In Autumn's Wake Read online

  “Four. I had one before we left the house.”

  “Are you drunk?”

  “Get me another, and I will be.”

  “Dammit, Sean.” He’s focused on beer, and I’m focused on getting the hell out of here.

  A middle-aged guy with curls sticking out from underneath a backward baseball cap walks up to Autumn. Must be Mack. “Four for a bump or sixty for a gram.” His tattered gray jeans and white tee are too small, his military boots too big. “You’ll do it here your first time. Take a seat on the sofa.” The unlit cigarette hanging from his lip muffles his words. “Who ya with, sweetheart?” He throws a sharp look at Sean and me.

  “My boyfriends.” She puts her arms around us and brings us closer.

  “A threesome.” He grins while scratching his nuts. “Right on.”

  “A gram, please. And we want to save it for when we bang at home,” she says.

  “We have beds right here.” His curly hair, bony face, and slow speech remind me of Matthew McConaughey. “Sit down with your friends.”

  She tilts her head, doing her best to charm him. “I’ll be more comfortable if we can take it home. I don’t want to be naked here.”

  He draws a handgun from the back of his jeans and positions the muzzle between her eyes. “I’m not forcing you to fuck. First time you buy from me, you do it here. You’ll have plenty left over for later.”

  “But—”

  “Take. A. Seat.” The muzzle presses into her skin.

  “Okay.” She looks cross-eyed at the barrel.

  “Billy, set up a virgin special for them. Let’s make their night.” He slides the gun down her face and under her chin, raising her head until she’s staring at the plank ceiling. “You’re a nice piece of ass. I’d like to have you myself.”

  “She’s taken,” I say, stepping forward, not happy about where this is heading. “Taken.”

  He turns the gun on me. I raise my hands, feeling my cell vibrate, and spotting Sean’s fingers flutter next to his side.

  Sean, don’t do it. Pulling your pocket pistol will get us all killed.

  “We good?” Mack asks.

  The three of us nod.

  “Sit.” He waves his gun toward the sofa.

  “Mack, be nice. Don’t ruin my high,” a woman complains from one of the mattresses.

  “Shut your trap over there.” He scratches his chin with the gun.

  We squeeze onto the sofa. Sean’s cell vibrates against my hip. Ed likely thinks we’re getting drunk and hitting on women. He’ll figure out soon enough that something’s wrong. I hope.

  Billy reappears and passes off a glass pipe. Meth. I see crystals in the clear bowl through the residue.

  “I love you rich kids.” Mack brushes a finger across his lips. “Pockets full of your mommy and daddy’s cash. No cares. No responsibilities. No idea what you’re going to do with your life, so you pass the time in outer space.” He looks at Sean and me, then at Autumn. “You get slammed at the same time by these two?” He laughs. “Bet that feels nice, real nice.” He sits on the coffee table in front of us.

  “My friend said you’re cool and easygoing, but you’re scaring me. I just came for a quick rush, not meth. It lasts way too long to be my thing.”

  “Well then, what is your thing? Being a princess in this fancy coat?” He feels the fabric between his thumb and forefinger. “Or being a whore in that shirt?” He moves the gun up her waist, placing the glass pipe between her lips. “Beer. Coke. Crystal. Getting tongued by these two men. There’s no difference here. It’s all about getting high anyway you can.” He leans back, leaving the pipe in her mouth.

  Sean shifts on the sofa whenever his cell vibrates. I match his unease, wiping my sweaty hands on my jeans, as Autumn rubs her arms for warmth, the pipe shaking between her quivering lips. She places her coat over her lap, putting her hands in the pockets.

  Mack lights his cigarette and exhales smoke through his crooked nose. “Don’t be afraid of it. Everyone starts here.” He holds the flame to the pipe. “You’ll find you like what I have, and next weekend your ass will be back in this same spot asking for more. Soon I’ll be your God.”

  The woman on the mattress relights a pipe for another hit while my cell vibrates for the millionth time. I can hear and sense what’s happening in the room, but I’m unable to see everything that’s around. There could be ten guys in the shadows pointing guns at us, and we wouldn’t know it.

  “I don’t believe in God,” Autumn speaks around the pipe.

