Josh

 

 

Skeeze drives me home. Harlow has disappeared with the club truck so he takes me on the back of his bike. That sucks on so many levels. First of all, I’m riding bitch. Second, I didn’t see Harlow again before I left. I still have her keys in my pocket and I’m worried how that’s going to play out now that I’ve left the club. And third, it sucks because it hurts like a motherfucker. Every bump, every pebble we ride over, I feel inside my body. I’m about to barf again when I finally tip myself off the back of his bike. I hand Skeeze his extra helmet back, shout a ‘Thanks’ to him over the roar of the engine, and shuffle my way up to the door as he tears off down the street. I’m sure Mrs. Merhsawn across the street is in her window, scowling after him.

The bikers are back, she’s probably thinking. All because of those no-good kids.

She’s always been a nosey bitch.

When I get inside, I immediately throw the locks and collapse onto the couch. It’s lumpy. And cold. The house is so fucking cold. Has it always been this cold? This dark? Logically I know it has been, but I’m more aware of it now than before. I’ve been ruined by the club. Maybe in more ways than one.

It’s starting to set in, what happened. What I just agreed to. I didn’t have a lot of options. I could either offer them what I did or I could watch them take over. Maybe by force. It’d be just me and Harrison against an entire biker gang, and Kill alone would be enough to neutralize both of us. I can’t fight them all. I don’t want to. And what does it matter? I’ll be gone in a year anyway. And if I don’t expand with them now and start saving for my future, I won’t be able to make it at MIT. How will I pay for housing and Pops and the mortgage on this house? There aren’t enough hours in the day to work that much, let alone go to class. I’m barely finding time to study as it is.

My phone vibrates in my pocket. I know it’s Harrison before I see his name on the caller ID.

“What’s up, man?” I answer.

“Finally!” he exclaims. “Where the hell have you been, Josh? I’ve been calling and texting all night.”

“I know. I was busy.”

“I thought you were dead.”

“No. Not quite.”

“What were you doing?”

“I made a deal with the Due.”

Harrison is quiet for a second. Hesitant. “Is it good or bad?”

“It’s good. I think. I don’t know. The last few days have been a blur. I’m still getting my bearings.”

“What’s going to happen? Are they going to help get our stuff back?”

I pull the bottle of pills from my pocket, tossing it carelessly onto the coffee table. “They already did. I have it. We owe them ten percent of the profits for recovering it.”

“Okay, that’s fair.”

“There’s more.”

“Oh, shit.”

I run my hand through my hair, tugging it away from my eyes. “They’re going to fund us. Help us expand.”

“Seriously? How much?”

“Fifteen hundred in exchange for five percent interest on the loan.”

“That’s not too bad. That’s actually really good.”

“Plus fifteen percent for protection.”

“Whoa, wait. What? They’re taking twenty percent of the profits?”

“Fifteen percent of the profits plus five percent on the loan until we repay it. That’s the deal. They want one of their guys to go with me on all drops to make sure shit like last night doesn’t happen again.”

“And you’re okay with that?” he asks dubiously.

The truth is, I’m not. This is my business, my brainchild, and I’m pretty annoyed to have to hand over so much of my blood, sweat, and tears to someone else. But life is made of choices and more often than not, they’re bad choices. They’re shitty and shittier, but you still have to choose. And that’s what I did. I made my choice and now I have to live with it.

“It is what it is,” I tell him dryly. “I either cut them in or they cut us out and take over. They made that very clear.”

“Jesus, this sucks.”

“There’s more. At the end of the year, we hand it off to them. Otherwise they would have taken a bigger cut.”

“Okay, well, that’s not actually a bad thing, right? Neither of us was going to keep doing this after graduation anyway.”

“Right. With our product back and their money to expand our inventory with, we’ll be making more money than we ever have before.”

“And you think you can work with them?” he asks carefully. “They’re not exactly upstanding citizens. What if they straight up rob you?”

