Being Jesus and Other Tales of Failure
Plant
Corvin Thomas
I liked Plant. I inherited his girlfriend, Joan. They were both junkies. I didn't know that the first time I saw them. She was beating him with her bicycle helmet outside the bar, my kind of woman. I found out later he was dumping her. Joan was stealing his shit. Plant was a drummer and drummers don't make a lot of dough, even though he was in a couple of bands. So when the beating was complete, I bought Joan a beer. She laid the helmet down and I was not afraid.
Plant's first peek of me was the satanic red glory of my hole. I heard shuffling, hard shoes on the hardwood floors of a building numbered 666, Joan's building. The number didn't bother me. The shuffling did. I was alone, naked and prone, hung over and conscious of new light. Morning hurt. The shuffling stopped, the sound of boxes dropped and the door made it's own noise, closing.
Someone had penciled the word grieve on the wall of Joan's kitchen. I stared at it when she bleach-cleaned the needles in the sink. It was usually the last thing I saw when the fix was in. I suspected Plant but I was never certain and never asked. I could tell Joan missed him. He had better connections.
Plant wasn't in good shape but we were casual friends before then, before the end. The circle was small and he had funny routines. Sometimes he sat at a table, alone, facing the bar traffic. "Welcome to Tower Records," he'd say.
Plant swept sidewalks for his dope fund and there was some romance in the pose, the pork pie hat and the old man clothes, the work shoes split down the back, all of it sweeping across cement, whispering dirty sighs of sickness. Some women wanted him, wanted to make him feel better. But he couldn't come clean. He couldn't even drum anymore.
His parents didn't know even though he moved back home.
"I watch people from my window," he told me, "and I just wish I could walk like they do. Just walk down the street like a normal person."
We were in my car on the way to a dealer. The word was to leave Plant alone, let him ride it out, one way or the other. But I was bored. I said I'd pay his way if he scored. He told me to stop by the park, by the pay phone. The dealer was around the corner. Plant asked for the cash.
It was a nice night. I opened the kitchen window, the pots played like chimes. I didn't ask about grieve. Plant didn't ask about Joan. We both knew she moved to New York with Sickly Man. I kept the apartment.
The table separated our sit up slumber. I peeked at him like he peeked at me that asshole morning. I hated to say it but he had an angel's face, the face of an unborn child, a life aborted but smiling. I wasn't helping him walk by giving him wings. But guilt nods, too.
A month later, a Sunday night, a menage was set: me, Plant, and Colson. Colson had his own problems. But we pooled cash for a bigger bag. The dealer by the park was out of commission. He rented a room to his wife's ex-husband. The ex-husband was in deep to the dealer-landlord. So the ex-husband killed them both in their sleep with a baseball bat. No more dope debt. No more dope.
Colson said he had his own guy. I didn't trust either one of them with money or stash but I had to work. I'd meet them at the bar, score, catch-up.
I was late. The bar was closed. So I drove to Colson's, ready for the rip-off and silhouettes of two sleepy shrugs in a gray glow of static, when a cop stopped me at the corner.
"Somebody's dead," he said.
I parked.
"You fuckers! You motherfuckers!" Cortez was on his knees, crying, pulling up grass, disappearing when the blue siren lights left him, reappearing when they came around. Colson was standing behind him, stoic, still, giving Cortez flashing reference in time and space. The cops moved a little, made way for the paramedics and kept the neighbors behind a taped yellow line to nowhere.
"You wouldn't leave him alone," Cortez said. "You fuckers had to fuck around!"
I was waiting for Colson to calm him down, shut him up. Cortez used to run with Plant. They were tight, in the same bands, wore the same clothes, the same haircuts, spent time on the road. They lived together until Plant started ripping him off. Cortez never held it against him. He just wanted Plant to get better.
One of the cops looked at me.
"What's he yelling about?"
I told him I didn't know.
"I don't know any of these guys."
They put Colson in a cruiser and Cortez stood up.
"That's right," he said, "arrest his junkie ass!"
Colson told him to shut the fuck up, sotto voce.
"Tell them a story," Cortez cried. "Make something up to cover your stupid ass good."
I knew Colson would.
Cortez sat on the back of the ambulance. I'd never seen anyone I knew wear an oxygen mask. I guess he needed it. He looked bad, tufts of grass in his hair, his shirt dirty from rolling around.
He still hadn't seen me. I moved to the other side of the street to keep it that way.
Plant's face still looked like an angel's face but it was upside down, inverted, the smile turned upside down. He was leaning out of a car, half in, half out, like he was going to the store but forgot something. It didn't look unnatural. The door was open. Time stopped but the dome light still shined. He was blue, bluer than the siren lights that made his open eyes sparkle with every revolution. The left arm touched the asphalt. The other was on the wheel.
I wondered whose car it was and where Plant thought he was going without a license.
The paramedics put him on a gurney.
"That's the kid with the broom," one of the detectives said. "From the pizza joint."
I didn't like that. It meant they were hip to his using, pre-OD. Maybe mine, too. I slipped back and waited for the clear out.
Cortez walked home. They let Colson go. I followed him to his bungalow, dump, whatever. He collected hats, all kinds of hats. He hung them on the walls. He wasn't wearing one when he asked me if I wanted a shot.
"Still got your share," he said, straight proud. "Half of it, anyway."
He locked the door and grabbed his gear for the requiem.
"We waited," he said, "but you never showed." He laughed and lit a match. "You know that part." He cooked the spoon. "We shot the shit here. It's good, by the way. Then we drove up to the bar."
Colson concentrated, stopped talking until he finished.
"I figured Plant was still packing," he said. He thumped for a vein. "Because he disappeared. He walked back here, I guess. The bar was boring. So he walked."
Colson said one of the neighbors found Plant in their car. Colson got there before the cops did, pulled the needle out of Plant's arm, checked his pockets for any more dope.
"And that's where I found this," he said, still smiling proud. "I guess he figured you'd understand."
I did, the ethics.
"Fucking Cortez almost blew it with all that fucking blubbering."
Colson's eyes narrowed.
"Little bitch."
Colson struck blue, nodded off. I dumped his works in the garbage on the way out, tossed mine when I got home.
I didn't know what to expect at work the next day, detectives on a tip asking questions, something. I checked for unmarked cars in the lot, the little Taurus jobs they drive, nothing. I was afraid Cortez might drop a dime but everything looked the same. No one looked strange. No messages to call anyone. I asked one of the assignment editors about an overdose on the south side. He said the overnight guy heard it on the scanner.
"Thought we had a killing," he said, "but they called it off before we got there. Just an overdose."
"Yeah."
"Friend of yours?" he asked, kidding, unfolding the sports section.
"Naw," I said. "Just some guy."
A cock crowed thrice somewhere in the city. I sat at my desk of hypocrisy, hypnotized by the guilt and denial, praying no one else would be crucified in the name of greed. No one I shared my dope with, anyway.
I didn't go to Plant's funeral.
Television reporters weren't allowed to grieve.