Black Hole (18 page)

I'll do it, I say,
standing up quickly.

That's my boy,
he says, holding out a fist to bump.

OSO'S PLACE

I HAVEN'T BEEN
out of the TL that long, but it looks worse than I remember. It's a shade dirtier, a little bit smellier; there's a few more broken windows, a couple more graffiti tags; the sidewalks have an extra junkie or two hanging out. It just looks like it has upped its filth game one level. Like an extra layer of grime coating the place.

We pull up outside Oso's place. The plan is this: I get in there and confirm Oso is in there with a bunch of shit. I drop a code word into the mike, and a van full of testosterone and Kevlar empties out and storms the castle. A small group of trigger-happy motherfuckers that want to make a video-game-style mess out of anyone who gets in their way, to turn their problem into a fine red mist.

Agent Hart adjusts a microphone made to look like an Eat the Rich button.

You have your gun?

Yes.

Is it loaded? One in the chamber?

Yes, Mom.

You wouldn't think of skipping on me with that buy money, would you?

The only thing I would do with a stack of money like this is buy drugs. And that's what I'm supposed to do with it.

I get out of the car. Something's not right down here. It's hard to say that the air in the TL is bad, but it's like the air is stained or something, a dingy yellow color all around me. Not smoke,
but something like it. It's like the air isn't clear, like it has a slight tinge to it.

The buzzer on Oso's building is like something you'd find on a gas station bathroom floor. It's so dirty there is hair and grit stuck to it. I don't want to touch it, but I have to press the buttons with something. Pocket check. Wallet. Gun. That's it.

Fuck. This is what my life has come to? I'm a guy who only carries a wallet and a pistol? I should at least have a pen. I could go back to the car and get one, I guess. No, fuck that. I buzz up with my pinky. Must remember not to touch the eyes or mouth with this pinky.

The front hallway already stinks to high hell. I'm not even on Oso's floor, and I can smell him. Flies sit on the banister like birds on a wire. They don't fly away as my hand goes up the rail. I have to avoid them. Some of them walk slowly, but they don't fly.

The smell is so overwhelming when I get to his door that I want to bolt out of here. I want to tell Hart that it didn't work out, that he wasn't there. I close my eyes, think of my cabin in Alaska, and knock.

It's open, fool,
I hear him say. I turn the knob. A rush of warm, spoiled air and a squadron of flies escape into my face. I exhale and try to inhale, and it's worse the second time. I see those little floaty things in front of my eyes.

You okay, fool?

Yeah, just a little sick. I need to get right.

You got my money, motherfucker?

Wouldn't come back around without it.

My eyes quit stinging and adjust.

Oso isn't fat.

What. The. Fuck.

Oso isn't fat, but he has long, sagging wrinkles. He's wearing a bathrobe. It's open, but with the overlapping folds of skin, I can't see his cock, only drooping flesh trying to ooze its way to the floor. His skin has tiny lumps all over it.

Heard you got picked up on a 5150.

Yeah.

I can't front you no more.

Not asking you to.

Oso's moving slowly, like he's underwater. He's trying to stand up, I think. His whole body shines with sweat. He gets in a standing position and drips rings on his carpet.

Hey, bro . . . do you smell something weird?

You're kidding, right?

Oso falls to the floor. Dark chili vomit shoots out of his mouth. Thousands of black hole marbles surface from his skin. They were waiting to break out of him like that urban legend of the lady who had a spider lay eggs in her ear.

There's millions of dollars of black hole marbles all over the place emerging from the corpse of the worst smelling man I've ever met. I'm alternating between greed, shock, and disgust.

The vomit smell hits me, and while I thought this room couldn't get any worse, I immediately puke everything I have and dry heave. I have to get out of here. But I can't pass up the bounty in this room.

This apartment is full of money and drugs, the two solutions to all my problems.

Fuck all this. Fuck it all. Fuck the feds and whatever plans they have. Now that Oso is dead, I don't even know what they want from me. They don't need me. Fuck. I should get what I can and bail on this whole scene.

They must be on their way. I have to hurry.

I scoop up what I can of the black hole marbles and put them in my pockets. They're too heavy. I need something to put them in. I dump them back out on the floor.

I try to open the windows, but they're stuck. Dry heaving. Should I break one? Would that draw too much attention? Fuck it. It's the TL. No one cares about a fucking broken window.

I break one with the butt of my twenty-five. Blood. Fuck. Cold wind comes in. Bleeding everywhere. Hand or arm or finger or something is bleeding. It's getting all over.

Cookie tin in the kitchen. I can dump the cookies out and put the marbles in it. I open the tin. Cocaine. A cookie tin full of cocaine. I scoop up a huge bump with a delivery menu lying on the counter. Oh fuck. This shit is clean. Uncut. There's not coke like this around anymore. Heart Panics. Going to burst. I'm sexy. I'm a god. I took too much. FUCK THE WORLD.

Keep looking. Always something under the sink.

Money. Stacks of it, wrapped in plastic. Stuff stack of hundreds in the pants. That's coming with me.

I can hear them climbing the fire escape. They're coming in. Fuck. Must leave, now.

Run down the hall. Old lady getting in the elevator. Get on.

She's covered in cat hair, and I'm covered in blood and puke. She doesn't pay me any mind. Stops. Run out.

