Melancholy Jeannie

"Give her a green fairy. She's still hoping to meet one," said Dennis to the barkeep. "This place is the most upscale country bar. It draws rich people, mayors, city people who think it's a secret, pretenders who only own one fancy suit. If you are a country artist, this is the place to be discovered. There is a little stage, where any hopefully closet artist makes their play in hopes of being sponsored for a tour."

"That over there is Mr. Prince. He is loaded from an inheritance. He doesn't know what to do with himself. He is a perfect client. We only need him to take that first sip from puff, the dragon. Your task is to go over there. Make friends with him. Flirt with him. He is so depressed that no woman goes near him. Give him a kiss. He'll be soft and pliable in your hands."

"When he gives you the doggy-dinner-plate-eyes, you take this out. (Denis held a little packet of white powder.) Don't ask him to take it. He would smell the ruse. Instead, say that you take it yourself. Wait! He will ask you to share. And when you do, make sure that he gets most of it. That stuff in this packet is so pure that a single dose will make you addicted. It's not the blow we packaged yesterday. This is Beijing grade heroine. I only gives this people to get hooked. They never get that pure a shit in their whole life again."

With movements that spoke complete familiarity of her body, Denis' hands reached under her skirt. He put the white packet inside of her panties.

"That stuff is so pure. You simply rub it over your gums. It goes straight into the blood stream through the mucous membranes."

With that, he lifted her off the bar stool and gave her little ass a push. She stumbled forward towards the booth at the end, unsure of what to say or whom to expect. Awkward, she fumbled with her fingers standing in front of the table. "Hi, I'm Jeannie." She stretched out her hand.

"Hi, I'm Mr. Prince. Have a seat."

Seeing Mr. Prince up close, he wasn't that old. He was a young twenty year old, tall, skinny lad stuffed into a suit that balked him up twice his size. He had a bright red extra wide tie.

"The green fairy has never come for me. I had the original stuff imported from Europe. The herbs in it are mildly hallucinogenic," Mr. Prince pointed her to sit. Jeannie instead sat down right next to him.

"What makes you think that I'm not the green fairy? I'm only so real that you think I'm a real person."

Mr. Prince laughed. "You are funny. Here, I'll have you a drink of the European stuff. It's fifty years old from some castle." Mr. Prince waved at the waiter. The waiter reappeared with a silver tray and shot glass with green liquid. Jeannie took it down. "Bah, that's downright nasty. It's like cold medicine."

"I forgot to tell you. Fifty years ago was the last time they made the real stuff. Only fifty years turns the stuff real bitter as well. I am sorry. Do you want me to order some ice cream to clear it up?"

"You are rude. You keep throwing your money around like I'm not a person."

"I'm sorry. I thought you were one of those hookers that was trying to sneeze money out of me by pretending to be my friend. I can see now. You are simply a random girl that went up to a random stranger. How arrogant of me. I apologize profoundly."

"I'm not a hooker. I had sex with one boy the other night. One boy!"

"How did you get in here? You sound like a regular country girl."

"It must have been my looks," lied Jeannie. This was not going to be easy.

"Yeah, I agree. Where are you from?"

"I'm from New Munich."

"You must be lying. That's ten hours away. You couldn't have come that far for a drink."

"I ran away two nights ago. My daddy disowned me for that thing with the boy that I already told you."

"Jesus Christ, you are that unicorn of chance that randomly walks into one's life once. Both my parents are dad. Everyone is trying to get my money. In a way, I'm as alone as you are in the world."

"Last night a girl hugged me. It made me melt. Let me give you a hug." With that Jeannie threw herself onto Mr. Prince. She hugged the little boy in the bulk suit. He started crying. There was something welling up inside of him that had being welling up every day and waiting to spill over.

And when he was done, she was sitting on his lap. She reached under her skirt to pull the heroin packet out. "Wow, I need one of those," Jeannie sighed with her actor voice. She opened the plastic pouched. She got the white powder into the palm of her hand. She was waiting for him to ask to try it. He didn't say anything. She lifted the hand up to her mouth, hoping he would stop her from the surely addictive does.

He grabbed her arm, "hey wait, I've been wondering if that stuff helps. Can I have a little?" She seized him up to pretend to be thinking about giving up her treasure. "Sure. You know the best way to take it with two people is this way."

