The Buy

A short story

Alex had been explicit: park down the block, and walk to the house. Not in the driveway, or on the curb in front of the house. So that’s what Randy did. He yanked the parking brake, put the shift in neutral, and cut the engine. He ducked his head, eyes peering through the windshield into the night, searching for hidden figures, potential dangers. Ice formed in his belly as he pulled his wallet out and gathered bills, adding them to a huge wad: five thousand dollars, a mix of denominations ranging from twenties to C-notes, collected from five of his friends and himself. He counted it for the twenty-first time and exhaled slowly and fully.

This was a choice, a chance at happiness. Instinct informed this decision, as did intellect. His choice was binary: left or right, yes or no. Make the buy, or save his portion of the money, invest it, spend it, burn it in some dramatic fashion. Either choice was fraught with peril; either choice bore potential for rewards. Only one sat right with him, and aligned with his values. One was easy and brought promise of escape; the other meant only the same problems, to be confronted again, and paid for. Debts that were owed, mistakes to be answered for. He split the wad in half, and tucked a portion in each of his Vans.

He stepped out of his old Tercel and shut the door and locked it, pulling his hood up, though his hoodie remained unzipped. The light gray fabric felt exposed in the dark. The neighborhood wasn’t necessarily sketchy, but it wasn’t well-lit either; working class would best describe it, fifty-year-old homes worn by time and occupied by families too tired and overworked from three or four jobs to really care too much about the state of their lawns.

A mélange of odors from an array of cultures greeted him as he walked purposefully down the sidewalk, testament to the flavor of the neighborhood.
A loud, rumbling, perfunctory series of barks erupted at some indistinct distance somewhere to his right, behind the homes he walked past. No one was outside except for him.

Off to his left, away in the darkness past the edge of this neighborhood, the distinct buzz and hiss of the freeway could be heard, with its endless churn of motion; busy lives, people moving in directions he’d never know, pursuing fates he’d never realize. He caught a sudden chill, though the temperature was in the mid-fifties. It never got much colder than that, here. Mild winters were part of the attraction, if you could cope with the cost of living, congestion, traffic, and the occasional wildfire, mudslide, or earthquake. He shifted his shoulders uncomfortably as he made his way towards the house.

His eyes flickered over details and house numbers as he walked along the block. Yellow wood paneling, 57044. He passed under a pool of light cast by a rare street lamp and caught a hint of movement and a faint flare on a porch ahead; it caused a slight hesitation in his gait, that he silently cursed himself for. He did slow his pace a bit, so as not to appear too hasty.

As he passed beyond the edge of the illumination, his eyes readjusted to the darkness, and he fixed them on the source of movement: single figure, on the porch, smoking a cigarette. Relatively young, wiry, slender build. Possibly wearing a wifebeater, by the looks of his bare, somewhat slouched shoulders. That wasn’t a tired or timid slouch; that was relaxation, ease. It caused alarm in Randy’s head for some reason.

As the distance lessened between them, Randy began to take in the details of the porch, the yard, the clutter around the porch and side of the house, the recycling bin and trash can, and whether there were any hidden individuals lurking in the shadows. He identified problem areas, mapped escape routes. Fine perspiration formed at his temples, and his heart rate climbed noticeably.

His system had just flooded with adrenaline, he knew, and he flexed his hands unconsciously in his pockets, to work off excess energy. When he got to within 15 feet, the silhouette shifted, as the figure adjusted his stance. He was definitely facing Randy, confirmed when the bright bloom of the cigarette’s cherry opened up the shroud around the figure just enough to see a neatly trimmed goatee and olive complexion.

“—you doin’?” a low voice croaked out, issuing from the darkness around the man. Randy had to fill in the remainder of the sentence, considering the pitch and tone, and the pounding of his own pulse in his ears.

“Good, thanks,” came Randy’s low reply, as he kept his pace and barely looked up, continuing down the sidewalk, eyes still darting. Ahead, the dulled, peeling yellow siding of a house came into view, worn with age and lack of care. Halfway up the block, just like Alex told him. One last furtive peek over his right shoulder at the guy on the porch; he was still there, clouds of smoke blossoming around him, obscuring his silhouette. Randy felt eyes on him.

He slowed, looking near the door for the address and got his confirmation via worn metal numbers: 57044. Alex hadn’t told him much, other than that the guy was cool, and from Jamaica. They drew lots to see who would be the one to go make the buy. Fortune had decided it was his task that day. Now he had $5,000 tucked into his shoes, and chemicals ricocheting around his insides.

