Still Candy Shopping

by Swinson, Kiki

  “You damn right I’m gon’ leave that shit out there! What the fuck you think I’m stupid enough to bring her dead ass back here? Hell, I told her about snorting that shit while she was out there on the block anyway. But she didn’t want to listen. So I ain’t taking the blame for that shit! Hell nah!” he replied, and then he unlocked the front door so Stacy and I could get into the apartment.

  While Slim stayed outside, Stacy retired to her room and closed the door, so I found myself standing alone in the living room. I sat down on the sofa and reflected on Jennifer’s death. The thought of it ate me alive on the inside. And to know that she’d died the exact same way my old friend Teresa died made me feel even worse.

  I remembered Teresa’s death like it was just yesterday when I walked into that shooting gallery and saw her lying dead against the wall. Her body grew colder with each passing minute. I had shown up two minutes too late to save her, and now here I was again coming two minutes too late. It seemed that everyone around me kept dying. First it was Teresa, then Jennifer, and even though we weren’t friends very long, I couldn’t forget about Paris. All those women meant something to me one way or another, and now they were gone.

  Something inside of me told me that I’d be next because I’d done everything underneath the sun. I’d lost my family, my car, and my career, I couldn’t complete a twelve-step substance abuse program, I stole money, I stole drugs, I had sex with a woman, and I’d fucked over two hundred different men, so what else could I possibly do? Absolutely nothing.

  I got up from the sofa and raced to the back where the bedrooms were located. My intention was to lock Stacy inside her room, but first I wanted to ask her if she heard Jennifer say anything before she died. I knocked on her door softly.

  “Come in,” she said.

  When I opened the door, she was lying on her stomach with her face buried in the pillow. She turned over after I entered the room. I stood by the door because what I had to ask her wasn’t going to take very long.

  “I just wanted to know if Jennifer said anything to you before she overdosed?” I asked.

  Stacy wiped the tears from her puffy eyes and said, “No, she didn’t say anything. One minute she had her back turned to me and Slim, and then the next minute she was wiping her nose with the back of her hands. Slim must’ve known she was getting high because she started acting strange, and he fussed at her and told her to put that shit away. And then a couple minutes later she started trembling and collapsed on the ground. I didn’t know what was happening to her at first. Slim was the one who told me she was ODing.”

  “All right,” I said to her, and then I backed out of the room to leave. While I was leaving she turned to lie back on her stomach.

  I closed the door very softly and locked it at the same time. Slim had the bedroom doors fixed so we couldn’t lock them from the inside. It was for his benefit only to be able to lock them from the outside. But today I was going to put that shoe on my foot and benefit from his psycho ways.

  After I locked the door I eased away and raced toward the kitchen. With Stacy out of the way, I had a better chance to escape. Tonight I wasn’t going to have any interruptions when Slim got back to this apartment. I was going to fight my way out of here even if it killed me.

  The Candy Shop part 2 Kiki Swinson

  The Last Straw

  I was very nervous. I didn’t have the slightest idea of how I was going to get out of this apartment, but I knew that whatever I decided to do, it better be a very clever idea. When I reached the kitchen, I looked through all the drawers and cabinets, trying to find something sharp. Slim kept the sharp knives hidden so we wouldn’t use them to stab him in his sleep. I needed to find something that would invoke the same pain as a knife. I searched everywhere, but I couldn’t find one sharp object. But then a light went off in my head when I saw a corkscrew on the countertop. Slim had brought it in the apartment earlier tonight for the liquor he served at the strip party. It would be my best choice for a weapon, so I grabbed it and stuffed it in my pocket.

  As soon as I placed the corkscrew in my pocket, I started shaking really badly. I guessed it was the mere fact that I was about to put my life on the line, and in the process take away someone else’s life. I figured all I had to do was get him when he wasn’t looking and stab him in his neck. I knew I only had one chance to make it count. If I screwed it up, I knew my ass would be blown to smithereens.