She put the whole powder into her mouth. Then, she pulled his mouth onto hers by his tie. The lips parted. The tongues met. And her tongue was wrestling as if her life depended on shoving the powder into his mouth against, his gums, past his teeth. She wiped her tongue on his to get the stuff onto his tongue. She could feel the rough powder melting and dissolving. Both were producing a lot of spit from the passionate kiss. And she kept wiping and pushing her spit inside of him long after she could feel any roughness from the heroine. And the happiness lit up in her face. She felt like she was achieving the top score in the SAT. It was that sense of success. Oh, the euphoria.

"It goes through the skin. Lick my nipples, make it go through my nipples," she spoke aroused.

His hands pulled down her black top. She popped out her right boob to push it into his face. His mouth latched onto it. The spit was copious from the kiss and heroin. He slobbered all over her. His tongue flicked on her sensitive nipple until it was hard. She felt that throbbing behind her legs that made her think of Simone.

And then some kind of happiness came over from the drug. She slammed onto her back. Her legs were still over his lap. He let her body go. He himself felt that easing feeling ten times stronger. The both passed out. Her boob was out in the open. Her legs parted from a lack of body tension to reveal her black sport panties underneath the dress. In the dark booth, nobody noticed. With the discretion of the bar, nobody said anything.

An hour later, she came to. She roused herself. Mr. Prince's eyes were still closed. She climbed off his lap. He weakly held her arm without opening his eyes. I need to know where to get more of this stuff. "The doorman hooked me up," said Jeannie to conceal the truth of her mission. She had sold the first soul into a life of heroin addiction.

"Good job," said Denis. "He is worth $5,000 to $10,000 a month. We can't have you doing anymore heroin tonight or you get hooked. But you can do Molly next. See that guy with the leopard colored hair, yeah, the crazy kid with the party hair."

That night, Denis had Jeannie do five different kinds of drugs at low doses to acquire new customers. By the end of the night, she had hallucinations from LSD. Her skin felt foreign from Molly. The Molly kept coming back in waves. The mushrooms made her have all kinds of memories come up. The heroin mellowed her out with happiness. And the blow made her super talkative and feeling in charge of the mess of emotions and drug sensory input that she got.

Sitting on the bike in front of the closed bar, Denis fed her electrolytes, vitamins, and neurotransmitter precursors to help her recover from the drug binge. "You've got to learn to push more of the drug on the customer. You'll have one sorry wakeup if you keep going like this." Those were the last words that she remembered.

Waking up, the first thing she noticed was the fresh smell of pine needle. The second thing was Denis' chest under her head. The third was the splitting headache. The hallucinations wanted to come back. Green squirrels were trying rise out of the ground. She screamed, "I hate you, teacher Ronald. You don't give me any more B's in math."

"Fuck, you didn't push enough of the drug on the customer, last night. I should have realized that you never took drugs before," said Denis. "Come here. Everything is going to be alright."

"Why are we in a forest on the floor?" asked Jeannie.

"You were super high last night. You couldn't hold yourself on the bike. So, we went sleeping in the forest. The bed of pine needles is real soft here," explained Denis.

The ride back on the bike was painful. Odd parts of her body were hurting. The forehead was a sharp pain. Random hallucinations crept into the daylight. "Road runner is going to overtake you, if you don't speed up." "Jeannie, Road Runner doesn't exist." "Oh, that explains why Bugs Bunny is laughing at me."

It was early evening with the sun lowering, when they returned to the house. Simone took one look at Jeannie and yelled at Denis: "You took her too hard. That's abusive. The poor girl doesn't know what she is getting into."

The blond girl was sitting on the stool at the kitchen counter. She noticed Jeannie, "Oh, there is the mystery girl. You are such a good hugger." The blonde pulled Jeannie onto the couch into a warm full body embrace. Jeannie closed her eyes. She could hear Simone hitting Denis. It sounded like she went for his head. Jeannie fell asleep. Her brain was exhausted from the drugs. The blonde held her tight. Jeannie could tell that the blonde knew what she was going through.

When Jeannie came to again, the pain had turned into a dull throbbing, a deep feeling of emptiness, and a warm embrace that had gone somewhat stale. The blond was still wrapped around Jeannie. They had slowly moved into a configuration, where Jeannie's arm was under the blonde's body. However, the blonde could not lift her torso, because she was wedged tight by Jeannie's body. Their legs were entwined around each other. The black dress was gone from Jeannie's body. So was the clothing of the blonde. They were comfy in their underwear.

