "OK, well call back as soon as you get here," she mumbles into the phone. She tosses her phone to the floor with the other useless trash. With just a shred of hope, I wait for the official verdict—suddenly I'm all ears.

"Thirty more fuckin' minutes!" she spits. She might as well have said, "Not in this lifetime, but maybe in the next..."

"Thirty minutes? We've already been waiting a fuckin' half an hour!" I yell.

I'm not talking to Tina as much as I'm talking at her.

We spend the next ten minutes taking turns pointing out the injustice of having to wait another half an hour to score. Our shared frustration and self righteous indignation is the closest we come to sympathy; the junkie's version of bonding.

The cigarette butts spilling from the ashtray are a harsh reminder of the time we've spent in this waiting room on wheels.

I try—and quickly fail—to do anything other than count the seconds until Tina's phone reads 12:17, when exactly thirty minutes have passed, so she can call D back if he still hasn't shown—which is more than likely to be the case.

This return call must be handled with finesse. A junkie never wants to piss off the dealer—but almost always does. The user/dealer relationship can be delicate to say the least. One too many pestering phone calls, and you run the real risk of getting your appointment rescheduled or—god forbid—cancelled all together.

Just like dealers aren't punctual—junkies aren't exactly patient. If you tell a junkie that you're gonna be somewhere in five minutes, then you better be there in five minutes.

There is no figure of speech when it comes to drugs.

The dashboard clock says it's 12:05.

Twelve more minutes.

My nose is constantly running—another side effect of not taking my meds on time. In the past five minutes, Tina has gone from ranting like a drunken sailor, to an uncharacteristic, and completely unsettling, silent rage. It's tricky to tell when a junkie is acting strange—junkies are always acting strange, it's what we do—but something about Tina's recent silence is giving me indigestion. Maybe it's just the lack of dope, but it something feels off.

To say Tina is temperamental, would be an understatement. I've seen her lose her shit on numerous occasions. All five-foot three-inches of dirty-blonde, tattooed, fury. I've heard her scream "ASSHOLE!" at the top of her lungs. I've seen her punch, slap, kick, and claw her way through more than one "misunderstanding." However, I have yet to see her engaged in thought and silent rage.

I would ask her what's up, but right now I've got one thing on my mind—and it isn't Tina's mental state.

There's not a situation on the planet that I can't put off until I'm high—including death.

I lean forward and turn on the radio; my feeble attempt to distract myself from the slow crawl of time. Johnny Cash's, "Sunday Morning Coming Down." It ends up just being a soundtrack to my suffering.

How appropriate.

And Tina, like a roman statue with a lip piercing—fire behind her eyes—is unmoved. Then, just as I come to the strenuous decision that it's time to give D a return call, the gods intervene.

All the triggers I've been waiting for, come to life: the buzz of the phone, vibrating a millisecond before it rings, the radiant white-light of the screen, and the EDM ringtone that erupts from the little magic device. Brought to life by the incoming call, Tina's phone becomes our own pathetic disco ball, shooting lights and music around this coffin on wheels.

I fumble to turn radio off the radio. This call supersedes anything in my life at the moment. It's so quiet in here that I can almost make out what D's saying. And then, disaster strikes. Her phone goes dark—like dead-battery dark. Once again, my heart tumbles down my ribcage into my bowels.

"Fuck!" snaps Tina. She grabs my phone from the dashboard, dials a number, and presses it to her ear. "It's me, my phone died." A moment passes and she ends the call with a flat, but possibly, maybe, a slightly hopeful, "Yep." She drops the phone in her lap.

With the anticipation of a defendant in a capitol murder case, I wait for the verdict. Life or death?

Staring straight ahead, she says, "He's about to pull in."

"It's about time."

Finally—a victory. A slow smile creeps across my face.

CHAPTER 2

If I wasn't so distracted, I'd probably try to figure out the cause of the uneasy stirrings in the pit of my stomach—but like I said, most things can wait until I'm high.

My phone rings. Everything else fades into the background. After two more "yeps" and an "OK," Tina hangs up, and motions towards the parking spot by a nearby dumpster—the location seems fitting. I pull in—never taking my eyes off the rearview mirror, as if there's a prize to be won by being the first of two junkies to spot the arriving chariot.

There it is!

A small black dot slowly grows in the rearview mirror, getting larger and larger, until it goes from a black smudge, to a full-sized Chevy Caprice, complete with driver.

Life is full of small victories... usually followed by monumental failures.

I've seen D on a few occasions, not unlike the circumstances of today, and he's seen me. The big difference is that a junkie never forgets a dealer. A mental file we store for future use. Dealers, on the other hand, only need to remember the clients they're currently serving. As soon as a client gets locked up, or ODs, their file is deleted and replaced.

They say sharks only have a ten minute memory.

D gives me a quick once over—searching his mental files for a match. The look I get is closer to general indifference than recognition.

Tina leans forward to get a look at the Caprice. "Unlock the doors," she orders.

The command catches me off guard. D's door slowly swings open. Smoke tinted yellow from the one working street light, billows towards the sky. This is quite unusual, but I guess the "doctor" is getting into my car for this transaction. I pop the locks and slide my seat forward to make room for our company. I quickly brush the back seat clear of debris, scattering more tokens of this lifestyle onto the floor.

When you live your life an hour at a time, it's rare to be prepared for anything unexpected.

A pristine white Jordan slides from the crack of the Chevy's driver side door and touches down on the asphalt below. Before I can calculate how many packs of heroin I could buy for the price of the immaculate sneakers, there's a change of plans. Tina calls an audible. She slips from the car, leaving her door open. By the time I realize what's going on, she's climbing into the passenger seat of the Caprice. Like a scene in rewind, D's Jordans ascend back into the car. The door closes behind them.

Through the midnight tint, all I can see is shadows. Muffled bass lines are the soundtrack to these urban shadow puppets. I'm forced to watch this exchange from a severely twisted rearview mirror. I don't want to crane my neck towards the shadow show, or invade any expectation of privacy, but the mirror has no problem doing it for me.

Once again, I'm jolted by the feeling that something's off. Call it intuition or paranoia, or whatever you want, but for an instant, it runs up my spine. And as quick as it comes on, it's forgotten.

Without much else to do, I decide to try and be productive. I reach deep under the seat and retrieve what—to the uninitiated—would appear to be a regular old gym sock. I grab the sock by the toe, letting its contents spill into my lap. The opening of the sock gives birth to a silver baby in the shape of a spoon, its handle folded in half. A slender piece of plastic with bright orange ends follows the spoon—faded numbers run up its sides. I shake the sock, hoping for more. This little mama should be carrying triplets, not twins. I turn the sock inside out in search of a stray Q-tip.

The Q-tip: a junkie's prophylactic. When you cook your dope, all the good shit dissolves into the water, all the cut and foreign shit that the heroin picked up along the way, doesn't. So to keep any of that nasty shit from being shot directly into your blood stream, causing blood poisoning or death, we use a Q-tip.

The cotton is rolled into a tight little ball, the cotton ball goes into the spoon, and the needle goes into the cotton. Pull back on the plunger—and, presto, you've got your filter.

The only problem is, I don't have a Q-tip. But any self-respecting junkie knows that, in a fix, a piece of a cigarette filter works just as well, and since I've never met a junkie that doesn't smoke--it's usually an easy find. Seeing no need to ruin a perfectly good Newport, I dig through the ashtray, flicking the older butts aside, in search for a clean-ish looking filter.

Junkies are nothing if not resourceful.

I grab the least stained butt I can find and, using my teeth, start to peel the paper from the filter, when an explosion stops everything. A million little diamonds, that used to be my rear window, rain down on me. I instinctively make myself as small as possible. Everything starts to move in slow motion. I spin around towards the sound of the explosion. The once muffled music is now several decibels louder and crystal clear. Before my gaze comes into full focus, a growl emerges from the cover of the music.

Behind the guttural sounds, and the Young Jeezy soundtrack, is a woman's voice. "I told you…You piece of shit!" It's Tina—and it's all starting to fall into place. "Now who's the victim?!" She's says.

She's not talking to D, as much as she's talking at him.

Squinting in anticipation, and a genuine fear of what I might see, I slowly open my eyes. Everything comes back into focus. What starts as a blur of black mass resolves into the Caprice. G's window is shattered. His head is slumped against the empty window frame, his right hand is pressed against his head, where his ear should be. The hat that was on his head just a few seconds ago, has tumbled to the asphalt with the broken glass. My mouth hangs open. My eyes bulge in panic. I stare at the doctor's head as it drops crimson-red pearls to the ground in slow motion.

Time is sped back up by another jarring sound. This time it comes from my passenger door being furiously slammed shut. Before I can turn to face the intruder, Tina is next to me screaming, "GO, GO, GO! FUCKIN' DRIVE!"

Hmmm, a classic case of fight or flight? All things considered, flight sounds like the only reasonable response. I turn the wheel and slam the old rust bucket into reverse, clipping the front of D's Caprice in the process. And since I don't plan on exchanging insurance info, I shift the old supermodel into drive and make our getaway. Through the broken window I hear the injured doc yell, "You're dead bitch!...You and your lil' boyfriend!"

Boyfriend?..C'mon!

CHAPTER 3

Squealing around corners, in a mad dash to take every side street and backroad possible, I put as much distance between us and the black Chevy Caprice as possible.

"Goddamn it Tina! What the fuck were you thinking?! Holy shit...Holy shit...Holy shit!" My eyes dart from the road to the rearview mirror.

"Relax Daniel," she calmly replies, as if my reaction is completely unwarranted. She calls me "Daniel" in an attempt to sound motherly and sarcastic. No one calls me Daniel anymore—she knows I hate that.

"It's Danny, you cunt!...And what the fuck was that all about?!..."

"What was it about?" she says. "It was about time, is what it was. And how about principle—principle and justice...and karma, and all that shit...and well, this...this is a BONUS!"

Tina holds up a rather large sunglasses case. It's butterflied open. Between glances at the road, I see it's contents spilling into her lap. The case overflows with little marble-sized baggies. Baggies, of what appear to be, individually wrapped, pieces of dry dog food. It's close to an ounce. I swallow in disbelief. An ounce of heroin—free for the taking. Nice, convenient, gram-sized baggies of heroin.

It's funny how often the word "free" is misused.

It takes everything I've got to maintain this mock indignation with Tina. In all reality, I want to pop a bottle of champagne and profess my love for her. I want to kiss her on the mouth and do a victory dance, but I hold fast.

"Jesus Christ! You could've let me know...Where did you get a gun from anyways? You know you can't just involve me in this shit! What are we gonna do? You gotta call him and let him know I had nothin' to do with this!"

A few seconds of silence pass. I'm out of breath.

"Are you done?"

She takes my continued silence as a yes.

Look, just head north on I-95, we're goin' to Tommy's. We can lay low there for a minute—I’ll take care of everything when we get there."

I know enough to know that when Tina says lay low, she really means get high. With no other ideas of my own, I follow her lead.

As I head for the highway, Tina reaches under the passenger seat. Her arm emerges holding a small makeup case. It's her version of a gym sock. She pops open the glove box and retrieves the ancient owners manual buried inside.

Everything in a junkie's life serves a purpose.

It's obvious, that what Tina places on her lap, is a junkie's owners manual; its edges are gnarled, its corners dogeared; water stains and black smudges, from the bottom of countless burnt spoons, decorate the cover in a Jackson Pollack'esq design.

It's not just our bodies that suffer the effects of this lifestyle—it’s any and everything in our blast radius.

With the speed and precision of an emergency room physician, Tina preps and readies her fix:

Heroin.

Water.

Flame.

Cotton.

Needle.

In that order.

She pulls the rubber band from her hair, slides it over her hand, up past her elbow, where she releases it with a snap. Her efficiency reveals her experience.

I try to collect the tools I lost in the excitement. I'm not quick enough. Tina's already locked and loaded. "At least get mine ready before you..." I plead with her, but it's too late. I know this, because she's already taking the rubber band from her arm. She gathers her hair to put the makeshift tourniquet back in its proper hiding place.

Everything in a junkie's life serves a purpose.

Before she can secure her ponytail, her arms start to move in slow motion as if she's suddenly under water.

"Bitch!...At least wait for me!" My words don't even reach her. I'm in this shitty Honda Accord, dope-sick and on the run from a wounded and recently robbed dope dealer, hell bent on killing the both of us, while Tina is somewhere on or above Cloud Nine. The distance makes this a one way conversation.

I can hardly be pissed at her. Like I said, we can put off anything until we're high.

I'm pawing at the floor in search of my rig, when I'm interrupted by a gurgling from the passenger seat. Tina's slumped forward, her head resting on the open glove box. Yellow foam slowly bubbles from her pale lips. Even her bile moves like it's stoned.

"Tina! Goddamn it!" I jerk the steering wheel to try and jolt a response from the increasingly-blue girl in my passenger seat. My attempt succeeds in shaking some of the foam from her lips. That's it.

Nothing—absolutely no response.

I have to pull over. I need to find a place to sort this shit out. My mind scrambles to recall a place nearby. A place appropriate enough to bring a dead, pistol-toting, junkie-girl back to life—then it clicks. There's a Publix shopping plaza about a mile from here. Me and Sal used to park in the back, by the loading docks, after they closed and shoot dope. It's not perfect, but it'll have to do.

If you're an American of any age, race, creed, or color, you know the type of strip mall I'm talking about. They're all variations of the same couple of stores:

Regional grocery store.

Dollar store.

Chinese take-out joint.

Pet Smart.

Hallmark.

Planet Fitness.

Maybe a GameStop.

The only thing that changes, from town to town, is the configuration.

Depending on the location, and time of night, the dead zone behind this retail hell can be quite accommodating to junkies and makeshift paramedics.

Tonight I'm both.

I pull into the parking lot, the lights still buzzing with electricity. All the storefronts are dark, with the exception of the Publix grocery.

A few rouge cars dot the parking lot out front. Night cleaners and stock boys mill around behind the windows. I kill the headlights and pull around back.

The contrast between the front of a strip mall and what lies behind it is astonishing. It's a perfect metaphor for America. A squeaky clean facade of retail joy and pleasantry out front—but just under the surface, is all the trash, oil stains, and broken dreams used to fuel this corporate cancer. It's beauty on the surface, and a rotting lie underneath: the American way.

Idling here in the dark, looking for the best place to park, I still hear the faint wheezing from my passenger seat. It's a good sign—it means Tina's still alive.

I try to suppress the panic that has me on the verge of puking. Being dope-sick doesn't help.

I pull into the darkest part of the center-most loading dock. The aroma of the dumpster a few feet away says we're behind the Chinese take-out joint. I turn off the engine. The silence that follows somehow brings more gravity to what's already a black-hole of a situation.

I can hear the click of the engine cooling.

I can hear the bass drum sound of my pounding heart.

What I don't hear, is wheezing from the passenger seat.

I grab the lever on the side of Tina's seat and recline it as far back as it will go. She falls into position like a dead fish. Her head rolls to one side, her eyes, open and lifeless.

"FUCK! FUCK! Wake up you ASSHOLE!..Please wake up!"

I use the back of my hand to wipe the foam from her mouth. I tilt her head back and pinch her nosed closed. Any junkie worth their weight in track marks knows basic CPR. I go in, forcing panic breaths between her clammy lips. Her chest rises and falls with each exchange. The bile on her lips tastes bitter—metallic. I do my best to ignore the smell of rotten egg-foo-young and crab-rangoon wafting from the open dumpster.

I draw Tina's next breath, deep into my lungs. My stomach revolts. I fight the nausea as best I can. I brace myself on the Honda's armrest, trying to catch my breath. Just as I think that the worst is over, I shoot my head out the passenger window, spewing a mixture of Red Bull and macaroni onto of the asphalt below. I'm momentarily frozen, transfixed by the Kool-Aid stained pasta I had for lunch today. Little pink noodles dot the ground like some deranged preschool art project. Before I can take my first post-puke breath, the half-digested noodles begin to glow.

Shit!

Everything slowly illuminates from what can only be the headlights of an approaching car, closing the distance at a steady idle.

You gotta be fuckin' kidding me!

At this time, in this location, and traveling at that speed, it's either a cop hunting, or a junkie trolling—neither of which is welcome. I slither back behind the wheel and recline my seat to match Tina's.

The mantra: please don't stop, please don't stop, runs on a loop in my head.

From the shifting light on the surrounding surfaces I can guess the distance of the intruder. A faint illumination on the ceiling slowly expands, enveloping more of the interior, with every second. Me and Tina lie face up, like a twisted Romeo and Juliet, one of us lifeless—the other pretending to be. Our faces are gradually bathed in expanding light as the vehicle creeps closer. The impending illumination is unbearable.

I hold my breath in anticipation.

Neither one of us is breathing.

The pounding of my heart, and the crunch of tires slowly rolling over asphalt, are the only sounds in the world—and they are deafening.

This is taking too long! Whoever they are—if they don't pull off soon—Tina’s a goner. Even time starts to move like it's stoned.

The light slowly gives way to shadow. The intruders are now directly behind us. The contorted rearview mirror gives me a glimpse of a late-model minivan crawling past.

I finally exhale.

The van continues at the same slow pace down the length of the strip mall. The skunky smell of dirt weed brushes me through the window. What an infuriating relief.

Fuckin stoners!

I slip from the car and maneuver around to the passenger side. Judging by her most recent shade of blue, Tina is in dire need of a more vigorous form of CPR. If I'm gonna get her back to the land of the living, I'll need a flat surface.

I crouch down and open Tina's door. Two little baggies of dog food tumble to the ground. I swing her legs out of the car. It doesn't take much to move a hundred pound junkie. At the first little tug, her lifeless body pours onto the asphalt. She smacks her head on the floorboard in the process. This shit couldn't get much worse.

I start the process again.

Head back, pinch nose. Breath...Breath...Breath...

Nothing!

I place my hands over the center of her chest.

Three compressions.

Pause.

I go back, to force a few more breaths into Tina's lungs, when my brain realizes what my heart refuses to accept: a million breaths wouldn't be enough to reverse what heroin and time have already done.

I pinch Tina's nose, to give it one more ceremonial attempt, when our little grocery store revival is suddenly illuminated by blue and red flashing lights. I drop to my stomach and army crawl towards the rear of the Honda—dragging myself through a minefield of heroin baggies, vomit, and crushed fortune cookies. I open my eyes, and what I see sends my heart into the pit of my stomach. I pray that I'm hallucinating.

Roughly fifty yards away, the stoner van is blocked in by a flashing police cruiser. He must've seen them pull in and came around from the other side of the strip. Revealed, under the flashing lights of the cruiser, is a cop's silhouette approaching the van.

Panic.

