Felony Melanie

“I’m not around right now dude, but I’m pretty sure my ex still sells. I’ll text you her number and let her know you’re gonna call.” Max tells me. “OK man, thanks.” I hang up the phone and turn to Jack, who is gingerly pouring Rubinoff pink lemonade vodka into a bottle of Minute Made. “What’d he say?” He asks as he caps the vodka and hands it to me. “He’s not around, but apparently his ex has some. He’s gonna send me her number.” Jack and I are sitting in a random parking lot in his truck drinking because we’re 19 and have nowhere else to go. “Have you met her before?” I nod. “Yeah, once or twice.” “She hot?” I smirk as I put the cap on my lemonade and shake it. “No, she’s fucking gross, dude.” Jack laughs. “What, not fat enough for ya?” “Yes, actually. A couple hundred sandwiches would do that girl some good.” Jack sticks his tongue out in disgust. “You’re a sick fuck.”

“XXX-XXX-XXXX nd her name is stepanie.” The text from Max reads. “Hey, Stephanie? My name’s Harry, I think I met you a few times through Max…” I begin awkwardly. “Yeah, yeah, he told me. What do you need?” She replies. Stephanie sounds very spacy and strung out, much like her ex-boyfriend Max, who was known for eating Molly by the gram on a daily basis. “A G. Where are you? I got a car, we can come to you.” “Umm… I’m at a… I’m fuckin, I’m at a hotel right now, sorry, I’m fucked up. I can send you the address. The g is gonna be 80, alright?” “That’s cool. See you in a bit.” “Ok! WAIT, WAIT, WAIT, WAIT, WAIT!” Stephanie yelps into the phone as I go to hang up. I jerk the phone away from my head, startled. “Yeah, what’s up?” “Do you guys need subs too?” “Huh?” “Subs, you know, fuckin’ suboxone!” She says, as if slang words for Buprenorphine are common knowledge. “Oh. No thank you.”

Our GPS leads us to a surprisingly sophisticated looking hotel by the beach. “I thought for sure she was gonna bring us to the fucking heroin holiday inn.” Jack says. The Heroin Holiday Inn was a local Motel 6 in our area that was notorious for drugs, prostitution, and other things that are fun. I call Stephanie and tell her we’re here. A few minutes later she comes out, holding a big duffel bag and wearing a hoodie that’s way too big for her. “Hey guys!” She says as she gets into Jack’s truck. “Hey! We met before I think, my name’s Harry. This is my buddy Jack.” “Hey, nice to meet you guys. I’m Stephanie.” She says as she roots through her duffel bag. Stephanie is emaciated and appears to be on drugs. Judging by her pupils, I’d guess she’s rolling, but you never really knew with her and Max. Her speech is heavily slurred and incoherent. She pulls a 40 of Old English from her bag, but not the gram of Molly that we asked for. “Sorry guys, we kinda have to make a stop to go get the Molly. It’s only a short ride, though. I’ll give you guys directions!”

Stephanie really sucks at giving directions. “WAIT, WAIT, WAIT, FUCK, TURN LEFT HERE!” She screams from the backseat, making Jack jump in his seat and jerk the wheel to the left, nearly causing us to slam into oncoming traffic. We aren’t quite drunk yet, but we do have an open container and are obviously underage. “You wanna just give us the address? I can put it in the GPS.” Jack suggests. “Oh, yeah… Haha! Why didn’t I think of that before?!” She says. “Gee, I dunno, drugs?” I pull my phone out and start up the GPS. “OK, it’s… 122 Washington Street.” “Wait a minute… I know that address!” “Isn’t that where Max’s apartment is?” I ask Stephanie. “Yeah, and he’s got the Molly!” Stephanie says this as if I’m retarded. “But I called Max and he said he wasn’t around, that’s why he gave us your number. He said you have the Molly… Remember?” Stephanie stares blankly for a few seconds. “Oh. I don’t know why he’d do that. He’s dumb.”

Max is so far gone mentally that this kind of fuckery is par for the course. Nothing about Stephanie or Max makes a lick of god damn sense, and I’m done questioning it. We drop Stephanie off at the apartment and she runs inside. “Fuck dude, you were right.” Jack says as we wait. “She’s basically a female Max, dude. He ruined that girl’s brain.” Stephanie returns moments later with our Molly, which of course, is “bagged” in the cellophane from a pack of cigarettes. This is one of my biggest pet peeves as a drug user. “How fucking hard is it to go to Walgreens and get some of those little ziplock pill pouches?” I do my best to origami-fold the wrapper and stuff it into my sock. We mix up a couple more drinks in the parking lot. “Where do you wanna get dropped off?” Jack asks as he pours the vodka. “Oh, are you guys 21?! Can you bring me by the liquor store and get me a 40?! I’ll give you… Fuckin’….” Stephanie tears through her purse and pulls out a few crumpled dollar bills. As she straightens them out, she realizes she only has enough to cover her 40, and has no money to tip Jack with for getting her a run. Jack takes pity on her. “It’s cool, I’ll do it for you. My fake might not work, though. Some places don’t take it.”

