The moment we entered the abandoned building the stench of stale vomit, feces, and urine overtook me. I had to cover my mouth to keep from retching my guts out.
“You a’ight?” D-Waite stopped me. “We can kill this whole thing.”
“No, let’s go.” I followed him down a long hallway, and up a rusty steel staircase. Along the way we passed sleeping bodies, shopping carts, and even a dog or two. I tried not to stare at the people as we passed them in order to respect their privacy but it was hard. Some were doing things in public that I wasn’t sure should have even been attempted in private. This was the very bottom rung of life and I couldn’t believe that my aunt had willingly come in here. D-Waite led me up two flights of stairs and down a hallway to a door.
“This is a shooting gallery. Where the heads go to get blazed up. It’s not gonna be pretty.” He tapped three times and the door opened. A short guy with dreadlocks opened his mouth wide, revealing a toothless smile.
“Dame. I didn’t know you made special deliveries. Set me up?”
“Nah, I’m just looking for someone.” He pushed past the guy into the room.
“But if you got some you want to get rid of I’m first. Okay? I’m gon . . . gon . . . gonna be first,” he stuttered behind us.
Everywhere I looked junkies were shooting up and nodding off all over the place. There were young, old, every color, people scratching their skin off; a few of the women were half naked, exposing dirty bras and breasts. A beautiful young girl was half naked, hugged up with a flashy pimp who looked old enough to be her grandfather. Just the sight made my skin crawl but I knew I couldn’t do anything to help her. We went through a couple of open doors and saw more of the same. We passed a door that was slightly ajar. I thought that I saw something so I stopped. D-Waite followed the direction I was looking and pushed the door open. There was my aunt, her blouse undone as a skinny guy in front of her felt her up.
“But I need it. I just got a little taste today,” she begged.
“Now you needy. Reason nobody wants to sell to your ass came from high up.”
Kim looked up, shocked to see us enter the room. The guy turned and that’s when I saw that his pants were undone. Her hand was is his pants. My aunt’s eyes got wide.
“Hey, baby! How you doing?” She moved her hands away from him.
“Aunt Kim, what are you doing in here?” I shouted at her.
“I was just visiting my friend,” she tried to cover.
“Dame, man, you got some stuff? I got a few dollars.” The guy pulled out a small stack of bills. D-Waite waved his money away.
Suddenly Aunt Kim focused on him. “This your friend, honey? Well I’m her aunt. Can you get my friend some of what he needs?” She was all jumpy and rubbing her arms.
“We have to get out of here.” He took on a sterner tone than I was used to hearing.
“But my friend. He needs a little fix. Not a big one. Just a little one. I mean I can give you the money. I got money but nobody will help me. I mean help him.” She was acting all manic and crazed.
“Let’s get you out of here.” He took her arm and led her out.
She grabbed on, clinging to him. “I can be real nice to you,” she purred.
“Aunt Kim. This is my boyfriend!” I snapped.
“Yeah, well he a man and a man needs a woman. Don’t worry. I ain’t trying to keep him or nothing.”
D-Waite leaned in, whispering in my ear, “It’s the drugs talking.”
By the time we got my aunt onto the sidewalk she had propositioned him four more times.
“What now?” I asked as he headed toward Cumberland. Junkies kept begging D-Waite for drugs.
“Back to your place.”
A big black SUV pulled alongside us and stopped. It was the same one that had violently taken D-Waite. Aunt Kim broke away and hurried toward the closed doors. The window rolled down.
“Hey, Poppa, how you doing? I don’t know what’s wrong. I got money and nobody will take it.“
“What?” a deep voice from inside the car barked.
“Yeah, like nobody.”
“Dame,” the voice shouted.
D-Waite let go of my hand and went over to the car.
“How come one of my favorite customers can’t get her hand on what she needs?”
“Yeah, how come?” Kim acted all big and bad, nothing like the aunt I’d gotten to know this last year.
“I don’t know,” D-Waite said, but I could tell he was lying ’cause his voice sounded terse.
“Fix it,” the voice snapped before the windows rolled up and SUV sped off. D-Waite looked worried.
“You can’t sell to her,” I whispered.
“Hell yes, he can,” she shouted, sounding pleased with herself.
“You promised my mother that you would stay clean. That you would take care of me. What happened to that?”
“I tried.” Her voice weakened.
“No, when Preston came around you started blowing off your meetings and just did everything for him.”
“I did not do everything for him. There were things he wanted me to do that I didn’t.”
“Like what?” D-Waite asked.
“Nothing. Just nothing. You gonna sell me some rocks or do I have to find Poppa and tell him you disobeyed his order?” She acted tough. D-Waite stared from Kim to me. I had no idea how this was going to resolve but if he gave her any drugs we were through.
14
D-Waite went out to get us some food since I hadn’t eaten all day, and who knew how long it had been since my aunt had eaten anything. After my visit to the shooting gallery I couldn’t say that I had an appetite. I really wanted to get my aunt to eat something. Maybe if she put some food in her system it would help. Couldn’t hurt.
