Free Ghosts of Bergen County by Dana Cann

the cookie boxes the Girl Scouts paraded up and down Amos Avenue each spring in Glen Wood Ridge. In fact, the box said GIRL SCOUTS OF AMERICA . Two badasses stood behind the table dealing Thin Mints. Ferko nearly laughed, but then the heavy door opened again, daylight flashed, and the door banged shut. It was jarring, each time it opened and closed, though it seemed to bother only Ferko.
    There were three guys in line ahead of Jen. The transactions were quick and wordless. When it was their turn, Jen moved forward and Ferko followed. She held out a bill from the roll the Chinese man had given her. In exchange, she received four small bags with white powder, each stamped with an image of a black cat. She stuffed them in her pockets, and they turned to leave.
    Outside, on the sidewalk heading north, she said, “I’d rather do that in the daylight.” She dropped her sunglasses back over her eyes. “My friend Amy says nighttime purchases are more authentic. She’s romantic.”
    They crossed the street.
    â€œThat was heroin,” Ferko said.
    â€œYeah, sorry.”
    â€œI’m glad we didn’t get busted.”
    â€œPfft! Me too.”
    â€œJen-Jen,” he said, and he chucked her arm with his open palm. He did so lightly; he barely touched her. Still, she said, “Hey! I was just run over by a car.”
    He raised his hands as if to say sorry. In fact, though, he felt giddy. It had been fun, a cultural experience. He’d been a tourist. Once upon a time Ferko had used drugs—pot and cocaine, mainly. In college, he’d dropped acid. For one two-week period, when he’d managed to buy a quarter pound of pot from a friend of a friend who lived in Texas, Ferko had even sold drugs, though he hadn’t liked the attention, even if the attention came with cash. Once, in graduate school, he’d bought pot from a couple of white dudes from Queens who came to the apartment Ferko shared with another student, Tom DePellier, a friend, though not yet a close friend. Inside the apartment, the dealers unbuttoned their jackets to reveal pistols strapped across their chests in holsters. It was an obvious don’t-fuck-with-me gesture, and Tom and Ferko didn’t. They bought the drugs and the thugs left. For two MBA students, the encounter was a lesson in capitalism, in the purchase of unregulated commodities, in contingency planning and security measures. Plus, it was a pretty good story, one that endured long after the pot had been smoked, long after they’d graduated, gotten married, and stopped taking drugs altogether. It was the sort of bonding experience that can last a lifetime.
    Ferko hadn’t made a new friend in years. After a certain age, the supply of new friends faded with the demand, and old friends drifted away. He wasn’t sure what sort of friend Jen was, but, through the course of the afternoon—through lunch, her getting hit by a car, and the procuring of heroin from a gang of Jamaicans—she’d come to feel like a real one. Maybe this was merely a day in the life of Jen Yoder, but he was grateful she’d shared it with him.
    Back at her apartment, they cracked the last two beers. He was determined to see it through that far. It still wasn’t six o’clock.
    Jen went to the bathroom, and Ferko checked his e-mail. There was nothing of consequence, though Lisa had sent a news story with an update on the Roy Grove car bombing. It looked as though she was back in the office. Then he called Mary Beth, first on her cell and then at home. He had worked out that he would tell her he’d been delayed, that he wouldn’t, in fact, be home early but he wouldn’t be home late, either. Definitely before dark. But he got her voice mail each time, and he knew she was shuttered in their room. He was determined now not to rush. So he truncated the message: “Hey, honey,” he said on the home voice mail, “things have come up and