TWO

The day came, not long after the initial visit to the hospital, where Gord’s mother asked him to find her some painkillers.

"Something strong," she said, "Something that’ll block out the screaming in my body. They won’t give me any legal ones without a prescription, and they won’t give me a prescription without a doctor’s visit, and doctors won’t see me without insurance unless I have a few hundred dollars lying around. So get me something nice. Cheap, but nice."

"I don’t know where to get that sort of thing around here," was what Gord wanted to say, but he kept his mouth shut. Instead, he found his light jacket and went out into the streets to find something suitable.

His neighbourhood was still traversable at night, so he left it quickly and made his way towards downtown Heraklion. The change in vistas as he walked was striking. His neighbourhood was mostly old middle-class homes, the kind with peeling siding, patchy roofs, and stained American flags hanging limply in the front. As he came closer to downtown, the paint situation became dire; the roofs seemed to be caving in on many houses, and the front porches mouldered in the spring sun, haunted by shady figures sitting and staring him down as he walked by. Then the train tracks came, and the abandoned factories replaced the semi-abandoned houses he’d been walking past. Shadows watched him walk by from busted windows and he glanced nervously at them, wondering if they were really moving or if it was just his imagination working on overdrive.

After the factories came the downtown. Most of the stores had boards nailed up over the windows and decade-old newspapers covering the windows. Some had signs, dirty and missing letters, and others only had lighter areas on soot-covered brick walls where signs had once been. Once in a while there would be an active business: a dingy dollar store with hand-lettered signs in the windows; a church-run charity shop that a grizzled, bald old man smoked outside of; Lo Chi’s Chinese Cuisine, a battered old restaurant that featured very old, yellowed menus taped to the door. They stood in sharp relief to the abandoned storefronts that surrounded them. His mother said that when she had been young, it had been much the same, only there had been a few more open businesses. Not many, but a few.

At the corner of Washington and 3rd he stopped to get his bearings. He had no idea where to find what his mother was looking for. Had he been in school that day, he might have asked around some of the more sketchy students that lurked in the back of his classes, but it was Saturday and his mother would not wait until Monday. As he turned down 3rd he remembered that he’d seen some homeless-looking people hanging out at the old bus station a few weeks ago when he’d accompanied his mother to the bake sale at the nearby First Methodist. Halfway there he realized with a chill that he had neglected to bring along any sort of protection. He balled his right hand into a fist and held it in his pocket. It did little to ward of the new sense of doom he carried with him.

A block down from the old station he caught sight of a pair of figures standing outside near where the buses once parked to take in passengers. They made drab outlines against the equally drab brick of the old station. Halfway down the block he got a better look at the pair of them: both wore dark puffy coats and black boots; both had scraggly, dirty long hair; one was smoking, and the other was leaning against the brick wall, watching the clouds of smoke billow from their companion. When he got to within ten feet of them they both turned to stare at him. He saw that they were both women, both thin-faced and rather sallow. The one smoking had a tarnished silver ring in her left nostril. It seemed to glitter against her dirty face.

He stopped in front of them and they stared at each other for a moment. The smoker finished off the very last inch of her cigarette and flicked it away to her left.

"Can we help you?" she asked, her voice loaded with disdain. Gord swallowed hard.

"I’m, uh, looking for some stuff," he stammered.

"Good for you," the smoker snapped, "move on and keep looking for it."

"No, no," Gord kept on, "I need some heavy stuff. Some, uh, painkillers."

The non-smoker reached casually into her pocket and withdrew a spring-loaded knife. She flicked it open with vacant ease and held it pointed low towards him.

"I think you should maybe move on, bud," she growled, gesturing slightly with the point of the blade. Gord stared at it, feeling his head swim. His mouth had gone dry; when he tried to swallow his throat denied him painfully.

"Look, no," he said, trying to adopt the sort of soothing tone he’d used on animals and babies in the past. "I’m trying to get some stuff for my mom, okay? Like, she’s got cancer bad, and she’s in a lot of pain, but we can’t afford to see a doctor so she can’t get a prescription for anything legal. So, like, I need to..." he trailed off, realizing that he didn’t really need to finish the sentence.

