Grover's dry for the first time in over a decade of slinging weed. Apparently his connection rolled over a guardrail into a rock cut coming up from the Big Smoke - not an impossible feat when the whore in your car's smoking crack and your pole simultaneous like. Fucking idiot had provisions for half the dealers in town besides Grover's ten pound sack of cheeb. Now he's resting peacefully under police guard in hospital. A lot of people want to finish what the rock cut started. Fuck sakes.
"The whore was unscathed," Grover adds.
"Tell someone who gives a shit," I snap back. "That stupid irresponsible prick jobber's making me do something fundamentally unsavoury."
"Theodore?" he ventures cautiously.
"Motherfucking Theodore," I spit and consider my meager supply of Grover's good dope. "You're not gonna have anything soonish, are you?"
"Afraid not brother," he says. "The wheels are in spin but not til tomorrow after lunch probably."
Fuck. "Shit, then I've gotta pay court to King Theo of the Ghetto."
Grover's trying not to laugh too hard. "Weaver, just hit up a local grower and..."
"Local grower like fuck. I'm too used to top stuff, man, so don't even start. Theodore's the only other schmuck in town can compete with your shit and you know it as well as I do." He's still all achuckle and it's starting to piss me off. "I could live without the laugh track, thank you." Grover breaks out into great bellowing belly laughter and I have to hold the droid a foot away from my face - I mean consider the belly it's issuing from. "Lemme know if you get back on your feet or see them."
Boop.
Deep breath and centre, Weaver. You can do this. H2SO4 still has Theodore's number on file and I'm invited to enjoy a ringback while I wait for my call to be connected. The Bobby Fuller Four are telling me about their legal issues before a woman's voice answers. "Allo?"
"Je cherche, Theo." My horrible French and rotten attitude aren't contributing to this being a good conversation.
"Un instant," she says before dropping the phone in my ear and shouting, "Theo!"
There's a harsh muttered conversation before his voice comes on the line, "Qu'est ce que fuck?"
"Theodore, it's Ronnie. You got any hay to cut?" The code's an old one and it's been ten years since I last called him but I still can't help but feel he leaves me hanging on the line on purpose.
"No doubt," he says eventually. "You remember where I am with all this time?"
"No worries there. See ya in a bit." He hangs up first but I'm too busy dreading the pending visit to care.
With a half hour bus ride ahead of me, there's plenty of time to rehash old history. Fucking Theodore, the guy's a useless tool like a toothless saw but still de facto King of the Ghetto. He's a thief and a drug addict who holds court with crack whores and junkies with a house full of kids - the ones who still draw baby bonus anyway. The shit I know about this guy could have him rotting down some hole in Penatanguishine for the rest of his unnatural life and now I've gotta kiss his scabby ass for a decent toke.
Way to be, One Nut.
I pull the bus cord two stops ahead of Theodore's so I can case the place before going in. There's some bad blood between me and a few of the King's Court and no sense stirring old shit. The ghetto hasn't changed except that the raggedy shoeless kids have cellphones and iPods now. My presence sends more than a few of the urchins scuttling home to tattle that there's a stranger in town. Drapes part and close at my passing and I'm sure that Theodore knows Ronnie's back. Approaching his unit I see little faces pressed up against the front window and wave. They flinch back like kittens in a pet store and I just pounded the glass - poor buggers.
Just to piss him off I make with a cop knock and wait for the sounds of frantic paraphernalia hiding. The door opens to a middle aged woman in scrubs and a fly away bun. She smiles a nightmare of yellow teeth at me and greets me warmly, "Long time no see, Ronnie. How's life treating you."
Loads better than you, I say to myself after recognizing the voice. "Shabbily, Chantal. How are the kids?" She gets a kiss on each cheek and my best shit eating grin. "Your man ready for me?"
"All school age and out of my hair until afyer 3." She steps aside to usher me in and it's like stepping back into the past. The mingled smells of narcotic smoke and disinfectant, the same shag carpet worn to a fade along the main traffic areas, incessant strident drone of evangelical television and scattering of broken cheap plastic toys around the pile of visiting shoes. But I can also smell the right kind of weed burning so I manage my distaste and remove my footwear per standing orders.
"Who's there, fuck!" The King's bellowing from his throne in the living room.
"S'Ronnie."
