CHAPTER 12
A Shot of Henney
“I love these streets,” Dollar said aloud as he walked through the city's downtown on his way from the Bureau of Motor Vehicles. He had just seen a clean, fully loaded, two-year-old black Honda Accord at a Buy Here Pay Here car lot. He had to have it. It was calling his name. He had the cash, but he didn't have a driver's license. He hadn't gotten around to getting his driver's license so that was the reason for his visit to the BMV.
Dollar's plan was to own a nice set of wheels. He needed transportation first and foremost so that he could maneuver the city easier. It would also make apartment hunting that much easier. That public transportation and walking, while trying to handle his business, was for the birds.
Dollar would be rolling in that Honda soon enough. This would be the first item he could check off of his “shit to do and shit to get” list he had written up. Next he needed to get him a crib, Dollar thought as he stood at the stoplight waiting for the walk signal.
“Excuse me, sir. Do you have the time?” a woman asked Dollar as she fiddled with the watch on her wrist. “Mine stopped.”
Honey was the shit, to say the least. She stood about five feet six inches tall. She was playing a money green miniskirt suit with a white blouse under it and a matching tie. Her gator pumps were the exact shade of her suit. Her coffee brown tights complemented her toned, scar-free legs. Her shiny lips, which wore only colorless lip gloss, looked like cherries dripping with melted chocolate waiting to be licked.
As the woman stood there plucking at her watch, Dollar took in a whiff of her freshly styled hair. He didn't recognize the smell as the aftermath of the perm chemical underneath a tangerine-scented spritz. Her long brown hair had the Farrah Fawcett thing going on. Each strand was feathered in place. If a tornado had suddenly rolled through, nine times out of ten, still, not a hair would be blown out of place.
“Uhh, the time?” Dollar said, stunned. He was like a deer caught in headlights. The subtle beauty of the owner of the soft voice blinded him. He looked down at the shiny gold watch he had swiped from Tyrone's wrist. Instead of numbers it had small diamond chips. Dollar began counting the stones as the lady stood impatient.
“Don't tell me you're one of those guys who spends $25,000 on a watch and can't even tell time on the thing,” she said. “Never mind.” She rolled her eyes.
“Damn,” Dollar said as the woman whisked away like Cinderella at the stroke of midnight. Her sassiness/ classiness was intriguing to Dollar.
“That shit turns me on!” Dollar said to himself. “Hold up, Miss Lady. Don't be so mean.” He began walking, trying to keep up with her.
“Is that the only thing men can think of to say when y'all get shot down by a woman?” the lady said. “I'm not mean. I just don't want to be bothered. I wanted something and you couldn't give it to me. No harm done. Now you go your way and I'll go mine.”
Dollar continued following her with a huge grin on his face. Her fly-ass mouth, which she probably used on a regular to fight off men, wasn't working with Dollar. Like most men, he was up for the challenge of getting something he liked.
“Why do I feel like the girl in Michael Jackson's âThe Way You Make Me Feel' video?” she said, stopping in her tracks.
Dollar couldn't help but laugh as she stood there dead serious. Eventually Dollar's laughter became contagious.
“I'm sorry for being so rude.” The lady laughed after relaxing her shoulders. “It's just been one of those days.”
“That's okay,” Dollar said. “I recently had a few of those years.”
“Pardon me?” she said, confused by Dollar's comment.
“Never you mind,” Dollar said, holding out his hand. “Dollar. I'm Dollar.”
“Dollar, huh?” She showed disappointment that Dollar had given her a nickname, which she thought was most likely his street name given to him by his peer of thugs. “Pleased to meet you. Anyway, Dollar, you take care of yourself.”
“Don't you believe in reciprocity?” Dollar asked.
The use of the word “reciprocity,” which Lauren Hill made common and sexy in her song “Ex-Factor,” made the lady smile.
“Hennessey,” she said as she walked away. “Hennessey Monroe.”
Dollar watched her walk away until she was out of sight. But she damned sure wasn't out of mind.