Both women stared him down for an uncomfortable amount of time, during which he felt himself shrink down until he could fit comfortably inside one of his shoes.

"Fuck," the smoker spat finally. The non-smoker took a glance at her and put away the knife with a sharp, disgusted motion.

"So you can help me?" Gord asked hopefully.

"Yeah, yeah," the smoker sighed. "Come around the back with me. Keep your head down and don’t look around. Bring the heat down on me and I’ll have your fucking guts for a boa next Halloween."

Gord did as he was told. They walked along the soot-crusted wall where buses once parked and shuffled along with their heads down. They did not look up. As they neared the back of the wall, it came to Gord that the reason they dressed as they did was something akin to camouflage; it was harder for the authorities to see them if they dressed as abandoned as the places they haunted. It was on the edge of Gord’s tongue to make this observation, but he remembered the sharp, glittering point of the woman’s knife and clamped his lips shut.

Around the back of the old station was a wide doorway that would have once allowed bus riders egress to board transportation but was now sealed shut with a thick steel chain and a heavy lock. Beside the doorway was a window that had been covered over with plywood. The smoker knocked a complicated rhythm on this sheet of plywood, waited for fifteen seconds, and pried it open wide enough to fit a thin body through. The non-smoker held it open while the smoker climbed through, after which the smoker held it open for the other two.

Gord climbed through last, his heart pounding painfully in his rib cage. The interior was dim but not as pitch dark as he had suspected it might be. There was a light coming from somewhere, and it cast strange, twitching shadows on all of the visible surfaces. Both of the women walked on into the station, and after pausing a moment to check out his surroundings he scrambled after them. The central bus terminal of Heraklion had once been a point of pride for the city. The floors were still clacking hard tile, and the ceiling was still supported by approximations of Greek columns; the walls had once been exquisitely painted with murals of mythology and they still bore the ghosts of these stories buried beneath grime, dust, and ugly scrawls of neon graffiti. Amongst the shadows he saw Icarus taking flight against the sun.

They passed through the waiting area, where torn chairs pockmarked the floor. One of these had been kicked and beaten savagely at some point, and the legs slanted downward at a treacherous angle. Gord tripped over it, seeing it too late, and only barely saved himself from faceplanting into the unforgiving tile. In the wake of his near-accident a flock of pigeons was disturbed from their nests in the nooks high above, near where the ceiling met the walls. Their cries pierced the silence in a manner that was nearly deafening.

"Jesus," the non-smoker seethed, "can you not keep quiet?" Gord made an apologetic face but found that he could not speak.

Beyond the waiting area was a large, spacious room. On one side was the ticket counter, whose steel shades were drawn across every window; on the other side was a trashed cafe, littered with styrofoam cups, papers, brown stains, and broken glass. In the center was a stairway that lead up into a darkened second floor. Directly in front was the entrance that Gord had found the two women loitering outside of. The glass of the doors was soaped over, and the outline of another solid chain-and-lock could be seen through the film.

"Alright kid, this is where you take the lead," the smoker said. "Up the stairs."

Gord looked to them in askance and found that the non-smoker had pulled her knife from her pocket again. She gestured towards him with it and he fought the urge to leap back.

"Up and at ’em," she said with a mocking little twist to her voice. He began to climb the stairs without replying.

Halfway up it became hard to see, and with each step afterwards it became more of a challenge to put one foot in front of the other. Near the top he could close his eyes and not tell the difference. The only way he knew that he had passed the final riser was that he put his foot out and encountered nothing. He stumbled forward, muttering a non-word in surprise. He heard the two women titter behind him and felt his cheeks flush warmly.

"Alright, that’s enough of that," a male voice called out from the darkness. Gord froze, and he was sure that the people he could not see could hear his heart pounding in the silence. A moment later his eyes were flooded with light, and he put a hand to his face to try to shield himself. When his eyes adjusted, he saw a pair of men in tattered black coats standing near a long island made of marble. One of them was holding a large flashlight, and the other had a pistol held casually against his right side.

