Page 67 of Dark Ink

I left the stately brick buildings of Dublin Art School. And entered the part of town where decent, unbroken, normal folk didn’t go.

I knew these barred windows and chain-link fences like the back of my hand. It wasn’t that I felt comfortable there. Just like you weren’t comfortable in your recurring nightmare. But I knew it. Knew it all too well.

In abandoned alleyways and low-ceiled living rooms long without lightbulbs, I didn’t ask for Stewart. I asked for Nick. It briefly crossed my mind how this would look, should it get back to Mason or Conor. Hell, even Aurnia through her juvenile eejit friends who considered themselves thugs because they bought a pair of jeans one size too big.

I wore a baseball cap low. An unremarkable jacket, too thin for the weather, but ideal for its vague shape and faded black material. I kept my head down, my voice low, and my conversations short. But it wasn’t all that long ago that I’d been a resident of a place like the ones I dared to cross the threshold of. No one acknowledged me, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t registered. Stored away. People that do drugs will sell anything for a fix, least of all petty gossip about a fancy art school professor who was snooping around.

Still, the risk to Eithne’s well-being, peace of mind, and future were greater than the risk that my overprotective friends might hear that I was trying to find a dangerous drug dealer we’d already had our run-ins with. So I asked around, not getting as lucky as I might have hoped with my first few glassy-eyed, dirty, barely coherently speaking addicts. But luck didn’t have all that much to do with it, in the end. There was no way I wouldn’t find Stewart eventually, if I just kept asking. Which I did, regardless of the risk. Or rather, because of it.

I found him in a deserted intersection. Tearing at his hair. Bent over. Growling in frustration. A car was just pulling away. A low, black, smashed-in taillight piece of shite. Stewart, as he looked up wild-eyed, seemed as if he might just run after it. And maybe he would have, had he not seen me first.

He ran up to me, standing there on the corner in front of a liquor store with cardboard taped to its windows, hands in my pocket. It was obvious from the start that he didn’t recognise me. Didn’t have a fucking clue who I was.

“Boyo, hey boyo,” he said quickly, too quickly. “You got a couple bucks? I’m like—

damn, I’m like three or so shy. You gotta have three, hell, five to give a buddy.”

I recognised that panic. That need for a fix. The desperation of it being just out of reach.

“They’ll circle back around,” he said as if to comfort himself. “They’ll circle back around and I’ll have enough this time. It’s alright. It’s alright.”

I wondered how high he already was. Not that I cared about his well-being. I just wanted him to be able to remember what I was about to tell him. I was studying him when he jerked his head back at the sight of me, startled that I was there.

“Boyo, hey,” he said, and I stifled a growl of irritation. “You got—”

“A couple bucks?” I interrupted.

Stewart was high enough that his surprise face contorted cartoonishly.

“Yeah, I’m—”

“Three or so shy?”

Again the theatrics. Stewart clasped his dirty, greasy hair that had shared nothing with Eithne’s. He laughed a shrill, unsettling laugh.

“Mate, you would be such a fucking lifesaver.”

I considered warning Stewart not to speak too soon. I decided against it. After checking for cops or little thug lords that might snitch to a higher up about someone encroaching on their territory, I swung my backpack around and unzipped just enough for Stewart to see inside. He smelled like shite, but his eyes lit up like gold.

“Think that might be enough?” I asked.

I gave Stewart long enough to stammer stupidly before nodding toward the alley. He followed like a puppy. When we were safely hidden behind dumpsters circled with enough flies to keep even the most curious of junkies away, Stewart scratched at his bare arms and I swallowed my disgust for him.

“So am I goin’ to hafta suck you or what?” he asked impatiently.

I sighed. “Or what?”

“What?” Stewart asked, eyes searching the road for the car that he knew, even if it was all he knew, would circle back around and give him his chance for a fix.

I dragged a tired hand over my face and swatted Stewart away when he palmed the front of my pants.

“I don’t want you to suck my cock, Stewart,” I told him.

He at least had the presence of mind to look slightly concerned, on the verge of fear. That was a good sign. Something going right, it seemed. Though he didn’t seem to register that I knew his name.

“You’re not one of those organ harvesters, are ye?”

“I am not,” I answered, sounding and feeling bored.

---