The discussion beforehand, and the questions he had asked during their planning session, revolved around safety and danger. He would be carrying a lot of money and zero experience doing this. These guys were capitalists garbed in track suits instead of ties with fewer restraints, though no less prone to corruption. Violence was a different question.

Alex, of course, had waved off his concern with his easy smile and surfer hair. “Nah, man, Del is cool,” he cooed, all nonchalance and indifference. Alex was an overconfident, dumb suburban kid with indulgent, rich parents and failing grades. He coasted through life with the ease of someone used to second chances, and then some.

Randy had earned everything he ever got. His contribution had come from flipping burgers and delivering pizzas and wiping vomit out of the back of his car while doing Uber after hours, in between sleeping briefly and studying hard enough to get through an anatomy exam with a passing grade. He was a medical student; smart, but what did he know of this life?

Now he was on the verge of a moment of truth he wasn’t prepared for, as he mounted the stairs and knocked on the door, glancing off to his right to see if the smoking guy was still there. Nothing. That sent a thrill of panic through him. And he wasn’t sure if it was worse that he was gone, or if he had still been there, smoking casually, and watching.

Questions rattled around in his skull like a chaos of fighters in a cage match: was he a lookout? Or just a neighbor? Was he in league with these guys? Took a little cheddar to text a heads-up that a new mark was on the way, before heading inside to ease into a recliner and drink beer? Or would he be there, helping to murder Randy and dismember his body afterwards? All those questions stopped mattering when the door opened.

A lanky black man with dreadlocks bundled at his nape swung the door open, hand still on the knob, regarding him through heavy-lidded eyes. Randy stepped inside, taking note of the room. There was a dusky haziness to the crowded space; it wasn’t exactly messy, just cluttered, busy with stuff. The odor of marijuana was pervasive and cloying. A thin fog pressed in at the corner of his eyes, so ubiquitous it replaced molecules of oxygen with smoke. Another tall lanky figure was visible reaching into a refrigerator ahead to his right, through a beaded curtain. The one who answered the door closed it softly behind him and walked away to the left, before pausing to glance back and gesture for Randy to follow. He swallowed and complied.

A narrow hallway lead off the main room into darkness. Randy’s awareness spiked as a fresh surge of adrenaline flushed his system and his eyes quickly adjusted to the new light level. A series of worn wooden doors in a sickly off-beige color adorned the hall. The first door on his left was open, and as he passed, the sounds of cartoonish violence met his ears, and a pair of children’s eyes looked up at him from their seats on a bed, with the bright colorful illumination of a TV casting their faces in a bold glow. They were in pajamas.

The floor creaked as they walked past the next room, the loud rattle of automatic weapons, screams and explosions echoing out of a room occupied by a teenaged male who didn’t even look up, wrestling with the controller in his hands, eyes locked in intense focus on his TV and the violent interactive contest playing out on it.

“C’mon mon” a thready voice drew him back to his path down the hall, as they approached the last door. His escort paused and gestured. “G’wan,” he commanded, gesturing at the door, following Randy in as he pushed through the threshhold. A cool blue glow flooded the room; blacklights. The room had the same cozy, cluttered, lived-in feel as the rest of the house. A pair of stout middle-aged men sat with their backs to him, conversing with a huge third figure, sitting with his back to a corner. The two middle-aged men turned in their chairs to regard him, staring intensely, their silent regard calculating and menacing. But Randy was captivated by the third man.

Dressed in a loose traditional shirt, black with roomy sleeves and bright trim around the neck, chest, and cuffs, he was huge; his face was mostly obscured by dreadlocks, vines dangling across a cave entrance. His eyes were deep set in hollows, glittering crystals in a cavern. His corpulent form wasn’t so much a sign of lethargy as staid power. He was gravity, drawing everything in the room towards himself, and not merely because of his immense size.

Those eyes, barely visible, never left Randy. Though he couldn’t see them, he felt the weight of their scrutiny. His voice boomed out then, difficult to discern, thick with patois. Randy discerned an m sound, sounding something like “ ‘im got money?” Whatever was said, the word money was clear. With a questioning glance at his escort, who stood close by, Randy pulled a foot up and removed one shoe, collecting the money inside into a neat fold.

This elicited chuckles from the two seated middle-aged men; one said something in a hollow, reedy patois, that got answered by a throaty laugh and a scratchy answer from the other. They openly turned and watched his discomfort, chuckling. It was clear he was being mocked. The escort smiled broadly but said nothing, his attention mostly on Randy. He reached his hand out, and Randy placed the first wad in it, before leaning to collect the rest out of his other shoe.

