Pill City by Kevin Deutsch

Author:Kevin Deutsch
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

“Generation Pill”

These [orphaned] children are in Florida, they’re in Texas, they’re in Missouri, they’re in Jersey, they’re out west, they’re all over. Because the drugs are all over.

—DONNA LEONHARDT

September 14, 2015, West Baltimore

Derek Curry’s posted up outside the Popeye’s in Mondawmin, awaiting a Vicodin delivery from BGF, when he spots a bushy-haired little boy crossing the street. He’s no older than six, Curry thinks, his purple Transformers shirt ripped in the front, his face covered in a thin layer of filth.

“You lost, little man?” Curry says, wondering where the child’s parents are.

Probably getting high somewhere, he figures, just like Curry would be doing if that damned delivery man would get there already. Pill City’s drivers are so busy these days, it’s taking longer than ever for Curry to get his deliveries.

“You know where you are, son?’

The little boy shrugs, shakes his head, then nods, his eyes wet with tears.

“Dang, that’s a lot of answers,” says Curry. “What’s your name?”

“Moises,” the boy says, sniffling. “What’s yours?”

“My name’s Derek, but everybody calls me D.”

“What happened to your eye, D?”

Curry laughs. He’d forgotten how direct children can be, how fearless. He and Cassie had always wanted kids, but she’d died before they got the chance.

“I lost my eye a long time ago, little man, but I’m used to it … get by just fine with the one I still got.”

Where Curry’s eye had once been, there’s now a tattered black patch, the same one he’s worn for years. He’d lost the orb in a fight with a fellow addict and friend, a man named Otis Washington. Curry and Otis used to be tight, going halves on heroin baggies, pills, and the occasional eight ball of cocaine, until the day Cassie died. Otis had supplied the OxyContin that killed her, and Curry blamed him for her death. The accusation led to a fistfight, during which Otis beat Curry so badly, doctors had no choice but to remove his damaged eye.

“Does it hurt?” says Moises.

“Not even a little,” says Curry, who considers the loss of his eye, like his informant work for Detective Grayson, a kind of penance, a way of making up for having let Cassie die on his watch. “One eye makes me special, because everybody else got two.”

Looking up, Moises smiles a big, toothy grin, the boy looking so adorable, it makes Curry’s heart hurt.

“Moises, where’s your mama at right now?”

“She was tired,” the child says. “She laid down with Terry.”

“Where?”

“That way,” he says, pointing north.

“Can you find your way back there?”

Moises shrugs, his eyes going wet again.

Curry makes one last scan of the street, hoping, praying to see a BGF delivery man pulling into the Popeye’s parking lot. But there’s none in sight. He thinks of what Cassie would have done in this situation: disregard the drug delivery, tend to the little boy, and make sure he gets home safely. She’d have been a great mother, he thinks.

“Come on, little man,” Curry says, taking Moises by the hand. “Let’s get you back to your mama.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.