Baby Huey: A Cautionary Tale of Addiction

by James Henderson

  Doreen said exactly what I was thinking, “Dokes, you sound like you’re hitting on your best friend’s wife in a time of crisis?”

  Dokes found that funny, and so did Doreen, laughing right along with him. Their hilarious conversation drifted beyond my hearing and then I heard the front door close again.

  It took a minute to get out, my legs and arms stiff. The finality of Doreen’s words worried me. “It’s over!” No wriggle room in it.

  No, she’s pissed, needed a few days to cool off. Give her a week and go apologize, tell her I love her, I lost my head when I was smoking that shit, won’t do it again--smoke that shit or hit her--tell her I can’t live without her, “I’m sorry,” tell her I love Lewis, I want to make it up to him, I want us to be a family again, I want you to come home.

  It sounded good, but “It’s over!” kept playing inside my head.

  Mama came by that evening, took one look at me and started crying, wouldn’t take a seat, just stood there shaking her head and crying. Almost sixty-years-old she didn’t have a strand of gray in her head, just dark circles under her eyes, formed by years of working the graveyard shift at a nursing home.

  Finally she took a wad of tissue out the pocket of her green scrubs and wiped her eyes and said, “A young fella used to work with me, a nice young man, one of the few who’d do the job, named Darius. Most of the younger ones you can’t get to do anything. They eat patients food, steal their money and then get mad time to work, afraid to get shit on their hands. Darius wasn’t like that; he’d even talk to the patients, listen to their stories, and some of em talk your ears off.

  “The devil uses all kinds of tricks, you know? Darius didn’t smoke, drink, do drugs, nothing. The wrong people came along and he got to messing with em and next thing you know he’s doing what they doing. He’d kept reading his Bible, kept his eyes on the Lord, he would’ve seen them as the devil the second he laid eyes on them. I look at you and see Darius before he took sick. AIDS. Dead.”

  “Mama, he musta been an intravenous drug user. You kidding me? How I remind you of someone like that? I don’t use drugs! What did Doreen tell you?”

  Wrinkles bunched up in the bridge of her nose, as if she detected a bad scent, an indication she didn’t believe a word I said.

  “Darius didn’t shoot dope, he smoked crack, the same shit you smoking!”

  The way she said it shocked me, let me know she was more upset than I thought.

  “Doreen said I was smoking crack? Mama, she’s mad because I was fixin’ to whoop Lewis. She got him spoiled, lets him run all over her.” Mama understood discipline; used to beat the hell out of me. “I ain’t feeding a child and let him run over me too. I ain’t gonna do it, Mama.”

  The look on her face said she wasn’t buying it.

  She said, “You don’t have a job. How’s you feeding him?”

  I didn’t answer, and wondered when was she leaving.

  “Last night,” she said, “I dreamed a man getting shot. He didn’t have a face. I saw him in a nursing home, bedsores all over his body. Out the window of his room I saw the sign Dean’s Nursing Home and I realized who the man was. It was you.” She took a seat on the couch, stared at the black purse in her lap. “Dean’s Nursing Home is where people with no insurance and no hope go. It’s a disgrace. You don’t want to go there, John.”

  “It was a dream, Mama.”

  Mama shook her head, bit her top lip and said, “My brother, CJ, said you could come work for him. I think you should go. Today.”

  “In the country, Mama? I’m no farmer. Look, Mama, Doreen and I had a little fight. Things got a little out of hand, I’ll admit that. I’ll apologize to her, find another job, and everything will return to normal. Ain’t no need of me running off to the country.”

  We sat there silent for a long time before Mama said, “John, I think you should forget about Doreen coming back.”

  Chapter 12

  Fifty sat at his kitchen table eating strawberry ice cream out of the carton, nodding his head as I told him what happened.

  “That stupid picture you gave me, that’s what made her suspicious, got her looking into shit. You didn’t even sign the damn thing, so tell me how she connect it to you?”

  Cindy was standing in the doorway, hands on her hips, in a pair of holey jeans and blue shirt.

  Fifty said, “Why don’t you take a walk?” Cindy turned and looked at him. “Yeah, you! You the FBI? Nothing to do except eavesdrop on niggers? Take a walk!”

