Crank (19 page)

* *

What's your name, anyway?

If I told him my real name, they might call home anyway. "Uh..."

* *

Tough question?

It never crossed my mind I

couldn't get out without it.

* *

You have to answer it sooner or later.

"Bree," I said. "Bree... Wagner."

456

I

Wasn't

Scared--Yet

They asked me lots of questions.

I made up every answer, the most important one being,

* *

"My parents can't be reached.

May I call my brother?"

They handed me the phone.

I could only hope he was home.

Brrrng... brrrng... brrrng...

* *

"Chase? It's Bree--your sister?

Listen, I got picked up for curfew..."

I had rousted him up out of deep crash hell. It took a few

minutes for him to come to.

* *

"Since our mom and dad are out of town, they brought me to Wittenberg..."

Somehow he got my drift. He

told me to chill, he'd see what he could do.

* *

No more questions. No tests. Not even the rush of a strip search.

They marched me down to a holding cell, gave me four solid

hours to wonder what came next.

457

No word from my family. Not

Kristina's. Surely not Bree's.

They took my clothes, gave me

baggy gray sweats, assigned me a bed in the dormitory.

* *

I joined the general population.

I wonder where that term came from.

They were not general at all.

Roomie #1, Lucinda, was a gangbanger, involved in a drive-by.

* *

Roomie #2, Felice, was in for wrecking a Caddie, carjacked at knifepoint.

Roomie #3, Rose, had beaten up her mother--with the butt of her gun.

Of course, she had a good excuse.

* *

All of us had one thing in common: a total infatuation with the monster.

Tell you the truth, that scared me a little. But not that much.

458

Tough

Girls

I spent much of Sunday listening to them talk.

* *

Trash talk.

Honest talk.

Tagging

Expression

Street fighting

Courage

Color

Family

Hunger

Need

Speed

Crashing

Connections

Scoring

Trafficking

Shooting up

Popping a cap

Remorse

Doing time

* *

I let Bree do my trash talking.

Kristina stuck with honesty.

Somehow, Lucinda and I found an odd rapport.

* *

And by the time Chase called my parents to let me know where they could find me

(can you believe it takes a

real

parent to get you out of juvie?)

459

and they released me bright and early, Monday morning,

* *

I was a tougher girl with a new connection.

460

C

ause and Effect

The admitting clerk was irate.

She had to redo all the paperwork, using my real name.

She made me wait for almost two hours

while she drank coffee and shuffled files.

* *

The counselor assigned to my case was unsympathetic. He read my folder, nodding and

hmmm

ing.

He told me being a loser was easy, then

ordered 24 hours community service.

* *

Scott sulked like a pissed puppy. He

would have preferred lockup to my

picking up trash along the highway.

He refused to say one word, and his silence told me all I needed to know.

* *

Mom manufactured a plethora of tears to accompany her long-suffering mother diatribe.

She had plenty to say about deceit, distress, and sexually transmitted diseases.

461

Jake was enthralled by the whole

idea of my temporary incarceration, and the reasons behind it.

He wouldn't shut up, just kept

asking inane questions.

* *

As for me, I was less than contrite.

Picking up trash wasn't so bad. There were ways around GUFN.

And I now had a direct in with a monster manufacturer.

462

Back

in My Room

My life closed in around me. I was no longer my own.

Mom had poured through all

* *

my stuff, scoured

my journal, letters, and address book.

She did find a bit of evidence--a

* *

crumpled Marlboro

wrapper and a new

lighter. Hey, it made her day to discover

I was a hard-core

* *

tobacco user. More

lectures, more useless

promises on my

end. She went off to work on her book.

463

A sudden wave of exhaustion swallowed

me. I'd walked through the last few days in a total haze. My system

* *

had finally purged itself of "go fast." It was time to shut down. I laid down and surrendered myself to the comfort of dreams.

464

R

esolutions

I awoke the next morning, semirefreshed.

As I got myself ready for school,

I made the following resolutions:

* *

* One week to the end of the quarter, grades slipping into gutter, I would ask for some extra credit work.

* *

* I would help out more around the house, show my parents

I

was

grateful for the many things they'd given me.

* *

* I would write to my Grandma once a week, even if she might not be sure who the letters were from.

* *

* I would reconnect with old friends. And my dad.

* *

* I would finish up the many projects I'd started while under the influence--a macramé wall hanging, a portrait of John

Lennon, a song I'd written about my walk with the monster.

465

* I would never shoot up again. I would smoke less, toot

less, keep my bad habits manageable. (Notice I didn't say

quit them.) I would also avoid sipping other people's blood.

* *

* I would go to Planned Parenthood and get on the pill. Making

love with Chase was awesome, and we didn't need a baby

spoiling that.

* *

The problem with resolutions is they're only as solid as the person making them.

