Bail, part 2

 

The ride back into Cincinnati had been relatively painless. It was early enough in the afternoon to avoid the snarl of the evening rush. They had ended up in a run-down section of town, just to the west of the downtown and still close to the river. Vic recalled making a turn at the corner where a Ma and Pop chicken shack sat on the river road. He didn't make any note of street names or addresses; this wasn't a place he had any plans to return to. Tammy wasn't much good on these kinds of details anyway; she just knew her way around.

She had asked him to stop a few blocks away from the corner. He was old enough to know how this worked. You didn't park right outside this kind of market. The neighborhood had an ugly vibe. He didn't fear for his physical safety, but he had an uneasy feeling about the attention a late model sedan with Michigan plates might attract in this block. He remembered her earlier plea of having no money. He had to consider that she might be trading on some other than legal tender for whatever she was buying. That could take a while. Maybe not, but probably.

"Okay, listen... I know that there is probably no way you can say for sure, but if this is gonna take a while maybe I should..."

"You're cool here. No worries!"

"... drive around and come back?"

"It won't take me long." She paused there, long  enough to draw a breath, then quickly added, "You want anything, Vic?"

He was taken completely off guard by the question. His eyebrows rose and he uttered a reflexive , "Me!?" He noted that she seemed to giggle at his surprise. Feeling mildly insulted by this, he then parried with a sarcastic, "Are you buying?"

"Well, I only got enough money to get my pills...." There it was. She had money, but only for pills. Shit. She was into this bad. "... I mean I could share some with ya, sure...but what I meant was, like do you want some green? This dude's got some good shit. It's pretty loud. Sixty for a quarter or hundred for a half."

Vic didn't have a clue what "loud" meant in this context. Was it the price? He had to think long and hard to recall when he had last purchased a half ounce of weed. Twenty years? Maybe twenty-five? There was a hazy recollection of seventy-five for a half. After several seconds had passed, Vic decided to say fuck it. He felt like getting baked. He heard himself repeat her, "hundred for a half", as he peeled off five twenties and handed them to her across the console.

Tammy took the bills, deftly folded them over and slipped them beneath her hoodie. "Okay. Probably take like ten minutes."

She headed up the block, following the row of homes, until turning into one of the yards and then disappearing behind the house. Vic took a quick glance into his rear view mirror. Nothing. He was thinking that in the next ten minutes, either some ape was going to try to roll him, or they'd be leaving with a cache of pain-killers and a half ounce of weed. Thankfully, for all parties concerned, the latter of these possibilities prevailed.

By 4:00 PM they had completed the giant U-turn to the Richwood exit where they'd first met. Tammy had eagerly gulped a couple of pills before they even got back onto 75 south. In the ninety minutes or so that elapsed on that trek, she had become a chatty Cathy. Vic had been informed of a substantial part of her existence. At least her version of it.

If she was to be believed, Tammy was a widow of three years. She had married a man seventeen years her senior when she was but twenty years old. That part at least was true. Her version of events was that her deceased husband had died on the operating table, quite unexpectedly. That was partially true. He had died in a hospital, but not during any surgery. Vic had no way of learning this, but the truth was that Tammy's husband had undergone back surgery in the first year of their marriage. Like so many others before him, he had become addicted to the prescribed pain killers. Tammy had subsequently joined in the addiction and carried on that tradition following his death by overdose. 

According to her narrative, she was from Cincinnati originally, but now lived (at least part of the time) with a great aunt in Richwood. While there were elements of truth in this story, it was not entirely true. She had grown up in Cincinnati and she did have a great aunt who lived in Richwood. The part about her living there part time was a stretch of the truth. The truth was that her great aunt did sometimes help her out, but Tammy did not have a key for the residence. She wasn't allowed to be there unless her great aunt happened to be home at the time. There had likely been no more than a half dozen times in the past year that Tammy had actually slept at that house.

On that particular day Tammy's great aunt was at work, so she was locked out. She had started her day with a trucker, way east off of 275, up on the Ohio side of the river. After they had concluded the deed she was able to tag a ride along south, to the Richwood Pilot travel center. She had been hoping to get a shower and a change of clothes at her great aunt's house, before getting on to Cincinnati for her pills. One might think that a girl in her position, needing a ride back north, would have best returned to the Pilot to find another "job" and her ticket back to Cincinnati. In most cases this would be correct, but Tammy had already been run off the lot at that location. Several times. Pros who were discretely chauffeured were welcome; freelancers such as herself were not.

