Title: Evil Coffee
Fandom: All-New Ghost Rider (comics)
Rating: PG-13
Length: 5600
Content notes: Drug use. Cursing. Part of my Legend of Hillrock Heights 'verse but can be read independently. Includes Robbie Reyes, Eli Morrow, Gabe Reyes, Mr. and Mrs. Valenzuela.
Author notes: For the Birthday Bingo square "Wave" and the Amnesty challenge "Drugs."
Summary: A moment’s inattention at an underground punk rock concert, and Robbie gets a nose-full of what Eli assures him is “grade-A Columbian juicy-fruit.” Robbie does not appreciate this. Robbie's refrigerator really does not appreciate this.

Notes: You don’t need to have read the other two Legend of Hillrock Heights stories to read this, but the following developments carry over:

Robbie and Gabe have talked about the fact that Robbie is possessed by Eli, and Robbie put Mrs. Valenzuela’s phone number on Gabe’s phone.

Robbie is an Uber driver.

Robbie has realized that he has got to get Eli out of his head. Screw the deal.

****
 

Midnight on a Friday. Gabe was in bed, and Robbie wished he was also in bed, but he was broke, so he was driving. His phone sat in his cupholder, the Uber app counting his balance for the trip, his backseat was weighed down with four (illegally seated) “eighteen-year-old” pax, and the real eighteen-year-old bounced his knee in his passenger seat and sipped a 40oz. Robbie hustled through black streets, engine humming, blower hissing. The pax were paying him to take them to an abandoned shopping mall, who knew why, and he couldn't afford to care. They were paying him money. He needed all he could get, because his and Gabe's refrigerator had been buzzing for three days and it was getting worse.

He'd have had a repairman out already, only he'd spent everything left over from last weeks' bills on an advance-payment for a spiritual evaluation by a radical and applied demonologist he'd found in the phone book.

Four wasted youths. It'd be all night before they were missed: let 'em out, circle back, pack 'em all in the trunk. Number Four in the middle back there, with the green hair and the nose ring, here's an idea, tie 'em to the ceiling by the nose, see how long before they pass out and rip it through...God, I miss my fucking house! I was gonna tile the second bedroom...put a drain in the floor...hose hookups...

As much as being broke hurt now, Robbie still didn't regret paying the demonologist.

He pulled into the parking lot of the strip mall his pax were headed to, and as he got out of the Charger to help Pax Number One lay down the passenger seat to let the others out, he heard, over the throaty idle of his engine...drums. Screaming. A bass line so fast it almost kept time with his idle. As the last pax got out (nobody tipped him), Robbie straightened and faced the shopping mall.

A crowd milled around outside the smoke-damaged husk of a Domino’s Pizza, boarded shut months ago, re-opened by junkies and graffiti artists, and now taken over for new business. Green laser-beams flashed against the windows. Robbie saw blue hair, long hair, hair glued up into spikes two feet tall. The glint of studded leather jackets.

He shut his motor down.

“What, you coming with?” asked one of his pax, and Robbie nodded distantly. Yeah, it was totally normal for the Uber driver to join them at the illegal rock concert.

“Who’s playing?” he asked.

“Destructive Bastards,” said Green Hair Pierced Septum. “Fatal Riot. Fist Fight On Ecstacy. Uh…Police Shit. Speed Demon.”

Speed Demon! Robbie thought. Speed Demon!

“Gonna be fuckin’ wicked,” said Pax Number One. “Hope everybody gets to play before the cops come.”

Pax Number Three elbowed him in the ribs. “Don’t jinx it.”

Robbie trailed after them, his pulse rising as he got closer and closer to the hammering drums and overloaded amplifiers that roared and screamed out through the door of the pizza joint. In the parking lot, people stood around, taking refuge from the noise and bustle within to talk, smoke, drink, make out. Scene kids, aging punks with gray stubble and beer bellies, a lone sixty-year-old white guy in glasses wandering around with a dazed expression. The crowd smelled: sweat, weed, cheap beer, clove cigarettes.