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Dollar hadn't been to work in four days due to his keeping tabs on Ral. Ral seemed to be through the worst part of the withdrawal period and out of the woods. Dollar had to fight him and constrain him a couple of times, but he was willing to do whatever he needed to do to get Ral through this ordeal. A rehab facility watching over him would have made Dollar's life much easier, but Ral refused to voluntarily go.
Dollar needed to get back to work. Until he got a chance to start putting the wheels in motion of the bigger ride, he had to stay on his regular routine. He knew that $46,000 was a lot of money to some people, but on the other hand, million dollar lottery winners have filed bankruptcy only a couple of years after their winning. Besides that, he had already spent a chunk of it on the Honda Accord. Dollar wanted to be sitting on so much loot that he would be able to go to Vegas and lose $46,000 playing blackjack and not even have it put a dent in his finances. All that time he did in the joint was not going to be in vain. It was now time to put everything he learned about surviving and ruling the streets into effect.
Dollar eventually had to have Tommy sit with Ral while he went to Redd's and handled a few other business matters. He then returned a few hours later.
“Get to packing up yo' shit,” Dollar said to Ral as he entered his motel room. “You relocating to Delaney.”
Dollar threw a bag of clothes at Ral that had a Fubu hookup inside of it, right down to a pair of Fubu shoes.
“Fubu,” Ral said, looking inside the bag. “Am I allowed to wear this?”
“Am I allowed to wear Tommy Hilfiger?” Dollar replied. “Come on and get dressed so we can head on over to Delaney.”
“Who stay there?” Ral asked.
“You do, nigga, now throw on them rags I just threw at you, get your little bit of shit, and let's ride. I gotta go to work.”
“Whose name is the place in?” Ral asked as he started to gather his things.
“What's it matter? You trying to stay here or something? Let's go!” Dollar demanded.
“Where we going?” Tommy said, coming out of the bathroom, wiping her wet hands down her pants.
“Home,” both Dollar and Ral replied in unison.
Tommy went back to her place to get ready for work while Dollar took Ral to his new pad. It wasn't much, but he now had a place to call his own. Dollar figured that maybe if Ral possessed a little bit of stuff, then he would start getting hungry for bigger stuff and want to do some things. Ral wasn't going to be any good to him as a junkie, though. Dollar had to show him that he could enjoy life much more being clean and sober . . . and rich!
Dollar arranged for some inexpensive Value City Furniture stuff to be delivered to Ral's apartment. There wasn't any use buying some expensive stuff to put in an apartment in the projects. Folk will buy a leather sectional in a heartbeat to put up in their low-income housing unit. They be having $1,000 cherry wood sleigh beds and shit. They didn't realize that, no matter what they laced their crib with, it's still in the hood.
Dollar had given Tommy some money to grocery shop for Ral's place so that he would have the bare necessities, enough to get by. Dollar even bought Ral a $2,200 cross between a get-about and a hooptie to get back and forth from seeing his rehab counselor.
Dollar didn't even have a place for himself and yet he was making sure Ral was straight. The rest of the world may have looked at it as Dollar taking a chance on a junkie, but to Dollar he was taking care of a friend. That's just how Dollar was. He knew that his crew's shit had to be on point before he could feel confident about his game. Now Dollar understood why, for all those years, his granny always ate after everybody else had even eaten seconds. She wouldn't have been able to enjoy one morsel wondering if somebody else was still hungry and she had eaten the last bite.
“How'd you do all this shit for me?” Ral asked as he cased his new pad.
“I used your money,” Dollar said.
“What money?”
“Let's just say it was restitution.”
“Yo, Dollar,” Ral said. “Thanks, man. I mean, it's gonna be hard, but I'm going to try to do right. I owe you, man. I don't know what happened to me. I used to feel like I could control the shit. But after you got locked up, the shit start controlling me.”
“Must be that Kennedy curse.” Dollar winked.
Ral walked over to a corner in the living room where a large box with a television in it was sitting. He and Dollar lifted the television out and set it up.