My desire to stand up and run is overwhelming. It's becoming clear that I'm more of a flight than fight kinda guy. There's just too much of me that would be left behind if I just ran away, so without any conscious thought, I creep over and slide open the little door on the side of the dumpster.

Luckily, this scene unfolds on the passenger side of the car, blocking any direct line of sight from the cops. The hot-trash smell of the open dumpster hits me like a ton of bricks. It takes everything I have not to spew again.

The things you can do in the name of self preservation is chilling. A sort of autopilot washes over me. I scoop up Tina—they way you'd carry your bride through the threshold--and stuff her through the opening of the dumpster. It's fairly empty—considering the smell. She slides almost completely out of sight. The soles of her shoes are all I can see. The tattered bottoms of her Converse All-Stars flash:

Blue.

Red.

Blue.

Red.

It's such a disturbing image that I lose myself, and just end up standing there, staring at her blinking shoes.

I'm snapped back, by the clunk of a distant car door, and fall back into autopilot. I creep back around to the drivers side and slide behind the wheel. I close my eyes, hold my breath, and turn the key. The ancient Honda comes to life with what feels like a roar, but in reality is more like a purr. I leave the lights off and back out, the way I came. I idle in reverse, the entire way, to avoid any chance of my brake lights alerting cops.

Fingers crossed...

I think ninja.

I think stealth bomber.

I think the invisible man.

Fifty more feet and I'm clear.

Time has once again slowed to a crawl. I'm afraid to breathe.

Twenty feet left to go.

Every inch is excruciating, every muscle tight. I swallow hard.

Ten more feet.

I think cat burglar.

I think Harry Houdini.

I think James Bond.

Five more feet.

By no small miracle, I clear the back of the strip mall. No one is the wiser as I slip out of the parking lot into the Florida night.

Victory!

Left on Palm Bay Rd.

Right on University Blvd.

Left on 1-92.

Before I can process the last fifteen minutes, I'm merging onto I-95 north.

Returning from autopilot, back to my body, is agonizing. I'm greeted by the panic-sweats and dry heaves of a full fledged withdrawal. A combination of convenience and lack of emotions direct me to my destination. Just like Tina said: I'm heading to Tommy's house.

CHAPTER 4

Using the term house, to describe where Tommy lives, is a bit of a stretch. I mean, technically it is a house, with four walls and a roof but, if we're being honest, his place would be more accurately described as a structure formerly known as a house.

Tommy is what happens when someone's precious baby boy, who can do no wrong, becomes a raging drug addict. The entitled child run amok.

It's not that Tommy was unfamiliar with the word No. It's just that his experience came from saying it, not hearing it.

His parents made a decent living operating the family's carpet installation company. And though they were by no means rich, they were definitely comfortable. Growing up, Tommy reaped the benefits of his parents success—as well as their complete lack of backbone. It's really not his fault that he turned out to be an entitled, self-righteous, spoiled, piece of shit. I'm sure anyone in that situation might've turned out the same. But realizing that his current shortcomings may not be his fault, make it no easier to stomach his presence.

But like I said: Everything in a junkie's life serves a purpose—even acquaintances of the likes of Tommy.

We first started hangin' out with him by default. When me and my fellow neighborhood delinquents first started dabbling in illicit substances, we still lived with our parents. We had no steady place to consume our stolen alcohol or medicine cabinet pharmaceuticals.

Enter Thomas Rosewood.

Always eager to be accepted, and more than willing to abuse his parents inability to say No, Tommy quickly became the default host of our drug-fueled early days.

Tommy was the addicts version of the neighborhood kid with a pool; we overlooked more than a few of his character flaws for the sake of a place to hang.

Quid-pro-quo.

It didn't happen overnight, but before anyone could stop it—least of all his poor parents—the once respectable family home, became a full-fledged drug den. With the choice to either put their foot down, or leave? They left.

Since then, a nearly constant infestation of dopefiends and low lives have made Tommy's childhood home practically uninhabitable.

Everything in a junkie's blast radius suffers.

I pull into Tommy's driveway, grab the gym sock and dope, and bolt for the door, dodging an obstacle course of miscellaneous junk along the way. I reach the front door and almost break my neck on a layer of old newspapers and loose envelopes, all mailbox overflow.

Knocking is pointless, since nine times outta ten, Tommy's either asleep, or too wasted to respond. I turn the handle and attempt to force my way in. The debris on the other side of the door makes this a more of a struggle than it should be. After some heavy shouldering, I manage to wedge the door open just enough to squeeze through.

It takes a minute for me to adjust to the dim surroundings. The smell of fresh cigarette smoke let's me know that Tommy is awake—or at least he's alive. I follow the faint sound of TV chatter into his bedroom/living room.

A combination of convenience, and a total lack of self respect, has led Tommy to the "natural decision" to drag his bare mattress into the living room.

Classy.

I find Tommy sprawled face up and fully clothed on the mattress, his eyes closed. A lit cigarette between his fingers, with a two-inch cylinder of ash, dangles precariously over a burnt towel on the floor. The towel—clearly a junkie's towel—bears the scars of countless burn marks of varying size and severity. Through the burn holes, you can see that the carpet underneath has suffered a similar fate.

Everything in the blast radius...

The only source of light in the whole house is the bluish glow of the television.

Tommy hears me come in and does his best to appear wide awake and aware. “Hey...Danny?..." he says. "What's good bro?" His attempt to look like a functioning human being lasts a whole five seconds before his eyes slowly droop shut.

For unknown reasons, the more stoned a junkie is, the harder they try to look sober. It's similar to a lush who refuses to admit they're drunk, or a staunch Republican pretending he was just innocently tapping the floor of the truck-stop bathroom with the toe of his loafer slid under the stall next to him.

We all want to be what we're not.

Even in his deteriorated condition, Tommy seems startled by my appearance—which says a lot about my current condition. I step over him on my way to the kitchen, taking my shirt off in transit. I toss the shirt into what—I’m assuming—is the trash area in the corner. It knocks over a wall of empty beer bottles. I flip on the light switch, turn on the faucet, and start to washing up.

In his best sober voice, Tommy mumbles, "Where's Tina?"

"It's a long story," I shoot back, "I'll tell you as soon as I get some dope in me."

I splash my chest with water. The sensation gives me a rush of chills that stands my neck hair on end. I clean off just enough to avoid blood poisoning when I shoot up. I can't even process anything outside of being dope-sick.

With Tommy in a state of suspended animation, I pull out my tools and clear a space on the kitchen counter. Judging by Tina's reaction, this shit is of extremely quality, like stop-your-heart high quality. I figure it's best to be on the safe side—well as safe as you can be while shooting heroin.

For the third time—in as many minutes—the phone in my back pocket buzzes.

I can put off anything until I'm high.

I pop open the case and take out one of the gram-sized baggies. Even with those lost in the mayhem I still count fifteen baggies. I snap the case shut and set it on the countertop.

Now the important stuff. Using my teeth and fingernails, I delicately untie the little plastic knot securing the bag. I open the bundle. The entire gram is in one solid chuck; a testament to its life-threatening quality. I use my thumbnail to chip off a piece of “dog food" about the size of a match head. I drop the tiny chocolate chip into the waiting spoon. I lick my thumbnail clean. The bitter taste, another indicator of the high quality I'm dealing with.

A jolt of anticipation shoots up my spine.

Spoon—check.

Heroin—check.

I take the orange cap off of the plunger-end of the syringe and hold it under the drip of the faucet. Any junkie in a rush knows that this cap holds exactly 1cc of water: a full syringe. So instead of drawing the water up through the needle, and shooting it into the spoon—wasting precious, precious time—I just fill up the cap halfway and dump it in. You never want to completely fill your rig, that way you still have room to flag.

You know that cheesy scene in every drug movie, when a string of blood shoots back into the syringe? That's flagging. It's to make sure that the needle is in a vein and not in a muscle. Trust me, it's a painful mistake to make.

The water surrounds the little chocolate chip of heroin, forming a deserted island in the spoon.

Spoon—check.

Heroin—check.

Water—check.

My patience is all but extinct. I shove a cluster of beer bottles aside and get down to business. I find an old cigarette butt and make quick work of rolling a piece of the filter into a ball. I stir the mixture and drop the yellowed filter into the chocolate solution. The little yellow ball instantly triples in size as it soaks up the liquid. Contrary to popular belief, heroin doesn't have to be cooked. I lay the tip of the needle in the tiny yellow-brown pillow and pull back on the plunger. The contents of the spoon recede into the needle. I turn the rig upside down and give it a few taps to shake the bubbles free. They float upwards, where I squeeze the collected air from the needle.

Finally!

My weapon readied, I clinch my left hand into a fist to better expose my veins. I've never needed a tourniquet. I was blessed, or cursed—depending on who you ask—with pronounced veins.

I find my target and, with the precision of a brain surgeon, I angle the needle and go in, following the direction of the vein.

Pro.

I pull the plunger back just enough to see a little string of crimson shoot into the rig and swirl with the muddy mixture inside.

Perfect flag.

I push the plunger down until the syringe is empty.

After injection, you have about ten-seconds before being completely dumbstruck. Most junkies can get a hell of a lot done in those precious seconds.

I put the spoon in my mouth to clean it, and swallow the filter.

Waste not want not.

I put the cap on the needle and shove the gym sock in my front pocket. I twist the bag of heroin temporarily closed. Before I can put it back in the case, it hits me, first in the head, then down through my body. The case slips from my hands to the counter.

I'll spare you an attempt at describing what a heroin high feels like. It's not something you can truly appreciate secondhand. All I'll say is, there's no better feeling on this planet—or in this life. The problem, is that the inverse is also true, if you go without. But when you're dealing with the devil, you buy the ticket and you take the ride. And right now I'm on the upside of that deal, so I take a second to savor this moment.

I'm anxious to see how strong this shit really is. Considering how little I did, and the battle I'm currently losing with gravity, it's really-really good shit...like unbelievably good.

Tina never had a chance.

I'd like to make it to the couch to collapse for a few minutes while I get my bearings, but it's a good ten feet away. Ten feet or ten miles, it's all the same. I turn around and slide to the floor, using the cabinets as my guide. My ass hits the floor and I feel just safe enough to close my eyes for a few seconds.

Darkness.

I'm not completely out of it. A good heroin high is like watching a movie, ten frames at a time, every few minutes. And though the visual aspect is greatly reduced, the auditory senses manage a little better. I guess it's because you don't have to keep your ears open to hear.

On the edge of death's doorstep, these are the moments we live for.

For an instant it's all worth it.

CHAPTER 5

Through the pink clouds, I hear a stirring in the living room. Tommy must've been rousted by the empty beer bottles I took out on my slide to the floor. He's saying something but, between his incoherent mumblings and my inebriated state, it's too much to decipher. I muster just enough strength to open my eyes in response, but not enough to turn my head to face him. All I can see is my war-beaten shoes in front of me and the dilapidated cabinets on the other side of the kitchen.

Man, this place has really gone to hell.

Darkness washes over me again...

I hear that Tommy has made his way into the kitchen, still mumbling something, when a pungent odor hits me. It's the unmistakable smell of crack smoke.

The blast of the strong stimulant immediately pulls him from his stupor. He's instantly speaking more clearly. "Holy shit!.." he swallows. "Where the fuck'd you get this?"

Though I can't see, I know he's holding the case full of heroin. I moan incoherently in response. The thought of this dirt ball pocketing my loot, forces me to seriously consider getting to my feet. Ultimately, I go with a much easier to execute verbal command instead.

"Gimmie it!" I slur. I struggle to hold my hand open in his direction. He places something in my palm. It's not the case. Wrong size, wrong temperature. I pull my hand into my field of vision. It's a, hot-to-the-touch, fully-loaded crack stem, and a yellow lighter.

Now I'm no crackhead—it’s just not my style—but who am I to look a gift pipe in the mouth? And considering my current predicament, I could probably use a little more pep in my step.

In excruciatingly slow motion, I lift the stem and spark the lighter. A cartoonishly-large flame shoots from the Bic. I hold it to the glass stem and pull the flame into the cylinder with little short puffs—just little puffs—until my lungs are filled to capacity. I exhale everything in one deep breath. A thick yellow smoke fills the kitchen. My face goes numb. A string of saliva slips from my lips onto my chest.

I wait for the ringer.

A ringer is what crackheads call the sound that follows a massive hit of high quality dope.

It comes on like a freight train and sounds like a massive church bell ringing between your ears. My eyes snap open. I take a huge panic breath. My hands instinctively go to my face to cradle my head in an attempt to deal with the overwhelming intensity of such a strong upper. "God-damn, I hate coke!" I say, through peek-a-boo hands.

CHAPTER 6

My phone buzzes in my back pocket again. This time, I pull it out to check the caller I.D. It's a number not saved in my phone, meaning it's unrecognizable. I press decline. I have eight missed calls from the same number.

Fear washes over me as I weigh the possibilities of who the persistent caller could be. The crack-high only adds to my terror. I scroll through the call log. It's the same number that Tina dialed from my phone earlier tonight.

Fuck!..What an idiot!

In all the mayhem, I completely forgot that Tina used my phone to call G after hers died. And now he has my number. With just ten digits, he's one website away from finding out everything about me.

Just like that, a single snowflake of personal information becomes an avalanche.

The only thing keeping me partially sane, is the knowledge that D doesn't know where I am...not yet at least. I turn the ringer off and slide the phone into my back pocket.

Outta sight, outta mind...kinda.

Climbing to my feet, the reality of the situation comes down on me like a hangover. I slowly lift my head to see Tommy standing a few feet away, holding the open sunglasses case.

"Where the hell did you get this?!" he says.

Shit!

I snatch the case out of his hand. "Look do you wanna get high, or stand here and play twenty fuckin' questions?!" I hand back the stem and head for the couch. He stands still for a moment, unsatisfied with my evasion but not quite willing to pass up free dope. He plops down next to me. He pulls a spoon and rig from his pocket and drops them on the table.

I really don't need another shot right now but it's the only thing I can think of of to distract Tommy from his line of questioning. In a few minutes he should be too inebriated to ask anything.

I fish around for the open bag of dope and get to work. I come back from the kitchen with with a Mickey Mouse shot glass full of tap water. On my way back, I watch Tommy, trying to get a read on him.

Nothing.

Nothing, but the typical strangeness. He's fully focused on his phone, looking up Facebook updates, or porn. Whatever it is, his distraction brings me a sliver of relief.

He looks up from his phone and says, "Looks like you got more than just personal...Let me buy a few of grams.

"Not for sale," I say. "I'm holding it for somebody."

"Danny, C'mon bro, you can come off somethin'," he whines, like a spoiled brat.

Hoping to put an end to the chitchat, I agree, "Fine, gimmie a hundred bucks."

"A hundred?..I gotta hit up an ATM," he says. "I ain't got that much on me." He fishes out his wallet and rifles through the bills inside. "Nope, eighty-four." His math is more of a starting offer than a statement.

"Look, gimmie what you got, and a half-gram of that hard you been smokin', and we'll call it even."

Fuckin' junkie.

I'd just give it to him if it wouldn't look so suspicious. Anything to shut him up. Although, I really could use the money.

"Deal." He lays the money on the table and separates the crack into a piece of newspaper. He origamis the package closed for me.

I stuff both in my sock and continue preparing our fix.

Done.

Both rigs are ready to go. Tommy's fix is significantly more potent than mine. Not enough to kill him, just enough to keep him outta my hair for awhile. Believe me, I've had my fill of dead body disposal for one night. My rig has enough to counteract this paranoid coke high—and hopefully not much more.

I do my shot, light a cigarette, and sink into the couch. It's immediately obvious that I did too much...again. Once this crack wears off, I'm gonna be in trouble.

Tommy does his shot and, for some reason, tries to stand up. He makes it halfway before collapsing back into the couch, dropping his phone and crack stem to the floor. I scoop up the paraphernalia and head to the bathroom for a little privacy.

Once inside, I pull the crack from my sock and pack the pipe. Taking a drag from my Newport, I toss Tommy's phone on the sink and search for my lighter. As soon as I find the Bic, his phone lets out the short buzz of an incoming text. I almost didn't notice through the heroin haze currently overtaking the coke in my system. I squint at the phone. As the words on the screen register, the lighter and stem tumble from my loosening grip, to the floor.

Small victories, huge failures.

Fighting the heroin, to take it all in before I fade away, I read: Good look! B there N 20. Sender: G

Terror would overtake me, if the heroin didn't get there first. And in the worst possible moment, in the worst possible place, everything fades to black.

I'm jolted back to life by a searing pain in my hand. My eyes shoot open just in time to see the Newport drop, from between two severely burnt fingers, to the floor.

Saved by a cancer stick! I wonder what those anti-smoking assholes would have to say about this.

I check Tommy's phone to see how long I was out. Ten minutes. I gotta get moving, but first things first, I don't stand a chance in this condition. I quickly find the pipe under the sink and the lighter behind the toilet. I take three frantic blasts and gather my things. I open the bathroom door.

Two muffled car doors shut in quick succession. Sounds like D is early, for the first time in his life.

My overworked heart nearly leaps from my chest. I weigh my options. Leaving through the front door doesn't seem too practical, but leaving with the H still sitting on Tommy's coffee table, is unthinkable.

Frozen, halfway between the bathroom and living room, I watch two silhouettes sprint past the windows towards the front of the house.

The front door thuds with the weight of a doped dealer behind it. Thankfully, the trash prevents anyone larger than a junkie from squeezing through—at least not without a struggle. A hand pushes through the door, then an arm. The intruder slows for just an instant as our eyes meet. It's not G, but he can't be far behind.

This is my only chance.

Tommy's slumped over on the couch. I have to step over him to grab the sunglasses case. When I do, I trip over one of his stupid, lazy, useless, fucking legs, and in my attempt not to crash through the glass table, I accidentally kick the case, scattering its contents, like loose popcorn, across the room.

FUCK!

The front door bucks again. The henchman now has half his torso inside the house.

I bolt back to the bathroom and wedge a broom between the door and tub. It won't hold for long, but it might slow them down. I jump in the tub and tear away the curtains covering the window looking out onto the side yard. I fling open the tiny window.

The thuds have stopped. Voices approach the door. I hope the broom holds.

"Come out Davey, we just wanna talk. All we want is the girl and the dope."

I say nothing while I attempt to slip headfirst through the window.

The asshole could at least get my name right.

The door bucks violently in response to my continued silence. The thin wooden door splinters behind me as I squeeze through the pinching window frame. I rock back and forth, trying to free myself from the black hole gravity of the house. Just as I pass through the event horizon, and the window vomits me out onto the lawn, three deafening gunshots ring out behind me. For the second time tonight, I'm showered in glass.

I pat myself down for bullet wounds. Everything seems to be in order. I scramble to my feet and sprint to the driveway at the other end of the house.