He zipped up his leather jacket. God, this took him back. The jacket used to be big on him, but it was the only decent one he could afford; from the same thrift store, he’d bought a pair of white thigh-high patent-leather boots to cannibalize for the striping, sewed the damn thing by hand with a leather needle. A hell of rulers, markers, masking tape. He’d spent hours and hours. He’d wanted to add studs or a patch or something, but once he’d put the stripes on he knew he had to leave it alone. It looked damn good. It still looked damn good.

A big guy almost staggered into him. He had a shock of curly hair, the forelock bleached white, and Robbie remembered that, too: peroxide paste, tinfoil, the monthly ritual of touching up his roots while Gabe laughed at the off-center unicorn horn on his head. He still had the peroxide. His hair had grown back from when he’d shaved his head last year. He should bleach it again. Maybe a skunk stripe to match his jacket. Start the edge against one of the scars where his faceplates rose up when he became the Rider.

I can’t believe people still listen to this shit, Eli groused in the back of his head.

He needed this. He needed to fix his refrigerator and get rid of Eli, but that couldn't happen tonight, and he really needed to get into that pizza joint right now.

Robbie paid the five dollar cover charge to the scary lady at the door and pushed his way in, to where the booming and screaming was so loud he couldn’t hear himself think, let alone Eli. More weed and sweat on the air, and also ancient cheese, wood smoke. Graffiti on the walls, tiles missing from the smoke-damaged ceiling, a milling press of bodies, green laser-lights flashing in the dark. He was packed in, couldn't see the band at all, but the music pounded into him from all directions.

He put his phone on vibrate. He’d wait for a ping. If he didn't get a ping, he'd stay until the music stopped, then he'd shuttle people home. And if the cops came, he'd keep his head down, no worries, they couldn't arrest him, they physically couldn't hold him, he'd just burn up and drop through the shadows into the car, do the bands and the audience a favor and draw the cops away—

He couldn't hold it back any longer, started jumping up and down.

“Suicide! Suicide!” screamed the lead singer. Holy shit, Robbie knew this song! He had this song! “I wanna die, I wanna kill, I wanna feel the certain thrill! I wanna kiss, I wanna feel! That's my death and that's my wish! Do you wanna die?”

“Suicide! Suicide!” the crowd screamed back.

Fatal Riot. Robbie pushed his way through the crowd, shoving into people with his shoulders and getting shoved back in turn, a violent camaraderie like molecules of steam in a pressure cooker. Finally he caught a glimpse of the lighting rig over the improvised soundstage—a rack of poles and PVC pipe framing the drumkit and the towering, mismatched amplifiers. A dozen kids were moshing in front of the band, arms and elbows flailing, staggering with heedless abandon in a clockwise circle. A guy was pushing a girl in a wheelchair, who had a second girl sideways on her lap, screaming and cheering. He caught sight of Fatal Riot's lead guitarist, in jeans and a knit hat and a black T-shirt that read “I fuck on the first date.” Fatal was all tunes, no flash. Their music was hardcore.

A wasted high-schooler ambled up to the band, air-guitaring from six inches away, and the guitarist raised his scratched Stratocaster and noodled a new riff. The moshers circled inches from the band. Robbie could feel the drumbeat in his hair.

“Why do I live this way? Why did I wake up today? I wanna die, I wanna kill!”

Robbie howled his soul out. His heart pounded and his blood burned, not with engine-heat but human heat: this was who he'd been once, Robbie Reyes who'd pierced his own ears at fourteen with a leather needle and a wine cork out of his foster's trash can, who lived for anything big and loud and fast, who longed not just to burn the world but to replace it with something better.

Fatal Riot finished their set after two more songs. Punk bands played fast and the sets were short—cops could show up any minute, so the organizers hustled them through. Fatal Riot packed up the guitar and bass, disappeared into the crowd. Fistfight On Ecstacy plugged in their own instruments, and the husky lead singer shrugged off his shirt, revealing a shoulder harness made of three-inch-thick steel tow-chain, then ripped his pants off—tear-away pants—and commanded the stage in torn fishnets and tighty-whities. The drums and guitars took off, and he seized the mike and started roaring about the school-to-prison pipeline and judicial corruption.