  Billy walks over with a gram, tossing it in her lap. He crosses his arms, showing off a handgun at his hip.

  “What you crave becomes your drug which becomes your God,” Mack says. “There’s your gram. Pay up, take my gift, and don’t insult me.” He holds the lighter under the pipe and tells her to inhale. She doesn’t. “Take a deep breath or take your last breath.” He cocks his gun.

  I hold my breath. At this moment, nothing seems to matter. Not that I’m only twenty-two, it’s February again, and Heather and Jake have been dead for a year. Not that I’m always drunk, and always cold, and I haven’t done a thing with my life. Not that I’m still stuck doing these jobs for Ed and earning meager pay at the bar. Not that I’m falling for the girl sitting next to me on a filthy sofa with a meth pipe in her mouth, or that I live in a dying city, or that I, too, might die tonight.

  Mack snatches the pipe and hands it back to Billy. “I’m just messing with you asinine kids. Do a bump of the gram, then take the rest and get outta here.” He turns the brim of his cap forward and leans away with a resounding laugh. “I promise, it’s the best shit you’ve ever had.”

  I nod incessantly, agreeing to the coke. We can handle that, we’ve sampled it in front of dealers a handful of times. Snort and go. This is good. Anything other than the meth is good. Good. Good. Good.

  I take the gram from her lap and open the seal, using my pinkie to shovel a tiny mound onto the back of my hand. I hold it in front of Autumn, and she snorts it up like she’s been jonesing for it all night.

  “Perfect.” She wipes her nose. “Hit it. Hit it.” She snaps her fingers, waiting a minute to feel a kick.

  Sean snorts a more significant amount than Autumn. Then he elbows me to do it quick so we can bolt.

  “You’re happy.” Mack winks at Autumn.

  She smiles when it possesses her. I snort mine and lean back, waiting for it to take hold.

  “Awesome.” I grin, loving it a bit too much.

  The wave of euphoria backtracks into alarm. Autumn twists and turns, looking this way and that. Sean sits up, grips the arm of the sofa. I hear it. Everyone hears it.

  Billy races to the stairs. “Mack, I think the cops are here. Ditch the stuff!”

  “No, it’s just a fight,” Sean says.

  “It’s a fight,” I repeat, knowing we have to get out quick or one of us will end up dead.

  I look around for an escape, but with the screaming downstairs, the storm of thudding footfalls, and the mayhem tearing through the house, I know it’s too late.

  Mack raises his gun.

  “It’s just a fight.” I try again.

  He stands and Sean stands. The woman on the mattress curls into a ball. The coke intensifies the commotion. The attic shakes, and I feel as if I’m falling into the stomach of the house. A door crashes in below us, and another, and another, as the cops make their way through the second floor. Wood splinters. Kids shriek. Boots clomp up the stairs. Then flashlights orbit the ceiling and walls, adding to the chaos and the confusion.

  “Hands up! Hands up!”

  Mack aims his gun just as a blast explodes from Autumn’s coat. Puffs of fabric float through the air like snow. He lands in my lap, chest pumping out blood, eyes wide with fear. A second shot rings out, coming from Sean’s pistol, the bullet hitting Billy in the head.

  Life or death.

  Mack lifts his head and presses the gun to my chest.


  Life or death.

  I fight to turn it back on him.

  Life or death.

  I panic and take a shot.

  Blood seeps from his forehead and down the middle of his face, his dead eyes fixed to mine. I shove his limp body to the floor and drop his gun, rubbing my palms on my legs.

  “Get on the ground! The three of you, on the ground!”

  The cops shouldn’t have charged inside. They shouldn’t have torn through the house and kicked in the doors, or sent out gyrating waves of light with their flashlights. No-brained fools. We would’ve been out of here in less than five. Five minutes, just five more minutes.

  They shouldn’t cuff us. There’s no need to walk us out with our coats over our heads and cram us into the back of Ed’s Tahoe. They should’ve let us dart out and vanish with everyone else.

  “Autumn, what the hell were you doing there?” Ed pounds the steering wheel. “Son of a bitch. Did you mess this up? Did you? Did you fuck this shit up?” He bangs the metal partition cage that’s between us.

