Baby Huey: A Cautionary Tale of Addiction

by James Henderson

  Fifty said, “You all right. A couple teeth missing and some stitches, that’s about it. How bad the other guy look?” He thought that was funny, looked at Cindy and gave her a wink. “You made the news, you know that? ‘Man found fucked up near his car.’ Cindy says to me, ‘That’s John’s car,’ and we rush over here. Told them you were my brother, okay? Cindy likes you John, you know that. Ain’t that right, Cindy?” She nodded, not looking away from the magazine. “She thinks you oughta come live with us for a while, at least till you’re able to chew solids.”

  I shook my head.

  “Okay, turn down the invite. Hurt Cindy’s feelings. Come on, we’ll give you a ride wherever you want to go.”

  I shook my head again.

  Fifty said, “The nurse didn’t mention brain damage, so it’s time to get real. You don’t have insurance you got to go. This an emergency room, they’ll be needing it soon. Right now, whether you like it or not, Cindy and me all you got.”

  * * * * *

  Sitting in the back seat of Fifty’s BMW, I grunted when he took the wrong exit to my apartment.

  Fifty said, “Chill out, okay? I’m taking you to get your car. You want your car back, don’t you?”

  At Gloria’s house Doreen’s Camry and the Lincoln were gone. The Yugo was parked under the carport, my Caddy behind it. No, I didn’t want my car.

  Fifty parked across the street from the house and we sat there several minutes before I mustered the nerve to get out. The front door was open and I could hear Jerry Springer on the television. The Caddy was locked, all four windows rolled up, and no keys in the ignition.

  I went and got back inside the BMW and motioned for Fifty to take off.

  “Wait a minute,” Fifty said. “Doreen’s mother lives there, right? Knock on the door and tell her to give you your keys.”

  I shook my head and grunted several times, trying to convey to him that it might be Oscar instead of Gloria inside the house.

  “What was that, John?” Fifty said. “You’re worried about round two? Look at this.” He held up a long, silver-plated gun and I grunted even louder. “Your partner, Fifty, got your back. You go up there and tell whoever the fuck’s in there give you your keys. They give you some shit about it they’ll be sorry they did.”

  Fuck that!

  More minutes passed and Fifty said, “John, trust me, I’m not letting you get your ass whooped two times the same day. You don’t get your car now I’m not bringing you back out here. You wait a few days, who’s to say whoever whooped your ass won’t sell it?”

  Who’s to say I knock on the door and Oscar run out and whoop my ass again while Fifty sat in the car laughing way too hard to even think about pointing his gun?

  Cindy said, “Look,” and Fifty and I looked at the house to see Oscar standing on the porch. No shirt or shoes, his fat belly spilling over the front of gray extra-large gym shorts.

  “Hey, punk,” Oscar shouted, “you want these keys you better come get em!”

  Fifty said, “He’s talking to you, John.”

  The walk to the house seemed a mile long. Oscar held the keys out and then dropped them on the ground before I could take them.

  “What happened this morning,” he said, “that was a rehearsal. You put your hands on my sister again I’ll show you the real thing. You catch my drift, punk?”

  I grunted, “Yes, sir.”

  Oscar chuckled, a whiny hee hee. “Kick your ass you elevate me to sir. I like that.”

  The Caddy started right up and I backed out of the driveway, blew my horn at Fifty, and sped off down the street. Damn em all!

  Inside the apartment I looked in the mirror and almost fainted. Two knots bulged my forehead just below the gauze bandage wrapped around my head. My mouth looked like an elephant had stepped on it: swollen, split, a dark space where two front uppers belonged.

  Someone knocked on the door and I heard Fifty’s voice. Fuck him! He knocked a long time. Not long after Mama knocked a long time too.

  Taking off my bloody T-shirt I finally discovered the source of that noxious funk filling every nook of the apartment. Me.

  Chapter 13

  People tend to stare at a guy with a bandage on his head, teeth missing. Either he’s crazy or he likes getting his ass whooped; whichever, it’s best to keep a distance, and get him out of your place of business as quickly as possible. Why I kept the bandage on, although I’d removed the six stitches four nights ago certain they were causing my head to swell up.