Robbie was transported. He was in ecstasy. He couldn't have felt his phone vibrate, not this close to the amplifiers, and he didn't care. It didn't matter right now that he needed two hundred extra dollars this week and he had to get to work by seven; he wasn't tired now. Eli might be stuck in his head, but he hated punk; Robbie and only Robbie was thrilling to the music. He let go and let it move him. Let the drumbeat and the howling choruses and the shoves and cheering of the crowd carry him like waves. Let other fans push him backward in their path to the mosh pit; it didn't matter, the music was everywhere, all through him, animating his body and racing through his heart.

Something shiny flashed in the corner of his eye and he snatched it and yanked it to his face and inhaled forcefully. Licked it and dropped it and wiped his face and licked his palm and jammed the web of his thumb between his gums and his upper lip. Robbie froze, his hand in his mouth. His sinuses burned. Tasted bitter, smelled like paint thinner. His tongue felt weird and smooth.

“You gotta pay for that, fucker!” A man wearing a knit hat with a pompom screamed in his face. A girl in a matching pompom hat knelt beside him, retrieved a shiny housekey from the ground. That was what Robbie had licked. A housekey? “Twenty bucks,” the man yelled. “It's not free candy!”

Robbie shoved his way backward and lost the guy in the crowd. Slithered out the door and into the parking lot, panted in the dark. Sniffed and swallowed. What—what?

His heart was still racing. He tried to lick his gums and he couldn't feel them. Couldn't feel his teeth scraping against his tongue. A tingly wave crashed over his scalp and down his spine, and he shivered. Eli, what the hell.

His sinuses stung on one side, like a bee-sting or an oncoming sneeze. The hairs rose on the back of his neck and when he rubbed them, the tingles returned, stronger. His guts fluttered, his heart pounded with exhilaration exactly, exactly like taking a hard curve in the Charger and seeing his opponent drop a length back in the mirror. What the hell. What the hell. What is this.

This. This is. Hooooly shit this is grade-A Columbian juicy-fruit, boy, ooh you're in for a treat. I don't know if it's your virgin system or what, but that shit's gotta be fifty percent pure at least! Holy shit! We gotta find those jokers again! They don't know what they're selling!

Robbie tried and failed to calm his racing heart. Then, heedless of the crowded parking lot, he shrieked, “Cocaine?!”

Cocaine!

“You can't do cocaine in my body!” Robbie yelled, jogging to the car. “What the hell! No! It's my body! It's my life! No! Stop fucking up my life, you bastard!”

Technically, you just did cocaine in your body. And that was...way, way better than it shoulda been on the street like this. Great flavor, too, don't it taste just like bubble gum!

“It tastes like paint thinner!” Robbie retorted. He started the car and stomped on the gas.

Where you going?

“I'm getting out of here. I can't pick up fares like this.”

What're you gonna do, sleep? C'mon, boy, let's go break some legs! Crack skulls!

“No!” Robbie snarled.

No? You need it! You're in the mood! Let's go!

“Fuck you, I don't have to listen to you!” He peeled out of the parking lot and zipped a quick left turn through traffic. Ran a yellow, another yellow. Yellow-to-red. Fine, whatever. Nobody would catch him. His engine throbbed and the night air fluttered over his bodywork like cool water. Grit from the road prickled his undercarriage. He cranked the wheel hard to pass an Expedition on the right, back around to pass a courier truck on the left. “You're not my boss. You're not my caseworker. You're a voice in my head. You're an idiot. You're an asshole. A dumbass. I had to teach you how to use a smartphone. You know what you're supposed to call the voices in your head? Kevin. That's what they say on the Internet.”

This is. Huh.

Roberto. Simmer down.

“Fuck off, Kevin.”

Eli cackled in the back of his head. What do you think you're gonna do now? Come on. Find some action. Cruise downtown. Ooh, that motorcycle, swerve, hit him! Hit him with the car right now!

“Kevin fuck off.”

Okay, this is gonna get old. Stop calling me Kevin.

“Kevin.”

Kid.

