“What’s up, Red, you on?” Funboy stuck his head out the window. The heavyset black man on the corner shook his head.
“It’s hot right now. Ten minutes.” We rolled off. I gritted my teeth. Ten minutes could designate any length of time. I had no patience. And I didn’t even have a habit yet.
“You’ll be the worst dope fiend ever, Mike. No patience.”
“I’ll never be a dope fiend,” I said. His eyes kind of slid around.
“Just don’t do it three days in a row.” Three days, that was the magic number. Don’t do it three days in a row and you won’t get addicted. Ridiculous, with that white hole swelling in my memory. Suddenly Funboy yelled and turned up the radio all the way.
Oh baby I like it raw.
Oh baby I like it raw.
Oh baby I like it raw.
“Yeah! I like it raw too!” He raised his fist out the window. The popular rap tune was his theme song.
“You know, Mike,” he said thoughtfully. “I only get raw dope. That’s because raw dope is the best. Scramble dope is cheaper, but it’s got a lot of cut. Now how many dope fiends do you think only fuck with raw dope?” I shrugged. “Less than 10 percent? Probably less than five. That means I’m in the top 5 percent.” He stared out as street after street of standing, stumbling, stooping Baltimore junkies flew by.
“Look at these fucking scramble dope fiends.” We pulled up at a red light. A middle-aged woman stood on the curb next to our stopped car. Her mouth hung open.
“Fucking scramble dope fiend.” Funboy spoke it slowly into her face through the open window as the light turned green.
“All right, man, isn’t there anywhere else?” I was a little tired of driving around. I lit another cigarette. I don’t smoke anymore. In my diseased memory, the cigarette is as thick around as a baby’s arm. Its white skin is as deep and rich and full of the future as a baby’s. Funboy looked uncertainly at the sun.
“Well, there are other spots, but these red tops are really the best right now. Plus, I like to support that corner.” Ten minutes later we were back. Red shook his head.
“Too hot out here. We getting everybody together at the park.”
“All right,” Funboy said. “Make a right, then a quick left, Mike.”
“OK, Funboy.” It kind of felt good to be ordered around by Funboy. “Right! Left! Right! Left!”
“Yes, sir!” I was a soldier in the army of fun.
We parked at a lot adjoining a small city park and got out. We walked through a clump of trees and into an unbelievable scene. There were at least fifty or sixty junkies milling around in the green space between the park’s path and the busy street. As I stared, another junkie came up the path in a wheelchair. Two more came out of the bushes to my left. It seemed like all of Funboy’s top 5 percent were here. Some were wearing ratty jeans and faded Metallica T-shirts. Some were wearing ratty jeans and faded Bob Marley T-shirts. Some were wearing ratty jeans and faded “Baltimore Reads!” T-shirts. It was a diverse crowd.
“We can’t just wait here with all these junkies!” I whispered. “This is totally obvious. The cops will definitely see this from the street. It’ll probably be on the news.” Funboy shook his head.
“You sure don’t know Baltimore. This is why I moved back here from Seattle.” He wandered over and sat down next to a middle-aged black man in a suit, a woman in a faded Beatles T-shirt, and a sixteen-year-old white girl in a McDonald’s uniform.
“Oh hey, Funboy,” the girl said. “Waiting on that raw?”
“You know me, Melissa. I only fuck with raw,” he said. She smiled.
“Me too. Here’s a coupon for a free soft-serve cone,” she passed it to him and he took it.
“You know,” the Beatles fan said, “There’s nothing like raw dope. Maybe I’m funny. I could get scramble near where I live, but I take the bus all the way out here. I guess I gotta have that raw.”
“They better hurry,” the suited man said, checking his expensive watch, “I have to be in court in an hour and a half. I’d go downtown, but I really only mess with raw dope.”
“How’d Richie’s case come out, Louis?”
“Pretty good, Funboy,” the suited man replied, “when you consider what we had to work with. We were able to plead it down to manslaughter, but in the state of Maryland—” Louis was cut off by a sudden surge through the crowd. Everyone was standing up and moving. We pressed forward with the rest.
