Zhanna Slor - At the End of the World, Turn Left

“You want to rob a drug dealer ? You are not allowed to say ‘whatever’ again during this conversation.” I get out of bed, looking for my pants. “Is that where you went the other day?” I ask, thinking of his recent disappearance. “Did you buy drugs?”

“I know where he stashes his money,” Tristan says, ignoring me. “How many more necklaces do you think I can sell? These suburban fucks keep all the real money in safes and banks. This guy, he doesn’t trust technology. He’s one of those, uh what are they called? Doomsday preppers. He has so much cash he doesn’t know what to do with it. He wouldn’t even notice if we took some.”

“I’m not going to steal from a drug dealer, Tristan.” I say. “That’s insanely stupid.”

“Why? It’s not like he can call the cops.”

“There are worse things he could do if he catches us.” I finish getting dressed, and grab my bag so I can leave. I don’t want to entertain this idea any longer. “You can go without me if you want, but, uh, no.”

Tristan gets out of bed, following me towards the door in nothing but his tattoos and a thin pair of old boxers. He grabs a hold of my arms and looks me in the eye. “I promise you won’t have to do anything. You’ll just act like you want to buy something. I’ll go pretend to use the bathroom, but I’ll really be in the closet getting the money.”

“Why do you need me for that? You can take anyone.”

“You have a trustworthy face.”

He is right; I do have a trustworthy face. At least I did before I started hanging around with Tristan. I break eye contact and turn to look for my coat, which I find a moment later underneath a stack of boxes.

“Trust me, we do this one thing right and we’ll be set for the rest of the year,” he says, practically jumping up and down on his toes now. There’s a spark in his eyes I haven’t seen since we first started our craigslist scheme, and I know it’s careless, but I can’t help but want to say yes. I’ve never been good at saying no to people. He takes me in his arms and squeezes me tight, like precious goods.

“After this, we’ll be done. You can pay Zoya, and we can get an apartment, if you want… or you know what? We can take the money get the fuck out of here. I’m getting sick of this town. What are we waiting for?”

I have to admit I like the sound of that. I’ve been getting sick of Milwaukee, too. The weather alone is enough to send anyone packing this far into winter, and now I have no friends to go out with, no classes to attend. Really, the only thing keeping me around anymore, besides getting Zoya’s money, is my grandparents. And even though I’m not speaking with my parents at the moment, the thought of leaving them too has been an anchor wrapped around my leg. But I can’t stay here forever because of it, I know that. “I really just have to stand there and pretend to buy something?”

Tristan’s mouth spreads into a wide grin. He kisses me. Then he says, “You’ll need to actually buy something.”

“Oh. Like weed? I guess I can do that.”

“This guy doesn’t sell weed.”

I give him a knowing look. “Are you sure it’s a good idea to go to a house full of drugs?”

Tristan waves his hand in the air like its nothing. “I’ll be fine,” he says, kissing me on the cheek. He goes back to the mattress and lies down, adjusting the two pillows I grabbed from my parents’ house behind his neck and starting his cigarette again.

“I don’t know, Tristan,” I say again. It’s one thing to steal from an empty house, but quite another to risk being caught, let alone by a drug dealer. “I don’t think it’s a good idea. I have a bad feeling.”

He grabs his book from next to the bed and opens it. Then he looks up again, annoyed. “Didn’t we already agree on this? What else is there to talk about?”

I look at him, sitting half naked in the bed like he doesn’t have a care in the world, and I can’t help but wonder if this is the man I fell for, or if he has been hiding behind a gentler version of himself this entire time. When we’d met, he seemed so stable. He had quit everything; not just drugs but alcohol and cigarettes too. Eventually the cigarettes came back, followed by the alcohol. Had he returned to drugs, too, without my noticing? It’s not like we spend every second together. I’m not the jealous type, so I don’t generally monitor his whereabouts.

Maybe I should.

I close the door without arguing more, and head out to linger around Riverwest with my sketch pad like I normally do nowadays. But all day long the feeling of dread grows in my stomach. Not the nervous kind, like when we went to the party and stole wallets, but the kind that tells you not to do something, if you only care to listen. Tristan doesn’t believe in premonitions, or fate, so it’s no use sharing the information with him.

When I get back from Gordon Park, where I’d been sketching a dog playing fetch in the grass, Tristan is already dressed and outside, like he’d been watching for me out the window. He hands me a roll of bills and slaps my butt till I get on my bike and follow him. We bike all the way down Center Street, passing a show at Valhalla and several groups of smokers at Mad Planet. We keep biking past Holton for several blocks, then turn left on Martin Luther King Drive and head south. I’ve never gone this far into the “hood,” and the further out of Riverwest and into Harambee we go, the more my pulse drums in my ears.

The feeling of dread intensifies when we get to the house on MLK drive. The duplex, a green and brown Polish flat like much of Riverwest, looks at first like any other house around. Until you get closer and notice the windows are boarded up, the front porch is caving in, and there are three German Shepherds barking at us from the backyard. The only thing separating us from them is a thin dilapidated fence. Outside on the steps several Latino teenagers in baggy clothes are smoking cigarettes and drinking forties. One of them nods to Tristan in greeting.

“Tristan,” I say, gripping my bike handles tight. There is no part of me that wants to get off my bike and go into that house. “I don’t like this. It’s a bad plan. A really bad plan.”

“Anastasia, don’t be racist,” he says. He hops off his bike and motions for me to do the same. I stare at him and don’t move, other than to take off my hat. He ruffles my hair. “I’m just kidding. You gotta relax.”

“Oh, yes, please tell me how I need to relax. That totally always works.”

Tristan places his arms on both my shoulders and blinks. “No matter what happens, I’m going to protect you,” he says, serious for the first time since he came up with this horrible idea. “You don’t need to worry about that. Just take a breath.”

I take a breath. Then I take two more. Then I force my legs to move and release the bike. We lock them to a nearby pole with a “no parking” sign attached to the top, which is a little loose in the cement and could likely be taken out if someone has the energy or wherewithal to do it. I can only hope no one does have the energy, because I will need to get out of here way faster than my nervous legs would be able to take me. And we are now at least a mile from Riverwest, if not more.

“It’ll be over in no time,” Tristan says into my ear. He even kisses my neck softly, right where he knows I like it. “Just do what we said.”

I nod, but my breath comes in short and choppy, and my body is filled with panic in a way it hasn’t ever been before this night. I squeeze his hand tight, like he’s a life jacket and I’m lost in the ocean. The dogs start barking more incessantly the closer we get to the door, and one of them is tall enough to reach its snout over the fence and snarl at me.