Jogging through the front yard, I find G's Caprice, behind the Honda, blocking my exit. I glance around the littered driveway, looking for something sharp. A phillips-head screwdriver protrudes from a rotten pumpkin on an old washing machine

It should do

I slam the screwdriver through the front tire of G's Caprice. It slumps forward onto the rim with a hiss. I jump into my beautiful Honda and start her up.

Oh baby, please don't fail me now.

The thugs inside must've realized that the bathroom is without a junkie, or they heard the car start, because the front door suddenly swings inward. My pursuers face the same problem coming out as they did going in. The door opens just enough for a large arm, holding an even larger gun, to slide through and fire blindly in my direction. A bullet pierces my passenger door and lodges in the seat next to me.

I shift the war horse into reverse and stomp on the gas. The Honda peels backwards into G's automotive roadblock. Both cars inch towards the road. This old supermodel doesn't have the balls to push the heavier sedan completely out of the driveway.

The goons are now cranking at the door with more success. I shift back into drive and pull forward, creating as much space between the two cars as possible. I shift into reverse, gaining momentum in the new found space, and slam into the Caprice. The Honda manages to push it a few more inches.

The door swings open. G and his henchman spill into the yard. I crank the wheel and stand on the gas. The Honda lurches forward, running over a used tire and a stroller full of miscellaneous shoes in the driveway. I lower my head and aim for the road.

Several more shots ring out. Another one of my dwindling, intact, windows is shattered to pieces. The car jumps as I pass over the drainage ditch surrounding the house. The old Honda screeches victoriously as it gains traction on the road.

Together, we make another escape into the night.

I can't believe I had to leave the dope!

I make it out of that rat bastard's house with my life, but not much more:

Eighty-four bucks.

Almost a gram of crack.

And half a pack of Newports.

Oh yeah, and my life—but that's not worth much these days.

OK, Think... What next?

I have to get off the road to try and sort this shit out, but first, I'm in desperate need of gas. No doubt, the low-gas light would be blinking furiously if it wasn't forced into early retirement from overuse. It's obvious that this old girl is running on fumes from the way she's bitching and sputtering. I jerk the wheel back and forth to shake any loose gas to the center of the tank. This trick is usually good for an extra mile—at least that's what I tell myself. I make the sign of the cross and pray that we make it.

I coast into the gas station, just before my ride completely shits out. The bright fluorescent lights above the gas pumps reveal the actual state of the old girl: three shattered windows, numerous bullet holes and dents pepper her body, and the rear bumper hangs, like a broken jaw, just inches from the ground.

I scan the interior to get a loose inventory:

Three phones: Tina's, Tommy's, and mine.

Needle.

Spoon.

Lighter.

And nothing else worth mentioning...

Wait? No—it can't be. Holy shit. Please, please, please let it be!

I fling open the passenger door and brush the debris from under the glove box—and there it is! A single piece of dry dog food wrapped in plastic.

There is a God!

Small victories, huge failures. I'll take the wins wherever I can get 'em.

I make my way into the little bodega, glancing over my shoulder to check the pump number before I enter. A small cuban lady organizes cigarettes behind the counter. She gives me, and then my ride, a once over. Nothing seems to be out of place—well not enough for her to act on anyways.

The great thing about bad neighborhoods, is that the people in them have enough bullshit going on in their own lives, that they tend no to go looking for it in others.

I gather my supplies and drop them on the counter:

2 Red Bulls.

1 hotdog.

1 plastic bottle of lemon juice, in the shape of a lemon.

"Oh, and twenty on pump four," I say, "and a pack of Newport 100's please."

She punches the corresponding buttons on the register. $34.89 blinks on the display. I toss her a folded up fifty. She unfolds it and uses the edge of the counter to straighten it out. A few more buttons and the drawer shoots open against her hip. I pocket my change and cradle the items in my arms. The Red Bulls against my bare chest are freezing.

I dump the bounty into the passenger seat, on top of the shards of glass and flecks of pink macaroni. Something in the front seat steals my focus. There's a little spot of dried foam on the open glovebox. Tina. I zone out, staring at her biological fingerprint, until the intercom chirps with static.

The pump's little metal speaker has a thick Cuban accent. "Sir, jour pump iss ready," it says.

It takes me a few seconds before I get to my feet and start pumping the gas.

CHAPTER 6

The gravity of tonight's events is starting to weigh on me. With all the adrenaline, and life altering shit of the last few hours, my high is quickly fading. It's all catching up to me, until emotions begin to break through my chemical armor.

This is unacceptable!

Adjacent to the bodega is a self-service carwash. At this time of night, it's as dark and desolate as any slime ball could ask for.

I pull the battered Honda into the port furthest away from the lights of the gas station. And for the first time since Tina blew D's ear in half, I have a second to think.

I kill the engine, but leave the key one click forward so the radio still works—plus I'll need the ambient light from the dashboard when I get my shit ready. An old tape protrudes from the glovebox. I push it into the tape deck. It creaks and strains under the ancient mechanics. A low-quality recording of "Santeria" by Sublime fills the surrounding carport.

Here it comes...It's starting.

First, I just well up. Then silent tears run down my cheeks onto my chest. It doesn't take long for this episode to evolve into a full fledged sobbing fit.

I don't even know what I'm crying about.

Not to sound like a sociopath, but it's not for Tina. I've seen a dozen people O.D. over the years. It's certainly not because of G, or the fear of losing my life at his hands; I abandoned my attachment to this miserable life years ago, when Sal died. To be completely honest, I've secretly wished—for sometime now—that it would just come to its natural end already. It's not for the loss that my family would suffer over my death; again, I gave up on any real concern for the feelings of my loved ones a long time ago. I mean, hypothetically, I want them to be happy and pain free—just not enough to actually do anything about it. Besides—after the initial grief—their lives would be infinitely better without me in it.

Nope...I'm blubbering like a baby because I'm sobering up. I'm sobbing, because I've never been good at this. I've never been able to deal with this emotional bullshit!

Get it together you fuckin' pussy!

The sobbing fit becomes a punching match with the steering wheel.

FUCK!…I'm falling apart.

The tape ends. It clicks twice as it switches to the other side. The brief silence before the first song starts, is broken by 2live Crew's "Pop that Pussy."

Now, I feel ridiculous.

I turn the volume down and wipe my face.

It's time to do what I always do when this happens. I pull out my tools and place them on the war-beaten owner's manual. I'm no longer fuckin' around. It's time for a real speedball. I use my fingernails to pinch a healthy slab of crack off, into the spoon.

I know what you're probably thinking: You can't shoot up crack. But you underestimate the junkie ingenuity. You can discover a lot when you're willing to try anything.

Crack cocaine has a dense, water-resistant quality, so dissolving it in water, like heroin, won't work. It takes something more acidic. You can use vinegar or lemon juice, or—in a pinch—you can use the little sugar-free Kool-Aid packets. Just mix the Berry Blast powder with a little water, and presto—you’re ready to shoot crack.

I grab the lemon-shaped bottle from the seat next to me and squeeze half a dozen drops into the spoon. With the plunger end of my syringe, I crush the island of crack into dust, where it dissolves into the surrounding yellow sea. But that's only half of tonight's recipe. I take a nice chunk of dog food and add it to the concoction.

Crush and stir.

The rest is academic—same as always.

I draw up the solution and ready my fix. I'm trying to find enough light to take my shot when my phone buzzes.

Another text message steps on my chest. It's just one line, an address: 2765 Jefferson St. Palm Bay Florida.

My sister's house.

CHAPTER 7

Sitting in this shitty car, in this shitty carwash, I go through the cycle.

Fear turns to anger.

Anger turns back to fear.

Fear turns to self hatred.

And self hatred finally turns to the acceptance of defeat.

Checkmate.

Game over.

I text back: What do you want?

My heart sinks. Visions of my sister and her husband, lavishing attention on my two year old niece, fill my head. Holidays with the family. Vacations filled with joy and laughter turn dark, as I see those familiar faces, duct-taped and hog tied, wearing masks of fear and confusion on their faces. They might never work out all the details, but surely—in their final moments—they’d know that it had something to do with me.

I'm startled by the phone, as it lights up with the reply:

You got one shot! I want tha rest of my shit and the fuckin' bitch! Otherwise I'ma have 2 Xpress my disappointment to ur sister directly. Make it quick I'm already here.

There's no point telling him that Tina's already dead, that I spilled half the heroin when I was dumping her body—he’d never believe it. Even if he did, I doubt it would offer him any relief in the revenge department.

But one thing at a time.

Right now, my priority is keeping G and his goons away from my sister.

I take a breath and text back:

Fine. Tina and the dope, no problem. On my way to get her now. I'll text when I'm ready.

You got 30 mins bitch! U kno where I'm at.

Well, it's obvious what I gotta do.

I'm a lot of things, but stupid isn't one of 'em. Once G gets what he wants, he's just as likely to kill me, as he is to let me go. But right now he needs me to get to Tina, and the dope. If this is going to work, I'll have to make every second count. I told G that I was on my way to pick up Tina. So that's exactly what I'm gonna do.

I toss the phone into the passenger seat and grab the loaded rig. Not that I need any extra motivation. But I could use the fuel. I find a vein and push the elixir into my bloodstream. I toss the rig out of my last remaining window and crank the key forward. The engine turns over at the exact moment that the speedball takes hold. Me and my beautiful rust bucket roar to life; me and my elderly supermodel, ready for one last strut down the runway. Pedal to the floor, we screech from the carport into the darkness.

CHAPTER 8

I pull into the strip mall where I dropped Tina off. Even the overnight workers are gone. I pull around back, from the opposite side this time, and make my way to the dumpster behind The Golden Buddha. I don't see any crime scene tape, so I assume no one's noticed the contents of the dumpster.

The depth of silence is unsettling.

The cacophony of sweetly rancid smells float from the dumpster. Time hasn't helped.

The cocaine racing through my veins keeps me focused on the task at hand. I slide the dumpster open. Without the blue and red lights of the police cruiser, I can't see a thing. I open the passenger door, to activate the interior lights of the Honda. It's not much, but it helps. I turn around, and there they are, the bottoms of two, barely visible, size-seven Chuck Taylors.

I grab the ankles attached to the shoes and tug. Because of the angle, and the debris involved, Tina proves more difficult coming out than going in. Just like Chinese food. After some repositioning, I manage to pull her free from the dumpster. I cradle her in my arms, like that Madonna and Christ painting, only, Tina's crown of thorns, is chunks of fried rice and lo-mein noodles.

Thank god my emotions are currently under a chemical lock-and-key, otherwise I'd be a worthless mess, and my sister and her family would be as good as dead.

I gently set Tina down against the rear tire, so I can clean her up before putting her back in the car. I brush the debris from her hair. I reach into the car for something better. All I can find is my secret gym sock. I use it to wipe her face clean.

For the first time ever, I actually see her. She's seen better days, but behind her piercings and unkempt hair, she's beautiful. Without the attitude—and the pistol—her features are attractive and gentle. She's pretty—in that girl-next-door kinda way. I brush the remaining strands of loose hair behind her ear and kiss her on the forehead. She tastes like duck sauce.

I slide my arm behind her waist to pick her up. Something solid is tucked into her back pocket. I pull it out and before I can get it under the dome light, I know exactly what it is. The little chrome .380 that took a chunk outta G's ear.

Of course!

So much has happened that I'd completely forgotten about the gun.

I stare at the little game-changer and reformulate my plan. I toss the burner under Tina's seat and slide her into the car. I recline her seat as far back as it will go, to avoid any curious onlookers.

Trying my best to make up for lost time, while still remaining somewhat under the radar, I keep the Honda within three MPH of the speed limit. If I'm not careful, a high-speed chase over several counties, ending in a nationally televised suicide-by-cop, is a real possibility. Getting pulled over just isn't an option. I do my best to mind my Ps and Qs—well, as much as is possible while I'm high outta my mind, in a bullet-riddled Honda with expired tags, a mangled rear bumper, and a dead girl in the passenger seat. I have no choice but to use back roads and side streets to remain relatively anonymous. But this safer route is too time consuming for G's thirty minute deadline.

I send a preemptive text:

Took longer gettin Tina in the car, she's really fucked up. On our way. Gotta take back roads. B there in 15. Don't do anything to my sister.

In case G was trying to avoid any evidence in his previous texts, I just dropped an electronic bloody glove in his lap. Hopefully it will keep him from jumpin' the gun.

G: Hurry up bitch, B4 I change my mind!

Maybe not.

I zigzag through the neighborhoods, to a park a few blocks from my sister's house. The clock on the dashboard says I've got exactly eight minutes to set this plan into motion.

There are two streetlights, at half power, still on in the park, one in the parking lot and one between the playground and the picnic tables. I pull Tina from the car and carry her to the picnic table farthest from the streetlight. I do my best to prop her up, like she's a regular park goer just having a midnight snack. I do a decent job, but I can't get her head to stay up. Luckily, there are very few differences between the posture of a dead girl and the posture of a junkie. I place her hand on the table, on top of a bag of pork-fried-rice meant to look like the stolen dope.

The darkened playground is directly between the parking lot and Tina's "table for one." It's your standard new-millennium child-friendly recreation area: a few swings, a platform with plastic slides and tunnels, a tire swing made from recycled rubber, a mock telescope, and an oversized tic-tac-toe wall; all rounded corners and smoothed edges.

This is why our civilization is doomed. By the time this post-millennial generation takes the reins, we won't stand a chance. This soft-bellied, everyone-gets-a-trophy, pampered and entitled group of kids will grow up scarless and spineless.

This over padded playground is just a symptom of something larger; maximum protection, minimum adversity; infancy stretched for decades. With no immunities—physical or mental—it’s likely we'll be brought to our knees by some new form of chicken pox—or the fear of contracting it. But then again, I was never coddled or pampered and I'm not exactly the pride of my generation; and my generation isn't exactly the pride of the human race. So maybe our collective doom is inevitable.

I park the Honda behind a group of trees on the edge of the park. I jog back to the playground and slip into one of the darkened tunnels facing Tina's table.

I send a text:

Just dropped her off at the park you passed on the way in. She has the rest of your shit. I had nothin' to do with that shit earlier. Held up my end. You'll never hear from me again. Deal?

Hear from U? I better neva C ur bitch ass again. As long as that bitch is there wit my shit then I'm dun wit U. Hope you said bye to that ass 2. I'ma get my $ one way or anotha.

CHPATER 9

I hold down the power button on my phone to make sure it's off.

No more distractions.

No more surprises.

I settle in and wait. For the first time in forever, I'm in control.

Tina's words from earlier echo in my head: "Creepy fuck....always tryin to.... deserves it!.." In hindsight it sounds obvious that she was on the verge of doing something drastic, but I'm not exactly big on recognizing other people's problems—much less doing anything to help.

Thoughts of what might have driven her to such drastic measures cloud my concentration. There were stories, here and there, about G trading dope for sexual favors, junkies "renting out" their girlfriends for the weekend. Girls would come back with tales of rough sex and general degradation, sporting black eyes and bruises as souvenirs. There were even rumors of girls that never returned. I just chalked it up to exaggeration and urban legend. Like all things, I figured there was probably some truth to it, but that most was nothing more than gossip.

With the events of the last few hours, I'm starting to wonder.

My frustration turns inward. My newfound focus becomes harder to maintain. My naïveté and self-centered attitude prevented me from stopping any of this. If, for just an instant, I put someone or something ahead of this fucking addiction, I could've stopped this train wreck from happening.

G's missing an ear.

Tina's dead.

In all probability, Tommy's dead.

I've committed enough felonies to spend the rest of my life in prison.

And I'm on the verge of getting my sister and her family killed.

And that's just in the last few hours! This is just the most recent in a series of catastrophic events, and at the center of all of them—is yours truly.

Anger smolders in my chest like a hot coal. I grit my teeth and tug at my hair in an attempt to keep from exploding, but It happens anyways. It's just too much, too fast.

"Stupid! Stupid! Fucking piece of shit!"

All the heroin in the world couldn't hold this back. Tears of frustration and rage roll down my face, dropping onto the wood chips gathered at the bottom of the tunnel. I throw myself around and beat myself up inside this little plastic tube, exercising my demons.

Just when I'm ready to collapse, I hear a car door slam. One distant clunk, quickly followed by another. My focus returns—like waking from a dream. I wipe the tears away.

Mental stability has never been my strong suit.

I hear nothing for a good thirty-seconds—and right before I risk poking my head from the safety of the tunnel, I hear the faint sound of voices approaching. A resolute determination envelops me. It's surprising, the return of my single minded focus. The feeling, that all the twisted experiences in my fucked-up life has led to this one moment, becomes undeniable.

The voices grow louder, until they're close enough that I can hear footsteps. They can't be more than twenty feet from the tunnel, and maybe another forty feet from Tina. My hand slides to my lower back and grips the cool metal of the pistol. On the ride here I counted seven rounds in the clip plus the one in the chamber.

The unchecked arrogance of those in power can leave them with the false sense of safety—especially when it comes to dope dealers. I'm counting on this. Their nonchalant tones tell me that these two have all but counted their chickens. They're voicing their intentions for Tina loud enough for her to hear—if she were still alive. Threats disguised as idle chatter.

They're not talking to Tina as much as they're talking at her.

Here they come without a care in the world. I do my best to channel the spirits of great warriors.

I think Sun Tzu.

I think Miyamoto Musashi.

I think Geronimo.

I crouch down and let them pass by the tunnel. I can only see them from the waist down. They're swinging pistols as they walk.

One deep breath, then I count: 3...2...1

I slip out of the tunnel—silently, swiftly—and fall into step directly behind them. And as confidently as I've ever done anything in my entire life, I raise the .380 to the back of henchman's head and fire a single shot into the base of his skull. It's startling how fast he crumbles—mid stride—like a marionette with his strings cut. In the blink of an eye he goes from present to past tense.

One down, one to go.

My arm goes from noon to eleven o'clock. I fire again. In the split second it takes me to get off the second shot, G is turning to face the commotion. The bullet aimed at the back of his head tears through his right cheek and pops out just under his left eye. Bloody shards of shattered teeth explode from his mouth. The shot doesn't have the same effect as the first. Dazed, but definitely not dead, he stumbles forward doing his best to stay on his feet. He still grips his pistol, but in his condition it's more of a prop than a weapon. He struggles to level it in my direction. It does nothing more than give me a clear target to kick from his grasp. Disarmed, he collapses to his back, gurgling threats he's no longer able to follow through on. Blood bubbles up from between his lips; the crimson red liquid, dotted with the little white pieces of the molars and incisors he used to chew his food with.

