“Phillip, I’m not riding home with him,” I argue outside the door of the Audi parked in front of the grand opening of the newest bar in town.

“We don’t have a choice,” he slurs. “I’m in no condition to drive.”

“Well, maybe you shouldn’t have drunk so much,” I snap back at him. Every month we go through the same thing. He has to have his monthly drug test, so he doesn’t touch any drugs for a few days. But he still drinks like a fish. Without the meth amping him up, alcohol obliterates him quickly. We usually stay home during those days, but he didn’t want to miss this grand opening. Heaven forbid he miss something and not establish his dominance. “You always tell me to stay away from Bernie, and now you’re telling me to get in a car with him.” I barely resist stomping my feet like a child, but I’m so pissed off he won’t listen to me.

A dark scowl descends on his face, and I know I’m in trouble if I argue further. “I tell you to stay away from him alone. He’s my best friend, so you’ll be fine. What the fuck is the matter with you? Always bitching like a little girl lately. Just get in the car and shut the fuck up.”

He opens the back-passenger side door for me and roughly shoves me inside. I can’t even care at this point. I’ve been up for four days and stayed away from the blow today myself. I just want to get home and sleep. Laying down in the back seat, I vaguely hear Bernie giving Phillip shit about me. Bernie hates that Phillip moved me in with him and that they don’t go out and pick up ass for the night together anymore. Although, maybe if Bernie remembered he has a wife at home, it wouldn’t be such an issue. I hate this guy.

Through the months of living with Phillip, I’ve slowly learned the way their operation works. Between the two of them, they bring in meth and cocaine, split it up, and then they both have their own people they distribute to. But Phillip is classy. We drive downtown and he disappears into businesses, big corporations and comes out with thousands of dollars. Then he also has dealers that he supplies with larger amounts to sell. But our friends party at our house for free. However Bernie is trash. He’ll deal to anyone, including kids and those who shoot up. Phillip would never do that. Plus, I’ve heard around town that Bernie also deals all types of pills and heroin. I tried to ask Phillip about it, but he told me as long as I live in his house with him and he’s taking care of me, I’ll mind my business and ignore what people say. Since Bernie usually stays at slummy bars, and I rarely have to see him, I honor his wishes.

The car jolts, shaking me out of my thoughts. On top of everything else, Bernie drives like an asshole. It’s only one a.m., much earlier than we usually go home, but I’m thank—the tires screech as my stomach lurches into my throat. Throwing up my hands to try to grip onto anything, I hear the scrape of metal before we’re airborne. Bernie and Phillip are yelling, but I can’t hear what they’re saying as I wonder if this is it, is this when I die?

Slowly I become aware of voices, and I flutter my lashes trying to get my eyes to open, the whirling of red and blue lights hit me, causing me to squeeze my eyes back shut. The door at my feet opens and hands grip my ankles, tugging on them. Over the background voices, I hear, “Come on, sir. We need you to wake up and step out of the vehicle. Are you hurt?”

Groggily I shake my head, trying to make sense of what’s happening. We were only twenty minutes from home, so close to my bed. I need sleep or a line or something; I’ve been up for so long. An officer helps pull me out of the car, and I stumble toward him, unsteady on my feet. Finally, my eyes open enough for me to glance around. Phillip is in handcuffs leaned on his stomach up against a car, but there’s no sign of Bernie. Then I’m being shoved against the car, the feel of hands roughly running down my body and up near my crotch startles me. As my arms are jerked backward, I feel the cold press of metal around them as someone says… oh my god, he’s reading me my rights. A coldness I’ve never experienced consumes my body, and I turn my head to the side, spewing what little food I’ve had in the last few days. I’m heaving, wishing I had stayed home. Wishing this night had never happened. I’m a college graduate; I’m supposed to be an accountant for fuck’s sake.

W-what’s going on? I roll my head to the side and startle when I realize I’m in a little box of a room all by myself. Vaguely, I remember being shoved into the police car. Well, no, Phillip shoved me into the Audi, I was actually placed into the back of the police car. When we got to the station, they took my picture and I was fingerprinted. There was no sign of Phillip or Bernie and someone asked if I had anything to say, but I didn’t. Seeing the phone on the wall, I go to push myself up to stand to walk over, but one hand is encumbered. It’s disorientating to see my own wrist cuffed and attached to a chain secured to the wall. Can I use the phone? I’ve never been arrested before, never been in trouble at all. Living with Phillip, I’ve seen my fair amount of police as they come to our house to question him about something time and again, but that’s it. He’s never been arrested for anything in the months I’ve lived with him, so I’ve never even been in a police station. I know he got in big trouble with the law a few years ago, that’s why the monthly drug test, but I don’t do anything wrong. He’s the dealer, not me.

I sit for what feels like hours trying to decide if I’m allowed to use the phone. I test standing up to see if I can even reach it with my wrist chained and discover I can. The door opens and an older, portly man in uniform enters to undo the cuff around my wrist. “Come on, Mr. Blake. It’s time to get you your new wardrobe.” He puts a new set of handcuffs around my wrists and leads me down a long hall and through several doors. We stop in a room lined with shelves that contain bright orange clothes. The cuffs are removed and I’m told to undress. Goosebumps break out all over my flesh as I slowly pull my clothes off. I still feel dazed, whether from the accident or my situation I’m not sure. There’s an ache in my lower back, but I was scared to be separated from Phillip, so when one of the officers at the accident asked if I needed medical attention, I shook my head no. But maybe I did. I shake my head trying to make the world make sense. A new officer approaches me where I stand naked in the middle of the room. If I thought being patted down by the car was bad, this is humiliating. Tears form in my eyes as the officer even flattens his hands between my butt cheeks. Do they think I have drugs up there? When he’s done, he throws one of the ugly, orange jumpsuits at me and tells me to hurry up and put it on. Then he leaves the room.