D-Waite told me to make sure that she didn’t leave the house. I tried to reason with her and to get her to a meeting or rehab or something before her addiction got any worse. She wouldn’t give me her twelve-step sponsor’s phone number. I figured that since she had only been using for the past twenty-four hours it might be easier for her to get back on the wagon. It made sense to me that the earlier the intervention the better, but she wasn’t having it. Nothing I said or promised could convince her to go with me and get help. Even when I broke down crying, pleading in my mother’s name, it got no reaction from her. Getting high was the only thing that mattered.
“He didn’t want me,” she said, referring to Preston. “What man is gonna want a woman like me?”
“One who is not a pervert!” I reminded her.
“No, any man who likes me is gonna be like him,” she whined, falling deeper to the bottom.
“But, Auntie, that’s not a reason to throw away all of your hard work.”
“It doesn’t matter. None of it matters. I’m always going to be alone. People like me don’t really get a second chance,” she cried out, sounding broken and hopeless.
“Yes, they do. You will. You just have to stay clean and sober; then anything is possible.” I repeated all the things I had heard my mother say to her in the months before she died.
“I just need to get high once. Just one last time and then I will go to a meeting and fix this. See, if I had some then I would feel like I don’t need it anymore.”
“Do you hear how you sound?”
“Poppa told your boyfriend to get me some drugs. Now if he don’t then he gonna have to deal with him. You heard what he said.”
“He’s not going to give you any drugs. You’re my aunt and he cares about you.”
“He don’t give two shits about me,” she hollered. “He cares about you and only you. Now you tell that boy if he knows what’s good for him then he will get me my fix.”
As soon as D-Waite returned with food Kim started badgering him. “You got my stuff?”
“How about you eat a little something?” He tried to calm her down but she was fidgeting and pacing the length of the room. Her eyes had grown big like saucers. After trying everyt
hing to convince us to help her get high she relented.
“I’ma go lie down. Maybe I just need some rest.” She went into her room and closed the door. D-Waite and I looked at each other. This was entirely new territory for me.
“At least she’s gonna rest. That’s a good thing right?” I tried to sound hopeful. He stared at the closed bedroom door. His phone started buzzing with texts. After a few message exchanges he looked worried.
“I got to run an errand. Do not let her out of your sight. You can’t trust her,” he warned as he left.
I went to her room and checked on her. Just like she said she was lying with her eyes closed. I jumped in the shower. I wasn’t sure how long I was in there washing off the prison dirt and the shooting gallery dirt but I tried to be quick. When I got out I went to check on my aunt but she was gone.
15
After I phoned D-Waite and told him Kim had left, it was one of the hardest nights of my life. Almost as hard as when my mother died. He told me to stay put in case she came back. I had a horribly sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. Whenever I called either of them I got no answer. I didn’t know if I was gonna lose one or both of the most important people in my world.
D’s boss had made it clear that he expected Damon to sell drugs to my aunt or to find someone else to do it. I didn’t think he would but I couldn’t be sure. Finally I couldn’t take waiting so I went to find them. It wasn’t the safest place but I left the door unlocked in case she tried to get in.
“Look-see, look-see,” Naynay shouted at me as I came out the building. A bunch of people were hanging out, smoking marijuana and listening to music. Somebody had hooked an iPhone up to a portable sound system. Even though it was after midnight there were little kids riding bikes and playing too close to the cloud of pot smoke.
“You got something to say?” Mika sneered at me.
“I was just looking for D-Waite,” I admitted.
“He tired of your inexperienced pussy already?” Naynay laughed, high-fiving a girl I hadn’t seen before.
“How’s your daddy?” Mika snapped at me. “Did you have nice little visit?”
“How you know I went to see my father?” I couldn’t hide my shock that she knew I had visited my father.
“For me to know and you to figure it out.” She rolled her eyes at me. “Don’t be surprised if you wind up right there with him.”
“Whatever! Any of y’all seen D?” I asked, but they all stared me down and refused to speak like I was an alien or something. I started heading toward the shooting gallery when Taj rolled up on his bike.
“Your man know you out here? Or are you looking for a new man?” he flirted.
“You seen D-Waite?”
“Earlier. Poppa’s not happy! He know what’s good for him he’ll stay missing. He shut it down for Crackhead Kimmie and some of the guys ratted on him. They always tryin’a come up and they don’t care how they do it.”
“Is he gonna get in trouble?” I was so worried about him.
“He’ll probably let him live.” The look of fear on my face must have been funny. Taj busted out laughing.
“What?”
“D-Waite gets out of shit. Dude’s like a cat. Most of us did real bids and all he ever got was a few months at juvie. So don’t worry your pretty little head.”
“I just wish he would call me,” I admitted.
“I wouldn’t be walking these streets alone if I were you. Real-life shit happens out here, especially at night.”
My phone beeped with a message. “I gotta go. Thanks.” I took off across the park, not thinking. All through the park I kept seeing derelicts, homeless, and people I wouldn’t want to see in the light of day.
“Baby, how much?” a couple of drunks shouted out at me as I passed.
“Hey.” I felt someone grab hold of my arm. “Get off of me,” I screamed out as I wrenched my arm away.