“They’re outlaws, not assholes. We shook on it. I’m not worried.”

“Do you think you should be?”

Probably.

“Maybe. I’ll see how things go.”

Worst case scenario is I show Raw the ropes and he takes over before the year is up. As in, forcefully takes over. I teach him everything he needs to know and suddenly he doesn’t need me anymore. Just like that, I’ll be out. But maybe I’m underestimating them. Maybe I’m putting a stigma on them the same way this town has done to me. No facts, no evidence; just judgement.

There goes Josh, the inbred baby of the town lunatic.

There go the Devil’s Due, the murdering thieves from the wrong side of the river.

“Do they know about me?” Harrison asks. He’s trying to sound cool but his tone is tense.

“No. I didn’t tell them about you or your seven percent. They don’t need to know.”

“I thought you were going to be showing somebody how to do this. They’ll find out about me when they see the day-to-day.”

“They can know you exist but they don’t need to know who you are. And when we’re out, they can get their own relay in place.”

“You don’t have to protect me, man. I’ll be fine.”

“I also don’t have to tell them everything,” I reply adamantly. “They don’t own me. Or you.”

“Alright. Okay. However you want to play it, I’m with you.”

“Start getting the word out to our buyers that we’re stocked and ready to deal. And blacklist Bryan.”

“Yeah, no shit we blacklist Bryan.”

“Let people know he’s blacklisted and let them know why. Call him out by name to everyone.”

“If I do that, they’ll wonder what’s going to stop you from blowing them up to rest of the school.”

“I know. That’s the point. We’re making an example of him. If people fuck with me, they get exposed. End of story. If they’re not ready to buy under those conditions, we aren’t selling.”

Harrison hesitates. “We’re not your friendly neighborhood drug dealers anymore, are we?”

“I got my face broken over a fistful of pills,” I remind him darkly. “I’m fuckin’ done with friendly.”

 

***

 

I make it to my afternoon classes. I make sure to wear my hat, and when the professor in my English Lit lecture tells me to take it off, I keep my head low and my hair in my eyes as much as I can. I’m sitting in the back. No one notices how fucked up my face is. Not until I’m heading out into the hall, looking to make a quick exit.

“Hey, Josh,” Candace calls after me.

“Fuck,” I mutter under my breath. I wait for her to catch up, keeping my head down low.

Candace is one of my buyers. A regular looking for uppers mostly. School is rough on her, harder than she thought it’d be, and under the pressure of parents looking for perfection, she started cracking last year. That’s when she called Harrison for the first time. Now she’s on the horn once a week looking for a quick fix to take the edge off. But she won’t ask me about it here in the halls. She knows the rules.

She smiles up at me, a glint in her eyes that makes me shrink inside.

Candace is good about the rules, but about a month ago I wasn’t. I was lonely and worn down. Tired of the grind. Tired of living alone. I went to a party, got to talking to Candace, got to kissing her. She shoved her hand down my pants, burning a green light in my eyes, and before I knew what I was doing, I was fucking her in the bedroom upstairs.

I’ve felt weird around her ever since.

“Hey, I wanted to tell you that there’s a party tonight at—” She stops when she gets close enough to see my face. Her own falls dramatically. “Oh my God! Josh what happened to you?! Is that from…from when…”

“I was in a car accident,” I fill in for her loudly, making sure people passing by hear me. “It’s not a big deal.”

“Are you sure? It looks bad.”

“I got checked out. I’m good.”

“Is that why you weren’t in class yesterday?”

“Yeah. I stayed home to rest.”

It’s bullshit and she knows it. As one of my regulars, she got the message from Harrison that Bryan jumped me to steal product and he’s being blacklisted for it. But Candace is smart. She knows I don’t want the truth getting around to the whole campus, so if I say I was in a car accident, I was in a car accident.

“I hope you feel better soon,” she coos sympathetically. “You can call me if you need anything, okay?”