Robbie giggled. He was hilarious. “Man, I needed that. Not the cocaine, Eli, I mean Kevin. Heh. Fatal Riot. I gotta go to more concerts. I've been so anxious all the time. I mean, the rent and the price for Depakote just went up and Gabe hates cabbage now and I got a whole head of cabbage gonna go bad, but really I got this, I don't have to listen to you, I don't have to kill people, it's like a sneeze, you just hold it in. I gotta go home and chill and talk to Canelo tomorrow about getting more diagnostic jobs, that's where the money is, troubleshooting, you gotta know the system from the ground up, and if there's anything I know from the ground up it's cars. I got this.” Something trickled down the back of his throat. He swallowed, shuddered. “This tastes horrible. Fuck you, Kevin.”

He made it home in half the time it had taken to get out to the strip mall. Parked the car and let himself in, slammed the apartment door. It was past midnight, but his feet were still tapping to the rhythm of Fistfight's “Stab A Klansman.”

The refrigerator buzzed and rattled from the kitchen. “A fridge is just air-con for food,” Robbie announced.

That's deep.

“I know air-con repair. I'll repair the fridge. Then tomorrow night I can sleep instead of cruising for more fares.” He squatted down in front of the refrigerator, worked his fingertips under it, and started to drag it backward, six inches at a time, shoes slipping on the linoleum.

The ambition. The confidence. Feel the power…give in to the—geh-heh-heh! This is such a bust. I can't believe it.

Robbie, boot up your computer and go on the darknet, find us a job. You'll have money for ten new refrigerators, and all the cocaine you can probably handle. New set of wheels for Gabbie! Down-payment on a starter house in Alhambra!

“I'm a fuckin' mechanic,” Robbie growled, finally prying the refrigerator out from between the kitchen cabinet and the wall. He wedged himself into the gap, where the linoleum was yellow and gritty with ancient food crumbs and cat hair. Robbie didn't even have a cat. Must be from a previous tenant. “I'm gonna make a hundred grand a year when I get all my certs. I don't need to be a hitman, Kevin, so shut up.”

Wow.

Shove over, you're not even enjoying the ride.

“Fuck off, Kevin.”

I miss coke. I miss my house. I hate being poor. Just. Two minutes, I'll give the body right back, I wanna feel it. This is really good coke, kid, and you can't appreciate it.

“My heart bleeds.” Robbie brushed layers of greasy lint and grime off the condenser coils on the back of the fridge with his fingers, listening for the source of the buzz. “Compressor's quiet. It's coming from somewhere up in the top, in the freezer.” He squeezed out from behind the fridge and emptied out the freezer, stacking old margarine tubs full of soup and bags of peas and carrots and an aluminum-wrapped slab of lasagna haphazardly on the counters and stovetop. There was a thick slab of ice in the back covering the evaporator, and one of the bags of peas was half-embedded in it. He yanked, spilling peas over the freezer floor, tied the torn bag shut, tossed it on the counter. He thought he could see an ancient stick of butter somewhere in there. He felt the ice. It vibrated. “The noise is coming from back here. Gotta be a fan, sounds like the grommet's worn out.” The freezer rack was half-embedded in the ice, too, making the evaporator difficult to access.

“I don't have time for this to melt, I have work in six hours,” Robbie said, stabbing the ice with the flat-head screwdriver on his multitool. He stomped out of the kitchen and dug his tool-kit out of the junk drawer. “Gabe! Did I wake you up, buddy? I'm sorry.” He got his hammer, and the quarter-inch flat-head. “I'm fixing our fridge, wanna watch?”

Gabe stood in the hallway in his pyjamas and crutches, his green eyes wide and shining in the light from the kitchen. His lip trembled.

Robbie switched his tools to his left hand, reached out with his right. “Something wrong? You have a bad dream?”

“No!” Gabe shouted, shoving himself backward and almost falling.

Attitude! Don't take that shit, give him a whuppin!

“Fuck! Off! Kevin!” Robbie snarled, fists clenching. “Sorry, Gabe, that was a really bad word, don't say that and don't tell anybody I said that, okay? That was really mean, but I was talking to Uncle Eli, I call him Kevin now, heh-heh, kinda funny, right? He really hates that.”

