On a hot August night, we parked out front of a new construction site. The target was a few houses down. I’d returned for reasons I couldn’t bring myself to explain to Aaron. He didn’t ask anyway. Just looked at me. He asked, you straight? I told him I’m good. He cut another two lines on his iPhone, his hand remarkably steady. The scariest thing ‘bout it all, he said, is the stuff in your head. Adrenaline makes the mind race. Just be cool.

He held out his phone. To focus, he said. Lock in. My hand trembled, but pulling up from my line, I felt primal, like I made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. I was right where I was supposed to be. Aaron did his line, thought for a minute, and then cut himself another. My eyes searched the street outside, settling finally on a flickering streetlight. I watched it flicker in Morse code. I watched it flicker S O S.

He walked down the sidewalk cool as can be, like two guys at two in the morning, all in black, carrying an empty duffle were nothing to see. I said give me a second. He said, c’mon. Fortune favors the bold. Let’s go.

Pulling on our balaclavas, I saw through new eyes. I felt an innocence fade.  

In back, the screen door opened with the quietest of clicks. Aaron stepped in first, that red light illuminating the kitchen like a bad dream. White LEDs you saw easier through cracks in door frames he’d said. I followed, stepping into the house, across a screen door Rubicon. Aaron gave an inquisitive thumbs up. I nodded.

Surveying his surroundings, he smiled in that polite way you do on a house tour of a friend’s new place. Before I could point him in its direction, he strolled past the dining table and into the living room. His shoulders fell as he pointed to the coffee table, to two empty wine glasses and an almost empty bottle. He chuckled, said it really shouldn’t be so simple. I said beginners luck.

Pointing past him, I directed his attention to the statue on the mantle above the fireplace. He nearly dropped it as all the weight came down. He stifled a laugh and shook his head in disbelief.

Seven-thousand, huh?

That’s what he’d said, the owner, when I’d carried it in a few days earlier. He said, careful with that buddy, that cost me seven grand. No dings, no dents. Please.

Buddy. Like I were some amateur.

A ranger, shooting a bull. Seven grand.

Aaron set the duffle on the couch and unzipped the bag. Then he sat down next to it, nice and comfortable. I looked up at the ceiling. I tried to breathe slowly, the air hot on the fabric against my mouth. I wished I were me again.

The bronze statue in the bag, Aaron grabbed the wine bottle, studied the label, and then put it to his lips. Then he offered me some. I shook my head. He shrugged, finished it off, and then had a nice big stretch, looking around the room for anything else he wanted. Then he yawned.

I whispered let’s get the fuck out of here, and right then a door closed upstairs. His hand shot up to cover his headlamp. Footsteps.

I sank to the floor and Aaron into the couch. And still he looked calm, all the while paralysis took it’s hold of me. I saw the squad car, the courtroom, the faces colored with reprehension. And I thought about Lucy, this girl I barely knew anymore. Aaron just watched me, this stupid expression on his face, like this wasn’t his fault, like we couldn’t have been back outside already. He smirked.

The faucet ran in the kitchen, and then the footsteps retreated and upstairs a door opened and closed again. I exhaled all at once, and Aaron gave me this look, like really?, like be cool.

I followed him out, but on the refrigerator I saw this photo, this wedding photo, just of her, the man’s wife, and I grabbed it.

Aaron didn’t peel out or anything, but he wasn’t civil about leaving either. I kept checking his speed and he kept turning the music up. Relax, he said. He said, what a night. You’re a natural. I just checked his speed.

---

In his apartment I collapsed onto his couch. He handed me a beer and cracked open one for himself. Dude, that was nothing, he said. Wanna hear some real shit?

