Dollar Bill

by Joy

  “Dollar, can’t you see he needs a doctor? He’s sweating bullets, but he is as cold as a corpse,” Tommy said. “He needs a doctor.”

  Dollar looked at Tommy who had a frantic look on her face. Maybe she was right, Dollar thought. Dollar’s main reason for not wanting to take Ral to the hospital was because he had no idea what kind of shit Ral had been in and how many brushes with the law he had managed to accumulate. What if he had warrants? The hospital was sure to know he was a drug addict. Taking Ral to the hospital might have been like checking him into jail. Dollar could see that Ral was slowly but surely deteriorating. Getting through this first twenty-four hours didn’t look so promising.

  Tommy was right; Ral needed a doctor. This could ruin everything Dollar had planned for the three. He wanted Ral, but more so, he needed Ral alive and healthy.

  Ral began to wheeze and vomit. He was near convulsions. Tommy grabbed the toothbrush she had purchased for Ral at Walmart and used the handle to hold his tongue flat so that he would not choke on it.

  “Dollar,” Tommy screamed. “Please! He needs a doctor.”

  Tommy took Ral’s head and held it in her arms. Was this her fault? Maybe she could have done something. Dollar wouldn’t have allowed Ral to get to this point. Ral used to be Tommy’s number one running partner, and now look at him. Tommy began to tremble as she rocked Ral.

  “Come on, Ral,” Tommy said. “I ain’t save your life all those times just so you could turn around and kill yourself. Come on, big baby, you can get through this.”

  Tommy kissed Ral on his forehead and proceeded to give him pep talks. Dollar had never seen Tommy like this. He had never seen an emotional, nurturing side to Tommy. The scene before him reassured Dollar that he could, in fact, count on Tommy. He watched her interact with Ral a little while longer before giving the order.

  “Come on,” Dollar said. “We’re taking him to see a doctor.”

  CHAPTER 11

  White Boy Wasted

  “It’s four o’clock in the morning. Who in the hell can that be?” Klein said as the repeated beating on his front door woke him. Buck naked, as he always slept, he slipped on some boxers and a T-shirt and headed down the spiral staircase. He separated the blind with his hand and peeked out of the picture window beside the front door to view the side profile of Dollar.

  Klein dropped his hands and stood there as Dollar continued to knock. As Klein headed back up the spiral staircase, Dollar’s knock became harder and more desperate.

  “Yo, Doc,” Dollar called. “Come on, man. It’s me, your big brother. Please open up.”

  Dollar had driven out near the suburb of Munster, where his brother lived. He’d looked up his address in the phone book. He was surprised to find it there because most black people didn’t list their information, but with Klein being in the medical profession, he was sure enough in the book. Usually folks in the legal and medical profession listed their information in the directory.

  Hesitantly, Klein reconsidered. He came back down the steps and opened the door. There stood Dollar with Ral limp in his arms. Tommy had Dollar drop her off at her house with the girls and gave him permission to use her car to go get Ral help. When Klein saw Ral, he knew that he needed immediate medical attention.

  “What happened to him?” Klein said, helping Dollar carry him in. “Is he hit?”

  “No, man,” Dollar replied. “He’s fiendin’. I don’t know what to do.”

  Klein quickly retrieved his medical bag and began to take Ral’s vital statistics. Dollar anxiously paced back and forth.

  “Can’t we give him something like chocolate or something?” Dollar asked.

  “How long has it been since he had a hit?” Klein asked.

  “I don’t know, Doc,” Dollar replied. “He hasn’t really been able to communicate with me. This is my first time seeing him since I been out. Found him like this at a dope house.”

  “Why didn’t you take him to the ER?”

  Dollar’s expression answered his brother’s question.

  “You ain’t getting me caught up in no bullshit, are you?” Klein inquired.

  “You know I wouldn’t do that to you, bro.”

  “Help me carry him upstairs to the tub,” Klein instructed Dollar. “I’ll do all that I can do for him, but you’re the one who is going to have to stay up and keep an eye on him.”