Like he didn't already know. "S'up, Man?" I call from the landing unshod and therefore supposedly supplicant. "The Network didn't advise you ahead of time?". He's overly proud of his forewarning system and fancies himself a halfassed Sherlock Holmes with his own band of Baker Street Irregulars. Any of them would sell him out for a dime bag.
"Maybe not, eh?" he mumbles as I come up into view. "S'been 10 years plus, man."
"Seems like only yesterday." And I mean it - nothing's changed except the video game system. Even the cronies in attendance are the same and I never hoped to see Raymond Narce or Denny Gagner again. "How's by you boys?" I ask with the sort of forced bonhomie I usually associate with bad television.
They don't answer but they're almost certainly too stoned to respond so I don't take it to heart. Theo even surprises me by picking up the conversational slack. "Everything's sweet all over," he says with a leer that makes my skin crawl. "Chantal got her Practical Nursing ticket. She can write now."
"Congratulations Chantal!" There's no mistaking the genuine feeling in my voice. Chantal's been talking about upgrading since before I fell out of this tragic scene. She allows herself a quick smile as I lift her off the ground in a hug. But Theo's some pissed when I put her down and not because I was just handling his woman but because I didn't congratulate him on his ticket to sweet scrips. He doesn't care if his wife of 15 years commits everywhich fraud in the book or that she could do time for it. As far as Theo is concerned he has a live in pharmacy. "It must have been a grand day of celebrations."
I venture it as a likely guess and don't miss far from the mark for Raymond to interject. "Theo got so pissed drunk he set the couch on fire trying to smoke a pill." The lanky goof proceeds to stand up and lift the tiger print duvet to show a burnt crater in the cushion. The court's getting giddy with the memory. "Said he wanted to set fire to the world."
A familiar refrain that. "How is Giselle?"
I realize my mistake an instant too late and sense a rising shit storm behind Theo's eyes. His lackeys' eyes (three between the two not counting Gagner's glass one) go wide at the name considering that the wee crack whore in question has been missing and presumed dead for a decade. "Shit, I mean Jeanette."
Chantal considers the question as carefully as any primary caregiver would. "She has her good and bad days but hasn't been out of bed for..." She breaks her flow of words to allow puzzlement playing some across her face. "Well, since the last time you were here."
"She's lucky to be alive," Theo says in a matter of tone and straight in my direction.
What a crock of shit. "Look, all I want is to trade some cash for some pot and hit the road." Theo smiles at his imagined victory and moves to get up off of his throne. "I really do appreciate the help."
He's frozen mid rise and I'm resigning myself to another round of bullshit until I track his eyes locked on something behind me. I turn to see a burned corpse staggering gauze wrapped from the back bedroom holding an ounce bag of weed ahead of her like a lantern lighting the way. I'm stricken by the awesome burning intensity of her eyes and the terrible purpose thrown from them like sparks. "I weighed it out myself." She enunciates every syllable with care and I nod dumb understanding like a Weaver brand bobble head. "Buck eighty," she adds holding out her other hand for payment - the one with the missing fingers.
"Thanks, kiddo." My hand finds money in my pocket and gives it over into the fried claw of a free hand. She passes the dope over without incident. "Primo stuff?" I ask when all I want is for her to go away so I can stop looking at her.
"Compassion club grade AAA." Her eyes have shifted over my shoulder to Theo. "Daddy got me a script card after you left."
Fuck me sideways but I gotta get out of this place. I turn to offer a hasty goodbye and Theo's still frozen mid rise but his face is apoplectic with rage. "She's supposed to be sleeping," he gurgles with a glare for Chantal. "She's supposed to be medicated."
His wife stares speechless at her patient with mixed pride and fear. Theo finally decides to lunge to his feet and rushes around the couch. "Jeanette" reels away from his clutching fingers, trips over her bandages and topples to the floor. Everyone sitting leaps up standing and everyone standing moves towards the fallen woman.
"Fuck!" Raymond yells when he's got a good look at the action. "She's doing the bacon!"
And yes, she's seizing alright, arms flapping like burnt chicken wings. Chantal's voice is rising to a keening scream even while she's clearing obstructions to make a clear path for administering care. Theo's trying to pull Chantal away screaming incoherent nonsense about tickets and scripts.
The twitching body rests so suddenly that I think her mortal coil has shuffled off forever but I should only be so lucky. "Love you, Ronnie."
