7.

“Man, it’s too fuckin’ early to be doin’ this shit. This your first day pickin’ up trash man?”

“Naw, I do it once a week in the summer. Every goddamn Saturday. Fuckin’ moms makes me. Says I need to do community service. It’ll help me appreciate all the shit I got, or some bullshit like that.”

“Yep, sounds like my mom. That’s why I moved the fuck out.”

“Yeah, but I ain’t got no money, so I’m stuck there for now.”

“Aw, you can make money, dog. How old are you?”

“Shit yeah, you can make money, and I know any of the apartments around here will take that money and not give a fuck how old you are, long as you pay rent on time. That’s what I do man.”

“Yeah, how much they pay you to do this shit?”

“Aw naw, dog. They don’t pay me for this shit. This ain’t my job. I just got suck doin’ this.”

“How’s that?”

“I fuckin’ failed a piss test my P.O. gave me, violation of probation. Judge gave me seven days in county, two hundred and fifty hours community service, and a fat ass fine. And I gotta still be on probation two more years. That’s twenty-four more piss tests dog, and that’s only if they don’t call me in random.”

“Yeah, that’s fucked up. So you gonna stop smokin’?”

“How you know it was smokin’? I look like a burnt out motherfucker?”

“No, I just figured…”

“You just figured. Well you figured right, but fuck no I ain’t gonna stop smokin’. You can buy these drops all over the place and they’ll fuck up the tests so long as you’re slick enough to get it in with your piss and not get caught. Really though, my old P.O. didn’t give a fuck, shit, that’s who I get my shit from. But last week I go in there and they tell me I got a new P.O. and the fuckin’ dude stood right over me and watched me piss, man. My old P.O. used to come in the bathroom and like pick his nose in the mirror and shit while I pissed. This fuckin’ new dude, no way I could even get the drops out my pocket without him seein’.”

“Yeah, that sucks. So how you gonna get away with it next time?”

“I’m gonna stick that shit down my fuckin’ BVDs, dog. He’ll think my hands is on my dick and I’ll be squirtin’ some drops up in that cup while I’m pissin’. Fuck that big bald ugly motherfucker.”

“…”

“…”

“So if this ain’t your job, what is?”

“I sell bud, dog. Make a lot of money too.”

“Oh.”

“For real, man. You should look into that shit. Good money. Get you out of moms house. You smoke?”

“Naw, I play basketball at school. They test us.”

“I just told you about the drops, dog. I can get you some. Some good weed too.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“For real, dog. If I decide I like you I can hook you up with my P.O., the old one, the one that hooks me up and shit. I bet you got a lot of smokers up in that school. That’s the best fuckin’ place to sell, is in schools. Huge fuckin’ market. Shit, if I was still in school I’d be makin’ huge fuckin’ bank. For real, I’ll hook you up with my boy.”

“We’ll see.”

“We’ll see? Shit, man, I don’t see how you can’t. You get my pager number before you leave today, and I’ll get you hooked up with my boy. He takes money up front, but I can spot you some, get you started. Don’t fuck with me though, or I’ll have to kill your ass. For real.”

“…”

“That’s why I usually don’t even do that shit, fucking spot people and they always fuck you. But since you say you do this every weekend, and you got a huge market, and I’m gonna make you give me ten percent. I’ll know where to find you and shit.”

“…”

“For real, dog, I’ll give you my pager number. Fuckin’ hit me up any time this week. You’ll make some serious fuckin’ ends man.”

“Yep.”

“Goddamn that’s a nasty fuckin’ bag of trash. Fuckin’ ripped and shit. Help me pick some of this up dog. Maybe get that shovel on the side of the truck. If that stupid motherfucker drivin’ would get out and help…”

6.

He met her again at that kid Marc’s party. He got there late, later even then he wanted to. There were a lot of people around, and the keg was damn near empty. Some of the kids were already talking about raiding the wine supply in the top of the pantry. He knew that shit would get everybody caught, get Marc grounded. He wasn’t in the mood to drink tonight. He wasn’t in the mood to sell anything either, so he was glad nobody was really asking.