"It’s just us," the non-smoker said, her voice echoing jaggedly in the gloom. "Put the gun away, Vince."

"Hold on, hold on," the man with the flashlight replied. He was tall, with dark black skin and a fuzzy beard growing scraggly on his face. "I have a better idea. Why don’t you tell us who the kid is, and then Vince will put his gun away."

"Like fuck," Vince growled. He was shorter than the black man, but twice as wide, and had a beard that looked as though he hadn’t had a proper shave in years. "Why don’t these bitches tell me why they thought they could bring someone up here without clearing it with us first."

"Don’t call me a fucking bitch, Vince," the smoker said, and there was real heat in her voice.

"Don’t act like a fucking bitch and I won’t call you a fucking bitch," Vince replied.

"People, people," the man with the flashlight said soothingly, "let’s find out what’s going on here, and then we can tear each other’s balls off."

"Oh fuck off, Steve," the non-smoker said. "It would take us a day just to find yours."

"Hey now," Steve said, sounding wounded. "They’re easy enough to spot. I heard once that you could see them from space."

"AHEM," the smoker said loudly. "Can we please just get a move on this. I don’t think the kid wants to stand around and listen to a bunch of retards acting retarded."

"Yeah, what’s up with this kid anyway?" Vince asked. "You still haven’t explained why you brought some random kid up here."

"He’s looking to buy, obviously." Outwardly, the smoker’s tone was flippant, but Gord thought he heard a slight streak of fear shooting through it.

"Oh well, obviously," Vince shouted. "He obviously just rolled up here, said he wanted to buy something illegal, and could you please let him into the abandoned bus station where all the illegal things are, thank you very much." He pointed his gun at Gord and Gord’s breath stopped. "Now, Mr. Just Rolled Up Here, who are you working for?"

"Working for?" Gord asked, feeling clammy and stupid. "I don’t have a job."

Steve began laughing uproariously.

"Oh, that’s good, that’s a classic." He imitated Gord’s voice in a mocking falsetto. "I don’t have a job, sir, I’m just a kid, I’m not working for anyone."

"Shut up, Steve," Vince snapped. "This isn’t funny. This has never been funny. I’m not going to jail for the sake of Lori thinking some kid is kind of cute."

"Jesus, Vince," Smoker - Lori - said. "That’s not the fucking reason he’s here. I brought him up here because he needs something for his mom."

Vince laughed mirthlessly. "Oh sure, Lori, he came by to pick up some fucking drugs for his mom. That’s a believable fucking story, alright. You really are fucking retarded, huh?"

"No, it’s true!" Gord shouted. As soon as the words left him he began to feel dizzy, but he ground his teeth together and pressed on. "My mom’s got cancer and we can’t afford a doctor. She’s in a lot of pain all the time and she needs something that kills it so she can live without wanting to scream all the time."

He stopped talking when he realized that everyone in the room was staring at him.

"Kid..." Vince groaned.

"Gord," Gord replied sharply. My name is Gord Lewis, I live up by Eversham Drive, and I’m just trying to find something so my mom doesn’t have to die in pain."

There was silence for a time. Vince lowered the gun and stared at him with an unreadable expression on his face. Steve looked away with an expression like he’d bitten into something sour. Lori and the non-smoker were looking at him with compassion.

"Jesus," Vince said finally. He looked at Steve, who didn’t make eye contact with Vince. He brought his fingers up to the bridge of his nose and rubbed. "Okay. Okay. Lori, sell him what he needs and get him the fuck out of here as quick as you can. Next time he needs something, you meet him somewhere else. I catch him back here, he gets one in his brain and you have to dispose of him."

"Sure, Vince," Lori said, "sure thing. No problem." She turned to Gord. "Come on, kid, just over this way. Let’s get this going."

Gord followed Lori deeper into the second floor. The light failed, and then bloomed again as they approached a folding table with a lamp on top of it. A large number of plastic bags were piled around the lamp, some filled with powders and others with pills.

"How much do you have?" Lori asked. "Money, I mean."

"Thirty bucks," Gord replied.

