Crackhead II: A Novel (20 page)

With tears pouring from her eyes and close to hyperventilating, she picked up her phone and dialed the number again. Upset that she received a machine, Laci left the best message she could in her condition.

An image of her sucking the dick of a homeless junkie played on repeat in her mind. She ran to the bathroom and threw up just as she remembered him nutting off in her mouth. It was the most horrid thing she had ever tasted in her life.

Almost instantly, a large, warm hand grabbed her shoulder.

Laci’s heart almost jumped out of her chest. Her mind was all over the place and she prayed it wasn’t T.J. again.

“Baby, what’s wrong?” Dink asked, picking her up off the floor. “Have too much to drink?” When he walked into the apartment, he’d seen two empty bottles of wine on the floor.

Laci hugged Dink, glad he was home. Dink broke her embrace and looked at her angrily. It was a look she had never seen before.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“That nigga T.J.,” Dink said. Laci’s heart dropped to the pit of her stomach.

“T.J.? What he do?” Laci asked anxiously, afraid that he would have shown Dink the tape as well as others.

“I don’t wanna talk about it.” Dink helped clean Laci up, but the alcohol he’d drunk earlier put him in another mood. As he led Laci to their bedroom, he turned her toward him and gently pushed the white spaghetti straps from her gown off her shoulders, then gently eased the delicate fabric down over her slender but curvy body.

Dink’s sultry gaze met Laci’s as he undressed. He stepped to her and held her naked body in his arms.

“I need you, baby,” Dink whispered in Laci’s ear, enjoying the feel of her body next to his. He breathed heavily while he kissed her neck and trailed kisses to her breasts, then back up.

Laci’s body reacted to Dink’s touch. Her breathing matched his while she allowed her lips to meet his and they exchanged a long, passionate kiss.

Her hands traveled up Dink’s strong back, enjoying the feel of his muscular body. The intensity of the moment excited her and she allowed Dink to lay her down on the bed.

Although Laci’s pussy was wet and she wanted Dink to make love to her, her mind was elsewhere. She couldn’t get the tape off her mind and the lingering feel of T.J.’s touch off her breast.

Just as Dink attempted to enter her, Laci tensed up.

“Dink, no.”

“Baby, it won’t hurt. I promise I’ll be gentle,” he told her, putting his mouth on hers with a passionate kiss.

“Dink, please stop.” Laci broke the kiss and struggled against the weight of his body. Finally he realized she was serious. “I’m not ready for this. I . . . I can’t.” Laci got up and ran to the bathroom.

She splashed cold water on her face and looked at her reflection in the mirror.
What’s wrong with me?
Everything seemed so surreal. After she’d gathered her composure, Laci walked back into the bedroom and sat down next to Dink, who had put his boxers back on. “Dink, I’m sorry,” she said quietly, putting her hand on his shoulder. “I just have a lot on my mind.”

“It’s okay,” he told her, reaching for his T-shirt. He quickly put it on and lay down. Laci got in on her side of the bed and snuggled up next to Dink. Laci put Dink’s arm around her. She needed him to hold her before she lost it.

S
MURF WAS AN
eager student and learned more and more about the mechanics of drug trading. Dirty taught him everything he should know and then some. Smurf now made all the decisions and negotiations about what came into the South Bronx.

Smurf also took a personal approach with Dirty. He learned that Dirty went to jail when he was seventeen years old and took the entire rap to protect someone else.

Because of all the product that Smurf brought into the hood, his crew stepped up their game and did their job, so Smurf rewarded them handsomely. It was a win-win situation. Once he got back in the hood, he linked up with his boys, Drake and Lil’ Rob.

“Yo, boss,” Lil’ Rob called. “I got some freaks from Harlem rollin’ through tonight. You know how I do it. You want in?”

“Shit . . . depends,” Smurf retorted. “They them hoes from last time?”

“Naw, man, this some new shit.”

“Good . . . good, ’cuz old pussy gets dug out,” Smurf laughed. “You know how to get a hold of me, man.” He thought back to
LaQuan. The pussy was getting better every time he hit it, but Smurf would never turn down a fresh piece of ass. And lucky for him, he had all kinds of women to choose from.

Brenda, a chick he’d met through one of his boys, was money hungry. She was fine, and kept to her motto of whoever had the most bread would be the one to get the head.

