Kzine Issue 21 Read online

  Whatever.

  He barely got to his feet before the kid hit him, a solid fist to the side of his eye that sent a bony CRACK echoing through his skull and blurred his vision, hard. He stumbled back, the cold making the hurt sharp and immediate, and tried to get a lock on the little shit, not much more at this point than a black-and-green blob of motion. Too late. The kid hit him again, twice as hard as the first, square in the breadbasket. There was a no-gravity lurch forward in his middle, and a second later, Randy emptied his guts all over his own boots. Fuck. Fuck.

  Third hit: drillshot to the side of the neck, right in the mastoid process. Total paralysis. Reeling, all his nerves locked up at once and he hit the ground. Next thing he knew, he was opening his eyes to the kid standing over him, dukes still up, nearly frothing at the mouth. Randy knew the look plenty well by that point, he’d known enough psychos on the hardcore scene to recognize it a mile off: Liberty Spikes was really actually ready to kill him. So he did the only thing he could do in that situation.

  He hit the kid in the dick with a rock.

  Okay, technically, it was half a broken brick, but whatever. Close enough. There was a whole pile of them next to one of the trashcans in the alley, an old rusted out one overflowing with crunchy-paged porno mags sporting titles like Golden Showers! and Get It, Granny and Jizzrags. Gross and weird. Whatever. Randy got his one hand around one of the brick chunks and whipped it at the panting poseur—direct hit. The red stone fist belted the kid right in the crotch with a meaty THUNK, and he yelped and went down crying as Randy dragged himself back up to his feet. Jesus, he hurt. Poseur or not, the kid wasn’t fucking around. Randy knew fully-grown punks who couldn’t hit half as hard as this young’un. Liberty Spikes got points for that. Just not enough to save him any more hurt.

  Because, what had happened, happened. There was a price to be paid for wasting beer like a shitbird. Kid had to be taught a lesson, one he’d remember.

  Randy picked up the half brick again and went to work on the kid, only stopping when Liberty Spikes curled up into a torn-up, beaten-in fetal ball and sobbed for his mommy. On his way out of the alley, Randy stopped to wash all the blood off his hands in a snowdrift, scrubbing them pink and raw and sore.

  He walked away from that night with a cracked orbital bone that never really healed right, giving him a cockeyed look for the rest of his life, but the cops never came looking for him, so fuck it.

  Worst fight he’d ever got into, ever. All time, number one.

  But he’d do it over and over again rather than sit through one more minute of this bullshit.

  “Randy? Excuse me? Excuse me? Randy? Are you listening?”

  Randy snaps to, immediately pinning his best pleasant smile across his face, owling his head back and forth to try and figure out which one of them is talking to him. Fucking impossible task anyway, they’re all basically identical: the mommies all decked in the same swoopy Gosselin haircut, same Anne Taylor Loft print-blouse and ass-hugging slacks, same dead-eyed, Stepford-glazed leer; the daddies draped in their broken-dreamed workaday-polo-shirt-golf-course-pro-shop finest; each and every one of them looking like the target demographic for the castrated country-pop dogshit they still play on the radio these days. Big & Rich suck anyway. It’s like they all came off the same suburban assembly line, stamped in the same molds, programmed with the same just-republican-enough, just-christian-enough operating system. Sitting here like this, amongst them all, makes Randy want to scream and tear his own eyes out. He tries not to be mad at Carrie for making him go to this horseshit. PTA touch-base. Ludicrous. This is a chance for them to get shitty and drunk just like everybody else does, but in a way that lets them perpetuate the lie that they’re doing it for their kids’ own good. Randy can almost respect that. Except if he has to listen to the hostess talk about her husband the king-shit Wall Street financier, or the broken and locked-shut garage doors one more time, he’s really going to do it. He’ll go to the kitchen and get a corkscrew for his eyes, else he’ll just kill himself, or everyone else. Or both. Not in that order.

  “Yeah, hi! Sorry. Away in my own world,” he says to the gathered crowd of pinch-faced clones. “What was the question?”