“I’d been in this one house, big house, old money type place. And the bag was full. It was a profitable night. I’m just heading out, going from the library into the hallway, and standing there, at the other end of this hallway, is this old lady. She’s like late seventies, early eighties. Senile or something. ‘Cause she just stands there, squinting into the light, unmoving. Gave me a real start. I thought she’d scream, but she really just stands there. For a second I do too. But if she’s not going to move, I will. I need to. So I start walking towards her, and right before I get to her, I switch my light to its brightest setting, this white, one that hurts. And the lady instinctively covers her eyes, and that’s when I turn it off and step into the laundry room, slipping back out the window I’d come in. Ran like hell.”

He pulls the statue out of his duffle bag, sets it on the coffee table, and we both just look at it.

This bull, with a badly bleeding leg, charging a Texas ranger in a big Stetson hat, whose rifle I feel is aimed a bit high, like maybe when he shoots, he’ll miss. On the ranger’s face is the realization that maybe everything won’t be all right. And the bull knows it too. Like after gouging the ranger they’d both lay down and bleed out, together. And they’re just stuck like that.

I looked at the photo I’d stuffed into my pocket. There she was, this lady who’d got home as we were leaving, this lady who floored me the way Lucy used to. Didn’t even get to say anything to her, just sat in the passenger seat, thanking God for truck’s big side mirrors. On the back of the picture it read Katia, I want you, only you, now and forever and always. How tacky.

Forever and always. Forever is how you go from happy to home-invader while your girl goes from coke to ketamine and back. And always. Always is only a recipe for disaster.

Aaron gave me a little coke baggie, as a thank you, he said. We’d split the money for the statue when he figured out what to do with it.

He cut some more lines, but I told him I was heading home. He held out the dollar bill and asked one for the road? Yeah, sure, fine.

He asked what’s with the picture? I just looked at him, gave him an annoyed shrug. And there was that smirk again, like he knew something I didn’t, knew something I never would.

---

Driving home I saw a hallway like in a horror movie. I saw a faint glow from the library, and then this light emerging, and my body failing. The hallway, bathed in red, is colored with an unfamiliarity unbelonging in my own home. This thing reserved for movies, for stories, happening to people at least two degrees removed, unfolding here. The axiom crumbles. I am not safe in my own home.

And the light moves toward me, carried by a silhouette six feet and some inches tall. The breath I’m looking for, one last one, just please one last one, doesn’t come. Right before the silhouette crashes through me, removing me, the light becomes a blinding white, and my hands jump to shield my burning eyes. When my vision returns, the hallway is dark, as it was. The only things gone are some valuables from the library and an axiom taken for granted.

---

It’s not even that I called her, it’s how I convinced her to come. She said no, but I told her I had coke, so she did. Here was guilt.

I held her hand as I walked her through the dark garage. She went to my room and laid on the futon. She asked you have coke? I showed her the bag. She said good, I’m tired.

I cut two lines on my laptop. From her purse she took out and rolled a two-dollar bill, and did both lines, just like that. I said c’mon. She said grow up. I’ll pay you. If you really want. I sighed, said it’s fine. She sighed too and tossed the two-dollar bill at me. I cut myself a line and a half and as soon as I did them wished I hadn’t.

My hands trembled again. I asked Lucy if she had a joint. Of course she did.

We walked down the street, passing under the streetlights. Lucy lit up and then handed me the joint. I breathed in heavy. In the distance the first strokes of a deep purple painted the black sky. I sighed in relief.

“Why’d you invite me over?”

“I don’t know. I think I was lonely.”

“Something happen?”

“Feels a little that way.” Then, “why did you come over?”

She reached for the joint. “I think probably the same reason.”

“Yeah.”

“Do you still love me?”

She inhaled softly.

“Yeah, Lucy, sometimes I really do.”

She tapped the joint lightly, and we watched as the ash fell to the ground.

 “Yeah.” She sighed. “Me too.”

We smoked the rest standing there under the last light on the street, life colored with an artificial brightness I’d have been grateful to never see again.  We walked back to her car. She put a hand to my cheek, kissed me gently, and then she drove away. And I just stood there, paralyzed.