Ja Roach was knocking on the front screen before Tyisha had closed her bedroom door. He’d always had good timing.
“Long time no see, girl,” he said as we walked in. Wrapped me in a big hug. “How are you?”
“Going to rehab tomorrow.”
“For real?” He’d never been for or against it one way or another. It’s one of the things I liked about him. He was a lecture free zone. “Good for you. Who’s taking you”
“You remember Tyisha? This is her house. I just found out it’s my last night of freedom, apparently. You bring the stuff?”
“Police are out everywhere. Got the word from a friend that they’re doing OVI check points this weekend. Must not have made their quota of tickets from the fourth of July. Got the guy’s phone number, though. He delivers. All I gotta do is say the word. Is she here, your friend? She gonna have a problem?”
“As long as he doesn’t stay. She’s in her room. If we turn up the TV here in the living room, she won’t be able to hear us.” I found a DVD of 300 and slid it in the player’s plastic tray. In a moment loud, angry shouts drowned out any other sounds in the room.
“She gonna be mad?” Roach’s eyes darted around like a cop was going to jump from behind the slim space between couch and wall.
“I agreed to take this bed down at some place called Journeys, so she’s giving me amnesty for the night.”
Ja Roach’s nod was stiff, tight. I couldn’t figure if he was angry that I was going to be clean while he wasn’t or jealous that my people cared for me more than his did for him.
“Let me call the dealer before it gets too late. Let him brave the police.”
Roach flipped open his phone and punched in a number. He cupped his hand near the bottom, but I still made out that he was getting two dime bags with a little something extra. My mouth practically watered in anticipation. Whatever he was ordering up, it was going to be good. I’d tried to kick the stuff once, but had quit after sweating and hallucinating through two days on some religious stranger’s couch.
I should have asked Tyisha if this rehab place had some kind of drug that would take away the side effects. Someone had said treatment centers sometimes offered that. I blocked those thoughts out of my brain. If I dwelled on them too long, I wouldn’t have the guts to stay the night. The weather wasn’t hot, so I could disappear for a few days until Tyisha lost the bed.
Instead, I got Ja Roach situated on the couch that had replaced the one I’d ruined. Got him a beer and a tray with two wedges of French silk pie. Mary Cooley used to make them for us as a special summer treat. This one looked store bought, but I wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth. Before I knew it, I’d eaten my slice and Ja Roach’s.
“You not hungry?” I asked when there were only crumbs on the tray. “You usually love a dessert.”
“Nah. Ate too much before I got here.” His leg jiggled uncharacteristically. “You know how my sister can be.”
I did. I remembered that first meal at his apartment. If he didn’t have a guy, and they came and went, then his sister cooked for him. There wasn’t anything that woman couldn’t make.
Just then the screen door rattled.
“I’ll get that,” Roach jumped up before I could push the food debris off my lap. In less than a minute, he was back.
“You want anything else?” I asked. I wasn’t trying to push my hospitality on him, but once I got my shot, I wouldn’t be up to opening cabinets and loading snacks into a bowl, much less anything else really.
“Nah, let’s get into this. I gotta be good by Monday. Work. I’ll do you, first, okay. I can do myself.”
“I never got good at it.” That was another thing men were willing to do for me. I’d never gotten used to needles. But I hadn’t mentioned that part to Tyisha.
Ja Roach got up and retrieved his lunch box kit from where he’d left it by the TV stand. All these years and he stood by the seventies metal throwback.
He prepped, got everything ready. It had been a cool day, so my blouse had long sleeves. I pushed one up to my shoulder. He tied rubber around my skin, pulled tight. He filled the needle. Tapped at my arm. Once. Twice.
“Looking bad here.”
“Other arm?”
“You know that’s shot.” My veins had been only one of the many casualties of my lifestyle.
“Look, I’m going to be honest here. You’re going to need to do this in your groin. I would never normally suggest it because maybe smoking or snorting would have worked, but I’ve already mixed it. I don’t have any money to go back to him. But I don’t feel comfortable doing that to you. Can you do it?”
I tried not to panic. Relief was so close, just on foil outside of my body when it needed to be inside. “You know I’ve always been squeamish with needles. I—”
Ja Roach tapped the syringe impatiently already jonesing for his own high. “Will your friend do it?”