I kneel down beside the injured shark and grip his throat in my left hand. The blood on his neck is sticky. Warm. He jerks his head in Tina's direction. I follow his gaze. Tina's succumbed to gravity. She's toppled from the table, her limp hand spilling the dope-fried-rice in the process. I see the confusion in his eyes as he tries to make sense of the bizarre scene unfolding in front of him. He summons the strength to gargle, "What the FU—“ when I put the gun to the side of his head and pull the trigger. The blast is muffled by the close proximity of the barrel to his head. A human silencer. The tiny lead round pops out of his bandaged ear. His unfinished syllable turns into a deep sigh, as the last bit of life evaporates between his lips.

Done.

I tuck the gun into my waistband and begin rifling through the pockets of the recently deceased. I'm collecting all personal identifiers:

I.D.s

Credit cards.

And most importantly: phones.

One look at D's call log and I'd jump to the top of the cop's persons-of-interest list. I mean, I'm the only person in tonight's escapades that isn't a few short minutes away from being zipped up in a municipal body bag.

I shove the personal effects, and a knot of G's confiscated cash, into my pockets. I take the keys from his belt loop and hit the lock button on the key fob before hurling them into a group of trees on the edge of the park. Something in the Caprice will eventually lead the cops to G, which will lead them to me. But I'm willing to bet that the car isn't registered in his name, and without instant access to it's contents, it should take a little longer to identify him, which will give me a tiny head start.

I scramble to the picnic table and roll Tina over. I wipe the dirt from her face and tell her, "Thank you."

In a neighborhood like this, the recent gunshots will have definitely inspired a few concerned phone calls to the authorities. Some of the windows in the nearby houses are starting to blink to life. I imagine a throng of housewives in plain nightgowns, peeking through blinds, waking up their groggy husbands, and shuttling their recently-roused kids back to bed before calling the cops.

I'm ready to make yet another in a string of recent escapes into the Florida night, but first I have one more stop to make.

CHAPTER 10

I shoot out of the park in a straight path to the highway. This is just to give the window-watchers the illusion that I immediately fled the area.

I twist my injured Honda through the neighborhood streets until I pull into my sister's driveway. For piece of mind—before I can fully commit to a life on the run—I need to make sure that G kept his end of the deal.

I look at the ever-growing pile of phones in my passenger seat. Modern day dog tags. Trophies. Evidence: Tina's, Tommy's, the Henchman's, D's, and mine. All of our phones, commingling in the seat next to me. The way this night is playing out, if your phone ends up in my possession, there's a really good chance that you're already dead.

I fish my phone from the pile, highlight "Sis" and press call. After a few rings it goes to her voicemail. I hang up and try again. The phone is still ringing when a bedroom window lights up, probably hers but I don't know. I've never been inside her house. Seconds later, there's a groggy, "Hello?..Danny?.. Jesus," she says. "It's the middle of the night. What?…" Her utter disappointment cuts deeper than any insult she could muster.

I say, "I'm really sorry, I butt dialed you—by accident. But since you're awake, I just wanted to tell you how much I love—“ Before I can finish, she hangs up. "You," I say into the empty line. Her bedroom window goes dark.

I lose myself imagining what life on the other side of her front door would feel like.

Living for someone else for a change.

Finding joy and love in a shared life.

Milestones reached together.

Love over lust.

To truly know the meaning of family...

But as the saying goes, that ship sailed a long time ago. And if I don't get outta here ASAP, my ship is going to crash head-on into the breakers.

I shake the thoughts from my head and back out of that imaginary life. My broken jaw of a bumper scrapes the asphalt as I slink into the night.

Petting the dashboard, I try to coax a few more miles outta the ol' girl. "C'mon baby, we're almost done."

I make this promise with fingers crossed.

I make a B-line for the nearest I-95 on ramp. At this point it's a game of chance, whether or not I can make it the five miles to the highway without crossing paths with an inbound police cruiser?

I wipe my sweaty palms onto my jeans and do my best to steal my nerves. Without any realistic chance of blending into traffic, I end up overcompensating for the sad condition of the old Honda Accord, with body posture. I shrink into the dilapidated seats, my elbow on the open window frame, my hand resting on the side of my face in a feeble attempt at obscuring my identity. Admitting that this does nothing more than ramp up the suspicious factor to a comical level, I return to doing my best impression of a law-abiding motorist.

Embarrassment being as much as a factor as strategy, I decide to go with speed over stealth. I put both pedals to use, weaving through the sparse traffic. The less time on the road, the better.

I clear Ocean Drive, take a right on Palmetto. There it is, just a few blocks away, the I-95 on ramp.

My heartbeat slows. A smile crawls across my face. I only notice, because I catch my reflection in the twisted rearview mirror. It's right there, a genuine smile, illuminated by the yellow-tint of the spaced out streetlights flashing by. A slow motion strobe light, a slide show, with the same repeating frame. With every approaching streetlight, the evidence of my satisfaction retreats, little by little, until it disappears completely.

The words, "small victories, huge failures," come to mind.

I flick my blinker, more out of habit than a belief that it actually works, and merge into the on ramp under the reflective I-95 north sign.

Home free.

I push the pedal to the floor to coax this beautiful old beast up to highway-speed. I shove the exposed cassette tape back into the deck. The ancient electronics come to life with an orange glow. 2live Crew leads into a bootleg version of U2's "Sunday Bloody Sunday."

I take a deep, well deserved, breath.

A victory breath.

Nearing the end of the on ramp feels like entering a new world, leaving behind the sleepy, early-morning roads of Central Florida, for the rumbling, chaotic, East-Coast artery that is I-95. At this time of night—or morning, depending on the last time you slept--the highway is littered with long-haul truckers, construction crews, and vacationing families.

Just before the ramp disappears into the highway, a faint glow out of the corner of my eye steals my attention. The best part of Florida is just to my right. I take in the beauty that is the Florida sky, just before the sun breaks the horizon. It's that brief moment, when you can't quite tell whether it's morning or night. An array of pastel oranges and smears of gold, burst forth from behind a layer of billowing cumulous clouds. Rays of color beat back the inky night sky with each passing minute. Looking ahead, I can see the past to my left, and the future to my right. Caught here in the present, a warmth washes over me, and for the first time in my entire adult life, I feel safe. An overwhelming feeling—that everything is going to be OK—dawns on me.

A singular event.

An epiphany.

A revelation.

I flip the blinker and merge.

CHAPTER 11

Flashes. A movie—ten frames at a time—every few minutes.

The deafening squeal of tires.

The crunching sound of twisting aluminum and plastic.

Then nothing...

Blaring distorted horns.

Broken glass and Red Bull cans float around me.

My world tumbles, with no care for gravity.

Then nothing...

The smell of burning rubber and foam.

Singed hair.

More nothing...

A slow, warped, version of "Sunday Bloody Sunday" is the soundtrack to this confusing nightmare.

Nothing.

Darkness...

CHAPTER 12

Beep...Beep...Beep...Beep...Beep.

I'm brought to semi consciousness by the worst headache of my life. I hear the wheezing of mechanically-forced air every few seconds, and the constant metronome of electronic beeps and clicks. I try to open my eyes. A thick layer of crust, and what feels like tape, makes it practically impossible. I manage to partially open my left eye. All I can see is the ceiling. Fluorescent lights buzz overhead. A beeping to my right grows louder, faster. There's a commotion of people rushing around.

Again, darkness.

Cloudy dreams, distorted visions, blanket me.

Luscious blades of green grass wedge between my toes, tickling my feet. A green, so vibrant that it only exists in movies and photos, covers the ground.

The largest island in this sea of grass, is a red-clay baseball diamond. Sets of aluminum bleachers border the base lines. Festive banners, that read: "23rd Annual Corporate Softball Game," in bright bubble letters, hang from the dugouts. In smaller letters, at the bottom of the banner, the phrase: "Slow and Steady Wins the race," sits between a cartoon tortoise and hare.

A much smaller island, off in the distance, is formed by a perfect little picnic scene. A wicker basket of fried chicken and potato salad sits atop a red and white checkered blanket. A bottle of red wine holds one of the corners in place, and a woman in a sundress sits cross-legged on another.

She waves me over as if she's been expecting me.

I'm struck by pangs of guilt and embarrassment. It takes a moment, but as I draw closer, I realize that it's Tina—well, it's a version of Tina. A sober, cleaner, and all-around healthier version—one that I have yet to meet.

My expression must betray my insecurities. She attempts to comfort me with a tender smile and a pat of the blanket, signaling me to sit. A nearly imperceptible glow surrounds her. This heavenly aura suits her surprisingly well.

I sit down next to her. She pats her leg. I lean back and rest my head in her lap. I gaze up at her. The cloudless sky frames her face. She brushes the hair from my forehead, the entire time maintaining her luminous smile.

Her compassion comforts me completely.

The background chatter of the softball game's announcer, intermittently breaks the silence. "Batting third, is Sally from payroll. Careful Joe, if you don't go easy on her, your paycheck might come up missing." A few idle chuckles come from the bleachers.

I owe her an explanation.

I start to plead my case. She looks down at me, her face, upside down in my vision. She simply holds her index finger to her lips, in the universal sign for: Quiet, your words are unnecessary.

"Ball four," he says. "Sally takes her base. Coming to the plate next is Drew C, our warehouse supervisor.

I stare up, into Tina's eyes, and exhale my guilt in one massive breath. Both of us content in our unspoken communication.

Looking up at her, the bright blue sky surrounding her face dims ever so slightly around the edges.

She cradles my head and raises me to a sitting position. She pulls the basket closer and motions to the bottle of wine.

"A swing and a miss. Strike one!"

I grab two glasses from the picnic basket. Tina uncorks the wine.

"One ball and one strike," he says, "to the first thoracic vertebrae."

I pour the wine and hand Tina a glass. She winks and hands me the plates, nodding towards the basket.

"Strike three! Our next batter is a damaged C-1 vertebrae, a multiple car pileup."

I pull out a bowl of fried chicken. The smell says that the poultry's past its prime.

"Ball three. The count is one quadriplegic patient," he says, "complete paralysis, and two strikes."

I grab two drumsticks. They go limp in my hand. The bones inside feel shattered.

"Strike three! Permanent immobility."

The feel of this picturesque day starts to shift. Purple and black storm clouds roll in like waves. The wind begins to whip, sending our plates tumbling into the green waves of grass.

Tina's gaze never leaves me. Her subtle smile, her compassionate aura, the only things unaffected by the sudden shift.

She holds up her glass of wine to cheers. I raise mine to meet hers. The glasses clink together. A crack, spiderwebs through the rim of my glass. We drink. The wine turns thick and metallic when it touches my lips. The unmistakable iron taste of blood rolls my stomach. I struggle to swallow.

Tina pulls me close, her hair frantically whipping in the wind.

Thunder rumbles nearby, growing closer with every breath. Lightning crackles in every direction. A stray bolt crashes into the tree next to us, splintering the behemoth to its roots. The leaves are instantly set ablaze. The air smells like charcoal.

Blissfully unaffected, Tina takes my face in her hands. Snowflakes of ash, and lightning bugs of smoldering embers, dance around us as they float to the ground. She leans in and kisses me ever so gently. I feel upside down, as if God, from the Sistine Chapel, has reached out and touched me. Our cheeks brush against one another as she moves her lips up to my ear. Her breath feels like life itself. My body shudders with anticipation. With the world crumbling to ashes around us, she pauses, and as soft as a butterfly's wings, she whispers three words:

"No-More-Running."

They enter through my ear and tumble down into my chest where they take root.

No-More-Running.

Just three simple words.

And for the first time in my entire life—with no more road ahead, and with nowhere left to go—I finally stop running…

0 notes

spiderfan22 · 8 years ago

Text

DAY TWO HUNDRED AND FORTY-SIX - 5/9/17

“UNTITLED FUNERAL PLAY (THRU PAGE 38)” by DJS

These stories really do write themselves. Take the final scene in this excerpt, between the members of Andy’s family. Carter is telling jokes and everyone’s laughing and on their way to getting past the ugly conversation they had earlier in the play. And then Kelly makes a casual remark and the bad mood descends all over again. I did not plan that. But I like it.

The same thing with Pammy’s speech. More often than not, I have found when a scene isn’t working - if the words just don’t look right on the page - then I have missed something. I have gotten off track somehow. Because, to me, a story is taking a journey through the woods; there are many paths in the woods, some even very scenic, but only one that will take you all the way through to come out the other side. Now of course what happens is you get lost along the way; you diverge, take different paths, then you have to find your way back. Pammy’s speech was my way back onto the path. Originally the scene played much differently, Pammy shut down. Now she engages directly with her mother’s criticisms, she’s finally been pushed too far.

Fingers crossed that it works, because it feels like it works. Read on.

The scene is the interior of six cars, part of a funeral procession.

The action should be staged as simply and unadorned as possible— perhaps stealing a page from the theatre of Thornton Wilder, eg chairs or benches for car seats, mimed driving, etc. Minimal props and lighting; once the lights come up, they stay up. The company is onstage for the duration of the show.

This includes the sound operator and stage manager (preferably the same person), along with their equipment. They should have a small station in full view of the audience.

There is an inherent challenge in this approach in that actors— even when they’re not the primary focus of a scene— must remain “on” at all times, filling every moment with real life, even if that just means breathing.

The actors are all dressed in black funeral attire.

Characters (by car – *indicates the driver)

#1- Margaret (50s, funeral director) / Glenn* (her step-son, funeral attendant)

#2- Jim (70s, the widower) / Eric* (his elder son) / Mindy (Eric’s wife)

#3- Beth* (Jim’s daughter) / Doug (Beth’s husband) / Kenzie (their 16 year old daughter) / Ry (Eric and Mindy’s 19 year old son)

#4- Andy* (Jim’s younger son) / Kelly (Andy’s wife) / Carter (their 15 year old son) / Clay (their 12 year old son)

#5- Wade* (Jim’s younger brother) / Ellen (Wade’s wife) / John (Jim’s older brother) / Bailey (John’s young wife)

#6- Nita (the deceased’s sister) / Pammy* (Nita’s daughter)

Organ music. Church bells toll. The funeral service has just let out. The company enter to their respective cars.

Margaret waits in the passenger seat of #1. She wears reading glasses, consulting a clipboard.

After a few moments, Glenn hustles over and gets behind the wheel.

MARGARET We all set back there?

GLENN Almost, yeah.

MARGARET People got their flags?

GLENN Yep, all the cars got at least one, with the last vehicle making sure to have two.

MARGARET What about our escort?

GLENN Ready to go. They sent us Officer Daniels again which is nice since he knows the route. The other guy I’m less familiar with, I think he might be new.

MARGARET Just as long as Daniels takes the lead.

He is taking the lead, correct?

GLENN Oh yeah. I mean yes.

MARGARET And you reminded everyone about their hazards – to make sure they’re on?

GLENN I did.

MARGARET What about headlights?

Slight beat

GLENN Oh. Shoot.

MARGARET You didn’t remind them to turn on their headlights?

GLENN Well I thought because it’s the middle of the day on a perfectly sunny day –

MARGARET Doesn’t matter. It’s a law, Glenn.

GLENN Yes.

MARGARET You better run and tell everyone now before Officer Daniels realizes and we end up wasting even more time.

GLENN Yes, I –

OK.

MARGARET The last thing we need is a lecture that we don’t know how to conduct our business. Or a bad Yelp review.

GLENN Right.

MARGARET So make it fast.

Glenn nods. Over the next bit, he will go from car to car telling the rest of the drivers to turn on their headlights.

Pammy struggles to load Nita’s collapsible walker into the backseat of #6.

NITA Pammy…

PAMMY What is it, Mom?

NITA I think… I think I left it. I think I forgot it.

PAMMY Forgot what?

NITA My purse. Is it in the backseat with you? Did you grab it?

PAMMY No I didn’t grab your purse. It’s your purse. You think you left it inside, in the church?

NITA Well that’s the only place that makes sense. I mean I had it earlier.

PAMMY Well they’re about to – I mean we’re about to get going here –

NITA Pammy I can’t leave my purse, it’s got all my prescriptions, I’m gonna need to take ‘em at lunch –

PAMMY Mom –

NITA And we’re one of the last cars. If you hurry –

I need my pills Pammy, now you know that. Maybe you can explain it to the guy, the one who’s organizing everything, I just saw him get out of his – the hearse up there. Maybe there’s a holdup for some reason and you actually have time.

PAMMY Fine.

NITA Ohh thank you, Pammy, thank you.

PAMMY Don’t thank me. I mean you gotta have your pills, right?

Pammy starts to exit

NITA You know, he’s cute.

PAMMY What?

NITA The guy. The one they got driving – the attendant, whatever he’s called.

PAMMY You mean the guy that works for the funeral home?

NITA Yeah, did you see him?

Slight beat

PAMMY He’s an undertaker.

NITA You don’t know that, you don’t know if he actually works on the bodies. Maybe he just helps with the flower arrangements, and the guest book and stuff.

PAMMY Mom I’m gay.

NITA You had a girlfriend for a couple years after college, that’s not the same thing.

A pause. Then Pammy shuts the door on her mother and exits.

In #2

JIM You didn’t have to sit back there, Mindy.

MINDY Oh it’s fine, Jim, don’t worry about it.

JIM You got enough leg room? I can move my seat forward –

ERIC She’s fine, Dad.

JIM Wait a minute – where’s what’s his name? Ryan.

ERIC He’s riding with Beth and Doug.

JIM How come?

ERIC Well, so you’d have some more privacy.

JIM Oh, because I’m gonna start crying? Don’t want the kid to see me balling my eyes out?

ERIC It’s not like that Dad –

JIM You’re trying to manage me.

ERIC Dad that’s not –

JIM Everyone today has got their kid gloves on with me and I wish they would just stop. Like your brother –

MINDY No one is trying to manage you, Jim –

JIM Your brother: did you see what he did? Did you see the shit he tried to pull – as we were going up the stairs he takes my arm. Just grabs me by the elbow. Like I can’t walk up four steps, like I’m gonna fall.

ERIC Yeah.

JIM My wife died, I didn’t lose all sense of gravity.

MINDY Everyone’s just trying to help, Jim. People want to be there for you.

JIM I just don’t need my fucking hand held, that’s all.

Beat

So are we getting this show on the road or what?

In #5, the women are in the backseat.

ELLEN Wasn’t it just a lovely service? Somber without being too morose, you know? Didn’t you think, Wade?

WADE Best one we been to this month.

ELLEN Oh please don’t joke like that.

BAILEY Do you guys really go to a lot of a funerals?

ELLEN Well we do have our share, I’m sad to say. As times goes by, more and more –

BAILEY Hey John.

JOHN Yeah what is it, cutie?

BAILEY How come you don’t go to more funerals?

JOHN I dunno. They probably forget I’m still alive so don’t invite me.

WADE You are getting up there, kid.

