The Last Night Out Page 6

  Graduation couldn’t come fast enough. She didn’t even mind that her father missed the ceremony because Clara was in the hospital giving birth to Kelly’s half-sister. Graduation meant college, and college was her ticket out of a house with dark memories and an infant who cried all night long. She signed up for summer school at the University of Illinois in Champaign and left home two weeks after graduation. She threw herself into her studies, never addressing the lingering pain of her mother’s death, an open wound that wouldn’t scab over. She seldom spoke to anyone about her mother’s death, not even her best friends, as if it wasn’t any big deal. But it was a big deal, and it was crushing her from within.

  She finished college a semester early, graduating with a teaching degree, and came back to Chicago. Since her teaching job wasn’t to start until the following September, and not wanting to return to her father’s home – where Clara made her feel as welcome as an ex-wife – she rented an apartment in Old Town and took a temporary job tending bar at a Rush Street club called Oliver’s.

  At least the job was supposed to be temporary. She loved tending bar from her very first night. Her head had been so buried in her studies during college that she hadn’t had a social life. Now her time was spent in a place that was crowded and noisy and exciting, not to mention filled with attractive men who seemed attracted to her. The added benefit was that the money was terrific. In her first week, she made as much in tips as her monthly teaching salary was going to be in September.

  She also found something else at Oliver’s, a place she belonged. Alienated from her father by his wife and young baby daughter, and the two brothers she barely knew busy with their own wives and children, her co-workers became the family she didn’t have. Oliver’s employees were a close-knit group, bouncers and waitresses and bartenders who worked the vampire hours, the nine-to-fivers on the flip side of the clock.

  Since their day was winding down when the rest of the world was just starting theirs, there were often after-hours parties that lasted until long after the sun had come up. It was at one of those parties that a fellow bartender handed her a rolled-up hundred-dollar bill and a mirror with a white line of powder. Kelly knew what cocaine was, had seen it around college, but had never tried it. It was supposed to be the rich man’s drug, a drug with no side effects, so she figured what the hell. She sniffed up the line, and the instant the drug hit her nervous system, Kelly felt a well-being she hadn’t known since before her mother got sick. She had found something to blunt the rawness inside her. She had found a new best friend.

  Occasional parties turned into regular parties and she fell into a cycle of drinking and snorting coke after work, getting home after noon and crashing until it was time to get up for work again. By the time September rolled around, she had lost all interest in teaching. She started her new job, but continued drinking heavily and doing coke, and was fired after three weeks for coming in late or calling in sick. Which didn’t bother her at all. She went back to bartending at Oliver’s and the decadent lifestyle that accompanied it.

  She kept up that pace for ten years. Being young and resilient, her body somehow survived the abuses being heaped on it. During that time, she had a few fleeting relationships, but the drugs and booze always trumped any possibility of commitment. That didn’t rule out sexual activity; there were more one-nighters than she could count. Or remember. Blackouts were a common occurrence. She even got pregnant once, but nature took care of things and she miscarried before having to decide what to do about it.

  Her job at Oliver’s came to an end when the bar was bought by a national chain with strict rules, and she was fired for drinking on the job. That wasn’t really a huge problem, because after all her years working on Rush Street she had made enough connections that she had no trouble finding work. Her new job was at a dive-bar named Finnegan’s just around the corner from Oliver’s. The owner was an Irishman with consumption issues of his own who didn’t mind if she drank while she worked. In fact, he would sit at the bar while she was working and drink with her. Her drinking escalated to the point that sometimes she was barely able to stand by the end of her shift. The coke kept her going, but it was eating up so much of her income, there were times she barely made rent.

  Kelly rarely saw her father or brothers, and hardly knew her half-sister. As for her old friends, whenever they made a lunch or dinner date with her, she invariably cancelled at the last minute or didn’t show up. Then one time when Kelly failed to show for a third rescheduled lunch with Angie and Carol Anne, they decided to go in search of her. After repeatedly ringing her entry buzzer to no response, they slipped into her building on the heels of a departing occupant. They took the stairs to the third floor and banged on her door until it finally cracked open. What they saw nearly put them into shock. Kelly’s hair was an unwashed tangle, her face so puffy and bloated her cheekbones had all but disappeared, her pale blue eyes sunken into her head. She was a train wreck.

