He won’t let me out of his sight now, not after I tried to kill myself that day. He takes me on all his runs and has me wait for him in the motel room or the car outside the drug deal houses. Rarely do I know where I am. I’ve never gotten my driver’s license—John never allowed me—and the freeways scare and confuse me. I know a few homes are in the Hollywood Hills; I recognize the large wooden Hollywood sign that hovers over us from the side streets. It’s eerily prophetic when Bob Seger’s “Hollywood Nights” plays on the radio as I lie on the front seat of the car, waiting; or when the depressing lyrics of the Eagles’ “Hotel California” wash over me as I wait in front of their manager’s house while John delivers and deals inside. The houses on Dona Lola and Wonderland become the most familiar, the ones we most frequently drop by.
A couple months ago we stopped sleeping at the house in Glendale with Sharon. That part is okay by me, I guess. I am too ashamed to face Sharon any longer, and John has stolen more from the house than he can get away with. “Does Sharon ever ask about me anymore?” I ask John one day after he has returned from Sharon’s with freshly laundered clothes.
“Nope! Why would she?” His tone is flippant; his scowl implies, How can you ask such a stupid question?
“Of course not,” I remind myself, agreeing immediately. The pangs of shame and guilt ravage what hope I have left for our relationship. This is all my fault, I admonish myself silently. Just as John says, this is all my fault.
It is Thanksgiving week, and the Holiday Inn is a grade better than what we are used to lately. John has made a little extra on a run he’s just finished for a man named Eddie Nash. John simply calls him Nash, and he gives me strict instructions: “He’s the baddest motherfucker there is. People who try to fuck him over die. That’s why you’re a secret. He can’t find out about you or Sharon or the family. It’s not safe. Do you know how many bodies are buried in the desert that no one will ever find?” John is passionate, dead serious. He reiterates his orders to never cross this guy, until he’s satisfied that I understand.
Nash is the owner of the house I wait in front of on Dona Lola Drive, and I can never let him or any of his bodyguards see me—or else… “you might turn up missing like the rest.”
A strange kind of dealer—runner underworld friendship has started up between John and Nash. “This guy is all about the drugs, baby. And he calls me brother,” John confides with a smirk as if to say, Boy do I have him fooled. In a short time, the friendlier John and Nash become, the waiting gets longer and longer—but his payoffs are also higher.
John’s foul moods and cruelty soon become greater and greater as well.
John has me wait in the car in the Holiday Inn parking lot before we bring our things to the room, giving him time to slink through the parked cars to check for an unlocked door. Jumping up from between a couple of cars a few rows down, John walks casually down the middle of the lot wearing the appearance of an innocent guest. “Come on,” he snaps from the side of his mouth, motioning for me to hurry out and walk with him.
Clumsily I pull a large garbage bag from the backseat while holding on to Thor and my precious brown paper sack filled with breakables. “John, help me,” I ask, getting nervous about dragging our clothes and things in such a disorganized way. “There are security guards.”
“What? What is all that shit?” He sounds annoyed and whips quickly over to see what I’m carrying. “What is this?” he snaps again and yanks the brown bag from my hands.
“It’s, uh, uh, stuff,” I answer, frightened at his demeanor. Protective of the sentimental items in the bag, I hold my hand out to get it back. “They’re presents. Presents I gave to you… and you and Sharon gave me. You know. Back at the house,” I explain, trying to take back the bag. I hope he will soften up at the memory, that he’ll appreciate my caring enough to cart them with me… affectionately, as awkward as it is. Yet the opposite is true.
“Presents! What kind of presents?” He rummages through the bag and smiles when he wraps his hand around the one gift that means the most to me—the cobalt blue vase.
Smash! “Those kind of presents are over!” he barks.
“No!” I cry, feeling a knife rip through my heart. I fall to my knees to try and pick up the shattered pieces of blue, willing the hand-painted white rose back together.
“Pick up that garbage,” he scorns, “before security sees us.” He walks away and tries to cover the commotion with a nonchalant stance.
Tears burn my eyes and face. The grimy ground of the parking lot is slick with dark brown grease. On my hands and knees, I pick up every tiny cobalt shard and hurry over to where John’s standing. Not wanting him to get any angrier with me, I wipe the wet from my face. I try to act cool and swiftly stuff down the huge knot of raw pain in my throat and quiet the well of echoes from the back of my head that beg for the bad feelings to go away.
Growing impatient, John flings one of our large garbage bags over his shoulder, puts his arm around me, and walks past the surveillance cameras trying to act as though we are a couple in love.
Two men in tan sports jackets pass us casually as we walk through the garage door into the lower level hallway.
“Huh, those look like cops,” I whisper into the crook of John’s arm. He pulls me roughly closer to his side and guides me to the elevator.
Once on the second floor, we dash across the hall to room 252, where John immediately jams the desk chair under the doorknob, slides the chain into its lock, and presses his eye against the peephole. “Close the drapes,” he hisses, then runs to do it himself instead, peeking out for ten minutes or so, head bobbing like a chicken’s.
Satisfied we made it without being noticed, he undresses and sits on the bed, leaning against the headboard. The hair on the back of Thor’s neck stands up like a porcupine’s quills, and he disappears under the bed.
Snap, snap. John opens the brass clasp of his briefcase, pulls out the freebase pipe, and lights the bowl.
Oh no! I think. He doesn’t have any base, and he is scraping his screens. I am quick to assess the drug situation. I have to. The more he has, the less likely he will be cruel. My insides cramp up and become paralyzed with panic. No wonder his mood was ugly downstairs. Maybe he has some Valium and can get to sleep soon, I tell myself in an effort to stay calm. He’s real tired too.
After coming back from a run, John is always tired, having been up for days. When I wait for him in the car I sleep mostly, hidden under blankets with Thor. But on days John knows he will be a while, to make sure I won’t leave him and run to my mother’s, he drops small amounts of freebase with a pipe on the floorboard. For me, the drug is an escape that blocks out the pain of my reality, if just for a short while. After it’s gone, I have the warmth of little Thor and sleep—sweet sleep that takes me away to a place of warmth and safety—until John climbs into the driver’s seat and orders me to stay down.
Back in the motel room, he gruffs, “Draw me a bath.”
When I return, he is searching for something in his briefcase once again. “Did you take my other glass pipe?”
“No, John, I didn’t take anything.”
Crash! His pipe goes flying across the room, and I start to cry in fear.