Outside.

Agent Hart stands outside the car. He's looking at me. He knows something's wrong.

Behind him is Vietnam John with the biggest knife I've ever seen.

Vietnam John. Behind you. BEHIND YOU.

Slow motion. Silence. Hart sees my fear and turns around. Vietnam John has the knife overhead. Hart reflexively puts his forearm above his face.

Hart's arm severs right above the elbow and flies off like it's waving goodbye. The stump shoots a foot-long arc of blood across John's face. Hart drops. John's knife is stuck in the car. It's split part of the roof and gotten wedged in.

John looks up at me. Our eyes lock. Rage stare.

You're part of this, you son of a bitch!
he yells.
Snitch rat motherfucker!

There's no time to explain. Run. Fucking run. Don't look back, just run. There's a bookstore on Market. I know where the employee bathroom is. Hide.

HIDEY HOLE

I DON'T THINK
anyone saw me come in here.

Calm down. Relax. Breathe. Take inventory.

Hart had my meds. My replacement meds they put me on at the hospital. I'm not even sure what it was.

I can't get back into his place.

There will be a swarm of cops around his car.

I'm probably a suspect in some part of this.

Ten grand in cash.

I feel around in my pockets. One solitary black hole marble. When I dumped them out, I must have missed this one.

There's a faint smell in here of weed. Stale, old weed.

I look behind a bookshelf. A pipe and a lighter. Not the best, but it will do.

When in doubt, get high. If you don't know what you're doing, do it blasted out of your mind. You can always blame the drugs for any bad decisions you make. It's a lot easier than having to blame yourself. If you can't fix what's broken, break it some more.

Being strung out beats withdrawals by a long shot. I'm not facing all this bullshit without being high. That's for damn sure. I'm not going back to SF General. Fuck that place. If there's no real way of getting this shit out of my system, I'm going the other direction. I'm putting a lot more in my system.

There's nothing like your first high, but a high after a detox and a long clean spell, well, that's probably second.

I hit the marble with the lighter. It takes a moment, but a trail of smoke wisps off it, and I inhale and hold it. I haven't exhaled, and I can feel it getting into my system. This bathroom is my world, and I am a king. Yertle the Turtle of this sixteen-square-foot pond. Everything is perfect.

My heart is pounding. I can hear it like it's outside my chest. Wait, it's not my heart.

Someone's banging on the door.

Sir? Sir? This bathroom is for employees only.

I work here.

No, you don't.

Yes, I do. I just started.

I saw you go in. You don't work here. You need to leave, or we're calling the police.

Call 'em. I can't hurry this up. I'm in pain.

You're getting high. I can smell it.

What do you smell?

Marijuana and something else like burnt plastic. Crack? Meth?

You're getting warmer.

Seriously, asshole.

Yes. I'm totally serious. Five minutes, and I swear, I will leave and never come back.

Smoke me out?

Really?

Yeah. This job sucks. Smoke me out and we're cool.

Done.

I let the kid in.

He's late teens or maybe twenty. His hair looks like he spent a long time getting it to look shitty.

Okay, hurry, pass it.

You don't want to know what it is?

I, sir, give not one fuck. I hate this job. If it gets me through the day here, all the better.

Here. It's called black hole.

Sick.

The kid tries to fire it a couple of times and inhale, and nothing happens. Then he fires it and holds it until it starts smoking. This kid's been high before. I see the change happen in his face.

Oh fuck. This is good.

Yeah, it does the job.

You mind if I hit it a little more?

All you want.

The kid takes a huge hit and holds it until I think he's going to pass out. His eyes are closed. He opens them for a bit and he's totally yakked.

There's a weird guilt about turning someone on to a drug you know will probably fuck them up. But you know, every time someone got me high for free, I really appreciated it. If you're giving someone drugs who wouldn't normally need or take them, that's one thing, but for someone like me, the only thing standing between me and not getting high was not having drugs. Someone not sharing with me was only delaying something that would happen anyway.

He exhales. Laughs.

This shit is AMAZING.

It is, isn't it?

We should get out of here. My manager told me to run you out.

I open the door.

The store looks different.

I turn around. The kid is gone. The books on the shelf are different.

I walk out. There's a stack of newspapers by the front door.

It's 1988.

There's nowhere better to hide than the past. Vietnam John will never find me here. The feds will never find me. None of that shit has happened yet.

I have ten grand in cash in 1988, and that's like twenty or thirty now, or will be. Or however this works.

Fuck. The new hundreds. Those goofy big-headed Franklins don't exist yet.

I duck back in the bathroom. Sort out the bills. Out of the hundred hundred-dollar bills, ten of them are old enough to use. That's more money than I ever had then. I'll be fine.

1988. What to do now?

Where am I? I think I'm in LA right now, planning a move to SF. Should I try to warn myself of all this? Should I convince myself to get my shit together and go to a good school and learn computers?

That wouldn't work. I wouldn't listen.

So what should I do?

If you don't know what to do in 1988, you look at flyers. There's no Internet, no social media, and no apps to check. Phones are still attached to poles and walls. TV sucks.

I look at a wall of an empty storefront. It's covered with layer upon layer of flyers. And finally, I see what I'm looking for. A punk show at a warehouse in the Mission. Who else but Op Ivy?