A Lot Like Extortion

It was dawn when I crept inside his room. I settled two Advils and a large glass of water on his night table. He looked at peace, in his sleep like that. His eyes were closed, soft like velvet. His forehead was crease-free, care-free. But the air had a sharp scent to it, almost of vomit. I was the one who opened the door for Caleb the evening before. He stumbled through, only one slow sentence able to come out of his mouth: I am drunk. He said this quietly, his eyes unfocused and mostly on the ground. I guided him into his room. Said good night.

I cooked breakfast. Eggs, toast, bacon. I made little noise, but wasn’t particularly trying to be quiet. Caleb would have to wake up eventually. I was sitting on the table, polishing off my last nibbles of food, when he finally wobbled into the living room. He groaned, fell onto the couch beside me. His eyes were closed. I asked him how he was feeling, and did he have fun?

I woke up to the strangest call, he said.

Who called you?

It was multiple calls, actually.

I pushed my chair back in order to take him in properly. His eyes were still closed, and his phone was clutched to his chest. Do you want breakfast? I asked. Coffee?

Listen to this voicemail, he said, tossing the phone to the end of the couch. I reached for it, pressed play. It was from Claire, who he had reconnected with last night. She was a friend from college who now lived in the city. In the voicemail, she was yelling. It was difficult to understand what she was saying, but it was clear to me that she was angry. At Caleb? 

I don’t understand, I said. What happened?

She says I stole her drugs. That she’s coming after me. That I owe her at least ten-thousand dollars. 

Did you steal her drugs?

No, Caleb said. I don’t remember. If I had, wouldn’t I have drugs on me? 

What do you remember?

We were in her apartment, on her rug. I didn’t want to smoke weed but she kept giving it to me. She kept giving me drinks, too. I don’t mean to blame Claire. I’m an adult, I can make my own decisions. But she really kept pressing me to do more. I vaguely remember the Uber ride home. You opened the door for me. That’s it. She says she’s calling the DEA. 

I laughed. That’s ridiculous, I said.

I really don’t think I stole her drugs, he said. I don’t have anything on me. I definitely don’t have ten-thousand dollars.

She’s always been a little crazy, I said. Only Claire would pull you into some drama like this.

Caleb was quiet for a moment, deep in thought. I do remember going through her pill closet, he said finally. This is going to sound dumb, but I think I only mixed the pills around.

Mixed the pills?

Like, they weren’t real drugs. Birth control and anti-psychotics. I think I just riffled through them. I definitely didn’t steal them.

Oh Caleb, I said. I did feel bad. Only Caleb would get himself into a mess like this. I poured him a mug of coffee, pushed a plate brimming with eggs and bacon his way. He mumbled a thank you, shoveled the food into his mouth. It was as I was washing the dishes that my phone began to buzz. I answered. The voice on the other line was Claire’s. She was furious. She went on about how Caleb had taken her pills. How he dumped them all out of their bottles. How she can’t identify any of them. How she’ll need to go back to her doctor to get them refilled. How Caleb owes her three-hundred dollars for puking in the Uber. He better get a lawyer, she said. Because I am calling the cops.

Are you sure he stole your pills? I asked. Are you sure they’re not all accounted for?

The pills are everywhere, she said. She was sobbing now. 

I’m sure you can find out how to identify them online, I said. 

I’m calling the cops, she said before hanging up. Caleb was beside me. I told him what she had said. That she was calling the cops. He frowned, a look of deep worry crossing his face. I said I didn’t think there was anything the cops could do. There’s obviously something very wrong with her, I said.

I feel bad, Caleb said. Maybe she really needs her antipsychotics, and now she can’t find them.

She can call her doctor if it’s an emergency, I said. But it’s really not so hard to identify a pill with the internet. A few minutes passed before Claire began texting Caleb again. She was demanding at least ten-thousand dollars. This is beginning to sound a lot like extortion, I said. She obviously hasn’t called the cops, otherwise she would have stopped texting you and they would be here by now.

Caleb was silent, solemn. I didn’t like what this was doing to him. I told him I had a director’s review today, and would he be okay? He nodded. Just call me if anything happens.