  She tried to keep them out in the hall, but Angie pushed right past her into the apartment. Turned out her living conditions were worse than her face. The kitchen sink was stacked with paper plates and carryout cartons, a banquet for the roaches that skittered in the mess. The floor tile was caked with dirt and spilled drinks. A plastic trashcan erupted vodka bottles. Dirty laundry was piled everywhere and an unmade bed with gray sheets was visible through the open bedroom door. The carpet hadn’t seen a vacuum in months, if not years. A mirror on the coffee table was dusted with white.

  Carol Anne was so shocked she couldn’t find words, but Angie found them just fine. ‘Jesus, Kelly, what is this shit?’ she yelled in disgust. ‘This is beyond gross. I can’t even imagine what must be growing in your bathroom. What is wrong with you? You’re living like an animal. Actually, my apologies to animals everywhere. You’re worse.’

  Kelly blinked several times, trying to pull herself to full consciousness. God only knew what time she had gone to bed. ‘I know it’s a little messy. I’ve been working a lot. I was going to clean up this afternoon,’ she slurred.

  ‘Clean up? With what? A fire hose? A blow torch?’ Angie wasn’t letting up. ‘It’s a good thing you didn’t show for lunch. We would have been thrown out of the restaurant for breaking the health code. C’mon you’re fucking thirty-one years old and you look like crap. Do you want to die? What is wrong with you?’

  Far more the diplomat than Angie, Carol Anne tried rationalizing with her. ‘Kelly, we’re your friends and we care about you. This isn’t right. You need help. We want to help you.’

  Through the veil of drugs and alcohol, Kelly heard what was being said and she didn’t like it one little bit. She started to rant. They didn’t understand, couldn’t understand. They hadn’t grown up with a sick mother in a dark house that smelled of illness and radiated pain. Their mothers had been healthy and whole. They didn’t have a father who forgot them for a woman nearly her age and a baby that never stopped screaming. How could anyone who had parents that supported and loved them understand her pain? She had carved out her own niche and did what worked for her. She hadn’t asked anyone for anything, and no one was going to tell her what to do. Her resentment fomented as if they were interlopers in white coats, there to haul her off to a padded future.

  ‘Leave,’ she hissed, her eyes narrowing in the jaundiced face. ‘Get the hell out of my apartment.’

  Carol Anne tried pleading with her. ‘Kelly, don’t you see we care about you. We want—’

  Angie cut her short. ‘Forget about it. Don’t even waste your time. She’s too far gone. We won’t win this argument.’ She grabbed Carol Anne by the arm and pulled her out the open door.

  Kelly was standing bizarrely defiant amid the detritus, a queen in her garbage castle. ‘Eat shit and die,’ she howled and she slammed the door in their faces.

  Six months later Kelly was finally shocked to her senses. She had finished work early and was trying to score some coke. Police pressure had dried up her regular Rush Street source
s, so she hopped a taxi to Boystown and a gay bar named The Zone where the bartender usually had eight-balls for sale. The shit was really stepped on and a huge rip-off, but hey, she was desperate.

  The Zone was packed to the rafters with good-looking men, none of whom bothered to give her a second look when she walked in. She took a seat at the bar. Lyle, an anorexically thin man with a wispy moustache and weepy eyes, acknowledged her with a nod.

  ‘What’ll it be, sweetie?’ he asked, floating over with a coaster in his hand.

  ‘Hey, Lyle, I was wondering if you had a ticket for the movie?’

  He put the coaster down and shook his head. ‘Sorry, no can do. The pipeline is dry. The heat’s on here same as Rush Street.’

  ‘Crap,’ said Kelly, pondering where to try next. She really needed a bump. There was a guy in Wrigleyville she’d scored from before who might be worth a go. She slammed a shot of Jagermeister and headed out the door. She was on Lincoln Avenue trying to hail a cab when a heavily muscled black man came up the stairs from The Zone and approached her.

