The Spider Inside (13 page)

But Alice...Jesus, Alice made Cherry’s mother look like June
Cleaver.

The screaming kept breaking through these thoughts and
Cherry tasted blood and realized shed been chewing on her lower lip again. She
sucked the blood off her lip and stood. The conversation stopped at her sudden
movement and everyone looked up at her.

“You mind if I hold the baby?” Cherry asked.

“Hmm?” Alice asked.

“The baby. Can I hold her?”

Alice took a deep breath and rolled her eyes and it finally
seemed to register in her addled mind that her child was shrieking. Cherry had
never heard a baby cry that hard, and it was beginning to scare her. She looked
down at Jim who seemed to look a little gray. She’d noticed he always acted a
little weird around babies and wondered if maybe he’d gotten a girl pregnant.
If so, did she have an abortion? A miscarriage? He couldn’t have a kid though,
could he? Wouldn’t someone have brought it up? If nothing else Two Step would
have said something about it, as he was physically unable to keep his mouth
shut and if you sat with him long enough and talked about one person, he’d
eventually tell you every single thing he knew about them.

“I think she’s just hungry,” Alice said. She stood, took her
little bag of dope with her and walked out of the living room.

“Thank Christ,” Soup said. “How long’s that kid been crying?
A fucking day?”

Two Step laughed a little. “We’ve only been here a day, bro.
I don’t think she’s been crying the whole time. Has she?”

“She’s been crying for an hour and forty-three minutes,” Jim
said in a low voice.

Alice came back into the living room with the screaming
child and walked to the kitchen, where she started making a bottle.

Jim watched her heat a measuring cup full of water in the
microwave and then test it by dripping a few drops on the inside of her wrist.
This was a gesture so maternal it shocked Jim. He could remember his own mother
doing the same thing for Davey when he was a baby, and that
this
girl
had those same instincts seemed unthinkable. Alice poured the water into a
bottle and then added a couple scoops of formula. Alice looked up and smiled at
him, but turned her back to him. Jim could see her put the bottle on the
counter, and he saw her crumble something else into the bottle, maybe a little
more formula? She put the lid on and as she was turning around, shaking it with
one hand, Jim watched her put the little bag of dope back in her pocket. He
hadn’t been around a whole lot of kids but he now looked closely at Alice’s
daughter, whom the stupid bitch had named Crystal and guess what after, thought
it was a fucking joke.

Crystal was shaking, her eyes were bulged wide and her hands
were stretched out towards the bottle, her fingers clenching in and out of
fists, still just fucking screaming, so hard and long that her face wasn’t so
much red as it was purple and Jim wondered if a baby could have a stroke but it
didn’t matter, because right then Crystal didn’t look like a baby, she was a
fucking junky, through and through.

Alice sat back down in her chair and shoved the bottle into
her baby’s mouth. The baby clenched the bottle and started drinking as hard and
fast as possible. The crying ceased immediately. Alice looked down at the baby
with a kind of indifference that made Jim’s stomach crawl.

“You’re just such a whiny little bitch, aren’t you?” Alice
mused in a baby-talk voice. “Oh yes you are. Yes you are.”

“We need to go,” Jim said, standing. There was a hot pit of
hate and rage in his stomach. His body was shaking with it, the adrenaline had
over taken the speed and the two of them mixed together was a dangerous thing.
He could see so clearly in his mind’s eye striding across the room and taking
the baby out of Alice’s arms, that would be the easy part, he would hand it to
Cherry who would be right there to take the poor little girl and then Jim would
turn back to Alice and he could see himself slamming his fists into her face
over and over again, he could see her teeth falling out in a rush of black
blood and her eyes swelling shut and he could hear her nose crunch and the rush
of blood that would come from it and he saw her eyes start to lose focus, to
fade shut, saw she was passing out and before she could he saw herself reach
out and just snap her fucking neck and this was so clear he felt for a moment
as if he had done it, and he looked down at his hands to see if they were
coated in the liquid shit Alice had the nerve to call her blood.

Cherry stood, just as eager as Jim to get out of there.

“What’s going on?” Soup asked.

“We’re leaving, that’s what’s going on,” Jim said.

“I don’t think I’m ready yet,” Two Step said.

“Yeah, I don’t know,” Soup said. “What’s the fucking rush,
man?”

There was a slow build of pressure in the room. To Cherry it
felt like when a storm is forming, how the air seems to crackle with energy
that you know might end up turning real bad real quick.

“I’m gonna stay,” Two Step said. “If that’s cool with
Allie?”

“Oh totally!” Alice said. “You’re not leaving because of
her, are you?” she asked, lifting the baby a little.

