Wasted (17 page)

On Friday, June 23, 1995, Anita Morales and Carla Reid decided to have a barbecue. “Wanta come?” they said to Hartwell over the phone.

Later in the day, Anita and Carla changed their minds about having the party. They called Regina. “Forget it. We’re not going to have a barbecue.” To them, it was no big deal, but to Regina, it was a big deal.

“Kim thinks it’s because of her, because she was going to go and that y’all don’t want her over there. Is that true?”

Cocaine makes a user paranoid.

“No, that’s not true. No, we’re really not going to have a barbecue.”

“Okay, I’ll tell Kim that.”

A few minutes later, Regina phoned Anita and Carla again. “Can we come over anyway?”

“Sure, you can come over. We’re just hanging out, and we’re not doing anything.”

Morales and Reid believed Hartwell was having to prove to LeBlanc that they truly weren’t having anyone over for dinner.

Crystal meth makes a user paranoid, too.

When Kim and Regina arrived at Anita’s and Carla’s apartment, Kim and Regina looked like Auschwitz hell—mere skin and bones, as if they were both about to die from anorexia and hadn’t slept in God-knows when. With black-circled eyes, they were nervous, paranoid, fidgety. So fidgety that they made Carla and Anita fidgety and nervous.

Hartwell wore a baseball cap to hide her usually perfect hair and heavy base of makeup to cover what appeared to be a bruise on her left cheek. But Regina had long since passed the point of always seeming to be hiding something . . . to protect someone.

Hartwell grabbed the phone, and she spent most of the time they stayed there on the phone, presumably trying to make a buy. Suddenly, she said, “I’ve gotta go take care of some business.”

Anita Morales never saw Regina Hartwell again.

 

 

On Sunday night, June 25, 1995, Hope Rockwell and a friend went over to Regina Hartwell’ s apartment, the same Hope Rockwell Regina had pursued to her own arrest in 1992. Hope and her friend had just gotten out of drug rehab and needed a few party tools to celebrate—cocaine.

While they were at Regina’s, Kim LeBlanc phoned. “We’re coming over.”

“Not right now,” said Regina.

LeBlanc paged Justin Thomas. He was downtown with some friends, cruising Sixth Street, the straight, teenage hangout for live music and beer. It soothed Justin’s passion for music—Nine Inch Nails, Pearl Jam, Smashing Pumpkins, Jane’s Addiction.

“Meet me at Regina’s,” said Kim.

Thirty minutes later, LeBlanc arrived with Thomas. Rockwell and her friend were still there. Kim looked at them, and they looked at her. Kim looked coked up as hell. She looked at Regina, furious, and dragged her into the bedroom. “What the hell are you doing giving away our drugs!”

A few minutes later, LeBlanc stormed out of the bedroom, turned to Thomas, and said loudly enough for everyone to hear, “I’m so mad, I could just kill her.”

 

 

Regina’s neighbor Brad Wilson only saw Regina in passing that last week. Jeremy Barnes didn’t see her at all, except for the last night of Regina Hartwell’s life.

 

 

A few days later, friends phoned Mike White. “Have you seen Regina?” He just presumed she’d taken his advice and gone out of town. He presumed she’d gotten away from Kim LeBlanc.

Wednesday, June 28, 1995 in Austin, Texas was hot, muggy, cloudy, and humid. In fact, it was downright steamy with thunderstorms threatening. Around noon, there was a change—a sudden drop in humidity. It didn’t last until the summer sunset. This was Texas, and the phone was ringing in Kim LeBlanc’s South Austin apartment.

Kim was high, she wasn’t dressed, and Regina Hartwell was calling. “Meet me at my place,” said Regina, from her drug dealer Diva’s house. “We need to talk.”

God,
thought Kim,
Regina was always wanting to talk.
But Kim LeBlanc was tired of the long discussions, of rehashing the same ole same ole, of trying to convince Regina that Kim just plain wasn’t interested . . . in women. Not at all.