  I paced the kitchen floor. My nerves were completely haywire, and my armpits started perspiring like crazy, all because I knew I was about to tread on some very dangerous waters. As I was deep in thought about a plan to take out Slim, I heard Slim grab the doorknob and turn it. Immediately my heart rate took off at the speed of lightning. Something on the inside of me told me to back out of my plans to escape, but then the courageous side of me told me to go for what I knew. I didn’t have a thing left to lose. I took a deep breath and waited for my opportunity to strike.

  When Slim saw me standing in the kitchen, he looked at me strangely and asked what I was doing. I played it off and acted like I was deep in thought about what had just happened to Jennifer. I guessed I must’ve said the wrong thing, because he blew up. He walked away from the front door without locking it and headed straight toward me. I didn’t know where his gun was because I couldn’t see it from where I was standing, so I braced myself.

  “Why the fuck are you bringing up her name in my house?” he roared. “Don’t ever let me hear you talk about that fucking junkie again. Do you hear me?” he asked as he buried his mouth in my ear. His words echoed in my eardrums.

  I reached inside my pocket and grabbed the corkscrew. I wanted to bring it out at just the right time. I knew I couldn’t be one second off from sticking him in the right spot. I had to paralyze him long enough to get his gun away from him and perhaps take away his cell phone so I could use it to call the cops. Unfortunately something unexpected happened just as I was ready to strike. Stacy started banging on the bedroom door.

  “Who looked the door?” she yelled. “Somebody let me out.”

  My heart stopped beating and then it sunk deep into the pit of my stomach. Shocked by Stacy’s sudden outburst, Slim looked away from me. It seemed like his head turned in show motion. In the next few seconds I knew he would realize that what Stacy was yelling was entirely true, so I needed to act quickly. The entire left side of his neck was exposed for me to plunge the sharp end of the corkscrew deep inside the veins he had popping through his skin. I pulled the corkscrew from my pocket, closed my eyes, raised my weapon as high as I could, and plunged it directly at Slim’s neck, hoping it landed in the right spot. I needed it to land in a vital place to cripple him long enough for me to grab his gun and his cell phone, and then make my escape.

  “Owwwwwwwww!” Slim screamed in agony.

  When I heard Slim cry out, I opened my eyes and noticed that I’d definitely stuck him, but I didn’t puncture his neck at all. The corkscrew was sticking straight out of his shoulder blade. He must’ve moved when I closed my eyes.

  Angry by what I had just done, Slim’s eyes became bloodshot. I knew that whatever he was about to do to me, it would end my life. I had nothing else in my grasp to defend myself, so I pushed him out of my way and tried to make a run for the door. But before I got the opportunity to make it out of the kitchen, he pulled the corkscrew out of his shoulder and grabbed me by the back of my shirt.

  “Come here, you bitch!” he roared and yanked me back in his direction.

  I lost my balance and fell backward onto the floor. Meanwhile Stacy was still banging on the bedroom door yelling for someone to let her out of the room. But she was the least of our concerns. My focus was on getting away from Slim, and his focus was to prevent that from happening.

  Right after I hit the floor, Slim reached behind him and grabbed his gun out of his waistband. When I saw that semi-automatic weapon flash before me, I nearly had a heart attack. As I closed my eyes, believing I was about to take my last bre
ath, I heard him pull back on the chamber, and then the gun went off. CLICK.

  By some miracle, I was still alive. I opened my eyes and realized that his gun had jammed.

  “What the fuck!” he yelled. Frustration covered his face. In that moment I knew without a doubt that this guy was trying to kill me, so I kicked his dick, and luckily my kick was dead on target. Caught off guard, he dropped his pistol to grab his genitals. When the gun hit the floor, it fired a shot. BOOM!

  I screamed because the shit sounded like a fucking canon was being fired. I got up from the floor and tried to make it to the door, but when I got there I saw Slim from the corner of my eye going for the gun. I quickly turned the doorknob and snatched open the door. What I saw outside made my heart drop to the pit of my stomach.

