Alice & Dorothy (2 page)

Alice pushed on Rabbit’s chest, but it wasn’t enough for him to notice. Her fingers slid along the side of his head, down across his face.

She was covered in blood
.

She had pulled his slack head up by his hair so she could crawl out from under him. Screaming and crying, like birth. His cock was still half full of jizz when she unplugged from him. Her asshole was on fire. She dropped the gun.

Rabbit was licking her nipples. The spring air was cold on her skin. It was hot in Rabbit’s living room and she was sweating.

Alice tried to focus. It was like the heroin was splitting her in half, and she was living two lives at once. Everything was jumbling together. It made no sense. Rabbit with his hand down her shorts, fingering her clit. Alice washing blood off in a mud puddle, the water slick and rainbowed and smelling like motor oil. She found out the hard way that bone would float, if the pieces were small enough. Rabbit, with his groping fingers inside her. Alice had her hands on his shoulders. It was for balance, because she didn’t want to fall into the puddle. Rabbit mistook it as permission to continue. The stink of gunpowder and humanity. The guy shit himself when the bullet turned his lights out. He probably pissed inside her. Rabbit splitting her legs. Spitting on her. His mouth rhimed with milkweed, like the big sacs full of plant jizz her daddy showed her when she was little.
Sometimes there’s bugs in the spit,
Alice,
he’d said .
Here, lemme show you.

Her hands were tingling. They were covered in milkweed spit. It smelled awful and made her feel guilty to look at it.
Tell your momma and I’ll kill her. Just like these bugs.
She never had to worry about that. Momma didn’t need to be killed; she didn’t care.

Motes of light appeared in both worlds. Alice was standing in the grass by the train yard, nobody around for a mile or two, surrounded by electric motes of light gently dazzling her skin. The motes danced around Rabbit as he fucked her. Her eyes fluttered back in her head.

The sparkling, tingling sensation moved up her arms and legs. Across her hips. Along her shoulders. She bit down, hard, until milkweed and rust welled around her teeth. Both worlds were washing out. Or maybe there were three worlds. She tried to focus her eyes but
Rabbit sparkled and fluttered too much.
Halos, White light, the drum of her heart sparkling in her ears
.

Sparkle.

“
Shit!
” Rabbit yelled. He pulled out her, leaning back and putting his hands on her knees. His hard cock bounced as if tied to a string, slick and ridiculous looking. “
Shiiit!”

Alice was thrashing. Sometimes when heroin users overdosed they just went to sleep and slipped into a coma. Sometimes they thrashed and spit like they were possessed. This was Alice now. She arched her back and bucked her legs and she fell on the floor even as Rabbit was trying to get out of the way. Alice was spitting all over the floor. She was moaning softly. It looked like electrocution. It was, in a way; her synapses were firing all over the place. Her body contorted and jerked in time.

Rabbit grabbed Alice by the shoulder and turned her on her side. He pulled his sweat pants over his dick and pushed the bulge to one side. He rubbed his face in his hands. His hands smelled like cigarette smoke and pussy. One more than the other, and the smells lingered in the sweat on his face.

“
FAWK!
” he shouted. That was how the word sounded, like in a comic book. Fawk. Not quite profanity, but close enough. He looked down at her fluttering body. He took deep breaths. If he didn’t do something soon she would probably die in short order.

He had to get her the fuck out of here.
Now
.

Rabbit stepped out into the cold air. He zipped his plastic windbreaker all the way to the top and then pulled the sleeves down to his wrists. It wasn’t much, but it would keep the chill off. Besides, the rate his body was running he could barely feel the cold finger bones of spring. He lit a smoke. He looked up and down the street. It was the middle of the night and the street was empty. It was still too early in the year for kids to be out wandering around, even for this shithole neighbourhood in which his parents had eventually settled. This is where he’d grown up, and eventually left for bigger and better. And this is where he’d come home and taken over after the old man had died and his mother had gone off to rot in a government assisted living facility. To Rabbit, it was home. He puffed his smoke, looking up and down again just to be sure. There wasn’t a single asshole he could trust in the entire neighbourhood, but at least they were smart enough to mind their own business. Smart neighbours knew enough to look away when shit started to get loud.

He went in and thrust his hands under Alice’s body. He’d moved her from the floor to the couch after carefully redressing her. Under the scent of her perfume and shampoo, under the talcum and strawberry deodorant, there was another smell of mingled sex and sweat, puke and blood. It was the real smell of a junkie. Sometimes they smelled like piss too. When you were high, it might be too much effort to use a toilet. When you were high, you were usually beyond caring. Rabbit smelled like that himself sometimes.

She was a small girl, but still a lot of dead weight to lift in her present condition. He wondered how much weight unconsciousness added to a body; the way television cameras seemed to add weight to actors and newscasters. He pulled her up and slung her over one shoulder in a single move. Then he stood, pulled his keys from his pocket, and crossed the threshold of his living room out the front door into the dark of the evening. He resisted the urge to press his face against her side as he locked and shut the door. There was something in her scent that he couldn’t place. Something he loved, though. She reminded him of a better class of life than what he was used to. She was a whore, and homeless a lot of the time, but there was something in her that was like a rod of hot iron. Never bend. Never break.

But she
was
broken. She was unconscious and maybe about to die. If it was anyone else, Rabbit might have dumped her in a trash bin and started working on his alibi. He had too much shit going on to have the cops sniffing around his house. He threw her in the passenger seat of his car and ran around to the other side. He threw his cigarette away with a flourish. He jumped in behind the steering wheel, tossed the engine, then threw it in gear and drove away from his house.

