I didn’t want my dinner of turkey burger and noodles, but I forced myself to eat several bites. At nine, I was at Jungle Java getting an espresso, then headed across the street to the bar. It was Thursday, and the place was about half full, but a quick survey showed that none of Wilkes boys were there yet. I took a seat at the rear end of the bar closest to the pool table and ordered a shot of tequila to calm my nerves, then got a pint and began nursing it.

About an hour later, a few of the guys started sauntering in, or the best approximation of it that they could do. They began massing back at the pool table. By 11:45, there were maybe fifteen of them, several of whom I recognized. I saw the tall guy with the blonde hair and his buddy with the goatee that had done the Jehovah’s Witnesses impersonation, and the tall dark haired dude and his mustached weight-lifting buddy who I’d had the pleasant conversation with at the bar the other night. Short, Bald, and Ugly, Mr. “Respected Citizens,” was standing back in the corner with a beer talking to the guy that had invited me there from the pier, who I now pegged to be his first lieutenant. He was square-jawed, with short cropped, gelled brown hair, maybe thirty. I soon gathered from bits of conversation that their names were Carlos and Keele, respectively. Some of the rest of the guys I thought I’d seen around town, but a few I didn’t recognize. Everyone else in the bar was giving them a wide berth. Seth showed up about then, just as I’d ordered my third beer and was worrying I might be flying solo. To my great surprise, he walked right by me to the back and started talking to the assorted goons, ending up chatting with Keele. I could see the gelled-haired lieutenant stiffen, but after a moment, soften a bit. Then Seth motioned me over. I had no idea what the hell he was doing, but it was Seth. I followed his lead. He was a cop in a town where cops had been bought. Maybe that was his in.

“This is my buddy,” said Seth, putting his arm confidently around me. “He’s with me.”

They nodded, then all began draining the last of their beers. Apparently, we were going somewhere. It was my third, but I swallowed it down, then fell in behind Seth as we made our way out of the bar. A few of the guys got in a car along with Carlos and Keele, but most started walking up Newport, and we followed. About a block and a half past Sunset Cliffs Blvd., we stopped in front of a weathered little gray-green house with shaded windows and only dim light showing through. The car the other guys had gotten into was parked right out front, and we went in. The place was modest-sized, and all the smaller for the fifteen guys who’d just piled in. In the living room, which the front door opened into, several guys were crowded around Carlos and a scrawny guy with a moustache who looked halfway between a James Bond villain and an aging drag queen. I recognized immediately from a newspaper picture I’d seen online that he was the slumlord, William Wilkes.

Several of the goons began crowding into the kitchen in front of me. Keele, who was standing with a group of seven or eight in the living room to my right, motioned to Seth to come over, and, not knowing what to do, I followed the other group going into the kitchen. where I saw Carlos standing over several ounces of what I immediately recognized as crystal meth. In front of me were seven other guys, among them my two front door visitors – the guy with the goatee and the blonde one, who I now noticed had a neat little scar over his right eye, and they were in line, taking long snorts of the powder, and then being handed a Mexican beer by Carlos, like a door prize. When they were done, not exactly sure how to proceed, I put my hand out for a beer, but was refused.

“Oh no,” said Carlos, with a bad-toothed evil smile, “You can’t have one of these until you’ve done some of that,” and he gestured with his hand toward the table.

“Uh…thanks man,” I said, trying to be casual, “I uh… I don’t do that stuff.”

“No, this stuffs different,” he said. “We make it ourselves.”

“Besides,” went on goatee guy who was now the only other person in the kitchen besides me and Carlos, “If you’re going to join us, you gotta get used to it.” At this they both laughed ugly. Not knowing what to do, I took a small snort, trying to make a big show of it, like I’d gotten a lot, but got way more than I wanted. I grabbed straight for a beer, and this time was handed one, along with a slap on the back from old Carlos, and downed a third of it in one gulp. At this point, the group from the living room started making its way into the kitchen, along with Seth, so I repressed a shudder and headed out. The meth hit me hard, and I hit my beer hard, beginning to wonder what the hell I’d done. I glanced around for Seth, forgetting momentarily that I’d just seen him go into the kitchen, then tried to focus my spinning head on the snippets of conversations that were going on around me in the ramshackle living room.

“You should see the new girl this guy got. I want to pop that cherry,” said a chunky guy with a beer belly who was talking to my scarred front door visitor.

“I hear we’re gonna see some videos,” said one guy talking to another guy I didn’t know just behind me.

“What’s it like? I mean, this will be my first time,” said one of the guys, a younger looking one I’d seen at the bar the first time, to the goateed dude.

”Just lean back and enjoy it. It’s sweet, you’ll see. It makes you feel...” he said, suddenly getting a wistful tone in his voice, “special.”

“I really need to go see those girls tonight,” added the younger guy, almost to himself.

“No,” retorted the goateed man sternly and under his breath. “No girls tonight. No girls.”

