Baby Huey: A Cautionary Tale of Addiction

by James Henderson

  Zelda said, “What the hell y’all looking at? Lay down and turn your heads!”

  They did as told. Again I told Zelda to take half, give me half.

  She said, “Have a seat,” and started taking off her clothes. The lighter flicked on, her rail-thin body in profile, the straight in her mouth.

  “You hear me? Give me half of that shit--I got to go!”

  “What’s your hurry?”

  She came to me, grabbed my package, moved me to a couch. Sitting on my lap she lighted the straight, offered it to me. As I inhaled one of the boys turned his head and stared at me.

  Zelda caught him looking and said, “Boy, you don’t go to sleep I’m getting up and beating your ass!” He turned and I exhaled the smoke.

  My heart racing, my mind some place far away, I barely felt Zelda sucking on my neck. She unbuttoned my shirt, pulled my pants down.

  “Where’s the lighter?” I asked. She gave it to me, pulled my underwear down, and put my package in her mouth. No rubber. That crossed my mind a split second before I hit the straight again.

  The next hour or so we smoked and fucked. At one point Zelda tried to position her pubic near my face and I stopped her, told her, “It ain’t that serious!”

  Then the dope ran out.

  Zelda got up and put her clothes on. “One moe.” Her voice slurred. “Let’s go get one moe.”

  One moe turned into three moe before the night was over. But for the heavy sex between trips tiring us out we would have made four moe. Sunlight glimmered through a dirty, curtain-less window when I woke up. Zelda, bumps and moles sprinkled across her back, lay naked on top of me. I heard her three boys playing outside. The couch was next to the door so they had to have seen us.

  I tried to rouse her. “Your boys are up.” She didn’t budge. “I’m going to get one moe, you wanna go?” She shot to her feet, started looking for her clothes.

  Daylight revealed what looked like a Goodwill Thrift Store after a typhoon. The foul smell, like several shades of foot odor, reminded me of the sordid acts in the dark.

  “Where’s the bathroom?”

  Zelda pointed to a door left of the kitchen. The floorboards creaked with each step. There, in a closet-size room, was a yellow-and-blue stained tub, a putrid puddle in the middle. Spider webs hung from the ceiling. I tried both faucets in the sink and only cold water came out.

  “How do you wash without hot water?” I asked Zelda, dressed now, standing in the doorway.

  She told me she washed at a relative’s house. “Let’s go. You said we were fixin’ to go get another one.”

  The boys wanted to go. Zelda told them to shut up and go in the house.

  “Let them go,” I said. “We’ll stop, get something to eat.” Everybody piled inside the Caddy.

  Zelda said, “Damn kids. Always wanting something, don’t want to do a damn thing.”

  The nearest McDonalds was in Lake Village, twenty miles away. Zelda complained all the way. Happy Meals all around, which the boys devoured before we dropped them off back at the shack.

  I had almost seventeen hundred dollars in my billfold when I parked in front of the white mobile home. Sixteen hundred dollars when Zelda went in and bought another rock.

  Back at her place, the boys outside playing with cars that came with the Happy Meals, I asked Zelda why everyone slept in the front room. She said, “The only room with a heater.”

  Once the smoking started, the welfare of her three boys was my least concern. Day turned into night. Apart from a trip to Kentucky Fried Chicken, also in Lake Village, the merry-go-round from her house to the mobile home continued till the next morning.

  My left leg started acting up. Zelda held a lighter to it and said, “Crackmolodie.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You need to put moe crack in your body.”

  That made sense to me.

  Time stopped, slowed down, and then sped up. My leg stopped swelling up, but then it went numb, and I worried it wasn’t getting enough circulation. Zelda was only concerned about getting another hit. I finally fell asleep with her shaking me, begging me to go get one moe.

  The next day, around noon, a major problem arose. The money and the dope ran out.

  Zelda started searching along the dirty floor…and found a crumb. I couldn’t believe it. She snatched up the straight and I told her to save me a hit.

  Shaking her head, she said, “Nope. Might mess your leg up,” and lighted up.