He had been by The Captain’s house earlier, to pick up the pound he had waiting for him. The Captain was an ex-marine, now a P.O., probation, not parole. The Captain would leave the pound sitting on the front porch of his house in a plain cardboard box, small and sealed with duct tape. It always had a name written on it in black magic marker, and sometimes he’d notice other boxes with other names written on them. He knew better than to fuck with those boxes. He’d take the box with his name on it and, as directed, put the sealed envelope under the mat in front of the door. It was a plain black mat, made to wipe your feet on. It was far from welcoming. He’d see other envelopes under the mat every once in a while too; he didn’t think anybody was fucking dumb enough to touch any of them. You didn’t fuck with The Captain or his money. But, so he had the pound now, still in the cardboard box, sitting beside the mailbox at Marc’s house. He didn’t have anywhere else for it quite yet.

He was glad to see the party start dying down some a little after midnight, the keg was probably empty. He saw the girl from the game come into the room, head his way. He was sitting on the couch in the house’s main room, flipping through cable channels with the TV on mute, sort of half listening to the conversations going on around him. The music was up in an adjacent room, a room that still had several kids playing pool, but he could hear some of the voices anyway. There were some kids in the kitchen too, and in one or two of the bedrooms upstairs, he was sure. This room had three people left in it now. She sat down next to him on the couch, but didn’t say anything to him for a couple of seconds.

“Are you in a bad mood?” Not concerned, but curious.

“Naw, I think I’m just tired,” after another short pause.

“So I think Marc told me why you aren’t on the team anymore. How come you quit school?”

“School wasn’t really teaching me that much. I’d rather skip it and just work, you know?”

“You got a job?”

“Yeah.”

“Doing what?”

“Sales.”

“And you don’t need school for that?”

“Not really. I sort of learn as I go.”

“And you’re not in a bad mood?”

“No,” with a little grin. “Should I liven up some?”

“Yeah, you definitely should; unless talking to me just isn’t that exciting for you.”

He smiled. “You wanna go out to the hot tub?”

“It’s kinda cold out.”

“It’s a fuckin’ hot tub.”

“I guess so. I did bring a swimsuit. Did you.”

“No. But I got boxers on. I’ll wear them. I saw some towels in the bathroom. I’ll go get ‘em.”

He got the towels and led her out to the hot tub. There were four kids there already, one was getting out. They seemed pretty sober. He thought hot tubs were supposed to make you drunker. They got in and sat there in the hot tub for a while talking, mostly to each other.

By two o’clock everybody else was gone, and he knew a lot about her. Her name was August, and she was a sophomore. She was sixteen and her birthday was in September. She had been born a week late, but her parents were already too attached to the name to think about changing it. She was an only child, her parents were still together, and they had gotten her a car for her birthday, but it was her Christmas present too. She said she was in love with her car, then she laughed. It was named Carl, her car, even though it looked more like a Violet; she laughed again. He loved her laugh, it was as perfect as her smile.

They got out of the tub at two-thirty or so, and ran for the house. He didn’t think he’d ever been so fucking cold. He followed her into the bathroom when she told him they probably shouldn’t drip all over the carpet. He was still cold, even with the towel around him. He took off the wet boxers, the towel stayed on. She stayed wrapped in the towel, swimsuit and all.

“Follow me,” she said, with a new look that he hadn’t seen yet, but still with the smile. It was her eyes that were mischievous. She walked back through the main room, a couple of kids asleep on the couch and the floor. She walked into the kitchen and opened a door to stairs he didn’t know were there.

“I thought this was a fuckin’ closet.”

She chuckled. “Nope, there’s a basement.”

Down they went. There were a couple of kids in the finished basement’s main room playing video games, football it looked like at a glance, but she walked right on past them and opened another door, to a bedroom, small and empty.

“This is a better place to talk, it’s warmer.”

“Yeah, a little less wet too huh,” he said.

She smiled, damn he liked that smile. He sat down on the bed, it was the only thing to sit on it the room besides a chair and a desk, both piled with books. She closed the door.

“I’m gonna turn the light off, if that’s alright.”

“Go for it,” he told her.