  A sharp sussurus of disapproval circles the group of alpha-parents like a fast virus and Randy can see knuckles whitening around stemless glasses of white zinfandel. He sips his beer (that the hostess, Lisa, just had to fish out of the garage fridge because Randy doesn’t like wine, but when he said Not that thirsty, thanks, she wrinkled her nose up like he’d farted on her duvet) and waits for the speaker to identify herself. There are nearly twenty of them all told, not counting Randy, all circled around in Lisa’s decorative living room, and for the last hour and a half, they haven’t really done anything other than drink and passive-aggressively compare their kids and talk shit about the teachers who aren’t here to defend themselves. Super productive. Really valuable experience. Randy’s so glad to be here, honestly. It’s just a treat. In no way is his wife supposed to be the one sitting in this circle, with these psychos, while the kids are at their grandparents’ place for the weekend. In no way would Randy rather be at home, smoking weed in the den and watching The Wild Bunch. But Carrie asked him to cover so she could go out with her sisters, so okay. He’ll take the hit. She deserves a night off, anyway.

  And, to be fair, she did warn him that it would suck.

  It’s just that specificity would have been nice.

  Randy takes another pull from his beer and waits some more, and eventually one of the peppy little blondes from the far side of the circle makes a little noise like clearing her throat but not really—super polite bitchiness, black-belt level shit here—and leans forward, eyes boring into him like slow bullets.

  “I asked, what do you think of your daughter’s teacher? You know, Mrs Madden?”

  Randy shrugs, kills his beer. “I, uh. I don’t know. She’s fine, I guess? Seems nice enough.”

  A titter—an actual goddamn titter—cuts around the circle, and all the mommies and daddies of the corn exchange knowing glances like they’re all so fucking superior.

  “Sure,” the little blonde says. “Sure she’s nice enough, but what do you think of her?”

  Randy makes a face. What the fuck is this one’s name again? Does it even really matter?

  “I’m not sure I understand the question.”

  Another titter, sharper this time, loops the room. Even the guys get in on it, chuckling in a too-polite sort of way. Randy seriously doesn’t know what they’re asking here, but he’s reasonably sure he hates them all. The one to his left laughs just a little bit more shrilly than the rest of them and pats him on the knee, patronizing. Then they go back to talking around him:

  “Anyway,” the tiny blonde says, “she and I were talking last week, after class, while I was picking Shiloh up, and I swear, she’s just got the funniest ideas on how to teach our kids.”

  “Like what?” one of them asks. Randy thinks her name might be Alice. Or Karen. Something stupid.

  “Well, get this,” says the first. “She has music hour for the kids!”

  One of the dads leans in, country club concern scribbled across his face: “Like singing and everything? We had that though, didn’t we?”

  “Not like this we didn’t. I mean, she plays popular music for the kids and invites them to talk about how it makes them feel.”

  All the parents scoff or gasp in surprise, then start to laugh at the ridiculousness of the notion.

  “It’s stuff like this that leads to problems down the road,” another dad grumbles. “Like that scene in Connecticut a few days ago. Did any of you hear about this?” A round of heads shaking no. “It was the nastiest thing. Apparently a whole university civics class turned on itself for no reason whatsoever. Tore each other to shreds. No survivors. I can’t believe none of you didn’t hear about it. Whole country’s going to hell in a handbasket, I swear to God A’mighty.”

  Randy keeps his smile on for a fe
w more seconds, flashing it all around the circle before standing and turning to walk out of the room. The little blonde does that throat-clearing thing again, ahem-hem, then asks

  “Randy? Where are you going? Surely you’re not leaving us, are you?”

  He turns and smiles and the way she smiles back makes him wonder if she hates him, or if she’s flirting with him, or both.

  “I’m going to get a glass of water, I’ll be right back.”

  “Oh. Okay, then. Don’t be gone long.”

  They stay relatively quiet until he leaves, then burst into a barely-restrained surge of giggles. Fuckin’ figures.

  In the kitchen, Randy gets a glass out of one of the cabinets and holds it in the fridge-door dispenser ’til it’s full. Takes a sip. Jesus. Even the water in this place tastes bad. Too soft, shot through with minerals and shit. Awful. He dumps the rest out in the sink and pitches a hip against the counter, trying to ignore the hushed chittering floating in from the other room. What was the actual PTA part of this, again?

