Roxanne: From Addict to Hustler

by King Benjamin

  I went through the third rock a little faster, since it wasn’t as big as the ones I’d paid for.

  “Phil, can I get some credit now?” I begged.

  He strolled towards the kitchen, but stopped short of coming in. He leaned against the doorway.

  “I can’t give you credit right now, Roxanne. I haven’t seen you in months and you just got out of rehab. For all I know, when you leave here, it might be months before I see you again.”

  “Come on, Phil, don’t do me like that.”

  “I just gave you one on the house,” he reminded me.

  “Yeah and it was little as hell too. Come on, Phil, you know I don’t play with nobody’s money.”

  “Hey, me and you always been on good terms. I’ve never had a problem getting paid. I just can’t take a chance on you right now, ‘cause you ain’t been around.”

  “Just one, though?” I reasoned.

  “Now, Roxanne, you know if I give you one, you gonna want another one and another one. But I tell you what we can do,” he said, pausing as if I didn’t know what was coming next. “We can go upstairs and I can put this muthafucking dick in yo’ head,” he said, grabbing his genitalia for emphasis.

  The thing was, I’d just gotten some mind-blowing sex from Bam just hours ago and I honestly was still a little drained from it. The thought of sucking Phil’s dick when I really didn’t feel like it angered me, but not more than being out of crack at that moment.

  “Okay, I’ll suck your dick, but no sex,” I stated.

  I felt stupid as the words came out of my mouth. I should be somewhere doing all I could to help Kiesha. She was the only friend I had in the world. But here I was, headed up the steps to turn a trick for drugs. As we made it up the stairs, I saw a girl and a guy asleep in the first bedroom. The Head Bussas always kept a house full. We went into the back bedroom and I tried to get my mind focused on what I was doing, so I could make it quick and easy. He closed the door behind him.

  “Let’s do this,” I said.

  For my services, I got two dime rocks and five dollars for my pocket. By this time, Phil’s uncle had woke up and realized that I was using his stem. I had to share my two rocks with him plus my cigarettes, so the dope didn’t last long. I really didn’t care, because it was daylight outside and I was tired of getting high alone, but I wasn’t ready to quit. I sat in the kitchen with Uncle Buddy, learning all about the other drug addicts in the hood and their personal triumphs and setbacks.

  I learned who was in rehab and who had passed away recently. Then Uncle Buddy started to do what he always did. He got that sad look in his eyes and started to tell me how I was too young and pretty, to be throwing my life away the way I was. Funny how he never tried to convince me to get on the right path, until after all the dope was gone.

  By now, Mo Mo was up and moving around. He was happy to see me as well, but he was upset with himself because he assumed I’d spent a lot of money overnight, while he was knocked out on the couch. I told him that was not the case and then I asked him for some credit. He basically recited the same speech his brother had just given me, about me not being around in such a long time. When it was all said and done, I ended up sucking his dick for another two rocks and five more dollars. The ridiculousness of it all… Anyway, so now that I had gone out and got high and sucked two dicks to support my habit, I was officially back to my old ways. At this pace, I knew I’d be back on the strip in no time.

  I sat around the crack house all morning, contemplating my next move, watching costumers come and go. Phil and Mo Mo didn’t ask me to leave. They knew me well enough to know that sooner or later I’d leave and find a trick and come back with lots money to spend. So, all they wanted to do was be nice to the pretty young thing that was a known money maker on the strip. But I didn’t wanna go back. Even though I could get a lot more than twenty-five punk ass dollars for my services, I didn’t wanna walk the streets anymore. I had a son now and I thought he was supposed to get me motivated to change my life, but here I was, still posted up at the crack house.

  I snapped out of my daydreaming when my cell phone rang and saw it was Kiesha’s mom calling.

  “Hello?” I answered.

  “Hey, Roxanne.”

  “Hey.”

  “How are you?”

  “I’m fine,” I lied. “How are you?”

  “Not good. Not good at all.”

  “Have you talked to Kiesha?”

  “Yeah, I just got off the phone with her, and I had to pull myself together just to make this call. I’m just praying for strength to make it through the day.”

