Our car swerved into oncoming traffic before I realized my driver was asleep at the wheel.

“Jack!” I screamed, gripping the fabric seat as I stared at the large black SUV barrelling towards us.

I shot a glance at my driver. His chin dropped to his chest.

I shoved his shoulder, got a bobble head response. “Jack!”

Swearing, I grabbed the wheel and yanked it to the right, steering us over the solid white line and back into our own lane. A half-drunk ten-pack rattled in the back seat. The SUV flashed by, its horn blaring nonstop, the driver flipping us the bird.

My breath hitched while my frenzied heart tried to crawl up my throat. “Wake the hell up!”

My gaze pinballed between the road and sleeping beauty. Jack’s eyelids fluttered after I gave him another good shake. “Jack, wake up, now!”

“What’s all the fuss?” he mumbled through thick lips.

“You’re supposed to be driving.” I punched his arm, half out of anger and half to make sure he really was awake. His bloodshot eyes popped open, his knuckles tightening around the steering wheel as he shook his head and regained control of the car. I let the wheel go but kept my attention on the mid-morning traffic.

“I need another damn hit.” His speech was slurred.

“What you need is to get us back to the hotel in one piece,” I grumped, crossing my arms and leaning back in the passenger seat. My right knee jittered, bouncing like a 70’s punk groupie doing the pogo, and my veins thrummed with electricity, the excess adrenaline at odds with the fog edging in to dull my senses. Pushing my exhaustion to the side, while keeping one eye on Jack and the other on the road, I questioned my sanity. What had I been thinking getting involved in this? I really needed to get my driver’s license.

When we stumbled into the inner-city three star hotel, the entire crew was there, lurking in the smoky gloom of the dim room, the thick drapes drawn. A barrage of smells fought for dominance in the small space.

Underneath the initial onslaught of acrid hotel disinfectant that stung my nose was the stale musk of old carpet, trying to win the battle by seniority, if the dated pattern was any indication. Crowning it all was the cloying smell of heaven.

“Hey, boys.” I hefted the case of beer, adjusting the weight under my arm, and made my way to the mini fridge. Counting Jack, there were four guys, and me—the only pair of tits in the bunch. The guys had made it clear from the start I was one of them: no one touched me, no one bothered me. They respected me. Maybe because I wasn’t like the filthy crack whores eager to drop to their knees for their next high.

A low whistle. “Sight for sore eyes, you two,” called Ben. Or maybe Brian. I’d lost track of the fake names we all used. He was all biceps and tank tops with a baby face and a kind heart. Him and the other guy, a short wiry kid who always wore a cap backwards, were busy clearing up the scales and snorting rails from the glass-topped sideboard coated in a fine white dust. I flashed the middle finger over my shoulder and stocked the fridge, the bottles clinking against each other.

“Get some sleep,” I told Jack, and chucked the empty box in the trash.

He shuffled towards one of the two queen-size beds, but had already pulled a glass pipe out of his jeans pocket.

I swore under my breath and crooked two fingers. “Cash.”

He flung himself onto the bed and threw me a bundle of bills. “Bet you’re not complaining we pulled a double shift now.”

I caught the rolled bundle and stifled my longing for a soft bed. Running my thumb over the rough texture of the cash, a hard lump formed in my throat as I unfolded the thick stack of bills and began counting them out. It felt good to hold over a month’s wages in my hand, earned in just under a day. “Hey, Marman,” I greeted our ringleader, who sat at the nondescript hotel table carefully smoking a cigarette, letting the ash grow perilously long. His black hair, sides shorn, was slicked back from his head. Decked out in a black designer track suit and chunky boots, his outfit screamed Y2K hi-roller street youth.

Mario was half Italian, half Metis, and liked to think he ran this town. He was a year or two younger than myself, but his dark eyes told me he’d been around the block. He gave me an expectant look.

“Just over five G.”

Mario eased the ash into the bowl of his glass pipe and nodded. “Any heat?”