  The conflicting medical advice pissed me off. It took all I had not to hit her upside the head. Hours later I was still pissed, still thinking about hitting her upside the head.

  Zelda said, “Shit. Let’s go see if we can get Doughboy to give us one on credit. We spent all that money with him, he should, shouldn’t he?”

  “How the hell I know! And what’s this we shit?”

  Zelda stayed inside the mobile home a long time and then came out looking sick. “He wants something I can’t give him,” she said. I gave her a look. “Not that. He wanted that I woulda come out with some dope. Take me back to the house. I’ll get my foodstamp card, see if he take that.”

  Back to her place and she got her foodstamp card. Doughboy didn’t need a foodstamp card. I started to drive away and Zelda said, “Holdup. Let me try one moe thing.” She went back inside and came back a few minutes later.

  To my amazement she retrieved a cellophane bag from under her shirt. It was half filled with big rocks.

  “Damn, what you do he give you all that?”

  Zelda opened the bag and passed it under my nose. “Quality shit, ain’t it? You can tell quality shit by the smell.” I started the Caddy and she said, “Wait a minute.”

  “What?”

  “Doughboy wants something for this.”

  “What?”

  “Your car. You got the title, don’t you?”

  I caught my breath before saying, “You go tell Doughboy I said kiss my ass. Are you crazy? This car all I got. I’m not selling it. Take the shit back!”

  “Okay, okay. Relax, will ya?” She got out and went back inside the mobile home. Twenty minutes later she came back and lighted the straight and gave it to me.

  I started to hit it…stopped. “I hope he don’t think this gonna make me sell my car.” Zelda shook her head. I hit it and offered it to her. She said, “Naw, I’m good.”

  When I finished she said, “Doughboy said he’ll give you the bag and five hundred dollars. Ask me, that’s a damn good deal. A damn good deal! It’s not a Lexus.”

  “Who asked you?”

  * * * * *

  Doughboy was an overweight, potbellied, pink-skinned albino with white eyebrows. A stogie in his mouth, he walked like he had something stuck up his fat ass. He directed questions about the Caddy at Zelda, which didn’t make any sense because it wasn’t her car.

  He lifted the hood, took a long time looking at the engine, mumbled something about oil. Then he slammed it down and oozed behind the steering wheel and revved up the engine.

  He asked Zelda where’s the title. She looked at me and I said, “In the glove compartment.” Zelda hurried and got it out, unfolded it on the hood.

  I started feeling dizzy. Zelda stuck a pen in my hand and told me to sign it. My hand was trembling, but I managed to scribble my name. Doughboy handed Zelda my money and I took it before she put it in her pocket.

  I said, “I need to get my shit out the trunk.”

  To Zelda, Doughboy said, “Get it.” He followed me to the trunk and slammed it down after I took out the plastic bags stuffed with my clothes.

  Zelda said, “Doughboy, you give us a ride back to the house?”

  Finally he turned his funny-looking eyes to me. “Hell naw!”

  It was more than a mile to Zelda’s house. I switched hands when the bags got heavy. Had to stop a couple of times to catch my breath. “I can’t believe I sold my car. I can’t believe it!”


  Zelda lighted the straight and held it to my mouth as we walked. “Believe it.”

  The only way to stop thinking about the Caddy was to get high, which we did, three days in a row. Daytime, when it was warm outside, it was stifling hot inside the shack. At night, cooler outside, it was artic cold inside.

  A rat crossed my lap while I was sitting on the couch and I almost hurt myself jumping up. The boys thought that was funny, asked me to do it again. When they got hungry, Zelda opened a canned good and poured it on crusty plates.

  When the rocks disappeared, Zelda and I walked to Doughboy’s house. The Caddy was parked in front, new rims on it, the ones that continued spinning when the tires stopped. Just looking at it made me dizzy.

  I waited on the porch. Doughboy came to the door when Zelda walked out. I asked him could I drive the Caddy one last time. “You know, for old time sake?” He slammed the door in my face.

  Fat fucker!

