Matt was at Mario's Garage until early morning. Couldn't sleep on the hard plastic chairs he had in the waiting room, and his car smelled like smoke and burnt pork, so he stayed up until the morning sun.
He watched KTLA instead.
All that was on TV were Family Guy reruns and the early morning news. They ran a segment on the explosion, playing the same footage of the sooty Soto Street Junction mansion. They said it was a "gang-related incident." The numbers were shaky: 9 dead, 3 injured, 1 in critical condition.
One was right there in the garage. Matt doubted they counted him.
The whole thing felt like deja vu. The reports, the breaking news labels, the tragedy of finding unidentifiable bodies burned black and leathery. Matt was eight years old again, reading smelly old picture books from the 60's and waiting for someone to pick him up from the group home.
Except he wasn't. He was nineteen, tired, dopesick, and bored. Nobody was going to pick him up from Mario's Garage. He was all alone, waiting for Mello to make it out alive or dead.
No idea what to do after this was over and done.
Matt was outside by the dumpsters, smoking his last cigarette in the cool winds of dawn. The sky was the color of a stick of Juicy Fruit. The only other people on the street were homeless or drunk.
All night, Matt kept entertaining the idea of skipping town.
Leaving his Camaro behind, renting another car and going down to Mexico to be with goats and stray dogs. He'd heard that the black tar was amazing down there. He'd escape for good, forge a new identity. Huevo Frito of los Estados Unidos.
Huevo flicked the cigarette butt onto the gravel and crushed it under his boot.
But he was not Huevo. He was Matt. And Matt knew, for better or for worse, that becoming Señor Frito was nothing but a fantasy. Like getting whisked off to England to become a wizard at Hogwarts, or going to Vegas to rake money in at casinos as James Bond.
Being Matt was meant to suck.
Matt glanced down at his pack, peeling back the aluminum foil to see if he could smoke another. None left. He sighed and pulled the side of the emergency exit door, skipping over the brick on the ground to head back in.
For the first time all night, the door to the surgery room-cum-office space was open, and Mario was nowhere to be found.
Matt threw his cigarette pack into the garbage bin by the waiting room and walked back into the office. Nobody was inside except for the heavily medicated Mello, completely bandaged from the chest up, his head eclipsed by a hard, mummified shell. Nothing but a small hole for his pink mouth.
His arms were stuck to his side rigidly. Below the bandages, he was naked. Bruises flanked his legs, blooming up his skinny thighs.
It was horrifying and funny at the same time. If it was any other situation, he might have even laughed.
But Matt was Matt, and Matt was tired and bitter, so he stared emptily at Mello, wondering what the fuck Mario was going to do with him next.
"Hey, you're back," the doc's voice said from behind him. "Go in."
Matt turned, stepping aside to let the doc through and followed him in. The garage lights lit up a real big bald spot at the back of his head, shining like an egg. Up close, the doc kind of reminded him of Danny DeVito.
Mario placed the paper baggy he was holding onto a counter top and took out a calculator, pressing the sticky buttons. He had a half-lit cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth, burning down as he calculated.
Matt frowned when he realized what Mario was doing. "M's not staying here?"
"What? No." Mario made a face. "I'm runnin' a business 'ere, kid. Whaddaya think my customers are gonna say when they see that?"
"Well, I don't know how to take care of him," Matt protested.
"Then you're gonna learn."
Matt wanted to keep bitching, but he shut his mouth. He watched as Mario racked up the total, turning up his palm.
"250."
Yikes.
Matt grabbed his wallet, counting crisp ten's that he'd gotten earlier at the ATM. He had only two dismal fives left inside when he handed the money over.
The doc took the bills in his hands, licking his finger and rifling through them expertly. Distantly, Matt wondered if he had to tip.
Bad customer service. 1/5 stars.
"M already paid for the aftercare upfront," Mario explained, tucking the bills into his chest pocket and patting it down with his sausage fingers. "So that's all you gotta put in."
Matt rolled his eyes inwardly. Of course Mello knew this would happen, the prophetic son of a bitch.
"Listen up," Mario continued, grabbing the baggy and emptied it out onto the workbench. "I'm only gonna say this once, so if you wanna keep M alive, you're gonna do what I say."
