Baby Huey: A Cautionary Tale of Addiction

by James Henderson

  “Though I wanted to, it’s best not to tell em go get rid of the sucker. I did that once, never heard the end of it. Nine months later she dropped it in my lap, a wrinkled little shit cry all the damn time. Said she named it after me. I was supposed to be proud. The party’s over. Hustling pay better than a forty-hour week, but hustling sorta seasonal, dry spells, no money coming in. A cat by himself no problem, but a cat buying Huggies and formula for a sucker shitting and crying all damn night, a major headache.”

  Something was telling me to leave, stop listening to this crap, get out of the car and start walking. Now! But I couldn’t move.

  “So I got a job. At Tyson. Standing up all day killing chickens. A chickenshit job. I took a shower at the plant, put on my business consultant clothes before I went home. Reminds you of the shit you were doing, don’t it? Thangs clicked fairly well for three months, then the bottom fell out. I got off work and the man waiting for me with a warrant. Parole revocation. I stopped paying the thirty-five dollars I was supposed to pay every month. Forgot about it. Nine hundred and fifty dollars in arrears. I had that in my pocket, but those bastards took me to jail, zipped me through a hearing and sent me back down. Bullshit! Pure bullshit!

  “I called her up, told her what was happening. She hung up on me. The last decent conversation I had with her. Now I’m back in Cummins on the hoe squad, writing letters every night, laying my heart out in every line. She didn’t write back. Wouldn’t take collect calls. I damn near went crazy. Less than a year I would get out, the wise thing to do was keep my mind and my ass in the same place, forget about everything on the outside. But I couldn’t get over her not answering those damn letters.

  “Six months later I’m on work release, three months to go and I’m free, working over there at Goldenwood for fifteen cents an hour. Ring a bell? You started there right after I left. Cat named Tucker, you know him? Big, black crazy sumbitch? Anyway, you know how they do it down there: drop work release off early in the morning, make em wait outside for it to open. Rain, sleet or snow. One morning I slipped round back where the sawdust trailer is, hooked up with an old girlfriend and had her drive me to my apartment. She wasn’t there, moved out. In ten minutes Goldenwood would be opening up, but I said fuck it, told the bitch to drive me to the West End. Walked up to her mama’s house and knocked on the door. Nobody answered. Cars in the driveway, and I heard that sucker crying.

  “I got back on the job fifteen minutes late and nailed those cheap-ass picture frames together like I did every day. Lunchtime they called my name on the intercom. I started for the back door and this short, fat, four-eyed pecker tackled me, and him and this other pecker held me down till the screws came. A miserable Monday! They said I escaped. I said, ‘How the fuck I escape I’m on the damn job?’ Next day I’m back on the hoe squad! A one-year bullshit revocation parlayed into a jive-ass five-year escape conviction.

  “I walked outta Cummins and she’s still on my mind as the day I walked in. Caught a cab and went directly to her mama’s house. I’d just done five years in the joint partially on account of her ass. We had serious issues to discuss. Her mama told me she was married now, told me to leave her daughter alone. That was a blow to the gut. Married? A few days later I find out where she’s living, the cat’s name she’s married to. This where it gets interesting. I walked to her apartment complex--no wheels yet. I don’t see her, but I see this cat walk out the apartment I’m scoping.

  “I’m looking at this cat thinking This can’t be him! This cannot be him! This cat the apartment flunky or something, the one unplug the commodes, stick his hand in the garbage disposals. I watch him go to a gray Cadillac, start washing it, looking at it like it’s a woman. Next day I come back. Goddamn! The same cat walks out the apartment again. The punk-ass, T-shirt, jeans and tennis shoes wearing no-class, nerdy cat as the day before. And he starts washing the Cadillac again! I could not fucking believe it! Maybe the cat just slumming on the weekend, you know? Monday morning he puts the suit on, goes to the office. Wrong! He works at Goldenwood, cheap-ass, hire-any-derelict-off-the-street Goldenwood. You figured out who I’m talking about?”

  I stared at the house, still no lights on. I thought about Mama. She wouldn’t get to see me stepping out of an eighteen-wheeler. Tonight I was going to kill a man, no ifs ands or buts about it, and the next time my mama saw me would be in prison.