“This is our place at night,” a toothless homeless woman smoking on a cigarette snapped.
“This is our goddamn Vegas,” another voice yelled out. “What happens in here stays in here!”
Laughter followed me all the way until I reached the street. I glanced around, making sure no one was following me; then I crossed the street and went inside the apartment. The place was empty and I had to wait a few minutes until D arrived. He looked a real hot mess; his face was scratched up and his clothes ripped.
“What happened?” I screamed, imagining the worst.
“I couldn’t stop her. She just had to get that fix.”
“So you found her? Where is she?”
“You’re gonna have to trust me.” He grabbed me by the hands and sat me down.
“Tell me!” I screamed, ’cause now I was imagining the worst.
“I found her and she was nodding off under the bridge near the shooting gallery. She was a real mess. But when I picked her up she started fighting me off, clawing, hitting, and ripping my clothes. I had to get her out of there and quick before any of Poppa’s boys saw us. They may be my friends but they’re all about tryin’a take my spot. So I got her out of there and I took her to a guy I know. Used to be a huge junkie but he got on the wagon and now he helps people like your aunt get better.”
“He runs a rehab?”
“You can call it that. It’s a different kind of place.”
“Different how?” I got all suspicious and pulled away.
“They don’t ask questions and they get results. It’s a low-bottom place.”
“We got to get her out of there and into a real hospital.”
“She’d have to be willing to sign herself up, to commit to a program, and even then we’d have to find one.”
“But what do you know about this guy? What if he hurts her?”
“He’s not going to hurt her. He’s the real deal.”
“How can you be sure? What do you really know about this guy?” I saw something in his eyes that worried me. “Tell me.”
“He’s my father.”
“Your father?”
“Yes.”
“I thought you didn’t talk to him.”
“I don’t. I mean I haven’t spoken to my dad in five years. Growing up he was so addicted to that stuff that he did whatever he needed to in order to get it. He would sneak into our apartment and steal the rent money. He stole my Discman. Our television. Anything he could sell quickly. We were almost homeless and that’s when I started working for Poppa. I had to support my moms and sister. I was a lookout, then a courier, and then a dealer. Five years ago my dad gets clean. Comes back to the hood and starts this underground program helping get junkies clean. I’m talking the lifelong addicts. He asks me to give up working for Poppa. Wants me to go back to school. Go back to my dreams, but it’s too late for me. I’m too angry and too used to being on my own to trust that I can trust him again. He gets my little sister and my moms out of the projects but I won’t go. Not much to say to him after that.”
“And you went to see him today? For me?” D-Waite pulled me into his arms. “Girl, nothing I wouldn’t do for you. He’s gonna take care of her. Said it can take three to six months ’cause she’s broken. Then she’ll go upstate to a different program, where she’ll get a job and a place away from here and start a new life.”
“You did that for me?” The tears kept falling down my face. I glanced up to see that he was crying too. “What, baby?”
“He begged me again to leave this place. I told him about you, that you were leaving in a few months to go off to college in Boston.”
“You did?”
“Yeah, and he asked me to go with you.”
“Will you?”
“I don’t know. What will I do?”
“You can start over. We will have a chance.”
“You really want me to go?”
“D, I need you. I need you so much.” I collapsed into his arms.
“Then I’m going with you. Baby, I’m going with you.”
For the rest of t
he night we talked about our plans and made love, sweet love, as if it were both the first and last time we’d ever touched that way. I fell asleep exactly where I wanted to be: in the arms of the man I loved.
16
I hurried into the building, glancing around to make sure I wasn’t being watched. I saw Mika and her girls but I didn’t think they noticed me. They were too busy huddled together, whispering about something. Running up the stairs I took them two at a time. I couldn’t wait to get back to D-Waite and to start our new life. Just the thought of him joining me in Boston and leaving this place behind made me want to see him. Hopefully I could gather all my stuff and be out in no time. D asked me to move in with him because he didn’t want me in Cumberland.
“You don’t belong there,” he held my face in between his hands. “I want you to be here with me so that I can protect you.” My aunt would be in rehab for six months. The first few months I would still be in Brooklyn and I could check on her. I was so glad that we got her away from that life.
Taking my suitcase from the closet I placed it on the bed, opened it, and started throwing clothes inside. I would use my social security money to pay the rent while my aunt was in rehab but I really hoped she wouldn’t come back here. I opened my backpack and put my computer inside. I was so busy daydreaming and packing that I didn’t hear the knocking. My stomach sunk at first but then I remembered that it could be one of the real friends Kim had made in the building.
“Who is it?” I called out through the door.
“It’s Mika,” answered the last person I expected. “Look, I know I’m not your favorite person but I just need to talk to you.”
“About what?” I shouted through the door.
“Gabby, I want to apologize.” She spoke in a softer tone than I had heard her use before. “I swear I won’t do anything to hurt you. If you look at me you will see that I’m serious.” It was like she was pleading with me.
After a few moments I opened the door. A more subdued Mika stepped into the apartment, carrying a backpack. It occurred to me that I didn’t even know that she was in school. I didn’t know anything about her. She offered a warm smile.
Girls From da Hood 8 Page 7