The Steakout

It is 11:26 AM, and Milford High School was experiencing it’s very first unannounced drug raid. Police officers, clad in black, bulletproof vests, clench the reins of their dogs as they comb through each echoing hall, one after another. They excel in bringing that dreadful atmosphere, the kind that makes young boys, even the innocent ones, quiver in anxiety. The hurried pants of German Shepherds could be heard alongside the forceful steps of their handlers, and a very cold, intense feeling ran through every classroom, science lab, and restroom. This was an occupied place now—every nerve of every student was perched on a razor’s edge and ultra-sensitive. The memories of smoking behind the bleachers, sneaking Adderall at lunch, and sharing sips of hidden liquor materialized in jagged detail. What was in vogue a few days ago was now being hunted. Rooted up.

But the main cause for the police raid wasn’t the regular sort of delinquency that found itself home here. It was sudden and unexpected arrival of black tar heroin. Large amounts jump from locker to locker, from the opium fields of Afghanistan to the jocks, theater nerds, and alt-kids of Milford High School. What was an educational institution had at once been transformed. Hallways resembled the frankincense-drenched markets of Kandahar. The gym, a new Kaaba, drew the school’s wandering students closer with the temptation of hidden dealers. If one were to close their eyes, they would daydream of unending fields at dawn off the coast of Karachi, with sprouts of alhirwin bursting forth from the earth. This was a new place.

However, it wasn’t always this way. The school, up until this point, had been relatively clean; students were soft, impotent, and tame. The suburbs, with its culture of placidity, had done well in substituting the ambition of youth with tobacco and alcohol—but nothing more. The appearance of hard drugs was wholly unaccounted for, and as the whispers of well-to-do housewives crept up to the local school board. Action had to be taken.

The police moved through the hallways at a steady pace, and the nails of their dogs were clattering across the vinyl flooring. That ominous sound wasn’t lost on Chester Holmes, who, under the cover of using the water fountain, scurried out of his homeroom unseen. His overweight frame bounded towards his locker, and with thick hands, unlocked it, revealing a cooler stuffed with frozen meat wrapped in cellophane.

He didn’t deal in drugs, no, but bushmeat: a mixture of raw meat from exotic species across Africa. This was his game, the illicit collection and sale of imported tastes drawn from crocodiles, zebras, lions, chimpanzees, lowland gorillas, wildebeests, hyenas, and, most treasured of all, the endangered black rhinoceros. How he, a portly high school freshman, managed to position himself at the end of a complicated and illegal supply chain is an utter mystery to outside observers, but the benefits were enormous. By the end of the school year, he’d have earned his father’s salary seven times over from his dealings with the students, teachers, and administrators who craved the texture and umami taste of untamed game. The police dogs wouldn’t find heroin, but instead, one of the greatest news stories to ever emerge from Milford High School.

But Chester wasn’t going down this soon.

His fortune being built on risk had steeled himself on the possibility of disaster, and now it was time to take drastic measures. Thankfully, Chester came prepared; he grabbed a roll of duct tape hidden behind a stack of textbooks and began wrapping the meat directly on his body—slowly at first, and with heightened speed after every passing second. His stomach was soon covered by the piercing bite of frozen idube and inkonkoni. Still, the pain was better than spending the rest of his life in prison, and he knew that. Lowering his shirt, he could sense that he looked ridiculous, with bulging areas around his midsection being somewhat conspicuous, but the faint echoes of heavy boots and grunting dogs made him abandon any thought of changing course now.

Cargo secured, he hurried back to class and was able to retake his seat without issue. He felt somewhat secure in a crowd of his peers. Glancing around, he noticed kids with vacant stares and track marks on their arms—abrasions left from the sting of hypodermic needles. These people were hopeless: they were wasted most of the time, drool running down their chins, but regardless, they made fine customers. The rich kids could afford to tweak out and select their own cut of hippopotamus at the same time. And as for the adults, well, they had their own tastes.

Teachers, with a sense of inadequacy from being out-earned by their spouses every Friday, turned to Chester. Administrators, usually too stupid and lazy to sort paperwork, covered for him in exchange for choice selections from each new shipment. This was all to his benefit, but the vast majority of his wealth didn’t come from low-level dealings between classes and after-school office hours; instead, it came directly from the top.

Principal Gawain, on the outside, was a man who believed in institutions, in their power to structure society and pave the way for students to succeed. His demeanor was stern, fair, and wholeheartedly geared towards using his position in the school system to bring about real, constructive change. He presented well, both to parents and school board members alike. A perfectly capable and firm man who embodied that sort of old-style school management—the way, in the eyes of taxpayers, it ought to be. The propagation of illicit drugs under his watch was utterly unexpected.

