26
As we’re driving, King calls someone and puts the phone on the car speaker. Nobody answers. Erica’s voicemail picks up. He calls three more times. On the fourth ring, someone picks up.
It’s Erica, and she still sounds bad, mumbling her words, barely able to speak. King takes a deep breath as he accelerates a little faster down the very dark road.
“Erica, you need to tell me where you are,” he instructs very clearly.
“Is this King?” she slurs playfully, drawing out his name in a singsong way, like she’s half-teasing, half-drifting.
“Yes,” he says impatiently, rolling his eyes in a way that shows he just wants her to focus. He’s worried, not annoyed at her, just at the whole situation and how out of it she is.
Then King starts to do something, probably trying to take the phone off speaker. “Hold on,” he says, and then he holds the phone to his ear. “We’re coming, but we need to know the address,” he tells her.
Why did he feel the need to take the phone off speaker?
Since all the car windows are up, I can still slightly hear Erica as King holds the phone slightly away from his ear.
“I don’t… I don’t know. Jun, his friend drove us here.”
“How many people are there with you?” King asks.
“Like 15,” she says, sounding even more tired than before.
“Just put it on speaker and I’ll hold it for you,” I tell King, not wanting us to get stopped by the cops.
He gives me the phone, and I put it on speaker.
“How many girls are there with you?” King asks, leaning slightly to the right before settling in his seat.
Erica’s voice barely makes it through. Neither of us hears what she says.
“Huh?” King asks loudly.
“Three other girls?” Erica says.
King takes a deep breath, closing his eyes momentarily before focusing back on the road. “Are all the other people there with you men?”
“Yes,” Erica answers. “Two girls are sleeping,” she mumbles.
The way Erica seems to deteriorate in her speech patterns and the things she’s just said actually now make me start to feel really worried.
“Father God, I plead the blood of Jesus over Erica right now. Erica? Do not fall asleep,” he tells her.
Erica mumbles something, but neither of us can make out what it is.
“Did you hear me?” he asks, accelerating more.
“Mm,” she slurs.
“Erica? Erica!”
“Huh?” she grumbles, sounding like she’s already falling asleep.
“Stay with me. What did you take? You drank, right? What did you take along with that?” he asks, leaving me wondering how he knows she drank alcohol.
“I don’t know,” she barely gets out. “I’m tired,” she mumbles again.
“Do not fall asleep!” King answers.
On the main highway now, King speaks into the phone loudly. “What do you see around you?”
There is silence on the other end of the phone. A few times King has to call Erica’s name to get her to focus. “There’s… a big long thing with a bulb on it. It says Hossville.”
“What do you mean?” King says, his eyebrows creasing as he keeps his eyes on the road.
Erica laughs at God knows what, and I jump in my seat as King yells, “Erica, focus!!! I asked you a question!”
I’ve never seen King this mad or frantic.
“I… I… don’t know. What do you mean?” Erica says, her words getting quieter.
“The thing that you’re talking about, the big thing with the bulb on it? What are you talking about? Tell me more about it.”
“It’s long and it’s blue and it’s out of the ground. It’s very big. Like a big ball,” she says, barely audibly.
King’s brows draw tighter together. “You mean the water tower?”
Erica is heard yelling out away from the phone to one of her friends. “Hey! Eeeeyyy!” She yells, sounding sluggish. “Is that thing over there the water tower?”
“Yeah,” someone sounding more normal answers.
Then there’s a guy’s voice that sounds really close to the phone. He’s mumbling something and he sounds drunk too. What sounds like kissing ensues.
King looks anxious and starts to drive in that direction of the water tower.
As we’re driving, King asks, “Are you right by the water tower?”
“It’s pretty close. We’re in dirt. And… I mean… stuff and there’s cars around.”
Erica trails off, not making any sense. Then she’s no longer talking.
There are people’s voices overlapping, but she’s not responding to either of us now.