At this point, as my rapidly racing mind was trying to make sense of what I’d heard like a mouse on a motorized wheel turned up to high, and then hum, someone started wheeling a TV into the living room from one of the back bedrooms. Someone yelled something into the kitchen and all the guys started to file out. My beer was now gone and I needed another. Seth, on his way out of the kitchen, shoved one into my hand and grabbed my arm and pulled me back into the living room. There was no furniture in the room, except for a beat up old couch that a few of the guys were sitting on, but someone brought a folding chair in from the kitchen for Wilkes and set it in front of the TV, to the right. The scarred guy plugged in the TV and DVD player that were on a fancy glass cart that was totally out of place, and I wondered if maybe it had come from somebody’s apartment that they had murdered. As I was wondering, Keele popped in a disc. A few guys snickered as it got started, and I soon knew why. It was me and Hope, on her couch from two nights previous, obviously taken on a web cam that had been hidden across the room. There were more snickers and the tall lanky guy from the bar said, “Not bad.” And then, Keele, now standing just in front of me and to my left, added, “Yeah, that crack on the head did you good,” At this, there were more laughs, including Wilkes and Carlos, now standing next to him. Carlos’s laugh was coarse and cold, but Wilkes’ was more like a castrated moose that was hyperventilating. I repressed another cringe, downed the rest of my beer and managed to laugh too. Or at least, I hoped it sounded like a laugh. I wasn’t sure. For the first time since that night, I thanked God that Hope and I hadn’t had sex, and in a few minutes it was over. The screen went blank, and Keele popped the disc out and slid in a new one.

“You think that was good, watch this,” he said, but with a solemn tone that made me tip my beer all the way back, though it was now empty. It was Hope again, and this time it had been taken with a hand-held camera, only she was different, and there was sound. Her hair was red, not black, and she was on her knees, wearing only a bra. There was sound. A voice came on from off-camera. It was Wilkes.

“So do you still think that we killed your son?”

“No,” answered Hope, and her voice had a dead flatness, like a guitar string that long ago should have snapped.

“Let’s just make sure,” said another voice that I thought I recognized immediately as Carlos, and a penis came into view.

“I’ve got to take a piss,’ I announced and turned toward the bathroom.

“You’re gonna miss the best part,” urged the goateed guy, showing his bad teeth again.

“Yeah,” said the fat guy, looking at me like I was stupid.

“I’ve got to piss,” I repeated, and thought I caught Seth flashing me a quick glance as I made my way to the bathroom down the hall, which had no door. As I pissed, I thanked God for the sound of my urine hitting the toilet water that drowned the sounds coming from the next room. When I flushed I wanted to dive in and follow it down to where the refuse goes and lose myself in all the filth of all the world and never come back. I’d gotten attached, let myself get close when all my instincts screamed against it, and now I was sure I would never feel clean again.

I stopped in the kitchen for one more beer on my way back, which I downed half of right there, then returned to the living room. The video went on for twenty more minutes. I won’t tell you what I saw, but just that now I knew where the ghostly dark-and-pierced Hope had come from, and I was suddenly grateful for the meth I’d done, and wanted more. When it was over, guys went back into the kitchen for more beers and more drugs, of which I went in for another snort. Seth gave me a hard look as I bent over the table, but I ignored him and breathed deeply. When everyone had gotten their fill, we all gathered again in the living room. As we were standing there, apparently waiting for what was going to happen next, Wilkes who had not even gotten out of his chair, but had been brought plenty of drugs to huff, now stood up, daintily putting a beer bottle to his lips for a swallow, then spoke.

“Are we ready?” he said, turning to Carlos.

“What about these two?” he answered, turning to Seth and me.

“They’re not for this,” shot in Keele, sternly shooting a glance at us.

“Take your beers and leave,” said Carlos.

“That’s right,” said the goateed guy, putting his arm around a guy who I didn’t know, but who I’d marked as the newest of the bunch. “Only this guy has earned the right to join us tonight.”

At this we were pushed out the door, and it closed behind us. We walked to the end of the block, not speaking, then I turned without saying a word and stealthed back to the house we’d just come from, completely numb to the chill late February air, with Seth whispering after me, “Jay! What the hell do you think you’re doing? ”

I got to there like a cat and ducked around the street light to the near living room window. Meth and adrenaline mixing in my blood like gasoline and fire, I crouched at the window and through the crack at the edge of the shade, caught Wilkes getting a head job from the newbie, when someone tapped me on the shoulder, and I nearly screamed. Luckily, I didn’t. Luckily also, it was Seth.

“Come on before you wake up under the pier again …or not at all,” he whispered and gestured for us to go. Reluctant, but knowing Seth was right, I scuttled with him back away to the corner, ran halfway up the block and then began walking again. We walked quietly back to my place where Seth had left his car. He got in his car, not saying a word, and me earnestly tonguing the gash I’d made on the inside of my mouth that day surfing, wondering where the hell this was going to go. And thinking that I already knew where the hell it was going to go, because we were already there.

Chapter 12 coming 9/1!!