Not bad as far as sentiments go but I'd rather they weren't her last words. Chantal's on her vitals but I don't need to hear the verdict to know she's gone. Silence reigns for a moment before Theo shouts, "Fucking useless bitch!" I think he's yelling at Chantal before he kicks the corpse in the head. "Worthless slut! You're my fucking ticket!"
The lackeys have their mouths open like stoned goldfish and Chantal's so locked in grief that she can only croon French at her "daughter's" corpse, straightening bandages and stroking what little remains of her hair. I feel bound by my lost faith to mourn with her and offer comfort but for fuck sakes I've got what I came for and I really don't want to be around when the authorities come around as they most assuredly will. What a mess.
"Well, it's been a slice," I remark on the way towards retrieving my shoes.
"The fuck you think you're going, shit wad?" Theodore's voice is trying to be menacing but he's scared so shitless that it comes out like a squeaky fart which fails to impress me.
"Go fuck yourself," I tell him point blank. "My staying's not gonna help matters any and I'll stomp your cock to a worse wreck than mime if you try stopping me."
He doesn't know whether to shit or go blind, as the saying goes, so I finish strapping my shoes on while he thinks about it. By the time I'm ready to strut he's got his wasted minions at his back as if the sight of three wasted wretches will inspire me to some sort of submissive posture.
No chance. "Have fun in fraud hell, Theodore. I hope you burn like she did."
Exit Weaver.
Fortune smiles on me as the bus stops just as I finish a much deserved cigarette. From out the ghetto comes a general outcry as news spreads of death in the court of the King. I've got the long bus ride home to hypothesize on Theo's fate. I suppose it all depends on how far the investigation goes. Frig, a simple blood test will be enough to show that the deceased is not Jeanette. Maybe that discovery will lead the authorities to question her father how he's managed to collect her disability cheques and fill her scripts for the last ten years if the woman in the back bedroom was not the affected person. Maybe they'll put Theodore in a drab, secure room with no windows and ask him enough of the right questions until he tells them how a thirteen year old girl chose suicide rather than live with the burns she suffered at her father's hands when he decided to burn the evidence of incest away one dumb stoned day. And maybe then he'll spill about the desperate crack whore who volunteered for kerosene and a match to take the dead girl's place. Chantal had to have known despite the massive rails of crushed E's she used back in the day. I hope only Theo takes the fall but air doubt it as much as Giselle's dying words. Hell, she loved anyone with a twenty to spare.
At least that's what I'll keep telling myself while remaining safe in the knowledge that Theo is well and truly burnt.
"The whore was unscathed," Grover adds.
"Tell someone who gives a shit," I snap back. "That stupid irresponsible prick jobber's making me do something fundamentally unsavoury."
"Theodore?" he ventures cautiously.
"Motherfucking Theodore," I spit and consider my meager supply of Grover's good dope. "You're not gonna have anything soonish, are you?"
"Afraid not brother," he says. "The wheels are in spin but not til tomorrow after lunch probably."
Fuck. "Shit, then I've gotta pay court to King Theo of the Ghetto."
Grover's trying not to laugh too hard. "Weaver, just hit up a local grower and..."
"Local grower like fuck. I'm too used to top stuff, man, so don't even start. Theodore's the only other schmuck in town can compete with your shit and you know it as well as I do." He's still all achuckle and it's starting to piss me off. "I could live without the laugh track, thank you." Grover breaks out into great bellowing belly laughter and I have to hold the droid a foot away from my face - I mean consider the belly it's issuing from. "Lemme know if you get back on your feet or see them."
Boop.
Deep breath and centre, Weaver. You can do this. H2SO4 still has Theodore's number on file and I'm invited to enjoy a ringback while I wait for my call to be connected. The Bobby Fuller Four are telling me about their legal issues before a woman's voice answers. "Allo?"
"Je cherche, Theo." My horrible French and rotten attitude aren't contributing to this being a good conversation.
"Un instant," she says before dropping the phone in my ear and shouting, "Theo!"
There's a harsh muttered conversation before his voice comes on the line, "Qu'est ce que fuck?"
"Theodore, it's Ronnie. You got any hay to cut?" The code's an old one and it's been ten years since I last called him but I still can't help but feel he leaves me hanging on the line on purpose.
"No doubt," he says eventually. "You remember where I am with all this time?"
"No worries there. See ya in a bit." He hangs up first but I'm too busy dreading the pending visit to care.
