by Lisa Lennox
“You’re wrong, Laci,” Shaunna said in a sincere tone.
“The only thing I was wrong about was fuckin’ with you and your weak-ass crew.”
“I understand that, but I’m tryin’ to apologize for my part.”
“I don’t want an apology from you. What the fuck is an apology gonna do for me now?” Laci sobbed. “What you did to my life . . . oh, man . . . there aren’t any words. But I’m not gon’ let y’all bitches break me. I’m gon’ clean myself up and go off to college as planned. Just watch and see.”
“That’s good,” Shaunna said, genuinely happy for her. “I know you ain’t tryin’ to hear it, but all I can do is tell you that I’m sorry. I realize I was wrong, and I wouldn’t wish on anyone what we did to you.”
“You’re right. I ain’t trying to hear it. But you know what? You can hear my friend Tone.” Laci slammed the phone down.
Ring . . . Ring . . . Ring . . .
“Hello!”
“Laci?” asked another familiar voice.
“Quita?” Laci said, shocked to hear her voice on the other end. Nobody had ever given two shits about her before.
“Laci, you know I’ve been tryin’ to get in contact with you forever? What’s up? Where have you been?”
Laci began to laugh. “What is it with you bitches, all of a sudden coming out of the woodwork trying to get at me?”
“Damn,” Quita said in a stink-ass voice. “Why you trippin’?”
“Why am I trippin’!” Laci exclaimed. “Bitch, you gave me crack! For the past few weeks my life has been fucked up. And instead of helping the situation, you fed me more of the poison. I shouldn’t even have to go into what happened at your man’s house. As you all say, you violated big time.”
“Laci, you came to me,” Quita said. “What did you think we were going to do—go shopping, do lunch and a movie? I know you mad about everything, but—”
“Mad?” Laci interrupted. “Quita, you tried to kill me.”
“Bitch, I saved your life,” Quita snapped before catching herself and calming down. “Look, Laci, you being extreme. It wasn’t that serious.”
“It wasn’t that serious?” Laci huffed. “I was a virgin, Quita. If I ever have kids one day and just happen to have a daughter, what am I supposed to tell her about my first time? How am I supposed to sit down and have the talk with my daughter, knowing how something so precious was taken from me?”
Quita had no comment.
“Nothing to say, huh?” Laci said. “I’m not going to lie. I wanted to see you dead. But that ain’t my place. Besides, you’re already half-dead. Good-bye, Quita.”
Laci slammed her phone down as hard as she could. After a few seconds passed, it rang again.
“What the fuck!” Laci screamed. Thinking it was Quita calling her right back, she quickly picked up the phone, fully enraged.
“What the fuck do you want now?” Laci shouted into the phone.
“Damn, what did I do?” the caller asked.
“Who is this?” Laci said to yet another female voice on the other end of her phone.
“Laci, it’s Monique,” Monique said, surprised that Laci was even home. “Where have you been? We’ve been worried sick.”
“What, did all of y’all have a meeting and decide to call me today? This shit is suspect.”
“What are you talking about?” Monique asked, confused. “I’m just callin’ to see if you’re all right. And I can’t even lie, you been heavy on my mind.”
“Please,” Laci said, sucking her teeth. “Guilt has gotten to you, too, huh?”
“Laci, what are you talking about?” Monique played stupid. “What’s wrong with you?”
“What’s wrong with me? How about that fuckin’ crack y’all had me smoke? Does that sound about right?”
“Aw, girl, that was just a joke. It wasn’t nothin’ serious.” Monique giggled nervously.
Laci growled in frustration. If only they knew what she was going through. If only they knew the battle between her brain and her body.
“Why does everybody keep saying the same thing? ‘Oh, Laci, it’s nothing serious.’ I’d hate to see what y’all consider serious.” Click. Laci hung up again.
MONIQUE’S HEAD WAS still throbbing from the verbal lashing Laci had just laid on her when her phone rang. “H . . . Hello?”
“What you doin’, girl?” the caller asked.
“Who is this—Crystal?” Monique asked.