  Moe, the owner of the pawnshop on Broadway, frowned each time I came in the door, and didn’t haggle much when I told him my price for books, albums, cheap jewelry.

  One item caused trouble. The Sony DVD/CD player that I’d bought for Lewis. For some reason Doreen had put it in a shoebox in the closet.

  The damn thing brought back memories: Lewis and I walking to the store, holding hands like father and son; Lewis and I fishing, that big bass jumping up, surprising us both, Lewis saying damn.

  Mostly that DVD/CD player reminded me of Lewis coming at me with a hammer, that anguished look on his face, tears rolling down his cheeks.

  Three times I took the DVD/CD player to the pawnshop and three times I sat in the car not able to take it inside, thinking You bought it for him, it’s his.

  Yesterday the lights went off, so I called AP&L and was told that Doreen had closed the account in her name. Shit. Everything ran by electricity, the lights, the air and heat, even the damn toilet.

  It was raining outside. Thundering and lightning, each flash of light illuminating the DVD/CD player on the floor. The apartment smelled empty, looked empty…

  Fuck it!

  Driving through rain so heavy only a few feet was visible, I figured to pawn the DVD/CD player, turn the lights back on, and then buy Lewis another one later on, when I got a job. The plan went south when Moe said, “Five dollars all I can give for it. I got too many already.”

  No way in hell. The damn thing cost almost five big ones and Lewis hadn’t even played with it. From the pawnshop I went straight to Oak Street and sold it for three rocks, three fat rocks.

  For hours I sat in the dark, my back against the wall, listening to gospel music from the apartment above, flicking my Bic, looking at the blue-and-yellow flame turn the pipe red, holding the acrid smoke in as long as I could before exhaling, listening to my heart skip beats, remaining dead still so not to disturb that feeling of invincibility, that feeling of something going on, that feeling of getting close to something special, something unknown and yet experienced.

  The music stopped. What time is it? I started to get up and look out the window and felt a sharp pain in my right hip, the spot where I landed when Oscar body-slammed me. Pinching the spot hurt like hell, but that didn’t tell me anything.

  What I needed to know: Is it swelling up? Listening to Fifty, I’d walked out the hospital without talking to a doctor. For all I knew there was a tumor on my hip the doctor wanted to talk with me about.

  The more I thought about that possibility, and the more I rubbed the spot, the more I feared swelling up and dying. Even if it didn’t kill me, what kind of life could I live with a watermelon-size knot on my hip?

  I limped to the bathroom. More problems: The lighter held behind me cast a great shadow but I couldn’t see anything; the lighter held near my ever-growing hip didn’t reveal much either because the small oval-shaped mirror hung head level.

  I limped to the full length mirror behind the bedroom door, and still couldn’t see a damn thing. Back to the bathroom, this time stepping up on the sink, my head touching the ceiling. The flame burned my thumb; no matter, my life was on the line.

  Now I could see. Bumps. A mole. Stretch marks. The lighter got too hot to hold and I dropped it, heard it hit the sink. Picked it up, flicked it and watched in horror as the silver casing shifted under a bubble of hot plastic and popped off. Shit!

  A few minutes later I stepped outs
ide. It was still raining. The way I saw it, I could either sit there in the dark and swell up and die and then be discovered weeks later when someone finally called the authorities about a foul smell, or go ask somebody to take a look at my hip.

  Sasha McDonald, wearing only a white slip, opened the door, asked me was everything all right, asked where was Doreen.

  “Tim here?” I said.

  “Yes, but he’s asleep. You want me to wake him up?”

  “You don’t mind, I need to ask him something.”

  Sasha invited me in, inquired about Doreen again, told me to wait a second she would get Tim. Although their apartment looked neat and clean, it reeked of dog shit.

  A Saint Bernard galloped out of the kitchen--surprised the shit out of me, I thought it was a polar bear--and jumped up on me. I froze, too shocked to do anything else, and let the dog lick my face.

  Sasha reappeared in a red bathrobe and grabbed the dog by its ear. “Spotty, get down, you know better to do that.” To me: “He’s just a puppy.” Spotty jumped up on her, licked her face, and she laughed in delight.

