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Denise entries
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23

12/15/03
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:: no fucking way

: : : DENISE LAYS ON THE COUCH, reading, while Johnny sits at the computer.  It's too cold to go anywhere.  She flips a page and then glances away from the book, looks out the window instead, watches snow fall through the glowing air that surrounds a streetlight.

—No way, Johnny says.  —No fucking way.

—What? she says, absently.  

—I don't fucking believe this.  

She tears her attention away from the snow so that she can look at him.  He's leaning forwards in his seat, staring raptly at something on the computer screen.  —You don't fucking believe what?

—I just got an e-mail from Eric, he says.  He turns to look at her.  —The house, he says.  —The collective house.  It just—it just got raided.

—What? Denise says.

—Yeah, Johnny says.  He looks back at the screen.  —There's not a lot of information here, but apparently—this is so fucked up!

—What does it say? Denise says.

—It says that some of the guys at the house were making crystal meth in the basement.

—You've got to be fucking kidding me, Denise says.  

—Yeah—no—Eric's saying—it's crazy—he's saying that cops busted into the house, arrested everybody, confiscated all sorts of shit—

—Wait—Eric's in jail?

—No—no—he says—let me see—he says the cops held him overnight, then interrogated him for a few hours the next day and let him go; apparently they're convinced that he didn't really have anything to do with it, or that he didn't know what was going on—

—He must have known, Denise says.  —You can't be in a place that's running a meth lab in the basement and just not know.  

—Look, I don't know what he knew and what he didn't, says Johnny.  —He just says that the cops let him go.  They decided that I'm not one of the ones they really want is what it says here.  

—Oh, shit, she says.  —That is fucked up.

—He hasn't been back to the house, Johnny says.  —The whole place is still sealed off by the police.  

—So what—Denise begins.  —So what does this mean for the—

—For the collective? I don't know, Johnny says.  —I mean, if half the guys are in jail—I think they own the property, but—

—Can't the government seize your property if it's involved in a drug bust?

—I don't know, Johnny says.  —I think that's the way it works here, but in the fucking Netherlands—who the fuck knows?

It's at that moment that the full meaning of this raid weighs upon her: all at once she realizes that there is no way that Johnny is going to go to Amsterdam anytime soon.  Plan A is officially scratched, as of right now.

There is no real Plan B.  

January, she tells herself.  If you really want to get rid of him you'll have something figured out by then.  

Suddenly January seems to be not very far away, not very far away at all.

: : :

:: Year entries
Index | << | 23 | >>

:: Denise entries
Index | << | 4 | >>

 

 

This entry from Imaginary Year : Book Four is © 2003 Jeremy P. Bushnell.
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Contact: jeremy AT invisible-city.com