Alone, I scramble into it as fast as I can, but it’s forever before someone else comes in the room to get me. This one is looking at something in his hand, and we both jerk our heads back when he looks up at me. “Julian, man, what have you gotten yourself into?” Embarrassment eats at me, and I feel my face flame red in shame. It suddenly hits me that I’ve been arrested, and before I can question why, the voices at the scene start to take shape in my mind. They only found two of us, and there were pills shoved under the seat. Oh my god, they said it could be either one of ours. I’ve been arrested for drugs. I shake my head at my old friend from high school, no longer able to meet his eyes as mortification at my situation compresses on my chest making it hard to breathe.

He crosses the room and stops in front of me. As he gently pulls my arms in front of my body, I stare at his shiny black shoes trying to get my emotions under control. This is so humiliating, and ridiculously, I feel bad for putting him in a situation where he has to treat an old friend like a criminal. I want to tell him I’m not, that I just love someone who makes an unlawful living, but that he’s a good guy. I want to tell him that he takes good care of me; he won’t let me work and showers me with gifts. He’s good to his family; he buys special gifts for his mama. It’s not as bad as it looks.

Even as I think these things, I know how crazy that sounds. No one wants to hear that I live with the good kind of drug dealer. Thinking back to my days in DARE in high school, when it was me and Chuck and this man here who grew up to be an officer, I remember the contempt we had for drugs, and the people who poisoned society with them. Again, I blink furiously to fight back the unbidden tears that swell up in my eyes.

As he walks me across the hall toward another cell, I see Phillip walking down the hall in his regular clothes with an officer to each side of him. However, he’s not in cuffs. Blinking at him in confusion, he sees me and yells, “Don’t worry, baby. I’ll have you out in no time.” For the first time since we left the bar, I take a deep breath. Relief courses through me because I know Phillip has the money, and I know he’ll take care of me.

As my childhood friend unlocks the cuffs from my wrists and leads me into the cell of men, he whispers, “I’ll keep you in here and make sure you don’t get transported to general population while we wait for him to get you out.” Thankful, I finally meet his eyes. They’re bleak with sadness, but swimming with compassion. I give one stiff nod before he closes the door and relocks it, and I turn to face the inside of the cell.

At least ten men are in here. Some shoot me a curious glance, one sleeps, and another looks angry. Quickly walking to the back of the cell, I sit on the bench and push myself into the corner. Not for the first time, I’m thankful that I’m not a small guy and that I can hold my own in a fight. But I have to admit to myself that it’s scary being here, getting arrested, and now having no control of my own life. Plus the pure exhaustion, my limbs are heavy with lack of sleep, and my eyes keep trying to close. There’s no way I’m sleeping in here, though. No way at all.

Checking out the layout of the room, I see a pot for using the bathroom in the opposite back corner. There’s even a roll of toilet paper sitting there and bile rises in my throat at the thought of being in here long enough to have to make use of it. I haven’t used the restroom in hours, but my bladder feels like it’s shut down. All my organs do. Maybe I’m dying from not having slept in days and not having access to more meth.

Dropping my head back onto the wall, the last nine months pass through my brain like one of those old toy movie projectors. I’d gone home with Phillip the night of my graduation and never left. We’d had sex that weekend, so much sex, and it was rougher than I normally liked, but we were both flips, so he didn’t demand anything of me that he wasn’t willing to do, too. Every time I left after that, he’d ask me to come back later. Eventually, I was no longer looking for a job, I was spending all my time with him. When he found me on the brand-new MacBook laptop he’d bought me one day looking for jobs, he’d asked me to move in. Once I did, I never looked for a job again. He liked me with him at all times. There were times he left me at home, like when he’d go to Bernie’s, but for the most part, we were always together.

It was inevitable living with him that the drugs crept into my life. He’d go for days awake, and there was no way for me to keep up with him. The first time he’d offered me a line it was just us in the house, but it was four am, and I was ready for bed. He’d wanted to go help his father on a house renovation he was doing, and since I’d done construction in the summers all the way through high school and college, he wanted me to come. That was the beginning of the end for me. The descent into being a full-blown meth addict was a quick downward slope that until now I’d never considered getting out of.

When the doors next open, a line of men enter and push their way onto the benches with us. Up until now there’s been no conversation, but these guys enter talking and laughing amongst themselves. They’re from general population, and they’re here to wait to go to court. “What time is it?” I ask the huge, tattooed guy who has taken a seat next to me.

“Eight o’clock in the morning. We have court at nine,” he says, suddenly taking an interest in my presence. By the way his eyes trace down my face, and his nostrils flare when they reach my body, I wished I’d kept my mouth shut.

Eight in the morning? But Phillip had to have left hours ago. He was out so quickly, why am I still here? My mind races thinking who to call. I can’t call Chuck. He hasn’t spoken to me since we ran into each other at the bar he’d left me at on graduation, and he’d found out I’d moved in with Phillip. He’d taken one look at my blown pupils, shaken his head, and walked out of my life. I’d only called my parents randomly since then, too. Scared of what they’d see if I went to visit them.

Feeling pressure on my thigh, I look down to see a big meaty hand squeezing it. Standing abruptly, I walk to the cell door and peer out. The minute I see my friend from high school I call out for him. “Can I make a phone call?”

“Who do you want to call, Julian? Because I have to be honest with you, I won’t be able to hold you here once they come back from court, and I don’t think your friend is coming back for you.” The disdain is clear on his face when he says friend while making air quotes.

“I need to call my father.”