ELLEN Speaking of which, how’s your heart been John? Are you still taking the Plavix was it?

John nods.

ELLEN Yeah? What do you they have you on for your blood pressure then – anything? Wade’s still doing the Enduron twice a day. It’s only a diuretic because they say it’s only so elevated his blood pressure, not in the real danger area yet.

WADE Except it’s got me pissing like a damn racehorse. I’m talking I’m up three-four times a night –

JOHN Bailey knows. She keeps track of all that stuff for me now.

WADE Girl’s a godsend. I’m telling you John, you’re lucky to have her.

JOHN Think I don’t know that?

Bailey digs in her large bag, taking out several prescription pill bottles and reading the labels

BAILEY Let’s see, what do we got. Metformin, Celebrex, Levitra…

JOHN Walking around with a pharmacy in her purse all because of my old ass.

ELLEN Oh now don’t say that John, I’m sure she doesn’t mind too much.

JOHN God I hope not. I’d be lost without her. No worse – dead. Dead and buried if it wasn’t for my little sugar cookie here.

(To Bailey) Isn’t that right?

He reaches back and pats Bailey’s thigh. She takes his hand and squeezes it while still scanning pill bottles.

WADE Keeps you young.

JOHN That’s the idea.

BAILEY (proudly) Here we go: Inderal. “To relieve hypertension.”

Pammy enters with Nita’s purse, crossing paths with Glenn on the way back to her car.

PAMMY Oh. Is something wrong?

GLENN No I just forgot to tell everyone to turn on their regular lights too— uhh, headlights.

PAMMY Oh. OK thanks.

GLENN Safety precaution. It’s actually the law.

PAMMY I will then, thank you.

He goes. She gets back in her car, shoving the purse at Nita, who smiles.

NITA What was that?

PAMMY Nothing. Shut up.

In #3, Kenzie is crying. Doug coughs into a tissue.

BETH I really don’t know what the holdup is. We should be getting going any minute now, least that’s what the guy said.

Slight pause

Hey, you did good today, Ry.

RY What do you mean? Oh the speech?

BETH The eulogy, yes, thank you, you didn’t have to. It was very sweet. I think your grandma would have liked it.

RY It was weird. I was surprised when Dad asked me.

BETH My idea. I know you fancy yourself a writer, so… Plus you did that speech and debate stuff in high school. It was very eloquent – you were, that is.

(To Doug) Don’t you think, honey?

DOUG Yeah and you kept it short which was nice.

He blows his nose as Beth shoots him an irritated glance.

KENZIE Was it your idea to include the Berenstain Bears stuff?

RY What? Oh, yeah.

KENZIE Because Grandma would always read them to us, right?

RY Yeah.

KENZIE She had the whole collection.

RY A bunch, yeah.

KENZIE I liked that, that you quoted that.

RY Oh good. Thanks –

KENZIE I’m missing a big softball tournament for this but I don’t care.

RY Sorry.

KENZIE Who do you think is going to get those books?

RY What?

KENZIE If anything they should get split up between us grandkids.

RY Sure –

KENZIE But maybe not Carter and Clay because they didn’t really – they weren’t really a part of that, you know? I mean whenever they went over to Grandma and Grandpa’s they just wanted to play their DS’s or watch stupid shows on Cartoon Network, and even when Grandma would offer – so the books mean way more to us than them.

There is the blurt of a police siren; a signal that the procession is about to begin.

RY Yeah –

KENZIE So we’re on the same page?

RY I – I guess.

KENZIE Mom?

BETH Yes what sweetie? I think we’re about to get started here.

KENZIE Mom, have you even been listening to our conversation?

BETH I think so. You were talking about some books –

KENZIE Grandma’s collection of Berenstain Bear books. Ry and I think they should go to us.

BETH OK –

KENZIE So if it comes up, or if there’s a problem with Carter and Clay for some reason where they say they want them, you won’t let it happen?

BETH I don’t know sweetie. That’s not really where my head’s at today.

KENZIE You don’t think it’s important?

BETH Well there’s a lot happening...

KENZIE Dad.

DOUG (who’s dozed off) Hm? What?

KENZIE Grandma’s collection of Berenstain bear books – you remember?

DOUG Uh. Kind of. Why?

KENZIE Ryan and I want them.

DOUG OK. I’m sure you can, I’m sure that won’t be a – I mean your grandfather’s not gonna care –

BETH Can we just please everyone discuss this at another time please? That’s my mom in the back of the hearse up there and I’m getting ready to put her in the ground, so if it’s all the same…

Silence.

The procession begins. Beth puts the car in drive.

In #4

CLAY Hey Mom can you plug my phone in?

KELLY How much power does it have left? Because I have to charge mine.

CLAY 13 percent.

KELLY Let me charge mine a little then I’ll do yours.

CLAY But what if it dies while we’re out at the cemetery?

ANDY You don’t need to have your phone out at the cemetery – you won’t. And we’re already over our data for the month anyway.

CARTER No wonder nothing was loading on Youtube.

CLAY How long till we get to the cemetery?

KELLY (whilst texting, to Andy) Half an hour, right?

ANDY Closer to 45 minutes.

KELLY I remember when you were little and we’d be on long car trips, we’d always give the time to you based on Power Rangers episodes. So if it was two hours away wherever our destination was, it’d be (Sing-song) “Just four Power Rangers left till we get there! Hold on!”

Beat. Carter hits the button to lower his window a few inches.

ANDY Hey, put that back up.

CARTER Why? It’s hot.

ANDY Because it doesn’t look good. This is a funeral procession, it’s serious. Nobody wants to see one of the car’s windows rolled down.

CARTER Who’s nobody?

ANDY Nobody on the street watching.

CARTER But I’m hot.

ANDY Wait for the AC.

He hits the button, raising Carter’s window. Slight pause. Then Carter lowers the window again.

CARTER The air conditioning’s busted, it hasn’t worked since last summer –

Andy raises the window.

ANDY What is your problem listening right now??

CARTER Because I don’t understand why you’re making such a big deal out of this!

KELLY (overlapping them) I think we’re all just a little oversensitive right now not to mention tired because we had to get up so early to drive over this morning, hmmm? so let’s try to keep that in mind and have just a bit more patience with other OK? – Andy? Carter? – I think we’re also probably hungry but that will have to wait obviously, though I might have a granola bar in my bag now that I’m thinking of it.

Carter grunts then goes silent. After a beat.

CLAY Mom can I charge my phone now?

Margaret looks up from her clipboard to the road.

MARGARET You’re not keeping up.

GLENN Huh?

MARGARET The police officer, don’t you see, he’s signaling you to go faster.

GLENN Oh shit. OK.

He speeds up.

MARGARET But keep it under 35. Least till we’re on the highway.

GLENN Gotcha.

MARGARET And don’t swear, Glenn.

She motions vaguely towards the rear of the hearse, meaning the casket.

GLENN Right. Yeah. Sorry.

Can I tell you? It’s still weird for me to drive through a red light.

ERIC (to Jim) Weird to drive straight through a red light, isn’t it?

GLENN Feel like I’m breaking the law.

MARGARET What the escort’s for.

MINDY All I know is I wish I had this on my morning commute every day.

JIM How long’s it take you to get to work?

MINDY An hour. 45 minutes on a good day.

JIM Jesus Christ – how do you people live over there on the west side of the state takes you forever to get anywhere?

ERIC Well, they’re putting in lightrail now so that should help alleviate some –

JIM Is that like a monorail thing?

ERIC A train. It goes both above and below ground.

JIM Yeah? And how much is that costing the taxpayer?

ERIC Well it was voted on, Dad. The county voted for it so – And traffic’s a real problem as Mindy was saying –

JIM You see, that’s why I could never live in a big city. Just too much, too crazy.

ERIC Well we like it.

JIM That’s good for you. I wouldn’t.

Another police siren blurt, like a warning. Kenzie watches out the window.

KENZIE Everybody’s staring at us. People on the sidewalk.

BETH Well, yeah.

KENZIE It’s weird. I don’t like it.

BETH Why don’t you close your eyes for a little while then sweetie, rest, you must be tired.

Pause

KENZIE I can’t. I’m worried about how the game’s going.

(To Ry) I had a big softball tournament this weekend that I had to miss.

RY You told me.

KENZIE Oh.

What do you think, Dad, do you think we’re up?

DOUG Depends. I forget, who did they have you guys pitted against in the first round?

KENZIE Kelso.

DOUG Oh you girls should walk away with it then; their offense just hasn’t been able to get it going so far this year.

KENZIE Who do you think started?

DOUG Sarah I’d imagine. I mean since you weren’t there, Coach probably had to go with Sarah –

KENZIE But that’s not really fair then. She shouldn’t get the win just because Kelso can’t hit and make her look good. Coach will get the wrong impression.

DOUG (to Ry) You might have missed it, Ry, but our Kenzie is in something of a competition with this Sarah girl.

KENZIE No I’m not. She sucks. I am so much better of a pitcher than her –

BETH Stop that, Kenzie. I will not have you talking negative about one of your own teammates.

KENZIE But she talks shit about me all the time! She told everyone I was in love with Derek Page when all I said is I didn’t care if he asked me to Homecoming or not!

BETH Well if she did that then she’s rude –

KENZIE She did do that. You don’t believe me??

BETH Of course we believe you. But you still don’t get to attack a person just because you both play the same position in a sport.

DOUG Plus if you think about it… (Starts to go into a coughing fit but wants to make his point.) If you think about it Mac, Coach needs all the solid starters he can get going into playoffs. I mean it’s not like… not like she’s taking your glove away from you. Sorry.

He is coughing so hard he barely gets this last line out. Kenzie is on the verge of tears again.

Bailey is texting on her phone. Ellen watches her.

ELLEN (to Bailey) So, do you two have to rush off back home or can we get you stay a few more days with us? It’s always nice to have John for a visit.

JOHN No we gotta get back. Bailey has a meeting on Monday.

ELLEN (to Bailey) Oh I didn’t know you were working, dear.

BAILEY I’m not. John’s just trying to be nice and sugarcoat. It’s an N.A. thing. You know, Narcotics Anonymous?

Slight beat

ELLEN Ohhh…

All right.

BAILEY Sorry, did I just freak you out?

ELLEN No. No, not at all –

BAILEY Because you look freaked out.

ELLEN No it’s just… surprising, dear, that’s all. I mean I never would have guessed it. You seem so together.

BAILEY Well I am, now.

ELLEN Right. Right.

And how does John feel about all this?

JOHN If you want to know, ask him.

ELLEN Sorry, John.

John sniffs in a matter-of-fact way.

JOHN She had problem – now she doesn’t anymore. End of story.

(To Bailey) Right, cupcake?

Bailey smiles at him sweetly, then goes back to her phone.

WADE Ellie come on, it’s not your business.

ELLEN No I’m, I’m just asking questions. I mean it’s good news, right?

(To Bailey) In fact we’re just so glad you made it out the other side, dear. I’ve heard how those things can be, they can be truly awful, a real nightmare scenario, and you know some people never make it out. There was a story just the other night we saw on the news – do you remember, Wade? – where they busted, this special task force they took down this whole drug distribution ring – well you know how the gangs are around here, how bad it’s gotten – but they had video of just these kids they looked so young, younger than you even, like our grandkids age – who you look at them and it just breaks your heart because you know they were probably a good kid once upon a time – and now they’ve got into this drug stuff and they’re going to jail and their lives are just ruined. Well it’s inexplicable to me. You just thank your stars you were one of the lucky ones, dear, because I’ve seen some of the statistics. It’s a real epidemic around here now.

Slight pause

So how long have you been sober? Do they call it that, “sober”, when it’s drugs or do they call it something else? “Clean” right?

BAILEY (overlapping) Sober’s fine – clean, yeah. Five months.

ELLEN Just five months. Huh.

She does the math in her head

So – sorry – at the family reunion last year you were, you…

WADE Oh would you give it a rest, Ellie. Stop brow-beating the poor girl.

ELLEN I’m not. Besides she said she was fine discussing it.

(To Bailey) Didn’t you?

BAILEY No, umm actually. But yeah, I don’t mind. It’s like in the program they really stress the importance of honesty, you know, so I try to, like, live that philosophy in my every day.

ELLEN I could see where that’d be a rule, yes.

Can I ask you what it was then? I mean was there one particular thing you gravitated towards or…?

WADE (Oh for Pete’s sake…)

BAILEY What was my poison?

Ellen points to her nose like in Charades, then points to Bailey for her to continue.

Pills. Different painkillers mostly. Not that I haven’t done my fair share of other substances but I was never addicted to any of them. But with Oxycodone, Vicodin stuff like that I could just go and go, and it’s always more and more because you can’t stay at for instance six a day, because after awhile six stops doing anything, you don’t feel it anymore, so you increase to ten, then twelve, fourteen, on and just – God, I don’t even want to tell you how many I was up to when I was at my peak, you know my worst?

ELLEN Oh my.

BAILEY And it’s funny you mention the family reunion thing because I would guess you had no idea something was going on. Nothing up with Bailey, right?

ELLEN Mm.

BAILEY But that’s how it is. You get to a point where it’s all just maintaining. You don’t even get high anymore – or not as high, you still get a little. But really it’s just so you can get out of bed in the morning, eat food, go to the store, without feeling like shit – because otherwise you stop taking the pills you instantly start going into withdrawals. That’s why it pisses addicts off so much when people say, Well just stop doing it. “No I’m sorry, I don’t want to die.”

Ellen stares at her for a moment. Then she pats Bailey’s hand.

ELLEN Well you’ve certainly been through the ringer, haven’t you dear? Hasn’t she, Wade?

WADE Sounds like it.

ELLEN And we’re just so happy you’re all better now, even though we’re finding out about it after the fact.

Nita is struggling to open a bottle of water.

NITA Pammy, do me a favor. I can’t get this.

PAMMY What?

NITA This water. There’s a little ring like a tab you have to pull and with my arthritis I can’t…

PAMMY Um yeah. OK uhhh. Take the wheel for a second then?

NITA You can’t just do it, I have to drive for you?

PAMMY Well I’m gonna need both hands, Mom.

NITA Oh jeez. Alright. But you know what my confidence is like behind the wheel. Your dad always did the driving for us, I mean if we were going anywhere far, not to the post office like, but –

PAMMY Just keep us going straight and you’ll be fine. It’s not that big of deal.

Nita takes the steering wheel apprehensively with one hand while Pammy opens the bottle of water. The job is trickier and takes longer than she thought but she eventually cracks it.

At which point the car swerves to the right.

Nita shrieks. Pammy quickly grabs hold of the wheel again, spilling water down the front of her dress.

Other characters see this happen in their mirrors and react:

WADE Whoa! Did you see that??

ANDY Nearly drove into the ditch.

BETH Who is that? Is that Pammy back there?

KELLY Wait, what happened??

The whole thing is over very fast. After regaining control of the vehicle, Pammy turns on her mother.

PAMMY Are you fucking kidding me?? Mom you just almost ran us off the road! My dress…

NITA (overlapping) Oh God! Oh God I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Pammy; don’t swear, I just… my hand slipped for a second and –

PAMMY Soaked, completely.

NITA Not to worry, we’ll get you fixed up in no time. Here, I think there are some napkins leftover in the glovebox from when we stopped at Crispy Cream that time. I remember I was smart I saved them.

She uses napkins to pat down Pammy’s dress. After a few seconds of this, Pammy snaps at her.

PAMMY OK would you stop?? Seriously, leave it, please. I’m good, I’ll air-dry, whatever. Just – take your damn water back.

There’s a pause.

NITA Do you want me to turn on the heater? That might get you dry faster –

She is reaching for the dial.

PAMMY No, then it’ll just be hot.

And it’s hot enough already.

Nita takes a long drink of water, casual again.

NITA Oh I know. Can you believe it’s almost June? Another couple weeks.

PAMMY (sighs) Yeah.

Andy is still glancing at his driver’s side mirror in concern.

KELLY So wait, what happened again?

ANDY Nothing. Looks like Pammy just lost control of the car for a second.

KELLY Well, why’d she do that? Are they alright?

ANDY How should I know? You can ask her when we get there.

Checks mirror again

Looks like they’re fine now.

KELLY God I hope so.

CARTER Yeah it’d be nice to make it to the cemetery with only one dead body.

Silence. The only one who didn’t catch that was Clay, preoccupied with a game on his phone.

That was a joke.

KELLY A not funny one.

CARTER I know, I’m sorry.

KELLY What made you say that?

CARTER I just thought of it.

KELLY Well you should apologize to your father.

CARTER I did, I said I was sorry.

KELLY This is hard on all of us but him especially.

CARTER I know.

CLAY Hold on, what did Carter do?

KELLY He needs our support right now. And Grandpa. And your Aunt Beth and your Uncle Eric.

ANDY Oh like he even cares.

KELLY What? Your brother?

ANDY No.

Motions to Carter in the backseat

Him. His attitude has sucked all day. First he refused to get out of bed this morning –

CARTER Because I was tired –

ANDY Making us late, putting us behind –

CARTER Mom I told you I couldn’t get to sleep, I’ve been having problems –

ANDY Then when we stopped for breakfast nothing on the menu looks good to him, he’s Mister Choosy all of a sudden –

KELLY Andy, I don’t think that’s entirely –

ANDY Then just to double down on everything I guess, because why not while you’re at it, he starts an argument with me over a window!

CARTER You know you can talk to me Dad, I’m right here.

ANDY So I say let him. Let him if he wants to be a little shit. This can be a lesson. He can learn all about regret, and having regrets, and looking back on how he acted today of all days and realizing he can’t do anything about it, to change that. He only cared about himself.

And I wish Carter, I wish you could feel that sting now, that you didn’t have to wait ohhh ten twenty thirty years for it to hit you, to come around, to bite you in the ass. I just hope I live to see it.

CARTER That’s not what I’m doing.

ANDY Keep telling yourself that. See how far it gets you.

Beat. Then Carter punches the back of Andy’s seat. Andy flinches but makes no other reaction.

KELLY Carter!!

CLAY Aagh!!

Glenn slows down to make the big turn onto the highway.

The police sirens go on for a good minute now as the rest of the procession merges onto the highway. The cars accelerate.

JIM So I’m selling the house.

ERIC What??

JIM Yeah, got a buyer all lined up. Young couple just had their first kid. They want to do some remodeling, think the kitchen, the bathrooms all could use an overhaul, bring everything up to date.

Off their looks

Well you know your mother and I had been talking about it for years, it was no secret. That was always the plan. We were supposed to do it after I retired. It’s too big, too much property, upkeep, and now for one person, it doesn’t make sense. So we’re signing the contracts next week.

MINDY Just like that?