  ‘Couldn’t help but notice you was looking for something in there, and my first guess is it wasn’t a date. Maybe I could help you out?’ He unearthed a small glass vial from the inner pocket of his leather jacket and waved it in Kelly’s face. ‘Some of the finest blow around.’

  ‘Only blow around,’ she said warily, eyeing him and then the vial. ‘Any samples?’

  ‘Sure, but not here. Follow me.’

  He led her around the corner to the alley where a black Cadillac was parked in front of a sign that read WE TOW. ‘My name’s Lemont,’ he said, holding the passenger door open for her. ‘C’mon inside and I’ll give you a taste.’

  Kelly knew it wasn’t exactly wise to get into a stranger’s car, but her desire for the drug overruled any sense of self-preservation. She climbed into the car and pressed herself against the passenger’s door, keeping as much distance between them as possible. Lemont inserted a tiny spoon into the vial and brought a mound of white powder up to her right nostril. She inhaled it faster than an anteater. Another mound disappeared up her other nostril as quickly. The welcome jolt rushed through her system.

  ‘Wow, that’s some good stuff,’ she said. ‘How much?’

  Without answering, Lemont reached under the seat and pulled out a flask of Jack Daniels. He twisted the cap off and held it out. She took a swig directly from the bottle. He gave her another snort and she took another swig of Jack. She was feeling pretty good, totally cool and in control. Another snort and another go at the bottle. ‘Yeah, I’ll definitely take a couple of grams,’ she said, reaching into her purse for money. That was the last thing she remembered.

  When she pried her eyes open, it was broad daylight. She was naked on a bare mattress in a room with the paint peeling so badly portions of the wall studs were visible. Lemont slept beside her, his dark muscles shining in his nakedness. A cockroach skittered up the wall.

  She sat up slowly, grimacing at the soreness between her legs. She knew the source of the soreness, but in the grand scheme of things, that was no big deal. Getting out of there was. Her clothes were piled in a corner of the room, her purse nowhere to be seen. Great, it had her keys and her money. She had no idea where she was or how she was going to get home.

  Careful not to disturb the sleeping man beside her, she crawled off the mattress to her clothes and dressed quietly. Just as she was getting ready to make her exit, the door burst open. A woman in a Chicago Bulls T-shirt and black stretch pants fell into the room, a gun quivering in her right hand. Her glassy eyes told Kelly she was higher than a kite. When she saw Kelly, she swung the gun directly at her.

  ‘How dare you fuck my man, bitch,’ she shouted.

  Her man, who by now was wide awake, sat frozen on the mattress.

  ‘Fenicia, calm down,’ he commanded.

  ‘Calm down? Calm down?’ She swung the gun in his direction, pointing it between his legs. He covered himself with a broad hand.

  ‘That won’t help you none,’ she screamed, moving further into the room. ‘I’ll blow that hand away along with your cheatin’ dick.’

  Seeing that Fenicia’s attention was concentrated on her man, Kelly bolted out the open door and down the hall. A couple of men snored on the two sofas in the living room as she let herself out of the apartment. Screens lining the open hallways told her she was in one of Chicago’s housing projects. Worse still, she was on a high floor. Knowing better than to take an elevator, she hurried along the graffiti-covered walls to the stairwell. She started running down the stairs as quickly as her shaking legs would take her, the smell of urine overwhelming her the entire way.

  She was nearing the second floor when she encountered two gangbangers standing in the center of the stairwell blocking her way. They wore sagging jeans and T-shirts, and their cheeks were smooth with the dewiness of youth, but their dark eyes were old. She tried to go around them, but one of them grabbed her arm.

  ‘Whoa, Mama. You can’t just go down for free. They’s a toll.’ She tried to free herself from his grasp, but his grip was tight. ‘You deaf? They’s a toll. If you don’t got no money, we gotta collect some other way.’