  When Cindy left Fifty said, “You got a bad habit confronting me when my woman present, you know that?” He pushed the carton away and pulled out a rock and a pipe from his shirt pocket. “Let’s get some things straight here. One, I didn’t start you smoking crack. Two, I ain’t got nothing to do with you and your woman. Okay?”

  “Doreen ain’t psychic! If she know you painted that picture she knows you. I’m asking you how, when, under what circumstances!”

  “First off, stop shouting. I’m right here. You wanna hit this or what? This all I got.” Fifty caught my hand as I reached for the pipe. “Hear me out for a sec. A few years ago I lived with this girl, a college girl, young but with a good head on her shoulder. She had grit, you know, wouldn’t take shit off nobody, knew what she wanted and had an idea how she was going to get it. We had a good relationship, but I didn’t realize that then. I took her for granted. Then I--”

  “Wait a minute, asshole! You talking about Doreen? My wife?”

  “Naw, man. Hell naw! I’m talking about Doreen’s girlfriend, Wanda. You insist on putting Doreen and me together, don’t you? See, I went to jail--not for drugs. I got caught up on a bullshit parole revocation. Did five years. That’s when I realized how good a woman I had. By then it was too late. She’d married a spineless jerk.”

  I lighted the pipe, inhaled, exhaled, and stared at him through the haze. “Why didn’t you tell me this before, in the beginning?”

  “It’s something I don’t like to talk about.”

  That magical feeling wasn’t strong enough to erase the thought that I’d lost Doreen out of my mind. “This shit kinda weak.”

  Fifty took the pipe, said, “Yeah, it is,” and inhaled.

  There were more questions I wanted to ask him, but now I couldn’t remember a single one.

  Fifty said, “You want some more, don’t you? Well, I’m assed out. Cindy is too. You ain’t got a few quarters squirreled away for a rainy day?”

  “I ain’t got a dime.”

  “Hate to bring Doreen’s name up again, but did she leave anything when she left?”

  “Yeah, she did. So what?”

  Fifty laughed. “Man, you’re a bachelor now. All you need is a bed, a couch, a TV, a spoon and a pot. Sell the rest. I know a man with a truck. I’ll help you load it up.”

  “Why I don’t see your shit on the back of a truck? Huh? I’m not selling my shit. Doreen come back see all the shit gone that’s another problem.”

  Two hours later we loaded the minibar, the dinette set, two dressers, a loveseat, a stack of movie DVD’s and the stereo that Oscar had his eye on into the bed of Fifty’s friend’s truck.

  Dorothy, the proprietor of Dorothy’s Furniture and Appliance, on Asher Avenue, looked over the collection of Doreen’s and my five-year marriage and said, “Three hundred dollars, take it or leave it.”

  I told her the minibar alone cost three hundred dollars, but she couldn’t care less. Repeated her first offer: “Three hundred, take it or leave it.”

  We took it.

  At the dope house Fifty remembered his friend wanted thirty dollars for use of the truck. Then he came back with six little pebbles I couldn’t imagine costing two hundred dollars.

  “Why is it,” I said, “when I’m with you I feel like that kid Malvo? Muhammad’s plan, Muhammad’s gun, but the kid did most of the shooting. You mean to tell me these crumbs worth two hundred dollars?”

  Fifty thou
ght this was funny. “Life’s a bitch, man.”

  * * * * *

  The next day I woke up at noon, having stayed up half the night looking at my left leg and trying to convince myself it hadn’t swollen up. Damn, it sure looked like it had.

  I’d almost went next door to get a second opinion. Hey, I’m sorry to disturb you this time of morning, but would you look at my leg…Don’t the left look larger than the right?

  Nothing in the fridge but a carton of eggs, only one of three not cracked. No bread. Plenty of spices, though. The apartment seemed empty. A funk was emanating from somewhere, following me room to room as I looked for the source. Couldn’t find it.

  Two checks were in the mailbox below the stairs, one for Doreen, her bi-monthly paycheck, a few dollars shy of nine hundred dollars, the other my last check from Goldenwood, a measly two hundred dollars.