Simone was working a washing machine. A towel was wrapped around her head. Seeing Jeannie rouse, Simone explained, "I gathered all the underwear and am doing laundry. We'll have clean underwear at least."

Denis had been watching her sleep. Dennis was sitting in a couch with a bundle for green in his lap. "Hey, I'm really sorry." He pointed to the black bruises in his face to underline his regret. "Here is your sure. They customers have already been calling." He tossed the bundle of green onto Jeannie's half naked body.

Jeannie counted fifty bills. Then, she realized they were Benjamins, not twenties.

"Mr. Prince is throwing an h-party next weekend. Guess who the supplier is," added Denis.

"I never had more than a one hundred dollar saved up from my twenty dollar a month allowance," exclaimed Jennie.

"Here is a tea. It'll help you detox." Simone put a ceramic cup of hot green into Jeannie's hands. "Denis will give you a ride back home to New Munich, once you are better. I am really sorry, he took advantage of you."

"No, no, this is the best part of my life. I've never had such good friends before. Back in Munich, I could only dream about such a warm friend like... I don't even know her name, but I never want to let go off her."

"I'm Teresa. They told me that you are Jeannie."

"There you have it. She wants to get into this. Can you take the bruises back from my head now? I'm just glad that Ramon took the crowbar out of your hands. Or, I'd be dead."

"I'm a little roughed up right now. But, I'm ready to be useful."

"She is one tough cookie, isn't she?"

"I have a meet. I need a girl to hold my gun. There might be cops doing random body searches of young, male guys. There is no drug taking involved. A biker gang is buying wholesale. This guy Smitty asked for a meet."

"I'm in, all the way." Jeannie clambered to her legs.

Jeannie walked to the dyer next to the washing machine. She opened the lid. It was full of a medley of colorful panties. Most of them were made of little fabric. She picked fresh, black thong. She got herself a sports bar for support during action. She picked up a scuffed and torn jeans of the ground. Denis fitted her with a gun holster. She got one gun under each arm pit. Simone worked with Denis to tape two heroine bricks to her back. The tape went tightly around her torso. They put a thick bike jacket over it to obscure the shape. The bike jacket had bright colors like a racer. Simone painted a green stripe on Jeannie's cheeks for additional racer styling.

Simone kissed Denis good bye, while Denis was sitting on the bike. Jeannie had her arms already wrapped around Denis ready to go. "Be careful. Those bikers are nothing to mess with for a little rural dealer. If he cheats you, let him cheat you. Your life is worth more. I'd rather live with you at the end of the world hiding in a hovel than you dead."

"I got this. You are going soft on me, woman." Denis looked tenderly into Simone's eyes. Jeannie had never seen him that tenderly. Jeannie's feminine sense told her that they were both thinking about children. Yet, they weren't ready to talk about it yet.

The bike pulled off the sidewalk. They weaved through traffic. The buildings grew skyscraper tall. The sidewalk turned grayer. The faces of the people turned cold and impersonal. They passed more stores than she had seen her whole life.

Sure enough, a whoop-whoop pulled them over. Denis was deferential. He let the man in blue push him, while they frisked him. The other cop was shining a light under the Ninja. Jeannie stood off to the side with enough heroin on her body to spend a life sentence in federal prison. She was watching herself from outside of her body. Too much had happened for her to stay present. It was like she was watching a movie. That made it normal for cops to be sniffing for guns and drugs, while she cooly stood by with both.

The cops gave up. Denis smiled at her mischievously. She winked back at him like a pro.

The meet was on a rear parking lot of a Chinese fast food restaurant. The biker was sitting on his chopper. The handle bars were higher than his head. A young couple got out of their mini to walk through the backdoor into the restaurant. A billboard for sunscreen with the image of a black couple in Jamaica was overhead.

Denis parked at the other side of the parking lot. "Wait here," he said sternly. He walked over to the biker. The biker had black glasses and a bandana. They talked for a while. The biker spat on the ground. They spoke more intensely. The couple returned with a brown bag. The two man grew silent for a moment. Denis was looking at Jeannie worried for a moment. Then, his mask steadied again. He waved her to come over.

