Baby Huey: A Cautionary Tale of Addiction (21 page)

In hindsight my stopping for this woman would be the push in the back down the slide. A big mistake.

Going northbound, I slowed the Caddy and shouted at her across the street. “You need a ride?” She smiled. Something sparkled on her face. A truck horn bellowed behind me and I drove off.

On a grassy road leading to grain silos I turned and drove back. She was still walking.

“Hey,” she said before getting into the Caddy.

Staring at the fake diamond stud in her left nostril, smelling something foul, I hesitated, thought for a second to tell her to get out. She told me her name, Zelda, and I asked where was she going.

“I’m going with you,” she said, moving closer to me, bringing the foul smell with her.

But for the scar on her forehead, chapped lips, her eyes sunk in, and the cadaver cheekbones, she didn’t look all that bad.

She said, “What you wanna do?”

The sun was starting to go down. We drove by a sign that said Dawson was five miles away. She put a hand on my thigh and I pushed it off.

“What’s wrong with you?” I asked her. “You don’t even know me.”

She wiped her nose with the back of her hand. “Mister, I’m in a hurry. You want me to serve you, let’s get busy. Blowjob, ten dollars. The other, twenty. I don’t do no dumbshit.”

“What? You got me mixed up.”

“What you pick me up for?”

“I thought you needed a ride.”

“I don’t need no ride. I
need
to get high. Take me back where I was. You got ten dollars I can borrow?”

I made a U-turn at a four-way stop. “I’ll give you ten dollars, but you know you’re not paying it back.”

Uncle CJ had put two thousand dollars in the envelope, a helluva lot more than I expected. I could spare a ten. Then I remembered it was all in hundreds.

At the spot where she got in I stopped and said, “I don’t have a ten. I thought I did but I don’t.”

“You said you did. Hell, give me what you got.”

“I don’t have anything. Sorry.”

She opened the door…hesitated. “You get high? Crack?”

“Sometimes,” and immediately wondered why I admitted that.

* * * * *

The Caddy parked on the left side of a white mobile home surrounded by junk cars, a large field behind it, I waited for Zelda to come out with a rock or my hundred-dollar bill. If she made for the back door I would see her. If she snuck out through a side window, ran down the section of field out of my view, then to hell with her.

Zelda finally came out, skipped down the steps and ran to the car with a big smile on her face.

Breathing loud she said, “I got a damn good deal,” and held up a cellophane bag with several rocks in it.

Before we were out the yard, Zelda had a straight (a glass tube) in her mouth, flicking a lighter at the end of it.

I asked her where we could go to smoke and she ignored me. “Hey! Hey! Slow down.” She exhaled, her bad breath canceling the smell of the dope. “Let’s go somewhere safe and smoke this shit.”

The straight in her mouth like a cigarette, she said, “We’ll go to my house,” and flicked the lighter again.

Her house, a shotgun shack, stood alone down a dirt road off the highway. Three small boys, the smallest one in a saggy diaper, the other two only in short pants, played in the front yard.

It was getting dark. Two puppies lounged on a porch under a roof held up by crooked two-by-fours. The smell of freshly cut hay scented the air.

Zelda hopped out of the Caddy and started shouting at the boys.

“Didn’t I tell y’all stay your badasses in the house!” The boys ran, and Zelda chased them, kicking the one in a diaper in the butt. “Get the hell in there!”

She walked back to the Caddy and, in a soft voice, said, “Come on in.”

Uh-uh. I wasn’t going in there.

She started toward the house.

I started the Caddy and then killed the engine. She had the rocks.

Inside the house was dark, cooler than outside. The foul smell Zelda wore was stronger here. Nauseating. One of the boys was crying, probably the one she kicked.

I said to the darkness, “Tell you what. Take half, give me half. I gotta go.”

Across the room I heard a whoosh and then a blue flame blazed in a space heater. Light flickered on the mess of clothes and trash scattered on the floor…and the boys, who were sitting on a mattress on the floor staring at me.

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?”