The light went off, and he heard her lock the door as well. There was a nightlight in the outlet beside the door, and it cast just enough light in the small room. A bit of light snuck through beneath the closed door too, so that her figure sort of glowed as she stood there. He saw her drop the towel to the floor and step towards the bed. She hopped onto the bed and lay there on her back. He stretched out on his side, propped himself up on his elbow.

“So what did you want to talk about?”

“I don’t think I really want to talk anymore.”

He knew his cue when he heard it, and he could feel that smile after she spoke, even if he couldn’t really see it in the low light, so he leaned over and kissed her, and it lasted. She giggled once and he stopped, made fun of her. She took it like she was supposed to, quipped back. That’s how it went for a while.

He remembered years later that moment when she sat up a bit, his eyes adjusted to the light some, still to dark for detail though. He remembered how she reached behind her and untied the top of the bikini she was wearing. He kissed her again and she laid back down. He remembered how she let him kiss her neck, then her breasts, then her stomach. He remembers thinking, what about my girlfriend?

5.

He still went to some of the games, even though he wasn’t in school, or on the team anymore. But it was still his team, still his friends playing in the games, still folks he knew that came to watch the games.

The first couple of games were hard to watch, wanting to be in there making a difference, crashing the boards, getting an occasional steal and fastbreak points. So for the first couple of games he sat up in the stands by himself, with his hands on either side of his face, bracing his head up, clapping every once in a while for a good play, but mostly just watching.

He noticed how much emptier the gym seemed now that he wasn’t on the court. When he had been playing he had always thought that the crowd cared about the game, wanted him and the team to play well. Now he noticed that the few people who came to the games, parents excluded, were there simply to see and be seen. They were mostly underclassmen, still at school because their parents worked late, and they didn’t have another ride after missing the bus. And then there were of course those couple drunk seniors simply trying to get away with being drunk at school, waiting for it to be late enough to show up at parties.

It was kind of depressing to be in the crowd now, but he didn’t have shit else to do, so he came and watched, and got in free with the student ID he still had, even though he wasn’t in school anymore. At the third game he went to a girl came up and sat down next to him. He glanced at her, then looked back at the court. “Didn’t you used to play?” She was an underclassman he knew, but wasn’t sure what year. A sophomore maybe. Cute though.

“Yeah. Not anymore though.”

“Why not, you were pretty good?”

“Yeah, thanks.” A pause. “It’s a long story.”

“Oh. My friend Marc is on the team. He’s number twenty-four.”

“Yeah, I know him.”

“He’s having a party tonight. I think his brother got him a keg. Are you gonna go?”

“Yeah, I’ll be there. I’m sure I’ll see you.”

“Good. Maybe you can tell me your long story.”

He looked at her now. She had innocent eyes, and one of those smiles he thought was perfect. He gave her a grin and a little laugh. “Yeah, we’ll see. I don’t usually like tellin’ long stories though.”

She stood up and started to walk back over to her friends. He could see her belly button and stomach between jeans and shirt, a shirt definitely not made for winter. Her navel was pierced. He kind of liked it.

“Isn’t it kind of cold out for that shirt,” as she walked away.

“I’ve got a jacket.” She turned her head and still had that perfect smile.

She doesn’t know what she’s getting into, he thought.

His team called a timeout on the court below.

4.

He remembers that last game he ever played. It was his junior year of high school, just before the Christmas break. He scored eighteen points and pulled down nine boards, both team highs that night. He was pissed he hadn't put up twenty and ten. He fouled out with three minutes left to play in the fourth quarter, heard the whistle, turned and headed for the bench. No sense getting upset, he knew this was his finale. Might as well bow out gracefully.

He had already failed three of his five final exams for the semester, he'd be officially ineligible by the time the next game rolled around. He'd play this game, then go home, that was his plan all week. He'd pack up his shit, or at least the shit he couldn't leave behind, for his Moms to trash, and go figure out which one of his boys he could stay with for a while.

He didn't plan on going back to school, what was the point. He also knew he wasn't gonna be allowed to stay in his mother's house if he wasn't taking classes, she wouldn't have that. He was pretty sure that she knew he had started dealing, and if she thought that was all he'd do all day she'd throw a fucking fit and yell him right out of the house and down the driveway.