  Dollar and Klein carried Ral to the tub and filled it with lukewarm water. Klein insisted that Ral’s temperature needed to be regulated. He instructed Dollar to drain the water as it chilled and refill the tub. He showed Dollar how to take and read Ral’s blood pressure, and how to take and read his temperature. He told Dollar to force Ral to drink fruit juice and to secure his tongue if he went into convulsions. And if this did occur, he didn’t care what Dollar said, he was having Ral transported to the hospital.

  All night Dollar nursed Ral like a wounded, stray puppy that had followed him home. It seemed like hours passed by before there was a sign of life in Ral.

  “Yo, Dollar,” Ral said, waking up half out of it, still soaking in the tub. “What am I in for?”

  Ral’s voice woke Dollar from his catnap. “Huh?” Dollar replied, wiping his eyes.

  “What am I in the joint for? It was my moms, huh? I told that old bitch I was gonna bring her television set back to her.” Ral began to twitch and gag. Dollar grabbed him and positioned him in a headlock to try to gain some control over his twitching and jerking body.

  “Don’t talk,” Dollar said. “Just relax. You’re not in the joint, Ral.”

  Ral was able to relax some. “Is we in heaven or hell?”

  “Stop fucking around, man. You’re sick,” Dollar said, releasing him from the headlock. “You ain’t dead yet, fool. You still in sorry-ass G-Town. I got out the joint, man. I’m back.”

  “Word!” Ral said. “My N word.”

  “You’s a silly muthafucka, you know that?” Dollar said.

  Ral looked down at himself fully clothed in a tub of water. Dollar reached for a can of Hawaiian Punch to give to Ral. “Is this some type of ghetto baptism?” Ral asked.

  Klein, hearing voices, entered the bathroom to check on things. He gave Ral some towels and clothing to throw on and moved him into his guestroom. Next he checked Ral’s vitals, which were pretty good for the condition he was in. He let Dollar know that Ral would most likely go through withdrawal for a few days. He also instructed Ral to pay him a visit at the clinic, and provided them with information on some rehab facilities where he could go to get help with kicking his addiction, if that was something he really wanted to do.

  “I appreciate all this, man,” Dollar said to Klein as Ral’s arm hung around Dollar’s left shoulder as he assisted him with walking. “I really do.”

  “That’s my job,” Klein said short and with an attitude. “Let me help you get him out to the car.”

  The two brothers got Ral into the passenger seat of the car. Dollar laid the seat back as far as it would go, strapped Ral in, and closed the door.

  As soon as the car door closed, Klein went off. “Nigga, don’t you ever come to my domain with your ghetto-ass bullshit,” Klein said. “What the fuck you hanging around trash like that for anyway? Ain’t that the same piece of shit you used to run with before you went in the joint?”

  Dollar stood there, thrown off by Klein’s rampage.

  “Look, take that money from Ma’s death, get you a nice little place, get you some schooling, a steady job, and fuck these streets, man. Damn, didn’t you learn nothing while you were locked up?”

  “As a matter of fact, I did,” Dollar said, opening the door to leave. “As a matter of fact, I did.”

  Dollar made his way to the car. As Dollar drove Ral back to Short Stay to get him situated in the room, he told Ral all the details surrounding his release from prison. Dollar left out the part about Romeo being his father, as he did with everyone else he relayed the story to. Ral was barely comprehending Dollar’s words, but Dollar rambled on
in spite of that.

  Dollar stopped at a convenience store so that he could stock the motel room with enough snacks to tide Ral over for a few days. He bought a foam cooler and filled it with ice and beverages.

  Dollar ordered Ral to stay put while he handled a few things, and promised that he would come back to check on him the next day. Dollar soon learned that a fiend don’t stay put when he went to the bathroom and came out to find the hotel door open and Ral gone.

  Ral hadn’t gotten too far down the road before Dollar caught up with him and took him back to the hotel room. It was evident that Dollar was going to have to do some babysitting for the next few days.

  “Good looking out last night,” Dollar said, as he drove Tommy to work in her car. “Ral would probably be lying up dead in that motel room if it weren’t for you insisting we get him to a doctor.”

  “Either that or he’d be somewhere sucking dick,” Tommy said as she looked in the back seat at Ral who was taking a snooze. “One of the two.”

  Dollar, not finding humor in Tommy’s joke, simply gave her a dry look.