I smile mildly at her, trying to keep my lip from busting open for the hundredth time. “Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Okay. Well, I doubt you’re feeling up to it, but there’s a party tonight at the Winslow House. Everybody is going to be there.”

“Yeah, I’ll probably make an appearance.”

“I could come pick you up. We could go together.”

“I’ll be working,” I remind her pointedly.

“Right. Yeah. Of course.” She blushes, smiling brightly to cover. “Well, I’ll see you there, then.”

“See ya, Candace.”

She grins bigger, nodding her head before darting around me and disappearing into the herd of people passing by.

I feel kind of bad about that. Candace is cute. She’s smart. She’s a nice girl, but I’ll never hook up with her again. I’m not the right guy for her. Not by a long shot.

Before I head home, I make a quick detour to the library. It’s quiet inside, barely anybody around, and it’s easy to find a secluded seat in the corner. Afternoon light spills in behind me as I sit down heavily, my body done with me and my bullshit insistence on existing. It's ready to go home, lay down, and wait for time to heal all of my wounds. And so am I. But not just yet.

First, I have to get a little payback.

I log in with a user name and password I stole from under my advisor’s keyboard last year. I didn’t know why I needed them then, but I was looking to the future. I was prepping because that’s what I do. Foresight is my superpower because it’s my belief that when you’re born poor, the deck is stacked against you and it never hurts to keep an ace or two up your sleeve to even the playing field.

Once I’m in, I kill the regular web browser. I switch to DOS, going inside the code of the computer. Tapping into the network behind the scenes. It’s not the first time I’ve been here because the thing about Computer Engineers is that – surprise! –  we’re good with computers. There are entire symposiums on hacking every year in Vegas. Challenges set up by companies begging people to hack them and then show them how they did it so they can strengthen their security. I’m low level, just learning, but I’m a quick study. I’m making friends online in a large community of men and women dedicated to fucking shit up for fun and/or profit, and they’re excellent teachers. Better than most the professors at this school. Getting to what I need inside the very vulnerable Winslow server is almost too easy to be proud of.

Almost.

I bring up Bryan Garrison’s personal information, filling the screen with his ID picture, address, social security number, and blood type. The list goes on and on, his whole life at my fingertips making the possibilities endless. I could snag his social and rack up credit card debt. I could fuck with his grades, getting him kicked off the football team. That’s a favorite of mine, one I heavily consider, but I decide it’s thinking too small. I choose to go nuclear instead.

I’m going to use his personal information to have him declared legally dead.

It sounds impossible, but it’s easier than you’d think. All I have to do is forge a death certificate using the information in front of me, submit it to the state, and in four to six weeks Bryan Garrison is a ghost. It’s a long time to wait for payback but when you consider the fact that at the end of it I’ll have effectively killed the guy without laying a hand on him, it’s completely worth it. His license will be revoked. His social security number will be deactivated. He won’t be able to open a bank account. Apply for a credit card. Register for school next semester. He’ll have to spend the rest of his life battling the bureaucracy to convince them that he didn’t steal his identity from a dead guy. It’s death by a thousand papercuts, and while punching his face into a pulp would have its own satisfactions, there’s an elegant simplicity to this that I can’t escape.

As I’m walking home, a print out of Bryan’s life in my pocket, my phone beeps impatiently. I expect it to be Harrison with more orders. He’s been bringing them in all morning, my phone filled with coded text messages that look like dollar signs.

But it’s not him. It’s Harlow.

“Hello?” I answer innocently.

“Where the fuck are my keys?” she demands.

I smile at her anger. “Sorry, who is this?”

“Don’t mess with me. Today is not the day.”

“Didn’t sleep well?”

“Like a baby. You?”

“I slept better than I have in ages.”

“I’m so happy for you,” she replies sarcastically. “Where are my fucking keys?

“In my pocket.”

“Where is your pocket?”

“Walking home.”

“You walked home from the club?”

“No, I’m walking home from class. Skeeze dropped me off at home this morning.”

She snarls with frustration. “Why didn’t you give my keys to him?”