  Going out the door my plan was to cash my check, buy a few groceries, and then use Doreen’s check as an excuse to talk to her. Baby, here’s your check. See, I didn’t cash it. Let’s talk, I wanna apologize.

  A good plan. But all went to shit between the bank and the grocery store. I drove to the same spot on Oak Street where I’d been tricked a Franklin. This time I told the guy coming to the car, “A twenty, I’m not making no block, and I swear to God if you fuck me you’ll regret it!”

  The guy said, “Hold on, dawg, I gotcha right here,” and pulled three rocks from inside the front of white denim jeans. “Look, pick the one you want.”

  The one I picked didn’t make it back to the apartment. Went back and got another one for a hundred dollars. Then things got fuzzy. I couldn’t figure how I had one hundred and fifty dollars after spending one hundred and twenty from a two hundred dollar check.

  Fuck it!

  By four o’clock I didn’t have a dime, and my left leg started acting up again. The strange thing was when I looked at it the swelling stopped, but the moment I looked away, bam, it started swelling again.

  A few minutes before four-thirty I was standing in line at the bank with Doreen’s check in hand, both our signatures on it. Hey, despite all that had happened, Doreen wouldn’t want me sitting alone in an empty apartment with my leg swelling up each time I looked away from it.

  Still I was nervous, even more so when the teller took the check into a side room and stayed there for what seemed to me hours.

  She finally came back and said, “Mr. Dough, I’m supposed to get approval from the person the check is written to, but I couldn’t contact your wife. I’m going to cash it this time, okay, but next time have your wife come in.” She winked at me.

  I didn’t wink back, worried I’d get an eyeful of the sweat rolling down my forehead.

  Later that night, around midnight, my new friend told me he wasn’t going to stand out on the corner all night, suggested I buy all I needed till tomorrow. That made sense to me. I bought five hundred dollars worth, and stayed up all night smoking and looking at my leg.

  A red sun peeking over the horizon through the window, I got to thinking about Doreen, got to thinking how she may have been playing me, how she’d set me up so she’d have a reason to leave, get with her boyfriend. That got me off worrying about my leg swelling up and exploding in a million pieces.

  All the while I was sitting there thinking I was the one who’d messed it all up, Doreen was the one who left to be with her boyfriend. Now, at this very moment, Doreen and her boyfriend were doing it; I was sure of that.

  Driving to Doreen’s mother’s house at six in the morning it never occurred to me that Doreen probably wasn’t doing it there. It would later, though. Doreen’s Camry was parked behind her mother’s late-model Lincoln Continental.

  In my mind I could hear Doreen screaming in pleasure, her boyfriend saying, “Push it, baby, push it!” the bedsprings squeaking, the mattress banging against the headboard, the music up loud, R. Kelley singing Keep It On The Down Low.

  There was a slight chill in the air and the second I knocked on the door a dog started barking close by and it echoed back from the Human Services building two blocks away.

  Gloria answered the door and asked me what I wanted this time of morning.

  “I need to talk to Doreen.”

  Her face tightened up. “John, I understand you and Doreen are married, but I don’t want any trouble here at my house. Okay? I’ll call the police, I promise you that.”

  I told her I wasn’t going to start any trouble, only wanted to talk to my wife.

  Doreen came to the door wearing a blue pinstripe jacket and pants, her hair braided, longer than before, almost touching her shoulder. Damn! She leaves me and her hair grows.

  Her right eye was swollen, a dark crescent underneath.

  “What happened to you?”

  She looked straight at me. “What do you want, John?”

  I reached to touch her face and she slapped my hand. “Serious, who hit…” It came to me. “I’m sorry, Doreen, it’ll never happen again. I promise you that.”

  “What do you want?”

  “I want my wife to come home. I miss you so much, I really do. What can I say? I made a mistake, several mistakes, but I want to make it up to you…if you’ll let me. Name it, whatever you want I’ll do it. Two jobs, three jobs, whatever you want me to do, baby, just come back home.”

  Doreen looked at the ground. “I want you to stop smoking dope, John, that’s all I want from you. That’s all you need to concentrate on now, stop smoking dope.”