Gabe pushed himself backward, backward, feet shuffling, shoulders shaking.

“Gabe, are you okay? Can I get you something? Hot chocolate?”

Gabe lifted his head and looked at him, eyes darting up and down his body. “I'm a teenager and I have my own room and my own space and you don't get to come in, okay?”

“Okay,” Robbie said, confused. Gabe disappeared into his bedroom and slammed the door.

Something's bothering him! Make him tell you!

“No,” Robbie snapped, backtracking to the kitchen. “That’s a terrible idea. He needs his space. Gabe gets to have space!” He opened the freezer door back up and leaned inside with the hammer and screwdriver, started methodically chiseling away the ice in the cramped box. It was cold in the freezer, and it made the inside of his nose feel chilled, like menthol. Bitter slime dripped down the back of his throat.

Tap-tap-tap-tap-tap. Scrape. Tap-tap-tap-tap-tap.

He got a trash bag to sweep the growing pile of ice chips into. The worn-out fan buzzed angrily as the freezer tried to cool the entire kitchen. He could see the aluminum body of the evaporator now, a flat metal reservoir where the liquid refrigerant coming from the radiator coils expanded into gas. He liberated the stick of butter.

He cranked on the freezer shelf as the ice thinned, up and down, up and down. He could almost get it out. Up-down-up-down-up-down-up-down—

Gas hissed out the back of the evaporator.

“Fuck!” Robbie slammed the freezer door.

Whoopsie.

He opened the freezer again, cautiously. Still hissing, a faint oily smell. He must have busted one of the welds that connected the evaporator to the expansion valve. Probably on the evaporator, that had the thinnest walls, that would be the weak point. He'd overstressed the aluminum. He couldn't weld aluminum. Maybe he could seal the leak with a patch, but he had to get the rest of the ice off to access the leak. If he could even get access at all; it sounded like the air was leaking out the back of the evaporator, against the freezer's rear wall. The thing wasn't really designed for easy repair.

The compressor hummed from the base of the fridge. “Fuck!” Robbie said again. He squeezed back behind the fridge and unplugged it. The refrigerant carried the system’s lubricant; if he let it run empty, he'd fry the compressor, and then he'd have two problems.

He stared around the kitchen at all the frozen food on the counters, frosted and dripping wet with condensation. “Okay,” he said, his voice wavering. “I got this. I'll let the ice melt out. Get towels. Pick up a can of UV dye and some fresh refrigerant. Get a patch and some epoxy for the leak. Let it cure. Recharge the system. Replace the bad fan.”

None of this would do anything to change the fact that all his food was about to go bad.

It was two in the morning. No automotive stores were open. What the fuck was he thinking? What was wrong with him?

Oh, right, he was high on cocaine. Eli, if you hate my life so much, stop fucking it up worse, he thought, scratching at the sweat under his shirt.

You sound tired, kid.

He was exhausted. He felt like a parade float losing its helium. He dropped his tools and pressed his palms into his eyes. His nose was still running.

It's like surfing. You ride the wave...and then you crash. And then you go again! Get in the car, see if you can find those clowns in the ski-hats!

Robbie sank to the floor and leaned against the kitchen cabinet. Condensation from last week's lasagna dripped on his head.

You're exhausted, you're overwhelmed, your concentration is shot. This is a fuckin' crisis, boy, you spent ten hours and a hundred bucks on all this food. And the refrigerator compartment! Your milk's gonna go bad. Gabbie needs his breakfast. You're gonna be eating fast food for a week. You can't spare that kinda dough!

You need to shape back up. Now! Be at the top of your game, Gabbie needs you.

“Shit,” Robbie croaked.

Gimme the wheel, I'll fix this.

He felt Eli pushing at his motor centers, trying to grab control, and usually it took just a quick, focused thought to shove him back down, but Eli was right, Robbie was exhausted, his concentration was shot. He was too tired to even be angry. He rocked against the cabinet and bit down on the meat of his thumb, trying to squeeze out any dregs of adrenaline that remained. No. No. No. No. Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit.