“Yeah, bitch!” Crystal snapped. “Who the hell else it gon’ be?”
“What up, girl? I ain’t doing nothing—I just finished talking to Laci.”
“What the fuck you talkin’ to her ass for? Are you crazy? I hope you hung up on that bitch.”
“Relax. I was just checkin’ on her since we hadn’t heard from her in a while.”
“Fuck that,” Crystal said, becoming more hype.
“Crystal, you not the least bit sorry about what we did?”
“She had it coming, and I’d do the shit all over again if I could. Only this time, I’d make sure the bitch OD’d.”
Monique could tell that some shit must have gone down to put Crystal on the rampage.
“What’s up?” Monique asked with concern. “What happened?”
“That bitch and Dink rode around all day yesterday like they were the fuckin’ Dukes of Hazzard.”
“What?” Monique said, shocked.
“Hell, yeah. That’s two times now. The bitch is getting real comfortable.”
“Hmmm. Dink know Laci out there like that. She had to be trying to cop. He ain’t gon’ fuck up what y’all have for no crackhead. Then again, he was pushing up hard on her that day at your house. But she wasn’t showin’ him no kinda love. That was all on your man.”
“What?” Crystal got defensive. In her mind, Laci was at fault. She knew Dink would never play her like that.
“I’m just tellin’ you what I saw.”
“Whatever, Monique. Listen, I’m tired of this sometimey shit. I’m with Tonette now. Either y’all bitches rollin’ wit’ us or not. And if you rollin’ wit us, then you ain’t in contact with her. Feel me?”
“Yeah,” Monique said in a whisper.
“So, you know what you gotta do then, right?”
“Yeah. I know what I gotta do.”
CHAPTER 22
Truth Hurts
MARGARET GOT HOME around three o’clock. By now Laci was fully awake, but not fully functioning. The phone had fucked up her rest with its ringing off the hook. The fucked-up part about it was that not one of the callers was Dink. Perhaps last night was just a dream.
Laci heard her mother enter the house. She took a deep breath and braced for the blow. She knew it would be only a matter of minutes before she’d come up to her room and begin her usual interrogation. Laci had succeeded in brushing her mother off, but this time she knew she had to come clean. She had promised Dink that she would. Still, she reconsidered telling her mother everything about a thousand times as she lay in bed, waiting for her to come and check on her. Fuck what she promised Dink. He promised that he would call and he hadn’t. Besides, her body still wanted to get high. And if she told her mother, it would only make it more difficult to score and get what she needed.
Several minutes had gone by, and her mother didn’t come knocking at her door as expected. Perhaps she had already given up on her before she even asked to be saved.
Laci managed to go to the bathroom and make herself look half presentable. She threw on her favorite Troop jogging suit, which she’d forgotten she even had. She hadn’t been the least bit concerned about making a fashion statement lately. Laci stopped in front of the full-length, freestanding mirror beside her closet door. She looked at her reflection for a few seconds until she couldn’t stand the sight of herself. Her clear skin was becoming blotchy, her hair had lost its luster, and her eyes and teeth had a yellowish tint. She flipped the mirror so that it was facing the wall. Laci told herself that it would remain
in that position until she changed and made herself worth looking at again. She exited her bedroom and began to search for her mother.
“Ma,” Laci called as she pushed her parents’ bedroom door open. She stuck her head in, but her mother wasn’t there. She then proceeded downstairs. “Ma,” Laci called again as she entered the kitchen. Still she got no answer. She knew damn well that she had heard her mother come in the house. She had to be there somewhere. Why hadn’t she come upstairs to check on her? Why wasn’t she answering her call?
Laci proceeded to the living room. When she got there she stopped in her tracks. “Ma,” she said in a confused tone. “Ma, what’s wrong?”
Sitting on the couch, Margaret’s face was flushed. She didn’t respond to Laci. She didn’t move. She didn’t even look up at her.
“Ma, are you okay?” Laci said, slowly walking over to her mother. When she approached, she noticed an envelope and some pictures lying facedown on the couch next to her. There were also a couple of pictures in her hand. “Ma, talk to me. What do you have here?”
