Sweet Tooth
Nicole Givens Kurtz
The Bryce Howerton disliked black licorice. It tasted like leftover ash mixed with high fructose corn syrup—something burnt and overly sweetened. After spitting it out, he couldn’t get the aftertaste to fade. There just wasn’t enough bubblegum to mask the lingering coat on his tongue. He scratched his itchy cornrow braids and spat again. It seemed to be glazed all over his mouth, and he continued to rake his tongue over his teeth in an attempt to clear it. Walking along the cracked and broken sidewalk that threaded through weathered brick apartments, Bryce and Marquis liked killing time on a lazy, fall afternoon.
“I just bought that,” complained Marquis between wet, loud licks of his cherry lollipop. His eyes followed the hunk of black licorice-colored spittle. “I coulda used that dollar for a pop.”
Bryce shrugged. He dug around his threadbare jeans pockets, and his heart brightened when his fingers brushed another crinkled dollar. Hmph. That was for his pop. With his other hand, he held up the remaining, offensive licorice. “Nasty.”
But nasty didn’t cover it. Bryce frowned at the twisted waxy piece of candy leftover in his fist. Marquis didn’t get it. Anything coming out of Momma Shug’s place couldn’t be trusted. Why he hadn’t told Bryce where he bought it until after he’d put it in his mouth bothered him. A brother deserved fair warning.
“You should’ve told me where you got it.”
“Why that matter?” Marquis asked idly. Most of his concentration centered on the collection of change in his open palm. His lips moved as he counted how much money he had left.
Bryce opened his mouth to answer, but shut it firmly. Waste of time explaining it to Marquis, or damn near anyone. Most people didn’t notice the strangeness around Momma Shug’s place. Bryce had been watching her since he could remember. At thirteen, he couldn’t think of a time when neighborhood peeps didn’t buy sugar delights from her or a time when the police didn’t find random bodies all around the projects, scattered and hidden in the brush and garbage piles like morbid Easter eggs. Hood life was so sour, so full of lemons, your lips, heck your soul, puckered. Anything sweet would do to give some pleasure. Hell, babies came out, full dark lips in a round o, seeking refuge from the bitter taste of hopelessness solidified in 39 weeks of stress in an angst-filled womb.
Was it any wonder kids flocked to Momma Shug’s?
Bryce glanced at Marquis. Still, a brother needed to be warned.
Because of the bodies. These weren’t like the kills of gangbangers. No, no. The corpses they found had withered opened eyes, mouths frozen in terrified screams and fear. All the bodies looked like they’d been sucked dry of all living goodness.
They don’t do nuthin’ for the black and the missing, Bryce’s neighbor always said. No one care about a bunch of poor black young’un gone missing.
One time, she’d asked him, “How come you always findin’ ’em bodies?”
Bryce looked her dead in the eyes. “’Cause nobody care about the black and the missin’.”
She smiled then—a sad one.
He couldn’t tell her either about Momma Shug.
Bryce adjusted his jeans, and tried to spit far away from his Carolina hoodie. Nothing as freakin’ gross as this licorice should touch his Carolina blue. Marquis wore a Carolina jersey, too, but underneath, he wore a white tee-shirt. They’d both gotten their hair braided and new clothes in anticipation of the local block party. A cold breeze rushed by and moved his earring, a tiny gold hoop. Most boys had what looked like diamond studs, but he hated the cubic zirconium. It didn’t seem real. The last thing he wanted was an infected ear the size of a doughnut. Besides, he could think of other things to spend his money on.
Marquis started busting rhymes to fill in the awkward silence between them. Every once in a while, Bryce would toss in a “yeah” to keep the flow going, but his heart wasn’t in it.
Nor his mind. They passed the rec center’s playground. Dirt-smeared yellow caution tape flapped in the wind. Last week, they’d found a body. Another body. Bryce had seen it, tossed along the cluster of rusty Dumpsters, wedged between the stained, filthy mattresses someone had thrown out. Someone had tossed out a human being, along with so much trash. It reeked of rotting flesh and old garbage. Bryce knew it—her—Cynthia. He’d seen her getting her goodies at Momma Shug’s just a few hours before finding her behind the Dumpster. It had been he who went searching for her, and called in the “anonymous” tip. He’d hung up before the 911 lady could ask his name. Bryce didn’t have a death wish. Snitches got stitches.