“Get over! Everyone get over quick or you won’t get served!” Members of the dealer’s crew, identifiable by their plain white T-shirts and confident alert movements, were directing the crowd across the street. Traffic stopped, honking, as a jerky stream of junkies walked, ran, trotted, biked, and wheeled across the busy street to the block of row houses. A hundred yards down the street to our left, I saw a stream of about thirty people crossing the road in the other direction, toward the park. I grabbed Funboy’s arm and pointed. He shot them a quick glance.
“That’s just the line for ready rock.” Ready rock was Baltimore slang for crack.
Across the street we were herded down a block and a half and into an alley. There must have been almost a hundred of us by now. The crowd spilled out one end of the alley into the street. “OK!” voices rang out. “Everyone just keep still or you won’t get served.” The pushing and moving ceased instantly, like the current had been shut off. I pushed three twenty-dollar bills into Funboy’s hands. We stood still for maybe five minutes until one of the crew came by and served Funboy. Then he turned to me.
“How many?”
“None,” I said. He looked startled.
“He’s with me,” Funboy explained.
“Man,” the dealer said, “if you’re not buying don’t be getting in line. These extra motherfuckers draw the heat.” We took off. I looked back as we crossed the street. The knot in the alley was coming apart as little threads of two or three furtive junkies peeled off and disappeared.
We climbed back into the car. I turned the air-conditioning on full blast and we pulled out, looking nervously for cop cars. Cop cars are white on the outside. On top they have big red and blue organs for sensing fear. You have to stay calm. That’s why Funboy insisted on fixing right there in the moving car. I hated that. But I admired his dexterity. When he was done, he sat back. Then he yelled and turned the radio all the way up.
Oh baby I like it raw.
Oh baby I like it raw.
“I only fuck with raw dope,” Funboy said. “Because. Raw. Dope. Is. The shit.” He called out the dope spots as we passed them. “White tops…green tops…ready rock…black tops…scramble…scramble…scramble.” We were getting into downtown. Mount Vernon Square, St. Paul Street. People drank tea under café umbrellas, strolled under sun hats, picked up change from the sidewalk. Outside the Atlantis, young broke junkies lined up to audition to be strippers. Outside the Walters, old rich junkies walked their poodles. The sun lit up fake and real jewels on old and young women. There were red awnings and blue awnings in the air, and red tops and blue tops on the ground. There were people climbing in and out of buildings with no windows. And the alleys were even more crowded than the streets.
Swinging Baltimore in the late nineteen-nineties! There was no place like it. I’ve taken Ecstasy in Dublin, been clubbing in London, seen art shows in New York, talked with Charlie in Cleveland, gone shopping in Tokyo, overdosed in Amsterdam. But there was no place like Baltimore in the late nineties. Everyone knew everyone. You felt like you could walk in any door and find someone who was selling what you wanted. There were beautiful parks. There were liquor stores and ice cream trucks. There were no Nazis. It was my kind of city. Well, there was one Nazi.
“I’m a Nazi, Mike,” Funboy admitted, as we rolled up Charles.
“Really,” I said.
“Yeah, I hate niggers.”
“What about Jews?”
“I don’t know any Jews.” I thought about this. It didn’t make sense.
“How can
you be a Nazi if you don’t hate Jews?”
“Because the niggers rule the world. They keep us down. They stick together. They’re smart and crafty and they run shit. It’s a nigger conspiracy out here. I mean, you’re not blind. Look around. What color are the dealers?”
“Black,” I said.
“And you saw that crowd of fiends out in the park. White and Asian and Mexican. But the dealers? Every one was black.”
“Wait,” I said. “There were lots of black fiends too. What about Louis? He’s black.”
“Yeah,” Funboy said, “But he’s a lawyer. An Oreo. Black on the outside, white on the inside.” He pondered. “Most black fiends,” he said, “are white inside.”
I decided to try a different approach.
“You know, Funboy, most people see it differently. If you look at the country as a whole, you’ll find that black people don’t actually dominate it. In fact, on average they tend to be poorer than whites. Because of a history of racism, many blacks are forced to live in inner-city areas infested by drugs. They don’t have access to the education that would enable them to get good jobs. And because of this lack of opportunity,” I concluded, “some of the smartest and most ambitious are forced to become drug dealers.”