The director was a Swedish man who didn’t particularly like me. He didn’t like anyone, I thought. I sat in the back of the editing bay as he and the editor reviewed shot after shot after shot. We were scheduled to start turning over materials to the VFX team soon; we needed to whittle down the final numbers, as they were too high. What could we do away with? I had a spreadsheet open where I jotted down everything said for each shot. It was better this way. More information that I could later condense rather than skip on something that seemed minuscule or redundant but would later prove paramount. The director loved yelling at me. If something was wrong in the edit, with what he was seeing on screen, he would turn his chair towards me and snap in my direction. He did this regardless of whether the error was mine or not. Usually it wasn’t. I was not the editor. I was the associate producer. The editor was a man named Marc. 

The director was now facing me, saliva frothing in the corners of his mouth. In his preferred take of a shot, the camera was visibly trembling. I told him we could stabilize it at the VFX house. His eyes burned. He had thin, evil lips. His hair was a sickly yellow color, and sparse. But he was a fit man, slabs of muscles that seemed to crash with the violence of tectonic plates at every one of his movements. I made a note that we had to keep this shot on the VFX list no matter what. Marc looked at me with concern, guilt, pity. We were beyond feeling embarrassed by the director’s antics now. We just wanted the project to be over with. A moment of silence passed before they both returned their eyes to the main screen. 

My phone started buzzing. It was Claire again, I recognized the number now. I pressed the side of my phone to ignore it. The phone buzzed to a text message: I have called the cops now, you stupid bitch. Caleb is going away for a long time. 

My stomach twisted. At that moment, her name filled my screen. She was calling again. The director turned his chair. Heat rose to my cheeks. Take it, he said. His voice was sharp and unkind. I felt, at that moment, that it would be worse for me not to take it. I stepped out of the room clutching my phone that vibrated against my chest. 

Get a fucking grip, I said. 

Claire weeped. I couldn’t understand her through the violent shakes of her voice. I just want my pills, she said between cries. 

I’m at work, I said. I can’t fucking do this right now. Leave Caleb alone. 

When I hung up the phone, I felt a presence behind me. The warm breath of the director. He was smirking. Amused by what he had heard. He said, I didn’t know you had that in you.

I fumbled for a response. My heart thumping in my chest. Behind him, Marc closed the door to the editing room. Let’s take a break, the director said. He walked away, still grinning. Marc shook his head. Only a few more months, he whispered. 

When the director disappeared down a corridor, Marc slipped his hand through mine. He pulled me into a neighboring room. It was dark, the blinds shut tight. He pressed his mouth against mine. Already I could feel his hardness against my thigh. I told him I wasn’t into it, that there was too much going on. He pleaded. I knelt to the ground, took him into my mouth. We shouldn’t have been sleeping together. He was more of a veteran than I was, and the issue of power was always something I worried about. It no longer felt hot, too, all this sneaking around. There was a certain sadness and desperation in Marc that I hadn’t been privy to before. He was a lonely, plump man who spent all his time locked away in the darkness of the editing bay. At least I had Caleb to worry about. He groaned, and without warning my mouth was dumped in bitter fluids. I swallowed. I had already decided once this project was over that we would call it quits. But I was also desperately aware of how small the industry was in New York; I would likely see him in the halls of post houses for the rest of our professional lives. I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. When I kissed him, he grimaced. I hated him at that moment. I hated him for cumming in my mouth without warning. I hated him for allowing the director to verbally abuse me, for not once coming to my defense. They were mostly his errors after all. I exhaled sharply, pushed him away. He fell against the table, knocking one of the monitors to a tilt. Ouch, he said. But he was smiling. Which only made me hate him more. 

The apartment was empty when I returned several hours later. Claire hadn’t contacted me again. I texted Caleb before unpacking groceries. When I was done, I flopped myself on the couch. Cracked open a new book. But I couldn’t read, I couldn’t get lost in the sentences. I had a pit in my stomach. I texted Caleb again. I checked his room—he had made his bed, but otherwise everything looked the same. In the kitchen, I filled a glass of water. This was when I noticed the knife in the sink. The tip was tinted red. I called Caleb and it went to voicemail. I looked at the knife, the dull edges. I turned the faucet on, wiped it clean with a sponge, over and over again. The water was scalding but I kept going. Over and over. I did this until my phone began to buzz. It was an unknown number but I answered anyway. The person on the other line said he was a doctor at Bellevue. I caught my breath. Pressed my back against the nearest wall. Is Caleb okay? I asked.