But how could Regina Hartwell understand how Kim LeBlanc felt about men when Regina and Kim had hugged and kissed, when Kim had taken Regina’s money, drugs, clothes, and jewelry, when Regina had given Kim all the material things that Justin Thomas never could—even an apartment?

LeBlanc sighed under her breath and glanced over at the futon. Justin Thomas was lying there watching TV. Kim thought he was so beautiful, that long, hard body.

Justin flipped channel after channel, talk show after talk show.

“Can Jay come?” asked Kim. She rubbed his belly with the soft palm of her hand.

“Fuck, no,” said Regina. “He can’t wait in the car either.” Regina slammed down the phone so that Kim couldn’t argue.

 

 

Justin Thomas’s firm pecs rose and fell as if he were trying to contain jealousy, maybe rage. He detested the way Kim spent her days with Regina and only her nights with him.

Kim hated it too, but there would be drugs—fresh drugs. “Shit,” she finally said.

Thomas held her arm. “Tell the cunt . . .”

LeBlanc snorted a line of cocaine and tossed on a pair of shorts and a T-shirt.

“We’ll get the money, and we’ll go to Mexico, you know what I’m saying? Just tell the fuckin’ cunt . . .”

A man she wanted, a woman she needed, Kim’s frustration heated. “You know, I have to go.” She grabbed her car keys and walked out the door, 6’4” Justin following behind 5’ Kim.

“Tell the cunt . . .”

He climbed into the passenger’s seat of her Jeep Sahara. She climbed behind the wheel. LeBlanc threw her bright, shiny, green Jeep into gear, whizzed past the partially painted cars that lined her parking lot, and pulled onto the street.

It was getting hotter and more humid, and the sun kept moving in and out of the clouds.

“You know what I’m saying? Just tell the—”

“Fuck,” said Kim. “Just goddamned fuck. I’m getting so damned sick and tired of this, you know. All I do is what Regina wants.” She lit a Marlboro. “Do this. Do that. Go here. Go there. You know, dance. Don’t dance.”

And she was doing it again—dancing to Regina Hartwell’s beck and call. Turn to the right. Turn to the left. Grab your partner and do-si-do.

“I don’t even have my own life. God.” She inhaled deeply on her cigarette, “I might as well be back with my parents.” She cursed to Thomas.

He smiled to himself.

 

 

Still, Kim LeBlanc knew the benefits of keeping quiet. She’d kept quiet for five years—anything to get along. Her hands shook on the steering wheel. She took another puff of her cigarette. She squeezed her toes so that the accelerator grazed the floorboard.

Her Jeep raced past the only two nice apartment buildings in the neighborhood, past the Ramada Inn, across Ben White Boulevard, and past the Assembly of God Church. Keep quiet, she told herself, anything for peace. She swerved down tree-lined Gillis Street, past home after home that had once been a dream but now was broken and bruised.

Keep quiet.
Useless furniture was discarded on the porches.
Anything to get along.
Rusted equipment was abandoned in the yards.
Keep quiet.
It’d been her unspoken mantra for so many years.
Anything for peace.
She didn’t know what else to do. Kim LeBlanc pulled into the drive of Josh Mollet’s house. Josh was Justin’s cousin. Thomas got out. “Tell the . . .”

Anything for peace.
Kim drove the five minutes down Lamar Boulevard to Regina Hartwell’s apartment.
Keep quiet.
By then, it was perhaps noon, maybe even one o’clock. Time was hazy in the hyperkinetic fog of cocaine and Valium.
Keep quiet.
Kim LeBlanc felt so trapped. Like a fly caught in honey.
Anything.

 

 

LeBlanc found herself standing again in Hartwell’s one-bedroom Château apartment, posters and cutouts of Marilyn Monroe watching over them, a photograph of herself entwined with Regina nearby. Kim’s fragile hands trembled. Too much coke. Too much crystal meth.

Hartwell jammed her hands deep into her pockets and yelled, as she often did. LeBlanc bowed her head like a shamed child, as she often did. They were like two battling, injured fawns—too young to know their limitations, too scared and too thin—each had dropped thirty pounds from the drugs.