Funboy snorted. “Forced to become drug dealers.” He looked disgusted with me. “Forced to drive Mercedes and fuck hot bitches and get all the money and all the dope. And what do you mean, black people have to live in the part of the city where there’s drugs? I’d do anything to live in that part of the city! A dope spot within walking distance? Are you kidding? But I can’t live there. The niggers would kill me. They’re forced to live there, yeah right. You just try moving to Edmondson Avenue!”
“But I wouldn’t want to move there.”
“That’s ’cause you’re stupid. People come from all over to visit that place. Best dope in the state for sure. But they won’t let no white people move in there. They wouldn’t give white people the opportunity. That’s why I hate niggers. White people work all day in some shitty suburb, then take their paycheck down to Edmondson or Druid Hill or Greenmount. Like slaves. Niggers run the world. You’re blind.”
“But they really don’t, Funboy. You’re not being—”
“And all the rappers are black!” he yelled. “How do you explain that? Practically every fucking one of the rappers is black! DMX, Jay-Z, Master P. Sure, they let Eminem in. One. A token.”
“What about the president, Funboy?”
“A token,” he said, “like Eminem. You just keep talking that shit the niggers teach you in grad school, Mike, while you stand in line waiting for Red’s dope.” He imitated my voice. “‘Niggers are poor and oppressed! Please let me get one, Red! I’ll do anything!’”
He resumed his normal Funboy voice. “But one day there will be a revolution.” He looked dreamily out the window. “A Nazi revolution. Then the slums will be filled with white people. And I’ll be right there.”
Although Funboy was a Nazi, some of his best friends were black. Tony, for instance. Tony Rolls, or Tony K., or Carey Street Tony.
“Cool,” Tony said. He was looking at a poster for some shitty band Funboy was in.
“Yeah,” Funboy said. “We’re playing at the Otto Bar next Sunday.”
“How much do you get?” Tony asked.
“Almost nothing.” Funboy set down the guitar he’d been strumming. “Pretty much nothing. Enough to get high. Kind of.” Tony let the poster fall.
“Bet you get more than I get slinging for Red, man.” He lit a cigarette. He had “Carey” tattooed in Chinese restaurant letters down the back of his left forearm, “Rolls” tattooed down the back of his right. “I worked it out. If you add up all the time I spend waiting on the damn corner and helping move the stash and shit, it works out to about eight dollars an hour.”
“Yeah,” said Funboy, “but you also get crazy free red tops, man.” He laughed. “I work 24/7 and all I get is free red tops. You’re eight dollars an hour ahead of me.”
“If y’all be lovin’ those red tops, then why the fuck,” a low booming voice uttered, “is you here then?” The enormous man shuffled in and sat heavily down on the couch. He tossed two white paper squares on the coffee table. They landed on an open porno mag, next to a pair of nunchaku, an overflowing ashtray, a fork sticking straight up from the wood, an open box of Domino sugar, and a Polaroid picture of a baby with an open mouth. A pit bull was chained to one of the table’s frail legs. Four or five pairs of new-looking Nikes lay scattered around the floor.
“Cool, Howard.” Tony scooped up one square, tossed me the other. A chain hung from the ornate wooden mantle. The apartment, overlooking Druid Hill Park, had some nice plasterwork on the high ceilings. Probably built in the twenties. Now this was the worst neighborhood in Baltimore. I didn’t want to be here, but it was late, and all the drive-through raw spots were closed.
“If you gettin’ all them red tops,” Howard repeated, “what you come see old Howard for?” He grabbed an inhaler off the table and started hitting it. He probably weighed four hundred pounds. Tony picked up the Domino sugar box and poured a little sugar into his palm. While Howard continued to wheeze and pump the inhaler, Tony took a wad of tinfoil from his pocket. He unfolded the tinfoil and gently tapped some yellowish powder on top of the sugar in his hand. Using his index finger, he mixed the powder in with the sugar. I stared.