  “He’s trying to kill me!” I screamed. And at that moment one of the three police officers standing outside grabbed me and snatched me away from the apartment. Slim had no idea the police had grabbed me, so he came out behind me with his pistol in hand, ready to fire.

  Unfortunately for Slim, all three police officers stood in the doorway and let off every round their magazines had. I watched as Slim’s body took one bullet after another. His body jumped after every single piece of lead entered it. The officers didn’t stop shooting until his body finally fell to the ground.

  Once the smoke cleared from all the ammo being fired, the officers rushed inside the apartment. I was escorted downstairs to a nearby paramedic so they could nurse my battle wounds. While I watched them treat my wounds, a black female police detective walked up to the back of the ambulance and said, “I was told that you had some information that could help apprehend the suspect who murdered a woman by the name of Paris Dozier.”

  I looked at her like she was crazy. How would she know I had information about Paris’s murder? But before I could ask her that question, Jennifer stepped around the door of the ambulance. My heart was overjoyed when I saw her face. I was on the verge of tears and I couldn’t hold my composure. I literally jumped off the chair where I was being examined.

  “Oh my God! Jen, you’re alive!” I screamed.

  Tears fell from her eyes as she embraced me. “I had to fake my death, or we wouldn’t have gotten out of there.”

  “But how did you do it?” I asked as tears started falling from my eyes.

  “Right before I got out of my last customer’s car, I found a pack of Alka-Seltzer on the floor and picked it up. I quickly realized that this was the perfect opportunity to escape. Slim already thought that I was out there getting high, so what better way to escape than by faking an overdose by foaming off at the mouth, making my eyes go to the back of my head, and causing my body to tremble?”

  “Well why couldn’t you tell me that was what you were going to do?” I asked.

  “Believe me, I wanted to. But I didn’t have time,” Jennifer said, and then she hugged me again.

  The touch of her embrace made me realize that wasn’t the end of the world after all. This type of environment we were in was toxic. And the only reason why my life was spared was because God was watching over me. So, I know I’ve got to carry my butt back to the rehab. I just hope they let me back into program.

  A Sucker 4 Candy

  Amaleka McCall

  Also By Amaleka McCall

  Myra

  Hush

  Price of Fame (Sept. 2010)

  Hard Candy (coming Feb. 2011)

  A Sucker 4 Candy Amaleka McCall

  Prologue

  Brooklyn, New York June 2010

  “Nigga, you are a broke muthafucka and you ain’t got shit to offer nobody!” Celeste Early screamed at the top of her voice. “I’m ‘round here struggling to feed my kids and all you wanna do is come up in here and lay up!” She continued as she went toe to toe with her baby daddy.

  “Shut the fuck up!” Drake screamed back at her. “Why don’t you get your lazy ass up off the system and stop waiting for a man to give you money and get a job, bitch!”

  “If you got a fucking job like any responsible man would do and bring some money in this house, instead of hanging out and chasing every piece of ass you see running around town, then I wouldn’t have to be on the system!”

  This was their normal routine whenever Drake decided to show up at Celeste’s house. Ben sat at the edge of his bed listening to yet another argument between his mother and her no good baby father. He rolled his eyes. “Fucking losers, both of them. They both need to get a job,” Ben said to himself. He often spoke to himself. “Ain’t neither one of ‘em got no money. That’s why my ass hustling now. Fuck ’em. I’ma keep money in my pocket.”

  Ben pulled out a wad of cash and flipped through the bills. He sniffed the money and then exhaled. He smiled. He was making paper hand over fist now. He had moved up. “Fuck delivering newspapers,” Ben said with the smile still on his face.

  Just sixteen, Benjamin “Ben” Early had been hustling since he was thirteen. He knew his mother would probably flip if she knew, but in his household it was survival of the fittest. His mother was broke as shit and that was the bottom line. Celeste had him when she was young and she wasn’t much for working. Everything Ben got, he got on his own. He realized his mother couldn’t possibly miss that he had new clothes, sneakers, fitted hats and always had money in his pocket. Since she didn’t say anything, Ben didn’t say anything either, primarily because he always bought his baby brother a new pair of kicks when he got himself some. Both Ben and the baby stayed in the latest Jordans and LeBron James sneakers.

