3

“Where is that fucking slice?”

Nobody answered Woody; he was talking to himself. It was a bad habit that had grown on him like a rash over the last year. Woody was flipping through stacks of old pizza boxes as though they were folders in a file cabinet, looking for the leftovers from yesterday’s pizza. The boxes were identical, and Woody was trying to figure out which side of the kitchen counter was the beginning and which was the end. There had to be forty boxes, and he had a gut feeling he was on the wrong side. He was standing next to the fridge. Cop logic was working, even though Woody had just finished a twelve-hour shift and three beers.

“Boxes by the fridge would be the oldest because that’s where I’d stand and eat if the kitchen was empty. I’d want a drink while I ate, so I’d put the box down there so I could get a beer.”

Checking his hypothesis, Woody lifted the lid of the lowest box next to the fridge and reached inside. He didn’t find a slice, but there was something inside he had to peel off the bottom of the box. Woody dug a fingernail in and pried into the greasy paper. He pulled his hand free from the box and held it up in front of his face. He had to turn around so that his back was away from the light. The 40-watt bulb he had put in the kitchen to replace the last bulb was too dim. The 40-watt had been the only bulb in the house, and Woody had never bothered to buy something better. The low light showed that the lump Woody had found had once been a green olive. There was a lump of fuzzy mould over the top, but the half that had bonded to the cardboard still had some green left in the shrivelled skin.

Woody nodded to himself and walked around the island, the granite countertop covered in junk mail and old Chinese food containers, to the other side of the kitchen. The countertop ended by the garbage can. Woody could smell the garbage even with the lid on, and he tried to remember the last time he had taken the trash out. It was a bad sign that he wasn’t exactly sure which day was garbage day. The rumble in his stomach made him forget the garbage, and he went straight for the box on the top of the last pile. He pulled out a day-old slice that was covered in bacon and pineapple.

“Elementary, my dear Watson,” he said to himself.

The pizza was cold and a bit stale, but the pineapple was still a little moist. Woody had never been a pineapple fan—that was her favourite topping. Woody was sure she used to get it just to keep him from eating her half of the pizza. But almost a year straight of pizza changed Woody’s standard order. He lasted six months on pepperoni and sausage before the thought of the toppings made him nauseous. It was either branch out or learn to cook. Woody started picking different toppings and found he was able to stomach the pizza again. He avoided pineapple for a few months, but he eventually broke down and ordered it. For a while, the presence of pineapple just meant he ate less. Woody would stare at the food until he started to cry. But one night, the pineapple half was all that was left in the house, so he ate it. It didn’t feel as wrong as he thought it would. It almost felt like she was still around. The fruit had no place on a pizza, but the thought of her maybe coming through the door to eat it made it palatable.

Woody shovelled the last two pieces into his mouth, chewing just enough to get it down. Whatever stuck in his throat moved into his stomach when a swig of his fourth beer hit it. Woody wasn’t really hungry, he was itching for something else. The cold pizza and beer was just foreplay. He found a leftover crust still in the box. The crust had aged differently than the slice, and Woody had to break pieces off and let them soften in his mouth before attempting to swallow the jagged shards of bread. He stared at the drawer while he gnawed on the last of the crust. He didn’t want pizza at all.

“Fuck it,” he said to himself.

Woody tossed the crust towards the sink and heard it ping off a glass sitting on top of the pile of unwashed dishes. He had stopped doing dishes months ago when he ran out of plates, glasses, cutlery, and bowls. Now, if it couldn’t be eaten out of a box or drunk out of a bottle or can, it wasn’t consumed in the house. Woody opened the drawer and reached inside. The drawer was almost empty. The knives and cooking utensils it once held were now buried in the sink or under piles of garbage on the counter. The only things left inside were a bottle opener and a small makeup bag that used to belong to her. When Woody first picked up the bag, it smelled like her perfume. He sat for hours huffing the bag until it just smelled like his stale breath. The bag smelled awful now, but the terrible odour got his pulse racing. He was embarrassed that the stink got him more excited than her perfume ever had. Woody stopped for a moment, with his hand on the bag, and mentally ticked off the days it had been since he last picked it up—only two. For a second, he considered putting it down. But he had been sick lately, and so tired. He was working too much and not sleeping enough. He was run-down and edgy, and he needed to relax. That was all. He was going back to the bag sooner than he liked, but he had some time off this weekend to catch up on sleep. A little sleep would get things back to normal. Woody got over his moment of hesitation and took the bag to the living room.

The floor of the living room was covered in old newspapers and even older pizza boxes. Each couch and chair had a neat pile of empty bottles around their perimeter. The La-Z-Boy had a row three deep—it was Woody’s favourite place to sit. Woody put the bag down on the table next to the chair and carefully sat down so that he wouldn’t knock over any of the bottles. The worn brown leather groaned as Woody adjusted his way into the cushions. He cracked his knuckles and unzipped the makeup bag. Inside was a glass pipe, a lighter, and a small ball of tinfoil. Woody opened the foil so that it was a craggy flat surface and looked at what he had left. There were only three small rocks of heroin inside—less than he remembered.

“Cheap shit never lasts,” Woody said. Whatever Joanne had sold him this time must have been cut with something. Buyer beware. It didn’t matter, this would get him through tonight. He could get some sleep, and then he wouldn’t need anything else for a while. Unless the cold he was coming down with got worse. Then he would need a little more help, but it probably wouldn’t come to that. Woody never got really sick very often.

Woody sparked the lighter and ran it under the foil. The flame woke the heroin and it hissed like a snake being charmed. The rocks changed state from solid to smoke and danced upward like a cobra before Woody used the pipe to pull it into his lungs. He held the smoke there until he felt his head swoon, then he let it out. He quickly inhaled more of the smoke and held it in even longer. He coughed as the second inhalation left his body. The third drag got Woody seeing stars. It took only a minute to breathe in everything on the foil. Woody used the scorched foil as a coaster for the lighter and pipe. He used his free hands to search on both sides of his ass for the stereo remote. He found it on the right and thumbed on the stereo. A few seconds later the opening sounds of “Gimmie Shelter” floated out of the speakers. Woody yanked the arm release on the La-Z-Boy and reclined as far as he could. He wasn’t high, just relaxed and forgetful. His mind was at ease, and he wasn’t thinking about anything.

Woody drifted until a new sound in the song, an offbeat squeal, pulled him out of his blank stare into nothing. Eventually, Woody processed the sound and connected it to his phone. Woody got out of his chair and staggered back to the kitchen. He picked up his jacket off the pile of mail on the island and found his phone.

“Yeah?”

“What the fuck, Woody? I was going to hang up on you.”

“No time like the present, Jerry.”

“Funny. I need you at one-ten Ferguson Avenue South.”

“I just got off shift, Jerry. Someone else is up. Call them.”

“I’d love to, but I got a dead cop here, and I’m calling you in.”

“Who?”

“Julie Owen. She was in the GANG unit. Someone did some nasty shit here, Woody. I need you on this.”

“You call Os?”

“Yeah, he’s on his way.”

“I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

When Woody put down the phone, he heard Mick singing “Love in Vain.” Woody slowly walked through the kitchen to the first-floor bathroom. He stared at himself in the mirror while the sink filled with cold water. He looked tired. He had to be coming down with something serious. When the sink was full, he submerged his face in the cold water. He held himself there until the shock wore off. When he took his head out, he noticed that he had sent water all over the counter. Woody took the hand towel he never washed and dried off his face and hair. He emptied the sink and left the counter to air dry. He felt more awake and alert as he put on his jacket and walked out the front door.