Howard recovered. His eyes were watering.
“I think I seen you in that movie you was talking about. Wasn’t your hair a different color then?” He stared at the girl sitting next to me. Sara. She was cute, with milky skin, a lithe gymnast’s body and bright dyed-red hair. I met her through Funboy. She smiled at Howard. “Uh-huh.”
Tony held his palm full of sugar and yellow powder out to the dog, who began eagerly snuffling at it. Howard looked over with molasses eyes. There was no yellow in the white at that distance.
“Toss me that box,” Howard ordered. I passed the sugar to him, leaning over Sara. He poured out a handful of sugar and tossed it in his mouth.
“I seen lots of movies, you know,” Howard said. “I love movies. I’d like to direct. I think I’d be real good, ’cause I know what people like. What was it like acting in the movie, baby?”
“Wow, it was so awesome!” She sat straight up like an alert schoolgirl, an enthusiastic smile on her face.
“Some people think all movies is the same,” Howard said. “Wai-Chee, my nigger down at the video store, don’t know. ‘It’s the girls, Howard, not the director.’ But you know when he comes to order new ones, he be asking me which ones and shit. I love a good director. I spot ’em in the first shot. I like the way they be getting them in position, not just any way, but like a statue.” Howard demonstrated, shifting his grotesque bulk, arching his back, and opening his mouth in fake ecstasy. “You see, baby, what I like to see is when the girls—what the fuck is wrong with my dog?” The pit bull was snuffling and foaming. Funboy stood up.
“I just loved doing that movie,” Sara said loudly over the dog. “At one point, they made me close my eyes. I wanted to keep them open, but they thought it would be more passionate.” Howard lobstered over to his foaming dog. The dog made a wet inside cracking noise and lay still, breathing slow and rough.
“Did he eat something? Did y’all see him eat something? Did he eat something up off the floor? Did he eat some dope off the floor? I know didn’t no dope do this.”
“Ain’t no fucking dope on the floor,” Tony drawled. He rose slowly.
“Yeah, ain’t no dope on the floor, Howard.” Funboy pushed his long blond hair out of his blue Nazi eyes. “Where is the dope, by the way, Howard?”
“It’s not on the floor,” Tony said. He pretended like he was looking for it. “I just don’t see it on the floor. Gotta be somewhere else. Where you keep all the dope, Howard?” Sara lit a cigarette and stood up with smiling eyes. Howard seemed oblivious, still crouched over his dog, fat belly flopping, muttering. He wa
s all over, shapeless fat poured over five or six square feet. Funboy moved out into the hall.
“Where the hell you going?” Howard turned and stood up like spilled water poured back into a glass. Phantom guns moved outside the dark windows. Tony was whispering into his cell phone.
“Nowhere, Howard!” Funboy said in a high-pitched schoolboy’s voice. “We just gotta go now.”
I stood up, clutching the white square of paper. It was more like a lump. My hands had sweat right through it. Howard turned, wheezing. Tony closed the cell phone.
“Get at you later, Funboy. Peace, Mike, Sara. Howard, I’ma chill for a minute. You look hungry. You want some more sugar?” Earlier that day, Tony had performed a little rap for me. He said he kind of practiced rapping while he stood all day on the corner of Edmondson and Denison. “Niggers got to not see me / Niggers be turning up casualties,” Tony rapped. He’d laughed, showing white teeth. He had a white heart too. Funboy said he had a serious habit, kept alive by multiple wires going multiple places. One lay sparking in the dog’s throat. Tony was going to chill for a minute. I was kind of excited to leave.
Out in the car, as Sara, Funboy, and I sped away, I really let Funboy have it.
“What the hell was that about, Funboy?”
“Nothing, man.”
“What do you mean, nothing? What did Tony do? What is Tony going to do? Did you know he was going to…to fuck with Howard’s dog?”
“He was just playing with the dog.”
“Oh, that’s just bullshit.” The whole situation was sour to me. I wondered if I had committed some kind of crime just by being there. I wondered who Tony had called, what he was doing now. “What if something happens to Howard? Will I be connected?”
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