Memoirs Aren't Fairytales Read Online Free Page B

could have been said to me, like Michael had died, and it wouldn't have sunk in when I was tripping on that shit. Was that the kind of high he was feeling? If it was, I envied him.
    Jesus' townhouse was different than the dealers I bought from back at home. Bangor pot-pushers sold to support their habit and lived in duplexes that weren't in the nicest part of town. This place was in a decent neighborhood, fancy electronics and leather couches furnished the living room, and there was a fish tank that took up almost an entire wall.
    There were four men sitting on the couch, playing a video game on the giant TV. We stood in a line by the door, pressed against the wall, and listened to them yell. My attention shifted to the staircase when a guy appeared at the top of them.
    “That's Jesus,” Renee whispered.
    His head was shaved and covered with tattoos of spider webs and skulls. The tattoos carried down and wrapped around his bulging biceps and forearms. He stopped on the middle step and made eye contact with Renee. She moved to the steps and we followed behind her.
    When all three of us were upstairs and standing outside a closed door, Jesus unlocked the five padlocks drilled into the doorframe. By the way he patted Eric and me down and flashed the gun holstered in the waist of his jeans, I thought we were entering the cash room of an underground casino. But it was like any normal bedroom with clothes dumped in the corners and a bed by the window. Once the door was locked behind us, we were told to stand in front of it. Jesus stood a few feet from us and his eyes shifted between Eric and me.
    Eric said his name and stuck his hand out. Jesus reached forward with a closed fist, and Eric quickly balled his hand and pounded Jesus' knuckles.
    “Que,” he said.
    So Jesus wasn't his real name.
    “I'm Nicole,” I said.
    Que nodded at me.
    “What are you guys looking for?”
    “A half-ounce of green,” Eric said.
    There was a padlocked wooden cabinet next to Que's bed, and when he swung the door open, I was shocked by what was inside. The dealers back home kept a small stash of weed, an ounce or two, and on occasion Vicodin or ecstasy pills. This was like a fucking pharmacy.
    The top shelf was filled with a shopping bag of weed. The bag was clear, and the buds were the size of corn on the cob. The second shelf was pills. Rows of pill bottles were filed along the sides and back wall, and sandwich bags of white powder were in the middle. There was a metal pan on the bottom shelf holding wax-paper packets stamped with emblems.
    Que took out the shopping bag and used a digital scale to weigh out a half ounce. Eric placed our money in Que's hand and pocketed the weed. Renee was next, but she didn't say what she wanted. Que just reached into the cabinet and pulled out two sandwich bags from the middle of the second shelf. They exchanged what was in their hands and he walked us out to the hallway.
    “Can we start buying from you?” Eric asked. “Without having to bring Renee?”
    Que wrote his phone number on a napkin and gave it to me. “Call first and just the two of you, no one else, ever,” he said.
    We took the train back to Renee's place. Eric packed Baby with bud while Renee dumped some powder onto her glass table. She spread out three lines, rolled up a dollar bill, and gave it to me. I'd snorted coke a handful of times when I was in college, but I was always drunk, so I didn't feel it. Coke wasn't the only drug I'd tried. My roommate, Katy, and I experimented with pain pills and ecstasy, and tripped on shrooms and acid. But mostly, it was weed, and we wouldn't start our homework without smoking something first.
    But sitting in front of Renee's coffee table, I was sober. The coke shot through the bill, into my nose, and straight to my brain. I took a hit from Baby, and the smoke expanded in my lungs and came out of my mouth like a chimney.
    My jaw was swinging like a pendulum. My lips were moving like propellers on a