A few different bottles rolled out of the bag with some other medical shit. Matt stared at them, waiting for their labels to roll into view. One of them was lorazepam. The other one, morphine sulfate.
Score.
"Hey," Mario's voice cut in, snapping his fat fingers. "You listening?"
Matt looked up and nodded.
"I said. Clean everything M touches. Everything." Mario wagged his fat finger, picking up the gauze. "And you gotta change his bandages once a day."
"What? Change?" Matt furrowed his brows. "I have to change him?"
Mario gave him a dirty look. "Yeah, kid. What, you want him to get sepsis and die?"
"No, but how the fuck do I do that?"
"With gauze, kid. Whaddaya want me to say?"
Matt bit his tongue, watching as Mario grabbed the bottle of morphine, tiny in his hand. "And you gotta give him 1 mL every two hours," he continued. "Nothin' more. I'm only giving you one bottle. When it's done, switch him to OTC."
Matt nodded obediently.
"And," Mario added, pointing his grubby fingers at Matt's face, the tip of his cigarette burning a little too close to Matt's nose, "If you shoot this shit up, you can say bye-bye to M."
Matt pulled away, feigning innocence. "What?"
"You heard what I said," Mario replied, shoving it back into the baggy. He threw his finished cig on the floor, extinguishing under his tan shoes. Matt bit his lip, crossing his arms in guilt or shame or something and shifting his weight.
"M's gonna be in a lot of pain," Mario continued, crinkling the bag. "You're gonna wanna give him the morphine, or else it's gonna be hell for you and him. Don't say I didn't warn you."
"Yeah, 'course," Matt mumbled back, shrugging his shoulders nonchalantly.
Mario grabbed a small bottle of loraz. "Give him 1mL of this to keep him sedated, healing and quiet," Mario continued, shoving it back into the bag with the rest of the stuff. "Use the oral syringe. I'm not giving you no needles. M said in his contract he didn't want no needles."
Matt nodded, pursing his lips. Mario walked over to the sink and grabbed a business card from a plastic holder, handing it over.
"You got any questions, you can gimme a call," he said. Matt took the card, squinting at the bubbly blue-and-yellow logo. "Now scram. I gotta open up shop in two hours."
Matt put away the card. "Wait."
"What now?"
Matt gestured to the naked Mello. "Clothes."
"Oh yeah," Mario said, chuckling harshly to himself. He grabbed another cigarette from his pocket full of money and lumbered back to a storage closet to grab something.
The sound of something hard scraped against the cement floor, and then a milk crate full of clothes from God knows where slid out of the door, pouring out of the box like a Walgreens discount bin.
"We got suits, shirts, button-ups, the works." Mario got down on one knee to fish out a ratty-looking long-sleeved top with his cigarette wedged in his teeth, grinning up at Matt like he was posing for a picture. "You wanna dress him up?"
As Mario straightened out the shirt, Matt saw faded stains all over the collar.
Somebody got their throat slit in that.
"Jesus Christ," Matt muttered. "You got a fucked up sense of humor, man."
Mario cackled, throwing it in, and pushed himself off the crate with his fat hands. "Comes with the job description, kid," he said, pinching his cigarette out of his mouth as he walked away. "You'll get used to it."
Going eastbound, they were the only car for miles. Morning sickness was what it felt like, cruising down the open highways under the salmon clouds of sunrise, the other lane filling with early morning workers and transport trucks.
Matt felt like his eyes were shuttering closed, but he had to keep awake. Had to keep his eyes on the road, lest veer off into the meridian and get them both killed.
God willing.
Radio was on. Matt didn't know why, but it was better than thinking or Tetris, and God knew Mello wasn't going to do any talking. Cool wind whipped through the open windows, not doing much for the stench of smoky pork rinds and blood. Matt really needed to Febreeze the shit out of his car when this was good and done.
When he was back in his neighborhood, Matt took the next exit towards Koreatown, turning a block early for the bigger 7-11 nearby. Anonymity seemed preferable at the moment. Matt was tired, but he knew he needed to stock up on supplies.
He parked shittily outside, far enough from the front door that the security cameras couldn't pick him up. A homeless guy was chilling by the side of the street, panhandling with an old coffee cup just outside of the convenience store.
