For Vivienne, the nights were always the same. So were the days, but she was a solitary creature of self-induced quarantine and brass knuckle charisma so who gave a fuck anyway. All she had to do was drive, one hand on the wheel, a cigarette dangling out the desert breathing window, and a can of redbull wedged between her knobby knees. She preferred the darkness, the endless nothing of the desert that felt so much like herself it was comfortable. When the sun was setting, it was all colors. Splashes of cotton candy pinks and tangerine dreams, whimsical things that for some reason turned her mind into a sour mash of memories. She missed her brothers. She missed them so much sometimes that it snuck up on her like a noose until the knot went tight in her throat and she had to take a hard drag off of her cigarette to keep from acknowledging the ache.
Viv was doing this - all of this - for her baby brother.. but hell, if she was going to be honest with herself, she'd probably be doing something similar regardless of his prison sentence. It's not like she had a skill set. It's not like she graduated high school or bothered with a GED, it's not like she was any smarter than her mama ever said she was, and fuck all that anyway. Education and money and life, it was for dreamers.
When she pulled up to the small house in the conventional, middle class neighborhood, Viv was forced to smirk at the children playing flashlight tag a few driveways down. The sprinklers popping on like automatic wishing wells, the wind chimes constructed from far off sea shells. Killing the engine, she watched the children play for a moment. It was impossible not to wonder if her own daughter would -- stop. Cringing, she flicked the cigarette onto the asphalt and pounded the driveway with lace-up sandals of espadrille straw and neon blue canvas across the toes. It went well with her tacky orange sundress. Suitcase in hand, she rang the doorbell and hummed one of her mama's Comanche war songs while it wait.
The door opened to a gruff looking man with a shaved head and tattoos of screaming devils warring over his skull. Viv gave a fraction of a make believe smile. Ah, her least favorite face. "I'm not runnin' a subway car, bitch, get in!" He took her elbow with nazi inked knuckles and Viv half tripped over the doorstep before settling inside and dropping the suitcase of methamphetamines onto the couch. Despite the home's residents, the interior was actually pretty decent. "Nice place," she muttered while fitting a new cigarette onto her mouth. Gotta keep up with the make believe masquerade bullshit when you're a drug dealer, she supposed. If not for everyone else, at least yourself.
"The bag's on the table," the man gestured with dismissal before his blooshot eyes took a detour down the summer stretch of her legs. Viv tongued her teeth, all feral and nothing friendly, before she moved for the cash. The designated table boasted a small duffel bag of greenbacks and electronics. Everything from iPods to laptops to GPS navigation systems, anything to bring a dollar in a pawn shop or on the street. Viv's only obligation was to deliver and collect, which was fine by her.. she detested dealing with these cracked out motherfuckers. Drug addicts were something else. Without a word, and with that unlit cigarette dangling from her lip, she moved for the door again.
Viv noted his shadow first, something large and black cast against the pale of the door, something that towered over her own slim outline. Even as she turned, ready to roll her eyes or spit the kind of obscenities that cost men their balls, his knuckles were bunched in the back of her tangerine dress. In all of his Neo Nazi charm, he might have thought it was romantic, the way he pushed her shoulder into the closed door and ran a dirty palm up the side of her bruised neck. "I used to have a dog like you," he murmured. All smoke and sugar, even when he ran his fingertips along the fading bruise of her black eye. There were more markings, and the rough tug of his grip on the fabric of her dress revealed them. Somebody had gone at her with their fists recently, but the purple was already faded away into something a little more green. Viv said nothing, even when he ripped the cigarette out of her mouth and dropped it between them. "She bit me every time I tried to pet her, fought every dog in the fuckin' yard, too.." Viv was glacier still when his hand slid up from beneath the hem of her dress, and her eyes betrayed nothing. Not even hatred, men didn't even deserve that from her anymore. "She was my breeding bitch though, you know. Had to tie her up to the post out back, but she gave me some perfect pitt puppies.. never broke her, though. She still bit, and she still fought." Viv clamped her knees together, trapping his hand from going any higher between her thighs, which only brought laugh from the man. He stepped back with a shrug, "Just had to shoot her one day.."
Seeing her opportunity, Viv turned for the door again and jerked it wide as she moved out for the driveway once more. She could still feel him at her back, and it made her ache with the want to shoot him in the goddamn face. Not that anybody would ever give her a gun. "Here, blondie.. for your trouble.." Glancing back, quick reflexes caught the bag of drugs in one hand. She didn't question, and she didn't explain that she didn't fuck with that nasty basement-cooked shit. Viv just got in the Datsun and peeled out of the driveway so that her heart could start beating again.
"Fucking pig asshole!" She shouted at the rear view mirror, and there were tears clawing their way up her throat although she didn't know if it was because of the kids playing in the sprinklers or because of the fact that she had no choice but to work for these bastards. The bag of meth was dropped forgotten between her knees while the duffell of cash of electronics sat in the passenger seat. Pulling another cigarette from the pack, she was an itching mess of overridden disdain and emotion when she took a hard turn onto the next street. "Motherfucking piece of--" A siren wailed. Blue lights lit up her rear view and Viv's pale honey eyes went momentarily wide before a whole new sling of curses started up. "FUCK FUCK FUCK!" She punched the gas pedal, knowing full well that she couldn't stop with all the shit laid out in her passenger seat.
Irene was screaming in her head, "Just get rid of the drugs, dump the bloody drugs!" For the first time in her life, Viv listened. Reaching for the forgotten can of red bull, Viv steered with her knees while dumping a good two hundred dollars worth of amphetamines into the aluminum hole. The bag went in as well.. right before she hit the sidewalk on two tires and the Datsun slammed to a stop.
Contrary to popular belief, the police are not fond of having to chase traffic violators, and Viv had them dodging through traffic for a good two and a half blocks before she wrecked/came to a stop. As it turned out, her method of driving wasn't the worst of her problems. There was the whole lack of a license thing, the expired tag, the lack of insurance, the stolen property, the unexplainable twenty grand...
It wasn't her first time in handcuffs, and she cooperated with a silent kind of determination when they pushed her into the backseat of the squad car. In death, they say that your life flashes before your eyes. In this moment, all Viv saw was an endless slideshow of her failures. "Fuckin' figures.."