I glanced at Jack already snoring on the bed. Disgust flickered through me. I shook my head, peeled off my take and pocketed it before sliding the rest of the cash across the table. I tapped my index finger on the stack. “You gotta get me a different driver.”

“I thought you liked this one?”

I swear, you screw a guy once and they all think you love him. Rolling my eyes, I grabbed an upturned glass from the table and unwrapped the plastic cover. One of the boys offered a bottle of rye but I shook my head and headed for the bathroom to fill my glass from the tap. I avoided my reflection in the mirror. I rinsed the stale taste from my mouth, and drank deeply when my stomach rumbled.

Returning to the main room, I said, “Get me someone with his head screwed on straight, someone who can stay sober for two seconds.”

Marman didn't reply. He dropped a milky white rock onto the bed of ash. Lifting the pipe, he fished out a lighter with his free hand, then briefly touched the flame to the rock, melting the surface layer so it adhered to the ash. I licked my chapped lips.

I approached the table like a ghost, and slumped into a chair, although I’d been sitting on my ass in that stinky car for twenty-four hours straight. Must’ve broken the world record for number of junkies moving in and out of the back seat. Marman placed the pipe between his lips, his blistered thumb covering the tiny air-hole on the side of the bowl caked with black residue.

Black like the grime underneath the nails of my customers.

These junkies, unwashed and grungy, would slide across the back seat, filling the cab with their stink before the wheels even came to a complete stop. “Just a half for now,” they’d say, handing up cash between the seats. Sometimes the bills were crisp and new. Sometimes they were torn and battered like they’d been through the wash a few times. Sometimes, like last night, they were splattered in blood.

“Hard or soft?”

The question not only determined their preferred method of consumption, whether it was smoking rocks, snorting through collapsed nostrils, or spiking the veins, but their place in the drug world’s hierarchy. I never understood that. A junkie was a junkie, no matter the vice.

And vices came at a hefty price.

In this line of business, you couldn’t shake the rampant images of squalor. Like the day I sat next to a fresh piss stain on a dirty mattress and watched an ageing one-legged prostitute in a wheelchair turn herself into a human pin cushion in the futile attempt to find a vein, then scream obscenities at me when she wasted the shot, drowned in her own bloody backwash. She half-heartedly threatened me with her self-proclaimed AIDS-infected rig. Instead of sticking me, though, she wheeled her ass back onto the street to turn another trick. Because even the lowest in the hierarchy understood you don’t bite the hand that feeds. Those who didn’t wound up six feet under. The boys had razzed me for weeks on end after that incident, to the point where I’d sworn to never participate in another one of our unofficial shift debriefs. Black humour was the only saviour on the streets.

Mario exhaled a thick white plume of smoke and put the pipe down, trading it for my cash investment. He rapped the stack against the table and gave them a quick count, his nimble fingers flying expertly over the bills, which made a light grating sound as they rubbed against each other, like feathers beating against stone. Mario faltered for only half a second when he reached the blood-stained bill before continuing on.
He took my money like I took theirs.

I’d pluck the crumpled bills from their reluctant grip, trying to avoid grotesque yellowed claws. ‘Just a half for now’ meant until they had time to turn another trick, rob someone, screw someone over, steal shit and pawn it, rifle through their grandmother’s sock drawers for spare change, whatever they had to do.

Whatever they had to do for this.

I’d reach into the Ziploc bag between my knees and select one of the tiny individual baggies, the product stowed in torn off plastic corners, twisted and knotted. Normally, they varied in size, and that was part of the game. A dangerous play to risk the hungry junkie’s scrutinizing eye. But not on my shift. I made sure Marman divvied up equal-size portions for me, or I didn’t run, plain and simple. Eager hands would snatch the white tear drops and the car door would slam shut yet again. I’d pocket the cash and wipe my hands clean on my jeans, but it did little to alleviate the feeling of drowning in filth. My lungs knocked on my brain and I inhaled, realizing I’d been holding my breath.