Matt knew he had to be quick, or else his ride would probably catch some attention. He rolled up the windows and held his breath, turning off the ignition.
Matt sighed, shaking his head.
It'd been a long fucking night. Matt looked back and realized that Mello still stood out like a sore thumb. He'd dressed him up to the best of his ability from Mario's Closet — a semi-clean button up and extremely loose jeans that belonged to someone at least three times' Mello size.
Still, he looked like a fucking mummy.
God damnit. Nothing was ever easy.
Matt sat back down in the driver's seat, debating what to do. Wake him up? Hide him? Stuff him in the trunk?
Matt snorted to himself, shaking his head.
He pushed the passenger seat back flat instead.
The sun trickled in through the window, shining right into Mello's eyeholes. Matt lifted his ass and unearthed his vest, warm after being sat on for so long, and draped it over Mello's head, rearranging it so that it covered Mello's face completely.
He wasn't sure if Mello could breathe under the corduroy, but he figured, eh. Good enough.
"Hey, you need any help?"
Matt turned around to the source of the voice. A scrawny teenager in a 7-11 uniform handed him a basket, his eyes red like he was sleep deprived or baked like a can of beans.
Matt was inside the store, stood in front of the microwavable food section with his arms full of Easy Mac and ten cans of tomato soup. He smiled noncommittally at the kid and mumbled his thanks, dumping his shit in, and then turned back to do the rest of his shopping.
Milk. Chocolate milk. Monster, Red Bull, Rockstar. Arizona, in Mucho Mango and Green Tea. He glanced longingly at the beer shelves as he passed them, gripping the fridge door. 6AM meant too early to get them, but tossed a few cans of PBR into his basket just for the hell of it.
He drifted over to the healthcare shelf, grabbing everything even remotely useful: bandaids, bandages, Purell. Tums, why not. Tylenol. Fuck it, make that two bottles.
What else? Oh, he didn't have clean sheets. Mario voice: clean everything. Matt lumbered over to the cooking section and stared up at the Saran wrap, squinting as he grabbed it off the shelf and read its dimensions. They only had a few of those 100 sq ft ones, overpriced for what they were worth.
A full bed was around four by six, maybe four inches tall. Almost thirty square feet for one surface of his bedspread, more if he wanted overlap, times two for a second layer. If he wanted to change the wrap at least once a day for the next week, then—
Ah, fuck it. Matt grabbed all the available Saran wrap boxes on the shelf, sweeping them into his shopping basket.
That should be enough.
The radio announced overhead that they were starting this fine Wednesday morning with Lady Gaga, and then ooh-la-oh-mama filled the shiny linoleum store. Matt sighed, exhaustion crawling back into his bones as he walked over to the cash register, his feet sinking into the carpet like quicksand.
He lugged his basket over the register, slamming it onto the glass top with a thump. "Hey man," Matt greeted. "Can I get a cart—shit, three cartons of Camel Reds?"
The kid nodded, turning away to grab the cartons from the shelf behind him. "Bit late for Halloween," he joked as he returned with the cartons, scanning them with a beep. "Since that was, like, two weeks ago."
Matt looked down at his stained shirt as the kid stuffed the cartons into a bag that definitely couldn't fit them. "Oh," he said, laughing humorlessly. "Yeah."
"What are you?"
"Freddy Krueger," Matt answered, glancing back at his car in the parking lot. It looked empty from outside. The homeless guy didn't seem to care much for it, panhandling a middle aged woman as she shrunk away from him, walking through the automatic doors with a cringe.
"I was just about to guess that," the kid gleamed, scanning the PBR without a second's hesitation. "You'll be having a good night, I see."
"Yeah, sure will be fun," Matt mumbled. He looked back at the total, grabbing his wallet from his back pocket as the number racked up higher and higher. He didn't have enough cash left, so he grabbed his credit card, watching as the kid scanned on.
The green digits passed 300, and Matt sighed to himself. Christ, he was really burning through his savings lately.
The kid pressed a few buttons and hauled the bags over the counter, reading off the total. "That'll be—"
Sunlight. Streaming into his room from between the blinds with a point to prove.
Matt sat on the floor at the foot of the bed, toasting.