The car was cold and he could see his breath. Looking over at Alice, he was relieved to see her breathing as well. It was a good sign.
At least she’s breathing
. He turned onto a larger road, made another turn a few minutes later from an off ramp and jumped onto the freeway. Hitting the gas, his old car rumbled and groaned in protest. He lit another smoke. Then he flicked on the radio. He had a top end stereo in this yellow piece of shit. Pioneer deck, JBL speakers. All top of the line for their brand, and all stolen.

They were gifts from junkies that he’d traded for drugs. Drug addicts were like farm cats that brought their masters birds and chewed rats in hopes of garnering favour. He’d pat their heads and say
good boy, who’s a good boy? Here’s a little treat for you.
Pat, pat. The stereo was worth more than the car.
Alexisonfire
was screaming about the end of the world.
Preach on, fuckers
.
The end happened a long time ago.

He got off the freeway and turned down a well-manicured side road. The trees along one side were all exactly the same size and shape. On the other side, gas powered lanterns cast yellow halos every thirty feet. When yuppies bought up inner city property and redecorated, the results usually looked something like this. Row after row of skinny infill houses with sports cars and sedans parked in front. Rich women were out in droves walking tiny dogs. Not a heroin crowd. They did coke over the holidays and smoked weed on the weekends and thought they were badass.

Alice moaned something about a clock. Or maybe she said
cock
. Rabbit wasn’t sure. He made another turn, and saw the first lights of the hospital ahead. He flicked off his lights and slowed down. He saw a pair of lights splash across the road, leaving the lot. He pulled over and turned down the radio.

A big fat ambulance bounced light across the hood of his car as it turned toward him, then settled into the road. It drove slow as it passed. Rabbit looked up at them and saw the driver staring back. They locked eyes for a moment, and then they were gone, the ambulance picking up speed as it drove off. Rabbit realized he’d been holding his breath.

He flicked the lights back on and spun the steering wheel, and the vehicle lurched back out onto the road. At the entryway Rabbit turned, drove past two parking lots, and the followed a wide path up to the emergency exit. Two men were standing outside smoking.

“
Fuck,
” Rabbit whispered. He tapped the steering wheel and came to a stop 20 feet from where the men were standing. They both looked at the car, waiting for it to do something.
Dammit.
He looked at Alice, then back at the men. They were talking as they watched him.
They’re talking about me.

He couldn’t drive up there. His plan had been simply to ditch Alice in front of the door and take off. They’d see what was happening. Maybe they’d try to stop him, maybe not. Most likely they’d yell for an orderly to call the cops or something. Either way, being caught with an overdosing junkie was grounds for Search and Seizure warrant. An S&S, as the cops called them, better known as a
Shit Sandwich
. On the inside, they’d say
the cops fed me a Shit Sandwich, and found my stash
... and he had enough shit in his house to make a very big sandwich. Might take him ten years in Fed to eat the damn thing.
Unless…

He tapped the gas, pulling his car up toward the emergency entryway. One of the men flicked a butt out onto the road. Rabbit pulled his hat down low to cover his eyes. He stopped in front of the two men. Opened his door and stepped out.

“Hey,” Rabbit said. “Can you boys help me out?”

“What’s wrong son?” the man on the left said. He was in his late fifties and he looked exhausted. The man beside him could have been his son. Both were dressed for the country life, plaid shirts and ball caps. The younger man’s over shirt was hanging open and he was wearing a
Lost Souls
t-shirt underneath. A couple days’ growth and thirty years separated their faces, but the relation was easy to see.

“My girl is really sick,” Rabbit said, avoiding eye contact with the younger man and looking squarely at the father. “Can you guys grab a wheelchair and help me get her inside?”

“Yeah,” The father said, moving immediately. “Jason, grab a chair, boy.” The father moved over to the passenger door and caught a glimpse of Alice.

“Jesus, is she alright? She looks unconscious.”

“Yeah.” Rabbit scratched his nose and adjusted his hat. “I
think
she is. She hasn’t spoken much the last few minutes. Flu or something, I think.”

“Flu doesn’t make you go out like that,” Jason said, wheeling a chair up to the door. The tone of his voice said he smelled bullshit on Rabbit’s breath. The old man’s eyes flashed on Rabbit for an instant, like he had been thinking the exact same thing.

“
Aww Jesus, she’s got puke all over the place
,” Jason said. He breathed though his mouth. “Come on
darling
, let’s get you out of here.”

“Grab that chair,” The old man said to Rabbit. It was more like
at
Rabbit though, it had the sound of a man who was used to barking orders and having them followed.

“Right. I just gotta grab my wallet out of the car.” He slipped in behind the wheel. Jason was watching him like a hawk through the open passenger side door. “Here it is,” Rabbit said, looking down. He reached up and popped the car into drive. The car jumped forward.

“
What the fuck!
” Jason yelled as the car door slammed shut beside him. Rabbit heard the old man groan as the car bumped him and he went down. Rabbit punched the gas.

In the rearview mirror, Jason helping his dad get to his feet. Both of them watched as Rabbit drove off. Behind them, slumped in her wheelchair, Alice dropped one hand toward the cold pavement.

“Get better, baby,” Rabbit whispered through his teeth. At that moment, he felt every bit the low life piece of shit his mother had always sworn he was.
Life in the big city
. This was his part in the big book of life. Asshole. Scumbag.

When the on ramp to the freeway approached, he skipped it. He lit a smoke and rolled the window down, allowing strong cold air into the car. It was a clear night, he could see the stars.