JIM You make it sound like it’s this involved process. The truth is I put the listing up on a Monday and by that Friday I had three offers on the table. Not that I didn’t have a few questions. Like I wasn’t sure what to value it at. I’d had a guy out to appraise it but the figure he came up with didn’t seem quite right to me. So I talked to your sister about it. She has a friend who’s a realtor, smart gal –

ERIC Beth knew?

JIM Now don’t go blaming her. I was the one told her to keep her mouth shut at least till we were further down the line, because I knew you’d object.

Was I wrong?

ERIC Of course you weren’t wrong. But this is not just your decision to make.

JIM Yes it is.

Slight pause

You both look at me like I’m crazy when this has always been the plan. Even when your mother was still alive, when she went into the hospital. You don’t think I wasn’t consulting her? That she wasn’t with me every step of the way on this?

Now I won’t lie and say we agreed on the timeline. She wanted to wait till the grandkids were out of school, had graduated and moved on to college, and that was the plan until she got sick. Then we changed the plan. Because you know our savings are fine, I got more than enough to live on the next however many years, whatever route I end up taking I don’t know yet. So with the profits from the sale of the house, we just figured we’d split ‘em four ways, between the four kids. The four grandkids. Help em pay for college. Or help em just get going.

That was your mother’s wish, Eric.

ERIC And that’s great, Dad. But it could have waited a few more years, right, til everything’s more… settled. Why did it have to be now?

JIM Because. On top of everything, the money, I’m not really interested in the house anymore.

MINDY Sorry Jim, just to clarify: Are we just talking about maintenance and stuff, taking care of the lawn? Because we can totally hire someone, a landscaping team you know to come out if you’re feeling overwhelmed.

JIM Not feeling overwhelmed. Just done.

MINDY But the house. Back me up here, Eric. All the memories. Not that we were under any delusion you would hold onto it forever, but we all moved around so much to where that house was the one constant, like a second home. I know for Ry [it was]… I mean I can’t even count the number of sleepovers. And Christmases, Christmas Eve we always spend over – Easter…

JIM I know. They’ll miss their grandma.

MINDY And you Jim.

Jim makes a small dismissive gesture or sound.

ERIC What?

JIM No, I just know. I know how it’s gonna be going forward, and I get it.

ERIC How what’s gonna be? Dad…

JIM Please Eric c’mon. We all know who the draw was. They weren’t coming for me.

ERIC You mean Mom.

Jim shrugs.

JIM Not that it was ever a popularity contest, and I was never bitter – but.

I’m the grump. I’m the one that told them no. To stay out of my shed. Who smokes so it’s hard to spend much time around. Or who if they asked for money would tell them to go out and start pulling weeds. Whereas Sally would just… open her purse.

Nita begins to cry softly.

Let them eat ice cream sandwiches for lunch. Take them to the water park in the summer or the movies, anywhere they wanted to go. If it was in her power, if she had a nickel left in her pocket…

PAMMY Mom…

JIM And why shouldn’t she? Those kids don’t deserve it? Of course they do. And grandparents are supposed to spoil their grandkids anyway. That’s the rule at least. But it never came natural to me. Even something simple like a hug. If you notice me I always shake the boys’ hands – a good firm grip. And Kenzie being the only girl it’s one of those quick hip-hug side things. And I let her make the first move.

You really think they’re gonna wanna keep coming around for that?

They’ll miss their grandma. That’s the end of it.

There is a silence.

Glenn absentmindedly hits his turn signal.

MARGARET What –

GLENN Sorry. Sorry. Accident.

He slaps the turn signal off again.

A pause.

Margaret looks over at Glenn, driving very carefully now.

Ry is staring out the window at the passing countryside. Beth glances at him in the rearview.

MARGARET (removing her glasses) So how’s school going?

BETH So how’s school going, Ry?

RY What?

GLENN Oh. Not bad…

RY School? Yeah. Pretty good, I guess.

BETH Keeping you busy are they?

RY For the most part.

MARGARET Because I never really see you doing homework that’s all.

Slight pause.

BETH Is there a lot of reading?

GLENN Uhp. Well –

RY Yeah, that’s primarily what the courcework uhh, consists of mainly.

MARGARET I mean they must still give out homework, even at the community college level don’t they?

GLENN They do, they – yeah. It’s just a lot of it is online.

BETH Well you should warn your cousin so she gets better in the habit.

Did you hear that, Kenzie?

KENZIE Mom I read all the time. I just do it after you go to bed so you don’t know.

GLENN And the hours at the parlor with everything going on there’s never time between things so I have to catch up… catch up at night. You – you’re usually asleep by then.

MARGARET Oh so that’s the reason. Convenient.

Before Glenn can say yes

MARGARET But it doesn’t explain why you never tell me your grades either.

Slight pause

GLENN No.

MARGARET So why’s that?

GLENN Well… because they’re not really where I want ‘em to be.

MARGARET Are we talking C’s? D’s?

GLENN Some C’s –

MARGARET But you’re not failing. (?)

Slight pause

GLENN No.

No.

MARGARET Good.

GLENN Yeah.

MARGARET Because you know what I think. I thought you shoulda quit after getting your GED.

Slight beat

GLENN Yeah.

MARGARET Not that I don’t get why that was important – it meant something, a status thing. But you have a job. A good job. You have a whole business one day if you can prove yourself capable of running it – take over for me.

GLENN Yeah. Thank you.

But Dad, he wanted –

MARGARET I know what your father wanted. We argued about it. He wanted you to continue with school, eventually even transfer to a four-year. And it was his money, so…

But is that really realistic?

I mean wouldn’t it be so much less of a hassle not having to worry?

No response. Putting her reading glasses back on

Anyway, food for thought.

Margaret is business-like again. Glenn nodding vaguely

GLENN (barely audible) Mm-hmm.

Doug has fallen asleep and snores because of his stuffy nose.

KENZIE I read. I read all the time.

BETH I know sweetie, I never meant to imply you didn’t.

KENZIE I just finished the whole Divergent series. And I read the Hunger Games and all the Harry Potters.

I just don’t like doing the reading for school sometimes because of the books they make us read. They’re boring. Like Huckleberry Finn.

RY You didn’t like Huckleberry Finn?

KENZIE Everything’s about the stupid “river, the river”.

And did you know that’s not even his real name? It’s a pen name.

It takes Ry a second to put that together.

RY Mark Twain.

KENZIE Yeah. It’s like a boat measurement they use, the depth of the water.

Doesn’t make sense. Why would somebody go to all that work of writing a book then not put their real name on it? Wouldn’t they want people to know it’s them?

Nita sniffs. Stops crying.

NITA She was my sister.

PAMMY I know Mom, it’s ok.

Beat. Then Nita has a realization.

NITA Oh God Pammy, I just thought of it. Is it going to be so awful one day when I’m gone? Are you gonna hate me?

Pammy gives her a confused look.

Because you don’t have any brothers or sisters. Not that we didn’t try, we wanted another but luck wasn’t…

But once I’m gone you’ll be all alone and that kills me. It does.

PAMMY I don’t know. I never thought of it.

NITA At least Eric and Beth, and Andy, you know, they’ll have each other for support. When Jim passes. Knock on wood.

PAMMY Yeah that’s… it’s gotta be a comfort.

NITA More reason for you to find someone.

And I don’t care. If it’s another woman, fine. Be a lesbian. Just don’t end up alone.

Long pause.

So, do you… Are there any prospects? Anything on the horizon?

No response. Pammy doesn’t make eye contact.

John whistles quietly to himself, staring out the window. Bailey texting.

ELLEN She was a real class act wasn’t she?

Wade?

Slight pause:

WADE Oh – you mean Sally. Yeah. Yeah she was.

ELLEN So dear. Loved those grandkids of hers to pieces. Spoiled em rotten.

(To Bailey) Well it’s what we grandmas do best – what we’re known best for, isn’t it?

Bailey smiles.

And – ohhhh. Remember the summers we’d spend up at Twin Lakes, the six of us? John, you and Celia’s cabin?

WADE (to John) Some of the best fishing of my life, buddy. Take the boat out on the lake and just troll. Rake in those rainbow trout.

JOHN Yep.

BAILEY Cabin? What cabin?

JOHN Oh I sold it years ago, cookie. Years.

BAILEY That’s too bad. Sounds fun.

ELLEN It was, it was. The boys would spend all day out on the lake, drinking, you know telling dirty jokes –

WADE Now Ellen you know that’s not true. We kept it mostly clean, Bailey –

ELLEN - telling their little jokes at any rate; while us girls, we’d spend it sunbathing, try and get a tan –

WADE Try to not burn is more like it.

ELLEN (ignoring him) While it away, gossiping. Not that we had anything much to gossip about. And if the mood struck us, whip up a batch of margaritas to cool off.

WADE Like you needed an excuse.

ELLEN (continuing) Mind you this is back before any of us had kids –

WADE Those girls were much worse than us if you want to know the truth. At least what we wasted our time on we were providing dinner.

ELLEN And who made that dinner?

Wade rolls his eyes.

Anyway, I miss it, I really do those days. The craziest thing Wade and I do now is take the bus up to the casino every couple months with the rest of the old fogies. And I never found losing money too exciting, though he seems perfectly happy. (meaning Wade) And the buffet’s nice.

BAILEY Have you guys ever done Vegas?

ELLEN No. But we’ve been all around Reno, Lake Tahoe, that area. And Lincoln City on the Oregon coast?

Bailey indicates a familiarity whether she’s heard of Lincoln City or not.

In #4 the mood is still tense. Clay pauses the game on his phone. Looks up. He looks from family member to family member.

CLAY So what are we doing after?

KELLY After, sweetie?

CLAY After they bury her or whatever, yeah – Grandma.

KELLY Well she’s not being buried. She’s being interred.

CLAY What’s that?

KELLY Uhm. It’s when they put your body in a mausoleum.

She sees that Clay does not know what a mausoleum is.

In a building on the cemetery grounds – but not in the ground.

CLAY Oh. Weird.

KELLY It was her choice. Your grandpa will be interred there too when he passes. Right next to her. So you see it’s not that weird compared to a normal grave. Or burial I mean.

Clay thinks for a moment, remembering.

CLAY But Grandpa told me one time he wanted to be cremated.

KELLY What?

CLAY That’s where they burn you, right? And just your ashes left? Because that’s what he said he wanted.

KELLY When did he tell you this?

CLAY I don’t know. Sometime.

KELLY Well then he must have changed his mind, or he was joking, because he’s going to be interred with Grandma Sally – or next to at any rate.

(To Andy) He hasn’t told you different has he?

ANDY No.

KELLY I didn’t think so.

Pause.

CLAY Hey Mom.

KELLY Yes what Clay?

CLAY I was just wondering, do you know what you and dad want to do?

Slight pause

KELLY You mean about…?

CLAY Yeah. Do you guys have like a will ready to go and stuff?

KELLY Well… no, not exactly…

CLAY Why? Why not?

KELLY Because… (glances at Andy) I guess we haven’t crossed that bridge yet.

CLAY But are you leaning more towards getting cremated like Grandpa –

KELLY For the last time your grandfather is not being cremated –

CLAY (overlap) – or… sorry – or doing the above ground, moss-oleum thing?

CARTER You could also be shot into space or buried at sea.

Beat. Clay looks at Carter.

CLAY Space?? Really??

CARTER (nonchalant) Your ashes anyway.

Clay is floored. Back to his parents:

CLAY OK that’s what I want.

Wade is tapping out a beat on the steering wheel.

JOHN Headed back to Jim’s after this aren’t we?

WADE That is the plan.

JOHN Gonna be something to eat, right?

WADE From what I understand, they got the whole thing catered.

ELLEN Mindy said a pasta bar.

JOHN Good, I’m starving.

ELLEN Yeah, you hungry John?

John gives a small nod.

That’s good. Keep up your appetite.

BAILEY Oh he eats all the time.

With a snort, Doug wakes up.

DOUG Mmmmmmm’re we there?

BETH Twenty minutes.

DOUG I fell asleep.

BETH You’ve been sick.

DOUG (to Ry) Head cold. Can’t shake it. It’s been over a week.

BETH I told you you should have gone in to see Doctor Keith –

DOUG Why? If it’s just a cold…

BETH (over) I mean how many bottles of Dayquil have you gone through already?

DOUG I don’t know…

KENZIE Dad can’t swallow pills.

DOUG I’m just not good at it. It’s psychological – a psychological thing. I think I’m gonna choke.

KENZIE You need to relax Dad.

RY Yeah sometimes I have a hard time too. Taking pills.

DOUG It’s a mental thing.

BETH The doctor prescribed him an antibiotic once and he had to ask for it in a suspension.

RY That sucks. I’m sorry.

DOUG I just don’t know why they can’t make them taste good is all. Like Dayquil, Nyquil. I mean does it have to taste like black licorice of all things? Add some more chemicals, whatever you have to do I don’t care, whatever so it doesn’t taste so bad.

(To Ry) Black licorice, am I right?

RY Nyquil? Yeah.

Doug looks at Beth as if making a point.

DOUG See what I told you? Gross.

Jim has been lost in thought. He turns to Eric and Mindy now.

JIM Hey I don’t think I ever thanked you guys for taking care of so much of the planning for this. The food and everything.

ERIC It was no problem Dad.

Slight pause

JIM And that’s all set up?

MINDY Back at the house yeah. The caterers, they should be setting up as we speak.

JIM How they get in?

MINDY Oh. Meryl volunteered to let them in.

JIM Meryl did?

MINDY To stay behind – or to go back right after the service. She said she didn’t mind, she said it was ok she could help.

She’s a good one to have as a neighbor. You’re lucky.

Jimmy is amused by that.

JIM Is she?

He chuckles quietly. Mindy looks at Eric.

ERIC Dad… what…?

JIM Oh if you only knew.

They hated each other.

ERIC What?

MINDY Are you kidding?

JIM Nope.

ERIC Since when?

JIM Years. Twenty, thirty years...

MINDY But I thought they always seemed like such good friends.

JIM Well they’d play nice in front of other people because what else are you going to do? You don’t make a scene, you don’t make a big thing out of it. Especially when you gotta live next to someone your whole life.

ERIC What about you and Ed?

JIM Got along fine. Not chummy but could share a beer. No, it was the women who had the problem.

MINDY Did something happen?

JIM Did it. Yes.

Well you know how your mother would dote on those fucking rose bushes all the time. Her pride and joy – (Sorry, Mindy) and rightfully so. Pruning and getting just the right fertilizer for it. How she’d pack them before winter, dress ‘em, the care she’d take. But bugs were always a concern. Now she’d tried a buncha different pesticides, even mixing a few of her own – homemade, you know, poison free, organic – to varying success. Then Meryl comes along with a spray she swears does the trick – “saved her azaleas last year”, all that. So Sally she goes along, takes the advice, believing her, grateful. Well no reason not to at this point, they were friends, if only neighborly. But I swear to God those roses of hers dried up in a week – like the life was choked out of ‘em. Sally thought it was a mistake at first; they weren’t getting enough water and so on. Then she remembered the previous year, how Meryl’s tulips had shriveled up just the same. Just the same.

Jim lets that sink in with them.

MINDY So you’re saying it – that Meryl sabotaged her?

JIM Was the conclusion Sally came to yes. And true or not, nothing was ever the same between ‘em.

ERIC (slowly) Uh huh.

JIM And you know your mom, normally she was “forgive and forget”. Didn’t hold grudges easy. But with this and Meryl you better believe she made an exception.

Beat.

MINDY Wow. No idea. That just seems so out of character for her.

JIM It was and it wasn’t. Sally had buttons the same as the rest of us, and when they got pushed – watch out.

(To Eric) You kids were probably her biggest one – number one trigger for Mama Bear to come out of hibernation. Heck, she’d defend you even when she knew for a fact you were in the wrong. Like when Andy put his fist through that school window, remember? In the meeting with the principal: (Imitating Sally’s voice) “Well where was the teacher while all this was happening? Who was sposed to be supervising them at the time?” Fast as you can Sally turned it around on the teacher and by extension the school for leaving the kids unattended. They were lucky we weren’t suing; Andy could have cut his arm off, punctured an artery, anything.

(Sally’s voice again)

“We should just be grateful no one got hurt and leave it at that.”

She was something, I’m telling you.

Jim marvels at the memory. Then he frowns.

Pause.

Nice of her to help out though.

ERIC What?

JIM Meryl. She didn’t have to do that.

Margaret is making a note or checking a box on her clipboard. She glances up briefly.

MARGARET The exit.

GLENN Hmm?

MARGARET Exit’s coming up. You don’t want to miss it.

Slight beat.

GLENN I’m following the cop.

MARGARET So?

GLENN So how could I miss the exit when I’m following the cop? Unless I just wasn’t paying attention?

MARGARET You drift.

GLENN What –

MARGARET Attention Deficit Disorder. Your dad told me you were diagnosed as a kid –

GLENN Ok but –

MARGARET That you were on medication for it, Ritalin or one of those.

GLENN Yeah –

MARGARET And all I’m saying is have you thought about getting retested?

Beat. Glenn trying not to glare at Margaret. Then he returns his focus to the road. Hits the right turn signal with probably more force than necessary.

Sirens. One by one, the drivers hit their turn signals and take the off ramp.

BETH Hey Ry.

You ever miss living over in the valley?

RY Uhh. Sometimes.

BETH Not that it really matters now that you’re in college.

RY Yeah –

BETH Though maybe you would have ended up at WSU and not U-dub. Been a Cougar not a Huskie.

RY Mmmmaybe. Yeah.

KENZIE Do you ever go to any games?

RY Uh, I haven’t so far.

BETH What about joining a fraternity? You’re living in the dorms now, right? Have you given it any thought?

RY Well I might get an apartment with my roommate next year –

BETH Living off campus? Your parents are ok with that even though you’ll only be a sophomore?

RY Yeah. I mean we’re talking about it…

BETH I’d just worry about drugs. Pot is so easy to get now that it’s legal – for underage.

Is it a big problem?

RY Ummm. Well I have some friends, I know some people that do it.

BETH In the dorms?

RY Uhhh…

KENZIE Mom you’re totally interrogating him. Stop.

BETH It’s an honest question. I need to know whether to lock you up or not when you turn eighteen.

This line has the effect of breaking the tension. There’s laughter and Ry breathes easier.

KENZIE (to Ry) Can I ask you a question if you don’t mind. Do you want to be a writer when you grow up?

RY I don’t know.

KENZIE What do you like to write?

RY Short stories. Plays.

KENZIE Plays?

RY Yeah.

KENZIE How do you even do that, write a play?

RY Well, they’re mostly dialogue.

KENZIE You mean talking.

How do you know what to have them say though?

RY It… just comes naturally I guess.

BETH That’s amazing, Ry, to have that kind of imagination. I think if I wrote a story or a play I’d have the main character walk into a room, say Hello, and then there would just be silence.

