The feeling of dread intensifies when we get to the house on MLK drive. The duplex, a green and brown Polish flat like much of Riverwest, looks at first like any other house around. Until you get closer and notice the windows are boarded up, the front porch is caving in, and there are three German Shepherds barking at us from the backyard. The only thing separating us from them is a thin dilapidated fence. Outside on the steps several Latino teenagers in baggy clothes are smoking cigarettes and drinking forties. One of them nods to Tristan in greeting.
“Tristan,” I say, gripping my bike handles tight. There is no part of me that wants to get off my bike and go into that house. “I don’t like this. It’s a bad plan. A really bad plan.”
“Anastasia, don’t be racist,” he says. He hops off his bike and motions for me to do the same. I stare at him and don’t move, other than to take off my hat. He ruffles my hair. “I’m just kidding. You gotta relax.”
“Oh, yes, please tell me how I need to relax. That totally always works.”
Tristan places his arms on both my shoulders and blinks. “No matter what happens, I’m going to protect you,” he says, serious for the first time since he came up with this horrible idea. “You don’t need to worry about that. Just take a breath.”
I take a breath. Then I take two more. Then I force my legs to move and release the bike. We lock them to a nearby pole with a “no parking” sign attached to the top, which is a little loose in the cement and could likely be taken out if someone has the energy or wherewithal to do it. I can only hope no one does have the energy, because I will need to get out of here way faster than my nervous legs would be able to take me. And we are now at least a mile from Riverwest, if not more.
“It’ll be over in no time,” Tristan says into my ear. He even kisses my neck softly, right where he knows I like it. “Just do what we said.”
I nod, but my breath comes in short and choppy, and my body is filled with panic in a way it hasn’t ever been before this night. I squeeze his hand tight, like he’s a life jacket and I’m lost in the ocean. The dogs start barking more incessantly the closer we get to the door, and one of them is tall enough to reach its snout over the fence and snarl at me.
I push my body into Tristan’s, even though trying to hide is useless. Soon there is someone at the door. A thin, tattooed man with half his head shaved and the other half black and down to his ear. He is wearing a leather coat and baggy black jeans, and I can’t make out if he’s a punk or in a gang or both. “Hey,” he tells Tristan, then opens the door wide to let us in, but not wide enough that I don’t have to squeeze past him and smell his peculiar mix of sweat, cigarettes, and cologne.
There are more dogs inside, a boxer and a lab, sitting on one of the couches. They don’t look up when they see us. I have to bite my lip to hold in my shock. I’ve seen punk houses plenty of times, but I’ve never seen a drug house, and they may as well be different planets of disarray. From where I stand, I can count three or four dirty mattresses without any sheets scattered about the bedrooms, and even more couches and armchairs that look like they’ve been snatched out of the junkyard then repeatedly beaten with sticks. There are empty pizza cartons filled with cigarettes and circular pieces of cardboard with old cheese stuck on, an array of empty soda bottles and cans that would make a recycling aficionado burn with delight, except that they are also filled with old cigarette butts. It probably goes without saying that the smell is enough to knock me out.
“This your girlfriend?” asks an olive-skinned, very tattooed pot-bellied man who Tristan introduces as Santiago. He coughs, clearing his voice of its phlegm, without covering his mouth, and doesn’t get up from where he sits between the dogs. “Shitttt. Nice job,” he tells Tristan with an approving nod to my chest, his voice thick with an accent and possibly a massive amount of marijuana or pain killers. His eyes are red and half-closed like he could fall asleep at any moment.
“Uh, yeah, thanks,” Tristan responds, trying to brush it off.
Santiago stands up and reaches for my hand, then kisses it. “How may I be of service, miss lady?”
I swallow the lump in my throat and try not to scream, which is what I feel like doing when his skin touches mine. Instead I reach into my pocket and hand over a rolled-up wad of bills that I know amounts to a hundred dollars. So that he doesn’t notice my hand is shaking I shove it quickly into his grasp and clear my throat. “Two eight balls and a quarter of mushrooms,” I say. “Thank you,” I add afterward.
“Polite lady, I like it.” The man nods approvingly, pocketing the cash and nodding at a third man, a tall and skinny one in plaid who is sitting on a different couch with yet another dog. He gets up and heads into a back room.
“She’s Russian,” Tristan says, out of nowhere. I look at him, surprised, then back at Santiago, whose eyebrows are raised, then down at the floor. I just want this to be over. But Santiago asks me to sit down on the fraying corduroy couch next to him and I have no choice but to go.
“Russian, eh?” he asks me, reaching across the couch to cut up some lines of a white powder already lying on a silver platter among the old soda cans and bongs. “Any wise guys in your blood? Those fuckers are brutal.”
I lick my lips, take another big breath. “Not that I know of,” I say. “I do have an uncle who looks like Al Capone. People are always giving him better seats at places.”
“Ha!” Santiago says, almost smiling. He slaps his knee. “Fucking A. Other day I see a program about those spies back in the day, what you call them?”
“The KGB?”
He points at me and smiles. “Yeah, those fucking guys.” Then he shakes his head and repeats what he said before. “Brutal.” For a moment I think the guy isn’t half bad. But then he snorts a line of the powder up his nose with a rolled-up bill, and when he’s done, points at Tristan. “On the house, dude.”
“Oh, no, I’m good,” Tristan says.
“Come on,” Santiago says. “It ain’t fun to party alone. Get the fuck over here.”
“Nah,” Tristan repeats.
Santiago now eyes us both suspiciously, and Tristan starts doing the thing where he gets anxious and hops a little on his feet, until I give him a look to stop it.
“You must have a magic pussy to turn this guy straight,” Santiago says, with a mean laugh. He gives me the rolled-up dollar bill and implies that I take the line instead. I look at Tristan again. He’s standing perfectly still, not five feet away, but it may as well be an ocean.
I’ve had coke before, but I didn’t like it. It’s also hard to tell what this powder is. It could be heroin for all I know. If I believed in God, I would have prayed to him right then and there: not only that the coke wasn’t laced with something, but that if He let me out of this mess alive I’d never do drugs again. I would mean it, too. In my previous life I would refuse to put anything up my nose unless I knew where it came from and had seen others do it first. But there’s Tristan’s sobriety to uphold, so I take the bill and snort the next line like I have often done with Adderall. But this isn’t Adderall. Immediately, my entire body feels like I’ve injected coffee and happy pills straight into my brain.