But Cyndi deserved to be found, and soon, before her baby cousin came down to play ball at the rec. Cyndi had been his friend throughout all of elementary—not his good friend. The girl ate too many sweets and stole from his trick-or-treat bag, but she didn’t deserve that kinda death.
Candy wraps had been tossed across her chest like she’d been some sort of treat.
Goose bumps spread over Bryce’s arms at the memory. He hunched back into his hoodie, seeking warmth. He shot a quick glance at Marquis. With his memory of the discovery still in pieces, he felt his warm blood trickle down his chin.
“Dang bruh! You bleedin’!” Marquis pointed out with his pinky, the fingernail long and yellowing.
Using the back of his hand, Bryce wiped it away. It didn’t matter how much he swiped; he couldn’t rid the taste from his mouth. The candy sank like a stone into a lake, falling deeper and deeper into his core. His stomach churned at the impact. The scent of burned something clung to his nose, pushed its odor into his brain, and with each intake of breath came the scent.
He coughed hard to dislodge the odor. Red brick dust crunched like grit in his mouth.
“You bite your tongue or something?” Marquis pointed at him with the lollipop.
“No, I, I think this stupid licorice poked my cheek. It ain’t no big deal.” Bryce tried to sound brave, tried to make Marquis think he didn’t care about the blood the licorice caused. Now he had ash, sugar, and copper flavors in his mouth.
“Dang! It tastes like crap.”
“How come you know what crap tastes like?” Marquis countered, smirking broadly. He licked his candy again, slurping the scarlet treat between his full lips. When he caught Bryce’s frown, he laughed.
“Shut up.” Bryce pretended to kick a rock.
They walked up the hill from the rec center, having shot a few rounds of ball before deciding to eat their treats from Momma Shug’s. Now with the rec and the hill at their backs, they approached the government-produced apartments. Each one bled into its neighbor, becoming a smear of identical front doors and concrete porches. The housing projects didn’t do much in way of décor or distinction—cheap housing for the poor didn’t warrant any type of luxury.
Bryce had been born and raised in Holmes Housing Projects, but he knew that off of Rose Street, the third apartment from the curb always looked dark. Bright sunny summer days still found the porch somber and gloomy. Shadows huddled there en masse, defying the sun’s bright cheeriness. It didn’t matter how much light was out, didn’t matter about the streetlights neither, the doorway of that apartment—Momma Shug’s—held darkness, like she collected it or something. All huddled up against the concrete porch and cheap siding.
“You wanna go git ya money back?” Marquis asked. “She’ll let you git somethin’ else.”
The hairs on the back of Bryce’s neck stood up. Momma Shug’s hollowed cheeks and wrinkling skin appeared in his mind like a specter. Her waxy skin shone like melted chocolate on the hot asphalt in the summer. Round, red-rimmed eyes peered out from beneath the fall of thick silver braids, matted with beads and ribbons and life. She smelled of death and sweetness—not all that different from his licorice. No, he didn’t want his money back that bad.
“Nah, I’m good.”
He wasn’t, but he wouldn’t let Marq
uis know. A man had to keep his pride. No way would he let Marquis know how freaking scared he was of that woman. Bryce took two more steps. When he realized Marquis wasn’t in step with him, he turned back around with dread piling into his already uneasy belly.
Marquis put the entire sucker in his mouth once more. Even from this distance, Bryce could see a single sliver of drool roll down the corner of his mouth. Marquis didn’t move, didn’t blink, and didn’t breathe.
“Come on, man, snap out of it.” Bryce gently shook him. The cold wash of fear slipped across his shoulders. “Wipe that off your chin.”
“Huh?”
The rattling of metal against the broken sidewalk’s asphalt coupled with the bubbling of rubber wheels and the clanging of metal set Bryce’s teeth on edge. He glanced up just in time to see Momma Shug, hunched over and bent, pushing a stolen shopping cart. Like most, the right wheel wobbled over the cracked sidewalk. Cardboard boxes brimmed with colorful wrapped candy in the spot where a child would go. Her candy cart sliced through the chilly afternoon. Each step she took carried the promise of her sugary treats.