“You left me no choice, Laci,” Margaret said in a faint voice. “I tried to talk to you. That’s what I told him. I said ‘I tried to talk to my baby, but she wouldn’t be honest and tell me what was going on.’ ” Margaret’s eyes began to well up with tears.
“Who, Mommy?” Laci asked, sitting down next to her. She took the pictures from her hand, looked at them, and turned pale as a ghost.
“Detective Logan,” Margaret said. “That’s what I told the private eye I hired to see what was going on with you.” She finally looked up at Laci. Once Sonny was able to provide her with more info, he’d warned her not to take to the street herself and suggested she hire a professional.
Laci couldn’t even look her mother in the eye. She covered her mouth with her hand as tears began falling down her cheeks. She began to sniff and snort, as she couldn’t hold back the pain of what she saw in those pictures. It wasn’t the fact that they revealed her copping crack, smoking crack, even giving head in parked cars for crack, it was the fact that her mother had seen them.
Laci began to wail as if she were in severe pain. Margaret was too done to even hold her daughter. She was all cried out. All she could do was sit there and face reality.
Laci managed to speak through all of her agony. “This girl doesn’t even look like me. That detective played you, Mom.”
CHAPTER 23
A Lover Scorned
DINK WAS PLEASED with the way things were going.
Smurf was gonna dust Dame and Marco could take over his territory. Soon he would leave the business to Smurf and Marco. Them niggas couldn’t fuck it up too bad. Since he was on a roll at handling shit on his “to do” list, Dink decided to call up his soon-to-be ex.
Crystal’s phone rang twice before her answering machine picked up. Dink hated to leave her a message, but he didn’t have time to keep trying to get at her to say the simple shit he needed to say.
“Uh, Crystal. It’s me,” Dink said.
“Hello,” Crystal said, out of breath. “Dink?”
“Yeah, what you doin’?”
“I was in the bathroom. Where you been? I see less and less of you these days.”
“Yeah, you know how things are. I’m busy as hell. If I don’t make the money, someone else will.”
“I hear that. Speakin’ of money, I need some. When do you think you’ll be able to stop by?”
“I don’t know.”
“How about tonight?” Crystal suggested.
“I don’t think that’s gon’ happen. I got a lot of shit I need to do. Maybe tomorrow. As a matter of fact, I’ll see you tomorrow. I’ll call you as soon as I can make a move.”
Dink could see Crystal’s pout through the phone.
“All right,” Crystal whispered.
“What’s the matter?” he asked.
“I just want to see you. It almost seems like you don’t want to be with me anymore. You don’t want to be with me, Dink?”
“Never mind, Crystal. I’ll just talk to you tomorrow.” Dink couldn’t bring himself to tell her over the phone. He thought a face-to-face might be in order. That way he could give her an opportunity to explain herself.
“I just miss you, Dink,” Crystal said, meaning every word of it.
“Yeah, I know.”
“You know?” Crystal said with a faint chuckle. “No, Dink, I don’t think you do.”
“Yes, I do. Believe me, I do. Like I said, you’ll see me, trust me. How are your girls?” Dink fished.
“They all right.” Crystal played into it.
“What about the ol’ girl with the baby? What’s her name?” he asked.
“Shaunna?”
“Yeah, Shaunna. How’s she doin’?”
“She cool,” Crystal said nonchalantly.
“That’s good. What about Dame’s girl, Tonette?” Dink said, working his way down the list.
“She crazy, but she aiight,” Crystal said, allowing him to carry the conversation.
“What about the college girl?” Dink asked, finally getting to the point.
“Who, Laci? I haven’t heard from her,” she lied.
“Seriously? Why?” Dink asked, giving Crystal the opportunity to tell him the truth.
“She’s a stuck-up, bitch. That’s why,” Crystal said, sucking her teeth.
“I thought that was your girl.”
“Hell, no!” Crystal said without hesitation.
“Why you say it like that?” Dink said, still fishing.