As the escort counted the first wad, the scratchy-voiced man said something, which produced more laughter. The hollow-voiced man looked at him and wrinkled his nose and waved a hand in front of his face. Randy smiled and nodded, relaxing slightly, handing the rest of the money to the escort, who counted it rapidly and added it to the rest. The large man watched in silence.

The escort nodded to the large man, then handed it to the hollow-voiced fellow, who gingerly took the bundle of cash pinched between his thumb and index finger, then pocketed it, which elicited more chuckles from the other. Both of the middle-aged men turned towards him, sat at their ease, regarding him openly, slight smiles and expectant looks on their faces. The escort watched him. There was silence. Randy looked between them all, avoiding looking at the large man.

“Soooo, is the stuff in here?” Randy queried, looking briefly to the escort before settling on the man who took the cash. The large man rumbled a guttural phrase, incomprehensible. The reedy-voiced man, who was closest to him, produced a joint and leaned forward handing it to Randy, and said in a slow, accented tone “Here, smoke on this. We get for you.”

Randy looked at the thin wrinkled cylinder like a poison snake. The escort left the room, presumably to get his stuff. “Sit, relax,” came his hoarse voice again, accompanied by an unctuous smile. Randy was immediately on alert. This whole situation felt wrong. His eyes darted to the door and the dimly lit hallway beyond, before flicking back to the proffered joint. He held a hand up, warding himself from its approach. “Nah, I really gotta get going. I appreciate it, but I still have studying to do tonight.”

The reedy-voiced man’s smile melted, his brow drawn down slightly. “Refusing hospitality is rude.” Randy looked towards the door once more, then back at the joint again, which was insistently jabbed at him. “Sorry, I better not. If I get pulled over on the way back, I don’t want to smell like weed.”

Randy began slowly edging to his left, in the direction of freedom. He was definitely spiking on adrenaline again, and felt caged in. Wondering where his stuff was made it worse. He just wanted to finish the purchase and get out of here, when a deep bass punctuated the silence. “Hey, take a few puffs, it won’t bite.”

Randy glanced over, directly in those pits. The big man leaned forward slightly, beady eyes piercing Randy. They glittered behind a curtain of dreads. His face was round, Buddha-like, with jowls decorated by a goatee and freckles speckling his puffy visage. “You’re Del, right? Delroy?”

The big man’s eyes gleamed, tiny points absorbing and reflecting what little light there was in the room. He inhaled, his burly mass expanding, less corpulence than bulk. He seemed to appraise the question a moment before answering. “Ya, mon. Mi name Del. Relax, sit. Jevaun has to weigh the product and package it. Dis gon’ take time. Meantime, Roje and Tafari keep you company.”

The reedy-voiced man gestured to a small stool and held the joint out again. “Grab dat, take a load off.” He pressed his left palm to his chest, jerking his head back toward the man behind him, who had pocketed the money. “Dat fool is Roje, mi name Tafari.” The oily smile returned, more relaxed. Genuine. “You’re Alex friend, ya? Him come by all di time.”

He placed the joint in his mouth, produced a match, struck it on the edge of his chair, and lit it, puffing three strong pulls and breathing out through his nose to snuff the fire at the tip, pulling it and exhaling before holding it out to Randy. He hesitated a moment, then pulled the stool under him and took the joint, giving a gentle sip before leaning to pass it to Roje. Roje scrunched his face in reproach, shaking his head. “Nah, mon, get into dat ting. G’wan.”

Randy hesitated, giving a sheepish grin before placing it back between his lips. As he did so, the door opened and a tall, slender younger man who could have been the twin of his escort walked in; Randy immediately placed him as the man he had seen in the kitchen earlier. The new arrival stepped carefully through the room, threading his way gingerly past their group and towards Del, leaning close to his right ear and speaking quietly.

Del never once shifted or changed expression, only rumbled something quietly in response. The younger man nodded, then made his way back out, disappearing into the hallway, and closing the door behind him. Randy slowly shifted his eyes back to Tafari, who was smiling and watching him, nodding encouragement. Randy took a long pull, taking only a portion into his lungs, and passed the joint to Roje.

As he leaned back he tried watching everything. Was he just being paranoid? Something definitely felt off, even considering that the buy needed to be weighed; it was a sizable quantity. Alex had negotiated the purchase of five pounds, a mix of lower to mid quality strains. Considering the bulk, Alex told Randy it was sure to be over in weight, a bonus. But it was equally likely that a good portion of the weight was stems and seeds.

