Insurgents

22

Jessie left and I spent the night at home watching late night talk shows, waiting for my Tylenol PMs to kick in so I could get some sleep. I didn't remember falling asleep. The phone rang at a little after nine AM. It was John. "What the hell's going on? Jessie was supposed to take over an hour ago." He said.

"Sorry." I sat up on the couch and rubbed my eyes. "Any news?"

"No, she left her friend's house and drove herself home, swerving a little and going slow. That's it." He said.

"You been up this whole time?"

"I've been dosing on and off, but now I need a bed. What are you doing? Where's Jess?"

"Well, Jessie's not here right now, she shoulda been back. I'll call her."

"Where is she?" He asked.

"She drove to Pittsburgh last night."

"What the hell for?"

"You don't want to know." I said. "I'll call you back okay?"

"Yeah. Okay." He said. I hung up and got up off the couch. I got the coffee brewing and called Jessie's phone. Sara answered.

"Can you put Jess on?" I said.

"No, she's driving, she doesn't want to talk and drive at the same time."

"Where are you guys?" I asked.

"We just left Pittsburgh. We should be back in a few hours."

"A few hours? What took so long?"

"We hit a couple of snags in the 'Burgh."

"Just out of curiosity, was the trip a success?" I asked.

"Kind of." She said. "Half and half. I can't explain over the phone."

"Alright." I said. "Don't let her fall asleep at the wheel alright? Keep her up."

"Yeah okay." Sara said.

Jessie got home at quarter to two, and I found out what Sara meant calling the trip half-successful. Apparently they had gotten to Little Billy's apartment -that was the guy's name- but he wasn't there and they had to wait in the car for over an hour for him to get home. When he finally arrived, he was drunk -he'd been at some after-hours club. He told them he'd sold the last of what he'd had and he wasn't getting any more in until the following week.

"He didn't even apologize." Jessie said. "He just told us to come back next week. So standing right there in front of his apartment Sara just started going off. She was yelling at him, calling him a liar, 'cause he told her in a text that he could hook her up that night and now we'd come all the way down there for nothing. He kept telling her to be quiet or the neighbors would hear, but Sara was pissed. So the guy made some phone calls, but keep in mind it was like quarter to four in the morning and everyone was sleeping except this one guy -but this guy didn't even have any weed, just 'shrooms. I was like 'fuck it, let's go home' but Sara said that at least this way we could get something out of the trip. So we took this Little Billy freak way the hell up some hill, to this real bad neighborhood, and we bought a half ounce of shrooms off this scary tweaker named Pat."

"Sounds like a wonderful trip. I'm sorry I missed it." I said.

"Don't be a dick." She said. "You were right, isn't that enough?"

"I guess so. You missed your shift watching Gretchen."

"Yeah." She said. "And I have to be at work in ten minutes. How'm I supposed to work all day on no sleep?"