“’Cause stuck-up bitches make me sick. Laci’s a stuck-up bitch, so she made me sick,” Crystal said with pure hatred in her voice.
“You sound like you have a personal problem with her.”
“She was the kind of girl who bragged about what she had, tryin’ to make the rest of us feel bad. We just got sick of her shit and got even. That’s all.”
“Got even?” Dink inquired, getting angrier and angrier with each word Crystal spoke.
“That’s right,” Crystal said, not feeling the way he seemed to be so interested in Laci.
“How?” he asked.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Crystal said, deliberately leaving Dink on the edge of his seat.
“What? Tell me what you did, Crystal!” he demanded, no longer able to hide his emotions.
“Damn, why you gettin’ all mad and shit?”
“You know I don’t like it when you start that I-don’t-wanna-talk-about-it shit, Crystal.”
“Fuck it then,” Crystal said, ready to get a rise out of Dink. “We hated her conceited ass, thinking she was smoking weed, when her dumb ass was really smoking crack,” Crystal blurted out.
Dink was silent. He didn’t think Laci was lying about how she started smoking, but to hear the story come out of Crystal’s own mouth made any thoughts of empathy for her go out the window.
“Now I hear that bitch is a strawberry,” Crystal laughed. “You wouldn’t believe some of the nasty-ass niggas she done let run up in her for a hit of that pipe. You wouldn’t believe some of the nasty shit that bitch has done. She’ll never get a man now. Her rep is tainted. Anybody would be stupid to fuck with her.”
Crystal felt good twisting the knife into the pit of Dink’s stomach. If he was thinking about fucking with Laci, she hoped she had just made him reconsider.
Dink allowed his anger to boil and continued his conversation with Crystal.
“You gave her crack?” Dink asked. “What kind of shit is that? Where the fuck did you get crack from?”
“Tonette got it from Dame,” Crystal giggled.
“From Dame! He gave her crack for that shit y’all pulled?”
“He didn’t give it to her. She snuck it from his stash.”
“What?” Dink said. When one of the links in Dink’s chain was weak, it burned him like gonorrhea. If Tonette could take Dame’s shit from right up under his nose, then anyone could.
“Yeah. That’s how we got the crack.
We got it from Tonette, and Tonette got it from Dame.”
“You a cold-blooded bitch,” Dink spat. “To do the shit you did, you can’t possibly have a heart. You also put all of your cronies in danger.”
“What? How?” Crystal said as a stroke of fear brushed over her.
“Laci could press charges on y’all. Did you ever think of that?”
“What are you flappin’ about?” Crystal tried to brush it off.
“You do know that crack is illegal?”
“So is weed,” Crystal said, like she was telling Dink something new. “Laci ain’t gonna say nothin’ ’cause them muthafuckas is gonna know she was trying to get high regardless.”
“You crazy,” Dink said. “Let me paint a picture for you, Crystal. Let’s say Laci’s mother catches on that her daughter’s got the itch and decides to get the authorities involved. They’re gonna wanna know where she got the crack, and she’s gonna point out all y’all stupid bitches,” Dink said in an attempt to scare Crystal. “Then the police will come after y’all, and of course y’all will break. But it doesn’t stop there,” he continued. “They’d go after Dame, which would fuck up my money. You see how your little bullshit act of jealousy had the potential of fuckin’ me?”
The cat had Crystal’s tongue.
“You see where I’m going with this?” he asked. “You always do dumb shit that can come back to bite me!”
“I’m sorry,” Crystal cried. She had forgotten about her initial intention—to steer Dink away from Laci. “I didn’t know that it could hurt you. Please believe that I wouldn’t have done it if I knew that it would.”
“I don’t know, Crystal,” Dink continued, sounding like he was her father. “Every time I turn around, there’s something new with your ass.”
“C’mon, baby. You know I’d never do anything to hurt you. I’ll make it up to you. I promise!”
“Make it up to me? How you gon’ do that?” Dink asked. “And I don’t know if I can trust you anymore. That was some stupid-ass shit y’all did.”
“Don’t act like that, daddy,” she pleaded.
“I don’t know,” he sighed.