Jeannie walked over. The biker looked really grim. She got a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach. Denis body posture was week. She reached behind her back to unwrap the tape around her body. The biker laughed heartily. Denis didn't laugh. She handed over the two bricks with the tape.

"Where is the money," asked Jeannie impulsively. The biker froze for a moment. Driven, Jeannie said, "There is a third one." Denis face dropped to an "oh, no!" Out came the gun pointing straight at the biker's face. "Show me the money!" This was like in the movies. All the action movies that she had watched streamed into her head. She was watching herself from the outside. "If he twitches, clip him," said an actor's voice in her head.

The biker pulled out his gun, a huge one. He pointed it straight back at Jeannie. His thumb released the safety. Her thumb released the safety. She fired like Angelina Jolie. She believed that she could bend the flight path of bullets. The blowback was so hard that the bullet missed even at five feet distance. The biker looked with shock and terror, frozen. She pulled herself together and squeezed out the next bullet. It went far astray to the right. She squeezed the next bullet. Denis ran for cover. Jeannie squeezed out one bullet after the next with the aim of a wild goose. The gun clicked empty. The biker slumped over. Someone in the dozen bullets at close range, he had been hit. Denis was underneath a car.

Hearing the empty clicks, he came back out. "Shit, you just shot one of the Hell's Angels, the most notorious and powerful street gang in the entire country. Fuck and it's all my fault for taking you to the meet, while you are still high.

The gun dropped to the ground. She was again inside of her body. She was standing in the middle of a rear parking lot unsure what to do. The whoop-whoop was streaming closer from all directions. Denis rushed to pick up the gun and heroin bricks. He grabbed Jeannie by the wrist and pulled her to the bike.

"Get on, get on! The whole precinct is coming down with that many shots!"

He gunned the bike. The back tire was spinning out on the pavement leaving a black half circle rubber mark. They shot past a police cruiser with flashing lights. The cruiser turned around with screeching tires behind them. "Speed is the only savior," shouted Denis over the scream of the engine.

He drove the bike up an onramp to the raised freeway. The whoop-whoop swelled as their lineup of cruisers behind them swelled up. Four cruisers were drafting behind each other's slip stream on the opposite side of the freeway to get to their location. They heavy boom of a chopper closed in. The PA of the chopper yelled down on them: "Surrender now. The entire police force is hunting you down. You are only going to hurt yourself in a crash."

At 100 mph, the whoop-whoop started to fade behind. At 140 mph, she swore that her face was bleeding. It felt like a bloody gob. The taunts of the helicopter grew thin. Every tiny movement shot them three lanes across. Traffic raced past them with a seconds notice. Denis took to use the emergency lane to have less obstacles. The chopper boom faded.

Denis turned off the freeway right away. He changed directions radically. He calmed down the race to fade into traffic.

"I'm sorry," said Jeannie.

"I'm real sorry as well," replied Denis.

The traffic was thickening for the evening. Denis stopped in front of an old factory with a rusted gate. He pushed the fence back. People had been coming and going through the weakened fence. "Push the bike through," he told Jeannie. Denis seemed to know his way around the buildings.

"I always kept this in the back of my mind," said Denis.

There were two abandoned diesel gas stations fed by a giant metal barrel, the size of a sixteen wheeler truck bed. He picked up a piece of rebar and started hitting the tank.

"A spark will make it explode," exclaimed Jeannie!

"Explosions need a good mixture of fuel and oxygen. Pure fuel cannot burn on its own. Take that rock and tap the rebar," instructed Denis.

She did as she was told. The old diesel splashed on the ground. The fumes were in the air. Denis parked the bike close. The diesel spread out over the ground. Denis threw his lighter in. The flames started licking up.

"This will get hot enough to melt the metal of the license plate, gun, and drugs. It won't explode. What's your best track time?"

"Forty seconds for a hundred meter."

"You'll need to run twice as fast for miles. This won't explode. However, the cops will come swarming like an angry hornets nest."

Run. They ran. They ran on side streets. They saw the red and blue flashes pass them on the main streets. They only stopped for Jeannie to puke.

"Once people go to sleep, we'll stand out like sore thumbs. We gotta make it home before then."

"Let's just take the bus."

"All the bus drivers have our descriptions. They are looking out for us. We have to stick to the backstreets and move as fast as possible."