  He throws a glance over to the table, where Lisa set out her gallon jugs of white zin and trays of Costco canapes, some warped prefab buffet-style bullshit. Consider whether or not he’s desperate enough to shotgun one of those Sutter Homes yet. Probably not. It’d cut the pain, but after that he has no idea how he’d get home. Even if he did manage to make it work somehow, Carrie’d probably be pissed at him for driving drunk. Couldn’t blame her for that.

  Still. Shit.

  Another hiss of laughter wafts down the hall, all aglow with polite malice. Pick-a-little-talk-a-lot-cheep-cheep-cheep. He’s not going back in there. He can’t. He won’t. He’ll just hang out in here until things start to wind down, then make a hasty exit, or if it seems like it’s going on for too long, he can probably jet out the back door into the backyard, hop the fence and cut through the neighborhood to his car and just go. That could work.

  Randy clenches his eyes tight and breathes out hard. Stuffs his hands into his jeans pockets, trying to figure out a half-decent way out of—his fingers brush plastic.

  Oh, hello, you.

  That’s certainly an option, isn’t it?

  Yes, yes it is.

  * * *

  Two days ago, after work, Randy went over to Howe’s place. He’s known Howe for like, ten years? Jesus, yeah. Ten years by now. Fuck. He met How through the guy’s brother, when he and Carrie first moved to the suburbs and Randy was in desperate need of a weed hookup—driving to and from Hoboken (or worse, Jersey City) just for an eighth or two was getting ridiculous, and Care had told him she wasn’t comfortable having more than that in the house at one time, so okay. Randy knew Howe’s brother—dude named Trey—from back in the hardcore scene, natch. He knew that Trey’s brother was a dealer out in the stucco sprawl, so when gas hit the all-time high, he just called Trey up and asked. You’d be surprised the shit you can get just by asking. Trey texted him Howe’s number, told him to let his brother he’d given him the reference. No problem. Randy knew this dance, he’d been buying for years.

  First time Randy and Howe met up it was at a bar at the far end of a local strip mall, a grubby hole filled with the booze-drenched damned called Dolly’s. Randy grabbed a booth near the back and texted Howe, fully expecting the guy to keep to the drug dealer’s code of honor and be late as hell, but to his surprise, Howe got right back to him and agreed to meet up. Turns out customer service wasn’t dead after all. Dude appeared across the table not five minutes later, just like he said he would. Nice change of page, and he didn’t really charge too-too much. Yeah, okay. They could do business.

  It was the start of a ten-year—well, relationship was maybe too strong a word for it, association too formal, too soft. Randy didn’t know the word for it, really. They knew each other. Sometimes they watched football, sometimes Howe sold him weed. That was all it maybe had to be.

  Anyway, it was two nights ago—yeah, Wednesday night—that he was over at Howe’s place, just a quick stop for fifty bucks’ worth of pink kush, nothing serious, when Howe came out of his back room with his professional tacklebox and said

  “Hey, you ever hear of Protex?”

  Randy shifted on the couch to look at the dude, slugged back a third of his beer. Craft brew, from somewhere in Colorado or something. Good shit.

  “Can’t say that I have. What is it?”

  “Newest high on the streets, hear tell. Supposed to be a real beast. Like, pharma-grade type stuff. Seriously apeshit.”

  “You try it yet?”

  Howe threw his free hand up, shook the question off. “Nah. Not really into pills. I prefer to ignite and inhale my vices, thanks. Or have them chilled to ice cold and brewed fresh in the Rockies.”

  He held up his own bottle, and Randy clinked his own against it. They both took pulls, a little moment of quiet between the two of them.

  “Protex?”

  “That’s what they’re calling it.”

  “Sounds like a brand of condoms. They should change that shit.”

  Howe opened the box and raised an eyebrow in Randy’s direction. “Be sure to pass that on at the next dealer’s union meeting, Rand. Thanks for the feedback.”

  “Just saying.”

  “It’s cool. Not like I named the motherfucker anyway.” He started unpacking little plastic baggies of different strains, stacking them on the coffee table until he found the one he wanted. Then he popped that one open and started loading dried buds into a smaller sandwich baggie.