  The tape continued: “I go to her job. She’s working at the Magnet School on Roosevelt Road. Walk right up to her in the teacher’s lounge. I say, ‘You replaced me with a cat dress like a bum, work at a sweatshop?’ She’s cool, says, ‘Make this your last time in my face. Next time I’ll call your parole officer, tell him you’re stalking me, harassing me on my job.’ Hadn’t seen her in five years and she’s talking to me like I’m a chump.

  “Considered thumping her ass right then and there, but I didn’t. Chilled. Walked away. A few months later I’m riding through the area in the BMW, sees there’s a party going on. Got my cowboy hat and boots on, but I’m clean. Thought why not step in a minute. Doreen opens the door. Yes, if you haven’t figured it out yet, Doreen. The same Doreen used to scratch my scalp, clip my toenails if I asked. The same Doreen I used to paint pictures of Olive Oyle, sign I Love You on the back. The same Doreen I spent five years in the joint over.”

  My breathing calmed, I stopped sweating and my heart stopped racing.

  “Doreen opens the door and calls me everything but a child of God, yells at me to get the hell out of her apartment. That ain’t the worst of it. Her nerdy, no-class husband wearing the same shit at a party he probably wore to work that day steps in my face, asks me what happened. Two things stopped me going ballistic. One, in the joint you learn early to respect a cat’s house. Don’t matter the cat’s a punk, dress like Pee Wee Herman, you don’t do that. Two, the look on the cat’s face told me Doreen hadn’t told him word one about me. I wondered why. So I left.”

  Still calm, I took the gun out of the glove compartment and checked the cylinder. There was a silver bullet in each visible chamber. I only needed one.

  “Riding round I remember Doreen and I had a son. Our son! My son! By now he’s potty-trained, or should’ve been, and I had a right to see him. I drive back. Everybody’s leaving. Party’s over. I ring the doorbell. ‘Bitch, I want to see my son!’ But Doreen doesn’t come to the door. The nerd again! Back to rule one of penitentiary living: Don’t diss a cat in his house. Spur of the moment shit I gave you a rock. Remember that? You probably didn’t know what the hell it was.”

  The talking stopped and the tape clicked over to the B side. A cat screeched. Mama was probably at work now. Maybe she wouldn’t hear the news until she’d gotten some sleep, rested up a bit. I hoped so.

  The talking resumed.

  “Two days later I’m cruising the hood and guess who I see in front of the liquor store close to getting his ass kicked by Willie Blades? I saved your ass, offered you a drink at my place. ‘Nah, thanks but no thanks,’ your exact words. Cindy stepped out and you changed your mind. Cindy, the white girl. Cindy, the emotional wreck. Cindy with the weak kidneys. No telling how many mattresses she’s sent to the dump. Now listen up, ’cause here’s an important point. At the apartment I laid crack out, but not once did I say, ‘Huh, try this.’ Not once. You, you the one said, ‘Let me try that.’ You the one hit the pipe to impress a white girl who pissed the bed but wouldn’t put on a Depend.

  “Remember the painting I gave you? Baby Huey? See, he was big and stupid, bustin’ up shit all the time. But that wasn’t what caused his troubles. A lotta big, stupid sumbitches live a long life. See, his troubles started when he tried to impress the wrong motherfucker. When the other ducks ran off and left him, he shoulda took his big, goofy ass home and dealt with the truth--I’m a fat fuckup and nobody wants to play with me! Instead he sat outside whining like a big bitch. See the parallel?

  “Your first hit of crack, you were all in, head first. Hooked! Next day you back e
arly in the morning, ready to go at it again. I figured Doreen throw you out on your ass in a day or two, but she didn’t. This where I made a mistake. The painting was you up and down, and I knew once Doreen saw it, she would connect the dots and throw you out on your ass, which she did. But giving you that painting showed my hand, let Doreen know how badly I wanted her back.

  “It didn’t matter, ’cause while you were licking your wounds whining ’bout how hard life is for a crackhead, while I was deciding the most opportune time to swoop in and comfort Doreen, your boy Dokes had already stepped in. Next best thing to payback pussy is pre-divorce pussy. Dokes was fast, too damn fast. He’d been waiting for you to stumble a long time. This where I made another mistake. See, I thought you would take Dokes out, at least try to. That’s why I let you move in. You had the gun, you had the opportunity, but you didn’t have the heart.”

