The Subtle Art of Brutality

“So?”

“So don’t smoke in my car.”

“Well, I didn’t smoke in it.”

“I don’t believe you,” he says and pops the trunk.

“There’s no dead bodies back there, Jeremiah.”

“So says you.” He goes around to the back and makes a grand spectacle of checking the space. Truth be told, I did consider stuffing someone from Nicky’s apartment in there as a joke but I didn’t want the headache of having to dump it somewhere else. I don’t have the time right now.

And I’ll probably need to borrow Jeremiah’s car in the future. So, as funny as it is, my future plans will not include using a friend’s trunk as a meat locker for amusement.

Small talk: “How are things going today?”

“Usual. Frequent flyers pill shopping. Did you fill this thing up?”

“No.”

“You’re a son of a bitch, you know that? It’s riding on empty.”

“What’s in the bag?” I motion to a plastic sack dangling from his backpack. It’s in an opened pocket about ready to fall out.

“What?” He turns to fidget with it and it spills onto the street.

Pill bottles.

“You walking out of there with meds?”

“Naw, man. Ain’t my way.”

“So you take them?”

He looks about for a moment and draws near to me. “I swear, RDB. If you tell—”

“Blah blah blah.”

“Every now and then one of the admitting nurses likes to shake it up a bit and get down on one of the meds I hand out to some of the patients. So I hook her up if one of the patients isn’t conscious when I deliver the drug.”

“What about when they are conscious?”

“I give it to them.”

“No, I mean what about after, when they come to and don’t have any meds?”

“The stuff I got ain’t the stuff the junkies come in to trade their dope for, see. This is different shit. The people takin’ these pills, they don’t want to be taking them. Psychiatric meds. It takes a month, month and a half for the appropriate tolerances to build up. Usually. If the levels ain’t right they mess up the patient. Then of course you’ve got your Benzodiazepines, your Chloral Hydrates. Fun pills. Easy. No one bitches when they weren’t force fed their shit. Besides, if they need this stuff they’re beyond help. Trust me.”

Chloral Hydrate: Mickeys. This guy, I swear.

“You just pretend you gave it to them? Is that what you tell the patient?”

“Yeah. I just say, You took your pill like a good boy.” Jeremiah says.

“I’ll be dipped in shit and rolled in corn flakes if your patients buy that crock.”

“Time to shut your mouth and thank me for the car. Again.”

“You’re talking about jail time, Jeremiah. Not that I care,” I say, laughing.