“Because I didn’t want to.”

“I’m afraid to ask why not.”

“Because I want to see you again.”

Harlow is quiet for a long time. Long enough for me to cover a half block of street. Long enough for me to get a text. I glance at it quickly. It’s from Raw. I’m supposed to call him back ASAP.

“Josh, what happened last night,” Harlow begins, her voice hushed. It makes me wonder where she is. Who she’s with. “That was a mistake. Devo will kill you if he finds out.”

“No, he’d beat my ass if he finds out we kissed last night. He’d kill me if he found out we slept together three years ago.”

“Jesus God, are you really this insane?”

“It’s starting to feel like it lately.”

“What’s happening here? Are you blackmailing me? How do I get my keys back and keep you from getting yourself shot?”

“Admit you want me. That you wanted me back then and you want me now.”

Harlow is silent again. For too long this time. So long, I check to make sure the call is still connected. She’s there. She’s just not talking to me.

“I need you, Harlow,” I admit roughly, the words fighting their way out of my closing throat. “I always have. And until last night, I wasn’t sure if you needed me too.”

“I don’t,” she snaps.

“You’re lying.”

“You don’t know shit about me and what I want.”

“I know everything about you. And you know everything about me. And you want me.”

She sighs. I’m relieved by how shaky it is. By the tremble of emotion that betrays her.

My phone beeps. It’s Raw again. He’s calling this time.

“I’ve got to take this call,” I tell her. “But I’ll see you later with your keys. We’ll talk then.”

“Josh, that is such a fucking bad idea.”

“I know, but I’m making a lot of those today. Might as well ride it out and see where the wave takes me.”

 I hang up on her before she tries to talk me out of coming back to the club. I answer Raw’s call just before it goes to voicemail.

“Hey, man.”

“What’s up, brother?” he greets me happily. “Where you at?”

“I’m walking home from class.”

“I’ll meet you at your house, yeah?”

I feel myself falling a little inside, worry weighing me down. “You know where I live?”

“Next door to Harlow’s piece of shit old man, right?”

“That’s the place.”

“Yeah, I know it. I’ll be there in ten lookin’ to learn.”

“I’ll see you then.”

Raw beats me home. He’s waiting on the porch when I walk up, his bike parked in the center of the driveway. He’s wearing his cut over another white T-shirt. He has jeans on, ripped and oil stained from where he’s wiped his hands on them after working on his bike, I’d bet. Surprisingly clean, white Adidas are on his feet.

He grins when he sees me coming. “You gotta get a car, dude. That walk had to be murder with your side fucked up the way it is.”

“It wasn’t fun, no.” I nod to his bike. “You don’t think I need a hog instead?”

“You know how to ride?”

“No fucking clue.”

He grins again, standing as I step up onto the porch. “Start with a car. Work your way up to a beast.”

Raw follows me inside, watching as I quickly throw the locks. I toss my backpack down by the couch as I head into the living room, opening curtains to let in the light.

I hear Raw throw the switch by the front door. Then another. He clicks it back and forth, looking at me expectantly.

“No power,” I admit because I have to. “It was shut off a while ago.”

He nods slowly, surveying the room as he steps deeper inside the house. “Not a lot of furniture either.”

“I sold most of it.”

“I’m starting to wonder if this deal is going to be as tasty as I thought.”

“Life has me living outside my means. Without college tuition and a mortgage, you’ll be making bank. Trust me.”

“I got a kid. I wouldn’t be so sure about that. What are those?” he asks, gesturing to the cabinets against the far wall.

“Those are what you’re here for.” I pull the key from under my shirt to unlock the first drawer. Raw comes to stand behind me, peering inside. “This is where I store everything.”

“When do I get my key?”

“There’s only one key.”

“We can get a copy.”

“No,” I tell him firmly. “We can’t.”

Raw smiles slowly. “Oh, you’re holding this shit tight, aren’t you?”

