Expiration Date by Duane Swierczynski Read Free Book Online

to coax clues from investigator. It is the investigator’s belief that patient was trying to fake a successful experience by supplying details vague enough to appear
     
    He stopped typing and leaned back in his chair, almost smacking into me.
    “Erna?” he asked. “Is that you?”
    Not by a long shot, big boy.
    DeMeo heaved himself forward to check his handwritten notes again. I glanced at the date on the top of the report:
February 25, 1972
     
    So okay, I was still stuck in this dream about the past. A past I could see, smell, touch and hear. I was pretty sure I’d be able to taste something if I licked it. Like, say, the half-eaten doughnut on DeMeo’s desk. But I wasn’t ready for that kind of experimentation yet. I didn’t know where DeMeo’s mouth had been.
    The doctor spun himself back to his typewriter. The machine-gun clacking resumed.
    I slipped out the front door as quickly and quietly as possible. Did he notice the door as it opened for a quick second, then slammed shut on its own? I had no idea and honestly didn’t give a shit.
     
     
    Downstairs, Frankford Avenue was quiet. There weren’t many cars, just a few people strolling up and down the sidewalks. The stores were long closed, but a few bars and delis were doing some business with drunks and late-night workers. It was cold. I walked to the corner and stared down Margaret Street.
    One thing I haven’t mentioned yet: I grew up around the corner from my grandpop’s apartment.
    Literally.
    Darrah Street runs parallel to Frankford Avenue, one block away. The street was named for a Revolutionary War heroine named Lydia Darragh. According to legend, she overheard British plans to ambush Washington’s army. She told friends she had to buy some flour from a mill in Frankford. Along the way, she snitched to the Americans, then bought her flour and went home. As a result of her trip to Frankford, the attack was a bust and dozens of American lives were spared—including, possibly, George Washington’s. No idea why the city leaders dropped the “g” from Darragh’s last name when it came time to honor her with a street (formerly a path located near the flour mill). No idea if the story is even true. But it came in handy for a history report or two in grade school.
    Other than that, Darrah Street didn’t have much going for it. In 2002, my mom finally moved to Northwood, which was considered the “upscale” part of Frankford.
    A few years later, not long after I’d joined the City Press as a staff writer, I came across a press release from the state attorney general’s office detailing the bust of a citywide heroin ring. One of the addresses jumped right out at me: the 4700 block of Darrah Street. I couldn’t believe it. A heroin ring, right on the block where I grew up! I called the state attorney general’s press flack for more details, thinking there might be a column in it. As it turned out, it wasn’t just my old block. The drug ring operated out of my childhood home.
    I checked the names of the accused, then called my mom.
    She confirmed it: she’d unknowingly sold her home to a pair of (alleged) heroin dealers.
    “They seemed like a nice young couple.”
    I’m sure they did. Who knew they’d head up an organization that would (allegedly) sell hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of big H all over the city?
    Still, it was unsettling to learn that the house you grew up in, took your first steps in, read your first books in, wrote your first stories in, felt up your first girlfriend in would be the future HQ of people who spent their days stuffing horse into tiny plastic baggies.
    I never pursued the story.
     
     
    If today was really February 25, 1972, then I was three days old and asleep in my crib, just one block away.
    I wondered how far I could push this dream.
    This stretch of Darrah Street was half residential, half industrial—small rowhomes on one side, a fire station and factory on the other. Everybody who lived on the