Page 15 of Rat Park
There was a pause. Then, a phantom of the past passing through him. “Nickie?”
Dominic went cold. It’d been years since someone called him that. “Who is this?”
“It’s Prince. This Nickie?” the voice said, taking shape. Dominic’s heart was racing. Why hadn’t he gotten a new sim card for the phone instead of keeping his old number?
“Yeah, it’s me. Hey.”
“Shit, man! You really out, then?”
“Yeah.”
“Congrats! A free man!”
“Yeah.”
“What are you up to? You still in town?”
“Yeah, I’m on parole.”
“Aw, shit. Well, why don’t you come over to mine? Catch up? I’ve got a new place down by, uh, you know that park they shot up all those kids at when we lived at my dad’s?”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah, it’s right next to that.”
Dominic paused. He knew on an instinctive, animal level that he shouldn’t see Prince. He was on parole. Any mistake would send him right back in. But. But, he hadn’t talked to anybody,reallytalked to anybody since he got out. All he did was go to work, trying and almost failing to make ends meet. He’d had to eat a box of raisins that had been on sale for dinner the other day.
Dominic had even grown his hair out a little to cover the tattoo on his scalp, had tried to buy clothes that didn’t make him look like a degenerate, but people were still wary of him. There was something in his eyes, perhaps, which opened a moat around him no one seemed willing to cross.
“All right,” Dominic heard himself say. The knowledge that this was a mistake was like the roar of white noise in his head. Loud, but unintelligible.
He took down Prince’s address and hung up. He placed the mobile carefully on the bedside table and lay on his side, staring at the TV. He felt sick and hollow inside.
It shouldn’t have come as a surprise. If there was one thing Dominic had learnt after all these years, it was that he couldn’t trust himself.
**********
Prince’s house was painted a strange off-yellow that reminded Dominic of the bile that comes out of you when you retch with nothing else in your stomach. The property had a wide, unkempt garden around it, corralled by a thick, low fence. Dominic pushed the gate open, half expecting a pair of dogs to barrel towards him, but everything remained still. He could hear the TV blaring inside as he approached, a commercial jingle ringing out. He took a deep breath in front of the door. He had the distant thought that he still had time to turn back before knocking.
He waited for half a minute, straining his ears for any sounds of movement, but all he could hear was the TV resuming its program. He knocked again as canned laughter filled the air.
“Yo, Prince!” Dominic called out as he banged on the door a third time, but there was no response. He paused. This was the perfect opportunity to walk away. He tried the door instead. It swung open and Dominic shook his head, taking a step inside. The smell that greeted him was familiar. It smelt like his childhood.
“Prince?” he called again, stepping inside and moving slowly towards the sound of the TV. He didn’t exactly want to get shot if Prince was strung out and paranoid.
“Shit,” he said as he reached the living room and spotted Prince on one of the couches. He knew that boneless sprawl. “Prince!”
Dominic almost tripped over the low coffee table in his haste to reach him. Prince’s head flopped unerringly on his shoulders not even twitching as Dominic shook him.
“Shit, shit.” It didn’t take a detective to figure out what had happened, the needle and dirty spoon still on the coffee table. He laid Prince down on his side before fumbling his phone out of his pocket, calling 9-1-1.
“My—I’ve got an overdose,” Dominic blurted as the operator responded, turning off the TV so he could hear himself think. The world turned eerily silent as it blinked shut.
“You’ve got an overdose?” the lady on the line repeated.
“Yeah. My friend, I think he’s overdosed.”
“Okay, sir. What’s your address?”