And death. Bryce swallowed the hard knot of acid mixed with fear and ash. What the hell did she put in that licorice?
At the sound of her cart, Marquis came to life. “There she is! You can swap it out now!”
“Uh, nah. I’m good.”
Marquis gave him a hard look, and then frowned.
“You ain’t scared?”
“No,” Bryce said with more bravery than he felt. He didn’t want to be on Momma Shug’s radar. He couldn’t prove it, but his instincts told him she had something to do with Cyndi’s death. Like when he knew a drive-by was about to happen, or when he knew to stay in his room when his momma’s boyfriend came over to visit. No one told him; he just knew.
“Yeah you are!” Marquis laughed, but it sliced short. It melded into a gaggle, a choking cough.
“Man, what’s your...”
Bryce dropped his candy to the ground and watched in horror as Marquis’s face grayed. Choking! Adrenaline burst through Bryce and he got behind Marquis. He couldn’t remember how to do that thing he was supposed to do, but he did know to take both his hands, clasp them together, and put them under the ribs. He pumped. A wheezing rattle came from Marquis’s mouth, but not the chunk of ruby candy lodged in his airway.
“Come on!” Bryce used all of his strength, prayed, and cried as he tried to help clear his friend’s airway. “Man, don’t do this!”
Marquis’s chest rattled when his mouth opened. The air whistled around the sphere in his throat. The sickening sound fueled Bryce’s determination. He squinted over Marquis’s shoulder to Momma Shug. An open-mouth grin took up most of her face. Those coal-black eyes seemed to gleam with joy. Bryce couldn’t look away from those dark pits. Darkness poured out in glistening tar—sticky, thick, and inescapable. He heard nothing but the rasp of Marquis’s labored attempts to breathe.
The trembling and rising panic made Marquis contort and flail his body. All made it that much harder to hold him still.
“Stop moving! Dude! I’m trying to help.”
Marquis gave some primal gurgle mixed with sorrow. It was the most terrifying sound Bryce had ever heard. A tear raced down his cheek.
“Help!” The suddenly vacant street struck Bryce as strange. On most days the yards, street corners, and flat porches crawled with people just hanging out, throwing dice or doing hair, just shooting the breeze.
He realized then the bustle of project life—the rise and fall of booming bass music thumping from passing cars, the guffaws from foolishness and corner-store beer, and the sharp shouting of disagreements—all there before, like a living, breathing chorus, was gone. He scanned the neighborhood. Nothing moved. No sound. It didn’t feel right, not normal. For one, this was Saturday. Clear skies. First of the month. They’d disappeared the moment Momma Shug appeared.
“Stop doing it,” he yelled across the still air.
“Stop what?” She sounded like a thousand voices mashed, and then flattened. He’d never get that voice out of his head.
“This! We need help!” Tears huddled at the corners of his eyes. He gripped Marquis closer to him and heaved, his hands acting now on instinct.
“Would you like a sweet? You need a sweet!” She stretched out her withered hand toward him. Three eyeballs, whole, with the optic nerve still attached, pooled in the middle of her palm.
Bryce scrambled backward, taking Marquis with him. “Stop it!”
She merely smiled at him—her empty mouth like a cave.
Not today. Nobody else gonna die.
He resumed the maneuver, shoving his panic deep while his anger rose. She wasn’t taking any of his friends. Cyndi would be the last. The day inched on, and Bryce lost track of time. Only two minutes went by, but it could’ve been two years.
Momma Shug stopped a few feet away.
Instead of lending a hand, she rubbed hers together, like she was ready for a feast.
She looks hungry.
“Come on, dude,” Bryce partially prayed and whispered aloud.
He heaved again, before a hacking splat hit the sidewalk. Bright, scarlet, and still whole, the saliva-drenched hunk of candy cracked on the sidewalk in a watery pink pool. Marquis screamed, stumbled out of Bryce’s arms, and collapsed in a heap to the sidewalk. Rubbing his throat, he tried to stand.