And yet, as the years have gone by—and with the arrival of black tar heroin—came cracks in Gawain’s rigid grip. He came in a little later, left earlier. He wore a suit, until he didn’t. This was the effect of sweet Afghani pipe dreams and their velvet stranglehold. And through the chatter of his aides and suspicious cuts of meat stacked in the employee fridge, Principal Gawain came to know of Chester Holmes. They met, shook hands, and made one another a trusted business partner. It was the beginning of a new type of cartel.

Pulling out his phone, Chester began typing:

“What the fuck is going on?”

“Idk, not sure lol,” replied Gawain. “Can u meet me rn?”

“I don’t think so. Police are in the halls.”

“K hang on.”

The intercom beeped and crackled: Chester Holmes, please report to the front office.

He sighed and stood up, feeling the frozen meat shift on his stomach. Its crinkling, awkward frigidity made him feel numb, but he didn’t dare show it. This was determination, a will to survive. Leaving the classroom, he quickly stepped towards the office and, turning a corner, found himself facing a handful of police officers. One of them pointed up and said, “Was that for you?”

“Yeah,” he handed them his school ID and pretended to be distracted by the ceiling tiles. Their dogs began sniffing near his feet, panting heavily. A few officers eyed his midsection.

“All right,” one of them said. “Get going.”

Nodding, and attempting to appear as just a normal fat kid, he passed the police and kept walking. The act of evading suspicion was an art, but not a sustainable one. Sooner or later in these conditions, something was going to break. Or, worse, someone would talk.

Pushing through the doors of the front office, he gave the secretary a look and entered Principal Gawain’s office.

“My man!” Gawain said, arms wide. “How are you?”

“Not great,” Chester said, lifting his shirt. “Look at this—this is fucked. What’s going on?”

“Looks like a little drug raid.”

“Yeah. Of course, but no warning? Nothing?”

“Oh, relax—they’re not after you, man. Come on. They want the big boys, you know? The ‘el blacko taro heroino’. The, uh, ‘mucho drugo’. You, you’re not even on their radar.”

“Well, I don’t like unexpected surprises. Those dogs out there, if they sniffed my locker and found a bunch of frozen meat, they’d look into it.”

“Why’s that?”

“It’s unusual.”

Gawain sighs, “We live in unusual times, Chester. This world is no longer the one I grew up in. It’s different . . . the people are different, their values are different. Our institutions, those three-letter agencies that, ostensibly, work to serve us, don’t. The Constitution, which was meant to preserve our natural rights, has been ignored for the past eight decades.” Reaching into his desk, he retrieves a spoon and a few black pebbles.

“You’re going to do this here? With the cops walking the halls?”

Ignoring him, Gawain continued: “I used to believe in all this . . . structure. But look at our communities, Chester. I see broken homes with people who look nothing like me, act nothing like me—I’ve been made an outcast on the same street I’ve lived in for the past twenty-two years. And for this reason, our neighbors eye one another with distrust.” Pulling a lighter from his pocket, he flicked it to life and let it dance under the spoon. “These conditions didn’t just appear across the country overnight, you know. They were created and molded by the administrative class. Sowing discontent, prompting a further consolidation of top-down power. Every possible upset, every shooting, every riot, it feeds into them. But, I feel like things are spinning even out of their control. The levers of power have been pushed in so many directions . . . the people that engineered them have long since returned to dust. And now,” he said, rolling up his sleeve, “the forces which organize and shape society are moving faster each day with no one behind the wheel. Have you thought about that?”

“What’s your point?”

Pulling a needle from under his desk, he sucks up the black liquid. “My point is that, sooner or later, everything is going to crash. The unelected bureaucrats that sneer at us from up high will lose their nerve, maybe push their narrative a little too far. Retaliation . . .” Gawain’s gaze drifted. “It’ll be bad. People will die, our neighborhoods will collapse, the family unit will be abandoned, and everything we recognize as normal will cease to be. And to that, I say ‘let it happen’, because, at the end of it all, we’ll have an opportunity to remake our society in the way it was meant to be. To dispose of those petty tyrants—that’ll make everything worthwhile.” His eyes seemed to wander through space before focusing back on Chester. “And this,” he said, holding the needle out, “this is going to bring us there a little faster.”

“You’re an accelerationist?”

“A what?”

Getting frustrated, Chester shook his head. “Never mind. Listen, I need to hide out here till they leave. The meat is thawing, and the smell is going to start getting attention.”