He couldn't sleep. It was too fucking hot. After driving home, setting the bed up, turning the radiator on all the way, and getting Mello in some more comfortable clothes — a hoodie that was too hot to wear in LA, and a nondescript pair of black track pants — Matt had given Mello a good dose of the loraz that'd keep him quiet for at least five more hours.
He didn't want to leave Mello alone, lest he die in his sleep from septic shock or a cardiac arrest, praise Kira. So he stayed. He sat there with his rapidly lukewarming Red Bull like a good nurse, staring at the tiny bottle of morphine.
The label had faded from how long Matt had been holding it under his sweaty fingers. Mor hine ulfat. Matt turned it around, reading the rest of the label for the nth time in the last hour.
100 mg per 5mL. Only for patients who are opioid tolerant.
That was just a taunt. It might as well have just had his name on it. Only for junkies and especially YOU, Matt.
Matt shook his head to himself.
100 mg per 5mL meant that it could last him at least fifteen to twenty hits. He heard the half-life of morphine was slightly shorter than the other drug, but it was also more potent. Matt wondered how clean the rush was. How warm and cozy the high would feel.
How good it'd feel to not have to be awake anymore.
Matt tilted the bottle and held it over his head, the bright teal of the liquid inside the glass winking in the sunlight. His neighbor locked the front door outside, greeting someone on the street directly below him, singing "hello's" and "good mornings."
Matt sighed, shaking his head again as he put the mor hine back on the bedside table.
He'd mustered his last bit of self-control, and most of it was due to guilt. Any other situation, he would have already just shot the shit up without a second thought. But it was one thing for Mello to die on his own terms, blowing up that building. Another entirely to be solely responsible for fucking up in the aftercare and letting him die while he nodded.
Call him a pussy, but Matt just didn't think he'd be able to have that on his conscience.
He sighed, scuttling over to grab his laptop from the end of the bed. He needed to read some medical journals, some tutorials about aftercare. Anything to keep his mind off of the little bottle.
It was semi-successful. Matt was focused on his computer until an hour later, Mello made a noise from his mouth hole, shifting around on the Saran wrap.
Matt looked up, rubbing his eyes and turning down his screen brightness. Mello made another noise, even though he should have been knocked the fuck out, which meant something was wrong.
"Hey," Matt said, hoisting himself off of his ass. "You okay?"
He walked over just to see Mello's hand try to fly to his face, but fail. The bandages ended at his elbow, black nail polish clinging to his fingernails.
"Fuck," Mello whispered. He groaned again, trying to move his arm feebly. "Shit."
It must hurt a shitton. 1 mL didn't seem to be enough for the pain, and as long as Mello felt it, then it meant Matt had to keep dealing with him. He grabbed the bottle of mor hine from off the bedside table, his fingers already more than familiar with the grooves of the ampoule.
So he really had to open the thing now. That was an exercise in self-preservation. Mello needed his shot.
"How much does it hurt?" he asked Mello, thumbing the protective seal with bated breath. "On a scale of 1 to 10."
Mello didn't answer. He started to mumble something low and monotonous under his breath instead: a chant, guttural and repetitive.
Hm. That was his prayer voice. If Mello was turning to God, it must have meant something he couldn't deal with on his own. 1.5 mL might be a good idea, at least until the pain started to fade.
Matt ripped the foil like he hadn't been waiting since morning to do it, grabbing the oral syringe from off his bedside, and then pulled up to 1.3, just shy of the line. The oral mor hine was more viscous than he was expecting. It looked like Gatorade inside the barrel.
Another round of Hail Mary's spilled out of Mello's mouth as Matt held the syringe up and lowered himself onto the mattress, ignoring his urge to stick a needle in the syringe and slam it back. His knees shuffled over the plastic as he moved himself over, and then he jammed the syringe in between Mello's open lips, wedging the tip between his teeth.
The plunger came down like a drop tower, spurting blue against Mello's teeth and tongue. As Matt slipped the tip out, morphine followed, dripping down the side of his bandages and coloring them aqua.
"Jesus," Matt mumbled, shaking his head. What a fucking waste. "Swallow, asshole."