“You all right?” Bryce held his elbow as he stood up.
“Yeah,” Marquis croaked out. His face furrowed into pain. Suddenly he hunched over in pain. “Momma...”
She—it—cackled. A sound from behind him caught his attention, but when he turned back to Momma Shug, she was gone. Only the shopping cart remained. Its busted wheel creaking in the cold breeze.
Marquis slacked back into Bryce’s arms. The rise and fall of his skinny chest heaved once more.
Only once.
***
Four days later
“It isn’t your fault, baby. You did whatcha could.” Marquis’s momma hugged Bryce before releasing him.
He shuffled through the procession of mourners outside the Fourth Street Baptist Church. Words were said. Songs, somber and serious, were sung. Numbness hung over him, so none of it penetrated. Well, that wasn’t all true. The persistent hot burn of fury kept him up and refused to wink out. Two days ago he realized that he couldn’t cry. This level of pissed-off torched all his grief—only the white-hot heat of revenge remained.
He walked back home, and he found his older foster brother, Tre, sitting on the front porch they shared with the neighbors.
“Aye, you heard. Shit around here is cray-cray.”
Bryce sat. Just after one on Sunday, peeps slept in because they just got in. Others were at church. So, he and Tre held down the front yard. Rain poured into already flooded corners of the lawns and backed-up sewers. Bryce touched his cheek and winced. The injury from the licorice still hurt. He spat out pink spittle onto the sidewalk—again.
“Yeah.”
Tre smoked a black and mild cigarette. “They ain’t seen Tasha since yesterday.”
“Damn.”
“Yeah. Her momma called the cops. They said she a runaway.”
Bryce hunched back into his hoodie. Nowadays he was cold, always cold. “That’s what they always say ’bout us.”
“True dat.”Tre blew a stream of sweet-smelling smoke.
“We runaway or dealin’. Our deaths don’t matter.”
“’Cept to us.”
Bryce shoved his fists into his hoodie’s pockets. Tre didn’t have it wrong. Cops didn’t give a shit about this neighborhood, not that it mattered. They couldn’t stop Momma Shug anyway.
“Yeah. ‘Cept to us,” Bryce muttered, a grin inching across his face.
“We handle our ownish.”
Bryce stood up. “Yeah. We do.�
��
***
The nine-millimeter handgun felt strange in Bryce’s hand. He’d climbed the concrete stairs to his room and shut the door. No curtains, so the day’s full gloominess poured in. He had found Tre on his bed watching the day travel on, a paper bag in his lap.
“You sure you know what you doin’?” Tre now stood by Bryce’s bedroom window. “Thought you didn’t want in the gang.”
“I don’t.” Bryce shoved the gun into his backpack. Along the floor, his now expelled textbooks sat next to his sneakers.
“So whatcha need that piece for?” Tre didn’t turn to look at him.
“’Cause the world is cray-cray.” Bryce heard the harshness in his tone.
Tre flinched, then smirked. “Well damn.”
“Sorry.”
Tre faced him. “I know you got a lot goin’ on since ’Quis died. I don’t need to know whatchadoin’. You one of the smartest peeps I know, so you probably know whatchadoin’. That’s good enough for me.”
With that, Tre left.
Bryce took up the spot at his window and waited for nightfall. “I hope so.”
***
Later that evening
A fat moon, full of light, rested on thick clouds overhead. Bryce walked quickly through the equally dark streets to his destination. Porch lights acted as guides, illuminating his course. Sweaty palms, quivering stomach, and the cold handgun’s metal biting into the small of his back made him uneasy. His hoodie covered it from others’ view, but he knew it was there. Each step served to remind him.
Too soon he reached his destination and knocked on the door. The inside of his cheek burned and filled his mouth with the taste of ash and blood.
Before he could spit, the door creaked open. “Yes?”
“I wanna buy some candy.” He coughed over the lie.
Momma Shug, wearing a threadbare sweater, broom skirt, and slippers, grinned. Her black hair-wrap made it look like she only had eyes, nose, and a mouth. Through thick glasses she peered at him.
The Big Bad II Page 26