Maria was a mixed black and Spanish
mamacita.
Smurf really liked her at first because they could have a real conversation. But that was just her game to get into his psyche, so she could make more demands. Smurf didn’t have time to deal with the drama for a piece of booty.

Thinking about using all these women got him thinking about his own mom, who had been used time and time again. Smurf hadn’t seen her since their talk, but he always left money under her door.

On his way to Tonette’s, he saw a new-model red BMW. He looked at the driver and thought he saw his mother. Smurf followed the car, and true enough, it was her.

He knew that his mother couldn’t afford a car like the one she was in, so Smurf surmised that she had to be dealing with a hustler.

His mom had come up and it wasn’t because of him. Smurf was angry now. “Man, fuck her. Talking about she gonna try to change. Tellin’ me she can’t accept my help, but when it’s another baller who doesn’t give two shits about her it’s cool? Fuck that. Guess you can’t take the ho out of the woman,” Smurf said aloud.

T
ONETTE SAT IN
Dame’s 1987 navy-blue Chevy Camaro and blasted “Colors” while she watched her customers rock her spot. It was a busy Saturday night and the dead were walking. She saw the men, women, and children that the crack epidemic affected.
It’s a shame,
she told herself,
but it’s all about money and somebody got to do it.

Her spot was poppin’ and she decided to go in to service more of her customers. She didn’t care where they got her payment from, they’d always come up with it. Many of Tonette’s customers were tried-and-true junkies. Because of this, they would come back numerous times a night and each time, with a wad of bills in their hands for their needs.

Tonette was known to her customers, and it was time to show her face again. She walked into the vacant building and immediately felt she was going to pass out from a stench like that of decomposing bodies. Beneath her feet crunched used vials of heroin. To the right, Tonette saw junkies fighting one another over their last hit. To her left, she saw what looked like
a man, sucking another man’s dick. Her stomach turned at the sight. Then straight ahead lay a basehead on a piss, blood, and cum-stained mattress looking like she was halfway dead. The girl looked familiar.

Tonette walked closer. Most girls would have been afraid to go into a crack house alone, but she wasn’t. She had what they needed and because of that, she was protected. Also, Tonette was known to put a foot or two up someone’s ass if anyone tried to fuck with her. Her reputation for abuse preceded her and it got worse when she became angry or wanted to prove a point.

The high-yella girl on the mattress had a slim build and her dark hair was matted to her head.

Adrenaline began to pump throughout Tonette’s body.
There, that bitch is right there,
she said to herself.
I’ma finish this bitch off for good,
she thought as she approached the girl.

With her foot raised, ready to kick her, she was startled when the girl called her name.

“Yo, bitch, wassup?” The girl cracked a snaggle-toothed smile and struggled to get up off the mattress. Her thin frame seemed to fold with the pudge that stood out in her belly. She looked like a starving African—skin and bones but a bloated stomach. It was Quita. She used to be a part of the SBBs until Tonette kicked her out two weeks after Laci came into the picture. “What you doin’ here? Lookin’ to score?” She laughed dryly.

Tonette hated Quita because she’d fucked with Dame. Even though she was Dame’s main bitch, Quita was right up there on the food chain. One time when she and Tonette went to blows, Quita lay low for a while putting work in for Dame, but it never stopped him from fucking with her. Quita was cut off abruptly
after Dame was killed, but she had already bitten the other hands that could have fed her. She’d dissed other hustlers because she was with Dame, but now that he was dead, it was easy for her to get played, laid, and turned out.

“Look at this stupid heifer,” Tonette said out loud to Quita. “Looks like you really came up.”

“I sure did,” Quita said as she pranced around, scratching her arms uncontrollably. Tonette could do nothing but laugh. “Look, girl, can we get over the bullshit? We was friends once,” Quita chided. “Besides, we did have something in common.”

“Bitch, we ain’t neva have anything in common.”

Quita smiled, then started laughing. “Dame, bitch, or did you forget? We was both fucking his ass.”

Tonette smacked Quita across the face. Quita fell down on her mattress and a rancid odor wafted upward.

Tonette turned up her nose.

“You still jealous, Nette. Always jealous of somebody.”

Tonette was about to stomp that bitch’s head, but then Quita started crying. “I need a hit. I need it bad. My baby will die if I don’t get a hit. Please!” she was on her knees in a praying position, begging Tonette to help her.