The Mini-mart on the other side of the freeway was her ultimate target anyway. Even if her great aunt had been home, that was never going to be anything other than a shower stop. She would never give Tammy a lift to pick up her drugs. Tammy had a handful of other "sometimes" friends in and around Richwood. Some of them pure Johns, some of them fellow users. If she waited long enough one of them was sure to show up at the store. Or maybe even someone new. Like Vic. Of course, Vic didn't know any of this. The version he was given was a half truth; that she was actually staying at her great aunt's house now, and since she had no car, she was awaiting a ride at the Mini-mart. Had he wanted, Vic could easily have poked holes in that tale, but the truth was he just didn't care. She could have told him anything.

When they had passed the sign marking one mile to the Richwood exit, Vic managed to squeeze in a word edgewise. He still had not decided which direction he would go or where he wanted to stop for the day. He still had not decided whether or not he wanted Tammy along for the ride. 

"Hey, we're coming up on Richwood. You want me to drop you at your great aunt's house?" It was only for an instant, but he could see her face screw up into a frown of distaste, like she had gotten a mouthful of sour milk. When she knew he was looking she quickly recovered, her face brightening.

"Can't smoke dope at my aunt's house, Vic!", she chided him playfully.

Yes. There was the dope. He had refused risking lighting anything up in the car. He really did want to smoke some of that dope. Maybe Richwood was as good a place as any to stop for the night. Yeah. Have a good dinner, get really baked. Maybe get laid. Then, in the morning he could decide: Louisville or Lexington. That choice would await him just a few miles down the road. It was at that moment Vic made the third most consequential decision of the day.

"I'm gonna go ahead and pull off here. Where's a good place for dinner in Richwood?"

Tammy was a girl who had a serious daddy Jones. It truly was not because of some incestuous childhood. She had discovered this about herself at a young age and simply accepted it. If one were to say that she had "daddy issues", meant in the general sense that the term is usually offered, then it was at least partially true. She had felt mostly ignored by her father, who doted entirely on her three younger brothers. She wasn't consciously aware whether or not this was the reason; she only knew that the older, "daddy" figure was what got her motor running.

She felt she was reaching the peak of her first dose, that moment when the warm blanket of euphoria fully enveloped her being. From within this cocoon waves of arousal began to stir. To her tastes, Vic was quite an attractive man. She had already begun to think naughty thoughts of what she would like to do with him. She wanted to reply to his question with a bawdy, "in your pants!", but she couldn't muster the courage. She bit her lip instead and smiled quietly to herself. She might even have blushed. Just a little.

"I dunno, Vic. What kind of grub do you like? We got Chipotle, Waffle House... there's Cattleman's or Longnecks if you like steak or bar food."

"Which one's better, Longnecks or Cattleman's?"

"Longnecks has good wings. You like wings? I like wings!"

"Well, guess we're going to Longnecks. Just tell me the way. Oh! I need to stop and get some papers too... "

"Nah... I got papers. Just go right up here. It's right around the corner."

A right, another right and up past the frontage road on... what the hell did that road sign say? Frogtown Connector Road? That was one to remember. It wasn't far to go at all; the place was literally right around the corner from the exit ramp. And there was the Hampton Inn he'd seen from the interstate right next door. He was a Hilton Honors member. This was going to work out well.

Vic had announced his intent to exit at Richwood, without objection. He had offered to drop her at her great aunt's house, with rejection and instant deflection. He hadn't yet told her of his intention to stay at this hotel. He really wasn't sure what reaction he might get when he told her, but it made more sense to check in to the hotel before dinner. The subject then became unavoidable. If he was completely honest, if he was brave enough, he would have told her of his plans in full. He was going to smoke some dope, have a good dinner with drinks, smoke some more dope, then take her back to his room and fuck her senseless.

Before they turned into the drive he told her, "I'm going to go ahead and check in here, next door. I plan on getting fucked up enough that I'm not gonna be driving anywhere, so..." He left the sentence hanging, almost like a question, awaiting any reaction.

"That's cool. After dinner I want to get a shower, then fuck your brains out. Hurry up, I'm starved!"

"Sounds like a plan. Why don't you roll us a joint while I get checked in? Then we can get this party started."