"Thirty, huh?" Lori muttered. She rummaged through the pile of bags and eventually settled on a bag of what looked vaguely like brown sugar. She opened it, weighed out a small amount, and sealed it within a second, smaller bag. She kept this smaller bag clutched in her hand and held out her other hand with the palm facing up.

"Cash up front, kid," she said sternly.

"Gord. My name is Gord."

"Sure, whatever you say. Cash."

Gord dug into his pocket and retrieved three crumpled ten dollar bills. He handed them over and waited while Lori checked them over. Satisfied, he stuffed them in a pocket in her dirty jacket and handed over the bag. Gord held the bag up and looked over it.

"What is this, anyway?" he asked. Lori choked on a sudden burst of laughter.

"Oh man," she said, shaking her head. "Okay. This is heroin."

Gord looked at the bag as though it had suddenly transformed into a cobra. Lori rolled her eyes.

"Come on, kid, look alive. It’s just heroin, it’s not a bomb. Do you know any diabetics?"

Gord shook his head negative. Lori pursed her lips.

"Too bad," she said. "Easy source of syringes. I’ll give you a few from Dina’s personal stash, but you’ll have to figure out where to get more. Don’t ever reuse them, that’s a good way to get infections, and there’s no point in making your mom’s life even shorter."

Gord nodded, trying to keep his racing thoughts under control.

"Okay," Lori continued, "so you crumble a little - little - bit onto a spoon, add water, and heat it underneath with a lighter until it dissolves. Draw it up into the syringe, find a vein, and inject it in. This stuff isn’t superstar quality or anything, it won’t send your mom for a fuckin’ loop, but it will let her ignore almost all of the pain her tumor is sending her way. Okay?"

Gord nodded again, not sure of how to respond.

"Look, if you fuck something up and she dies, we never met. At all. I mean it. Vince will fuck me up and then he’ll fuck you up, and don’t think he won’t. He’s a paranoid fuck and he doesn’t hesitate."

"Okay," Gord replied, his lips numb.

"Cool. Follow me down and out of the building. Don’t talk to the others, don’t even acknowledge them."

Gord followed her back out to the island and then down the stairs. Vince and Steve had disappeared, so the path down the stairs was treacherous until the odd, flickering lamp-light reappeared halfway down. The non-smoker - Gord assumed that this was Dina - was waiting for them at the bottom of the stairway, sitting on a bent cafe chair and fidgeting with her hands. She stood up as they approached.

"Vince is really pissed," she said. "Word of warning, you know?"

"I’ll handle Vince," Lori replied, and Gord heard that twinge of fear in her voice again. "Don’t worry about it."

They walked back through the station. Dina did not accompany them. The pigeons had returned to their nests near the ceiling high above.

Outside, past the pried-open plywood, Lori stopped and pushed Gord against the brick wall.

"Don’t come back here," she warned him. "You won’t have to wait for Vince to kill you."

"What if I need more?" Gord protested.

"There’s a convenience store running at Jefferson and Syracuse Road, right near the edge of downtown. The owner is a tall guy, grey mullet like it’s the fuckin’ 1980s or something. Tell him you need to make a collect call to Lori, he’ll get ahold of me."

"That’s pretty complicated."

"Not really. You want to see complicated, ditch your life and come hang around with us. I don’t really recommend it though."

Gord looked at his worn shoes and slipped his hand into his pocket. His fingers played with the crumbly feel of the heroin through the plastic bag.

"Well, thanks, I guess," he said quietly, and walked away.

"Hey, kid," Lori said as he turned away. A half-second later this was followed up with, "Hey, Gord."

He turned around and saw her with her hands deep into her jacket pockets.

"You a virgin?" she asked. Gord sputtered and felt the heat rising to his cheeks again.

"What does that have to do with anything?" he asked, feeling indignant.

"I dunno," she replied. "Most guys I know wouldn’t give a shit if their mom was in pain because they were too busy trying to numb their own. You just seem more innocent than that, is all."

Gord stared at her for a while.

"I am, yeah," he muttered, and then walked quickly away before he could hear her reply. His footsteps echoed rapidly against the shells of formerly inhabited buildings and he didn’t slow down until he passed back over the railroad tracks.