  “Rinky-dink cop. Uncuff us.” She kicks the cage.

  The veins in his neck bulge, his skin turning cardinal red. “Who shot them? Who did it?”

  “I did,” she admits.

  “Me,” Sean says.

  “I killed him,” I answer.

  “Ed, take a breather before you have a heart attack.” His partner, Kevin, pats his shoulder from the passenger seat.

  “That supply they had was nothing. Insignificant. Where’s the stash? Who do they get it from? How do we ask them when they’re dead?” Ed rages. “How do we account for the bullets? We didn’t shoot. I didn’t shoot. Did you think of that? What the hell happened up there?”

  “You barged in!” I shout back. “It’s your fault!”

  “Hey, I saved that cop’s life,” Sean says. “He would’ve been dead the second he reached the top of the stairs if I hadn’t shot that guy.”

  “You’re pathetic, Dorazio. I’ll have someone take care of this if you can’t.” Autumn drops back and raises her feet to the seat. She lifts her ass and slides her hands under her backside, bringing her cuffed wrists under her feet to the front. Still cuffed, but no longer confined behind her back.

  “Autumn, don’t you dare say a word to anyone,” Ed warns. “Not a word.”

  She digs through my coat pocket for my cigarettes, lights one up, and offers me a drag.

  “Don’t smoke in here.” Ed rattles the cage.

  “Then pull over and let us out,” she says.

  I’m sweating, and paranoid, and restless that I’m cuffed and confined in the back seat. Maybe we’re being arrested. Maybe Ed set us up to send us to prison. No, that’s too risky for him. I don’t trust him though. I don’t trust Autumn either. At this point, I don’t even trust myself.

  Autumn whispers, and I ask her what she said, but she says she didn’t say anything. She whispers again, but it’s not her. I hear voices. I’m suspicious of her, of Ed, and his partner. The coke’s claimed me. My vision fills with floating spots of light, and my mind fills with thoughts of death. I can’t get the whispers out of my head, or the sound of Jake tapping the ice with his hockey stick. I told him to stop, but he wouldn’t. He was using the stick to push the body toward the crack because he didn’t want to touch it. Then he tapped, and tapped, and tapped. I was frustrated but only turned away for two seconds.

  Two.

  “My heart is exploding from the coke!” I holler. “I’m dying!”

  Autumn whispers again. I don’t know what she said. She whispers, but I can’t hear her.

  “Jake wasn’t supposed to die. He wasn’t supposed to die!” I kick the cage.

  The river swallowed him, and then I heard a sound. A whisper. Who whispered? Who is whispering? Is that now, or was it then?

  I slam both feet against the cage. “Let me out! Pull over and let me out!”

  I had to wait for Sean to come to the river and take the body away. I couldn’t put the body in the river with Jake. I couldn’t call the cops until he was gone. I didn’t call for help fast enough.

  Sean kicks the metal with me until Ed slams on the brakes and springs out of his seat.

  We’re here. Home.

  He yanks us out by our necks and pushes us onto the iced sidewalk. I land on my chest, get uncuffed, and then clubbed in the back.

  “We did this for you!” I shout.

  “You did nothing but butcher this job.”

  Sean’s hit next, two clubs to his lower back.

  A neighbor’s porch light flickers on, sending a spotlight onto the sidewalk. Kevin whistles at Ed to get back in the Tahoe, pointing at the house next door.

  “Autumn’s right, you’re a rinky-dink cop,” I tell him.

  He strikes me harder, and I collapse on the ground. “You’ll be six feet under if you don’t stay away from her.” He kicks snow in my face before plodding away, Autumn smoking in the back seat as she’s driven off. I’m left roughed up, on the ground, with no answers for a second Friday night in a row.

  I roll over and take a winded breath, sending Autumn a text that we need to talk soon. Then I send another that we need to talk tonight. And another.

  We need to talk NOW. Make Ed bring you back.

  Her response is predictable.

  I’ll find you when I’m ready.

  Sean turns over and places an arm over his face to shield the falling snow. “Dylan, she shot first. You caught that, right? She took the first shot.”

  “I know.” I sigh.