Regina’s voice was firm. Too much hurt, too much loss, too many years to let anyone see the fear. “I want you to stop seeing that sonofabitch,” she yelled. “He’s no good. He’s a drug dealer, a gun runner. You can do better than that.”

Hartwell’s meticulously applied red lipstick made a perfect bow across her soft, white face. Her freshly cut, dyed-black hair bounced when she spoke. She could look like a joy when she wasn’t being so controlling.

LeBlanc lit a Marlboro. Her dark brown eyes and cropped brown hair did make her look like a fawn, a fawn that’d been struck by a killer truck.

“I don’t know what you see in him. He’s dumb, Kim. Just plain stupid.” Regina flopped into the black, leather recliner that Justin had bought for her just a few weeks before, a gift between supposed friends.

Kim thought about Justin. He had such beautiful hands. Strong hands. Such beautiful, frightening hands. She closed her eyes and imagined a line of coke. Regina often kept a mirror and a few lines hidden under the faux-leather couch on which Kim sat. Those lines were just a few fingertips away.

“He’s a big lulking, shithead retard.” Hartwell made a face to mimic Thomas. “Duh.” She slapped a limp hand against her breasts. “Couldn’t even pull off a drug deal.” She kept pounding her full breasts. “Has to make me put up the front money for him. And still can’t make a living. I pay for him. I pay for you. Everything you own, everything you wear, I fucking bought for you!”

LeBlanc inhaled for courage. She inhaled as deeply as her cocaine-clogged nostrils would allow. They wouldn’t allow deep enough.

“He’s a—”

The phone rang.

Regina answered it and then socked the cordless over to Kim. “It’s for you. Jay.”

“What’s taking so long?” said Thomas.

Regina Hartwell paced around the apartment and tapped her foot to show LeBlanc that she thought Kim was taking too long.

Kim glanced at Regina. Regina glared. Kim bowed her head. “Soon,” she said and hung up. The bones in her forearms felt like shaking rocks. Her jaw ached from the stone tightness. She reached for another cigarette.

Hartwell yelled. “Tell the bastard not to ever phone here again. Tell the sonofabitch you’re never going to see him again. Tell the—”

In her mind, Kim heard Justin yelling too. “Tell the cunt . . .”

“Tell the—” yelled Regina.

“I’m going back home,” said Kim. She lit another cigarette. The flame on the lighter quivered as she did. “To my parents,” she clarified so that Regina would understand she didn’t mean to the apartment that Regina paid for. “I don’t want your money anymore.”

Regina’s heart pounded. She jammed her hands deeper into her pockets. No one could see her fear. She felt like her heart was going to explode out of her chest. “You can’t do that.”

“I don’t want Jay, either. If I go home, as soon as I go home, my parents will see that I need help—”

“I can help you,” Hartwell panicked.

“—that I’m messed up.” LeBlanc wanted a line, one more line of coke. “My life didn’t start out this way—”

“No!” Regina yelled. “No. You can’t go back there!” Her voice rose and filtered through the walls. But no one was next-door to hear.

Kim just bowed her head. It was easier that way. Just split apart and not feel. She’d done it for years. Just stuff another drug in and not feel. She was good at it. She placed the cigarette to her lips. Not feel, and she could do what anyone told her. Not feel, and she could listen to anyone for hours.

She did.

Regina argued, begged, pleaded with Kim for almost two hours, and Kim just listened.

By 3 p.m., the temperature had risen to ninety-two degrees and the pavement was hot. Kim and Regina sat on the concrete balcony near Regina’s apartment door. Their legs dangled through the second-story protective railing, and their faces peered from behind the iron bars.

Kim and Regina simply spoke softly and smoked and stared down at the courtyard below. Regina’s hurt wouldn’t leave. She didn’t know what to do. Her money could no longer buy Kim’s love. It scared her. Left again by a woman she adored, it scared her shitless.

 

 

Ryan Watson was on his way to work when he walked out of his apartment and passed by LeBlanc and Hartwell. “Hi,” he said.

“Hi,” they returned.

He noticed the drinks in their hands, their faces flushed red, the tears they’d cried.