“This television ain't gon' work without cable,” Ral said.
“Damn, I knew I was forgetting something,” Dollar responded. “I forgot to call Comcast.”
Ral played with the television until he got a basic channel that the morning news was on.
“Damn, that's Tyrone,” Ral said, pointing at the television. He and Dollar watched closely as the newscaster reported Tyrone's homicide. He had been found dead. He was murdered execution style. It was reportedly drug related.
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Kera didn't even look up from the book that her nose was buried in as Dollar entered the office. Dollar cleared his throat to gain her attention.
“Oh, hi,” Kera said, looking up at Dollar. “I didn't hear you come in.”
“Maybe y'all ought to get a bell put on that door,” Dollar replied. “You all into that book. It must be good.”
“It's very good,” Kera said, rolling her tongue across her teeth.
“What's it called?”
“
A Hustler's Wife,
” Kera answered.
“
A Hustler's Wife,
huh?” Dollar said. “I think I've heard of that one. What's it about?”
“It's about a young girl who knows what she wants,” Kera answered in a rousing tone. “And she sets out to get it.”
“Oh yeah? Tell me more.”
Kera was happy to oblige. “She meets this guy who's older than her and she falls in love with him. He's not all about the right thing, but he loves her strong.” Kera licked her lips and proceeded to give Dollar the synopsis. “People think that because she's young she doesn't know what she wants or what's good for her.”
“Not everything we want is good for us,” Dollar interrupted, referring to himself.
“She followed her heart and her head and let them lead her in the right direction.”
“And what do you follow?” Dollar asked. “Your head or your heart?”
“It depends,” Kera said, rising up from the desk to show off her skintight jeans with that sexy-ass gap between her inner thighs.
“It depends on what?” Dollar asked.
“On what the final destination is, on where I'm trying to go, and who's taking me there.”
Bitches sure have changed,
Dollar thought. It seemed as though the chicks nowadays had much more game than the ones he grew up with. Hoes in the new millennium were bold.
“So tell me,” Kera said, “what do you follow?” She put up her index finger. “Wait a minute. Let me guess.” Kera walked around her desk to Dollar and looked him up and down. “Your head,” she said with her eyes glued on Dollar's bulge. “Yeah, you look like the type of man who follows his head.”
Dollar laughed as he took a couple of steps backward, away from Kera. “Slow down, little mama.”
Dollar was willing to bet the tenderoni standing before him tasted as good as she looked. He realized that he had been subconsciously grabbing his nuts. What the fuck was he thinking, knowing Kera wasn't nothin' but a baby? He was a grown, big-ass nigga. He didn't have time for the games and obsession that came along with fucking a young broad. He would put a hurting on that tight-ass little pussy of hers. Besides, he had to stay focused and get his shit together. Tommy was already on the up and up and he had gotten Ral settled in. Handling his own business was going to be a piece of cake, especially with those few Gs he was already sitting on.
He had looked into a nice spot to live. He didn't want just anything, like what he had set Ral up in. He wanted a nice crib with nice things. He put in an application at a couple of spots and was waiting to hear back from them. Until he got that call on his prepaid minutes cell phone he had recently bought, he was going to stay put at the Y. He probably could have crashed at Tommy's, and he definitely could have chilled at Ral's, but he didn't want to be able to be associated with Tommy or Ral's spot.
Dollar hated the hours he had to waste with a nine to five. He could've been spending that time casing the streets, seeing what was what and who was who. He had enough confidence in Tommy though to get the job done, and she was in just the right spot to do it. Next to a beauty or barbershop, a skin house was the perfect pair of ears and lips. One heard all and told all up in those types of spots. As tempted as Dollar was to just say, “Fuck Redd,” he knew he had to be on point with his game. One small hole could cause a leak great enough to sink the entire ship. Kera could be that hole.
“Dollar,” Redd said, entering the office from the restroom. “I thought that was you out here. What's happening?”
“Oh, I can't call it,” Dollar said, giving Redd a five and a snap. “What's things looking like today?”