He couldn't afford to replace all this food. He'd have to get packaged crap from the food bank. Who knew if they'd even have anything.

He was so tired, but if he slept now, Eli would wake up in the morning. He needed to eat something. His mouth was dry and he couldn't make himself get off the floor.

That was probably how Eli had gotten the cocaine in the first place, Robbie realized. He was too tired and his concentration was off. He'd let himself get too lost in the music. He hadn't even felt Eli grabbing the wheel; it had happened so fast. What else could Eli do, without Robbie noticing? What else had he done?

Could Eli communicate with people? Text on his phone? Steal his face for microsecond flashes of animosity? Could he deafen Robbie, or mess with his memory? When Robbie slept, did he stay in bed all night, or was Eli out, hunting?

If he had more cocaine he could wake up enough to hold Eli back and do something about the food and holy shit that was not what he should be thinking. “Shid,” he mumbled around the skin of his thumb.

You already poison yourself with No-Doze every other day. Why not graduate to the real deal? Nothing wrong with making a few lines part of your daily routine, that’s the great thing about coke, nobody can tell you’re on it, so the only barrier is money! Just don’t share your equipment and pick up Hepatitis C. Not fun. Don’t do that.

Robbie stared blankly at the floor in front of him as condensation soaked the back of his hoodie. You have to be kidding me. You have to be fucking kidding me. This is about contract killing again. Stop! I’m already broke. I am not killing for money.

Felt nice, though, right? The focus. Cleared your head right out. Seemed to make your willpower a little stronger—but I shouldn’t encourage that.

Fuck off, Eli, I don’t need—I’m stronger than you.

Okay. Indulgently.

But he wasn’t. Not all the time, not when he was too angry, not when he got too happy and relaxed, and definitely, definitely not now. He heard thumping and shuffling. Gabe was out in the living room. He’d woken Gabe up, freaked him out, and now what was he going to say? I accidentally took meds that weren’t mine and they made me act really weird. I love you, you’re safe, go back to bed. Only that wouldn’t be true. The 'safe' part.

The exterior door opened, and then the interior. And then, soft, “Hi, Mrs. Valenzuela. Hi, Mr. Valenzuela. Can I come over to your house?”

Kill them. Kill them! KILL THEM KILL THEM KILL THEM

His arms and shoulders burned with muscle memories of swinging fists and elbows. He gripped his hair and breathed into his sleeves. In-two-three, out-two-three. In-two-three, out-two-three. All the cooking knives in the kitchen were razor-sharp, literally, because Eli had nagged him into honing them again, again, again, until they were sharp enough to slide through a windpipe all the way to the spine in an easy stroke.

“Roberto’s right here, Gabriel,” Mrs. Valenzuela said, from ten feet away.

“Stop,” Gabe protested.

In-two-three, out-two-three, don't hold your breath, in-two-three, out-two-three, Dios te salve, Maria, ahora en la hora de nuestra muerte—fuck, that's not right—Dios te salve—

They'll call CPS on you! They'll know you were doing cocaine! You're clearly having a psychotic break, they'll take Gabbie, throw him on the mercies of the State. WITNESSES! KILL THEM, KILL THEM BOTH!

“She's finding out if he's well,” said Mr. Valenzuela, as rubber-soled shoes padded over the linoleum. “Gabriel. She will help him.”

“Stop,” Gabe said again, his voice breaking. Gabe knew, Gabe wasn't trying to keep Robbie safe. “Mrs. Valenzuela, please stop. Robbie?”

Mrs. Valenzuela stopped a few feet away from him and Robbie shut his eyes. “Roberto, what happened?”

COCAINE! YOU WERE HIGH ON COCAINE!

Dios te salve, Maria, ahora...ahora...He had another mantra for this, that was shorter and easier to remember. Vete a la mierda, Eli. Todo que lo me digas es una mamada. You caught hepatitis from being a coke-head. You're a fucking idiot and I hate you.