  “Did she tell you exactly what happened?”

  Phil and Mo Mo were slapping fives and giggling about a big booty video vixen on the television. I shush them and they looked at me like I was crazy.

  “Baby, I don’t know what happened all I know is she said something happened at the gas station and now she’s charged with shooting and killing somebody.”

  The reality of it all sunk in when I heard her mother say those words.

  “Oh my God, I can’t believe this is happening,” I panicked, as I stood up and started to pace back and forth.

  “She said she’s going to court Monday, and she told me to call you and tell you to bring her truck over here and drop if off at my house.”

  “Okay,” I agreed, still pacing.

  “I’ll be here all day, so you can come any time. I’m about to make some calls and see if I can get her a good lawyer, because Lord knows she’s gonna need one.”

  “Okay, I’ll be over there a little later.”

  “Okay baby. Bye.”

  “Bye.”

  It actually hurt me that Kiesha didn’t trust me enough to keep her truck, but I quickly realized why she shouldn’t have. Look where I was at with it now, sitting outside of a well-known drug house. Up until that point, Kiesha’s truck had been the farthest thing from my mind. Knowing that it would be at least Monday before Kiesha got released, I didn’t want to take the truck to her mom’s house. I knew that if I did, I’d be back on the strip for sure. Just having the truck in my possession made me feel like things weren’t exactly the same. Like maybe things were getting just a little better.

  The fact that Kiesha trusted me with her house and her car, had given me a small sense of pride, even if it was all an illusion. But the main and most important reason I didn’t want to give the truck back, was because it had value and I was dead broke.

  After an hour of pacing, plotting and fiending my loyalty to drugs outweighed my loyalty to Kiesha. I knew Mo Mo was a young guy with no car, who liked to rent cars for drugs. All I needed at the moment was a little food on my stomach and some more drugs; everything else would have to wait. Long story short, I didn’t take Kiesha’s truck to her mom’s house. I rented the truck to Mo Mo for a day, in exchange for five rocks and ten dollars. Cloud nine and rock bottom were both always a stone’s toss away in my world.

  Chapter 14

  I finally passed out Sunday afternoon and woke up to the sound of someone banging on Kiesha’s door. As I opened my eyes, the first thing that popped into my head was Kiesha’s court date. I sprang from the couch, knocking over an empty Seagram’s in bottle on the coffee table. I rushed to the door, hoping it was Kiesha on the other side. Without looking, I snatched the door open to find Kiesha’s mom and her sister on the other side of it, breathing fire. The storm door was the only thing that separated us and I hesitated to open it. Her two-hundred-pound sister had a look in her eyes that struck fear to core of my soul. She banged on the storm door.

  “Bitch, open this muthafucking door!” she yelled.

  “I was about to call,” I said, as I reluctantly opened the door.

  As soon I cracked the door open, Kiesha’s sister snatched it from me and charged at me. I tried to run, but she collared me up by the back of my T-shirt.

  “Bitch, you rented my fucking sister’s car out to some fucking drug dealers?”

  “No, no
, I didn’t, I was—”

  Before I could finish she punched me dead in the temple and I dropped to the floor. She pounced on me and started pounding all on my face and head. I tried to block as many blows as I could, as I heard her mother screaming for her to stop. In my head, I was screaming right along with her, but the beating continued until she grew tired and her mother’s voice of reason started to sink in, enough for her mom to step in and pull her off me.

  “Where my sister’s keys at?” she barked.

  I took one arm from around my head to point at the couch where I’d last seen the keys. I was dizzy and I was in a lot of pain. My face and head were throbbing and I could feel my eyes swelling up.

  “Kiesha said get all your shit and get the fuck out of her house,” the sister shouted, passing down the orders.

  I burst into tears, realizing what I had done. I had turned on the only person on my side against me. I struggled to my feet as one of my eyes started to close up. I looked around with my one good eye, trying to gather my things. Kiesha’s mom and sister stood by the door waiting. I felt so fucked up about everything, I just wanted to get my shit and go. I packed everything I could fit in one plastic bag and just left. As I walked past her truck in the driveway, I took comfort in the fact that at least I had got her truck back in the same condition she left it in.