Marman touched flame to rock again, which sizzled and sputtered under the heat, melting away into his lungs as he inhaled deeply. I don’t know how long I’d been sitting there watching him get high, lost in my own thoughts. He closed his eyes and produced another noxious cloud, filling the room with the stench of melted plastic.

“Hard to come by trustworthy people,” he finally said, his grip on the pipe tightening for a moment before easing. He sunk into the chair, his dark eyes on me. “Everyone’s using, even you.”

I barely heard what he was saying. My mind was screaming, begging for a hit. I imagined myself reaching across the table and snatching the pipe from his hands, clawing his eyes out to get to his stash if I had to. Instead I sat there, lips pressed thin, nostrils flaring.

He packed the bowl with another rock. My eyes widened. That’s what I called a hoot. None of this tiny crumb shit but a nice solid chunk, a hit sure to send you skyrocketing into delirium faster than a nitro-fuelled dragster.

Setting the pipe on the table, he gestured to the cash. “Good work.”
I beamed. No one had expected much of me when I’d joined. Originally, my job was to keep the dealer low-key. First tip, don’t drive a flashy car. We ran in an older model Jetta, baby poop brown. The second pair of eyes kept six, watching the mirrors for the boys in blue. Second, you sit an innocent-looking girl next to the runner, so when they cruise around the city all night, the cops won’t grow suspicious. The idea is to make it look like date night with the girl next door. This facade helps keep the heat off. At my suggestion, we even forewent the typical but efficient windows rolled down, drive-by deals and risked letting the customers in the car, driving around the block during the transaction before dropping them off.

In return, I got to sleep in a different hotel every night and get as high as I wanted. Sales had tripled since I came on board, not only because the cops overlooked me but because the customers considered me trustworthy, to the point where I was taking over transactions from other crews because they felt more comfortable with me. I’d even gotten my own driver. You’d think in this cutthroat world I’d be in danger, that people would try to screw me over, but they never once tried. Perhaps they just wanted their gear. Perhaps they truly felt they could trust me. Or it was all a crock and my guardian angel was sweating up a storm, pulling overtime.

“We have a pickup in a bit, but I gotta run some errands beforehand.”

“New socks?” I jested. Marman didn’t do laundry, at least not socks. When he ran out of clean socks, he bought new ones. I don’t remember when he told me that, but he had. People in this biz had a strange way of telling me things. Maybe it was my face. Going back to this approachable, trustworthy thing. If I wasn’t so intent on upholding my integrity, I’d make the greatest con man ever. But integrity was the thin white line separating me from the junkies I despised so much.

Marman’s laugh broke his stern look. “Something like that. You pay attention.” He added the bills to a huge stack he withdrew from his pants pocket, folded it up and wrapped it with a blue rubber band, faded white where it stretched thin. There must have been at least twenty grand there. He handed me the bundle, shaking it when I didn’t take it right away. “Hold onto this for me, okay? You gotta safe place for this?”

With numb fingers, I opened the zippered pocket on the arm of my teal bomber jacket. “Why not give it to Jack?” I stuffed the cash in there, fighting to ease the zipper closed.

Marman grunted. “Like I said.” He stood up and gestured to the others, whose existence I’d totally forgotten. I was back to staring at the loaded pipe abandoned on the table. Mario leaned over and whispered in my ear, “I trust you.” His breath smelled of sweet poison. “I’ll be back in a couple hours. Rest up and…not a word to Jack.”

A hand squeezed my shoulder and I heard the click of the door. But all I saw was that white chunk of rock waiting for me.

People were willing to trade everything for white. Their money, their jobs, their wives, their children, their honesty, their integrity. Just for this feeling. Each moment I stayed here, I risked more than a jail sentence. I knew I’d pay the piper eventually. The money in my coat sleeve felt like a ship’s anchor.

I fished a lighter from my pocket with a trembling hand.
​
One day, I’d walk away from this all.