Calamity

7

Tyler was on the phone (it was Delaney’s cell, all pink with shiny rhinestones that formed a “D” on the front) with Paul—hung over now, nursing “a bitch of a head throb”—when Dr. Carroll’s black Town Car pulled into the driveway. The short man got out of his car, that same stupid tie with pink flowers on it dangling beneath a drooping face.

“Christ, now the family doc is here.”

“You’re living in a fucked-up world these days, my friend,” Paul said.

The branded arrowhead on his hand had started to throb a few hours ago and hadn’t let up. “No shit.”

“You running out of options.”

“Yeah.”

“I mean, what the fuck were you thinking last night? We were trying to send a message and you go all hero on me.”

“Stupid, I know.” He had taken two Tylenol but it wasn’t helping with the pain.

“There are other bitches, better bitches, you can go after, fuck, and then drop if you want, ones without psycho witches for mothers. The first time, I mean, I can understand but why go back? Why?”

“You going to keep telling me what a fuck up I am or are you going to give me some advice?”

Paul snorted. “Advice? We tried that, wreck the bitch’s place—you fucked that up.”

“I don’t know. If she’s really pregnant …”

“You’re fucked.”

“Thanks.”

“My pleasure.”

Tyler laughed because it was better than getting more and more anxious or pissed off or even start crying. How had all of this happened? A week ago things had been, if not normal, then at least palatable, but since then he had raped and impregnated a girl who had a witch for a mother, Delaney had been killed, and Mom and Dad had checked out. And Brendan had been talking strange, too, since some religious freaks brain-washed him or something, so who knew where that would lead.

Back to the funeral home.

Paul started eating something, possibly cereal from the crunching sound. “You know what you should do,” he said.

“No, I don’t.”

Paul made him wait. Even with a hangover, Paul still appreciated a good dramatic pause. His idea better not be to burn Sasha’s house down, though with Paul that was always a possibility. An honors student, a jokester, and sometimes a violent guy, Paul had once lit a book of matches on fire in the cafeteria because Ed Greene said he didn’t have the balls. Paul got one day out of school—everyone else got a two-hour fire drill.

“You should get that ol‘ family doc to give you some meds to help remedy your situation.”

Tyler was struck silent by the simplicity and, yes, the brilliance of this idea.

“You could get some really potent shit, get Sasha to help you drug her mom, make her think it’s just to get the crone to shut up for a while and then before she even realizes her mother is in some deep shit, she’s fucked, too. Ground up some painkillers or something, drop it in some champagne and you can toast to the end of your problems.”

Paul was half joking, of course, though in his case it would be better to say he was partly joking. A half was too much credit.

“I’m not going to kill them,” Tyler said and thought: but it would be simpler.

“Fine, fine, let’s do it your way and talk to them. Yes, we’ll have some chitchat with the girl you raped and her mother, the self-proclaimed Wicked Witch of Trailer Trash Town.”

“I think this calls for a little from Plan A and a little from Plan B.”

“What’s that mean?”

“I’m not going to kill anyone, sorry to disappoint, but I may need your help regardless.”

Paul snorted down more cereal. “Whatever you need, you know that. But make it later because my head is fucking killing me.”

“No problem,” Tyler said. “Keep your cell close.”

* * *

When Dr. Carroll shut the bathroom door behind him, Tyler went straight for the doctor’s black bag, which he had left on Brendan’s bed. It was an old-fashioned doctor’s bag, the type with the clasp on the top and the two sides that parted like the mouth of a large fish. Inside the bag were several fabric dividers stitched into the lining. Prescription bottles filled these pouches. Along the bottom of the bag, more dividers, these made of sturdy cardboard, sectioned off six squares. The contents varied from more bottles of pills to a prescription pad to rolled- up gauze to a thermometer to a blood pressure gauge to a stethoscope that had been wrapped around itself and stuffed into one of the squares and now protruded from it like a black flower blooming in a dark cave.

Though there was almost no chance of anyone catching him, Tyler began to sweat. What if Aunt Stephanie decided to check on Brendan or wanted to call the doctor back to Mom’s side? What if he grew so engrossed in gleaning through the doctor’s bag that he didn’t hear Dr. Carroll walk up from behind him and … what? Didn’t doctors carry syringes? Tyler didn’t see any in the bag; perhaps the good doc kept those on his person. He’d sneak up behind Tyler and shoot him up with some sedative right in the neck where the blood rushing to his brain would take the medicine right up and he’d be right out before hitting the bed.

He pulled bottles out one by one, read them, and placed them back. He did this with several bottles before realizing that he had no idea, and would have no idea regardless how many he scanned, what most of these medicines did. Dr. Carroll wasn’t some cancer doctor or plastic surgeon or eye, nose, and throat specialist. Dr. Carroll’s specialty was in eradicating pain through as many painkillers as were necessary.

Paul had tried many times to convince Tyler to steal from his mother’s stash. Kids at school would pay good bucks for some Xanax (“Xanny Bars,” Paul called them) or anything she might have that was stronger. What could be stronger? Dr. Carroll may be weird but he was a doctor; he wasn’t going to give a patient heroin.

The bottles of pills displayed foreign names that revealed nothing about them: Pamelor, Sinequan, Vivactil, Remeron, Ludiomil. After the initial confusion of what to do with all these bottles, Tyler began removing two or three (sometimes four, even five) pills from every plastic container he examined. He shoved these pills in his pocket. Some were dry pills that would melt on your tongue; others were capsules that disintegrated in your stomach. No matter what they were, each one could be broken down to a powdery substance and used.

He’d mix them all together, make some horrendous cocktail of barbiturates. As long as they couldn’t be tasted, this would work and with enough of Tyler’s Powdery Mixture, the drugs would take effect fast and last longer than Tyler needed.

Aunt Stephanie was cooing to Mom in the adjacent room. It reminded Tyler of how everyone used to talk to Brendan when he was a baby. That’s what this stuff does to you, he thought, turns you back into an infant.

He worked as fast as he could without spilling any pills. He fell into a pattern the way people working at assembly lines probably did: remove bottle, Elavil, open, dump two to five pills in hand, drop pills in pocket, close bottle, return to compartment in black bag. This approach continued for several seconds before he finally found a drug name he recognized: Codeine.

Ed Greene (the same kid who dared Paul to lit some matches over a pile of school chili) had broken his hip during an ill-advised snowboarding ramp jump over Christmas break and when he returned to school on crutches, he started selling pills of Codeine he had stashed away. He sold those for twenty bucks a pill. Paul purchased a few and one Friday he and Tyler took the pills while playing PS3—they awoke nine hours later completely confused by the paused Madden 2010 football game on the TV. Tyler now held a bottle full. He dumped a handful into his palm, thought better of it and returned a few to the bottle, dumped the rest in his pocket, which was starting to bulge from its contents.

He wasn’t sure how long he had been doing this—a few minutes or closer to ten? It was time to stop; he had more than enough pills to do what he wanted. Still … There were so many damn bottles in this bag. Each compartment gave way to a new one, which held more possibly dangerous, possibly addictive, definitely strong pain killers. He knew he should stop, Brendan was going to have to really vomit to sell this whole plan if it continued any