Coke-head? Coke-head? I was never a damn coke-head, boy, I wasn't an addict, you're an addict if it interferes with your life, I didn't have a habit, I had a routine, there's a difference—

While Eli sputtered in outrage, Robbie said, “I was trying to remove ice from the freezer to access a fan but I busted a seal on the evaporator and now the system is leaking coolant. I unplugged the refrigerator to keep the compressor from seizing.” His voice was muffled between his knees.

“And you decided to do this at two in the morning...why?”

He shrugged. Sniffed. Everything still smelled like paint thinner.

You're not a junkie if you can afford it! A junkie mooches! I never mooched!

It was easier to ignore Eli now that Robbie could concentrate on something other than trying to ignore Eli.

Mrs. Valenzuela knelt awkwardly in front of him, bracing her hands on her knees. “Never mind. Can you look at me?” Robbie raised his head, opened his eyes. “When was the last time you slept?”

“Nap at eight.”

“Good Lord,” she sighed, pushing herself to her feet. “You've never had a fridge break down before, have you.”

“No, ma'am.”

“Robbie?” Gabe, still in the living room. Robbie could see him, leaning backward against Mr. Valenzuela.

Robbie nodded weakly. “Yeah, Gabe. It's me.” Gabe stared, suspicious. “I couldn't fix the fridge and our food is going to go bad. I made a mistake and I'm sorry.”

Mrs. Valenzuela scrubbed her hand down her face. “Roberto, this is...you boys...” She yawned. “You're going to be fine. Put all the food back, go to Walmart, buy some dry ice. Keep it in the freezer until you get this fixed, or call your landlord, Roberto, they might just replace your fridge. It's probably on your lease.”

Robbie's head shot up. He stared at the stacks of dripping food on his counters. “Really?”

“If it's a furnished apartment. Just…don’t tell them you tried to fix it yourself. Men, I swear…”

He nodded. He got up, rubbed the vee on his forehead where his plates showed through.

“Are you calm? Do you have a plan?” she pressed him.

“Yeah.” He breathed, slow and natural. “Put everything back in the freezer to keep it cool. Walmart's twenty-four hours. Dry ice is colder than water, it should chill both compartments.”

“Good. And then you sleep.”

I can’t. “I gotta…I can’t…” But what the hell was he supposed to do?

“Sleep,” she snapped. “You create new problems when you don't sleep.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“Gabriel, your brother is right here. He's okay, he's just very tired. Do you see him? Do you see Robbie?”

“Yeah,” Gabe said, hoarse. “I see Robbie.”

Robbie felt tension drop away from him. “If you want to stay with Mr. and Mrs. Valenzuela—I mean, if Gabe wants to, is it alright—”

Mr. and Mrs. Valenzuela looked at each-other wearily.

“No,” Gabe interrupted. “I want to stay with Robbie.”

“Vamanos a casa,” Mr. Valenzuela muttered, giving Gabe a pat on the shoulder as he stepped around him to join his wife in the kitchen. “Evie. It's okay.”

They wrapped their arms around each-other and shuffled toward the door.

“I'm—I'm sorry,” Robbie said weakly as he followed them out. “I didn't know—I woke Gabe up, that's why he called so late—”

“Thank-you for coming to visit, Mrs. Valenzuela,” Gabe said, trailing behind them. “Thank-you, Mr. Valenzuela.”

“You're welcome, Gabriel,” Mrs. Valenzuela said. They reached the door, and she beckoned Robbie out into the hallway with them.

Robbie left the door half-open, kept Gabe in the corner of his eye. Gabe watched him back.

Mr. Valenzuela looked down at him sternly, and Robbie straightened his shoulders, met his hard eyes behind his glasses.

“Roberto,” Mrs. Valenzuela said. “Are you in trouble?”

Yes. Yes.

Robbie shook his head.

Mr. Valenzuela sighed, scowled at him.

Mrs. Valenzuela continued. “Gabriel said—I wasn't quite sure what he was getting at—he said your uncle came and took you away. Do you know what he meant?”

Robbie gritted his teeth. “No, ma'am.” Eli cackled in the back of his head.

