by T. Styles
“Damn…”
“It made me not care about life anymore after that shit, Mad,” he said softly. “She was such a great person, and she didn’t deserve to go out like that. Anyway the trial went to court and he got out after a year. The dude had a history as an arsonist and he’d killed hundreds, but they could never catch him before he killed my sister. He never answered to his crime. I’m talking about the fact that he didn’t do one day in prison, Mad. His lawyer got him off on some technicality and he walked. My parents were guilt ridden after that shit and died from broken hearts. It made me feel worthless. So after I helped bury my parents I caught up with him on the set of one of his movies and I stabbed him to death. Right in front of everybody. At first people thought it was a prank, or relating to the movie but when he didn’t move and I pulled the bloody knife out of his chest they knew it was serious. So I went on the run after that.” He finally looked at me. “And before I knew it I ended up here.” He looked up into the ceiling. “In this tomb.”
I didn’t know what to say.
“What made you tell me your story?”
“The rest of the gang loves me, but I don’t think they really want to know what I’ve been through. I feel like you were really strong enough to take some of the load for me. So I told you.”
“Thanks, I think.” I paused. “I just want to—”
“Is everything okay?” Everest asked walking up behind us.
Something about her voice made me pause. I can’t like this bitch. I won’t like this bitch.
“Everything cool,” Spirit said kissing her on the cheek. “I’m going back inside now.” He walked off.
I was about to follow him until she extended her hand in front of me.
“Hi, I’m Everest. And you are?”
“Not interested,” I said walking around her and back to Spirit’s place. “And stay the fuck away from me.”
CHAPTER 9
MAD
“You have a urinary tract infection, you’re not burning,” Old Man Young said to me as I stood in the entrance of his cubby. “I tasted your urine and it was sweet. You’ll be okay.”
What the fuck?
“How do you know that from drinking my piss?” I asked observing the surroundings. “And why the fuck are you drinking it?” I frowned.
He had so many books in his spot that I didn’t know where he slept. And half of the books in his room are half eaten by rats. But he picked up a dark blue hardcover book with gold writing and approached me. “Outside of tasting the sweetness of your urine, you said it hurts when you piss correct?” He looked inside of the book, and ran his finger slowly from left to right over the words.
“Yes,” I nodded.
“And you say you have pain on one side of your back correct?”
I rubbed my lower back, although I’m not sure why. “Yes. It hurts like shit too.”
“Well you have a urinary tract infection.” He slammed the book closed and tossed it on the floor. It landed next to the rest of his chewed up books. “It’s as simple as that, so you can relax some. You’ll be okay.”
“Relaxing is the last thing I feel like doing right now. This shit is killing me.”
He turned around and walked deeper into his cubbyhole. He flung shirt after shirt on the floor until he found a red one. With the red shirt in his hand he dug into the pocket and pulled out a pill bottle. He approached me and handed me the bottle.
“That will help. Take one everyday with food.”
I looked at the bottle. “What is it?”
“The cure. As long as you don’t miss a day, you’ll be good. I got them from a pharmacy awhile back from one of the residents.”
I frowned. “But how did I get this shit?”
“Do you drink lots of liquid?”
“Of course,” I said thinking about the Hennessey I downed before even coming to see him. “I drink something everyday.” I smiled. “At least I try.”
He lowered his head. “I’m talking about water, Mad.”
“Water?” I frowned shaking my head. “Naw, what I want with water outside of washing up in it?”
“Listen, I love liquor like the next man. In fact I drink it everyday just like you. But my love for the bottle is also the reason I have cirrhosis of the liver, am severely underweight, and I have jaundice which give me these yellow eyes”— he widened them— “I also bruise easily and I’m always tired too. Now I’m not going to tell you how to live your life. After all”— he looked up into the grungy tunnel’s ceiling— “who am I to give advice considering my lifestyle? But I will say this, if you want to be like me you keep on drinking how you’re drinking and you will. I figure I got about six more months in me before I keel over. I wonder how much time you got?”
I don’t say anything. I heard what he said but I do know this, I’m not gonna stop drinking no time soon. I’ll just add some water to my routine until I get rid of this situation.
“Thanks for the pills,” I said tugging on my cap. “I’ll get up with you later.”
“Thank you my ass. That medicine gonna run you a bottle of vodka.”
****
As I walked down the east wing leading to the crossroads, I was holding a bucket of water in one hand, and Pickle’s hand in the other. Inside of the bucket was a bar of soap, and two new washcloths hung on the rim. I also cut open a box and stuffed it under my arm.
Once I made it to The Crossroads, I banged a left to walk toward the shower area, the place where most people wash up. I put the flashlight on the ledge. “Aight, Pickles, I’m gonna wash you up okay?”
He looked up at me like I was speaking Chinese.
“What’s wash up?”
Damn. Little Yo ain’t been clean in forever. He don’t even know what it means.
“It’s when I clean your body and your feet so that they won’t funk up me and Gage’s cubby. Get it now?” He giggled. “So that’s funny huh? That you be out here stinking and shit?” I joked.
“Yes,” he smiled again.