  I had ten dollars to my name and I used it to catch a cab to my mother’s house. I continued to cry all the way there, while hating myself and dabbing my bloody shirt on my swollen eyes. I hated the person drugs turned me into, and I hated the poor decisions I made every time things didn’t go as planned. I knew my mom wasn’t going to be happy to see me. She would take one look at me and know that I was back getting high. I didn’t call her first, because I couldn’t take the chance of her telling me not to come. I had nowhere else to go.

  I thought about Kiesha and her court date as I arrived at Mom’s house. I wondered what happened and if she had a bond. Maybe one day when she stopped hating me, I could apologize and beg for her forgiveness. The cab ate the whole ten dollars, leaving me with nothing. As I made my way up the walkway, I felt nothing but immense shame.

  My mom must have heard the cab outside, because she opened the door before I could knock. I couldn’t look her in her eyes even if I wanted to, so I just stood there staring at her feet.

  “Can I come in?” I asked.

  “What the hell happened to you?” she replied, moving to the side so I could enter.

  I slid past her before she could change her mind.

  “If it’s okay with you, Mom, I’d really rather not talk about it right now.”

  “So, you just show up at my house all beat up, bloody and shit, and think I don’t have the right to know what’s going on?”

  “I didn’t say that, I just don’t wanna talk about it right now,” I explained.

  “Well, don’t get too comfortable, because you can’t stay here,” she warned.

  “Mom, I don’t have anywhere else to go.”

  “Well, that’s not my problem. What happened with you and Kiesha? She put your ass out because you started getting high again? And now you think you’re gonna come to my house with the same bullshit that she wouldn’t tolerate?”

  “Kiesha is in jail, Ma,” I informed.

  “You’re so full of shit!” she lashed out.

  “I’m not lying.”

  In her defense, it sounded like a lie when I heard it come out of my mouth. Everyone knew Kiesha wasn’t anything like me.

  “In jail for what?” she asked.

  “All I know is something happened at the gas station the night we went out, and she ended up shooting somebody.”

  “Shooting somebody?” Mom repeated.

  “Yes.”

  “That don’t sound like Kiesha.”

  “Well, that’s what she said happened. I just need some time to find out what really happened and if she can get out on bond or something. Just a couple of days.”

  My mom got quiet for a long time as she roamed around the house, fixing and straightening things that didn’t needed it, like the magazines sitting on the coffee table. It’s what she did when she was thinking.

  “Well, you can’t stay here, Roxanne,” she finally said. “I’m sorry, but the baby is coming home this week and I can’t have you running in and out of here, doing whatever it is you do in those streets. And I definitely can’t have you bringing drugs in my house.”

  “Ma please, I don’t have no fucking where to go, okay? I didn’t wanna come here, you think I came here by choice?”

  “Well, I didn’t see anybody outside helping drag you across the fucking threshold.”

  “Ughh! Listen, all I need is for you to be there for me just this one time. You said we could start fresh and put the past behind us.”

  “Roxanne, you’re not putting the past behind you. Look at you, you’re a mess. I can tell by the way you showed up here today, you haven’t changed one bit.”

  I was so mad, I wanted to physically attack my mother. All I wanted was somewhere to lay my head for a few days until I could figure some things out, but the look in her eyes and the expression on her face told me she wasn’t budging.

  “Some mother,” I mumbled.

  “What?”

  “I said, some mother,” I repeated, much louder.

  “You know what? I’ll give you that. I wasn’t the best mother by far, but I’m a grandmother now and this is my chance to do it right. Who’s gonna take care of your son? Not you! All you wanna do is get high and live life on a cloud.”

  I didn’t want to hear another word. I got up and stormed out, slamming the door with all my might. I left my bag of clothes and everything I had behind. I had no clue where I was going, but I stormed up the street as if I had a specific destination. I started to cry again, but this time it was a more noticeable cry. People driving by slowed down staring at me, but no one asked if I needed help. I walked and cried, and walked and cried some more, and once I stopped crying, I just kept wishing I had stayed home the night Kiesha went to jail.