466

O

ther Problems

Mess with a teacher, even one that has always

liked you in the past, you're liable to get screwed.

Ditch their classes, they might

give you makeup work, but they don't have to. I was four

out of seven toward screwed.

* *

I tried hooking up with

Sarah. She was nice but had

moved on to more reliable

friends. Straight friends.

Trent knew exactly what was what with his sister, and so with me. The Avenue most

definitely wasn't his scene.

* *

On the home front, I couldn't

buy Scott's trust by washing

windows or vacuuming. I had

zero idea how to turn it around.

467

Mom, she wanted her little girl

back. I couldn't go that far.

She wavered between forgiving, stern, spiteful, and loving.

* *

I did write Grandma a couple of times, lively, newsy letters.

She never replied, but I

didn't really expect her to.

Hopefully, I brightened a few of her last days. She would pass

away in January, cold and gray as a San Francisco winter.

* *

When I returned to the macramé, my fingers struggled over the knots. I scrapped that project, but did finish John Lennon.

As for the song, I had lost the melody and my will to find it. And the lyrics brought

me back to the fold of the monster.

468

Crank,

You See

isn't any ordinary

monster. It's like a giant octopus, weaving

* *

its tentacles not

just around you, but through you, squeezing

* *

not hard enough to kill you, but enough to keep you from reeling

* * until you try to get

away. Try, and you

hunger for its

grasping

* *

clutch, the way its

tendrils prop you

up, your need

intensifying

469

exponentially

every minute you

refuse to admit its

being.

470

By

Wednesday

I was starving for speed and for Chase, in that order. I bummed a snort from Robyn, borrowed her cell.

* *

I made the call with trepidation but Lucinda had given me all I needed to know--her name, her brother's name, and these very scary words: La Eme,

* *

"Eme" meaning M, for Mexican

Mafia, hardcore importers and traffickers, plus a few chemists, doing their thing in desert hideaways. Roberto already

* *

knew about me. (Lucinda had

used up one of her weekly calls and expected a favor one day.

La Eme is all about favors.)

* *

Roberto set up a meet for the following afternoon.

Then I called Chase's cell, asked him to pick me up

471

last period, take me to the bank. (I had a D in P.E.; what could one

more ditch hurt?)

472

The

Good

...

Seeing Chase's truck pull into the far parking lot. Hearing,

It's been a long four days.

* *

Kissing him, knowing better things

lay in store, right up the road.

I've missed you so much.

* *

Detouring to a secluded spot. Gentle

lovemaking, set to romantic sonnets.

It's never been like this for me before.

* *

Riding into town, head on his shoulder, listening to words of love.

My heart will always belong to you.

* *

He was the second person to tell me

that. The first, well, he had his Giselle.

473

... T

he Bad

...

Noticing the letter lying

open on the passenger-side floor.

I was going to tell you...

* *

Chase had been accepted by USC-- the University of Southern California.

They have an awesome film school...

* *

Early graduation, a full scholarship, for him, a dream come true.

I'll

leave after Christmas break.

* *

For me, a dream or three, annihilated.

I didn't know what to say.

Please don't cry. It's not so far away.

* *

It might as well be clear across the globe.

Out of sight, out of my mind.

474

... And

the Ugly

I was still upset when

we pulled up to the bank.

I was a ton more upset

* *

when the teller informed

me that Mom had restricted

my access to my own account.

* *

Okay, it had dwindled considerably.

But I had to have cash the next day.

You should not stand

* * a guy like Roberto up.

And I was in serious want of a fabulous bender.

* *

I'm not sure which one of the two made me more panicky.

I asked Chase if I could

* *

borrow some money.

But when I told him why, he told

me I was nuts and took me home.

475

I didn't even say good-bye, just slammed the door and went to check the mailbox.

I figured I'd better keep checking

* * it until my report card arrived.

It wasn't there. But something a whole lot

better was--two letters from Citibank.

* *

Inside one was Mom's new credit card.

Inside the other was a PIN.

476

I

Did Think Twice

about using that Visa, maybe

even three or four times.

But it was just so easy, like fate

had mailed it directly to me.

* *

Mom wouldn't miss it for weeks.

And then I would deny ever

having laid eyes on the thing.

* *

Robyn gave me a ride to meet

Roberto. He didn't look near as scary as he really was.

The buy was a piece of cake.

Except for one thing.

* *

Roberto wouldn't deal less than half-ounce quantities. That much, straight from the source, was relatively

cheap. And Visa paid for it.

477

I didn't need it all, of course.

The plan was to sell some, so my own stash would be free.

Every dealer thinks that until their nose gets busy.

* *

That's what I became that day. A dealer.

I had just taken a very big step up in the hierarchy of the monster.

478

I

Became an Instant Celebrity

out on The Avenue.

The crank was superb.