The Seven Habits

Ocean could hear him breathing now, that distinctive rasp and gurgle of air passing through his deformed throat.

Go away! She wanted to scream, to cry out for Gauge so loudly that her voice would echo down every tunnel for miles around. Her throat was as tight as if it were being pinched by an invisible hand… besides, what would she say? Corduroy hadn’t actually done anything, after all. The man could always claim that he was simply coming over to wake her up, and maybe that was all there really was to it. Maybe he was just trying to get her to rise and shine, as Levi always said.

But, if that were the case, why had he silently motioned to her with his finger? Why did he seem nervous and on edge, as if he were up to something? Why was he hovering behind her right now, breathing harshly, but otherwise not making a sound? Not even moving.

She could picture him squatting just behind her back, close enough that she could smell the sour bite of body odor.

Then, her eyes still squeezed shut, she felt a hand grab her forearm so roughly it was like a metal band had just cinched around her muscles.

Corduroy jerked Ocean to her feet and spun her around roughly, pulling her tightly to his body, his lips parting, warm breath tickling her ear. At that moment, all doubt vanished… Ocean knew that something wasn’t right.

The scream that tried to work its way through her throat was shoved back down as one burnt hand clamped over her mouth.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Now, Steel told me it would take a few days to get me a piece. Maybe even as long as a week. He also told me to keep cool, lay low, not to do anything stupid like running out to the corner pawn shop and pickin’ up a nine for a couple hundred less than I was payin’ him.

“What I’m getting you,” he told me, “is clean. Un-fucking-traceable. They can run all the ballistics they want and never get so much as a squeak out of that database of theirs. And, if you follow my instructions to the T, they’ll never have a barrel to match ‘em to either.”

So I tried to do just that. I went to work, pecked away at the keyboard in my little cubicle until it felt like my fingertips had been bludgeoned into stubby little nubs. I tried to make like it was just any other day, but the entire time, I had this weird feeling down in the pit of my stomach. Almost like the Chinese I’d picked up for lunch wasn’t quite up to health codes and I was comin’ down with a bad case of the Hong Kong Dog. Only I knew it wasn’t that, ‘cause there wasn’t any cramps or rumbling or any of the usual stuff. Not so much as even a gurgle down in the ‘ole G.I tract.

By the time I got home, man, that feeling had mutated into some gnarly shit. It still had that diarrhea piquancy to it, but, at the same time, it also felt like someone had released a jar full of moths down my throat and my stomach was the light drawing them in, if ya dig where I’m comin’ from. So I packed the bong good and tight, ya know? I mean, I had to practically cave my head in just to get the water gurglin’, dude. But once I finally released the carb, that shit shot down my throat like liquid silk. No coughin’ or anything… And let me tell ya, that Steel can get his grubby-grubs on some primo herb, man. Smoothest shit I ever had the pleasure of burnin’.

Anyhow, weed usually has this medicinal effect on me, see, and I—

No, you fuckin’ smart ass, for your information, I don’t have glaucoma. Nothin’ wrong with these peepers, believe you me. I see everything. Including how you’re tryin’ to shake me up with all these dumb-ass questions. You’re tryin’ to see if there’s any pennies left in the ‘ole piggy bank. But if ya don’t hear that rattle, it doesn’t mean that my inner child’s done run off to the candy store, man. Maybe it means that pig has had so much change shoved down his gullet that everything’s packed too tight to even so much as clink. Ever think abut that, mother fucker? No, of course you didn’t. Why am I not surprised?

See, when I say weed had a medicinal effect on me, I just mean that it calms my system, dig? A little spot of indigestion or queasiness and it’s entirely gone by the time the munchies set in. That’s why they prescribe the stuff to chemo patients, man. And I’d much rather put a little THC into my system than any of these mad scientist concoctions they call medicine, ya know? Damn, half the time you end up with something twice as bad as what you took the fuckin’ meds for.

Only, it didn’t work this time. Instead of gettin’ all mellow and into my subconscious flow, I start squirmin’ around in my chair. Before ya know it, I’m thumbin’ through magazines like I was lookin’ for money tucked between the pages, just rifling through these old back issues of Discover and Scientific American. But I’m not reading them, not even lookin’ at the pictures. Like my hands needed somethin’ to do and that was the best they could come up with, see?

I start to get frustrated because it also feels like I really am lookin’ for something, man. Like I know its in these old magazines somewhere, so close that I can practically smell it. Only I won’t know exactly what it is I’m searchin’ for until I actually see it. Then I get this idea that maybe it ain’t even in those periodicals at all. Maybe I’m just sittin’ there in my little shithole apartment and pissin’ away my buzz when I should be expanding my parameters, ya know?

So I just kind throw all the mags into this big pile on the floor and, since my hands don’t have anything to keep ‘em busy, apparently my feet decide it’s their turn to join in on the fun. They start tapping away at the floor like I was playin’ the kick drum in a thrash metal band. The cheap glass in my window starts rattling around in the panes like it’s makin’ them nervous or something.

Then—just like that—I gotta be doin’ something. Anything. So I hop up outta that chair and start pacing back and forth, so much that I’m surprised I didn’t make the carpet even more threadbare than what it already was. Not to be outdone, my hands apparently jump back into the fray ‘cause I’m lighting one smoke after another and suckin’ ‘em down like I was tryin’ to earn my merit badge for emphysema or some shit. Which, of course, doesn’t help my damn nausea in the least bit, so then I’m queasy and light-headed, and feeling as wired as if I’d downed half a bottle of No-Doz.

Part of me knows what it is. Hell, I’ve never been good at waiting for anything. I fuckin’ detest standing in lines, man, and stoplights make me wanna pull the hairs right outta my beard in big, bushy handfuls. Don’t even get my ass started on the DMV. That place is like a circle of Hell so heinous that even Dante couldn’t see it comin’.

So within an hour and a half or so, I was prowlin’ through my pad like a caged tiger, like the place had somehow gotten smaller than it already was, ya know? Like the cracked plaster walls were inching a little closer every time I turned my back, pushing all my junk toward me. Kinda like that trash compactor scene in Star Wars, man. I had all this garbage and second-hand furniture feeling like it was tryin’ to squeeze the air right outta my lungs, suffocating me with stale smoke, beer, and that musty odor you sometimes get in old thrift stores.

And, all the while, I got this beast stretching its tentacles through the murky waters of my mind, just waitin’ for the right moment to coil around my leg and pull me under.

‘Cause I can’t seem to get Clarice Hudson outta my head, see? I look at the poster with Einstein stickin’ his tongue out, try to breathe with intention and empty the ‘ole noggin’ of everything that’s clutterin’ it up. But what am I really thinkin’ about? Those plastic tumblers they sell at Dollar Bonanza and how this bitch has probably touched each and every one with her sweaty little fingers.

Some people drink outta those things without rinsin’ them out, man. Healthy people. Innocent people. Might as well just inject them with ultra-concentrated contagion right then and there, for what it’s worth. Then I notice this empty cup from Meat World peeking at me out of the garbage and I get this image of her shoveling all that food down her throat: starve a fever, feed a cold, and founder infection.

And I know Steel’s right. I gotta hang loose, chill the fuck out, and hope he can get the damn roscoe a helluva lot faster than he said he could.

But this chick is doggin’ me, man. I can’t so much as turn a corner without her infected ass pouncing into my thoughts. Yeah, I realize that probably does sound a bit obessive, but if you woulda been in my shoes, you woulda done the same damn thing, mother-fucker. Guaranteed.

So I think maybe I’ll watch a little TV, right? Something to distract me. I plop my ass down on the couch, dig