  “Okay, baby, I can do that. Not a problem--when you coming back home?”

  “John, you’re high now.”

  “No, I’m not. My eyes red ’cause I been up all night thinking of you.”

  “Yeah. You really need to go. Pooh stops by every morning for breakfast. He sees you over here there’s going to be trouble. You should leave now.”

  “Damn a Pooh! Let me ask you something, be honest with me. You don’t have a boyfriend, do you?”

  Doreen gave me a look but didn’t respond.

  “The reason I asked, it seems kinda funny you ran off the way you did. Makes me wonder if you had somebody all along.”

  “You’ve lost your damn mind, haven’t you? You stole my money, hit me, tried to hurt my son…Crack has convinced you it’s my fault. You really need to take a good look at yourself when you land, John. You also need to look at your buddy, Fifty. ”

  “Doreen, it wasn’t all your money. We’re married, it was our money.”

  “Is that right? I don’t recall agreeing to buy crack with it.”

  “I said I was sorry. Baby, look, forget all that, come home, okay? Let’s be a family again. You, me, and Lewis, we were a family, don’t that mean anything to you?”

  Doreen closed her eyes. “It meant the world to me, John. Dammit, don’t you know that?” She paused, took several deep breaths. “Remember I told you I watched my father die? Seeing you in the bathroom with that pipe I felt the same way, like I was watching someone I loved die. Then you hit me, went after Lewis. That killed everything, everything we’d worked for, everything we dreamed of. It’s over between you and me, John. I’ve filed for divorce.”

  She started to go back inside but I held the door shut.

  Doreen said, “I’m telling you this one time, only one time, so you’ll know. You ever again put your hands on me, or my son, I’ll kill you!” Sounding if she could do it now.

  I let the door go. “Five years of marriage, one fight and now you talking divorce, talking about killing me, your fucking husband! Doreen, I said I was sorry.”

  “I’m sorry too,” Doreen said, “but that doesn’t help matters, does it?”

  “Nobody lets a marriage go that easy, Doreen. Unless a third party is involved. Tell the truth, you’re seeing someone else, aren’t you?”

  Doreen started to say something but stopped. I followed her gaze and watched a blue Yugo stop in front of the house.

  Doreen said, �
�You need to leave now, John.”

  That sounded like a good idea to me and I started to leave when Oscar bolted out the Yugo, shouting obscenities, running toward me, a gold chain on his thick neck flopping up and down.

  The drama played with a quickness, a movie on fast forward. One instant Oscar was charging toward me, the next he was grabbing me by the knees and lifting me up, and before I could throw one single punch at his ugly head I was on the ground with him on top of me, doing all I could to get him off.

  * * * * *

  Doreen and I started up Pinnacle Mountain with her in the lead, taking our time walking up the path flanked by fir and pine trees. We’d climbed the mountain before, right before we got married.

  The path gave way to a rocky incline, though we could still walk it, leaning forward a little and watching each step. Nearing the peak, Doreen stopped and I offered her the canteen from my pack. After a long drink she kissed me and I wiped the sweat off her nose with my hand.

  At the top we held hands and looked across a green sea of trees at the Arkansas River, the tall buildings in downtown Little Rock, Interstate 540, watched planes come and go at the Little Rock Airport, watched a brown-and-white hawk hover in the air like a slow-moving hummingbird.

  Doreen pointed at the hawk and said, “He sees something, a mouse probably, and he’s waiting for it to rear its head so he can drop on it.”

  “Is that right?” I said, and pulled her close. Held her a long time despite the intense heat beating down on us from a white sun that seemed a rock’s throw away. “I love you, Doreen.”

  “I’m sure you do.”

  That wasn’t Doreen’s voice. I opened my eyes and looked at Fifty staring down at me. Something was on my head and my mouth felt numb. Cindy was sitting in the chair by the bed reading a magazine.

  Fifty said, “I’m glad you woke from that dream. I thought a nurse might walk in during the climax, you know what I mean?”

  I felt the bandage on my head and then gingerly patted my mouth. No doubt about it, it was swollen.