Mello swallowed audibly, like a goddamn baby learning to feed. And slowly, but surely, over the course of the next five minutes as Matt cooked under the 90 degree heat, he listened as Mello's noises faded into the air, his breathing growing heavy and deep.
Matt sighed, tearing the damp shirt over his head and wiping at the nape of his neck. He hid the morphine in the closet.
Out of sight, out of mind.
Bzzt. Bzzt—
Matt jolted, sweat running down his face. His screensaver was gallivanting on the screen in front of him, running laps around the brick maze. The room was dark now, completely black, and he was still sitting on the floor, his ass asleep.
Something kept buzzing. What the fuck was that noise?
Bzzt—
Oh, Jesus. It was his fucking doorbell. Matt grabbed the mattress, his fingers slipping past the plastic wrap with the sweat on his palm, and pulled himself up, stumbling into his closet mirror. Fuck, his legs hurt, sending crackling fuzzy static down his calves and heels. He could barely move as he limped towards the bedroom door, pulling it open, and then, shielding his eyes, he sped up across the living room.
Bzzzzt—
"I'm coming, I'm coming," Matt called out, dragging his prickling legs over. The buzzer stopped buzzing, and when Matt finally made it, he peeked through the peephole and saw a Mexican guy in a UPS delivery outfit.
"Jesus, that's quick," Matt mumbled, unlocking and swinging the door open. The dude smiled at him as he leaned against the doorway, squinting at the hallway light. "Yeah?"
"Package delivery for," the guy looked down at his clipboard, "Harry Sachz?"
"Yup." Matt jerked his head for the pen and scribbled a line on the paper, grabbing the heavy package out of the dude's arms. "Oof." He dropped it onto the ground, kicking it out of the door's way. "Thanks, man."
He shut the door, pushing the cardboard to the middle of the living room where there was more room. Not even one day shipping — this only took a few hours, if that. Some fast workers over at eBay.
He knelt on the floor with his weak legs beside it, grabbing a pair of scissors off the coffee table. The blades glided through the tape, and there he was, ripping the whole thing wide open like Goatse.
Meal supplements in bottles. A whole crate of forty-eight, in dark chocolate because that was the type of chocolate that Mello liked to eat. Yeah, Matt was a fucking God.
He grabbed one of the bottles and walked to the bathroom, glancing at the time as he passed the DVD player. 6:39. Time that he fed Mello about now, probably. He had to change the dressings while he was at it, too.
Goddamn, Matt really didn't want to do this.
But he put on his big boy pants and did it anyway. He propped the Ensure onto the sink and sat down on the lip of the bathtub, cracking his neck.
Fuck, his back ached. He'd slept on the bedroom floor for the first time since he was a kid, and now his body was mad at him for it, trying to make him pay. He stretched out his spine with a groan and leaned forward to open the faucet.
The tub was clean. He'd scrubbed it with Lysol to the best of his abilities earlier, and now the porcelain shone, shiny white in the dim bathroom light. He hadn't seen it so spotless since he'd first moved in — the water looked completely translucent as it filled the bottom up slowly, rippling softly under the light.
Matt shifted, blinking.
He was scrubbing at the open sores and mushy skin flapping on Mello's shoulder. The dressings he had been mummified in were a pile inside the overflowing garbage can, gauze caked with skin scum.
God, he was tired. The bathroom fan was on, working mercilessly, because it smelled awful. Pork rinds and meaty smoke, sweet and bitter and awful and oily. So bad Matt couldn't even describe it.
Scrub a dub dub.
Matt's day felt just like it wouldn't fucking end, and he knew it was just the beginning. He had to keep pulling up his shirt sleeves as they drooped down, wiping at the dead skin, watching as it fluttered into the water.
The wound started bleeding. Matt wiped at it and wrung out his towel, a droplet of water hitting his cheek. Matt dried it with his arm and yawned, cracking his neck.
Fuck it. He was done.
He reached over Mello's burnt body to pull the plug, small pieces of shrapnel and rubble dancing in the dim pink bathwater. Mario wasn't very thorough in hosing him down, and Matt watched as the skin bits got sucked inside the drain, burping bubbles of filthy water.
Matt had redosed him with loraz when he drank his Ensure, and the morphine had long since set in. For the 18th hour of the 24-hour day, Mello was out. Mouth dangling, so doped he looked half-dead.