  Walking back, Zelda said I was stupid asking Doughboy to drive the car one last time. “That’s like selling a house and then asking to move back in it.”

  I suggested self-copulation in terms she understood. Once we smoked the rocks, a few hours after arriving at the shack, we walked back again. Two miles round trip. Near midnight we made yet another trip. Five in the morning I laced up my tennis shoes for another hike.

  Zelda said, “Both of us ain’t got to go. I’m tired of all this damn walking. Doughboy will sell it to you.”

  “I go get it myself, I smoke it myself.”

  That got her up.

  Walking along a dark highway, Zelda said, “Yo stangy-ass uncle got all that money, me and my kids starving like Marvin. You know that ain’t right. You know it ain’t! Man got that much money he wouldn’t miss a little bit. Probably got most of it in the bank anyway. Betcha he leaves the safe open. Betcha he do. You could sneak up there, be in and out, nobody will know the difference.”

  I couldn’t remember telling her about Uncle CJ’s safe, but how else could she have known. “Why don’t you sneak your narrow ass up there?”

  “I ain’t family. You are. This the country, not Little Rock. People here don’t shoot family. They get mad, you know, but they don’t shoot family. Nobody will suspect you; everybody thinks you went back to Little Rock.”

  “That pink blob riding around in the Caddy, somebody bound to know that’s my car.”

  She mimicked the buzzer sound game shows use to indicate a wrong answer. “It’s not your car--you sold it. Anyway, Doughboy put new rims on it, waxed those scratches out, washed it up real good.”

  Again I fought the urge to pop her head.

  Two days later, and forty miles on my tennis shoes, the money ran out. Once the smoke cleared the ugly truth was apparent: I couldn’t stand the sight, or the smell, of Zelda. And she couldn’t stand me.

  The boys were outside playing. I was reclining while Zelda searched the floor for crumbs. She asked me to get up so she could search the couch.

  “I already looked,” I told her. “Not a crumb here.”

  She got to her feet, twisted her face up. “This my house, you forget? You don’t live here.”

  I ignored her.

  She went to the door and looked out at the boys. “I’m on welfare, got three boys to look after. I can’t have a man lying round here all day. A man ain’t got no job! Welfare people come by see you here not doing a damn thing they cut off my benefits. I can’t jeopardize that for a sorry-ass man.”

  When I didn’t respond she said, “What my boys gonna think they see a lazy-ass man lying round all day, no job, his shirt off? Huh? What they gonna think?”

  “Probably the same thing they think when you half-ass feed them.”

  Her head snapped in my direction. “Mister, for your information, I take care of my boys. And I don’t need you or no other motherfucka telling me how to take care of them!” Her bird chest huffing and puffing. “You don’t like it round here why don’t you move your ass? Better yet, get the hell out my house!”

  I picked at a toenail. “That’s interesting. Why didn’t you say that when you were smoking all my dope?”

  “Mister, I don’t owe you any-damn-thing. Not a damn thing! You got what you wanted, I got what I wanted.”

  “If you implying your pussy worth thousands of dollars and a vintage Cadillac, you out your damn mind.”

  “Get out! Get the hell out! I ain’t playing, get out!”

  “I think you gave me something too. VD or some shit.”

  “I didn’t give you no damn VD. You bought VD!”

  That made me pause, and I hoped she was just talking shit.

  She crossed the room and picked up a broom. Came back and said, “I’m not telling you again get the hell out my house!”

  I sat up. “You might as well put that broom down, ’cause you hit me with it, you gonna have a bigger problem than no hot water.”

  She swung and I jumped up, caught the broom in one hand, her throat with the other. Gagging, her eyes wide with fright, she dug her nails into my wrist. Snot flowed out her nostrils and the nose ring hole. Her hands fell to her sides. Red lines appeared in the white of her eyes.

  “Mister! Mister, you killing my mama!”

  I looked at the boy, standing on the couch, and for a moment I thought he was Lewis. The other two boys were hitting my legs, crying and screaming. I let go, and Zelda collapsed on the floor, holding her throat, making a guttural noise. Her boys moved to her side. The little one patted her back.