“I have to. It’s everything I have in the world.” I show him the tabs labeling the product. “It’s kept in order using the Dewey Decimal System that they use in libraries. That system is also how my relay gives me the orders.”

“What’s a relay?”

“I have a partner. Another guy on campus. He takes the orders for me. I never do. People aren’t allowed to talk to me about drugs. Ever,” I tell him sternly, making sure he understands. “That’s one of my rules.”

“Why? You meet these people face to face when you drop off the goods, right?”

“Yeah.”

“So what the fuck does it matter if they put in their order with your or someone else?”

“When I walk on campus, I’m a student. Nothing else. If I didn’t make that distinction between school and work, I’d be hit up all the time for product. Faculty would catch on. The police would be at my door. With a relay, they know they can’t get shit from him on campus. He never touches the product. They have to use him to get to me. They’re more discreet because they have to be.”

“So how’d Bryan get past your system?”

I sigh tiredly. “I broke my own rules the other night when Bryan showed up. He wasn’t supposed to know where I live, but I think he followed me. It wouldn’t be hard to do. He came knocking on my door, he demanded service, and I was in a tight spot so I said okay. I should have told him to fuck off.”

“What about the relay? Does he know where you live?”

“The relay knows everything.”

“Who is he?” Raw asks point-blank.

I shake my head. “Just a guy. He’ll be gone when I’m gone. You’ll need to set up your own. Or don’t. That’s up to you when you start running it.”

“I want to meet him.”

“We’ll get to that,” I reply evasively. I pull out my phone to show him the orders I’ve been getting. I’ve already changed Harrison’s name in my phone to ‘Relay’ to protect him. “This is what his messages look like. First names only on buyers, the product they’re ordering, and how much. I fill the order if we can, send him back a price, and he arranges a meeting place for us.”

“Are these orders for all the shit I got back for you?”

“Along with whatever I had left here at the house, which wasn’t much.”

“None of it looks like much,” he argues, frowning. “When do we go to the supplier for more?”

“Tomorrow morning. I only visit him in the early morning before he opens. There are too many eyes watching during the day and the evening.”

He watches closely as I read the order and search for the corresponding box inside the drawer. “How much are we gonna make off these? The full two thousand?”

“It depends. A lot of people are looking for downers tonight. It’s the weekend. There’s a party at Winslow House. They want to chill. I’ll probably sell out of sedatives but not much of anything else.”

“We’ll sell out of sedatives.”

I nod slowly, trying to keep my shoulders from rising. “Right. Yeah.”

Raw moves from behind me to the couch. He leans against the back of it, crossing his arms over his chest. “That’s gonna take some getting used to for you, isn’t it?”

“I’ll adjust.”

“You’re going to have to.”

I pause, looking at him curiously. “The fifteen percent that you’re getting. Do you get to keep all of it or do you share it with the club?”

“What do you think?”

“I think you have to split it.”

“I don’t have to, but I do. The club is my family. Same as your Pops, and you share your take with him, don’t you?”

I freeze, my adrenalin rushing violently. “He has nothing to do with any of this, do you hear me? Not a fucking thing.”

Raw raises a steady hand to slow me down. “Take it easy, man. I’m not threatening him. I’m just pointing out the similarities in our situations. No one is going after your grandpa.”

I want to believe that’s true, but is it? If things go sour between me and the Due, will they try to shake down Pops? Will they hurt him to get to me?

“He doesn’t have anything,” I tell Raw tightly. “His money comes from me, and he has no idea I’m doing this. I’d rather he never found out.”

“Secret’s safe with me.”

I watch him warily before getting back to work, but the weird thing is, I kind of believe him. There’s something really straightforward about Raw. He’s oddly honest and forthcoming for an outlaw. If I have to work with any of the Devil’s Due, and I apparently do, I’m glad it’s him. I’d be worried working with Kill, suspicious working with Skeeze, nervous working with Hyde. And Devo… well, it’s better that Devo and I share as little alone time together as possible, for a lot of reasons.