There’s a second-floor light on, but the blind is pulled. The rest of the house is dark.
When I try the screen door, it’s locked, so I check the windows within reach, and they’re all locked too. There’s a rather large flowerpot on a little wooden bench, and when I lift it up, I find a key. It opens the screen door, but the actual back door is locked and requires a different key. It’s an old wooden frame that doesn’t feel very secure, and when I feel around, some of it is rotten. After pulling my sleeve down over my fingertips, I turn the knob, and push with my shoulder.
It gives a quarter inch before catching.
I can feel my heart beating harder now.
I silently count to three and then send my full weight crashing into the door, which opens with a crack—and then silence.
No footsteps, no yelling, no dogs barking, no lights switching on.
I wait a few minutes before I make my way up three little steps and into the kitchen. The blue moonlight streaming through the window reveals that the appliances and cabinets haven’t been updated since the 1970s. Everything looks a grayish blue. There are used dishes and utensils on the counter, and on a small round table too. Some old cartons of half-eaten Chinese food are decomposing next to the sink. The trashcan is overflowing with the ripped-open packaging of microwavable food. Still no sounds.
As I enter the living room, I can see light leaking down from the stairs, which are carpeted and therefore quiet when climbed.
I reach the second floor with ease, although my shirt is beginning to feel heavy with sweat.
There’s a half-opened door at the end of the hallway, so I move toward it stealthily, relying on the old instincts. It’s like I’ve stopped taking steps and am being silently pulled across ice by a rope.
When I’m in front of the door, I listen for a good five minutes, but hear nothing.
The hinges creak when I push the door open, but it doesn’t matter.
Randall Street is hunched over on the floor, the middle of his spine against the wall. His chin is resting on his chest and he’s rubbing the top of his head in a circular pattern. His gear is in front of him.
Needle.
Spoon.
Lighter.
Cotton balls.
Small baggie of powder.
Rubber tube tourniquet limply tied around his arm.
A bag of pills—every color of the rainbow represented—suggests he’s popping meds like candy.
A marijuana bong and a large baggie of weed.
A few empty beer cans.
Half a bottle of Jack Daniel’s.
An ashtray full of cigarette butts and a half-empty carton of Camels.
The bedroom reeks of smoke and body odor.
Randall’s so high—off a combo of chemicals that he couldn’t remember, let alone re-create—he has no idea I’m even in the room.
When I was walking up the stairs, I was pretty certain I wanted to beat him to death, but he looks so pathetic below me now that I can’t even muster up the ire to spit on him, let alone strike him repetitively.
I look at the walls and see posters of rock bands—the Sex Pistols, Guns N’ Roses, Metallica, Slayer. It’s not unlike many of the small rooms Danielle and I used to share when we were kids.
Randall’s moaning now, and rubbing the top of his head more intensely.
Before I know what I’m doing, I take three swift steps, and like an NFL punter I kick Randall Street hard in the stomach. The impact makes this thumping sound, like dropping a bowling ball from a roof and hearing it land on a pillow laid out on the grass.
He lets out a long moan and then rolls onto his side in the fetal position, whispering, “Why? Why? Why?”
I snap back into reality.
This isn’t me.
Not anymore, anyway.
I’ve done the work to change myself back into a human being.
I’m an elementary school teacher.
And I’m all Tommy has.
Plus, Portia would be so disappointed.
I no longer want to kick or punch the moaning Randall, so I search the room for his stash. The worst thing I can do to Randall Street is send him to jail, where men much worse than me will do the punishing. I quickly find two larger bags of heroin in Randall’s sock drawer, which is a terrible hiding place. That alone lets me know just how far gone he is. Who knows, maybe he really misses my sister, and that’s what the drug binge is about? The size of the bags more than suggests Randall is dealing. I leave one on the kitchen table and one on the coffee table in the living room as presents for Jon and his boys.
Once I’ve done that, I open the front door and flick the front lights on and off until I see the woman across the street pick up a phone. I leave the front door wide open.
On a whim, I go back upstairs to take one last look at Randall Street. His left cheek is on the carpet, and he’s puked up a puddle of bile that now spreads from his mouth like a speech bubble in a newspaper cartoon. I’m just about to go when I see the small bag of H and needle on the floor.
It reaches out to me like the hand of a drowning friend.
Before I know what I’m doing, I’ve scooped up Randall’s personal gear and then I’ve left his grandmother’s house through the busted back door and I’ve jumped the fence and I’m running into the woods, knowing that the drug in my hand can make all of the guilt and anxiety and regret vanish instantly—I can be blissfully apathetic again—and suddenly I’m panting behind a huge tree and I’ve got the dirt and water in the spoon and the flame from the lighter is licking the silver underbelly and the smack is liquefying and then I’m sucking it up through the little cotton ball and into the needle as easily as I’m breathing air and every part of my body is begging me to stick the thin metal into my arm so I’m pulling up the sleeve of my coat and just before the needle enters my skin I start to hyperventilate and I’m smart enough to visualize my Official Member of the Human Race card—