  I sat back down on the couch. Breathing hard. Legs shaking. My head hurt.

  Zelda sat up, waved her sons away. The little one hugged her.

  I almost killed her! What the hell am I doing? I almost killed her!

  A shaky voice I said, “You need to get your ass up and clean this place up! Looks like a damn pigsty!”

  Zelda cut me a hateful look before struggling to her feet. She picked up the broom as if it were a hundred pound dumbbell and started sweeping. The boys started cleaning too, picking up piles of clothes and putting them in another pile.

  Watching Zelda sweep the same spot again and again, I tried to make right what I’d done in my mind. She was a whore. A crack whore. She duped me into selling the Caddy. She smoked all my dope. She…she didn’t deserve that. Neither did her boys.

  Not the first time I wondered if crack was driving me crazy.

  An hour later the cleaning stopped, and the shack didn’t look any better than before. Zelda opened a can of green beans and fed it to her boys. Then she lay on the mattress in a fetal position and her boys huddled beside her.

  The sun went down, extinguishing the light inside. One of the puppies on the porch started whining, scratching the door. The bold rat skittered back and forth under the couch.

  I couldn’t sleep, just sat there in the dark listening to Zelda and her boys snoring, wondering if I’d lost my mind.

  In the morning I took off walking to the EZ Mart two miles away. Seven dollars and some change in my billfold, no car, I had no choice but to come back.

  At the EZ Mart I bought ten candy bars for the boys and a forty ounce of Bud Light for Zelda. A guilt purchase, no doubt about it. But I hoped the stuff would smooth things over long enough for me to figure a way to get back to Little Rock.

  Chapter 20

  There was a black Ford Expedition parked in the yard. One of Zelda’s relatives, I thought. Maybe the one with hot water. On the left side of the house clothes were scattered on the ground. They weren’t there when I left. I noticed a silver-and-black Dallas Cowboys shirt. Those were my clothes.

  Zelda stepped out on the porch, a smirk on her lips, the fake diamond stud in her nose. She’d changed the shirt she’d worn since I met her. Same jeans, though.

  “Why you throw my clothes on the ground?”

  She said nothing, started smiling, bobbing her head.

  A man came out of the house: forty-something, my height
, but much heavier in the middle. Salt-and-pepper afro. He threw an arm around Zelda and pulled her close. He was wearing a light-blue denim jacket and jeans over white Fila tennis shoes.

  Again I asked Zelda why she threw my clothes on the ground.

  “This here’s my boyfriend,” she said. “I told him how you choked me yesterday.”

  With his free hand the man lifted his jacket a bit, showing the pearl handle of a small pistol tucked in his waistband.

  Zelda got loud: “Yeah, motherfucka! You choked me in front of my kids. They were big enough they would’ve kicked your ass. My neck still hurting.” The man nodded, inviting me to try something. “You were big and bad yesterday--come up here and choke me now, motherfucka!”

  The walk back I’d rehearsed a long apology, but to hell with that now, with her shouting and talking shit. I crossed to the porch and the man stepped back, put his hand on the pistol.

  I put the bag on the porch, turned and walked away, Zelda’s abbreviated motherfuckers following me to the end of the road.

  * * * * *

  On a bench outside of Wal-Mart, I watched people come and go. A white man in overalls sat beside me and struck up a conversation about Nolan Richardson, the former University of Arkansas basketball coach.

  It started raining, moving east to west, bringing a dank smell with it. A van pulled up and the white man got into it, rolled the window down and told me to have a good day. The rain ceased, but the sky turned black.

  An hour or so later I got up and started walking. Thick fog hovered above the highway, forcing me to walk in a ditch in fear of the infrequent headlights appearing out of nowhere.

  Each step the air felt cooler. At the Willie Powell sign I stopped and reminded myself that I didn’t have any other option but to go up to the house.

  If I humbled myself before Uncle CJ, told him the truth--I blew the money, didn’t have a ride back to Little Rock--he would tell Beverly or Jackie to feed me, and he would tell one of his sons to drive me to Little Rock in the morning.