Tossing his needle aside, Gawain stood up. “You’ll be a sitting duck here, dude. The police chief is supposed to give me an update once they finish their first sweep through the school.”

“Then what the fuck are we supposed to do?”

“I don’t know, I don’t—well, hang on a second.” He peered through a small window on the far wall. “This is risky . . . but can’t you just run for it? Climb out through here and just get out?”

“I have over six-thousand dollars worth of exotic meat taped to me right now. If I drop even a single cut of rhinoceros, that’d set me back for weeks. This stuff doesn’t come in often.” Chester paused for a moment. “And also, if they see me sprinting away from the scene of an active police raid, they’re going to arrest me.”

“Look, I wasn’t going to say anything at first, but you have a real defeatist attitude right now.”

“Wait! The ceiling tiles,” Chester pointed up towards the ceiling. “I can hide up there till they’re gone.”

Gawain’s eyes went wide. “Yes! That’s it! Here,” he positioned his desk so Chester could climb towards the ceiling. “Get up there and be quiet. Once they’ve left, we can get you down and out of here.”

“Thank God.”

“You know,” Gawain said, pushing on Chester’s thighs to help him up, “this is really an Anne Frank situation we’ve got here.”

Chester didn’t say anything in response, but grunted as he slid up and into the ceiling, hidden from view. Now, he forced himself to remain still. His muscles were tight and his body lied rigid as Principal Gawain rushed to reassemble his office.

It was dark. A thick film of dust coated the small space above the ceiling tiles, and Chester’s breathing sent small plumes of it drifting through the air. By now, the meat had almost completely thawed, and its wet embrace sent juices running down his sides. Some of it was salvageable, sure, but the rest was gone—smooshed beyond repair. This was the price of freedom.

Chester could hear the building creaking from up here, but below, it was quiet. He could kind of peer through a small slit between two tiles, enough to be able to sense movement, but not much else. Then with a burst of sound, the door opened and two men stepped inside. One, what appeared to be the police chief, stepped towards Gawain’s desk.

“Mr. Gawain,” he began. “We’ve just finished our first sweep of the property. You’ve got yourself a very bad situation out there.”

“All right,” Gawain responded. “What’s going on?”

“Our dogs have found seventeen pounds of black tar heroin. Seventeen pounds. It’s unbelievable.”

“And that’s a lot?”

There was a pause.

“Yes, it’s a fucking lot. We’re talking thousands upon thousands of dollars worth of hard motherfucking drugs all across your school. It’s truly, truly unfathomable to have that much in one place.”

“Widely distributed, we mean,” the other voice added. “This shit was in every other locker. We haven’t done personal searches yet, but I can tell you right now, that no one is leaving this school till they’ve been patted down.”

“Okay, so, what happens now?” Gawain asked.

“Our team is beginning to go classroom-by-classroom, but I think you need to come with us in the meantime.”

Chester heard the building creak again, this time louder, and he could feel the reverberations beneath his stomach.

“I’m under arrest right now? Is that what’s going on?”

“We just need to get a statement, and then we’ll go from there. How does that s—”

Chester’s body collapsed through the ceiling tiles and slammed into the police chief, sending them both to the ground. The other officer let out a scream and stepped back, drawing his pistol.

“Wait, no!” Gawain shouted, climbing over his desk. Six shots rang out. Two lodged into Chester’s side, and the rest into Gawain, killing him instantly.

Chester awoke with a gasp, finding himself handcuffed to a hospital bed. What the—”, feeling his stomach, the meat was gone. He wasn’t in any pain, but his mind raced to determine what was going on.

In the corner, a police officer cleared his throat. “So, you’ve survived.”

Turning towards him, Chester responded, “What’s happening here?” He looked around the room and saw a few other officers standing around his bed.

“Well, you fell through the ceiling and killed the police chief during your descent,” one said. “The vertebrae in his neck shattered on impact. He died within seconds.”

“And this,” another officer groaned, stepping towards him with a slab of meat, “took two nine-millimeter bullets for you. Absorbed them completely. The doctors estimate that you’d be dead right now if it wasn’t taped to your body.”

Chester’s face went white. “Jesus Christ.” He jiggled his handcuffs. “And this?”

“You’re being charged with third-degree murder, assault on a police officer, assisting in the sale of illicit drugs, and disturbing the peace.” The officer sighed. “You’re going away for life, kid.”

Later that day, Chester was discharged from the hospital and taken to Milford Juvenile Detention Center to await trial. As time passed, he felt the cold, concrete interior begin to fade. He began paying attention to his peers, and found familiar faces. The empty stares, the track-marked arms. The former students of Milford High School. Welcome home.