Andrew Vachss - Pain Management

“No physical pain,” I said, letting the words sit between us.

She gave me a long, searching look. “No physical pain,” she finally agreed.

She was quiet for a long time after that. Me, too. I knew there was more, and I needed to show her I could wait for whatever it was. I lit a cigarette, held it out the window, watched the smoke drift off into the night, went with it.

“Have you ever watched someone die?” she asked suddenly, snapping me back from where I’d drifted off to.

“Yeah,” I told her.

“Someone close to you?”

“Yes.”

“Take them long?”

“Not . . . not like you mean.”

“Is that so? How do I ‘mean,’ then?”

“You mean like from an illness.”

“Yes.”

“No.”

“I don’t under—”

“I had friends go down slow, but not in front of me. I didn’t watch it. I didn’t even know about it until after it was over. I saw . . . In battle, I saw death.”

“But people close to you, you watched them go?”

“I said I did.”

“Can you imagine if it took—?”

“That’s enough,” I cut her off. “I can imagine anything. I don’t want to. It’s a cheap trick. You don’t need it. I’m already sold.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

“Just tell your story,” I said. I wasn’t going anywhere near watching Belle die. Or Pansy. Both from bullets they took for me. I still had their love. And wherever they were, they had proof of my love for them. In my vengeance.

“It’s not my story,” she said.

“Yeah, it is. No way you’re this . . . intense over some abstract principle. Besides, you dispense the stuff, right?”

“Yes,” she said, proudly. “That’s what I do. It’s no secret. But I’ve never been caught with the goods. Not enough to make it stick, anyway.”

“Maybe nobody’s all that interested.”

“Maybe nobody local. But the feds—that’s all they live for. Drugs. Sacred, holy drugs. Drug czars. Drug budgets. Drug squads. Drug forfeitures. Drug money—they all live on it.”

“Sure. We lost the bullshit ‘war on drugs’ a long time ago, and now we’re all POWs to it. But what’s any of this have to do with—?”

“They need it all,” she went on, as if I hadn’t spoken. “Oxy-C, OxyContin; the Fentanyl patch; Vicodin . . . you name it.”

“Who’s ‘they’?”

“People in pain. Everybody knows someone who’s been there. A friend, a relative, a . . . loved one. It happens all over. But everybody it’s happening to, they think they’re the only ones.”

Like the Children of the Secret, I thought. Alone in their pain, they never know that it’s not anything in them that made it happen. Freaks made it happen. There’s freaks all over. And when you get down to the bone, where the truth is, one person’s pain is always about another person’s power.

“There’s no immunity from terminal pain,” Ann said. “And when people are going to cross over,” she said, “they deserve to go softly. That ghoul with his horrible suicide machine, he wouldn’t have any takers if people could get true pain relief.”

“And if Nancy had bone cancer, she wouldn’t worry about turning into an addict.”

“But you, you don’t care?”

“You know what I think about ‘care’? I think there’s only so much of it to go around inside everyone. The more different things you ‘care’ about, the less you can ‘care’ about any one of them, you see what I’m saying?”

“No.”

“The people who want to stop women from having abortions, that’s the only thing they ‘care’ about. But the people who want women to be able to have abortions, they ‘care’ about a whole lot of stuff—clean air, pure water, logging, cigarette smoking, racism, gun control, animal rights, affirmative action, freedom of speech—”

“I get it.”

“I don’t think you do. Fanatics always have more impact than dabblers. When it comes to getting something done, whether it’s breaking a brick with your hand or overthrowing a government, focus is the best weapon of all. People on a jihad are willing to do things most people aren’t, see?”

“Yes, I see. I don’t apologize for what I am. So what’s your point?”

“My point is that I’m sorry about people dying in pain. But it isn’t the thing I care most about in the world.”

“And that would be . . . ?”

“My family.”

“And if one of your family was dying in pain?”

“I’d get them the drugs,” I told her. “No matter what I had to do. Or who I had to do it to.”

She went quiet again. I waited, again. Time passed.

“So, if someone in your family needed them, how would you get the drugs?” she finally asked.

“Buy them. Everything’s for sale, if you know where to look.”

“And you do?”

“For heroin? Who doesn’t ?”

“Not heroin. The stuff I told you about.”

“They keep it in hospitals. People work in hospitals.”

“You have no idea how strict the—”

“It just means it would cost more, that’s all. If you can get drugs in prison—and, believe me, you can—you can get them anywhere.”

“And if, just let’s say, nobody would sell you any . . .”

“It wouldn’t stop me.”

“You’d steal them, then?”

“For my family? If any of them needed a heart, I’d get them one, never mind some damn pills.”

“That sounds good.”

“I’m not trying to convince you of anything. You asked me a question; I answered you.”

“Yeah. You did. Some people say you were a mercenary.”

“Some people say Elvis lost weight recently.”

She went quiet again. I went back to where I’d been.

“How bad do you want that girl?” She broke the silence. “The one you’ve been looking for.”

“Bad enough to finance a suitcase of the stuff you want so bad.”

“Not enough.”

“There’s a budget,” I said. “And it’s got a ceiling.”

“Not cash,” she said softly. “A trade.”

“I don’t have any drugs. And you don’t have the girl.”

“You can help me get drugs. And I can help you get the girl.”

“You said that before.”

“I know I did. I was telling you the truth. Some of it, anyway.”

“Sure. Okay, turn her up and we’ll talk.”

“I don’t think so. But I will show you enough to make you believe me.”

“Look, I already told you about ‘caring.’ Don’t knock yourself out trying to make a believer out of me.”

“You don’t have to believe anything. Just tell me what you have so far—whatever you’re willing to, that is. I can work from nothing . . . or nearly nothing . . . but it would go a lot faster if you’d . . .”

“Here’s what I know,” I said. And gave her an edited version of the truth.

She listened carefully, nodding her head at various points, but not taking any notes. When I was done, she said, “I’m going to take you back now. Tomorrow, be around. It doesn’t matter where. Three o’clock. Call me. I’ll pick you up. And take you a lot closer to the girl than you’ve been since you started, see if I don’t.”

When I let myself back into the loft, Gem was there.

“Were you successful?” she greeted me, as if I’d been out trying to sell encyclopedias door-to-door.

“I might have gotten closer. Or I might be getting hustled. I can’t be sure yet.”

“How have you eaten?”

“Fine.”

“Yes? Very well, then.”

She approached me. Tentatively, as if not sure of her reception. As I stepped to meet her, I could see her eyes were closed. I kissed her lips, lightly. Her arms went around my neck.