GHOSTS

Cruel, cruel. So cruel, Deck, Ione thought picking up Deck’s tablet, the last thing on the pock-marked, cigarette-burned coffee table. You leave with both our dough, saying you’ll be back with presents and you never show. She thumbed her phone and it displayed no return calls. Then, you don’t pick up. She buzzed him for the seventh time.

“Yo. This is Deck. Spit it,” his inbox repeated once again and beeped.

Ione grimaced. “Heeeeyy, roomie. No big deal or anything. I just thought when you left eariler — and by earlier I mean yes-ter-day — that you’d back, you know, today, seeing as how you were supposed to pick up some shit for us both,” she exhaled. “So, if you’re fuckin’ dead or whatever, tell me so I can sell your shit and rent out your room.” She ran her finger along the dusty table, then spoke softly, “Just tell me you’re alright, you stupid bastard.”

She leaned backward on her spindly arms and brought herself to her feet. Ione looked around and couldn’t remember much of the past two days. A haze of blurry meals of necessity, hours and hours spent tapped into the Screen watching god-knows-what in and out of sleep, and the feather-bed lightness of her last few hits of Lift. Ione felt frail as she ran her hands along the waves of her ribs. Already petite, she knew was getting too thin. I just need to cool off a while. Get back on a regular schedule.

The room started to shift in her head so Ione braced herself against the nook with her bookshelf. She slid herself down and tucked herself into the corner, as sweat started to collect on her palms. She set the phone in front of her. Come on, Deck. Come on, motherfucker. Wiping her face, she leaned down and dialed him once again, trying to stop her hands from trembling.

ANSWER!

The ringing echoed heavily through the disheveled apartment.

Ione shook involuntarily with a cold chill.

DECLAN!

It began to ring again and then connected.

“Yo, Ne-Ne. What’s up?” Declan’s voice crackled over the line.

She nearly spit out her tongue in excitement.

“What’s up?! Where the fuck are you, asshole?!” Ione tried to catch her breath, exasperated. “You never came home. I’m dry right now and starting to spin!”

Declan sighed deeply. “I’m sorry, Io. I got spaced last night at Silas’ and…” he paused, “…and I spent the night again.”

Ione couldn’t contain her disgust. “That fuckin’ chick again? Dude, you are a glutton for punishment,” She laughed. “She’s got an old man. You’re just a good-time guy. You need — ,” she stopped, thinking she was being too harsh, then added, “You can do better.”

Deck went quiet at the other end of the line.

Ione slipped into the silence, then thought it better to apologize.

“I’m s — ”

“There’s some spazzy stuff in my sock drawer. It’s some diced-up shit I bagged off this hustler goon a few weeks back. It won’t get ya lifted, but it’ll keep ya ’til I bounce back from Silas’. I gotta snag a couple bits from him and fatten the purse, nah’mean?” Declan interrupted.

She barely let him finish before she popped up and darted toward his room, the phone in hand.

“Thanks, D. I just wanna come down,” she said, relieved.

“No sweat, girl. Sorry about flakin’. I’ll snag some Chinese on my way back. Least I can do.”

“Sounds good. Ciao, roomie!” Ione tossed the phone onto Declan’s bed and tore open the first drawer on the plastic caddy at his bedside, favoring its missing wheel. Underneath a wad of socks, she found a small brown bag. Grabbing it and her phone, she sauntered back to her room and plopped down on her bed.

She dumped out the bag and spread out its contents. Synnies, Zips, lifters, a little kind, and a half-empty pack of cigarettes from China.

Her hands trembled as she slid the tarnished mirror-plate from her night stand. Empty Zip vials and Lume inhalers rolled across what remained of an old painting of a ballerina in pirouette. Carefully, she broke the filter off of the cigarette and gently rolled some of the tobacco onto the mirror. Then, she balanced the cigarette on its tip. After cracking the inhaler off the cheap psuedo-Lume capsule, she patiently separated the capsule in half and let the powder set atop the tobacco like fresh snow. Finally, Ione snapped off the tiny syringe-head from the small vial of Zip, and tapped the thin emerald glass, dripping the syrupy liquid into the mouth of the torn cigarette. She twisted the end closed and collapsed onto her back as she stuck the joint in her mouth.

I just need to come down, Ione repeated to herself, like a mantra. She lit the handmade smoke in her lips and inhaled deeply. The tobacco was stale and stung her throat. She coughed and splashed cinders on her sheets. Scrambling, she tamped them out and relaxed, inhaling more easily this time. The joint cracked and popped between her lips. Three velvety, mauve smoke trails curled like little snakes around one another.

Cascades of silky waves trickled over her, crawling up from her extremities, then to her spine and up her back. Ione felt her toes curl, then her calves tightened. All of her muscles contracted and a gentle warmth began to radiate from her pelvis. Then, with a jerk, all of her relaxed and the waves of bliss flowed over her like water running from a hot shower. She gasped and exhaled loudly, shivering as the waves pulsed more quickly.

A floating sensation overwhelmed her and she writhed around in her messy, knotted sheets for a comfortable nook. She brought her knees to her chest and cradled her phone in her trembling hand. She swiped open the radio app and pressed the “Oldies” station. The wailing harmonica of “Come Pick Me Up” crooned out of the tiny speakers, and Ione slid open her photo roll. She gazed into the hopeful eyes of little Nelson Cardinia, Wynona Langley, and Darion Wexler all hugging each other, smiling ear-to-ear on class picture day. She ran her finger upon all their toothy grins, knowing she would never see any of them or the rest of her third graders anymore. I just need to get back into a normal schedule. Clean myself up and reapply for my certs, Ione reassured herself.

She balanced the smoking joint on a bottle cap and pushed the mirror away from her. She leaned her phone, and the children’s grins, against a bunched pillow and stared at them with her head flat upon the bed.

Ione knew she was weeping, but she couldn’t feel a single thing.