  Tim finally showed up, wearing only a pair of blue Hanes, scratching his hip. “What’s up?”

  “Tim, I didn’t mean to wake you, but I need to ask you something.”

  All three of them, Tim, Sasha, and that funky dog, waited for me to say what it was I needed.

  “In private,” I said, “if you don’t mind?”

  Tim told Sasha to lock the dog in the bathroom and go back to bed. When they left he again asked what was up.

  A nanosecond the reason for my coming here seemed silly.

  Doreen was out of town, I explained. One of her relatives took sick. “I was trying to screw a light bulb in and fell down on my hip. I’m not sure if I bruised it or what.”

  The expression on his face said he wasn’t grasping the seriousness of the situation. “Maybe if you see it.” I pulled my pants down a few inches and turned to show him my hip. “Tell me it ain’t swelling up?”

  Tim hit me in the back of the head, almost knocking me down. What the hell? He swung again, but this time I blocked it, put a forearm under his neck and backed him against the wall. “The fuck wrong with you, man?”

  “Get out of my house, homo! Get out!”

  Homo?

  He started shouting for Sasha. “Get Spotty!”

  I released him and shot out the door, ran to my apartment, locked the door, looked for something to put against it before realizing I’d pawned or sold everything.

  The next morning the landlord woke me up. His angry face showing through the crack in the door, the chain stopping him from entering. He said, “Open up.”

  I saw the pipe on the floor, hoped he didn’t. The rent had been paid. What’s his problem? “Wait a minute,” I told him, and walked over and shut the door.

  He said he’d be back, and I told him I’ll be here.

  Rays of sunlight with floating dust particles beamed on the dirty carpet floor. I picked up the trash, mostly Church’s Chicken boxes, and swept the carpet and the kitchen floor with a broom. Found some Comet in the bathroom and scrubbed the shower, the commode, then the sink.

  The landlord came back with a policewoman who pushed the door open, breaking the chain.

  “Told you I’ll be back,” the landlord said. He was a short, round man. Dirty white hair draping a bald dome. Beady eyes. Simon Legree in a blue jumpsuit. “Didn’t I tell you I’ll be back? Yes, sir!”

  I spoke to the policewoman, a trim, serious-looking redhead. “I paid the rent. What’s the problem?”

  Bobbing his head up and down, the landlord said, “The problem, you wanna know the problem? You don’t live here no more, that’s the problem. Yes, sir!”

  The policewoman said, “You’re being evicted, Mr. Dough.”

  “What? I got a lease. He evict me tell him give my rent money back.”

  The landlord found that amusing. “Your name not on the lease. Yes, sir! Your wife rented this apartment, and she came by yesterday and terminated the lease.” He kept glancing at the policewoman. “She also mentioned a check you cashed that didn’t belong to you. What you got to say about that? Yes, sir!”

  Worried now, I said, “How many days I got to get out?”

  “Ten,” the landlord said.

  “Not a problem,” I lied. “I’m outta here in three days.”

  The policewoman said she didn’t want to come back and the landlord said he would put a lock on the door, stop me from going in or out. They left, and I wondered where the hell was I going to go.

  * * * * *

  Fifty rubbed his moustache, stared at me over the top of orange-tinted shades. We were sitting in the front room of his apartment. Dire Straits were playing on MTV. Ashes from a long strawberry incense sticking out of a fat red candle fell onto the coffee table.

  “This country was built on pimping,” Fifty said. “Lotta people believe it was built on hard work, patriotism, buncha other bullshit. Read the history. Poe folks, dumb folks, dark folks--they either got their shit took or were forced to work for free. Today it’s the middle class--every poe sumbitch bustin’ ass to pay for a buncha bullshit just to say I ain’t poe.”

  I nodded in agreement, clueless.

  “Other day,” Fifty said, “me and old gal come see you in the hospital, offered an invite, took you to get your car. You drove off without saying so much as thank you. Knocked on your door a few minutes later you wouldn’t even let me in. Now you in my face asking me to let you move in ’cause you ain’t got nowhere else to go. That ain’t pimping I don’t know what is.”