Watson hurried away.

Hartwell watched the green grass below, and she sipped on her toddy. She thought about what she could do.

Kim LeBlanc knew what she was going to do. She was going home to her parents. She had every intention of doing that. Kim pulled on her cigarette. She had as much die-hard, split-second intention as any cokehead.

 

 

An hour and a half later, LeBlanc walked with Hartwell from the Château parking lot into the apartment building. At the same time, Kyle Blake walked down the back stairs of the Château, headed for his car, and he heard Regina’s voice. It was raised.

Blake knew that voice well. Many times he and Hartwell had called to each other as he had stood below her window and twirled his baton. Now he practiced in his mind as he walked and looked up to see Regina and Kim. LeBlanc’s head was bowed. Hartwell scolded her, something about her Jeep.

Kim was embarrassed, like a child being chided by a parent in front of her friends. Blake ducked to the right so as not to embarrass her any further.

Yelling at Kim, that was the last time Kyle Blake ever saw Regina Hartwell.

 

 

Finally, Kim got up and said, “I’m going home.” Her voice was soft. Her heart wasn’t.

Regina felt the hardness, and it terrified her. It terrified her that she might never see Kim again.

“I’m leaving Justin, too.” But that wasn’t enough for Regina. Nothing seemed to be enough.

 

 

“What the fuck took you so long?” Kim claims Justin Thomas bitched as he climbed into Kim’s Jeep later. The oak leaves were green over their heads. “Y’all were doing coke, weren’t you?”

“No,” she said, her head down.

They wound back down Gillis Street, crossed Ben White Boulevard again, and turned right at the Ramada Inn.

“I don’t believe you.”

She pulled her Jeep up as close to her apartment door as she could.

“You better not be lying to me. ’Cause if you’re lying to me, I’ll—”

“She’s driving me up the wall, Jay. She won’t let me breathe. She won’t let me sleep. She won’t let me do anything. She’s got to know when I pee. She’s got to know when I fuck.”

Thomas’s jealous breath grew fast.

“She’s got to know everything I’m doing every minute of the day. She’s got to be with me every minute of the day.”

His fists tightened. He wanted to be with Kim every minute of the day.

“Regina threatened to cut me off if I don’t stop messing with you.”

“Look, quit fucking with her,” he ordered.

LeBlanc still remembers her response.

“Help me, Jay. Help me get out of this situation.” Kim climbed out of her Jeep and flicked a cigarette onto the ground. She inched up to Justin’s hazel eyes. “Get her out of my life.”

 

 

Thomas fell onto the futon and flicked on the TV. LeBlanc curled up close to him and lay her head on his shoulder. “Please, Jay.” She kissed him.

“Let’s just get the fuckin’ money and we’ll leave, you know what I’m saying? We’ll blow this Popsicle stand,” said Justin. “We’ll go someplace else. We’ll go to Mexico for a year or so. We don’t need to stay here—”

The phone interrupted.

“We’ll get the fuckin’ hell out of Dodge, you know what I’m saying?” To the moon and back for his girl.

His girl answered the phone.

“What ya doin’?” Regina Hartwell said.

“Just watching TV.”

Thomas angrily rolled over and flipped channels.

Kim kept talking to Regina. Thomas started talking to the air. Hartwell chatted, and Thomas talked louder. Hartwell kept speaking, and Thomas spoke more. Kim covered the phone hoping his voice wouldn’t be heard.

“I’m a gangsta,” yelled Justin to make sure Regina heard. “I’m a gangsta of—”

“That Jay?” Regina yelled.

“Yeah,” Kim moaned.

“You fucking told me—what’s he saying?”

“He’s just joking around. He’s talking about being a gangster or something.”

“Put the sonofabitch on the phone.”

Thomas grabbed the phone. “Look, would you fuckin’ quit calling over here and arguing? Quit your goddamned yelling. Quit your goddamned screaming, you know what I’m saying? It’s fuckin’ pointless for y’all to fight and argue if y’all can’t talk right. There just ain’t no fuckin’ sense in y’all communicating.”