  Across the table, Randy leaned back into the leather of the sofa, trying to make like he’s relaxed, but he had to admit, he’s intrigued.

  “What kind of apeshit are we talking about here?”

  “Haven’t heard specifics, really. Just that people really dig it. You know how it is when some new designer dose hits the market. People get all weird about it, start evangelizing, even if they haven’t tried it yet. They just want to be cool, so they make up some shit, start adding health benefits. Gets hard to sort the wheat from the chaff.”

  “So I take it you don’t know anyone who’s tried it yet?”

  “Nah,” said Howe. “Not I. Why, you interested?”

  Randy shrugged. “No. Dunno. I wouldn’t say interested, exactly. It’s interesting, that’s all.”

  An oily smile crept across Howe’s face, underneath his patchy, scummy mustache. “You sure about that?”

  “Yeah, I don’t know. Sure. Why, you got some?”

  Howe’s smile stayed put, but his eyes jumped to the tacklebox between the both of them. Randy spiked his eyebrows at the guy.

  “Where’d you get it?”

  “Trey knows a dude. Don’t worry about it. They’re legit. You want some?”

  Randy drains his beer and sets the bottle down, goes palms out. “I really shouldn’t.”

  “On the house.”

  “…yeah?”

  Howe’s smile spread. “Yeah. Take a few, report back. You can be like, my test market or some shit. Let me know if they’re actually worth half a good goddamn or not.”

  “How many is a few?”

  “I don’t know, a handful? A small handful. Why’s it matter?”

  “It doesn’t, not really.”

  “Alright, good. I was going to be worried, it’d’ve been the first time in the known history of drugs or dealing them that anyone ever said no to free. Let me get you another baggie, hold on.”

  The pills themselves were tiny little things, no bigger than a pencil eraser, bone white and stamped with a very clinical-looking PX. He tied the baggie into a knot and pocketed it, also left with the kush he’d come looking for. Pretty good deal, all told.

  Later, at home, after the kids went to bed, he and Carrie excused themselves to the back porch to smoke a bowl and hold hands and chill out and look at the stars. They stayed like that for a couple hours, then went to bed themselves. Upstairs, Randy shucked off his shirt and jeans and left them where they fell on the floor next to his side of the bed. They stayed ther
e for two days, Protex baggie still in the pocket, forgotten until this afternoon when Randy pulled them on so he wouldn’t have to wear his work slacks to this PTA bullshit, whatever that was.

  That pretty much brings us up to now.

  * * *

  Randy holds the baggie up to the kitchen fluorescents, to get a better look. There’s like ten of them, fifteen maybe. Common sense, or at least common drug sense, says split one in half, take it with water, see how you feel in half an hour and then only maybe take the other half if you’re not feeling it. Don’t mix unknown narcotics with booze, don’t have too much, always know what you’re putting into your body. Be smart, always be safe, don’t be a fucking asshole about it.

  It’s supposed to be research, right? Or at least half research, half fun. Sure to make this shit more bearable at least.

  In the living room, a crash of laughter explodes and three of the Stepfords all harmonize: “Oh, my god, she’s such a slut!”

  Then again, fuck these people and anyone who’s ever loved them.

  Randy rips the bag open and dumps all fifteen into the closest three-quarters-full bottle, swirls the mix around ’til they’re all dissolved and carries it back into the room with him, fake smile stitched secure from cheek to cheek.

  “Interest anybody in a top-off?”

  They all cheer for him in chorus, hands and glasses held triumphantly aloft.

  Randy points his smile at each and every one of them, hoping like hell they enjoy their trip.

  * * *

  Sure, Randy’s babysat the stoned before. Comes with the territory. Spend enough time with users, you’ll eventually be the one who pulls the fuck-you card and ends up standing watch. At its best, it can be slapstick fun, kind of like those old Marx brothers movies, but at worst it’s like trying to catch water in a net. He’s never kept an eye on like, a whole room before, but he figures that it’s probably basically the same, just on a larger scale.

  Right?

  * * *

  Randy keeps a running tally of the side effects going in his head. It’s not exactly scientific, but he’s not exactly a scientist. He’s a thirty-seven year-old graphic designer from New Jersey, and his methods reflect that.