(31) Like a Stripper

Following the lead from H-something's house, Makennah stopped by Anissa's where Anissa herself happened to be home, reeking of weed but sporting glassy eyes of harder drugs. After some prodding, Anissa opened up about her mother's whereabouts. Indeed, she had been spending the last four weeks catching up on all the highs she missed out on while being locked up on the inside. Anissa said Candy had been sleeping at Jeremy Keller's House most nights. Makennah didn't know where that was so Anissa gave her directions.

Neither Jeremy nor her mother were located at said resident. However, a neighbor informed her that he hadn't been home for a couple days and neither had the 'skinny blonde lady.' The neighbor said he sometimes found them smoking out behind the diner on Main St because Jeremy worked there and the blonde lady waited out back for him.

At the diner, Makennah spoke to the manager who wouldn't open his mouth about anything. So she wandered around the back where her mother was not located unfortunately. By that time, she was so aggravated that she kicked the brick wall and scuffed her boots. Night was descending quickly on a cool autumn day and she felt she hadn't gotten anywhere. Theo was being so patient that it was killing her slowly. She didn't deserve his kindness at the moment.

While she cooled off in the back before going back k Theo in the parked car, a waitress with stringy black hair popped her head outside to check on Makennah. She recognized Makennah immediately as Candy's daughter and warned Makennah to steer clear. Apparently, Candy was spending more time with Bobby Long at one of his many houses in the state. Bobby and Jeremy got into it about something and things blew up. Therefore, Candy left with Bobby because Jeremy disappeared.

Her blood ran cold at the mention of Bobby Long's name. Her mother had a knack for picking the worst company and Bobby fell into that category. The cops had been hunting Bobby for years, trying to bust his drug ring and his illegal weapons black market. He moved like a ghost from town to town, successfully evading the authorities. He narrowly escaped prison every time.

Glad to see her mother was doing well, hanging out with the right crowd. Not.

Weirdly enough, Makennah knew of two houses that Bobby owned, both in her neighborhood. The first house was empty. The second was alive and well, running rampant with children from two to fifteen. The head of the household was Bobby's wife whom Makennah didn't even know existed. She barely spoke two words but instead wrote down an address for Makennah where she thought Bobby might be.

The address that Bobby's wife provided led them to a meth house out in the country.

Well an old meth lab. Not one anymore. But that didn't mean much of anything in these parts of town.

By the time they arrived, night had fallen over her hometown like a blanket of darkness. All of the stars hid away as if in preparation for the impending storm that Makennah was bringing to town.

Multiple cars parked in the stone driveway so Makennah parked parallel to the road in the ditch by the beaten down mailbox. Old rock music reverberated from the house, telling of the life inside. She should have known there'd be a little party on an otherwise boring Saturday night.

"So listen..." Makennah started as she exited the vehicle. Theo followed her up the driveway. "This is an old meth lab. And now it might be the circus ring for a weapons seller. Which means they've got tons of loaded weapons inside a bomb waiting to explode."

Theo scratched the back of his head. He didn't look so good. "So we could die if something goes wrong?"

"This might be the one time in your life that the answer to that question is yes." Makennah sighed. "You don't have to go in with me."

Theo adamantly shook his head. "No way. There's no way I'm letting you go in there by yourself. We do this together." He crossed his arms over his chest and stood his ground.

Fortunately and yet unfortunately, Makennah had a feeling that her mother was inside that house. After this goose chase, she was bound to be getting close. A piece of her new life was about to collide with her old life in one of the crudest ways. She was throwing too much at Theo all at once. Meeting her mother should not be the catalyst to this day, but it was.

Without further ado, Makennah tromped up the caving steps and opened the front door without knocking. Whoever was inside wouldn't hear her anyways with the loud music.

Narrowing her eyes, Makennah waved away the smoke that hung heavily in the air. It smelled like weed and cigarettes. Jingling the keys in her hand, Makennah walked into the house, alerting the people inside of her presence.

The front door led to the dining room attached to the tiny cluttered kitchen. A guy and girl hung around the kitchen sink, firing up a bowl. They glanced at her and Theo but continued their business.

Drug paraphernalia littered the dining table. An old pair of boots and scraggly jeans were flopped on the floor by the table. The walls around the room were stained brown from the meth that was previously cooked there. An underlying smell from the meth hid amongst the prominent smoke now fogging up the room.