With a half hour bus ride ahead of me, there's plenty of time to rehash old history. Fucking Theodore, the guy's a useless tool like a toothless saw but still de facto King of the Ghetto. He's a thief and a drug addict who holds court with crack whores and junkies with a house full of kids - the ones who still draw baby bonus anyway. The shit I know about this guy could have him rotting down some hole in Penatanguishine for the rest of his unnatural life and now I've gotta kiss his scabby ass for a decent toke.
Way to be, One Nut.
I pull the bus cord two stops ahead of Theodore's so I can case the place before going in. There's some bad blood between me and a few of the King's Court and no sense stirring old shit. The ghetto hasn't changed except that the raggedy shoeless kids have cellphones and iPods now. My presence sends more than a few of the urchins scuttling home to tattle that there's a stranger in town. Drapes part and close at my passing and I'm sure that Theodore knows Ronnie's back. Approaching his unit I see little faces pressed up against the front window and wave. They flinch back like kittens in a pet store and I just pounded the glass - poor buggers.
Just to piss him off I make with a cop knock and wait for the sounds of frantic paraphernalia hiding. The door opens to a middle aged woman in scrubs and a fly away bun. She smiles a nightmare of yellow teeth at me and greets me warmly, "Long time no see, Ronnie. How's life treating you."
Loads better than you, I say to myself after recognizing the voice. "Shabbily, Chantal. How are the kids?" She gets a kiss on each cheek and my best shit eating grin. "Your man ready for me?"
"All school age and out of my hair until afyer 3." She steps aside to usher me in and it's like stepping back into the past. The mingled smells of narcotic smoke and disinfectant, the same shag carpet worn to a fade along the main traffic areas, incessant strident drone of evangelical television and scattering of broken cheap plastic toys around the pile of visiting shoes. But I can also smell the right kind of weed burning so I manage my distaste and remove my footwear per standing orders.
"Who's there, fuck!" The King's bellowing from his throne in the living room.
"S'Ronnie."
Like he didn't already know. "S'up, Man?" I call from the landing unshod and therefore supposedly supplicant. "The Network didn't advise you ahead of time?". He's overly proud of his forewarning system and fancies himself a halfassed Sherlock Holmes with his own band of Baker Street Irregulars. Any of them would sell him out for a dime bag.
"Maybe not, eh?" he mumbles as I come up into view. "S'been 10 years plus, man."
"Seems like only yesterday." And I mean it - nothing's changed except the video game system. Even the cronies in attendance are the same and I never hoped to see Raymond Narce or Denny Gagner again. "How's by you boys?" I ask with the sort of forced bonhomie I usually associate with bad television.
They don't answer but they're almost certainly too stoned to respond so I don't take it to heart. Theo even surprises me by picking up the conversational slack. "Everything's sweet all over," he says with a leer that makes my skin crawl. "Chantal got her Practical Nursing ticket. She can write now."
"Congratulations Chantal!" There's no mistaking the genuine feeling in my voice. Chantal's been talking about upgrading since before I fell out of this tragic scene. She allows herself a quick smile as I lift her off the ground in a hug. But Theo's some pissed when I put her down and not because I was just handling his woman but because I didn't congratulate him on his ticket to sweet scrips. He doesn't care if his wife of 15 years commits everywhich fraud in the book or that she could do time for it. As far as Theo is concerned he has a live in pharmacy. "It must have been a grand day of celebrations."
I venture it as a likely guess and don't miss far from the mark for Raymond to interject. "Theo got so pissed drunk he set the couch on fire trying to smoke a pill." The lanky goof proceeds to stand up and lift the tiger print duvet to show a burnt crater in the cushion. The court's getting giddy with the memory. "Said he wanted to set fire to the world."
A familiar refrain that. "How is Giselle?"
I realize my mistake an instant too late and sense a rising shit storm behind Theo's eyes. His lackeys' eyes (three between the two not counting Gagner's glass one) go wide at the name considering that the wee crack whore in question has been missing and presumed dead for a decade. "Shit, I mean Jeanette."
Chantal considers the question as carefully as any primary caregiver would. "She has her good and bad days but hasn't been out of bed for..." She breaks her flow of words to allow puzzlement playing some across her face. "Well, since the last time you were here."
"She's lucky to be alive," Theo says in a matter of tone and straight in my direction.
What a crock of shit. "Look, all I want is to trade some cash for some pot and hit the road." Theo smiles at his imagined victory and moves to get up off of his throne. "I really do appreciate the help."