He watched from the bench as his team lost that last game; by three points, they didn't shoot free throws well at all that night, gotta capitalize from the line if you're gonna win ball games, this 16 for 28 shit isn't gonna cut it boys, the coach said afterwards. He didn't shower that night after coach’s talk, just grabbed his shit, left his uniform on a bench in the locker room, and walked out into the cold ass night air.

He went first to his girlfriend's house, she hadn't been at the game, and he didn't want to talk about it. How many points did he score at least, twenty-four he lied, he didn't know why. He fucked her, 'cause he needed to, laid there in the dark for a while, then did it again, again because he needed to. Then he had to go he told her, he had shit to do tomorrow. He was home by two o'clock.

His Moms was laid out on the couch when he got home, with all the lights on and the TV too. She looked asleep, but her cigarette was still lit, hanging from her lip, and she'd inhale occasionally. She didn't open her eyes as he walked past her, but she did blow smoke in his direction. "We lost" he mentioned on his way by. No response, and into his bedroom he trudged.

He shuts the door, opens a drawer or two, throws the contents onto the bed, gets a bag from the closet, not quite a suitcase but a good sized bag, puts the shit on the bed into it. He hasn't packed clothes yet, so he gets a trash bag from the kitchen, under the sink, and throws some clothes into it. He ties the top of the bag into a knot, throws it out the window into the yard, grabs the other bag and heads out the front door. His Moms has gone to bed. It's 4am, and it’s fucking cold outside.

3.

He went to a party in the suburbs once, a party with a little bit of everybody in attendance. He was about nineteen at the time, too young for drinking legally, but laws didn't stop him from much anymore. He wasn't sure who he knew at the party, or more accurately he didn't know who had invited him, he recognized several of the kids milling about.

He grabbed a cup and headed for the keg in the backyard. Some fucking kid tried to make him pay three bucks for a cup, but he simply stared that fucking kid straight in the eyes as he took a cup; he would be the one charging tonight. After all, this was primarily a business trip, he didn't go to many parties for pleasure anymore; he worked nights and weekends now. But he was going to get drunk, try to get laid, and make a huge fucking night off these suburban kids.

The keg was always a good spot for conversation, so he stayed after he got his beer, until he saw a familiar face. He talked for a minute, then sold the kid a nickel bag. That kid would be crucial, that kid would get the word out. He had three pounds in an Adidas bag hidden out front, two of those pounds split into quarter-pound bags. He didn't plan to dick around with this nickel bag shit all night.

By 11:00 he had sold one of those quarters, and all of the sixteen-ounce bags he had split up for his typical smaller consumers. It was a good sized party already. He didn't like the idea of having to split his quarters up, but he was prepared for it if it had to be done. He'd take the scale into the bathroom, spread his shit out on a sheet on the floor and subdivide, he had Ziplocs and that scale and the sheet all stowed away in the Adidas bag. He had carried shit in bookbags and briefcases before, but now he decided the Adidas bag looked least suspicious on buses and other public transportation. Nobody liked to question anybody on the way back from the gym.

At 11:30 he gave up and went to break some of is stash up into ounces. He had sold two more quarter-pounds, but it seemed that none of these fucking kids could afford more than an ounce at a time. One day they'd learn to fucking think ahead, but he knew how high school kids liked to spend their money on stupid shit.

He worked quickly, the next hour was going to be his most profitable he knew. The party was strongest right at about midnight. There were kids all over the house and yard, the hot tub was full of hormones and alcohol, a combination that was always something worth watching. He wandered the house looking for potential sales. He knew what to look for, anybody could pick out a high school smoker.

He headed upstairs, hoping that not all of the doors would be closed. The master bedroom wasn't and in fact had a crowd at the door. He pushed through and saw why, two young drunk girls in bras and panties kissing on the bed. One was working on the clasp to the other's bra, and without the inexperience of guys her age to hinder her efforts the bra soon joined the other clothes in a pile beside them on the bed. The two girls then got horizontal, body parts beginning to intertwine.

As exciting as it may have been, he wasn't there for that, he turned and left, selling two ounces on the way out of the room, both to the same kid. Beer, weed, and two naked girls making out on a bed in front of him, that fucking kid's gotta be fucking happy, he thought as he left.