  “She pushed that guy in the alley into your blade, and, she shot first.”

  “I know.”

  “She’s bad news, man.” He uncovers one eye. “You better be careful.”

  I don’t need Sean to tell me Autumn’s dangerous, or to tell me I’m taking a chance, or that I’m getting in way over my head. I know. I know she’s like coke, the one in control. And like coke, she gets me high, and I can’t get enough of her. And like coke, she’ll either kill my heart or be the one who makes it beat again.

  11

  Jake and I were lucky to be raised by authoritative parents who were open and supportive. They set limits, yet gave us plenty of freedom so we didn’t become reliant on them. But since Jake died, my mom is now an overprotective helicopter parent, hovering over me, and my dad. He’s caught her following him to the bar, not because she thinks he’s cheating, but to see that he makes it there unharmed. And she bought me pepper spray a few months back, unaware I carry a knife. Along with the spray came plates of pasta, part of her new routine of dropping off dinner at the bar. The pampering is out of control. She goes as far as to cut our food into small pieces, everything, including the pasta—itty-bitty pieces. Even pizza slices turn into one-inch squares. Unbelievable. I understand her excessive catering, and why she’s sheltering us. And I’m relieved I’m too old for it to do any long-term damage, but still, it’s another stressor, another reason why I chain smoke.

  “Mom, I said I’m not feeling so hot. It’s a flu bug or maybe something I ate.” I switch ears and place my feet on the coffee table, scrunching my face at Sean while pointing at my phone.

  “Tell your mom I said, hi.” He waves, heading out to meet Riley at the pool hall.

  “Will do.”

  “Dylan,” my mom cuts in.

  “What?”

  “We should have lunch at that new restaurant down the street from the bar once you’re feeling better. The ‘beef on weck’ is amazeballs.”

  “Amazeballs?”

  Hitting a middle-aged slump, my mom uses slang to try to fit in. Old slang, like amazeballs, mega, cool beans, kickin’ it, to name a few.

  “You have to try it,” she repeats.

  “Try what, saying amazeballs? Not gonna happen,” I tease.

  “No, the beef on weck, silly. They put extra, extra beef on the sandwiches and the buns are extra, extra salty. The food there is
delish!”

  “Super.” I wriggle my feet, glad that the coke has worn off.

  Going through a bust with the cops shifted my high to a state of extreme agitation. Ed beating me with his baton didn’t do much for it either. Add the hallucinations of someone whispering, and I went nuts.

  “Are you sure you’re okay? Should I come over?” she asks.

  “And do what? Watch me hang out on the couch? No, I’m fine.” I rub my temples, another splitting headache. I told my mom I think I have the flu, but I’m just worn-out from the entire night. “Why are you calling here so late? Is Dad okay?”

  “He’s fine.” She blows her nose and then sniffs. “Do you have a fever?”

  “No. Stop worrying.” I switch ears and pluck a piece of lint off my black flannel sleep pants. I hate lying to her about having the flu, but it’s the best excuse I have for not showing my face at the bar.

  “I saw your truck on my way home after visiting your dad at the bar.” She speaks at a slower pace. “Did you know there was a shooting on that street? I saw it on the news earlier.”

  “Oh, yeah?”

  “A big shooting, Dylan. Why was your truck there?”

  “I got drunk at a party. Sean gave me a lift home.”

  Another lie.

  She pauses.

  I sigh.

  “I worry,” she says.

  “I know you do.”

  “You shouldn’t be out drinking when you have the flu. You’ll get dehydrated.” Her voice cracks. A bottle opens. She pours a drink and sips. “Are you dehydrated? Maybe I should take you to the hospital.”

  “I’m not going to the hospital.”

  “Dylan.”

  “What?” Slouching lower on the couch, I wave my hand through the glistening dust motes dancing under the table lamp, knowing what she’s about to say.

  “I can hear you smoking. You’re not sick. You never smoke when you’re sick.”

  “Sometimes I do.”

  “I worry.”

  “You just said that.”

  “Did you see what happened? Did the shooting happen at that party? Tell me the truth. Why was your truck on that street?”

  “Mom, I was at a party and got drunk, but not the party on the news. Can we talk about something else?”