“Roberto, if...oh, it's too late for this. If someone's hassling you, I know it's frightening, but you have to go to the police. Even if it's family. You might even have to go several times, talk to different people—change the lock and tell the police. You have too much at stake.”

“I understand,” Robbie said. “Thank-you for listening to Gabe. It means a lot that he can trust you.”

Mr. Valenzuela winced. Mrs. Valenzuela melted.

Lay it on thicker, why don't you.

I'm just telling the truth.

The Valenzuelas waved half-heartedly and let themselves out the exterior door. Robbie returned to the apartment. “I'm going to put the frozen food back and drive to Walmart,” he told Gabe.

“You lied,” Gabe said.

Robbie winced. Nodded. “If I told them about Uncle Eli, they'd think I made him up, because they can't hear him.” He returned to the kitchen, stacked peas and spinach and half-off ground beef back into the freezer.

“Like me,” Gabe said, watching from a kitchen chair, crutches in his lap.

Robbie paused, shifting items around to make a level surface for the lasagna. “What do you mean?”

“I make things up.” Gabe scowled. “But I don't.”

And now the Valenzuelas would be positive that Gabe told stories, because Robbie had lied. “I'm sorry, Gabe.”

“Do I have to lie, too?”

You're corrupting him. You're shattering his world, pushing him into responsibilities he'll never be able to fulfill—

“No,” Robbie said. “You don't have to—you can say you're scared and you want to stay at their house. That's not lying. And. And in a week or two, I'm gonna ask someone for help, a demonologist, like a ghost doctor. He's gonna make Eli leave us alone, and then you won't have to worry about him, okay? We'll be fine.” He shoved the rest of the food in and closed the door.

Dry ice. Sleep. Work. Exorcism.

He had a plan.

Won't work. We can't be separated, kid, we're bound together for eternity. Anyone tries to pry us apart, you'll end up incapacitated or worse. Leaving Gabbie all alone.

You know what, try the exorcist. I want to see what happens.

Shut up, Kevin.

You’re scared. I’m calling your bluff.

******
 

End notes: Cocaine is a bad drug! Every kilogram of cocaine accounts for, if not the popularly quoted 6 murders, perhaps 6% of one of the cocaine-associated murders in Latin America. For comparison, every kilogram of beef accounts for 0.3% of the yield of one steer carcass. So the production of cocaine is twenty times more deadly to people, kg for kg, than beef production is deadly to cattle. If the ethics of its manufacturing and transportation aren’t bad enough, cocaine is easy to overdose on and can cause permanent damage to the heart muscle, even in young healthy people, which can lead to heart failure later in life. It destroys nasal tissue, leading to chronic nasal infections. Even if users do not inject it, it is still possible, as Eli mentions, to contract blood-borne diseases by sharing snorting equipment. It makes you act like an asshole. It’s stupidly expensive and the effects don’t last more than 45 minutes. Also, cocaine is readily addictive, psychologically, because it raises dopamine and noradrenaline levels: chemicals in the brain that make you feel like you’re in control your life.

Robbie never feels like he’s in control of his life.

Robbie’s experience with cocaine was exaggerated for comic effect, and also because, as Eli mentions, whoever was selling coke at the rock concert didn’t know how pure it was and didn’t know they could have doubled their profits by cutting it half and half with horse dewormer.

Oh, yeah: cocaine is often cut with horse dewormer.

Having never done cocaine myself (I’m not an idiot) I relied on excellent Youtube resources, notably Drugslab.

When Robbie is trying to calm himself down (Dios te salve, Maria, ahora en la hora de nuestra muerte) he fails to say the Hail Mary. Not only is the verse out of order, he is saying "now at the hour of our death" instead of "now and at the hour of our death." He then switches to another, cruder mantra: Fuck off, Eli. Everything you tell me is bullshit (lit. a blowjob).

All the bands mentioned exist, except for Speed Demon, which I took from one of Robbie’s T-shirts in the comic.

There really was an underground punk concert that took place in a burned-out pizza parlor in an abandoned strip mall in LA. Happened in 2016 I think.

Title is derived from a Courtney Love quote, “Cocaine is like really evil coffee.”

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