There is a silence.

KENZIE You should write a movie.

Nita looks out the window and points to something.

NITA See where they closed that K-Mart finally? But they didn’t replace it with anything. You can still make out the letters from where they took down the sign. Like a ghost.

Pause.

Pammy, I know I joke but I do want to see you settled down with somebody. It would make me happy.

PAMMY Not like I’m not trying.

NITA I know. But it’s this women thing I think’s at the root of the problem.

PAMMY Mom –

NITA Let me finish Pammy, please. If I can make my point –

Pammy huffs but says no more. Pause.

Now I’m not ready to dismiss it altogether, out of hand. I know you have certain leanings, and to deny that would be to say your feelings weren’t real, or true. Of course they’re real. At the end of the day I want to see you with someone, doesn’t matter who. As long as you’re taken care of.

Pause.

PAMMY Ok.

NITA Ok.

But it hasn’t happened. I mean it hasn’t for you and another woman in a relationship, you haven’t been able to make it last. And I think you should look at that. And perhaps you’re barking up the wrong tree.

Pammy wants to close her eyes and shut out the world, but she’s driving.

Nita studies her.

You know I, I try to picture myself doing it. Being with a woman ‘stead of a man. Physically, you know? And what I can’t get over is how it would be like kissing your best friend. And wouldn’t that be weird.

PAMMY It’s not. It’s neither of those things.

NITA Oh…? See now that’s fascinating to me. So you’re saying – for you you’re saying – it’s just like kissing anybody else. A man I mean.

PAMMY No that’s not what I’m “saying”. It’s not like kissing a man, because when I kiss a man, Mom – when I touch a man there’s just nothing. The few times I have, it’s like the opposite of having a reaction. Everything, the sparks, the whatever, that you’re supposed to feel, chemistry, clicking – there is none.

And I’m not gonna be hypocritical here and say whenever I kiss a woman all those bells and whistles that are meant to go off, go off, because no. Because in fact it’s quite rare. I don’t know, maybe I’m too particular and that’s my fault, a million reasons. But this idea that there’s someone for everyone, or even that you should settle just so not to be alone – I can’t. I won’t.

So if she does come along one day, fine. I’m not holding my breath; I don’t really put myself out there in any kind of way and…

But you pressuring me either isn’t helping.

Sirens as the procession moves through an intersection. A random car honks.

KELLY Did you hear that? Someone just honked.

ANDY Yeah…

KELLY Well, pardon my French, but what an asshole.

Andy smiles. Clay laughs.

CLAY Mom, you can’t say that!

KELLY Well guess what, I just did! I mean he should have more respect! People should.

ANDY Got places to be.

KELLY Oh yeah, I’m sure it’s so important.

Beat.

CARTER Hey do you want to hear a joke?

Kelly looks at Andy, who shrugs but says nothing.

KELLY If it’s appropriate.

CARTER OK. Umm.

A guy walks into a doctor’s office. And he’s got this duck stuck to his head – on top of his head. So the doctor walks in and says what’s going on, what’s the problem? And the duck says, “Yeah, can you get this guy off my ass?!!”

Kelly bursts out laughing. Andy cracks a smile, chuckles. Clay laughs in a way where you know he didn’t fully understand the joke but found it funny because of the bad language.

Carter is buoyed by their response.

I have another one.

A guy dressed like a pirate walks into a bar. He’s got a pirate hat and wood leg and a parrot, the whole thing. But he’s also got this steering wheel attached to his crotch. He sits down and orders a beer. Now everyone is just staring at him. And some time goes by and finally the bartender walks over and says, “Hey buddy, I don’t mean to bother you or anything but what’s with the steering wheel attached to your crotch?” And the pirate says (In a pirate voice) “Arrr, it drives me nuts!!”

More laughter. Kelly wipes tears from her eyes she’s laughing so hard.

KELLY Did you make those up, Carter?

CARTER No, I heard them somewhere. But they’re my favorite jokes.

KELLY Well, you’re very good at telling them.

(To Andy) Isn’t he?

ANDY He’s always been funny.

KELLY I just think it’s nice to have something to lift your spirits on a day like this. Even if it is stupid.

CARTER Thanks Mom.

KELLY Oh no I didn’t mean that as a slight or anything… Sweetie, you know that, right?

She looks at Carter, smiling but impenetrable:

CARTER What?

To be continued…

#UNTITLED FUNERAL PLAY #parent child relations #conflict #dumb jokes

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spiderfan22 · 8 years ago

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DAY TWO HUNDRED AND FORTY-FOUR - 5/4/17

“UNTITLED FUNERAL PLAY (THRU PAGE 33)” by DJS

Off for a few days. Now back. It’s amazing what you draw from in your own life. I’ll let you guess where the truth lies.

The scene is the interior of six cars, part of a funeral procession.

This includes the sound operator and stage manager (preferably the same person), along with their equipment. They should have a small station in full view of the audience.

The actors are all dressed in black funeral attire.

Characters (by car – *indicates the driver)

#1- Margaret (50s, funeral director) / Glenn* (her step-son, funeral attendant)

#2- Jim (70s, the widower) / Eric* (his elder son) / Mindy (Eric’s wife)

#3- Beth* (Jim’s daughter) / Doug (Beth’s husband) / Kenzie (their 16 year old daughter) / Ry (Eric and Mindy’s 19 year old son)

#4- Andy* (Jim’s younger son) / Kelly (Andy’s wife) / Carter (their 15 year old son) / Clay (their 12 year old son)

#5- Wade* (Jim’s younger brother) / Ellen (Wade’s wife) / John (Jim’s older brother) / Bailey (John’s young wife)

#6- Nita (the deceased’s sister) / Pammy* (Nita’s daughter)

Organ music. Church bells toll. The funeral service has just let out. The company enter to their respective cars.

Margaret waits in the passenger seat of #1. She wears reading glasses, consulting a clipboard.

After a few moments, Glenn hustles over and gets behind the wheel.

MARGARET We all set back there?

GLENN Almost, yeah.

MARGARET People got their flags?

GLENN Yep, all the cars got at least one, with the last vehicle making sure to have two.

MARGARET What about our escort?

GLENN Ready to go. They sent us Officer Daniels again which is nice since he knows the route. The other guy I’m less familiar with, I think he might be new.

MARGARET Just as long as Daniels takes the lead.

He is taking the lead, correct?

GLENN Oh yeah. I mean yes.

MARGARET And you reminded everyone about their hazards – to make sure they’re on?

GLENN I did.

MARGARET What about headlights?

Slight beat

GLENN Oh. Shoot.

MARGARET You didn’t remind them to turn on their headlights?

GLENN Well I thought because it’s the middle of the day on a perfectly sunny day –

MARGARET Doesn’t matter. It’s a law, Glenn.

GLENN Yes.

MARGARET You better run and tell everyone now before Officer Daniels realizes and we end up wasting even more time.

GLENN Yes, I –

OK.

MARGARET The last thing we need is a lecture that we don’t know how to conduct our business. Or a bad Yelp review.

GLENN Right.

MARGARET So make it fast.

Glenn nods. Over the next bit, he will go from car to car telling the rest of the drivers to turn on their headlights.

Pammy struggles to load Nita’s collapsible walker into the backseat of #6.

NITA Pammy…

PAMMY What is it, Mom?

NITA I think… I think I left it. I think I forgot it.

PAMMY Forgot what?

NITA My purse. Is it in the backseat with you? Did you grab it?

PAMMY No I didn’t grab your purse. It’s your purse. You think you left it inside, in the church?

NITA Well that’s the only place that makes sense. I mean I had it earlier.

PAMMY Well they’re about to – I mean we’re about to get going here –

NITA Pammy I can’t leave my purse, it’s got all my prescriptions, I’m gonna need to take ‘em at lunch –

PAMMY Mom –

NITA And we’re one of the last cars. If you hurry –

PAMMY Fine.

NITA Ohh thank you, Pammy, thank you.

PAMMY Don’t thank me. I mean you gotta have your pills, right?

Pammy starts to exit

NITA You know, he’s cute.

PAMMY What?

NITA The guy. The one they got driving – the attendant, whatever he’s called.

PAMMY You mean the guy that works for the funeral home?

NITA Yeah, did you see him?

Slight beat

PAMMY He’s an undertaker.

NITA You don’t know that, you don’t know if he actually works on the bodies. Maybe he just helps with the flower arrangements, and the guest book and stuff.

PAMMY Mom I’m gay.

NITA You had a girlfriend for a couple years after college, that’s not the same thing.

A pause. Then Pammy shuts the door on her mother and exits.

In #2

JIM You didn’t have to sit back there, Mindy.

MINDY Oh it’s fine, Jim, don’t worry about it.

JIM You got enough leg room? I can move my seat forward –

ERIC She’s fine, Dad.

JIM Wait a minute – where’s what’s his name? Ryan.

ERIC He’s riding with Beth and Doug.

JIM How come?

ERIC Well, so you’d have some more privacy.

JIM Oh, because I’m gonna start crying? Don’t want the kid to see me balling my eyes out?

ERIC It’s not like that Dad –

JIM You’re trying to manage me.

ERIC Dad that’s not –

JIM Everyone today has got their kid gloves on with me and I wish they would just stop. Like your brother –

MINDY No one is trying to manage you, Jim –

ERIC Yeah.

JIM My wife died, I didn’t lose all sense of gravity.

MINDY Everyone’s just trying to help, Jim. People want to be there for you.

JIM I just don’t need my fucking hand held, that’s all.

Beat

So are we getting this show on the road or what?

In #5, the women are in the backseat.

ELLEN Wasn’t it just a lovely service? Somber without being too morose, you know? Didn’t you think, Wade?

WADE Best one we been to this month.

ELLEN Oh please don’t joke like that.

BAILEY Do you guys really go to a lot of a funerals?

ELLEN Well we do have our share, I’m sad to say. As times goes by, more and more –

BAILEY Hey John.

JOHN Yeah what is it, cutie?

BAILEY How come you don’t go to more funerals?

JOHN I dunno. They probably forget I’m still alive so don’t invite me.

WADE You are getting up there, kid.

ELLEN Speaking of which, how’s your heart been John? Are you still taking the Plavix was it?

John nods.

WADE Except it’s got me pissing like a damn racehorse. I’m talking I’m up three-four times a night –

JOHN Bailey knows. She keeps track of all that stuff for me now.

WADE Girl’s a godsend. I’m telling you John, you’re lucky to have her.

JOHN Think I don’t know that?

Bailey digs in her large bag, taking out several prescription pill bottles and reading the labels

BAILEY Let’s see, what do we got. Metformin, Celebrex, Levitra…

JOHN Walking around with a pharmacy in her purse all because of my old ass.

ELLEN Oh now don’t say that John, I’m sure she doesn’t mind too much.

JOHN God I hope not. I’d be lost without her. No worse – dead. Dead and buried if it wasn’t for my little sugar cookie here.

(To Bailey) Isn’t that right?

He reaches back and pats Bailey’s thigh. She takes his hand and squeezes it while still scanning pill bottles.

WADE Keeps you young.

JOHN That’s the idea.

BAILEY (proudly) Here we go: Inderal. “To relieve hypertension.”

Pammy enters with Nita’s purse, crossing paths with Glenn on the way back to her car.

PAMMY Oh. Is something wrong?

GLENN No I just forgot to tell everyone to turn on their regular lights too— uhh, headlights.

PAMMY Oh. OK thanks.

GLENN Safety precaution. It’s actually the law.

PAMMY I will then, thank you.

He goes. She gets back in her car, shoving the purse at Nita, who smiles.

NITA What was that?

PAMMY Nothing. Shut up.

In #3, Kenzie is crying. Doug coughs into a tissue.

BETH I really don’t know what the holdup is. We should be getting going any minute now, least that’s what the guy said.

Slight pause

Hey, you did good today, Ry.

RY What do you mean? Oh the speech?

BETH The eulogy, yes, thank you, you didn’t have to. It was very sweet. I think your grandma would have liked it.

RY It was weird. I was surprised when Dad asked me.

BETH My idea. I know you fancy yourself a writer, so… Plus you did that speech and debate stuff in high school. It was very eloquent – you were, that is.

(To Doug) Don’t you think, honey?

DOUG Yeah and you kept it short which was nice.

He blows his nose as Beth shoots him an irritated glance.

KENZIE Was it your idea to include the Berenstain Bears stuff?

RY What? Oh, yeah.

KENZIE Because Grandma would always read them to us, right?

RY Yeah.

KENZIE She had the whole collection.

RY A bunch, yeah.

KENZIE I liked that, that you quoted that.

RY Oh good. Thanks –

KENZIE I’m missing a big softball tournament for this but I don’t care.

RY Sorry.

KENZIE Who do you think is going to get those books?

RY What?

KENZIE If anything they should get split up between us grandkids.

RY Sure –

There is the blurt of a police siren; a signal that the procession is about to begin.

RY Yeah –

KENZIE So we’re on the same page?

RY I – I guess.

KENZIE Mom?

BETH Yes what sweetie? I think we’re about to get started here.

KENZIE Mom, have you even been listening to our conversation?

BETH I think so. You were talking about some books –

KENZIE Grandma’s collection of Berenstain Bear books. Ry and I think they should go to us.

BETH OK –

KENZIE So if it comes up, or if there’s a problem with Carter and Clay for some reason where they say they want them, you won’t let it happen?

BETH I don’t know sweetie. That’s not really where my head’s at today.

KENZIE You don’t think it’s important?

BETH Well there’s a lot happening...

KENZIE Dad.

DOUG (who’s dozed off) Hm? What?

KENZIE Grandma’s collection of Berenstain bear books – you remember?

DOUG Uh. Kind of. Why?

KENZIE Ryan and I want them.

DOUG OK. I’m sure you can, I’m sure that won’t be a – I mean your grandfather’s not gonna care –

BETH Can we just please everyone discuss this at another time please? That’s my mom in the back of the hearse up there and I’m getting ready to put her in the ground, so if it’s all the same…

Silence.

The procession begins. Beth puts the car in drive.

In #4

CLAY Hey Mom can you plug my phone in?

KELLY How much power does it have left? Because I have to charge mine.

CLAY 13 percent.

KELLY Let me charge mine a little then I’ll do yours.

CLAY But what if it dies while we’re out at the cemetery?

ANDY You don’t need to have your phone out at the cemetery – you won’t. And we’re already over our data for the month anyway.

CARTER No wonder nothing was loading on Youtube.

CLAY How long till we get to the cemetery?

KELLY (whilst texting, to Andy) Half an hour, right?

ANDY Closer to 45 minutes.

Beat. Carter hits the button to lower his window a few inches.

ANDY Hey, put that back up.

CARTER Why? It’s hot.

ANDY Because it doesn’t look good. This is a funeral procession, it’s serious. Nobody wants to see one of the car’s windows rolled down.

CARTER Who’s nobody?

ANDY Nobody on the street watching.

CARTER But I’m hot.

ANDY Wait for the AC.

He hits the button, raising Carter’s window. Slight pause. Then Carter lowers the window again.

CARTER The air conditioning’s busted, it hasn’t worked since last summer –

Andy raises the window.

ANDY What is your problem listening right now??

CARTER Because I don’t understand why you’re making such a big deal out of this!

Carter grunts then goes silent. After a beat.

CLAY Mom can I charge my phone now?

Margaret looks up from her clipboard to the road.

MARGARET You’re not keeping up.

GLENN Huh?

MARGARET The police officer, don’t you see, he’s signaling you to go faster.

GLENN Oh shit. OK.

He speeds up.

MARGARET But keep it under 35. Least till we’re on the highway.

GLENN Gotcha.

MARGARET And don’t swear, Glenn.

She motions vaguely towards the rear of the hearse, meaning the casket.

GLENN Right. Yeah. Sorry.

Can I tell you? It’s still weird for me to drive through a red light.

ERIC (to Jim) Weird to drive straight through a red light, isn’t it?

GLENN Feel like I’m breaking the law.

MARGARET What the escort’s for.

MINDY All I know is I wish I had this on my morning commute every day.

JIM How long’s it take you to get to work?

MINDY An hour. 45 minutes on a good day.

JIM Jesus Christ – how do you people live over there on the west side of the state takes you forever to get anywhere?

ERIC Well, they’re putting in lightrail now so that should help alleviate some –

JIM Is that like a monorail thing?

ERIC A train. It goes both above and below ground.

JIM Yeah? And how much is that costing the taxpayer?

ERIC Well it was voted on, Dad. The county voted for it so – And traffic’s a real problem as Mindy was saying –

JIM You see, that’s why I could never live in a big city. Just too much, too crazy.

ERIC Well we like it.

JIM That’s good for you. I wouldn’t.

Another police siren blurt, like a warning. Kenzie watches out the window.

KENZIE Everybody’s staring at us. People on the sidewalk.

BETH Well, yeah.

KENZIE It’s weird. I don’t like it.

BETH Why don’t you close your eyes for a little while then sweetie, rest, you must be tired.

Pause

KENZIE I can’t. I’m worried about how the game’s going.

(To Ry) I had a big softball tournament this weekend that I had to miss.

RY You told me.

KENZIE Oh.

What do you think, Dad, do you think we’re up?

DOUG Depends. I forget, who did they have you guys pitted against in the first round?

KENZIE Kelso.

DOUG Oh you girls should walk away with it then; their offense just hasn’t been able to get it going so far this year.

KENZIE Who do you think started?

DOUG Sarah I’d imagine. I mean since you weren’t there, Coach probably had to go with Sarah –

KENZIE But that’s not really fair then. She shouldn’t get the win just because Kelso can’t hit and make her look good. Coach will get the wrong impression.

DOUG (to Ry) You might have missed it, Ry, but our Kenzie is in something of a competition with this Sarah girl.

KENZIE No I’m not. She sucks. I am so much better of a pitcher than her –

BETH Stop that, Kenzie. I will not have you talking negative about one of your own teammates.

KENZIE But she talks shit about me all the time! She told everyone I was in love with Derek Page when all I said is I didn’t care if he asked me to Homecoming or not!

BETH Well if she did that then she’s rude –

KENZIE She did do that. You don’t believe me??

BETH Of course we believe you. But you still don’t get to attack a person just because you both play the same position in a sport.

He is coughing so hard he barely gets this last line out. Kenzie is on the verge of tears again.

Bailey is texting on her phone. Ellen watches her.

ELLEN (to Bailey) So, do you two have to rush off back home or can we get you stay a few more days with us? It’s always nice to have John for a visit.

JOHN No we gotta get back. Bailey has a meeting on Monday.

ELLEN (to Bailey) Oh I didn’t know you were working, dear.

BAILEY I’m not. John’s just trying to be nice and sugarcoat. It’s an N.A. thing. You know, Narcotics Anonymous?

