YNs— Onion

2007

In the Autumn rain, the leaves looked slick against the road. Water had covered them and made them look glossy. Cars splashed or just made that swishing noise under the leaves and what the rain brought. Kennedy Koles, 19, dug into his pocket. He held a wad of ready rock. In the time that he was about to cross the street to meet a client, he hesitated and almost got hit by a car. He thought. In his mind, he considered chopping the work down and adding more baking soda to make it bigger and make it ready to sell more. He backed onto the sidewalk once more. The user looked up and signaled for him. He waved him away. The client shrugged.

Koles kept going back to his spot. He used his sneakers as vehicles as he had lost his wheels in a collision last week. A slight limp restricted his full gait, but otherwise he had been unscathed. The taste of lemon stung his tongue. He looked at the wad in his hand in his kitchen now. To chop down the work and make it into a complete creation would require the usage of Pyrex cookware. If he could stretch out the work and dilute it to its purist form, he could be made into a chef behind this onion.

When he looked up at the overhead unit, he switched on the ventilator. He grabbed a glass mixing vessel. He chopped up the work and then grabbed the baking soda. With the wrist action, he was like a wizard in some fairy tale whipping up magic. The kitchen became his castle and he put a spell on the product. The onion grew from a bulb to a baseball all with the aid of Arm and Hammer. Within him, he knew it felt awful to do this. But he needed new wheels and some Louis slippers. He knew the customer would be accustomed to the raw uncut version of his work. Instead, he was about to lower his standards and possibly his reputation.

Reliance on the idea that clients didn’t really know or care about the quality of the product propelled him. They just sought that simple feeling of flying and being beamed up to another dimension. The joy he felt at listening to the voice in his head say, “Do it, do it!” gave him an ounce of power. He knew that 28 grams turned into 56 grams. By knowing the potential profit of this particular endeavor he ascertained whether the weight would be worth it. His specialty had been in chopping down whole bricks but since the collision, he had not been consigned with major work. He would have to build himself up just off of the strength of his powers under stove lights.

That twinge of guilt twisted in his gut. He toiled with the notion of just stopping altogether and continuing to rest and take his prescribed drugs for the slight ringing in his ears. His girlfriend would be back with her car that he used to go to therapy and to pick up groceries. Not a daddy yet, he planned on marrying Wakina Holbrook, 18. She looked like fresh jet Kewpie Doll with fat cheeks up front and in the back, too. Her teeth glittered like new diamonds taken directly from a mine. Her hair always looked in place during fourteen hours as a trauma nurse at Christiana Hospital in Wilmington, Delaware. This remained Koles’ mound to pitch. He’d gone down south to Atlanta to meet his plug. He received a scolding and told to only hold 28 ounces until winter came. The exchange became tense, but no blows had been thrown or shots had been fired. He drove back disgusted and embittered but still maintained a sense of resolve that allowed him to continue.

Wakina walked in the door. With the slam of the door, he could sense her temperament. She had not been happy.

“Goddamn, those crackers work my nerves. And our color, too. And brown, yellow, and red. They irk my soul.” She walked into the kitchen with the familiar smell of the work on the stove. She didn’t even wrinkle her nose.

With a kiss on his lips, Koles clutched onto her waist and then turned down the temperature.

“What’s that?” Wakina asked.

“That’s my new car. Our new car.”

Wakina shrugged. “Hey, guess what happened today, I––”

“I’m still in the middle of it,” he replied with rapidity. The ventilator worked but the smell of the cooked crack still permeated the kitchen and the rest of the apartment for that matter.

“I thought you didn’t get the consignment,” she switched to the action at hand.

“I didn’t.”

“So, why is that looking like a brick right now?”

He hesitated. He searched for words that would nourish her mind and please her soul.

“I’m adding baking soda.”

“You can’t do that,” Wakina snapped.

“Why not? You think some fiend is going to give a goddamn about what she’s smoking? Like she’s some connoisseur of fine coca?” He asked.

Wakina folded her arms.

“They’ll never come back to you again. They’ll tell their friends’ friends to not cop from you because you don’t have that raw.”

“Psst. They don’t care enough. And this is still good work.” Koles wrapped an apron around himself and kept cooking.

“You still are going to put gas in the 626? Are you up to the task?”

“After this we’ll be in Benzes. I’m going to take the money I make off of this and flip it. Then I’ll have consignment again. I’ll take that work then push it until I die or something. I don’t know.” Wakina folded her arms and jerked her neck.

“I want a mani pedi.”

“You know I never pay for those.”

“With this money you will.”

“No, I won’t.” She approached him and kissed his mouth.

“I know. My nursing bucks afford me the things I need. You give me what I want.”

The Pyrex looked like a snow globe. He placed the ice in it when the rock was actually ready. He scooped it out and placed it on a dinner plate and started chopping it up in little white slabs. He took a piece of paper towel and let the slabs dry for about a half an hour. With care, Koles removed the apron and placed it on the back of the pantry door. His eyes widened as he saw the pieces glistening from the light. A certain sheen looked like it covered each of them. Wakina sat on the couch watching a recording of Cheaters.

Koles plopped down beside her. She put it on pause.

