End User
I got the phone call early, before sunrise. Her voice was cracked and thin on the other line, like she was calling from another dimension.
“Matt told me to contact you,” she said. “He can’t do deliveries anymore.”
“Yeah, Matt’s in a bit of trouble,” I mumbled, heaving myself out of bed.
“Could you come by soon?” she asked.
I lit up my first cigarette of the day, wiped the sleep from my eyes.
“Yeah, I’ll be right over.”
Matt hadn’t told me much about her – he was tight-lipped about his customers – but he did tell me that this lady was a cripple, so when I showed up at her place I didn’t bother to knock. I just let myself in. It was dark in her apartment, all the windows shuttered and shaded.
“Here I am,” she called, and I spotted a thin white hand waving at me from the living room. “I like the lights out,” she said simply. She was seated in a huge armchair, propped up by cushions, buried in blankets.
I stepped towards her, feeling nervous in the dark, and handed her a little baggie with a few joints inside.
“That’s twenty bucks worth,” I said. It was forty bucks worth, but I felt bad for this shrunken old lady, like I owed her something.
“Could you light one for me?” she asked, so I did and she started to smoke right there in front of me. I just stood, waiting for my money.
“I suppose you deal with much heavier drugs than this,” she said.
“Sometimes. There’s a lot of stuff out there.” She seemed pretty focused on her joint, so I leaned up against the wall and waited.
“You must know a lot about the business.”
I didn’t like looking at her. The chair seemed to be swallowing her up, she was so small and insubstantial.
“Not that much,” I replied.
“This is good,” she said, exhaling, coughing a little. I could hear something jangling around in her chest and she kept tensing up – her hands, her legs, her face, kept freezing at random.
“You okay?” I asked, moving closer. I hate sick people. I can’t stand being around them, but I acted like I wasn’t bothered. She didn’t answer me, just blew a cloud of smoke into my face. She was older than she’d sounded on the phone. Matt hadn’t mentioned how old she was.
“Maybe you can help me with my problem,” she said. Her eyes were liquid.
“Okay.”
“Do you think there’s a way – with the right combination of pills and powders – for a person to fall asleep and never wake up? Quite painlessly?” She spoke slowly, with deliberation.
“You mean for someone to overdose? That’s definitely possible.”
“But without any mess or ugliness. Is there a tablet a person could take that would make their heart slow down and then just…stop?” She looked up at me hopefully.
I must have looked spooked, because she forced herself to laugh a little.
“You don’t have to be alarmed,” she said. “I’m just asking you a question.”
“I think there are ways of doing it,” I said. “You just need the right stuff.”
“That’s good to know.” Her voice was oddly serene.
“Anyway, I have other deliveries to get through today. Do you think I could get my twenty bucks?”
She nodded towards a table in the corner, where her purse sat.
“Could you pass that to me?”
I grabbed the purse then held it open in front of her, awaiting directions.
“There’s a little pouch inside. Just unzip it, would you?” I did what she asked, but I felt nervous, mostly because she didn’t seem nervous at all. What if I took all her money and walked out the door right then? What if I was capable of that?
“Oh, there’s a twenty,” she said. I reached for it, and suddenly her hand was on mine, squeezing hard, her nails digging into my skin.
“I have a lot more money,” she wheezed. “You could have it all, if you just bring me those pills. Please. I know you can.” She squeezed tighter and I tried to pull myself from her, tried not to look her in the eye.
“I can’t do that, ma’am,” I said.
“I’m in pain,” she wailed.
“I can’t.”
She let go then, dropped my hand, and her whole body went limp with exhaustion. In her frenzy she had dropped the joint in her lap, so I scooped it up and placed it in an ashtray.
“I have to go.” I said, and I hurried off, without grabbing my money. I burst out of that musty room, cold and dark as a tomb, and made my escape, running out into the streets. The hot morning sun pressed down on my shoulders, and I breathed fresh air into my lungs fast and hard, fast and hard, until my head started spinning.
Bridget Duquette studied English Literature and Translation at the University of Ottawa. Her hobbies include reading, writing, and watching her peers flourish in their chosen fields while she stares at the framed art degree on her wall.
Photo Credit: Nuno Gonçalves- Initiation Well