  “Anyway,” Tommy continued, “Shay ain’t gon’ give a fuck about me saving somebody’s life. All she’s going to care about is why my black ass wasn’t at work last night.”

  “Shay your boss?” Dollar asked. “Shay from View Point?”

  “She manages the joint,” Tommy replied. “Her dude owns it. Well, he bought it, anyway. It’s in her name. You know how these dope boys do it once they get big time. They graduate from buying they bitches tennis bracelets to buying them titty bars, beauty shops, day care centers and shit.”

  “Then why haven’t you snagged up one of them ballers?” Dollar asked. “I know you done bumped into all kind of ballers in the club.”

  “I can’t have that shit around the girls,” Tommy quickly replied. “These muthafuckas are ruthless. They don’t give a fuck who they shoot up trying to get to a rival nigga or a cat that owe them some money. I can see the girls and me now sitting on the couch watching My Wife & Kids and bullets raining through the window. Hell no. It’s a known fact; wherever trouble goes, trouble follows. I can’t bring it to where I lay my head.”

  “Yeah, being a hustler’s wifey is just as crucial as being the hustler himself,” Dollar said.

  “If it was just me, hell, I’d probably roll with a baller until I got tired of his ass,” Tommy said. “Until I got my bookstore anyway.”

  “What bookstore?” Dollar asked.

  “I’ve been thinking about shit, about what I really want to do. And I want to own my own bookstore. I want to name it after my sister, something to leave for the girls so that they never have to do some of the shit women have to do to survive nowadays.”

  “A bookstore, huh?” Dollar said, turning into the parking lot of the Chocolate Factory.

  “Yeah, with all kinds of books.” Tommy’s face lit up. “Maybe a little café section, too, with a stage for some open mic. Yeah, that’s what I’m gonna do someday.” Snapping out of her daydream, Tommy grabbed her duffel bag from out of the back seat and said to Dollar, “Pick me up at three a.m. Don’t be late, Dollar. I ain’t trying to be like some of these bitches in here waiting around for their dudes to come pick them up in their own car.”

  “T, you know I wouldn’t play you like that,” Dollar said. “Thanks for letting me borrow your wheels.”

  “Three a.m.,” Tommy reiterated. “Oh yeah, and, Dollar . . . welcome home.”

  CHAPTER 12

  A Shot of Henney

  “I love these streets,” Dollar said aloud as he walked through the city’s downtown on his way from the Bureau of Motor Vehicles. He had just seen a clean, fully loaded, two-year-old black Honda Accord at a Buy Here Pay Here car lot. He had to have it. It was calling his name. He had the cash, but he didn’t have a driver’s license. He hadn’t gotten around to getting his driver’s license so that was the reason for his visit to the BMV.

  Dollar’s plan was to own a nice set of wheels. He needed transportation first and foremost so that he could maneuver the city easier. It would also make apartment hunting that much easier. That public transportation and walking, while trying to handle his business, was for the birds.

  Dollar would be rolling in that Honda soon enough. This would be the first item he could check off of his “shit to do and shit to get” list he had written up. Next he needed to get him a crib, Dollar thought as he stood at the stoplight waiting for the walk signal.

  “Excuse me, sir. Do you have the time?” a woman asked Dollar as she fiddled with the watch on her wrist. “Mine stopped.”

  Honey was the shit, to say the least. She stood about five feet six inches tall. She was playing a money green miniskirt suit with a white blouse under it and a matching tie. Her gator pumps were the exact shade of her suit. Her coffee brown tights complemented her toned, scar-free legs. Her shiny lips, which wore only colorless lip gloss, looked like cherries dripping with melted chocolate waiting to be licked.

  As the woman stood there plucking at her watch, Dollar took in a whiff of her freshly styled hair. He didn’t recognize the smell as the aftermath of the perm chemical underneath a tangerine-scented spritz. Her long brown hair had the Farrah Fawcett thing going on. Each strand was feathered in place. If a tornado had suddenly rolled through, nine times out of ten, still, not a hair would be blown out of place.