  My feet got tired after an hour of walking and I took a seat at the bus stop, just to rest. I didn’t have bus fare or a destination, but it felt good to get off my feet for a while. As I sat and contemplated, I realized the worst part of all of this was that it was all my own doing. There wasn’t a single person I could pass off even a morsel of blame to. After I was sitting there about fifteen minutes, a bus pulled up and the door opened. I gave the brown-skinned driver the middle finger, just so he would pull off. I sat there a little while longer and reality began to sink in.

  I needed cash and I needed shelter and there was only one logical place I could go to as a starting point; the hoe stroll. It was the last place on the planet I wanted to be. Right back jumping in cars with lunatics, right back arguing with territorial crackhead bitches, and most of all, right back to fucking and sucking to support my habit. I sat there shocked and amazing at the stupidity and the revolving cycle that was my life, until I noticed a truck making a U-turn and pulling up to the bus stop.

  I peered inside and saw Bam Bam rolling down his window.

  “It was all good just a week ago,” he taunted me.

  I sat still, not saying anything, because I didn’t know his reason for pulling up on me besides getting a good laugh. I ended up owing Phil a few dollars after all and he was Phil’s boss, so I figured it could be that.

  “Fuck happened to you? And why you out here siting at the bus stop?” Bam said.

  “I’m waiting on my Prince Charming,” I replied.

  He laughed.

  “I ain’t yo’ Prince Charming, that’s for sho’. I just thought you might need a ride to the stroll. I know that’s where you trying to get to.”

  “You sure know a lot about me for somebody who doesn’t remember me.”

  “Bitch, you want a ride or not?”

  I forced myself up and hopped in Bam’s truck, without so much as a thank you. I was too men
tally dismantled for courtesy.

  “You got a cigarette?” I asked.

  “Bitch, I don’t smoke,” he answered.

  I glanced at the cannon-sized pistol on his lap, but pretended not to see it. I flipped the sun visor down and used the mirror to take a look at my face. My eyes were swollen and I appeared to have a busted blood vessel that turned one eyeball completely red.

  “That bitch beat the shit out of me,” I mumbled, before Bam turned the music up so he didn’t have to hear me my mouth.

  Seconds later, he turned it right back down to speak to me. “Every time I see a pretty bitch like you throwing they life away, you know what I think?”

  “What?”

  “Where the fuck was yo’ daddy at? You a cold muthafucka, Roxanne. You could easily clean yourself up, get you a rich white man and live good the rest of your life—”

  “Why did you pick me up?” I interrupted.

  “I’m just saying; I wouldn’t give a fuck if you took this pistol and blew your fucking brains out. It’s your life, not mines. I was just giving your trifling ass a compliment. And I picked yo’ ass up so you could get out there on the stroll and make The Head Bussas some money. I just opened up a new spot too, so now you got three locations to choose from.”

  “You trying to build a monopoly in the hood?”

  “I ain’t trying to build shit. Head Bussas is taking over. Niggas can roll with it like soldiers or get rolled over.”

  “I didn’t know you were a rapper,” I teased.

  He turned the volume on the radio back up, loud enough to burst someone’s eardrums. He pulled up two blocks away from the stroll and kept the music up, so I didn’t speak. I needed a cigarette and a drink in my system too, before I took this plunge. I yelled over the music, knowing he couldn’t hear me. He sat there bobbing his head, ignoring me. I reached over and turned the music down.

  “Can I borrow five dollars? I’ll pay you—”

  “Get the fuck out of my truck,” he shouted, and I obeyed quickly.

  As I watched him pull away, I began teasing my hair, trying in vain to look presentable for a trick. As I walked, it seemed the closer I got to my endpoint, the more uneasy I felt. I couldn’t do this type of shit sober anymore. I needed the alcohol and drugs to keep me loose and unashamed. I wondered if I would see anybody out working that liked me enough to help me get my mind right.