Into This River I Drown

I sigh. “You too, huh? Just like most everyone else in town.”

Abe arches an eyebrow at me. “Just like you too, then?”

I shrug and avert my eyes. “He’s my friend,” I say, but who I’m trying to convince, I don’t know. There’s something there, sure, and it sparks in my chest like a mini sun going supernova every time I see him, but it can’t matter. I’m just a guy from a small town in the middle of nowhere who doesn’t plan on doing anything else with his life but what he’s doing now. Cal is… Cal. He’s a guardian angel, for God’s sake. He can’t belong to just one person. He has to belong to everyone, even if they don’t know it. And besides, even if he could just belong to one person, it wouldn’t

be me.

Abe has known me too long, it seems. “Now you listen here,” he says, his voice stern. “I already know what you’re thinking, and you need to knock it off. You’re a better man than most anyone I know, and you learned that from your father. How do you think Big Eddie would feel if he could see you doubting yourself like this?”

“That’s not fair. You can’t bring my father into—”

The bell tinkles overhead as someone walks into the store.

He’s a young man, probably not much older than me. He’s dressed in jeans and a hoodie, both of which look crusted with filth. His skin is pale and sallow, and his eyes look like heated black coals bored into his skull. He’s twitchy, darting nervous looks around the small store, his hands shoved into the front pockets of the hoodie.

Abe glances at me then back at the man.

“Help you find something?” I ask, keeping my voice level.

The guy shakes his head, pursing his cracked lips, and walks down one of the aisles.

“Security cameras still up?” Abe asks under his breath.

“Yeah,” I mutter, relieved that he feels it too. “Why don’t you head out the front door?”

“And leave you alone?” he says. “Hardly. You got your cell phone?”

“It’s back in the office.”

“Gun?”

Now I feel guilty. “Back in the office. I was cleaning it. Forgot to bring it back up.”

“Of course you did,” he murmurs. “Well, this should be interesting.”

The guy has done a tour of the store, not stopping to pick anything up. I know he’s casing the store, trying to see if anyone else is in here. I don’t know how long he’s been watching outside and whether he saw Cal before he came in. I don’t recognize him, so he’s not a townie. But I do recognize the way he’s moving, the rigidity behind his steps, the way he jerks his head back and forth. He’s high, or was high, or has been high on something hard-core. Drugs have never been a problem in Roseland, as far as I’ve seen. Most of the underage kids here resort to cheap beer cadged from their parents’ refrigerators. But you’d have to be blind not to see the signs of a habitual user.

Cal hasn’t come back yet, but that doesn’t mean anything. For all I know, he’s distracted by something outside, as he’s prone to be. Worse, he might have seen a thread that is not my own and been pulled toward it. It’d be pretty great if my thread was screaming for him about now, I think. Or however it’s supposed to work.

Our new friend licks his lips again as he walks by us, glancing our way before looking out the front to the street. Abe starts forward, as if he’s going to clock the guy from behind, but I grab his arm, shaking my head when he turns to scowl at me. I raise my hand at him, mouthing wait. His lips pull together in a thin line. Cal! I scream in my head as the guy reaches up and latches the lock on the door. I could really use your help right about now! If you can see anything, see my fucking thread!

Time seems to slow as the lock clicks into place. The guy seems to explode, pulling his hands from his pockets in a jerky motion, a handgun in his right hand. He raises it up, his eyes wide, his hands shaking, mouth moving. “You know what this is! Give me all the fucking money in the register! Do it now!”

“Okay, son, okay,” Abe says, his voice low and smooth. “We all just need to take a deep breath here. No one has to get hurt.”

The guy snarls as he takes a step closer, waving the gun between the two of us. “Shut up, you old fuck!” he cries. “Get the money out of the register before I blow your fucking head off!” He glances behind him, out the front window. The sidewalk is empty this far down Poplar Street. “Where’s the other guy?” he snaps when he looks back.

Shit. “What other guy?” I ask, tapping a button on the register, opening the till drawer.

“The big one! Where’d he go?”

I shake my head, grabbing the bills that make up the hundred or so bucks I’ve got in the drawer. “He left out the back a while ago. Had some errands to run.”

He looks toward the back of the store. It’s empty. “You got a safe back there?” he asks, jerking his gaze back to me.

“Nothing in it,” I tell him. “Bank pickup came yesterday afternoon.”

“Fuck!” he screams. “All I wanted was a fucking hit, man! Traynor told me I could get it, that fucking bastard!”