I shook my head and took the bar of soap out of the bucket. I also took off his shorts and dirty shirt. I’m going to have to get him some gear because he’s been wearing this outfit forever.
When I removed his clothes I noticed that he had all kinds of rat bites over his body. I tried to act like it wasn’t nothing but I’m fucked up by seeing the condition of his skin.
After I washed Pickles, I put back on his dirty clothes. Since there was still some clean water left, I stepped a little away, pulled my pants down a little and washed myself up with the other rag. Normally I wouldn’t do it here, but the restaurant I usually go to was closed for renovations. As I freshened up he stood on the cardboard box and when I saw he was watching me, I stepped further away from him and wiped my joint, but when I wiped the washcloth across the place where my breasts use to be. The bruise on my body was a constant reminder of my past.
A few years ago my sister’s ex-boyfriend raped me. The day he violated me stayed with me always. After the rape I was placed in a hospital where my father came in and gave me a scalpel. He knew how much I hated my female body so he told me if I wanted to have my breasts removed, that I should dig into them there. Since I was at a hospital it was the best place because at least they had to save me. In my breasts’ place was a mutilated chest and I like it better that way.
I’m almost finished when I heard a loud scream. Something was always happening here. I poured the water out and threw everything in the bucket. Pickles grabbed it and we both headed in the direction of the screams, which was toward the East Wing. The drama was right in front of Spirit’s cubby. The rest of Mad MaXXX was looking at Fish and some woman.
“What’s going on?” I asked Spirit. Pickles stood next to me.
“That’s Fish’s mother,” he whispered. “She found out he lived here and came in to get him. They said she didn’t even use a flashlight. Just kept walking until she found him.”
“Wait, she came into the Tunnel without
light?” I never heard of anything like that before.
“Yep! It fucked me up too, Mad. I guess she really love the nigga.”
I looked at her again. She didn’t look like a superhero. In my opinion she was average, but there had to be strength in her because walking inside is not for the weak at heart. “Did she come in by herself?”
“Yep!”
As I watched her try to pull Fish out of the tunnel a feeling came over me. And I knew it was wrong which was why I tried to push it away. If he had a mother who cared about him I wondered why he was down here with us. My mother never gave a fuck about what I did just as long as I was home when the social worker came so she could get her check. I had no idea where my father was, and I’m sure he forgot about me too. Even if he did care he wouldn’t come here.
“Fish, I love you,” his mother said grabbing his hand. “And I don’t know what you’re doing here with these people but I want you home. I don’t care about you being on drugs anymore. We can get you help, son. Just please come home with me. Your family misses you so much and I miss you too.”
“You think he’ll leave with her?” someone asked me.
When I turned around I was staring into Everest’s pretty face. I hate that I think she’s cute because I want her to go away. But since the first day she got here she always seemed to be following me, and I never knew why.
“I don’t know if he’ll leave with her or not,” I said with an attitude. “It ain’t my business like it ain’t yours.”
I turned around and walked toward Gage’s cubby. I could tell by the soft thud of Everest’s tennis shoes that she was following me.
I stopped and turn around. “Look, I don’t like you,” I told her. “So stay the fuck away from me aight?”
“You’ve been hurt before haven’t you?” she asked me.
“Shawty, you don’t even know the half.”
CHAPTER 10
MAD
I walked quickly down the DC sidewalk, feeling like I could commit murder again if I wanted to. I was so sure of it that I stared into the face of everybody who I passed on the street. I wanted one person, just one, to give me a reason to unleash. I’m sick of the bullshit that goes on in The Catacombs, and I’m even madder for not having any place else to go to get away from it. I need a getaway for real. Maybe Fish’s mother made me feel bad for not having anybody in my life.
I thought I got my wish for a release when a pretty light skin chick with long black hair pulled up on the side of me. She was driving a black BMW, and she looked good pushing it too.
She rolled down the passenger window and asked, “You need a ride?”
I was immediately suspicious. Why would a chick looking like her pull up on somebody who looked like me? I was about to step off until I realized that since she was driving the BMW, she had way more at risk than I did. I might as well take a chance. Besides, what else did I have to lose?
“Yeah, you gonna give me one?” I responded tugging my cap.
The lock to the passenger door popped up and she said, “Get in, cutie.”
I climbed into the car and looked her over while she drove. She was wearing a red Gucci tank top and some black jeans. The car smelled like new and it was sparkling clean. I even peeped the red on the bottoms on her shoes and the brown Louis Vuitton purse that was open in the backseat with a few hundred-dollar bills stuffed inside.
For a moment I pretended like this was my car and she was my bitch. When I realized I would never be rich I felt dumb.
“What’s your thing?” I asked. “For real. Women like you don’t approach niggas like me.”
She smiled. “My thing is whatever you want it to be.” She continued to drive and I continued to watch her some more. She seemed confident. When she pulled up on a liquor store she parked. “You drink?”
“Yeah,” I said still giving her the one eye. “But I don’t have no money.”
“I didn’t ask you that. All I want to know is what’s your poison?”
