Free Our Daily Bread by Lauren B. Davis Page B

looking around the corner of the booth in Finn’s direction.
    â€œDrink the goddam beer,” said Albert.
    â€œWhy are you pissed off at me?”
    â€œI’m not pissed off at you. Fucking Finn. He expects me to show up here every week with his weed, special delivery, like I’m a fucking UPS guy, and I do, man, I do. I am reliable, a dependable businessman. And then I get attitude. What the fuck’s that about?”
    â€œMaybe he’s just having a day.”
    â€œMaybe we’re all just having a day.” Albert scowled into his beer.
    The fact was, it was bad at the compound. The Others, what with their new enterprise, were getting more customers than the bootleg used to bring in. What did they do, have a newsletter or something? How did people know? All these wild-eyed, scraggle-toothed, skin-rotting tweakers willing to do pretty much anything for a fix. The Uncles were picking out some of the prettier girls, getting them to trade sex for meth. One of the side effects of meth was an increased sex drive, along with the paranoia and compulsive behaviour—the hour after hour of going through the complicated rituals of cooking the drug, driving across the state looking for pharmacies where they could get cold medicine without being noticed. Yeah, they were all having a day.
    â€œSo, you like, sell dope?” Bobby kept his voice very low, leaning forward.
    Albert leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest, staring at Bobby until Bobby dropped his eyes and sat back as well.
    â€œMaybe,” said Albert.
    â€œMaybe I want to buy some,” Bobby said.
    Albert laughed so loud Finn turned and looked at him. “Jesus, kid, you are something else, you know that? What do you want to buy? Crank? Hillbilly heroin? Tootsies? Casper? How much? You got the cash, little brother?”
    â€œI don’t know. A couple of joints maybe.”
    â€œHell, I’ll
give
you a couple of joints. Between friends, right?”
    â€œYeah?”
    Albert leaned forward and grabbed Bobby’s upper arm.
    â€œHey,” Bobby said, trying to pull away.
    â€œListen, I ever catch you doing crank or oxy or any of that other shit, I’ll break you in half, you got that?” Albert’s face was close to Bobby’s and he could smell the cigarettes on the teenager’s breath. “I sell a little grass, home grown, and that’s all I sell. Fucking slammers and bulb babies are a blight. Zombies, man, that’s all they are.”
    â€œI don’t do that stuff.”
    The boy’s eyes darted sideways and downwards, and Albert could see the confusion. There was a little bead of sweat on his upper lip, on that soft little fuzz the kid probably shaved hoping it would grow in thicker. He likely didn’t even have pubic hair yet.
    â€œCome on, man. Honest,” Bobby said. “Let go of my fucking arm.”
    Albert smiled and patted the side of the boy’s soft face. “You’re a good kid, I know that. It’s just that I care about you, okay? I don’t want to see you fucking up your life. There’s things a man can do, and things a man can’t. It’s like a code, right?”
    Bobby rubbed his arm. “A code?”
    â€œYeah, a code,” said Albert, warming to the subject. He liked giving Bobby Evans little lectures, liked the way the boy listened, soaking it all in and not interrupting like the kids up at the compound did. They had no respect. Then again, who could blame them? That was the mountain. This was here and the two were not the same in any way. He shook a cigarette out of his pack, lit it and inhaled the smoke deep, enjoyed the slight light-headedness from that first hit. “You know what a code is, right? Okay, so it’s like every man has to develop his own personal code of conduct. He has to decide how he’s going to be, what he’s willing to do and what he’s not, and he can’t break that code,