with the back of her head, rubs her hair up and down in a smooth motion. I slide closer and put my hand on her shoulder; it seems to increase her discontent, the stiffness of her shoulder suggesting a restless longing for better circumstances. I’m the best she’s got, and I’m a pretty sizable question mark.
I rise because I do not want to mislead her, do not want her to think in any way that my intentions for her are anything but the best I have to give. I walk to the window again and stare at a cluster of office buildings.
“There’s nothing in this for me, Melody. We’re not in the same room. You can leave anytime you want, okay?” I turn around and face her. Her knees are bent and her toes are pointed inward, arms crossed like she has a chill. I see the little girl again. “I’ll be really disappointed if you decide to leave, but… it’s totally up to you. I would never try to keep you here. I want you to want to be here. I want you to know that I understand the distance of the narrow tunnel that will set you free. You just have to trust that I can navigate you through it.” She looks to me with her lips firmly pressed together, like a platitude is not what she needs at the moment. So I give her something the feds likely never did: honesty. “The tunnel’s very, very narrow, Melody. I’m sure you understand that. But unlike Justice, I know what’s on the other side.”
Melody bites the inside of her cheek, eventually nods. I want her to view me as the solution, not just the better option.
I open the adjoining door and chuck my overnight bag on the bed across the room. “I’m just one knock away, okay?” And sure, as soon as I say it I realize that had to have been the closing line from every marshal she’s ever known.
She nods and her eyes fill. She turns away and whispers, “Okay.”
“Good night, Melody.” I close the door, leave it unlocked. I put my ear to the wall and listen for sniffles or outright crying, but neither ever come.
I walk to my bathroom and flip on the vent and reach for my smokes, hold them in my hand like a gun. I study the corrosive little tubes of relief as two thoughts hit me at the same time: (1) I am a socially acceptable, less destructive version of Gardner, enslaved to an addiction, so lazy and unwilling to give it up that I’m permitting it to destroy me. This thought—the fact that Gardner and I have some trait in common—sickens me, and; (2) if Melody can surrender her life to me, the least I can do to exemplify a man of discipline, a man that can deliver the goods, is give up a ridiculous dependency.
And like any addict, like every loser and scumbag who comes to my family saddled with a need for money to get a fix, I rationalize the one last time scenario. Sure, I’m going to give up cigs, but I’ll just smoke one more. One final time, and then it’s over.
I stare at the pack in my hand for a long time before I squeeze the death out of it, clench my fist so tightly that the cigarette papers tear and tobacco spills out. The smell drives me frigging nuts. I empty it all into the toilet, then empty the other two packs from my overnight bag into the can as well, and flush my addiction right into Baltimore’s sewers, down the Patapsco River, into the Chesapeake Bay.
So, around five in the morning I wake up with an unbearable headache and a wave of nausea that I’d liken to salmonella poisoning. There’s the sweat, too.
I stumble out of bed and put my ear to the adjoining door—takes all my might to keep from opening it and peeking in—and I swear I hear the sound of utensils hitting a plate and a cup hitting a saucer, the soundtrack of working in the restaurant business; I’d recognize that clinking anywhere.
I turn on the shower, strip down, and get in while the water is still cold, try to wash the withdrawal away. No matter how clean I make my body, how close I shave, or how well I brush my teeth, the misery keeps coming, and introduces me to its not so distant cousin: anxiety.