  Before she could even try to escape, he had pinned her to the wall. She struggled to slide away, but he was entirely too strong. He put his mouth to hers and tried to force it open with his tongue. His breath made her want to retch, a combined scent of tobacco and alcohol and unbrushed teeth. The other teen moved in beside him and the next thing she knew they had her by the arms and legs, holding her stretched out between them. She struggled to free herself, wriggling her captive limbs, but between their youth and strength her efforts were wasted. Two more gangbangers appeared from nowhere, eyeing her like a rarely seen commodity. ‘We gonna have a nice piece of pale booty,’ she heard one of them say as a hand went under her shirt and tore off her bra. ‘You up for a little partying, ain’t you, Sunshine,’ said the other. And then the four of them laughed, their laughs so nasty that both her bladder and her bowels threatened to loosen. She wondered if letting go of her fluids might prevent them from raping her. Her mouth was so dry she couldn’t scream if she tried though she knew screaming probably wouldn’t help anyhow.

  Oh no, God. Please, God. Don’t let this happen, she prayed as they started carrying her struggling body up the stairs. Please. Please. If she could only get out of this in one piece she would change. She would stop drinking. She would stop doing drugs. She would call her father. Anything. Please, God.

  Kelly felt a blast of air beside her ear, and a split second later the sound of a gunshot reverberated in the stairwell. Her head whipped upwards to see the stoned woman from the apartment standing above them. She was holding her gun and the weapon was aimed at Kelly’s face.

  ‘You boys let her go. She mine.’

  ‘Motherfucker, she crazy!’ The gangbangers dropped Kelly and scattered. The next thing Kelly knew she was somersaulting down the concrete stairs, banging her head repeatedly along the way. Another bullet ricocheted past her, the whistling sound from the first still fresh in her ears. She slammed to a stop at the ground floor, splitting her lip open. Without wasting a second, she crawled out the open doorway and found herself in a grassless common area strewn with shredded paper and fast-food wrappers. She stood up and took off running as fast as her battered body and wobbly feet would allow. She didn’t stop running until she saw a police car on a side street.

  The cops were kind enough to pretend they believed her story about getting off at the wrong subway stop and somehow ending up in the middle of Robert Taylor Homes. They drove her to a safer neighborhood, and one of them even gave her the fare to get home.

  That day she quit her job and went to her first AA meeting. Afterwards, she stopped at the animal shelter and adopted the cat. When she got home, her first call was to Angie to apologize.

  Kelly turned off the shower and watched the last of the water spin down the drain. She put on her tattered bathrobe and went ba
ck into the other room. She picked up the phone and stood holding it with her hair dripping onto the floor, her finger hovering over the dial. This call would not be to Angie, but about her. She was most certainly at the morgue by now, a number with a tag on her toe, her parents awaiting the nasty task of identifying her. Angie’s father would tell his wife to wait in the hall, but Angie’s mother would insist on seeing the body of her only daughter. Mrs Lupino would nearly faint while Mr Lupino held her in his quivering arms.

  She thought of how close she had come to putting her own father through the same scenario and felt a bittersweet sting as she envisioned him standing over her cold flesh, a tear splashing the lens of his tortoiseshell glasses. An image of her stepmother patting him on the shoulder came next and the sweetness to the sting dissolved.

  Stop perseverating on your own misery, she told herself. There is more misery to be shared. Two hours after leaving the police station, she finally called Suzanne.

  SEVEN

  Suzanne

  Suzanne didn’t hide her displeasure that it had taken Kelly so long to get back to her. ‘You’re a little late. Your friends just left.’

  ‘My friends? What friends?’

  ‘The detectives assigned to Angie’s case. O’Reilly and Kozlowski.’

  ‘You mean Mutt and Jeff? Don’t call those two morons my friends,’ said Kelly, shivering anew at the thought of the icebox where she’d spent the better part of the morning. ‘What did they want?’

  ‘They wanted to know about Angie,’ Suzanne replied, her ire softening at the gravity of the discussion. ‘About us and what we did last night. About me taking Angie home. They told me she was doing coke,’ she added.