She was pacing the sidewalk tapping a cigarette in front of Stonybrook Station.

"Allie?" We met at a meeting months before and I hadn’t seen her since.

"Joe!" she gushed, jogging toward me, her hippie garb fluttering in the breeze. "How the hell have you been? Still clean?" She hugged me and kissed my cheek.

"Yeah… I mean, kinda. I’ve gotten drunk a few times, and I smoke weed occasionally… but no drugs."

"Me too, no drugs!" she beamed.

"I’m actually on my way to a meeting, wanna come?"

"Ah… yeah, sure. We should… we should get drunk!"

"Before the meeting?"

"Why the hell not? Besides, as long as we’re not shooting dope, we’ll be fine…"

"I only have like ten bucks—"

"Ten is plenty. Where’s the meeting?"

"On Church Street in Harvard Square."

We hopped the turnstiles to save booze money, took the Orange Line to Downtown Crossing, then transferred to the Red Line for Harvard Square.

She turned to me as we found our seats. "What was your life like before you got clean?" She spoke bluntly, careless of eavesdroppers.

(NOW ARRIVING AT: CHARLES MGH)

I whispered, "Bad. I was never a great junky, never had the hustle. Whenever I was sick I’d just steal from the people who loved me. I did all types of crazy shit… I can’t even remember half of it."

Her voice hushed. "Jesus, man. You’re so young… we’re so young. I was… I was in a bad place, too. Where I was living… it was… it was disgusting."

"I’ve lived in squalor, trust me."

(NOW ARRIVING AT: KENDALL MIT)

"No, Joe… Ricky, this dealer I was staying with… he"—she inspected the car—"he raped me. There was this one time… it was a few months before I got clean… it was him and this black guy… they"—she paused to wipe tears—"they tied me down, shot me up, and gagged me. When he finally took the gag off, he… he stuck his… his dick down my throat until I puked… 'You puked on my dick, bitch!' Then they beat me. I lost consciousness and woke up with a broken nose and black eyes…"

I took a breath.

"Those guys are scumbags, Allie. I’m so sorry."

"I love… loved him. I was pregnant…"

"From Ricky?"

(NOW ARRIVING AT: CENTRAL SQUARE)

"Yeah."

"What happened?"

"I lost it."

Another breath. I was sucking the car dry.

"You deserve better, Allie. There are better people in this world. I know it."

I didn’t know a fucking thing.

"Sometimes… sometimes it seems like everyone just wants to fuck me or kill me."

"I feel similar… without the fucking… or maybe with the fucking, too," I laughed nervously.

"That’s probably why I like getting high so much. Because I’m afraid… of everything. My parents don’t give a shit. My dad called me a whore, a dirty junky whore!"

"He didn’t mean that. You’re not a whore."

"I am. It’s okay. I was."

"Not anymore."

"No, not anymore."

(NOW ARRIVING AT: HARVARD SQUARE)

"Let’s just go to the meeting. I don’t wanna nurse a hangover tomorrow."

"All right," she agreed.

The train doors cracked open. We lit cigarettes on the escalator. The square teemed with scholars and scums, poets and punks. I swam through scenes: fastening rope, a blood-sucking spike, a teeth-marked gag, the sour stench of bile. The spike saw everything from a bedside table. Every thrust, tear, hit, plead.

The spike was complicit.

Out front of the church, a dazed drifter deteriorated on a bench, ignored by the ultra-tolerant people of Cambridge. I glanced at Allie and felt the tragedy of the world overwhelm me. Oblivion, I decided. Absolute annihilation. I could taste the Old Thompson on my tongue as I turned to her.

"I changed my mind."

She smiled.

Read Chapter Thirty-Four

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