“Baby?”

“Yeah, right here.” Quita rubbed her belly.

“Who would get yo’ stankin’ ass pregnant?”

A crooked smile ran across Quita’s face. “You didn’t know Dame was gonna be a daddy?” Quita didn’t know who the father of her baby was. She just wanted to fuck with Tonette. She hated Tonette as much as Tonette hated her, but what happened next, Quita wasn’t prepared for.

Tonette’s nostrils flared. The bottom of her Reebok sneakers
found Quita’s body and she stomped her until she was certain she was dead. Tonette hacked up a thick glob of spit and shot it at Quita. She walked away without bothering to look back.

It was just another Saturday night in the hood and time to get back to work.

T
HE WEEKEND COULDN’T
pass quick enough. Laci was ready to get back to the normalcy of college life. The alarm clock went off, waking her. After turning it off, she stretched and reached over toward Dink.

“Dink,” she said tiredly, “get up.” She patted his side of the bed only to see that he wasn’t there.

Getting up, she padded out to the living room and saw Dink zipping his backpack.

“You leavin’ already?” Laci said, looking at the clock.

“Yep.”

“Did you eat breakfast?”

“Nope.”

She looked at the clock again, and back at him. “Hang on for a minute. Let me shower and throw some clothes on. We can grab a bite to eat, then go to class.”

Dink picked up his bag and grabbed his keys. “That’s alright,” he told Laci. “I have a lot to do today. I’ll just see you later.”

Laci watched as Dink walked out the door. She couldn’t believe how quickly their relationship had changed. In three
months, they went from being happy to being unable to be in the same room with each other. It was an uncomfortable situation, so Laci spent more time hanging with her friends than staying home and working things out with Dink. Little did she know, he stayed out as well. Neither wanted to approach the subject.

After Laci’s class, she met up with her girls. “Y’all wanna go to the Gucci store later on?” Sam asked the other three girls. “I think I need another purse.” She held up her newest purchase and inspected it.

“Girl, please. When did you get that one?” Randi laughed.

“Two days ago, but you know I can’t live without my Gucci!”

The girls giggled.

“Yeah, I wanna cop that new quarter-length jacket,” Laci chimed in. “You know, the white leather one?”

“Ooh girl, that was cute!” Sam acknowledged. “And it would look fabulous on you, dahling.” She held her head up in the air and looked down her nose like a prima donna with a fake accent.

Laci laughed, but then her facial expression turned grim. “Oh God,” she mumbled under her breath. She saw T.J. walking toward them.

“Ooh, here comes that fine-ass T.J.,” Gabby said.

As the girls walked toward him, Laci’s stomach began to tighten.

“Yo, wassup, ladies?” he said when the girls were in ear distance. He leaned over to whisper in Laci’s ear, “Wassup, superstar?”

Laci rolled her eyes at him and T.J. laughed as he walked away.

“What was that all about?” Randi asked.

“Girl, nothing,” Laci told her. “He’s just a no-good asshole.”

Randi looked at Laci, then back at the girls. “So when we burning up the mall?”

“About four o’clock,” Sam told her. “Is that cool with y’all?” She looked at Laci and Gabby.

“Y’all go ahead without me,” Laci told her. “My stomach been acting up lately.”

“Laci, you okay?” Randi asked. She was the mother hen of the group. “You been kinda sharp-tongued lately.”

“I’m sorry. Just a lot going on, you know.”

“Well, if you need us, we’re here for you.”

“Thanks.”

Whenever she was on campus, Laci tried to steer clear of T.J., but he always seemed to find her, which added to her almost constant pissed-off mood. Laci hadn’t been feeling well for some time now and attributed it to being under a lot of stress. She had been eating and sleeping a lot more because of it. With all the drama of college life, the uncertainty of where she stood with her man, Simone smiling in Dink’s face every chance she could, T.J. threatening her, and the NYPD harassing her, Laci felt like she was being pulled apart at the seams and would soon go crazy.

She realized that this feeling was why many people in her group therapy session turned to drugs—to temporarily escape the problems they were having in their lives—but Laci was determined never to go down that path again. Because of that, the only place that she would feel safe was back home and in her mother’s arms. She called her mother and couldn’t hold back the tears.