Slight beat

ELLEN Ohhh…

All right.

BAILEY Sorry, did I just freak you out?

ELLEN No. No, not at all –

BAILEY Because you look freaked out.

ELLEN No it’s just… surprising, dear, that’s all. I mean I never would have guessed it. You seem so together.

BAILEY Well I am, now.

ELLEN Right. Right.

And how does John feel about all this?

JOHN If you want to know, ask him.

ELLEN Sorry, John.

John sniffs in a matter-of-fact way.

JOHN She had problem – now she doesn’t anymore. End of story.

(To Bailey) Right, cupcake?

Bailey smiles at him sweetly, then goes back to her phone.

WADE Ellie come on, it’s not your business.

ELLEN No I’m, I’m just asking questions. I mean it’s good news, right?

Slight pause

So how long have you been sober? Do they call it that, “sober”, when it’s drugs or do they call it something else? “Clean” right?

BAILEY (overlapping) Sober’s fine – clean, yeah. Five months.

ELLEN Just five months. Huh.

She does the math in her head

So – sorry – at the family reunion last year you were, you…

WADE Oh would you give it a rest, Ellie. Stop brow-beating the poor girl.

ELLEN I’m not. Besides she said she was fine discussing it.

(To Bailey) Didn’t you?

BAILEY No, umm actually. But yeah, I don’t mind. It’s like in the program they really stress the importance of honesty, you know, so I try to, like, live that philosophy in my every day.

ELLEN I could see where that’d be a rule, yes.

Can I ask you what it was then? I mean was there one particular thing you gravitated towards or…?

WADE (Oh for Pete’s sake…)

BAILEY What was my poison?

Ellen points to her nose like in Charades, then points to Bailey for her to continue.

ELLEN Oh my.

BAILEY And it’s funny you mention the family reunion thing because I would guess you had no idea something was going on. Nothing up with Bailey, right?

ELLEN Mm.

Ellen stares at her for a moment. Then she pats Bailey’s hand.

ELLEN Well you’ve certainly been through the ringer, haven’t you dear? Hasn’t she, Wade?

WADE Sounds like it.

ELLEN And we’re just so happy you’re all better now, even though we’re finding out about it after the fact.

Nita is struggling to open a bottle of water.

NITA Pammy, do me a favor. I can’t get this.

PAMMY What?

NITA This water. There’s a little ring like a tab you have to pull and with my arthritis I can’t…

PAMMY Um yeah. OK uhhh. Take the wheel for a second then?

NITA You can’t just do it, I have to drive for you?

PAMMY Well I’m gonna need both hands, Mom.

NITA Oh jeez. Alright. But you know what my confidence is like behind the wheel. Your dad always did the driving for us, I mean if we were going anywhere far, not to the post office like, but –

PAMMY Just keep us going straight and you’ll be fine. It’s not that big of deal.

Nita takes the steering wheel apprehensively with one hand while Pammy opens the bottle of water. The job is trickier and takes longer than she thought but she eventually cracks it.

At which point the car swerves to the right.

Nita shrieks. Pammy quickly grabs hold of the wheel again, spilling water down the front of her dress.

Other characters see this happen in their mirrors and react:

WADE Whoa! Did you see that??

ANDY Nearly drove into the ditch.

BETH Who is that? Is that Pammy back there?

KELLY Wait, what happened??

The whole thing is over very fast. After regaining control of the vehicle, Pammy turns on her mother.

PAMMY Are you fucking kidding me?? Mom you just almost ran us off the road! My dress…

NITA (overlapping) Oh God! Oh God I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Pammy; don’t swear, I just… my hand slipped for a second and –

PAMMY Soaked, completely.

She uses napkins to pat down Pammy’s dress. After a few seconds of this, Pammy snaps at her.

PAMMY OK would you stop?? Seriously, leave it, please. I’m good, I’ll air-dry, whatever. Just – take your damn water back.

There’s a pause.

NITA Do you want me to turn on the heater? That might get you dry faster –

She is reaching for the dial.

PAMMY No, then it’ll just be hot.

And it’s hot enough already.

Nita takes a long drink of water, casual again.

NITA Oh I know. Can you believe it’s almost June? Another couple weeks.

PAMMY (sighs) Yeah.

Andy is still glancing at his driver’s side mirror in concern.

KELLY So wait, what happened again?

ANDY Nothing. Looks like Pammy just lost control of the car for a second.

KELLY Well, why’d she do that? Are they alright?

ANDY How should I know? You can ask her when we get there.

Checks mirror again

Looks like they’re fine now.

KELLY God I hope so.

CARTER Yeah it’d be nice to make it to the cemetery with only one dead body.

Silence. The only one who didn’t catch that was Clay, preoccupied with a game on his phone.

That was a joke.

KELLY A not funny one.

CARTER I know, I’m sorry.

KELLY What made you say that?

CARTER I just thought of it.

KELLY Well you should apologize to your father.

CARTER I did, I said I was sorry.

KELLY This is hard on all of us but him especially.

CARTER I know.

CLAY Hold on, what did Carter do?

KELLY He needs our support right now. And Grandpa. And your Aunt Beth and your Uncle Eric.

ANDY Oh like he even cares.

KELLY What? Your brother?

ANDY No.

Motions to Carter in the backseat

Him. His attitude has sucked all day. First he refused to get out of bed this morning –

CARTER Because I was tired –

ANDY Making us late, putting us behind –

CARTER Mom I told you I couldn’t get to sleep, I’ve been having problems –

ANDY Then when we stopped for breakfast nothing on the menu looks good to him, he’s Mister Choosy all of a sudden –

KELLY Andy, I don’t think that’s entirely –

ANDY Then just to double down on everything I guess, because why not while you’re at it, he starts an argument with me over a window!

CARTER You know you can talk to me Dad, I’m right here.

CARTER That’s not what I’m doing.

ANDY Keep telling yourself that. See how far it gets you.

Beat. Then Carter punches the back of Andy’s seat. Andy flinches but makes no other reaction.

KELLY Carter!!

CLAY Aagh!!

Glenn slows down to make the big turn onto the highway.

The police sirens go on for a good minute now as the rest of the procession merges onto the highway. The cars accelerate.

JIM So I’m selling the house.

ERIC What??

JIM Yeah, got a buyer all lined up. Young couple just had their first kid. They want to do some remodeling, think the kitchen, the bathrooms all could use an overhaul, bring everything up to date.

Off their looks

MINDY Just like that?

ERIC Beth knew?

JIM Now don’t go blaming her. I was the one told her to keep her mouth shut at least till we were further down the line, because I knew you’d object.

Was I wrong?

ERIC Of course you weren’t wrong. But this is not just your decision to make.

JIM Yes it is.

Slight pause

That was your mother’s wish, Eric.

ERIC And that’s great, Dad. But it could have waited a few more years, right, til everything’s more… settled. Why did it have to be now?

JIM Because. On top of everything, the money, I’m not really interested in the house anymore.

JIM Not feeling overwhelmed. Just done.

JIM I know. They’ll miss their grandma.

MINDY And you Jim.

Jim makes a small dismissive gesture or sound.

ERIC What?

JIM No, I just know. I know how it’s gonna be going forward, and I get it.

ERIC How what’s gonna be? Dad…

JIM Please Eric c’mon. We all know who the draw was. They weren’t coming for me.

ERIC You mean Mom.

Jim shrugs.

JIM Not that it was ever a popularity contest, and I was never bitter – but.

Nita begins to cry softly.

Let them eat ice cream sandwiches for lunch. Take them to the water park in the summer or the movies, anywhere they wanted to go. If it was in her power, if she had a nickel left in her pocket…

PAMMY Mom…

You really think they’re gonna wanna keep coming around for that?

They’ll miss their grandma. That’s the end of it.

There is a silence.

Glenn absentmindedly hits his turn signal.

MARGARET What –

GLENN Sorry. Sorry. Accident.

He slaps the turn signal off again.

A pause.

Margaret looks over at Glenn, driving very carefully now.

Ry is staring out the window at the passing countryside. Beth glances at him in the rearview.

MARGARET (removing her glasses) So how’s school going?

BETH So how’s school going, Ry?

RY What?

GLENN Oh. Not bad…

RY School? Yeah. Pretty good, I guess.

BETH Keeping you busy are they?

RY For the most part.

MARGARET Because I never really see you doing homework that’s all.

Slight pause.

BETH Is there a lot of reading?

GLENN Uhp. Well –

RY Yeah, that’s primarily what the courcework uhh, consists of mainly.

MARGARET I mean they must still give out homework, even at the community college level don’t they?

GLENN They do, they – yeah. It’s just a lot of it is online.

BETH Well you should warn your cousin so she gets better in the habit.

Did you hear that, Kenzie?

KENZIE Mom I read all the time. I just do it after you go to bed so you don’t know.

GLENN And the hours at the parlor with everything going on there’s never time between things so I have to catch up… catch up at night. You – you’re usually asleep by then.

MARGARET Oh so that’s the reason. Convenient.

Before Glenn can say yes

MARGARET But it doesn’t explain why you never tell me your grades either.

Slight pause

GLENN No.

MARGARET So why’s that?

GLENN Well… because they’re not really where I want ‘em to be.

MARGARET Are we talking C’s? D’s?

GLENN Some C’s –

MARGARET But you’re not failing. (?)

Slight pause

GLENN No.

No.

MARGARET Good.

GLENN Yeah.

MARGARET Because you know what I think. I thought you shoulda quit after getting your GED.

Slight beat

GLENN Yeah.

GLENN Yeah. Thank you.

But Dad, he wanted –

MARGARET I know what your father wanted. We argued about it. He wanted you to continue with school, eventually even transfer to a four-year. And it was his money, so…

But is that really realistic?

I mean wouldn’t it be so much less of a hassle not having to worry?

No response. Putting her reading glasses back on

Anyway, food for thought.

Margaret is business-like again. Glenn nodding vaguely

GLENN (barely audible) Mm-hmm.

Doug has fallen asleep and snores because of his stuffy nose.

KENZIE I read. I read all the time.

BETH I know sweetie, I never meant to imply you didn’t.

KENZIE I just finished the whole Divergent series. And I read the Hunger Games and all the Harry Potters.

I just don’t like doing the reading for school sometimes because of the books they make us read. They’re boring. Like Huckleberry Finn.

RY You didn’t like Huckleberry Finn?

KENZIE Everything’s about the stupid “river, the river”.

And did you know that’s not even his real name? It’s a pen name.

It takes Ry a second to put that together.

RY Mark Twain.

KENZIE Yeah. It’s like a boat measurement they use, the depth of the water.

Doesn’t make sense. Why would somebody go to all that work of writing a book then not put their real name on it? Wouldn’t they want people to know it’s them?

Nita sniffs. Stops crying.

NITA She was my sister.

PAMMY I know Mom, it’s ok.

Beat. Then Nita has a realization.

NITA Oh God Pammy, I just thought of it. Is it going to be so awful one day when I’m gone? Are you gonna hate me?

Pammy gives her a confused look.

Because you don’t have any brothers or sisters. Not that we didn’t try, we wanted another but luck wasn’t…

But once I’m gone you’ll be all alone and that kills me. It does.

PAMMY I don’t know. I never thought of it.

NITA At least Eric and Beth, and Andy, you know, they’ll have each other for support. When Jim passes. Knock on wood.

PAMMY Yeah that’s… it’s gotta be a comfort.

NITA More reason for you to find someone.

And I don’t care. If it’s another woman, fine. Be a lesbian. Just don’t end up alone.

Long pause.

So, do you… Are there any prospects? Anything on the horizon?

No response. Pammy doesn’t make eye contact.

John whistles quietly to himself, staring out the window. Bailey texting.

ELLEN She was a real class act wasn’t she?

Wade?

Slight pause:

WADE Oh – you mean Sally. Yeah. Yeah she was.

ELLEN So dear. Loved those grandkids of hers to pieces. Spoiled em rotten.

(To Bailey) Well it’s what we grandmas do best – what we’re known best for, isn’t it?

Bailey smiles.

And – ohhhh. Remember the summers we’d spend up at Twin Lakes, the six of us? John, you and Celia’s cabin?

WADE (to John) Some of the best fishing of my life, buddy. Take the boat out on the lake and just troll. Rake in those rainbow trout.

JOHN Yep.

BAILEY Cabin? What cabin?

JOHN Oh I sold it years ago, cookie. Years.

BAILEY That’s too bad. Sounds fun.

ELLEN It was, it was. The boys would spend all day out on the lake, drinking, you know telling dirty jokes –

WADE Now Ellen you know that’s not true. We kept it mostly clean, Bailey –

ELLEN - telling their little jokes at any rate; while us girls, we’d spend it sunbathing, try and get a tan –

WADE Try to not burn is more like it.

ELLEN (ignoring him) While it away, gossiping. Not that we had anything much to gossip about. And if the mood struck us, whip up a batch of margaritas to cool off.

WADE Like you needed an excuse.

ELLEN (continuing) Mind you this is back before any of us had kids –

WADE Those girls were much worse than us if you want to know the truth. At least what we wasted our time on we were providing dinner.

ELLEN And who made that dinner?

Wade rolls his eyes.

BAILEY Have you guys ever done Vegas?

ELLEN No. But we’ve been all around Reno, Lake Tahoe, that area. And Lincoln City on the Oregon coast?

Bailey indicates a familiarity whether she’s heard of Lincoln City or not.

In #4 the mood is still tense. Clay pauses the game on his phone. Looks up. He looks from family member to family member.

CLAY So what are we doing after?

KELLY After, sweetie?

CLAY After they bury her or whatever, yeah – Grandma.

KELLY Well she’s not being buried. She’s being interred.

CLAY What’s that?

KELLY Uhm. It’s when they put your body in a mausoleum.

She sees that Clay does not know what a mausoleum is.

In a building on the cemetery grounds – but not in the ground.

CLAY Oh. Weird.

KELLY It was her choice. Your grandpa will be interred there too when he passes. Right next to her. So you see it’s not that weird compared to a normal grave. Or burial I mean.

Clay thinks for a moment, remembering.

CLAY But Grandpa told me one time he wanted to be cremated.

KELLY What?

CLAY That’s where they burn you, right? And just your ashes left? Because that’s what he said he wanted.

KELLY When did he tell you this?

CLAY I don’t know. Sometime.

KELLY Well then he must have changed his mind, or he was joking, because he’s going to be interred with Grandma Sally – or next to at any rate.

(To Andy) He hasn’t told you different has he?

ANDY No.

KELLY I didn’t think so.

Pause.

CLAY Hey Mom.

KELLY Yes what Clay?

CLAY I was just wondering, do you know what you and dad want to do?

Slight pause

KELLY You mean about…?

CLAY Yeah. Do you guys have like a will ready to go and stuff?

KELLY Well… no, not exactly…

CLAY Why? Why not?

KELLY Because… (glances at Andy) I guess we haven’t crossed that bridge yet.

CLAY But are you leaning more towards getting cremated like Grandpa –

KELLY For the last time your grandfather is not being cremated –

CLAY (overlap) – or… sorry – or doing the above ground, moss-oleum thing?

CARTER You could also be shot into space or buried at sea.

Beat. Clay looks at Carter.

CLAY Space?? Really??

CARTER (nonchalant) Your ashes anyway.

Clay is floored. Back to his parents:

CLAY OK that’s what I want.

Wade is tapping out a beat on the steering wheel.

JOHN Headed back to Jim’s after this aren’t we?

WADE That is the plan.

JOHN Gonna be something to eat, right?

WADE From what I understand, they got the whole thing catered.

ELLEN Mindy said a pasta bar.

JOHN Good, I’m starving.

ELLEN Yeah, you hungry John?

John gives a small nod.

That’s good. Keep up your appetite.

BAILEY Oh he eats all the time.

With a snort, Doug wakes up.

DOUG Mmmmmmm’re we there?

BETH Twenty minutes.

DOUG I fell asleep.

BETH You’ve been sick.

DOUG (to Ry) Head cold. Can’t shake it. It’s been over a week.

BETH I told you you should have gone in to see Doctor Keith –

DOUG Why? If it’s just a cold…

BETH (over) I mean how many bottles of Dayquil have you gone through already?

DOUG I don’t know…

KENZIE Dad can’t swallow pills.

DOUG I’m just not good at it. It’s psychological – a psychological thing. I think I’m gonna choke.

KENZIE You need to relax Dad.

RY Yeah sometimes I have a hard time too. Taking pills.

DOUG It’s a mental thing.

BETH The doctor prescribed him an antibiotic once and he had to ask for it in a suspension.

RY That sucks. I’m sorry.

(To Ry) Black licorice, am I right?

RY Nyquil? Yeah.

Doug looks at Beth as if making a point.

DOUG See what I told you? Gross.

Jim has been lost in thought. He turns to Eric and Mindy now.

JIM Hey I don’t think I ever thanked you guys for taking care of so much of the planning for this. The food and everything.

ERIC It was no problem Dad.

Slight pause

JIM And that’s all set up?

MINDY Back at the house yeah. The caterers, they should be setting up as we speak.

JIM How they get in?

MINDY Oh. Meryl volunteered to let them in.

JIM Meryl did?

MINDY To stay behind – or to go back right after the service. She said she didn’t mind, she said it was ok she could help.

She’s a good one to have as a neighbor. You’re lucky.

Jimmy is amused by that.

JIM Is she?

He chuckles quietly. Mindy looks at Eric.

ERIC Dad… what…?

JIM Oh if you only knew.

They hated each other.

ERIC What?

MINDY Are you kidding?

JIM Nope.

ERIC Since when?

JIM Years. Twenty, thirty years...

MINDY But I thought they always seemed like such good friends.

ERIC What about you and Ed?

JIM Got along fine. Not chummy but could share a beer. No, it was the women who had the problem.

MINDY Did something happen?

JIM Did it. Yes.

Jim lets that sink in with them.

MINDY So you’re saying it – that Meryl sabotaged her?

JIM Was the conclusion Sally came to yes. And true or not, nothing was ever the same between ‘em.

ERIC (slowly) Uh huh.

JIM And you know your mom, normally she was “forgive and forget”. Didn’t hold grudges easy. But with this and Meryl you better believe she made an exception.

Beat.

MINDY Wow. No idea. That just seems so out of character for her.

JIM It was and it wasn’t. Sally had buttons the same as the rest of us, and when they got pushed – watch out.

(Sally’s voice again)

“We should just be grateful no one got hurt and leave it at that.”

She was something, I’m telling you.

Jim marvels at the memory. Then he frowns.

Pause.

Nice of her to help out though.

ERIC What?

JIM Meryl. She didn’t have to do that.

To be continued…

#UNTITLED #FUNERAL PLAY #tulips #roses #gardening #frenemies

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