Feeling better thanks to his best friend, he wearily climbed off and went into the refrigerator and took out an ice cold 40 ounce of Olde English and cracked the top. After slicing up a lemon and stuffing the slices in the bottle he sipped his brew. Mayhem barked like she had a problem.
“What, you want some?” Tommy asked to which his dog replied with a sharp bark that almost sounded like, ‘Hell yeah!’ After consideration he shrugged, mumbled, ‘Fuck it’ and poured some of his 40 into her water dish, which she immediately began lapping up. He could not help smiling. His business phone rang and he reached for it.
“Talk to me…Hey Roxanne how you doing?… I’m chilling…Nah it’s cool. Actually, I was gonna call you cause I’ve decided to do it…Yeah. Besides, I have some pent-up aggression I need to release so why not get paid doing it…. So how much more we talkin?…Bet that’ll work…Aight I’ll be there tonight. Peace.”
After a therapeutic shower Havoc slid into a pair of baggy red acid-washed Guess jeans, a form fitting red Coca-Cola sweat shirt and a box-fresh pair of red striped shell-toed Adidas. Once dressed, he flicked on the television and sat on the edge of his couch with an old Rudy Ray Moore album cover on his lap as he split open a White Owl cigar with his fingernail.
His second favorite commercial after the ‘I don’t want to grow up, I’m a Toys R’ Us kid’ advertisement came on. It was the PSA where a father confronted his son about the stash of drugs his mother found in his room. Havoc mouthed along as the father asks his son, ‘Who taught you how to do this stuff?’ and the son yelled back, ‘You alright! I learned it by watching you!’ Laughing, Havoc scraped out the tobacco center, licked the outer paper, dumped weed inside, wrapped it tightly, licked it, pulled out a lighter and dried it then put it to his mouth and sparked up. After exhaling a white cloud, he mouthed the end of the commercial. ‘Parents who use drugs, have children, who use drugs.’ His personal phone rang and he lowered the volume.
“Who dis?” He answered annoyed.
“Who dis? Is that how you answer your phone?”
“Oh, hey Mommy-O, what’s going on?”
“You tell me. Is everything all right? You sound preoccupied.” Carla asked sensing something was the matter by her son’s tone.
“Not at all.” He said changing his tone as he sparked up.
“You might not want to hear this but it still needs to be said.”
He sighed already annoyed. “Talk to me Ma. What’s on your mind?”
“Well I didn’t want to say anything in front of your sister earlier but I noticed your placed smelled like Lysol attempting to camouflage the smell of marijuana. I’m hoping I was wrong.”
He looked at his watch. He didn’t have time for this. “Ma weed is not a drug. It comes from the earth.”
“So, I guess I got my answer.” His mother sighed disappointedly.
“Okay yes once in a blue I might indulge a little. No biggie.” he fronted downplaying his passion for cannabis.
“No biggie huh? I wonder if your cousin Alonzo started out with that same kind of logic, before moving on to the harder stuff.”
Havoc sank into the couch swallowing billows of smoke and cut his eyes at the ceiling. “So that’s where this is all coming from.”
“Your Aunt Mary told me what’s going on. She said your father and you were getting him help.”
“Yeah that’s right.” He exhaled speaking out the side of his mouth as the exhaust clouded his face.
“Well isn’t that like the blind leading the deaf?”
“Ma chill out. A little weed is a far reach from shooting up dope and smoking crack.” he reasoned and removed a stack of dead presidents as thick as the Sunday Times he kept in a sneaker box and stuffed it into his pocket.
“And silly me here I thought all drugs were against the law.” Carla said. “So how often do you, smoke?”
“Hardly ever.” He lied through a white cloud.
“When’s the last time you, as they put it, indulged?”
“Ma it’s been so long I don’t even remember…then again weed’ll do that to you.” he snickered.
“Boy I’m not playing with you!”
“Sorry Ma. But seriously, it’s been a long time ago in a galaxy far, far, away since I last smoked.” He said, taking a hit and blowing smoke into his dog’s face while trying his best not to laugh at her crazy reaction.
“You know I can tell when you’re lying.”
“Then you’ll know I’m telling you the truth. But dang Ma, you’re like a travel agent for guilt trips.” Her son said glancing at his watch. “Look I don’t mean to rush you off the phone but I was on the way out when you called. So how’s about I call you tomorrow and we won’t discuss this any further Okay?”
“Bye Tommy.” His mother said and abruptly hung up.
Havoc sucked his teeth. He loved his mother dearly and wanted to do whatever he could to make her happy, but he just could not stay clear of the things that he knew made her sad, scared and so protective of him.
On the way out the door, he grabbed his red terrycloth bell shaped Kangol and stuffed a plastic bag from the cleaners into it to give it that perfect smooth round look. He then pulled it down over his shaved dome, covered his eyes with a red pair of Gazelle frames, slid on a red leather bubble goose down then paused, “Wait a minute. How in the hell does she even know what marijuana smells like?” and he wondered if his favorite PSA pertained to him.
Havoc and Mayhem Page 11