Lucky fucking bastard.
Matt pushed Mello's head back against the wall and grabbed one of his cleaner towels to wipe at his face, revealing his prosciutto ham burns to the big bad world. He wasn't sure if he hated seeing Mello's awful mummy look more or the burns, but now, he decided that the gore was way worse. The pink, veiny flesh of his left cheek looked tight, warm to touch when Matt tried to wipe at it.
It was fucking gross.
The water gurgled, the last of his waste washing down the drain. Mello's legs glistened, his wet feet propped up against the drain, his toenails painted black.
Matt popped his spine, pulling back. Here came step two.
Matt stuck out his foot to his laptop, sitting on the ground beside the toilet, and brushed his big toe against the trackpad. The screen came back to life before him on a Facebook picture of a plump and smiling Amy, dressed up for Lydia's quinceañera from June.
Fuck. No, not that. Matt swooped down and closed the tab hastily, bringing up the YouTube video he'd found earlier, and pressed play.
As the video began, Matt sighed and settled back onto the lip of the bathtub, trying to ignore how bad his ass hurt.
"This video is to help with the application of Silvadene dressing," the voiceover announced, echoing in his small bathroom. "The items that you need for this type of dressing are your Silvadene cream, gauze or clean cotton fabric such as…"
Matt leaned over to grab the tub of Silvadene from off the toilet lid and unscrewed the cap. He bent down to remove the aluminum seal as the woman continued, "Provide the prescribed pain medication to your child at least thirty minutes before the dressing change."
"Yup," Matt answered, glancing back at Mello's dangling mouth.
"Cellulitis is when bacteria infects the wound and the skin around it. Usually, it starts with tenderness, redness, and swelling around the wound. Sometimes, a fever will also…"
He poked his toe towards the arrow button, fast forwarding the video as he unravelled the gauze, cutting it into small pieces, and then scooped up a small dollop of Silvadene onto his finger.
"When preparing Silvadene, do not put your hands or fingers into the jar."
Matt scoffed. "Shit."
"… Use a tongue depressor, to scoop out a small amount. And then, paint the Silvadene onto pieces of gauze..."
The video showed a pair of gloved hands squeezing Silvadene onto the dressing. Matt squinted and followed along, evening the gauzes out on the toilet lid and smearing the Silvadene over it.
"When painting the Silvadene onto the gauze, paint a thin layer," the lady said gently. "We like to tell people to paint like you would put butter on toast. Not like cream cheese on a bagel."
Matt snorted, evening the ointment out.
"… Place your prepared Silvadene-covered gauze over the burn..."
He picked it up gingerly like a portrait with a face of wet paint, slapping the biggest piece onto Mello's burnt shoulder. And then again. And again. And again. He covered Mello like he was paper macheing a balloon, until he was pure white again.
When he was done, Mello looked like half of him was being made into a mask. A shitty little Mello cast, covering his left shoulder, his left arm, his neck, most of his face aside from a big mouth-hole.
The woman continued on in the background. "You are ready to wrap the burned area. When wrapping any arm or leg, always start with the bottom…"
Matt paused the video and grabbed the dressing, mummifying Mello's arm, his shoulder, his neck not too tightly. His face was the hardest part. He had to wrap it over the top of his right ear down to his left cheek, and then over his nose and across his forehead, trying to make sure Mello didn't wake up and accidentally get Silvadene into his eye.
He taped the dressings closed when he was done, leaning back to admire his work. It didn't look anything like Mario's mummy, nor neatly wrapped around his messy hair, but none of his burns were showing and that was a start.
Matt nodded to himself, proud. And then he unpaused the video to see what else was left.
"Make sure to reward your child and yourself for completing this dressing change," the woman concluded, and the video faded to black.
Matt looked over to Mello, who was still knocked out cold. "What do you want?"
Mello didn't answer.
Matt knew what he wanted, though. He lifted his hips and slipped a rogue cigarette from his back pocket, crumpled, and lit it up in the bathroom. He rolled his head back, exhaling deeply into the stained ceiling like it was the best feeling on earth.
Honestly, it wasn't. It was just a cigarette. But compared to all the other shitty things that had been happening in his life, it was fine. Good enough.