He's frozen mid rise and I'm resigning myself to another round of bullshit until I track his eyes locked on something behind me. I turn to see a burned corpse staggering gauze wrapped from the back bedroom holding an ounce bag of weed ahead of her like a lantern lighting the way. I'm stricken by the awesome burning intensity of her eyes and the terrible purpose thrown from them like sparks. "I weighed it out myself." She enunciates every syllable with care and I nod dumb understanding like a Weaver brand bobble head. "Buck eighty," she adds holding out her other hand for payment - the one with the missing fingers.
"Thanks, kiddo." My hand finds money in my pocket and gives it over into the fried claw of a free hand. She passes the dope over without incident. "Primo stuff?" I ask when all I want is for her to go away so I can stop looking at her.
"Compassion club grade AAA." Her eyes have shifted over my shoulder to Theo. "Daddy got me a script card after you left."
Fuck me sideways but I gotta get out of this place. I turn to offer a hasty goodbye and Theo's still frozen mid rise but his face is apoplectic with rage. "She's supposed to be sleeping," he gurgles with a glare for Chantal. "She's supposed to be medicated."
His wife stares speechless at her patient with mixed pride and fear. Theo finally decides to lunge to his feet and rushes around the couch. "Jeanette" reels away from his clutching fingers, trips over her bandages and topples to the floor. Everyone sitting leaps up standing and everyone standing moves towards the fallen woman.
"Fuck!" Raymond yells when he's got a good look at the action. "She's doing the bacon!"
And yes, she's seizing alright, arms flapping like burnt chicken wings. Chantal's voice is rising to a keening scream even while she's clearing obstructions to make a clear path for administering care. Theo's trying to pull Chantal away screaming incoherent nonsense about tickets and scripts.
The twitching body rests so suddenly that I think her mortal coil has shuffled off forever but I should only be so lucky. "Love you, Ronnie."
Not bad as far as sentiments go but I'd rather they weren't her last words. Chantal's on her vitals but I don't need to hear the verdict to know she's gone. Silence reigns for a moment before Theo shouts, "Fucking useless bitch!" I think he's yelling at Chantal before he kicks the corpse in the head. "Worthless slut! You're my fucking ticket!"
The lackeys have their mouths open like stoned goldfish and Chantal's so locked in grief that she can only croon French at her "daughter's" corpse, straightening bandages and stroking what little remains of her hair. I feel bound by my lost faith to mourn with her and offer comfort but for fuck sakes I've got what I came for and I really don't want to be around when the authorities come around as they most assuredly will. What a mess.
"Well, it's been a slice," I remark on the way towards retrieving my shoes.
"The fuck you think you're going, shit wad?" Theodore's voice is trying to be menacing but he's scared so shitless that it comes out like a squeaky fart which fails to impress me.
"Go fuck yourself," I tell him point blank. "My staying's not gonna help matters any and I'll stomp your cock to a worse wreck than mime if you try stopping me."
He doesn't know whether to shit or go blind, as the saying goes, so I finish strapping my shoes on while he thinks about it. By the time I'm ready to strut he's got his wasted minions at his back as if the sight of three wasted wretches will inspire me to some sort of submissive posture.
No chance. "Have fun in fraud hell, Theodore. I hope you burn like she did."
Exit Weaver.
Fortune smiles on me as the bus stops just as I finish a much deserved cigarette. From out the ghetto comes a general outcry as news spreads of death in the court of the King. I've got the long bus ride home to hypothesize on Theo's fate. I suppose it all depends on how far the investigation goes. Frig, a simple blood test will be enough to show that the deceased is not Jeanette. Maybe that discovery will lead the authorities to question her father how he's managed to collect her disability cheques and fill her scripts for the last ten years if the woman in the back bedroom was not the affected person. Maybe they'll put Theodore in a drab, secure room with no windows and ask him enough of the right questions until he tells them how a thirteen year old girl chose suicide rather than live with the burns she suffered at her father's hands when he decided to burn the evidence of incest away one dumb stoned day. And maybe then he'll spill about the desperate crack whore who volunteered for kerosene and a match to take the dead girl's place. Chantal had to have known despite the massive rails of crushed E's she used back in the day. I hope only Theo takes the fall but air doubt it as much as Giselle's dying words. Hell, she loved anyone with a twenty to spare.
At least that's what I'll keep telling myself while remaining safe in the knowledge that Theo is well and truly burnt.
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