by Cody Cline
I saw Jimmy coming from two blocks out, spotting the loose, rolling sway of his shoulders before I could make out his face. It was the strut of a man holding weight. When Jimmy had nothing—when he was heavy—he walked like his joints were rusted: creaking steps like the Tin Man. But today, Jimmy had a bounce. Jimmy scored.
Jimmy had an oil can.
I felt the familiar Pavlovian knot twist my guts. There was no bell, but I drooled all the same. I drooled when I had that walk and a hundred variations of it I had seen—whether in my direction or not. Amy used to carry a limp when she held something heavy; a limp from somewhere between her legs that made it hard to keep her eyes for long. It was always worse when she left the motel, easing by the time she made it back to base. Walk it off. In the dry weeks, I wish I had her currency. I watched it dismantle her. Steal her. It wasn’t chivalry; it was envy. I looked at her and saw a shorter path to the fix. I hated her in my shakes that she had something to give and I couldn’t. I loved her when she fixed me. And I hated myself for letting her love me at all.
Amy was gone now.
Jimmy stopped a few feet away, smelling of sweat and nerves. “Hey, Kurt,” Jimmy said, a grin cutting across his dark face. One hand remained locked, palm down, over his pocket. I could feel it there. “Ready to go to the moon?”
“Let’s fucking go, Jimmy.” My throat was dry, lined with sand.
“Nah.” Jimmy’s grin tilted, holding the space between us. “Who’s the greatest?”
I sighed. “You’re the greatest, Jimmy.”
“The King?”
“The King,” I relented.
“The God?”
“Alright, Jimmy.” I looked up at him as we danced. Language didn’t belong to me or Jimmy; it belonged to the transaction. These are just words. “You’re the God.”
“There we go.” He laughed, satisfied, turning his shoulder to lead the way.
Jimmy wasn’t God though. God was small, quiet, and wrapped in foil inside Jimmy’s pocket. Jimmy and I were just shouldering timber.
We started down the alley, our shadows stretching ahead of us like a prediction. “You hear about Amy?” I asked without looking up.
Jimmy didn’t stop, but his stride stuttered for a fraction of a second. “Yeah, man. Fucking shame.”
We didn’t say anything else about it. We didn’t need to. It was a fucking shame. We didn’t say anything because we both felt it—the cold, terrible relief that where there had been three, there were now two.
More for us.
A sheet of plywood blocked a blown-out doorway into the backside of a long-abandoned building. Jimmy and I slipped in. The clink of a dropped spoon and “Fuck!” of a lost hit drove a certain kind of empathy up our spines. We picked up our pace and ducked into an old storeroom, empty except for some shelves and a kit. We had a ritual. I took off my shoe and sock while Jimmy dug a candle, a couple harpoons, and a spoon from a backpack wedged beneath a storage rack. Then, from his pocket, he pulled a little sliver of foil with just enough brown gold.
I couldn’t peel my eyes off of it. I barely noticed Jimmy returning the third needle to the backpack..
I did notice the blackened tips of my two little toes and the tiny scabs that had begun forming between them. Jimmy noticed too as he lassoed the dinosaur.
“Damn, Kurt.” He pulled the rubber hose tight and spoke through gritted teeth. “Don’t go losin’ ’em.”
I wanted to reply with something clever. I used to always have something clever. Now, though, I was a surgeon. The spoon and cotton my operating table. Jimmy and I the patients. I gave him half. If anything, a little more. It’s hard to know until it’s all loaded.
“I won’t feel it” was the best I could manage as I passed the needle. We’d danced this way since we were kids stealing smokes from our moms. Before the needle wrote the rules.
“Yeah? You feel that?” He nodded at the second needle as I steadied it to the familiar spot. There was a sting. There was heat. There was my courage.
“Oh fuck, Jim.” My eyelids fell out of sync as everything slowed.
“We’re lunar.” Jimmy’s eyes were closed. His words came out like chewed cud. We sat together, equal in the darkness that nods behind you when the damage is done. Fixed.
More for us.
Some time later, I woke up without Jimmy. The oil can was gone and sickness was creeping back into my bones.
Sickness caused my crawl across the city to take hours, stopping every other block to shit and puke on my way to the cure. The neighborhood was a mix of houses that were nice ten years ago, but barred windows and houses like this one—trap—kept property value low these days. Taking up the entire doorframe of this residence was Robert, a Hispanic tank who looked at me like he knew why I was here.
“Hey, Berto.” I knew he knew why I was here, but I still always struggled with it. “I . . . um . . .” My eyes drifted to his shoes, sneakers of some kind I couldn’t guess but worth more than all my possessions. “I’m trying to find . . . y-y’know . . .”
“Heard about Jimmy.” I couldn’t tell if he was asking or telling. “Shame.”
I nodded like I was supposed to, my knuckles white around a single bill, “Yeah, um . . . look, I’ve got ten dollars. Can you . . . help me?”
More for me.
Category: Featured, Fiction, Short Story