Jack’s “fake” ID isn’t actually fake at all. The only trouble is that the man pictured in the ID is six years older than Jack, and bares no physical resemblance to him whatsoever. On top of that, it is cracked in several places, and is taped together in others. The man in the picture, whose name is Jason, doesn’t even have the same eye color as Jack. We have never met Jason, but his ID was given to us by his ex-girlfriend Katie. Katie claims he was abusive and a heroin addict and a loser. Katie is an alcoholic, though, so who knows how much of that is true. We were all getting hammered together at her parents’ house when she gave Jack the ID for reasons neither of us can remember.  

The only place in town that would take Jack/Jason’s ID was the liquor store in the Asian neighborhood in the next town over. One of the young cashiers there actually tried to deny Jack his booze at the counter one day, only to be yelled at harshly in Korean by the elderly man who owns the store. She quickly changed her tune after that, and sold Jack whatever he wanted as long as he had the cash.

“Where’s the closest liquor store?” Jack asks as we pull out of the parking lot of Max’s apartment building. “It’s fuckin, like, two seconds away. I’ll show you. It’s like legit down the street.” Stephanie slurs. “Thanks for doing this for me, guys.” “No problem.” Jack says as we drive. I take a nice big swig of my lemonade and gag. “Four out of five teenagers agree that Rubinoff vodka is fucking awful, but will get you wicked hammered for cheap, dude. The one kid that disagreed is a pussy.” They oughta write that on the bottle. “WAIT, WAIT, WAIT, WAIT, SHIT, THAT’S IT ON THE LEFT!”

SCREEEECCCHHH!

BOOM!!

FUCK!

A small sedan t-bones Jack’s truck as he makes the turn into the liquor store parking lot. “SHIT! ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME, DUDE??!” Jack screams. “Everyone alright?” I ask. Stephanie doesn’t say anything, but looks alright, if not terrified. “Take that bottle of booze, and stuff it under the seat. Take some shit out of the backseat and stuff hide it good. Grab the weed, too. Hurry the fuck up.” Jack instructs me as he gets out to talk to the other driver. I hop out of the truck and quickly stuff the handle of cheap liquor out of sight under the seat. “Shit, hey, listen to me. Listen to me right now.” Stephanie says to me from the backseat. The whole incident seems to have sobered her up a bit. “What?!” I ask, frustrated. “I have fucking warrants, dude. If anyone asks, my name is Melanie Levitt. You get that? Melanie Levitt.” She frantically makes phone calls as I stand there, dumbfounded.

The other driver is a young dude in his 20’s and is pretty cool about the whole thing since nobody got hurt. “You need to fucking come get me now, seriously, the cops are gonna be here any minute, dude.” Stephanie pleads into her phone. Eventually she secures a ride and a cop does show up, although he doesn’t give a flying fuck about me or Melanie. Jack is like Obi Wan Kenobi when he’s talking to cops. I once watched him finesse a sobriety checkpoint while tripping on LSD. It was a performance that should have won him an Academy Award, but I suppose getting out of an OUI is better than an Oscar. A creepy looking sketchball with face tattoos pulls into the liquor store parking lot. His early 2000’s Taurus looks like it’s done just as many drugs as he has. Suddenly, Melanie comes running out of the back of Jack’s truck. “Tell your friend I said sorry!” She mumbles as she darts to the Taurus and hops in the passenger side. Everything about their exit is loud and sloppy and the cop should arrest her right there just for being a shitty criminal.

The cop leaves and the other guy gets his car towed. Jack’s truck is surprisingly drivable, although there is now a massive dent in the side of it. “Did the cop ask if you were drinking or anything?” I ask him. “Huh? Oh, no, he had no idea. Look at my fucking truck, though, dude.” Jack kicks one of his tires in frustration. “Yeah dude, that sucks. Spun out bitch…” “And you know I’m not getting the fucking money to pay for this. My insurance is gonna go up, my parents are gonna be pissed, fuck!” “I can think of one other way she could pay you…” Jack smiles. “Yeah, no thanks. Fuck this, dude. Let’s go get fucked up.”

We go to the one truly safe spot to do hard drugs: the parking garage at the subway station. We drive all the way to the top level, where there are rarely other cars, and park. You have to pay seven dollars to park there, so cops never come through. It is a prime spot for teenagers to do drugs at, and has yet to be discovered by other kids. Those idiots are probably still drinking at the park. We both start rolling and the accident is an afterthought. “Yo, did you hear her when I first called her? Like when she was yelling into the phone right before I hung up?” I ask Jack, laughing. “I heard her yelling ‘WAIT, WAIT, WAIT, WAIT!’ but I didn’t hear the rest.” “She was like, ‘You need any Suboxone?’?! Like are you fucking kidding me?! I’m buying Molly…”

“…I don’t do fucking heroin. I’m not a loser.”