Wild Awake

that?”
    I eye the bag doubtfully.
    “Yeah.”
    I grab the garbage bag around the neck and hoist it onto my back. Doug watches me struggle upright.
    “You got it, honey.”
    “What did you say about cops?” I say, trying to balance the bag so it doesn’t knock over any of Doug’s stuff.
    I know Sukey got in trouble with the police a couple times after she moved out, because Dad used to get phone calls late at night and have to drive down to the station. Doug ignores the question.
    “Big yellow painting. Size of that window. She did it just for me. Reminded me of wheat fields. I bet your daddy’s got a dozen of ’em, eh?”
    “No. She didn’t give him any. I only have one, in my bedroom. I was hoping you’d—”
    “We always joked I was gonna be rich someday when she got famous and the paintings were worth money, eh. I said, Sukey-girl, you’re gonna make me and Snoogie into millionaires.”
    The heavy bag is pressing into my back. I can feel myself starting to sweat. I know I should head for the stairs, but my feet refuse to move.
    “Doug? Why did you say there were cops?”
    He’s produced another beer from some hiding spot, and now he cracks it open. His bloodshot blue eyes are wandering.
    “Goddamn management didn’t hardly wait twenty-four hours before they stuck the next person in there. They got this rat-faced little tweaker moved in before the blood was even dry on the floor. There’s no respect around here. None at all.”
    I wheel around to see Doug better and knock over a half-full can of beer that was perched on top of an unplugged mini-fridge. I really wish there was a light in here, because I’m starting to feel claustrophobic in the dimness with a giant trash bag pressing on my back and my ears buzzing louder and louder with every word Doug says.
    “Doug,” I say in my steadiest, untrembliest voice, “what are you talking about?”
    Doug reaches out to stabilize the bag before it slips out of my hands. He holds on while I get a better grip. While I’m trying to find the right place to rest the weight of the bag on my shoulder, he leans his face in close to mine and fixes me with his big drunk eyes.
    “Oh, honey,” he says. “Don’t tell me you don’t know.”

chapter eleven
    When I step outside again, the world feels like it’s been Photoshopped: The colors are supersaturated, and the brightness levels are way too high. The garbage bag containing Sukey’s earthly possessions is a huge sticky lump on my back. I feel like an insect, an ant carrying a crumb a hundred times bigger than I am. Except unlike an ant, I can’t handle this load. It’s too big. I can smell the panic in my sweat. I literally cannot breathe.
    I see Skunk’s van parked by the curb. Sunlight is glaring off the windshield. I lurch toward it, the garbage bag riding on my back like a monster, a mountain, a grotesque ball-and-chain.
    Don’t-think-about-it-Don’t-think-about-it-Don’t-think-about-it .
    There’s a thin, tight thread running between my heart and the crown of my head that’s threatening to snap. I try to focus on getting to Skunk’s van, but the world is loud and awful and heavy, and the truth is even worse. I don’t know if I can make it to the van. I don’t know if I can make it another step. I can feel the plastic garbage bag stretching and straining, and it’s just a matter of which one of us breaks first.
    Don’t think about it .
    I hear a car door slam.
    “Kiri?”
    Don’t cry .
    Skunk lumbers toward me. Something about the sight of his scruffy T-shirt anchors me, and I shuffle toward him like a duckling imprinting on a backhoe.
    “Hang on.”
    I stop. Skunk lifts the bag off my back. I wait next to the van while he opens the back door and hoists the bag inside. My back and shoulders are aching from the trip down the stairs, and my heart is beating so hard it feels like it’s trying to dig a tunnel out of my chest.
    “You okay?”
    Don’t cry .
    My best and most reliable Normal Voice comes out as a high and strangled squeak.
    “Yup.”
    “You sure?”
    Rapid nodding.
    “You want a ride home? You look kind of freaked out.”
    I decide that Skunk must be very perceptive for a person whose wallet is attached to his belt by a chain. When I get into the van and close the door, I am finally able to breathe.
    Just as we’re buckling our seat belts, Doug comes staggering up the sidewalk and knocks on the window. I can’t imagine how he got down the stairs so fast—he