Jim took a step toward Alice and she must have missed the
hate in his eyes but he knew full well it was there. Cherry stopped him with
the lightest touch on his elbow.

My god, Jim thought to himself. How close was I to knocking
her fucking teeth out? Everything swam for a moment and Cherry’s hand on his
elbow grew a little heavier and she pulled him back a little, back from Alice
and away from whatever hole he had been about to fall in.

“Soup,” Cherry asked. Her voice echoed. “Can you give us a
ride?”

“Mmmmmmmm,” Two Step said, shaking his head slowly, looking
at the floor, twisting his St. Christopher medal in his fingers.

“Sorry dudes, I think we’re gonna hang,” Soup said.

“Okay. Thanks,
Bobby,
for having my
fucking
back,” Jim said, looking at Two Step. Two Step would not return the look and
Cherry hated him a little for it.

Jim turned to Cherry. “You mind walking?”

“Not in the least.”

They left.

On the way out they heard Alice ask, “What’s their problem?”

Her baby
, Jim thought. She
gave
it to her
fucking
baby
. His heart seemed to be screaming at him, not to leave, not to leave,
not to leave.

They walked in silence. Jim still looked gray to Cherry, in
fact he looked worse now than before.

“If that kid’s not fucking spun I’m the pope,” Jim said.

Cherry couldn’t think of an answer to that.

As soon as I know they’re gone, Jim thought to himself. As
soon as Soup and Two Step are gone. In fact, just Two Step, if he’d come with
us I’d be on the fucking phone right now.

They came to a bus stop and stood there, Cherry wondering
when the next bus would come around. It would be soon, right? It seemed like it
was morning, felt that way, the coolness in the air, the traffic that kept
getting heavier little by little. She tried to look at people in the cars that
passed to see if there were women putting on makeup or an overabundance of
people drinking coffee, their eyes still puffed from the morning.

She tried to talk to Jim a few times but each time failed.
Finally a bus came and they got on, paid the driver and sat in the back. The
bus was mostly empty. Cherry realized it was morning because it kept getting
brighter and warmer, and somehow this made her feel better. She did not think
she had the courage to ride through the night on this empty, piss-smelling bus.

Jim said something softly, something Cherry didn’t
understand.

“Hmm?” she asked, leaning against him.

“We have to get out of here,” Jim said. “Just for a couple
days. Can we? Will you go somewhere with me? Up to Santa Barbara or something?
Anywhere. I just...”

Jim’s body shook against hers and though there were no
tears, Cherry understood that he was crying. She put her arm around his
shoulders and hugged him tightly to her, trying not to show how freaked she
was. Jim was always a rock. Like that time Zig shot himself, he’d been there
for her to wipe the blood and brains off her face and get them out of there.

“Do you think we can get a car from someone?” Jim asked.

“Like jack one?”

“No, no just borrow one.”

Cherry thought for a moment. “Sure, I bet Jenny would give
us her car for a couple days. I don’t think she has many friends.”

“You mean Car--the girl with the cold sore, right?”

“Right. She took me home from the party. She seems pretty
cool, actually. I think she’d let me use her car though.”

There was a long silence and the bus rode on, got a little
fuller, and finally they were back toward her apartment, and Cherry had to
focus more to make sure they didn’t miss their stop. Jim just sat, her arm
around his shoulders, his head hung down, not saying anything else until right
before the bus rolled and hissed to a stop where they had to get off.

“She gave it to her baby,” Jim said.

“I know,” Cherry whispered.

They drove the rest of the way in silence, and they crashed
for a much too short eight hours. Cherry wanted more sleep but Jim couldn’t
stop talking about going, going, going. It was about four in the afternoon when
they got up, and it was another couple hours before Cherry got hold of Jen on
the phone.

Jen agreed immediately and without question to lend her car
out. Cherry felt bad about taking advantage of the girl so she invited her out
to dinner. There was a moment of silence, and the tone of Jen’s voice when she
spoke up told Cherry that she’d been excited for a good many things over the
course of her life and had grown accustomed to being disappointed. This made
Cherry feel even worse and she vowed to herself to really try and be friends
with the girl. Maybe she could even help her figure out how to get rid of the
thing growing on her face or barring nothing else, convince her to stop coating
it every thirty seconds with a half-pound of Carmex. Cherry thought this might
be a step toward shedding the horrible but unfortunately accurate nickname
she’d been saddled with.

“We got it,” Cherry said, looking at Jim. Jim was staring at
the floor. He hadn’t said much at all since leaving Alice’s house this morning,
and Cherry understood that. She was a little surprised though that he hadn’t
known. She thought it was pretty much common knowledge that Alice doped her
kid.

“Yeah?” Jim asked, still looking to the floor.