“Tyisha…God no.”
“She’s not big on partying. I get it.” He made a sweeping gesture with his hands. “There’s no one else here. You have to ask her.”
“You sure you can’t do it? Please…” I didn’t care that I was begging. Times like this I had no shame. I wish I could have offered to blow him, but he was gayer than I was. Just the thought of a woman near him like that made him twitchy.
“My momma didn’t raise me like that. I’m just not familiar with a lady’s area and I don’t want to get a crash course today. Okay?”
“Fine.” I rose up and walked to Tyisha’s bedroom, heavy footed and not caring. I knocked hard on her door. I heard the TV stop and go mute.
“Yeah? You need something, Sarah?” she called through the door, obviously not moving from where she probably was on her bed.
“Can you come out here a second?”
Tyisha shuffled out, tying a robe around her thin pajamas. I wanted to point out that Ja Roach didn’t care to see anything but decided against it.
“What? You still going in the morning, right? You’re not bothering me to tell me that you and your friend are off to go somewhere and not coming back.” Her impatience was wearing her love for me thin.
“No, I one hundred percent promise I’ll go with you tomorrow. But I need a huge favor from you tonight.”
“I’m already in my pajamas. Took off my bra, so I’m—”
“I don’t need you to go anywhere.”
“Give it up, then. I don’t have time to dig for gold here.”
“I need you to give me a shot.”
It wasn’t hate in her eyes, but it wasn’t love either. She closed them for a long moment. Opened her lids, stared me dead in the eye.
“What. The. Fuck.” She rolled her neck. “You’ve got to be kidding.”
“Look, Tyisha, I already promised to go tomorrow. I don’t so much want to do this as I kind of need to do this. I just can’t start detox here…tonight.” Getting kicked out and landing here had taken all my willpower. I’d already gone too long without a fix. For a brief moment, I let go of my control, let her see what it took for me to be here, to ask for this one thing.
“Fine.” She squared her shoulders, doing the thing women do when they have to get through an unpleasant task no one else will take on. “Only this one time. Tomorrow is a lock. What do I need to do?”
“Ja Roach will show you.”
“Why don’t you do it yourself?”
“I’m afraid of needles.”
“Ironic.” She gave a half-hearted laugh. I joined her.
“Yeah. Not gonna lie.”
“I’m only going to do this because I love you. You’ve been my person for nearly four decades. I want the best for you. We both know that this isn’t it, but Sarah, this is really your last chance. We’re past fifty now. If we don’t have our health, we’ve got nothing else. We going to need that for the last thirty or so.”
“Thank you.” I meant those two words more than I ever had. “It’ll be different this time, I promise. I need to find my person, my other person. I was so afraid of who I was for years, but I’m more afraid of being alone.” I don’t know what had come over me, but I was done with all the pretending to be something I wasn’t.
“I hear you.”
“Why did you never find anyone, Tyisha?” I asked again. It was as if figuring her out would make it easier to figure me out. “You’re so normal.”
“You know what? It’s bigger than Pat Bailey. He wasn’t the only one who loved me, who I could have shared my life with.” She shook away the ghosts of memories clouding her eyes. “Maybe we’ll have that conversation another time. When you’re out, okay?” She patted my shoulder, then kept her arm loosely around me as we walked back to the living room.
“Ja, can you please show her what to do?”
Ja Roach showed her how to tie a tourniquet. How to find my veins. How to poke the needle in. Then he walked to the other side of the room to take care of himself.
Tyisha had always been a fast learner. Once she set her mind to something, she did it. She pushed her lips against each other and squinted in concentration. The rubber pinched around my legs, catching on hair I hadn’t shaved in years. She thumped at my vein and the needle. Did a swab from the foil packet, tossed it all down. Then her eyes met mine.
I saw love and compassion there. I wanted to reflect that, but I was only thinking about the sweet oblivion that was coming. She poked the needle through my skin, then pushed the plunger. I helped her pull up my pants. Then I waited, but something was off.
“I don’t feel so good,” I heard myself say. I got cold really quick. I leaned over and let everything in my stomach out knowing I’d ruined her house again. Then I got very sleepy. Bad damn batch. I was too old for this.
As I nodded off, I promised myself: This is the last time.