Ryan Jahn - The Last Tomorrow

He betrayed him once already.

Louis Lynch called, said he’d been talking to people all day with no luck, asked did he know Eugene Dahl, and he answered without thinking. When Louis Lynch asks a question he’s asking for the Man, and when the Man wants an answer you provide it. It’s simple as that.

He gave him a gun, offered him money, tried to correct his mistake. But Eugene’s on the run because of what he did, wanted for murder, and he’s being asked once more to betray him, only this time it’s coming from the cops. He doesn’t want to do it, but he doesn’t want his life to come crashing down around him either. It makes him sick. He’s not ashamed of where he came from, nor of what he is. He was born of adversity and that makes him strong. Part of him thinks he should tell these cops to go fuck themselves, and every part of him wants to. They’ll spread the word and he’ll be who he is. He’s already who he is. The only difference will be, everybody’ll know it.

That might be fine.

Except he’ll lose friends. He might lose his job. People he’s worked with for years will stop talking to him. He’s built a life, a good life, and he doesn’t want it reduced to rubble. He doesn’t want to have to start over, and at a disadvantage.

‘Eugene came by earlier today,’ he says. He stares at his own reflection in the television when he says it, can’t bring himself to look at these men as he betrays his friend. ‘About an hour ago.’

‘Why’d he come by?’ the older cop asks.

‘He wanted a gun.’

‘What for?’

‘He didn’t say and I didn’t inquire.’

‘Have any theories?’

He shakes his head.

‘Did you give him one?’

‘One what?’

‘A gun.’

‘I did.’

‘Do you know where he’s staying?’

‘No.’

‘I think you do.’

‘I don’t.’

‘Okay,’ the older cop says. ‘I want you to do what you can to find out, and if he gets in touch with you again you let us know.’ He pulls out a card, walks to the coffee table, sets it down.

‘Thanks for your time.’

Fingers doesn’t respond. He continues to stare at his reflection in the television screen as the two police detectives let themselves out of the apartment, as the door latches shut behind them.

He hopes to God Eugene stays as far away from him as possible.

3

Carl sits in his car with both hands gripping the steering wheel. His palms are sweaty. The seat rumbles beneath him as the car idles. His head is turned to the right. He watches through the rain-spotted passenger’s-side window as his partner walks into his house to greet his wife and his two children, and disappears behind the door.

Sometimes Carl feels as though he’s spent his entire life watching people walk away.

He thinks of using the syringe now, but it’s only a thought. A junkie might not care about being cautious, but he isn’t a junkie.

He has a job he cares about, responsibilities.

He can’t shoot up in broad daylight while parked in front of his partner’s house.

He puts the car into gear. He looks into the mirror and sees a rain-spattered rear window, exhaust pipe emitting a steady cloud of white smoke which the rain then hammers out of existence. Behind the exhaust fumes the street is clear of vehicles. Rivers of water rush along the gutters. He pulls his foot from the clutch while gassing the engine and rolls his vehicle into the street. He’ll wait till he gets home. It’s only a fifteen-minute drive. He’s waited all day, he can wait another fifteen minutes. Of course he can. He isn’t a monkey. He’s in control of his own actions.

He isn’t a goddamn monkey.

He feels sick and sweaty and cramped. His stomach is boiling. His sphincter is twitching, and he thinks he might have to be careful he doesn’t involuntarily shit. He feels weak and heavy, as though his limbs have been drained of blood and the blood replaced by lead. His eyes are dry and it’s difficult to focus.

The windshield wipers squeal across the glass. The sound is maddening. Someone needs to invent a windshield wiper that doesn’t make such an irritating fucking sound. He wants to park and step outside and rip the wipers off the car. He wants the throw them into the street and run over them.

He wonders if Darryl Castor will help them get to Eugene Dahl. He thinks there’s a good chance he will, but feels rotten about the way they broke him. He tells himself he shouldn’t feel bad, he was just doing his job, but that doesn’t make the feeling go away.

The trick is to keep your soul winter-numb.

He pulls into an empty parking lot. He kills the engine. He peers through the rain-spattered windshield at the building he’s parked in front of. All the lights are off, doors locked. But for his car, the parking lot is empty.

He pulls the syringe box from his pocket and puts it into his lap. He slides out of his jacket, shrugging it off his shoulders and tossing it aside. He rolls up his shirtsleeve, revealing the black dot on his arm where last he used the needle, and a pink dot like a pimple where he used before that. Beneath the skin, they’ve become hard little knots. He whips his belt from his pants and puts it over his shoulder so it’s handy. Looks down at the box in his lap. Reads the lid:

BD YALE

Becton, Dickinson and Company

Rutherford, N.J.

One 10cc Syringe

He opens it and within finds a syringe, a needle, and a paper bindle. He removes his lighter, his spoon, and his foldaway knife from the right-hip pocket of his slacks. He sets the objects, but for the syringe, on his left leg, a nice row of his favorite things. He removes the syringe from its box, as well as the Yale reusable needle, and puts them together.

His mouth, which was dry, is now watering. He swallows.

He’s supposed to meet Candice for dinner tonight. He made a date. He should go back to the boarding house and get showered and changed.

He looks at his watch. He has two hours. Two hours is plenty of time. He’ll do this first and then finish his drive home and get cleaned up. This first, then that. She’ll understand if he’s a few minutes late. He’ll tell her it was work. That’s how it goes sometimes, nature of the job.

He flips open the knife and with the tip of it scoops a small bit of brown powder from his paper bindle into the spoon, then he realizes he has no clean water.

He closes his eyes, tells himself it’s okay. Tells himself it’s for the best.

This isn’t something he should do in his car anyway, not when there’s still daylight outside. He lost control for a moment, but this isn’t something he should be doing. Of course it isn’t. He’s only minutes from home.

He picks up the spoon telling himself he’ll just pour the powder back into the stash and fold his bindle up, telling himself he’ll pack everything else up and drive home.

Instead he brings the spoon to his mouth and spits into it, gently. He lets a bead of liquid form on his lips and eases it into the spoon. It doesn’t seem like enough to cook the heroin in so he does it a second time, and then a third.

He already has everything out, after all. It would be silly to pack it all up at this point.

He loops the belt and puts his arm through it.

He picks up his lighter.

1

Eugene watches Evelyn walk to her hotel room and key open the door, following closely as she slips through so that she can’t shut the door in his face. Once they’re both in her room, he slides the deadbolt into place.

‘Sit down.’

She sits on the bed. He looks at her and she looks back. He hates to admit it, but seeing her again, even after what she did, stirs something within him. They’ve spent only hours together, but those hours were somehow both comfortable and exciting, and the way she’s looking at him, not with fear but with sadness, makes him believe that despite what she did afterward, she felt the same as he did.