“Jen’s gonna drop it off tonight, so I thought I’d take her
out to dinner you know, as a thank you kind of, and then we can leave in the
morning.”

“Sounds good,” Jim said. “Where should we go?”

“Surprise me,” Cherry said. Jim finally looked up and gave
her a smile, a small one, but one that warmed her, nonetheless.

“Well, maybe I should take off,” Jim said. “Make some arrangements,
get my packing done, that kind of thing.”

“Okay, sure. Jen and I can drop you off if you want to hang
around until she gets here.”

Jim put his hand on her knee. “You know, I think I kind of
need to be alone for a while.”

“Sure,” Cherry said. “What time should I pick you up
tomorrow?”

“Ten?” Jim asked.

“Ten it is.” Cherry leaned over without knowing she was
going to do it and kissed Jim on the lips, a short but deep kiss that filled
them both with a white light. When their lips parted Jim squeezed her knee.

“Sorry I’m so out of it,” he said. “Just the whole thing
this morning, kind of fucking with my head, you know?”

“It should,” Cherry said. “It’s a terrible thing. If it
didn’t bother you, you’d be...Lance. Or just like him. And I could never be with
someone that didn’t have a heart.”

“I’ll be better tomorrow, okay?”

“I know,” Cherry said. She took his hand in hers briefly and
gave it a squeeze.

After Jim left Cherry sat on her couch smoking a joint and
thinking about this morning, wondering what Two Step and Soup were doing,
whether or not they were still over there or not, lord knew the bitch had
plenty of gack.

They’re probably tag-teaming her right now, Cherry thought,
with no idea how right she was.

Cherry shook her head, thinking of Alice. There was no way
she could have cleaned up for nine months, and Cherry couldn’t see the baby
being hooked after it was born, if for no other reason than that meant Alice
would have to share her stash.

No, that baby had been born at the bottom of a pit of addiction
and her mother was digging it deeper, every day.

It was two in the morning. Jim had never had a problem
sleeping if he wasn’t coming down from speed, but tonight was different. He’d
even taken a Valium but it hadn’t taken him out yet, either. The packing he’d
planned on doing in the morning was finished; his bags packed with the perfect
precision of a long time tweeker and were sitting by the front door, and had
been for almost twelve hours. Once he’d gotten home, there was nothing Jim could
do to keep himself occupied, not once he did a little research and made some
calls and procured for them a small but decent room in a motel in Carpinteria,
a small town just a few miles south of Santa Barbara.

He wasn’t sure what kind of car Jen drove so he would want
to go over it a little, at the very least check the oil and tires before they
left, but the drive wasn’t more than a couple hours so they should get there
just fine. Jim couldn’t get the image of little baby Crystal out of his head,
the yellow waxen skin, the glazed look in the eyes, as if the soul already knew
the body was dead and was just hanging around, waiting for it to catch up. He
saw the expressions passing over Crystal’s face like storm clouds across the
sun and he recognized every one of them. The hunger and raw need of withdrawal,
the anticipation of the fix, the bliss of the fix itself. That feeling she got
right after the first blast of drugged milk from the bottle was the closest
thing the baby ever got to happiness, and this tore at Jim, cut away at him in
the very center. The baby would have been better off if Alice had left her in a
dumpster after giving unassisted birth to her in an alley. What could the rats
and bugs and general vermin of the city do to the poor child that was any worse
than what her own mother had already done? Was
still doing?

Nothing.

And he had left her there, alone, with that fucking animal
that had the nerve to classify herself as a human. What was I supposed to do,
Jim asked himself. Take her home with me? He didn’t really think Alice would
mind if he had taken her, though. Not now. If she ever sobered up it might
cross her mind but as she was now she’d probably look at it as a blessing and
forget about the kid in a couple hours.

There’s no way I could take care of a baby, Jim thought.

Couldn’t do any worse than Alice is, another part of him
spoke up.

Jim sat on the couch holding his phone, staring at the
numbers on the screen. Jim leaned back and closed his eyes and thought of Alice
breastfeeding her daughter and then looking up at Jim, pulling the baby away
from her breast but instead of a tit she had a long, silver hypodermic needle
coming out of her chest, and the baby was sucking gack from it. He saw Crystal
four years old smoking meth out of a light bulb with a miniature blowtorch, saw
her turning tricks at five to feed her habit, Alice blithely pimping her out to
a bunch of kindergarten sex maniacs. He wanted to puke.

He opened his eyes and all he could see was the phone, the
phone, the phone. He couldn’t use his own phone, though, so he put it in his
pocket and made sure he had a dollar or so in quarters in his pockets and then
left the apartment. There was a payphone about half a block up, and he felt
lighter with each step toward it he got.