  A long silence. Fuck him! I wasn’t going to beg.

  Fifty picked up the remote on the table and switched the channel to BET, Ludacris trying to walk with a silver-painted woman chained to his neck.

  “See?” Fifty said. “That’s part of the seduction. Cat driving an expensive car, beautiful women hanging on his neck, pissing gold and silver. How many cats you know got it like that? Not too damn many. How many cats you know shuffling round broke than three sumbitches? How many you know in jail? How many you know sweating a penny-ante job to wear two-dollar shit cost ninety dollars made by some sad sucker overseas paid one dollar? Millions of em! Basic pimping: All the shit I got you ain’t got you oughta have.”

  I wondered was he high, but didn’t see any drug paraphernalia on the table.

  Fifty took his shades off and laid them on the table; his eyes were clear. Fifty Cents replaced Ludacris on the television.

  Fifty said, “Know what the key to success is? Luck. Motherfucking luck. All those damn tattoos. Twenty years he’ll look like a water-colored prune.“ A click of the remote and Emenim appeared in a Robin suit. “Talent don’t mean shit. Luck, that’s all it is. Ask one of them jokers how he got where he at, he start talking ’bout how God blessed him.” Fifty laughed. “Listen to the lyrics. Bottom line, money, pussy and killing. Tell me how the fuck you mix God with that?”

  Looking at the Snoopy and Donald Duck oil paintings on the wall behind him, I said, “You never know, you might get lucky one day too.” Then I got up, moved to the door. “See ya around.”

  “You can stay,” Fifty said, “on two conditions. One, don’t indulge Cindy. She starts talking crazy tell her to shut her mouth, you don’t wanna hear it. Okay?”

  “Not a problem. She doesn’t say much to me anyway. What’s two?”

  Fifty smiled, the light in the ceiling fan sparkling his two gold teeth. “We drive to Houston pick up a couple turkeys…in your car.”

  Chapter 14

  Three days later, Thursday, Fifty kicked the couch, said it was time to go get the turkeys. Houston seemed a long way to go get turkeys. I told him that and he said, “Get ready.”

  At the most I’d gotten four hours of sleep. Someone else’s couch you had to wait till they went to bed before you could lie down. Fifty had stayed up till three watching a damn House Party movie. Th
en, at four, just when REM sleep was starting to kick in, Cindy started screaming, for a long time.

  She came out of the bedroom wearing a periwinkle three-piece suit, high-heeled sandals, her hair combed back in a bun, teacher glasses, a serious look on her face. And I realized then we weren’t going to pick up two Butterballs. Fifty asked her, “Are you ready?” and she said yes.

  “What we going to get?” I asked.

  He went into the kitchen and came back with two plastic water jugs. “One with the red top yours,” he said. “Don’t forget. Mine blue. Give me your keys, I’ll put em in the trunk.”

  I pointed at my keys on the table. “What we need those for?”

  “You’ll see. Lock the door when you come out.” He and Cindy walked out arm in arm, she in her business clothes and him dressed like a cowboy, white silk shirt under a brown vest, white slacks over white silver-tipped lizard-skin boots, and white Stetson.

  All my clothes were kept in two plastic bags in the hall closet. After a quick shower I picked out a pair of jeans and a black shirt with a Dallas Cowboy’s helmet in front and thought I looked okay till I walked outside and Fifty said, “That all you got to wear you can pick something from my wardrobe. You look like an advertisement for government cheese.”

  “What we going to get?” I didn’t see Cindy. “Where’s Cindy? I thought she was going with us.”

  “Let’s talk in the car,” Fifty said, and once we got in, “A turkey--some call it a bird--is a kilo of coke. We’re going to get two, one of em mine, the other Batman’s. You sure you don’t wanna wear some of my shit?”

  “Wait a minute, man, I’m not transporting drugs across state lines. That’s a felony. I’m not going to prison fucking with you.”

  “Slow your roll, will ya? Look at the gray Grand Am on your left, a rental, Texas plates. That’s the car the turkeys ride in.”

  I looked over and saw Cindy in the driver seat looking at herself in the rearview mirror. “What you need me for? You and Cindy go, I’ll wait till y’all get back.”