After the night is over, John draws a steaming hot bath, removes my clothes, and ritually scrubs me clean. He counts and pockets the money, apologizing profusely that our lives have sunk so low. “Does that still hurt, baby?” He wipes the washcloth carefully over my cuts and bruises. “I’m so sorry. It’ll be better soon, baby, I promise. Just gotta get clean. Everything is better after you get all the dirt off.” John makes sure I am extra clean. It has to be this way before he can lie down with me, touch me. Sporadically, out of jealousy, he attempts to throw me a question or two about whether I enjoyed myself with those other men, and recoils instantly from my piercing death stare. In that moment, I could kill him. I know it, and I don’t care. I also know I will die doing it. But I relish the thought of tearing his body limb from limb, John screaming in pain and in fear of me this time. My thoughts scare me. I numb my brain again, slip away from reality. I let him dry me off and carry me to bed, where he will make love to my body under the sheets as I watch from a distant corner of the room.
“Can you help me?” Frosty asks, looking frantically from side to side. Small boned and large breasted, she is bouncing on the balls of her feet. Her hair is unkempt and matted, and a thin layer of nervous sweat beads on her upper lip and brow.
I unlock the chain on the door and let her in. “Sure. What’s the matter?”
“I, I just need your help holding my arm. I can’t find a vein. Can you just come over and help me? For a minute—just a minute—p, p, please?” she begs. Her brown face looks like dry ashy wood and is wrenched in agony.
“Uh, yeah, sure. I’m not supposed to leave the room, but okay. Let me get the key.” Her eyes, deep wells of black ink, are deeply creased in pain, pitiful. I can’t say no.
I follow her quick pace, practically running to keep up with her. I hope John doesn’t find out I’m helping her. She barrels through her door, pulls the chain across to lock it, and leads me to the built-in vanity, where her needle waits loaded and ready. Frosty is fixated, sweating profusely now. She grabs a belt lying handy on the chair and pushes her arm through the readied leather circle. Yanking back hard, she bites down on the loose strap with her teeth, contorting her face into a misshapen smile. She slaps the innermost part of her arm and picks up the needle.
I watch in horror, stammer uncomfortably, “Wha, wha, what do you need me to do?”
“Hold my arm. There.” She points with her chin through the strap in her teeth.
I race to do as I’m told and squeeze her arm tightly, cutting off the circulation so her veins bulge between my two hands. Frosty grunts and groans, digging into her skin with a bending needle, as I keep my grip secure. I want to throw up. Please, please, please. Let her find the right spot, I think, hoping she’ll hurry. I am painfully sympathetic with my neighbor. I have seen her on the street at night, in that other evening world, usually smiling and throwing me a subtle wave. Tonight is different. She is so agonizingly desperate. Sweat and fear reek acrid and foul from every pore of her skin.
“Shit!” She drops her arm and releases the belt. “This isn’t gonna work. Damn it!” Grabbing the needle, she places it in her teeth and pulls off her shirt and bra. The belt dangling in her hand again, she does what I cannot believe and wraps it securely around one of her large breasts.
I struggle to keep a sudden rush of vomit down.
“Here. Hold this.” In a panic, she nods toward her chest, belt in her mouth, fingers slipping off her sweaty skin.
“Oh my God! Okay. Here.” I scramble to help, finding it hard to keep a firm hold on her slippery breast. We wrestle with the large mound of flesh to keep it motionless enough to catch a vein that won’t collapse. She’s done this before, I notice.
Blood runs profusely from the edge of the areola where Frosty continuously pokes her way to a working vessel. Then, in blessed release, she hits it. Her eyes roll to the back of her head, and she lets go of the belt. Splatters of crimson droplets spill a sinister-looking trail from the linoleum to the carpet until she finally puts her hand over the wound and collapses on the bed. “Mmmmmm,” she groans. “My medicine. Can’t go to work without my medicine.” Her words float through the air, dreamy and buttery smooth.
My face is flush with sweat and tears. I stand there awkward, not knowing what to do with myself. Frosty has forgotten I am here; she is drifting further away with the heroin. I clumsily grab a pile of cotton balls from the vanity and, sniffing back my tears, wipe up the drops of blood from the floor. How horrible and sad, and so close to home. Is this where John and I are headed?
“You, you okay now?” I ask, standing at the foot of the bed and paying close attention to her breathing.
“Yeah, baby. You can go home now. Thank you, baby.” She waves her one free arm loosely in the air. “Hope you don’t get in trouble for helping me, sweetie. I’ll talk to him if you want me to.”
“No. Thanks. It’ll be okay… I’m gonna go now. You sure you’re all right?”
“Yeah, baby. I’m good. Frosty’s got her medicine now. She’s good,” she says to the shadows on the wall, and I leave.
John comes back late, around midnight, in a rotten mood. I can guess from the look of him that it is going to be a bad night—a night when no matter what I say or do, nothing is going to be right. The familiar apprehension over the brutal side of his presence washes over me, and I brace myself for the inevitable.
Visually taking in the room as usual, he settles his hands into his briefcase. “Where have you been?”
Fear seizes me. How did he know I went anywhere? I search the room for what clues might have given me away. I’ll be in trouble if I lie. “The black chick’s place over there,” I tell him, pointing out the window and trying to stay calm. “She needed me to hold her arm ‘cause she couldn’t get the needle in by herself.”
John’s head perks up. “And did you help her?” His voice carries an eerie tone.
“Yeah. I guess. She couldn’t get it in her arm, so I helped her get it in her tit. It was really bad. Gross. She was shaking so hard.”
“And did you do some too?” He is tense, purposely staying calm.
“What?” I’m taken off guard. I suspected he’d be mad that I went out without his permission, but I didn’t think he would ask me that. “N, no,” I answer honestly. “She needed help and begged me, John.”
“Who was over there?” The strain in his voice cracks, his temper hidden with more and more difficulty. I inch my way toward the door, afraid the violence is about to blow.
“Just her… and me,” I mumble, hoping the path to the door will stay clear for an escape.
John notices my moves. In an instant, he bolts for the door and intercepts my feeble jump for freedom, pinning me up against the wall. “Where do you think you’re going, huh? Back over to Frosty’s? She introduce you to her pimp? Fucking tell me, bitch. You got a pimp now?” His nose pushes into mine as he screams louder and louder, his face red, his mouth spraying me with spittle.
Crazy, crazy, crazy! I gotta get out of here. He’s out of his mind. Run. I gotta run! “John. Stop. No!” I yell at the top of my lungs. I want to be loud… loud enough that maybe someone outside will hear. Maybe Frosty will hear me and come and explain the truth to John.
Unexpectedly, he lets me go. He puffs himself up like a rooster, confident that he has proven he’s in charge. Then he turns his back and reaches for the brown briefcase that has fallen from the bed.