‘It’s wet. Is it blood?’ Barbra slurred.
I went over to her. I crouched down hear her face. Face to the floor, she was total dead weight. She’d stopped moving. She seemed asleep. This was the end of the summer. All over her skin was this mossy, whitish sheen. Then Barbra started to twitch and her head cranked to one side. I was trying to lift her when she started vomiting.
‘J
oel, help me, fuck!’
I looked backwards. Joel was there, on the couch, halfslumped with his condom still on.
‘Fucking wake up, man!’ I screamed.
Barbra vomited again. The slew shot out in a throat-sized line.
‘God, fuck, help me! Do something!’
She would not stop puking. Under the low-level pot lights, I sensed Joel trying to respond.
He slurred, ‘Miriam. S’not awake for this, s’ry, s’my phone.’
Barbra’s eyelids flickered, the colour of ash. I realized all of a sudden that there was shit underneath her. It came from her limbs, up her dress, all smeared underneath.
‘Get up,’ I hissed at her. ‘You have to get up.’
Joel nodded off again. Another spasm of vomit. I found myself sweeping the table for his fancy drug phone. A puff of bad powder. I scrolled, fingers shaking, I scrolled around looking for Miriam.
‘It’s not working! She’s not there!’
Joel was passed out. I kept pounding the screen. I saw the headline already: Ethiopian-Israeli Exchange Student ODs. She was breathing, but barely. Not aware of vomit nor shit.
‘What’s it, boy?’ I heard Miriam’s voice through the phone at full volume.
‘She’s unconscious!’ I yelled. ‘We need you. I don’t know what to do!’
‘Damn it to hell, man,’ Miriam said.
I put my hand on Barbra’s beet-coloured back. I fucking prayed she had enough air through her throat to come through.
Miriam finally arrived in the basement. Joel slept, drooling foam, with his pants still half-down. Miriam covered her nose. She saw the whole thing at once.
‘What the fuck you two give this girl, then?’
Miriam marched up to Joel and slapped him hard on the head.
Joel roused, brow furrowed. ‘g, man. Don’t hit me,’ he said.
Then Miriam crouched down beside me and touched Barbra’s forehead. She forced open her eye, lightly palmslapped her face.
‘Look what you did to her. Just look what you did.’
‘She’s breathing,’ I whispered. ‘I made sure she was breathing.’
‘What else you make sure of?’
‘Should I have called the ambulance instead?’
‘Check your head, man. You as brainless as he?’
My ears started ringing.