Part 38 (1/2)
”Will you come on?” her husband snapped.
”Well, it's true. She treated him like c.r.a.p, and now look, just because he was nice, they blame him. It sucks. It really does!” she called at the closing door.
She sat on the step, waiting. ”Hey!” She jumped up when the door opened. The brother came out carrying a green canvas bag. ”I just wanted to ask you,” she said, following them to the car. ”Would you tell Gordon I said hi?”
”Yes, I will. That's very nice of you,” Lisa Loomis said.
”Watch out, them p.r.i.c.kers, they really hurt,” Jada warned as Lisa Loomis opened the car door. ”And tell him I'm watching the house for him. I'll keep the freaks away,” she said at Lisa's window as the car backed out of the driveway. ”I won't let the place get all c.r.a.ppy looking. I'll keep it nice!” she called as Lisa waved. ”f.u.c.king sn.o.b, can't even talk to me,” she muttered.
The office was freezing. Jada stuffed the paper into her pocket, then folded her arms and tried to stop s.h.i.+vering.
”Sorry for that,” Mr. Crowley said when he returned.
Mr. Crowley didn't look like a mister in his jeans and black T-s.h.i.+rt. He was a young guy with a bony face and closely set eyes that narrowed with doubt whenever she spoke. It was the second time he'd been called out to see someone. The place was a zoo, junkies lined up, waiting outside a door marked MEDS and the waiting room filled with even more of them.
”We're a little shorthanded today. Now let's see, you were telling me about . . .” He looked for the paper he had been writing on. He shuffled through the stack to his right, then pushed back in his chair to look down at the floor. ”It was right here. Well, anyway.” He ripped a new sheet from the pad. ”I remember most of it. Your name is Jana and your mother is addicted to crack and she needs to be placed in one of our programs.” He raised his eyebrows: Was that right so far?
”It's my aunt. I said mother, but she's, like, really kind of my aunt.” She had to be careful. What if he'd gone out both times to call Social Services or the cops?
”What's your last name, Jana?”
”Brown.”
He wrote it down. ”And your age?”
”Seventeen.”
He looked at her. ”Seventeen?”
”In a couple months.”
He didn't believe her. ”Your address?”
”Why, what's that matter? It's not me, I'm not tryna get in rehab. Is that what you think?” He did. She could tell, he thought it was her.
”No, I know. It's just for our records. Standard procedure, that's all.”
Yeah, standard procedure; next thing she knew, some social worker'd be banging down the door. ”Look, all I wanna do is to get my aunt in. She's too sick to come down. I told her I'd do this. She has to get on a list, right?” She pointed to his papers. ”A waiting list or something?”
”Yes, and right now ours is very long, but-”
”How long?”
”Three months, anyway.”
”Jesus Christ!” She felt as if she'd been punched in the stomach. What would three more months of drugs do to the baby? And to her? ”She can't wait that long! She'll be dead!” Having actually said it, she was limp with the certainty. Sometimes in the night she woke up afraid to move, afraid to feel a corpse at her back. ”There must be some other places,” she said weakly. ”Someplace she can get in faster.”
”Well, yes, private centers, hospitals, but she'd have to pay. We're state funded, so here it's-”
”Can't you just put her name high up on the list? I wouldn't tell anyone, I swear.”
”I'm sorry, I can't do that. It wouldn't be fair.”
”f.u.c.k fair! They're all out there getting their f.u.c.king s.h.i.+t and she's not gonna make it! She's not!”
”I'm sorry, Jana, now you just calm down. You have to understand that those people also had to wait. It's just the way things are.”
She couldn't believe that, couldn't quit, couldn't just give up and say, I'm nothing because no one cares, and that's just the way things are. She closed her eyes. ”Please? Will you please help her?”
”That's the other thing, Jana. You'd have to bring her in here. It's got to be voluntary. She has to want the help. It's the only way this works.”
”She does, but she can't. She's too sick.” She looked at him. ”She's pregnant.”
”Or it could be mandated by the courts.”
”How does that work?” she asked, stiffening with his answer: If her aunt were arrested, then she could be ordered into treatment. She nodded dully as he handed her brochures and a list of hot-line numbers, some for emergencies, others informational.
”Jana?” He patted her hand and tried to make eye contact. ”Sometimes we have to hurt people before we can help them.”
She grabbed his hand and leaned over the desk. ”Whatever you want, I don't care, I'll do it, anything. I'm really good! Anything you want,” she said, feeling her face break into a thousand pieces as she tried to smile. ”Just move her up the list, that's all.”
”No.” He shook his head with a futile sadness. ”No, that's not what I meant.”
She dropped the brochures onto the desk and left.
Feaster waited in the Navigator while Polie came to the door. She had to do a deal down by the ca.n.a.l. It was a guy and a girl. They were on their way there right now in a gray Volvo, so she had to hurry. No, she said. She didn't feel like it. She was too tired. She started to close the door, and he pulled it open.
”This is big and Feaster don't wanna lose it. They're down from Portland.”
”Yeah.” She laughed. ”Like I care, right?” Her mother had been up all night, crying and saying she was so sick she just wanted to die. Jada didn't dare leave her alone for fear she'd take off and be gone again for days. Little by little her mother was getting clean. But it was taking its toll, leaving her weak from all the vomiting. A little while ago she'd been burning up with a fever.
”Come on!” he said with a glance at the Navigator. ”Now! There's ten other places they can go.” He sounded frantic.
”No. Not unless you tell me where Leonardo is.”
”Leonardo?” he said in a high voice. ”Who the f.u.c.k's Leonardo?”
”My dog. You took him, didn't you.”
”Jada?” her mother called from inside. ”Who's that? Who's out there?”
”Just a minute, Ma!”
”Is that Polie? I gotta see Polie.”
”Don't f.u.c.k with me. I don't want her out here. Not now.” He glanced down. Feaster waved for him to hurry. ”Come on!”
”Then pay me. In cash,” she whispered back, seizing on his desperation. ”We need money bad. There's no food here, and she's really sick.”