  “Uhh, the time?” Dollar said, stunned. He was like a deer caught in headlights. The subtle beauty of the owner of the soft voice blinded him. He looked down at the shiny gold watch he had swiped from Tyrone’s wrist. Instead of numbers it had small diamond chips. Dollar began counting the stones as the lady stood impatient.

  “Don’t tell me you’re one of those guys who spends $25,000 on a watch and can’t even tell time on the thing,” she said. “Never mind.” She rolled her eyes.

  “Damn,” Dollar said as the woman whisked away like Cinderella at the stroke of midnight. Her sassiness/ classiness was intriguing to Dollar.

  “That shit turns me on!” Dollar said to himself. “Hold up, Miss Lady. Don’t be so mean.” He began walking, trying to keep up with her.

  “Is that the only thing men can think of to say when y’all get shot down by a woman?” the lady said. “I’m not mean. I just don’t want to be bothered. I wanted something and you couldn’t give it to me. No harm done. Now you go your way and I’ll go mine.”

  Dollar continued following her with a huge grin on his face. Her fly-ass mouth, which she probably used on a regular to fight off men, wasn’t working with Dollar. Like most men, he was up for the challenge of getting something he liked.

  “Why do I feel like the girl in Michael Jackson’s ‘The Way You Make Me Feel’ video?” she said, stopping in her tracks.

  Dollar couldn’t help but laugh as she stood there dead serious. Eventually Dollar’s laughter became contagious.

  “I’m sorry for being so rude.” The lady laughed after relaxing her shoulders. “It’s just been one of those days.”

  “That’s okay,” Dollar said. “I recently had a few of those years.”

  “Pardon me?” she said, confused by Dollar’s comment.

  “Never you mind,” Dollar said, holding out his hand. “Dollar. I’m Dollar.”

  “Dollar, huh?” She showed disappointment that Dollar had given her a nickname, which she thought was most likely his street name given to him by his peer of thugs. “Pleased to meet you. Anyway, Dollar, you take care of yourself.”

  “Don’t you believe in reciprocity?” Dollar asked.

  The use of the word “reciprocity,” which Lauren Hill made common and sexy in her song “Ex-Factor,” made the lady smile.

  “Hennessey,” she said as she walked away. “Hennessey Monroe.”

  Dollar watched her walk away until she was out of sight. But she damned sure wasn’t out of mind.

  Dollar hadn’t been to work in four days due to his keeping tabs on Ral. Ral seemed to be through the worst part of the withdr
awal period and out of the woods. Dollar had to fight him and constrain him a couple of times, but he was willing to do whatever he needed to do to get Ral through this ordeal. A rehab facility watching over him would have made Dollar’s life much easier, but Ral refused to voluntarily go.

  Dollar needed to get back to work. Until he got a chance to start putting the wheels in motion of the bigger ride, he had to stay on his regular routine. He knew that $46,000 was a lot of money to some people, but on the other hand, million dollar lottery winners have filed bankruptcy only a couple of years after their winning. Besides that, he had already spent a chunk of it on the Honda Accord. Dollar wanted to be sitting on so much loot that he would be able to go to Vegas and lose $46,000 playing blackjack and not even have it put a dent in his finances. All that time he did in the joint was not going to be in vain. It was now time to put everything he learned about surviving and ruling the streets into effect.

  Dollar eventually had to have Tommy sit with Ral while he went to Redd’s and handled a few other business matters. He then returned a few hours later.

  “Get to packing up yo’ shit,” Dollar said to Ral as he entered his motel room. “You relocating to Delaney.”

  Dollar threw a bag of clothes at Ral that had a Fubu hookup inside of it, right down to a pair of Fubu shoes.

  “Fubu,” Ral said, looking inside the bag. “Am I allowed to wear this?”

  “Am I allowed to wear Tommy Hilfiger?” Dollar replied. “Come on and get dressed so we can head on over to Delaney.”

  “Who stay there?” Ral asked.

  “You do, nigga, now throw on them rags I just threw at you, get your little bit of shit, and let’s ride. I gotta go to work.”

  “Whose name is the place in?” Ral asked as he started to gather his things.

  “What’s it matter? You trying to stay here or something? Let’s go!” Dollar demanded.

  “Where we going?” Tommy said, coming out of the bathroom, wiping her wet hands down her pants.