Behind her, Theo coughed more than once and drew more eyes in his direction.

Down the hallway, Makennah shouldered through masses of drunk and high people, sharing joints of unknown substances. The most disturbing thing were all of the rifles and guns leaning up casually along the walls in the hallway.

The short hallways opened up into the living room. "Candy?" Makennah asked in a normal tone. No one answered.

Theo's hand wrapped around her wrist and tugged her a step back closer to him. She looked up at him. "That's my mom's name," she explained. "Like a stripper." She rolled her eyes. If that didn't explain her life nothing else did. She was pretty sure it was the only illegal thing her mother hadn't gotten into. "Excuse me." Makennah elbowed past a couple making out and emerged into the living room.

Her living, breathing, strung out mother sat on the couch, smashing some pills with the butt of a glass. The pills crushed into a powdery substance that littered a twelve by twelve inch mirror. Her mother pressed a finger to her right nostril and sniffed hard, a telltale sign she had already snorted something up there very recently.

Even in a stoned, blazed state of mind and body, Candy and Makennah shared every physicality they could. Makennah was simply a spitting image of her mother.

Makennah weaved into the room and approached the scrubby coffee table which her mother leaned over. Her mother's leg jumped up and down in nervous drug-induced energy. Her head spazzed to the left every few seconds. Her hands twitched with random nerves. Her eyes focused on the task at hand, but they didn't really see anything. She was so blitzed that she was completing all of her movements from memory.

A bag of assorted pills sat on the table beside another bag of white crystals. Makennah wasn't sure what that was but she didn't want to find out. There was also an amalgamation of half-empty liquor bottles cluttering the coffee table surface and the side tables. Old beer bottles and cans littered the floor by her mom's feet.

Taking a breath, Makennah snatched the two bags of drugs off of the table. She swept her hand along the surface, clearing the table off, sending white dust from crushed pills drifting through the air as the mirror clattered to the floor with the liquor bottles.

The sudden disturbance sparked a moment of silence at the party.

Candy responded a second later as it finally hit her. "What the hell?!" She slurred, eyes wide in surprise.

Makennah circled the table, still clutching the drug bags, and sat on the table in front of her mother. Glassy eyes saw Makennah but they took a second to focus. "Hey, Candy."

Candy reached for the bags and Makennah jerked away. Candy's bony arm fell across Makennah's lap. Candy started to laugh as she reclined back on the couch. "Well if it ain't my pride and joy."

Hatred bubbled up her throat. Every curse word hung on the tip of her tongue, ready to spew her mother to pieces. Makennah tempered her rage so that she didn't physically hit her mother.

"You been out for a month, Mom?" She asked loudly, moving her head where Candy looked so that she was forced to focus on her daughter.

"Give it to me!" Candy lurched forward, falling in Makennah's lap. The only thing on her mind was the drugs.

Makennah sloughed her off back onto the couch. "Answer me."

Curling her lip up in a grimace revealing deteriorating teeth and red gums, Candy rested her elbows on her knees. "I don't gotta answer to you, kid."

"Actually, you do." Makennah leaned forward too, breathing over her mother's face. She wasn't afraid. "Because you have a daughter that you're supposed to take care of!" She yelled.

Candy laughed menacingly. "You're doin just fine. Look at your fancy clothes. And you're fancy boyfriend. How cute," she snarled. "Give me the bag, Makennah."

She narrowed her eyes at the thing that created her. Makennah would never understand how she came from something like Candy. "You even think of me? You ever try getting me back at all since you've been out?"

Candy's eyes got worse. She couldn't even see straight. Her hands twitched nervously. "I've been trying okay? Give me the bag."

"No you haven't." Makennah dangled the bag like a prize. "Cause I'd be home if you did. Not that we have a home. You probably lost that. Or it foreclosed. Because you couldn't ever do anything like hold a job or pay bills or be a freaking adult."

"Don't talk to me like that!" Candy pointed her finger at Makennah but it was off center by an inch or two.

"I'll do whatever the hell I want because you don't have the right or the privilege to tell me anything," Makennah spat in her face.

Candy opened up her mouth and growled. "Give it to me right now, Makennah!" She screamed from a deep place in her chest.