I sat back into her cream leather seat. “Grab a fifth of Hennessy.”
When I gave her my order she acted like it was nothing. She snatched a one hundred dollar bill out of her purse and hopped out of the car. I had to blink three times to be sure I wasn’t seeing things. Shawty left the keys to her BMW in the ignition and her Louis V purse in the backseat. I could’ve pulled this car off or at the very least took the purse and ran, but I was even more interested. She was testing me and I decided to play along.
Ten minutes later she returned with two bottles of Hennessey and some chips. “I grabbed them in case you wanted something to munch on. We can stop to get something to eat later if you’re still hungry.”
She pulled off and I popped open the Doritos bag. I leaned the bag toward her to see if she wanted any but she shook her head no. “I gotta know what’s up with you? This is too good to be true. Where I’m from a day like this is like hitting the lotto.”
“You looking too much into this,” she grinned. “Just trust me and have fun, because that’s all I want from you.”
“Then why you picking up strange people walking off the street?”
“You strange?” she asked. “You seem pretty ordinary to me.”
“In all of your life you’ve never met a nigga like me.”
“Listen, all I want to know is if I can make you famous?” she paused as she focused on the road ahead of her. “Can I?” she looked at me briefly.
I thought about what I was doing today. Nothing.
“You can make me anything you want.”
****
We were in a nice hotel and I just finished taking a shower and putting on some fresh clothes that she picked up for me in the hotel lobby downstairs. I was lying in the bed, with a bunch of pillows behind my head feeling like I was in heaven. The chick that I now knew as Farah Cotton, because I saw her driver’s license when she went into the shower, was standing at the foot of the bed with a sly smile on her face. She was wearing a red bra and matching panties. She was bad.
“You look like you’re buzzing over there,” she said to me. “I like that. Drunk sex is always the best.” She crawled on top of me, straddled me and I removed her bra. “And you clean up real good too.”
“Thanks, sexy,” I said trying to maintain my cool when all I wanted to do was fuck the shit out of her. Hard too.
“You ready to have a good time? I know I am.”
“I been ready,” I winked.
She kissed me on the side of my face and then the other cheek. She was about to lift up my shirt until I grabbed her wrist.
“I get it,” she smiled. “You one of them girl types who don’t like to be touched. You won’t have no more problem with me though. Like I said all I want is to have a good time. So let me. Okay?”
Silence.
She bent down and kissed me. She stuffed a lot of tongue into my mouth and I could feel her warm pussy through the shorts I was wearing. She used the same toothpaste I used in the bathroom, so her kiss was minty.
“You know how to kiss,” she said looking into my eyes. Our faces were so close now that she looked cross-eyed. It was kind of blowing my mood. “I like that.”
I kissed her again and tilted my head.
“You don’t talk much do you?” she asked me.
I shook my head no.
“The mysterious type, huh?”
I shrugged.
“You got family out here?” she ran her finger over my chin. “Anybody who may come looking for you if you stay out to late with me?”
“Naw, I’m out here by myself. Time’s not a factor in my life.”
“I’m going to cut the lights out okay?”
She hopped off of me and it took my eyes a second to adjust to the darkness. Although I couldn’t see her clearly after blinking twice, I could see her silhouette. She bent down and kissed me on the neck and for some reason I liked it. Her tongue ran back and forth slowly.
Things were warming up until she removed her
mouth and I felt a sharp pain next to my jugular vein. I was about to scream but then she followed it up by sucking on my neck hard. Not knowing what the fuck was going on, I pushed her off and ran over to the wall to turn the light on. When I did I couldn’t believe what I saw. Her mouth was covered in my blood and I put my hand on my neck. It was bleeding. Next to her was a silver razor blade that was shiny red.
“What the fuck is you doing?” I yelled. “Why you cut me?”
She looked deranged dripping in my blood. “Come on, baby, I’m just having fun. Aren’t you into pain and pleasure?” She got up and moved toward me like a lion.
I can’t remember being more scared in my life.
“If you take another step I’m going to kill you,” I said grabbing my pants off of the floor and sliding into them. “Do you hear me?”
She stopped in place. “With what? The plastic dick you have strapped between your legs?” She frowned.
This bitch was a lunatic so I turned the knob on the door trying to get out but she slammed it shut. We were wrestling against the door and I was doing all I could to get away from her. But the liquor felt like it was weighing me down and I couldn’t fight back the way I use to. I think she may have drugged me. Before I knew it she had me pinned to the floor with a firm finger against my lips.
“Shhh,” she said looking down at me. “You might as well give into this, baby. Think about it for a moment, you are a bum. You are homeless and you have nowhere to go. You might as well sacrifice yourself over to me and be famous for it. You wouldn’t believe who you are in the presence of now.”
My body shivered and I tried to be calm. I could be wrong but something told me she got off on seeing my fear. If I got out of this again I would never fuck with somebody off the street again.
“And who the fuck are you?”
“They call me the DC Vampire because I love to taste a little blood from time to time. But unlike the shit you see in fairy tale books, I don’t have any special powers. I’m just a woman who loves inflicting pain and you will be my latest victim.”