Part of the arrangement was that it would be sealed and compressed, so that it was as compact and unobtrusive as possible. That was how they received it, brought from Jamaica somehow, presumably by a variety of surreptitious methods. That they didn’t just sell one of their shipments directly to Randy, still wrapped, spoke to the underhanded nature of the business: they would ger rid of their oldest, dryest, least potent batches. A certain tolerance for being ripped off came with the territory. Randy was struck by a sense of surreality as he pondered exactly what the hell he was doing here.

The joint was pushed back into his face, Tafari’s hand an insistent reminder of this distraction. Randy’s mind raced, trying to figure out a way to speed this along. It was crucial that he get what he bought, and leave. Tafari looked in his eyes, his smile coming nowhere near touching them now.

“You need to learn to relax, boy.”

Randy’s stomach dropped. His fingertips and feet came alive, a sensation of simultaneous enervation and invigoration. The adrenaline was a familiar feeling now, and the most powerful drug he’d ever taken. Tafari’s eyes were dead now, having lost all pretense at joviality. They took on the aspect of a shark: lifeless depth. It was a remarkable and frightening transformation. Behind him, Roje’s face was a stone mask of purpose, disapproval embodied. It made Randy feel small; frightened in a way he hadn’t felt since being a child. He reached for the joint, and made a decision.

As he grabbed the joint, he stood. “I really should-”

Tefari and Roje stood at the same time he did, their speed and fluidity surprising for middle-aged men. Their dead eyes were set in countenances that spoke only of determination. Tefari’s voice was all command now. “Sit.” Roje started maneuvering behind Tefari, looking to cut Randy off from the door. In an instant, Randy flicked the joint in Tefari’s face, and bolted for the door.

Roje grabbed him in a bear hug, but Randy went limp, dropping all his weight focused in his right knee on the top of Roje’s foot, then sprung back up, pushing him against the wall as he did so. He immediately pivoted, reaching for the knob. Behind him, Tefari was rubbing his eyes, growling; he produced a snub-nosed revolver from his waistband and raised it, trying to draw a bead on Randy.

As his hand found the knob, a loud pop sounded, which coincided with a puff of dust and drywall as the round buried itself nearby. Randy’s eyes went wide, he yanked the door open and crouched lower, bolting through the opening as the distinctive bass of Del roared behind him. Randy scrambled, running low, pinballing off of the teenage boy as he emerged to investigate the noise, knocking him back into the doorframe of his room.

Time compressed, events ribboning in his perception. He caught the vague outline of someone stepping into the doorway behind him, and as he turned to look back towards freedom, a little girl in pigtails emerged from the second doorway, clutching a worn stuffed animal, fear bright in her eyes. Another pop, and a gout of blood spewed from the little girl’s mouth, a hole perforating her throat. The stuffed animal tumbled to the floor as she sprawled backwards. The teenage boy’s face contorted in horror. Randy could see the front door, his path clear to it.

Instead, he fell to his knees next to the little girl, his eyes assessing. Reddish-pink bubbles frothed from the wound, accompanied by a gurgling sound. Behind him a keening wail and an impossibly loud roar sounded, but Randy ignored it, sound and awareness fading as his focus trained on the little girl. His left hand fished into his pocket for his lighter as he pressed his right fingers near the entrance wound. He looked up at the frightened, stunned teenager. “Hey! I need your help. Press here!”

The young man seemed to emerge from a fog, and responded immediately, falling to the floor next to the little girl and pushing his fingers alongside the wound. Randy fished in his other pocket and produced a Swiss Army knife. He was barely aware of Tefari standing next to him, face contorted in sorrow and regret. As he flicked the blade open, Randy picked up his lighter, ready to sterilize his knife as best he could. His mind raced, his eyes searching as he thought. He spotted a sports bottle with a plastic straw in it next to the teenager’s TV.

“Tefari! Tefari! Snap out of it!” Tefari turned slowly and looked at Randy, his face a mask of pain. Randy pointed behind him at the bottle. “I need that to save her life, bring it here.” Tefari nodded slowly, dashing to retrieve the bottle as Randy flicked his lighter, bathing his knife in fire. He raised his voice. “Del! Call 911, or this little girl isn’t going to make it.” He was scarcely aware that Jevaun and his twin now stood at the end of the hallway, directly between him and escape. The twin had his phone in hand, speaking into it.

Tefari returned with the sports bottle, and Randy looked at him. “What’s in that? Soda?”

The teenager responded. “Naw, water.” Randy nodded, leaning down as close to the girl’s neck as he could. She was drowning in her own blood. He was a little high. He was only a med student, with below average grades. This wasn’t sterile at all. What was he doing here? He had only come to make a buy, so he and five friends could turn $5,000 dollars into triple that, at least. He had a clear escape, nothing could’ve stopped him.

But only one choice sat right with him, and aligned with his values.