  I have it now, asshole!

  “The night you left was the first night I was able to get a good night sleep. Most nights you were there I sat up all night watching TV. See, I had this nagging feeling you’d wise up and try some shit while I was asleep. I’m thinking: When this cat’s gonna put it together? When he does, what he gonna do? What’s going on here? Is he playing me, making me think he don’t know when he knows? A moron could’ve figured it out. My name and the kid’s the same. Doreen throws a fit at the mention of my name. Dokes dropping salt on me. Shit, call the Pink Panther.

  “In Houston, you chest up to me--almost got your ass kicked again!--and that’s when I realized you wouldn’t figure it out unless someone told you. You know why? You think you are better than me. You know it’s true. You smoked as much crack as I did, but in your eyes I’m not shit. I’m the ex-con, the drug dealer, the lowlife! Doreen, in your mind, would never have anything to do with someone the likes of me. Wrong! And I haven’t told you half the things we used to do.”

  My hand holding the gun started to sweat a little, but I was still calm. Heartbeat as steady as ever. Quiet. Too quiet. Soon, when the tape ended, gunfire would disturb the silence. And Fifty would be dead.

  On the tape Fifty started laughing. “Bet you want to know why I told you all this? Why I didn’t come to you face-to-face instead of putting it on tape? The eighth and ninth step, remember? Number eight: Make a list of all the people we fucked over, and became willing to make amends to them all. Number nine: Make direct amends to the people we fucked over wherever possible, except when doing so would fuck them worst than when we first fucked them.” He laughed again. “John, I didn’t start you smoking crack. You can’t blame that on me. What I did, and I’m sorry for doing it, was pay Tucker fifty dollars to fuck you up.”

  The tape ended.

  I got out of the car and softly closed the door, crossed the yard to the porch. Hesitated at the door. Moved to the side of the house to a window, a plastic bag there, blocking the view.

  No way Fifty forgot the gun in the car. He was waiting for me. I walked around back. If he wanted a shootout, I would gladly oblige him. Something popped under my shoe, a light bulb of something. No matter what he planned to do, he was going to die.

  A pot filled with a putrid liquid was on the back step. The rickety screen door was wide open. I tried the knob on the back door. Unlocked. An owl hooted.

  Pitch black inside. The house smelled stale, an unlived-in odor. A lighter flicked on in the living room and I pointed the gun at it. The small blue flame moved to a candle and took hold there, illuminating Fifty sitting at a card table, a big rock and a pipe on it. No other furniture in the room.

  He had his coat off, draped over the back of the chair. I stepped into the room, trained the gun on his head.

  His face glistened with sweat, the look of fear in his eyes, a thin smile on his lips. Trying to be cool, even now. When he reached for the pipe I saw his fingers trembling.

  I stood there and watched him light up, watched him take a big hit. It would be his last.

  When he exhaled the smoke I said, “Tell me something. I’m Baby Huey, Doreen’s Olive Oyle, and I guess Dokes is Bluto. Who the hell are you?”

  His eyes blinking, he stared at the floor, as if the answer lie there.

  “Tell me! Who the fuck are you?”

  He looked up in my face, his eyes not smiling now but his lips pulled back in a big toothy grin, the candlelight flickering on the two gold teeth, presenting an irresistible target.

  The gun exploded and Fifty’s head jerked back as he fell out of the chair. Moaning, both hands covering his nose and mouth, he got up on one knee and then stumbled back into the chair. The eyes looking at me over splayed fingers were smiling. His hands slid down his face. No blood. No hole. He was grinning, lips stretched wide, revealing pink gums, something silver between his teeth.

  I stared at the gun, wondering what went wrong.

  Fifty spit, and something pinged off the table and rolled onto the floor. A silver bullet.

  Fifty said, “I’m the fox.”

  A noise sounded to my right, and before I could react, a gun was pressed against my jaw. In my periphery I saw Spanky’s ugly face, but couldn’t tell what color wig he had on. I recognized his perfume though; it was the one Doreen favored. Obsession.