“Would you ever cheat on me?”

“What makes you think I haven’t already?”

She looked at him askance. “What the hell you mean?”

“I’m joking. I’m joking. I’d never.”

“Have you ever?”

“What man hasn’t?”

“I know some females––”

“You know nobody.”

“I know females.”

“You don’t have a clue. If I ever cheated, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself. The shame.”

“The shame?”

“I wouldn’t be able to live with myself.”

She gave him the side-eye. “Riiggght.” Wakina resumed the television. She would soon fall asleep not realizing how many times the woman could screen “son of a bitch!” and have the last part bleeped out completely.

The half hour was up. Koles sprung to his feet and collected the white crumbles and placed them in baggies, one eye shut. He didn’t need to, though. The scent had not been as strong with the cocaine missing in a regular batch. With precision, he took the work and placed each baggy in the main opening to his Jansport. He put on a black hoodie and black Dickies and butter Timbs. He hit the block. He looked at his .45 caliber pistol. He dismissed quickly and thought this run would be so quick, no one would test him.

In those East Side streets, he walked through a copse. These trees had human features though they seemed to be fading. They already grasped bills. Slick hands and gyrating thighs from the women all signaled sex. He wanted none. Just the cash.

“Fifteen a Zip,” he held out a baggy.

The smoker exchanged Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Hamilton.

“Thank you,” Betsy Hurston called. Koles just whisked her away. In the darkness and then under the lamppost, he could see fires blazing and the scent of melted plastic hung in the air. He looked down at his baggies. Just twenty four left, he thought. It grew cold. His eyes stayed focused on the block. Another client reached him.

“Fifteen.”

“That’s a fable, no? Try ten.” A man with a straggly gray beard appeared. They called him “Jumping” Joseph Hartweill. He always jumped when the product hit his brain.

“It’s fifteen or bust, old man.”

“C’mon. I’m good for credit.”

“No, you not. It’s fifteen.”

Hartweill looked Koles up and down.

“Alright.” He reached in his pocket and produced a knife. He stuck it in Koles’ gut. He collapsed on the ground on his side. The man ran off with the backpack and stole from Koles’ pocket the fifteen dollars from the other sale. Water and blood trickled onto the rain soaked leaves. The blood and the water intermixed. He felt his pulse quicken and more blood spilt. He wanted to call out for help but the little fires along the alleyway had disappeared when they saw Hartweill take off with the Jansport. Someone called for an ambulance and jetted into the blackness of the night. Red and white lights illuminated the spot where Koles had fallen.

On the stretcher, he looked at the first responders and realized that he felt numb. His consciousness slipped and he fell asleep. They took him to the hospital in Wilmington..

At the hospital, he had regained consciousness but sensed a severe soreness in his abdomen. Bandaging looked like something out of a mummy movie. Koles struggled to get up.

“No, no, no, champ. You better stay put. What the hell were you out there on this cold, fall night. Were you about to give out candy ahead of Halloween?”

The nurse, Nixon Clydeburg laughed. “You’re going to be fine. I’m just glad my girl Waki isn’t here to see all this blood. She’s a trauma nurse, her real name is Wakina, but we call her Waki.”

“Your girl?”

“Don’t get excited, we’re not serious yet. She has some drug dealer boyfriend that she’s always putting down. I’ve been trying to keep her hopes up about the guy.”

Koles’ mind ran at a trillion lightyears a second. He didn’t want to show it, though. “I didn’t get your name.”

“I’m nurse Gaston. Roget Gaston.” He was slightly taller than Koles and darker and had a broad smile that rivaled a thousand watt light bulbs.

“Oh, okay.” He mapped out what to do in his head. Koles wanted to know how this all started and how to put an end to it. Would he wake up on the news? With nothing on him, no gun, money, or drugs to speak of, he had nothing for the authorities to pin him to any crimes. But his mind continued to lap with the lightning speed of a bowlful of thunderbolts. He checked his watch and shifted his wait. It felt like salt had been placed in his wound but it was actually a salve to clean the wound under the gauze. The blueness of the room was meant to act as a mental aid, yet wasn’t in the right state of consciousness. Nurse Gaston returned. Koles wasn’t in his bed. He hopped out of the personal belongings closet with a plastic bag. With both hands he wrapped it around Gaston’s face.

“What the––” Gaston gasped.

“Happy Halloween, bitch!” The pain shot through his entire body and he had no strength to move at all. Gaston overpowered him.

“What the hell, dude?!”

“You’re with my girl!”

“What?!”

“Wakina. That’s my girlfriend. What’s all of this?”

Just then, Wakina showed up. She held onto Gaston.

“What happened to you?”

“What happened to us? You were so concerned about me cheating but you’re,” he gasped as pain wracked his midsection, “the one out here with this one!” He grimaced in agony, his mind still swirling. “Obviously, we’re through.”

“I’m done with you anyway,” Wakina walked away. Gaston stood like a monolith.

“I’m going to let that little episode go by but you’re going to have to face facts and deal with what is coming next. Now, you must realize that you should start thinking about the doctor and a lawyer. I’m okay, but I don’t think the street action will ever be excused.”

Koles rolled over on his back and felt his muscles convulse.