A couple of miles down the main road, Zack pulled off into a cul-de-sac and sat in the cover of deep darkness under some big old trees. His breathing was coming too fast; his main rule was keep cool, and cool didn’t go with fast breathing. The meet was at midnight, so he had a few hours to ponder his problems, the three big ones he had to solve: Bud, Dora, and the Apostle. Jeez! A lightning strike. He hated them. They were like the slash of a leather belt. Putting him off his stride, making his heart and his breathing wrong. He pulled out his medicine cabinet and sat looking at them all, with his breathing too fast and his heart pounding and his ears full of white throbbing, looking at them all, all the pills and the colors and shapes diamond hard in his eyes, pills and the buzzes that went with them, working out what would balance out fast breathing and thoughts coming too fast and lightning strikes. He was gonna see one of their faces pretty soon if he didn’t get a pill. The long pink one looked good. He almost got a good breath just looking at it.
Bud was probably handled, for now. Yeah, Bud. His smile wasn’t so cute anymore, minus a couple of teeth. He smiled narrow now, to cover it up. But back in the day he really knew how to work it. Bud stood out of range while he, Zack, the oldest, who should know better, got the stuffing beat of him. And there was Bud, smiling like a Cheshire Cat, needling him, all the time needling him. And Bud always getting favors and hugs on account of being so little and having curly hair and a cute smile. Zack pulled out his phone and called the Highway Patrol.
Dora and the Apostle loomed large, and he couldn’t say which was worse. Dora was leaning on his last nerve pretty hard. She was a tall drink of sweet water, as Pawpaw would of said. But she was asking for it. Early on she was asking for it, sticking her chest out and mouthing off. The pink pill kicked in kinda early, like it sometimes did when he really needed it. His breathing was down to normal. But Dora went from 120 to 0 way too fast. He had taken her in hand, like the Apostle said to, and he had to admit he was pretty good at it. He didn’t even have to touch her any more to get her to cave. Dora was perfect when he got her, but she had run out of fight. Last time he went at her, she didn’t even put up her hands, not speck of fight. And fight was the juice he needed. She was used up. But she was still asking for it, looking so pitiful like he shouldn’t have put her in her place. He had to keep control, and she just kept pushing. He couldn’t let her go anywhere, especially Church, because she didn’t look quite right anymore. She had all her parts, in very perfect condition, but she looked like a Zombie. Zack wondered could he trade her in, like he did at his day job with cars. Being honest with himself, he might just lose control with her, really lose it. That could end him up with a way bigger problem than he ever dealt with before.
The Apostle gave Dora to him, for a nice full medicine cabinet, and could maybe find somebody who wanted a long skinny girl who was out of fight. He could do with another girl a little less fine than Dora, as long as she had some fight. But that was the other big problem: the Apostle was strung out. Even his grand talk in Church was getting thin, hardly made sense. Even with that great voice and huge hairy face he was pretty close to done. Done enough maybe to start talking about where he got his medicine cabinet and what he paid for it.
Zack was smart, and cool, and in his stride now. He might need some new skills now, or a Personnel arm to his night business, his real job, but that looked like a piece of cake now, him sitting on top of a big pink pill and no problems and a future.
★ ★ ★