  Ben was the de facto man of the house. He bought groceries for the house when his mother had prematurely used up all of the food stamp credits on her EBT card. Celeste was horrible about that. She would sell half her food stamps, which meant she only could afford to buy half the amount of food it took to feed a growing boy like Ben and his baby brother.

  Ben had found his own way to get food. He learned to make his own paper and buy his own food at an early age.

  “Two stacks!” Ben whispered excitedly as he put the rubber band back around the wad of money he had pulled out. Excited about counting his money, he had filtered out the noise coming from his mother’s bedroom for a while. “Gotta get this dope bagged up and hit the block,” Ben said to himself. He wasn’t trying to stay in the house much longer.

  “Stupid bitch!” Ben heard Drake yell, once again interrupting his thoughts.

  Ben shook his head trying to ignore Celeste and Drake as long as he could. He wondered whatever attracted them to each other. He pulled out a medium sized baggie of dope. Ben had just picked up the bag from Deezo, the dude he sold for and who had told him to go home and bag it up. Deezo had told him to make nicks and dime size bags out of the package.

  Ben was excited. He had finally graduated to having his own package and not just doing hand-to-hand for other dudes. He had also moved up from straight cheap ass crack to heroin, which was making a strong comeback in the hood.

  “You’re a trifling ass bitch anyway Celeste!” Drake screamed.

  “Yeah, and you’re a broke ass nigga with a little ass dick!” Celeste screamed back.

  Ben shook his head. He was getting angrier by the minute with all the commotion. “I gotta get outta this house,” he mumbled, getting ready to start bagging his shit so he could bounce. BAM! Ben’s concentration on his task at hand was interrupted. He jumped when he heard something slam.

  “Ahhh!” his mother screamed. BAM! The sound of thumping and banging came again.

  “I know this nigga ain’t up in here hitting on my moms,” Ben said to himself.

  “Bitch!” Drake hollered. WHAP! Ben knew he heard a slap.

  “Oh, hell naw!” Ben huffed.

  “Get off of me!” Celeste screamed at the top of her lungs.

  Ben jumped up. Just then his baby brother, Keon, came waddling into his room. Keon had a look of terror on his face and he threw his arms up for Ben to pick him up.

  WHAP! Ben heard another slap. He threw h
is drugs into an open nightstand drawer and scrambled out of his bedroom, headed for his mother’s room. He ran pass his baby brother, leaving the baby standing in his bedroom whining.

  “I’m coming right back Keon!” Ben said as he ran to help his mother.

  “Get off me! Agghh!” his mother screamed.

  Ben kicked Celeste’s locked bedroom door, but the door didn’t bulge. “Open this door!” Ben screamed from the other side.

  “You wanna talk about me bitch!” Drake growled.

  Ben could hear his mother gasping for breath. This nigga is choking her! Ben’s mind raced. He kicked the door again, this time with all his might. The door flew open with a bang and the doorknob hit the wall.

  “Get the fuck off my moms, you punk ass nigga!” Ben screamed, grabbing Drake’s shirt. Standing five eleven, Ben was almost as tall as Drake.

  “What? Mind your business, this between me and your moms,” Drake barked, shaking himself free of Ben’s grasp as he finally let Celeste go. She was rolling on the bed holding her neck trying to catch her breath.

  “Get the fuck outta my crib!” Ben gritted, stepping close to Drake and getting up in his face. “You don’t help out in this place, you ain’t shit. Get the fuck out!”

  Drake poked his chest out, equaling Ben’s status. Celeste finally caught her breath and got up to step between them. She didn’t want her son and her baby daddy to fight.

  “Wait—” she started to say something, but her words were interrupted. Before she could say another word screams cut through the air. They all froze. Celeste’s eyes stretched wide.