The doctor said he was fine. He was calling because I was his emergency contact. Caleb had asked him to let me know that he was fine. He was being kept for a twenty-four hour observation.

He tried to kill himself, I said.

Caleb wanted you to tell Claire, he said.

He wanted me to tell Claire he had tried to kill himself?

Yes, the doctor said. He explained the situation to me. I’m no lawyer, but it sounds like extortion. 

I texted Claire. I told her I hoped she was happy because now Caleb had tried to kill himself. I know your family is rich, I wrote. You can replace those pills easily. How did you expect Caleb to ever find that amount of money? I told her how it was mighty convenient of her to get him blackout before she tried extorting him. But Caleb was the wrong mark, I wrote. I wasn’t sure what her intentions were. Perhaps she really thought Caleb would replace her drugs. Perhaps it was all planned. I typed furiously, urgently, angrily. 

Fuck off, I wrote. Or I’ll come kill you myself.

The film we were working on was about Catherine de Medici’s rise to power. Tonally it was going for the sharp snark of The Favourite but so far it seemed to miss the mark completely. The lines fell flat. The fish-eye shots were odd beside those that were more traditionally framed and unexciting. The acting, save for the girl who played young Catherine, was unremarkable. I wondered, sitting in that room, if the director felt the same. I was thinking about this when a neighbor called my phone. The director sighed loudly, dramatically, as I slipped out to answer. The neighbor said the cops were here. Caleb still had a few hours before his release, and so I told her he wouldn’t be back for a bit. I hoped, saying this, that I could get there before him. 

No, she said. They’re here looking for you.

I was stunned. I searched the air for some kind of answer. Finally, I said, I can’t come right now.

I think you need to come, she said. Really. Now.

I told the director and Marc that it was an emergency. Marc, I felt, knew me well enough to know I wouldn’t leave work like this if I didn’t absolutely have to. The director stared at me for a long while. His lips were pressed together tightly; they were turning white. You don’t need me, I said. I looked at Marc, hoping he would agree. The director sighed. He said he couldn’t believe this was happening. That he was the director, his time was valuable. More valuable than mine. I nodded along. When he stopped—I wasn’t sure if he was finished, or just catching his breath—I waved good-bye. I rushed down the hall, down the block, down the train, down the block. The cops were still there, leaning against the discolored walls of my building. They looked bored. 

We’re here about threats you made against Claire Lin, one of them said. I told them she was crazy. She was the one extorting us. They sighed. 

I mean, have you met her? I said.

You didn’t send her a text saying you’d kill her? And your roommate didn’t steal from her?

I did send those texts. And I would send them again. My roommate tried to kill himself over this, I said. She’s the one harassing us. 

Can you just promise us you won’t do anything more? Don’t contact her, don’t go over there. She’ll likely try to file a restraining order, anyway.

I laughed. A restraining order? That benefits me just as much as it benefits her. Right? She has to stay away from us, too.

The cops shrugged. Sure.

I laughed again.

When Caleb returned, he seemed embarrassed. He slunk into his room in some bashful silence. I followed him. I told him it would all be fine. I know, he said. She would be crazy to keep going after I tried to kill myself. He sank into his bed.

Which you did on purpose, I said. 

I’m so ashamed. I couldn’t cut any deeper.

Did you want to die?

He thought about this. Yes, he said. I did.

This made me sad. I gathered him in my arms, squeezing him tight. I said, I told you seeing Claire was not a good idea.

He was crying now. You did, he said. I should have listened. 

She’s taking out a restraining order—on me. But since we live together I think it applies just as well to you. I don’t think we’ll be seeing her ever again.

I have to tell you something, he said. A look crossed his face. Worse than shame. I found a pill in my stuff this morning, he said.

One pill doesn’t mean anything, I said. But I felt my stomach twist itself all over.

I invited Marc over that night. I never did this. He walked in, scanning the contents of my apartment, of my life. I didn’t want him to know me this way. Which is to say, I didn’t want him to know me at all. I led him into my bedroom. He fucked me, and it felt good, and I felt good. Powerful and new. When we were done, he said, Will you tell me now what’s going on?

No, I said. I won’t.

It seemed serious, he said. Do you need a lawyer?

I need a hitman, I said. He laughed. I laughed too.