  Spanky said, “Ask me who I am, motherfucker!”

  Looking at Fifty reload the pipe I thought about the movie Scarface. The bathroom scene made sense to me now. Tony Montana had just watched his friend die, watched him get cut up with a chainsaw. Handcuffed to a shower rod he couldn’t stop it, but knew deep down that it was his fault: but for him his friend would’ve never been in that motel room; his friend would still be alive.

  I said, “I know who you are…I’ll never forget it. You the cockbiter in a dress!”

  `

  Epilogue

  A guy that looks like Dokes walks past my room. A woman and a boy walk by soon after, the boy looking straight at me. I hear Lewis say, “Here he is, mama.” I close my eyes, and hear high-heel and hard-bottomed shoes enter the room.

  My sense of smell acute now, I detect Doreen wearing a new perfume, a flowery smell to it. Dokes smells of Arid underarm deodorant, the kind you rub on with your fingers. Lewis, his scent the closest to me, smells of licorice. Black licorice. I remember he also likes black jelly beans.

  Today is Easter Sunday.

  They brought in another smell, one I can’t place right off. Talcum powder with a hint of milk? A baby. I’d forgotten they had a baby.

  Lewis says, “John, it’s me, Lewis. You asleep?”

  Deal with it, open your eyes! No. Soon they will leave, and probably wouldn’t come back, leaving me with the look on their faces etched in my mind a long time.

  “John, I got a baby sister,” Lewis says. “Her name is Jenin.”

  Doreen, her voice sounding dry, says, “Lewis…” Her voice trails off.

  Lewis says, “What’s that thing in his mouth?”

  “A ventilator,” Doreen says. “It helps him breathe.”

  “He got to keep it in his mouth forever?” Lewis sounds shocked.

  No one responds.

  No physical way could I convey to them that I’m okay. No matter what I look like, I’m okay in my mind.

  Lewis says, “Who shot you, John?”

  “Lewis!” Doreen snaps.

  A long time I couldn’t recall what had happened. My last memory: driving an eighteen-wheeler at night, looking out for deer on the side of the road. I thought I’d been in a wreck.

  Lewis says, “I’ll get him, John. You tell me who shot you, John, and I’ll get him.”

  Doreen snaps at him again and Dokes says, “Lewis, he can’t talk.”

  The sounds I’d grown accustomed to seem louder now: wheelchairs squeaking in the hallway; a nurse or CNA demanding that someone take meds; mumbling from Mr. Tubbs in the bed next to mine; a resident in the room at the far end of the hallway shouting obscenities.

  Lewis says, “Never? He’ll never talk or
walk again?”

  After the first of many surgeries, a doctor told me I was lucky to be alive. Several surgeons had worked hours to save my life. “We almost lost you several times,” he’d said, and then explained that the bullet ricocheted off my jawbone and exited out the back of my neck, leaving a wake of shattered bones, leaving me what he called a C2 Complete.

  Dokes breaks the silence: “Lewis, let’s you and I step outside for a minute.”

  The more the doctor explained my condition, the more confused I got. He talked about nerve cells not able to regenerate in the brain and the spinal cord, talked about secondary damage caused by proteins invading the injured area.

  Doreen and I are alone now, and again I consider opening my eyes, looking at her. I still love her. God, I pray my body doesn’t spasm.

  Years ago I was sitting in McDonalds eating a Big Mac and fries when a woman parked her son at a table next to mine. He was strapped in a motorized wheelchair, neck and upper torso contorted, hands curled, drool leaking out of his mouth. His mother saw the look on my face when I abruptly got up and left.

  In my mind I can see Doreen looking down at my atrophied body, my disfigured face, my hands clenched permanently into fists, the ventilator tube in my mouth, the bags collecting body fluids hanging below the bed, the same look on her face I had leaving McDonalds.

  Doreen clears her throat, but her words still come out dry. “John, your mother told me to tell you she loves you. She was coming with us, but she couldn’t make it.”

  Two times Mama had come to see me, and I was ready to give her the I’m-asleep treatment too, but she never made it into the room, collapsing out in the hallway, sobbing, calling Jesus, nurses talking to her as if she were a resident.