Maybe she dropped her phone. I’m really worried.
My tears flow on their own because if it weren’t for King, I would have left Erica there not knowing what was going on.
My mind recalls the rave and what could have happened. Even though I enjoyed it, what if Erica is in a similar situation she doesn’t?
My sobs get a little bit louder despite me trying to temper them.
“She might not be in any danger, but that’s where we’re going,” he says to me, then looks over.
His voice softens. “Zosha, don’t cry. I’m sorry for what I said.
I know if you really thought she was in danger you wouldn’t leave her.
You’re a good friend. Just a little oblivious,” he assures me, giving me a tender smile that I don’t deserve.
It doesn’t take that much longer until we reach the lot around the big water tower.
The pickup truck kicks up thick clouds of dust as we head to where all the cars are gathered, loud music thumping from open trunks and speakers, people smoking in loose groups under strung-up lights, cigarette tips glowing red in the dark, bottles clinking, laughter and shouts mixing with the low rumble of engines idling.
King looks over at me. “You can stay in the car.”
“I’m coming,” I tell him.
He nods, and I get out too.
We walk urgently. King walks ahead of me confidently, trying to find Erica.
We both go around asking if anyone’s seen Erica, a black girl with red dreadlocks.
Some people look out of it, eyes glazed and unfocused from whatever they’ve been drinking or smoking; some shake their heads slowly, probably too far gone to register we’re standing right there or even where they are themselves.
There are several pickup trucks. As we draw closer to one, there’s a guy making out with a girl. He’s lying on top of her, kissing her neck, kissing her mouth.
The girl is sprawled out on her back, mouth open, eyes closed.
It’s Erica!
King breathes in deeply, reaches forward, and takes both of his hands, grabbing the guy by the back of his clothes and hauling him off with a crazy strength I didn’t even know he had, sending the guy almost airborne, causing him to fall behind us onto his back in the dirt.
King looks at Erica, takes her by her legs, and pulls her closer to the tailgate. Then he sits her up. “Erica,” he says, worried and frantic. She’s half asleep, groaning, but her eyes don’t open.
King turns on the guy who’s now getting up and stumbling. “You were going to have sex with her while she was knocked out?!!!” He yells the last words.
“She was just talking to me,” the guy slurs, sounding like Erica. His mop of brown hair covers his eyes and falls loosely around his whole head. His jaw is very square, and if it weren’t for the situation, he would actually be a pretty attractive guy.
King stares at him, eyes wide and blazing, like he’s one second from lunging. His whole body trembles with restraint. When I glance down, his fists are clenched so hard the knuckles pop and his whole arm shakes.
“King?” I say softly.
The guy, barely all there, just looks back at King, still swaying on his feet.
“King?” I quietly try to bring him back again.
Shaky breaths exhale from King’s nose as he burns a hole into the guy’s face, standing only three inches from him. Then he blinks fast and turns back to lift Erica up in his arms.
His right arm loops underneath the back of her knees, and his other arm braces her upper back. We walk toward the truck.
“Erica?” he says quietly, his face close to hers for a moment before he looks at me. “Open the door,” he tells me.
Wasting no time, I do. King gently places her in the small seats behind the regular ones.
His truck is big but it’s mostly engine and bed.
He doesn’t have a crew cab, just an extended cabin, the kind where you have to open the front doors to reach in and open the little mini door that swings in the opposite direction.
After he sets her down carefully, he gets into the driver’s side and reverses out of the area.
I’m aware we’re not heading back to the Youth Camp just from the direction we’re going. “I think you’re going the wrong way,” I say.
“I’m not,” King replies. “I’m bringing her to the nearby clinic.”
“Yeah, but we have a clinic on the Youth Camp,” I inform him, just in case he forgot.
“You really want to embarrass her by bringing her back there?” he asks without looking at me.
He has a point. Everyone’s going to start asking questions about why she’s in that state.