2.

He remembers the first time he made love to her, though neither of them called it that. It was late one night, in her parents’ house, an empty house for the weekend, and he seems to remember that they were both drunk. Maybe that's why he did it.

It wasn't supposed to go the way it did, but alcohol and adrenaline had gotten the best of him before. It started with a kiss, she kissed back. Then hands, four of them, exploring, same as usual. Then his hands stopped for a moment, decided that clothes got in the way, and went to work removing obstacles. Now they were two naked drunk kids in the dark, running hands over parts of each other they'd never seen in the light.

Then he went to work on her, he enjoyed making her happy, and he knew his way around. She had said to him the first time, "Let's find my G-spot". It had shocked him a bit then, but proved helpful in the long run. But now that he was drunk he had to admit that he was getting sick of this one way street all the time. Maybe that's why he did it.

She was a virgin, he knew that for sure, and even he wasn't as experienced as he led his boys to believe. So maybe it was frustration, youthful exuberance, or just too much fucking alcohol. At any rate, he let his hand stop and he climbed on top of her. She said no, but he was a don't-take-no-for-an-answer type of guy. Plus, she didn't really know what she was talking about, how could she reject anything if she didn't even know what she was turning down. He knew; pleasure unparalleled, rivaled only by that almost deadly dose of heroin he let himself be talked into once.

It wasn't too hard, she almost didn't even resist that much. She was saying no, but…. The nos and stops got less frequent as he continued, then faded into moans, and he faded too, lost in what he was doing. When he finished he laid there on his back in the dark, thought he heard her crying once quietly, leaned over and kissed her on the forehead, thought "fuck that bitch," rolled over and went to sleep, still naked, sweaty on top of the covers that she had bound herself up in.

He'd wake up with a killer hangover, but all these years later he didn't remember that.

1.

He remembered back when he was younger, that time he had to swallow a bag, trying to keep himself out of jail. He had way too much on him that time, and once they ID'd him as a swallower he was headed straight to jail anyway. The lawyers counselled him the way they do, and he got really fucking sick in that cell before he eventually gave in and went to the hospital. Confessing kept him locked up for a while, but he got out one Thursday afternoon, with nobody out front to pick him up.

He got back his Zippo lighter, gold with his initials on it, and his money clip too, also gold, just his first initial. They kept all the money he had when they took him in, but he had credit on these streets. Back to his supplier, a little older, a little wiser, but with only one way to get back on his feet. He slept in parks those first couple nights back out, before he made back eight hundred. A new apartment, one that didn’t know his face, but back to the old neighborhood to make sales, and business stayed strong.

For two years he stayed out of the way of those damn cold blooded bastard cops that put him away the last time. By that time he had a new car, another new apartment, evicted after a fight with the landlord from the last one, and a new daughter, who had his eyes. He still swore to straighten up one day, but even he couldn’t argue with numbers, and he was making good ones, selling to some of his old boys from high school, and even one of his old bosses, from way back when he had an "honest" job. Then in November, one night when it was too cold to pay as much attention to all the shit around him that he needed to keep an eye on, they caught him in the spotlight, the one that rotates around on top of the driver's side mirror.

He ran, as fast as he could in the cold, dropping little twist-tied baggies in the bushes as he cut around corners, staying close to the apartment buildings, in the shadows the best he could, eventually tripping, in a spot where the ground apparently dipped down a bit in the dark. They were on him then. He felt a knee in the middle of his back, a cold baton on the back of his neck. He tried resisting, but it meant nothing. Handcuffs next, and they said they had found all those little baggies. The read him his rights; he knew them already, by heart. Then they pulled him up, in a way that hurt his shoulders, hands behind his back. They threw him in the back of that car, lights flashing, and the only thing he could think was how good it felt to be in out of the cold. His eyes were glazed, he was out of breath, and he could feel where his knees still hurt from his fall.

He remembered back to when he was younger, that time when he had swallowed a bag, and how bleak shit looked once they had pumped his stomach. He got through it all that time, maybe he'd get through this. Then he remembered his daughter, and prayed for her all the way to jail.