thirty-eight

by eric lehman

    It wasn’t until Tyler showed me inside that I realized she was a dealer.  I had seen her around town for a while, and she had made it clear that she used, but the overwhelming stench of marijuana that assailed me as I followed her through her kitchen to the living room was a powerful argument.  Water bongs of all sorts littered the room, leafy plants grew in the open closet, and mashed green syrup stickied the thin carpet.  Thirty-seven messages blinked on the answering machine.  The set of scales on the kitchen table clinched it, and I glanced at this tiny girl, her small, fragile limbs and enormous, liquid blue eyes, measuring the seeming contradiction.

    “Do you want to light up?” Tyler asked me.

   

    I shrugged.  “Maybe after dinner.”  She assented, but first took me into her bedroom, which was absolutely crawling with Bob Dylan paraphernalia.  Perhaps she dealt in him, too, I thought to myself.  I picked books off her shelf, and we shared our excitement for them.

    I drove into New Haven to an Ethiopian restaurant, where we ate a luxurious meal, drinking African wine and chatting about Bob Dylan and the counterculture movements of the fifties and sixties.  Finally, Tyler suggested we go back to her place to “hang out” and I gleefully nodded.  This girl was cute and smart, a real catch by any standard…except for the drug dealing, I supposed.

Back at the resin-soaked apartment, I sat on her bed while she checked her messages.  Suddenly, she popped back into the bedroom, blue eyes sad and distracted.

    “What is it?”

   

    “I have to go to Providence tonight to make a pick-up.  The shipment got in early.”

    Thinking that this was certainly the strangest excuse to get rid of a guy imaginable, I nearly laughed.  “Well, that’s too bad.”

    “I’m so sorry.  It’s just, if I don’t get it now. . . .”

    “Nope, it’s really no problem, but really too bad. . . .”

    Tyler walked me into the yard, seemingly distraught.  For the first time I noticed the driveway was scattered with broken bottles.  Suddenly, as I turned to say goodbye, she threw her small arms around my neck and kissed me deeply and passionately.  I returned it, and as we broke apart said something stupid, like “that was unexpected.”  Tyler smiled sadly and ran back into the house. 

    Confused now, I slouched in my car and drove off, unsure of what to do.  The next day I made up my mind to at least call, and getting no answer, left a message for her.  No doubt it was lost amongst the others on the machine.

Eric D Lehman is a Professor of English at the University of Bridgeport in Connecticut and has previously published essays, fiction, and poetry in various online and print journals, such as Hackwriters, The New Formalist, Umbrella, Canopic Jar, Red River Review, Identity Theory, SNReview, Switchback, Random Acts of Writing, T-Zero, and Entelechy: Mind and Culture.  He will be the featured writer in Artistry of Life in Winter 2008 and has had a story recently nominated for the "Best of the Web" at Dzanc Books.