Peter Stenson: Fiend

The little girl starts pounding on the door. I know it won’t take long. The door’s not actual wood, this being a prefabricated suburban house and all. The next tiny fist splinters the frame. I wish we were the kind of drug addicts from movies, the kind with guns. I keep telling myself I’m spun. Her one hand becomes two. And it’s me and KK sitting along Ford Parkway, waiting for the 16, debating the merits of Spider-Man vs. Spider-Man 2 , our pinkies touching, grazing.

The middle of the door cracks open and I’m screaming at this hallucination, screaming because I’m going to be dead at twenty-five, dead without having accomplished one fucking thing in my life, having burnt every fucking bridge worth having, my primary relationship now being with a junkie called Typewriter, and I think how everyone who’d ever said they loved me had told me this would be my fate—drugs would eventually kill me.

The door’s off its hinges and this little girl is smiling at us with blood and flesh and dog fur. All I can do is close my eyes and listen to her labored breathing and giggles, her cute fucking giggles. Then I hear the bedsprings to my right. I look over. Typewriter jumps off the bed with something raised above his head and by the time I realize it’s his actual fucking typewriter, by the time I scream no , it’s too late. He’s brought it down onto the little girl’s head. She falls limp on the floor. I’m covered in bits of skull.

Typewriter looks at me. He says, I did it.

No, fuck, no, Jesus.

I did it, he says again.

Fuck me, Jesus, what the fuck?

Typewriter spits, then rubs his tongue like he’s trying to snag a pubic hair.

I’m picturing the headlines—JUNKIES BRUTALLY MURDER PRETEEN IN DRUG–INDUCED PARANOIA. I’m picturing the press and TruTV and True Crime reenactments and then an MSNBC Lockup special edition and then prison and getting my young ass blown the fuck apart and this is the last image because this will be my life.

I did it, he says again.

I look at the little girl. She’s wearing black shoes with tiny silver clasps. Her socks have printed umbrellas and raindrops on them.

Think, think, think.

I’ll flip. I’ll tell the authorities it was Typewriter. He was the one who killed the little girl. They’ll make me some sort of deal for my cooperation. And I can give them the Albino, the biggest cook in Minnesota. Yeah. They’ll put me in witness protection and move me to Spokane or somewhere, someplace I can get a job pouring foundations or flipping burgers, and it’ll be okay.

I take a step back from the girl. Type kicks the actual typewriter off the kid’s face. There’s nothing left. It’s my turn to vomit.

I think about all the things I’ve touched in the house, my DNA or whatever on every surface. I think about no jury believing me. I think about terms I’ve heard on TV, conspiracy and accomplice . There’s no way I’ll get a fucking deal. They’ll want to make a case out of both of us. They’ll use this murder to champion their antimeth campaign, and instead of the commercials of kids with picked faces it’ll be a black and white of this little girl, maybe one from her third-grade class, then a picture of the crime scene, then my mug shot. I’m fucked. I’m going to die in prison.

What do we do now? Typewriter asks.

You fucking killed her, I say.

Yeah, somebody had to.

I grab his T-shirt around the armpits. I shove him hard against the wall. She was a little girl, I yell.

No.

Look.

She was going to kill us.

A hallucination. A fucking hallucination.

Typewriter looks at the mess on the floor. He’s shaking his head and I push him again and then his shaking changes direction. He crumples onto his bed. He says, But the door?

Part of the trip.

We’re silent. What is there really to say? Shit, my bad? I think about calling the cops, maybe the volunteering of information might look good. I pull out my phone.

What are you doing? Typewriter asks.

I don’t know, I say.

No, no, stop.

I stop. My phone’s dead anyway.

We can take care of this. Like, we can fix this, he says.

We can’t.

Yes, bro, like we’ll clean it up… and… and… like leave town, you know, like Mexico. We’ll go to Mexico. Live on the beach. Fake names and shit.

I quit listening. I’m remembering terms like temporary insanity and unfit for trial .

Typewriter keeps telling me there’s no fucking way he’s going back to prison.

I need to think. To clear my head. To not be high. The room is starting to smell like my father’s halitosis. All I see is blood. And her socks. I’m picturing the little girl’s mother coming into her room, maybe suggesting a different pair because it’s so sunny, the little girl sticking out her tongue, telling her no, these are my favorite. By now the mother is probably wondering where her daughter is. Maybe it’s time for lunch? Maybe she’s out on the driveway, in front of a two-car garage, her hand shielding the sun, calling her name, her tone playful at first, now becoming frantic.

I smell booze. Typewriter is pouring a liter of vodka onto his sheets.

What the fuck are you—I start to say. I realize what he’s doing before I finish. I want to tell him no, this is a horrible idea. The cops aren’t fucking stupid and they’ll catch us and this is only going to make things worse. But then I think that it doesn’t matter if we tell them or not, we’ll be guilty as Arabs at airports. The rest of my life will be spent getting one in the stink, one in the mouth, on a rotating basis.

And part of me knows this is one of those moments after which nothing will ever be the same. Like out-of-body or whatever-the-fuck. Like when you can see yourself crystal fucking clear. When you know one choice will result in hooded sweatshirts and downcast eyes and running from every set of flashing cherries and how your habit will take on astronomical fury because it needs to kill out the memory of who you were. The other choice will mean being turned into a monster, having every person in America hate you, think you’re evil, and death by anal fissure in prison.

I’ve had this feeling once before—the watching-yourself-fuck-up-your-life moment. It was with KK. We’d decided enough was enough with powerlessness and unmanageability and prayers to a god we knew didn’t exist. We bought a teener. We somehow waited until we got back to our apartment. We sat on our bed. Her pale legs looked blotchy against our blue down comforter, one we’d bought together at Target. We told each other it would only be this once. We said it was a special occasion. We said we’d only smoke it. We said I love you, smoke slipping from our lips.

You have a lighter? Typewriter asks.

I watch myself reach into the pocket of my jeans. I watch myself hand over the red Bic and then study the flames along the soiled sheets, amazed at how quickly they grow.

I wonder if this—the murder, the burning of the house—isn’t just a continuation of my relapse with KK.

The posters of DJs catch on fire. Then the mattress. Smoke rises. Typewriter motions for the door, or where it used to be. We jog down the stairs, and then into the basement. I climb in his ancient Civic. He opens the garage door. The sun is absolutely fucking blinding and we pull out into a neighborhood that doesn’t know we exist. I’m looking for the girl’s mom and praying I don’t see her. I glance back at the house. The faintest plumes of smoke slip out from the upstairs window. As we’re driving away, something in the front yard catches my eye. I press my face against the window. It’s the carcass of a rottweiler.

10:15 AM