Makennah stood to her feet and stepped back from her mother. She wasn't gonna do this anymore. "Fact of the matter is you care more about these bags than your own daughter! I could light us both on fire right now and you'd save the drugs before you saved me...if you saved me at all!" Makennah yelled. She bent at the waist and leaned dangerously close to her mother. She hung the bags in front of her mother's face. "You're a worthless meaningless piece of shit who isn't worth more than a damn penny the state pumps out to keep you alive time and time again. I've got gum on the bottom of my shoes that I care about more than you. You ruined my life and you don't give a shit about anything or anyone other than yourself and getting a high. Thanks to you I've finally got it good. Found a family who actually knows how to care about me as a human being and take care of Me the way you were supposed to for seventeen years. But you failed every single freaking time because you can't do anything right. I hate you and I hate everything about you. Rot in hell for all I care. You had better never come for me or I swear I'll end your life."

With that, Makennah flicked the bags upside down and emptied their contents into her mother's lap. White crystals flung all over the couch. Candy gasped, faking a cry.

"Hey girl, get out of here!"

Makennah spun around and came face to face with a loaded handgun. Cocked by none other than Bobby Long.

"Makennah..." Theo said quietly.

Fearlessly, Makennah gazed down the barrel to Bobby's face. He snarled and spit on the ground. "What? You think I've never looked down a gun before?" She shoved the weapon away, and Bobby stepped back. "Get the hell out of my face."

Theo grabbed her arm and reeled her away, pushing her down the hallway.

"Get out of my house!" Bobby barreled. "And take your rich fancy pants boyfriend with you!"

"Tell your wife I said hi!" Makennah yelled over her shoulder. Theo pushed her harder than necessary through a group of people. She could see the panic in his eyes. There was a slight tremor in his hands. She had taken this too far with him.

For her, it was just another day.

Makennah stumbled into the table and pushed off the ledge, racing out the door with Theo shortly behind her. The door slapped shut as they tumbled down the stairs.

Theo snatched his keys out of her hand. "Let's go." His tone was firm. Nonnegotiable.

"I'm with ya," she mumbled. Her hands shook so fiercely that she had a hard time getting the door open. "Go," she said, as soon as he started the car.

Theo didn't need any encouragement.

Makennah held up the small phone that she picked up off the dining table when she bumped into it. She dialed a familiar number.

"What's that?" Theo asked.

Makennah turned the phone on speaker so she didn't have to hold it up to her face. "Brexley Police Department."

"Hi I'm at 702 Bronwin Road. There's a party there with Bobby Long inside. There's also Nick Cleveland, Randy Hawthorne and Jesse Vallis inside. I think Bobby Long is running his market from that house. Used to be a meth lab," Makennah informed the officer in a low pitched voice, unfamiliar to her own.

"Ma'am, are you safe?" The officer asked.

"Yes. I'm safe. You better come quick so they don't leave. Be careful. They're all high." Makennah hung up, wiped the phone clean on her jeans, rolled down the window and flung the phone into a ditch.

"How do you know those people?" Theo asked.

Makennah laid a hand over her upset stomach. "Seen em all before. Gave drugs to my mom. Crashed on our couch. Deal to little kids in middle school. Nothing they won't do to pay for another high."

"Why were all those guns inside? That was not safe, Makennah," Theo growled, driving unnecessarily fast away from the scene.

"Bobby Long sells them. He's been wanted for years by the state. That will be a big bust tonight."

"Your mom...she could be arrested again."

Makennah sneered. "Good. Pull over please."

"What?"

Makennah laid her hand on Theo's arm and squeezed hard. "Pull. Over."

Before he came to a full stop, Makennah unlocked the door and shoved it open. She hurled her torso over the side of the car and threw up the contents of her stomach. She heaved several times, working up a sweat. Theo's hand gently rested on her back as she vomited again. Breathing heavily after she finished, Makennah spit several times, clearing out her mouth. She held out her hand behind her and Theo placed a water bottle in it. She tipped her head back and poured the water down her mouth. She swished it around and spit it out on the side of the road.

"Sorry," she whispered. She closed the door. Her head felt like lightheaded and her stomach muscles ached.

Throwing the car in park, Theo faced Makennah and pulled her against his chest. Her face nuzzled into his neck and she breathed his scent in. "You okay?" His voice rumbled in his chest.

Makennah closed her eyes and soaked in his strength. How could she have done this without him. "Yeah," she mumbled. "Let's go home before the cops show up."

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Xoxo

W. Carolina