Homeless (11 page)

Lonnie, not upset at all, thought it was admirable of her to want to feed her father. Just like he and his mom had been a team, it seemed like Trina and her pops were on the same level. “I ain't taking it like that. Here, take my number and call me when you come back this way. I'll try to look out again.”

She took his number without hesitation. “I'll be sure to use it. Nice meeting you, Lonnie.”

“Same to you, Trina. Be safe out there.”

Lonnie watched Trina clear the alleyway before going back inside the shelter. Not because he wanted to make sure no one got to her, but because her cute little booty had just the right amount of jiggle as she walked. Hormonal, as any teenage boy is, Lonnie had felt a little stiffness in his boxers.

For the remainder of his second day, Lonnie stayed to himself. He was able to finish all of the tasks on his list without a weird interaction with the secretary or being weirded out by the other woman. He wasn't trying to be bothered by either of them, especially since he had happy thoughts of Trina on his mind.

By the time he was done, Mr. Reynolds was again gone for the day, and his office was locked up. It was Friday, and he remembered Brenda telling him he left early. Lonnie wasn't able to return the borrowed box cutter and didn't want to wait on the secretary to return from her cigarette break to give it to her. He made plans on returning it to Mr. Reynolds on the next day. He signed out, grabbed his box of food, and walked out so he could catch the bus. Lonnie knew there was a chance the same women from earlier would be on the bus heading home from their shift at work, but he dared the brazen one to try him again.

Sliding his bus pass into the machine, Lonnie took a deep breath to prepare himself for the potential passengers on the bus but didn't see either of the women sitting. He didn't know if it was lucky for him or them. He sat down in the first empty seat, and successfully stayed to himself. Thankfully, unlike this morning, Lonnie was able to get all the way to his stop nearest home and off the bus without having a problem. If the rest of the night went off without a hitch, only then would Lonnie consider himself winning.

Lonnie climbed the stairwell with his box of food, happy to have it and to be home after his second day of work. He heard several of the people within his building partying and enjoying their lives, and although he was a little depressed by his constant misfortune, he continued each step to his apartment with a grin on his face. He knew what was waiting on his nightstand, and to accompany it, he was about to put together a helluva meal from the care box of food.

A worked-over Lonnie stripped down, then climbed into the shower. Then he proceeded to wash away all the sweat and musk he'd built up from the day, plus carried around on him from the days before because his clothes hadn't been washed in days. He planned on starting and finishing his one load of laundry before Sunday.

The thought of how he was all alone having to take care of all his needs crossed his mind, making him somber. He wished there was a way he could permanently numb the pain instead of always having temporary fixes. Knowing he should've been probably seeing a psychiatrist who could help him talk out his problems, especially with women, but Lonnie didn't have insurance. That meant he had to self-medicate with street drugs or higher-priced prescription pills sold on the streets. Suffering from anxiety, pain, and depression, Lonnie needed help. However, he didn't want any additional government officials or even doctors in his business. To Lonnie, they all worked together and ultimately against him. Too many coincidences don't equate into a conspiracy theory. Real talk, when Lonnie thought about it, not even the medication his mother was taking was effective and saved her life. Sliding on a pair of dirty drawers, he found the Chill Pill and self-medicated.

Lonnie put together a meal that left his stomach swollen and satisfied. He'd fried potatoes in butter, ate a whole can of green beans, and one can of yams, then baked the chicken on top of some aluminum foil he'd cleverly put on the racks to serve as a pan. Using all of the things from the box he'd gotten from the shelter, Lonnie felt lucky not to have spent a penny. Thinking about Trina several times while preparing his meal, he fixed her a plate just in case she hadn't come up on one.

He wanted to feel settled, and could've had he not caught the DUI charge. As soon as he started feeling content, gloom overcame him even quicker. He wished there was a way he could stay in his apartment and have his scholarship back.

He remembered back to the first day he got the keys to his place and set it up as his own and how proud of himself he felt. Comparing it to today, he knew his mother had to be ashamed of the son she'd treasured and worked hard to raise. Even if it meant serving more community service days, he had to present something to the judge and dean in addition to graveling for a chance to start over.

With the offer of help on the table from Mr. Reynolds, Lonnie thought that maybe he could get him to write a letter in advance of the community service hours being completed that would change the dean's mind of punishing him so harshly. Lonnie even planned on asking for probation on his scholarship instead of a blatant termination. His mother had told him several times before dying she was a fighter and to learn from her to never give up. Lonnie never stopped wanting to make his mother proud. Dozing off to sleep high, he felt like he was in a good place.

“Good night, Lonnie,” he heard his mother loud and clear.

“Good night, Ma. I love you,” he said, starting to drool on his pillow.

“I love you too. Sweet dreams.”

Lonnie woke himself up when he responded to the voice of his mother again. His eyes popped open; he jumped up from the bed and looked around with a racing heartbeat.

“Lonnie, are you okay? What's wrong, son?” He heard his mother's voice questioning him.

“I'm not crazy. I don't hear her for real,” he spoke out loud, refusing to answer the voice again.

Going into the bathroom, he washed his face with cold water and relieved himself. Dangling the last few drops of piss from his penis, he flushed the toilet, then turned to leave the bathroom.

“I taught you better than that, Lonnie. Put that toilet seat down and wash your hands,” he heard his mother's voice again.

This time he hollered. Jumping back into the wall, his eyes fell out of his head looking at a ghost. Lonnie had popped several pills with Kevin and the crew when they were and weren't partying, and he'd never seen his mother while high. Lonnie didn't know if his mind was playing tricks on him. First, he'd heard her voice; now, he was seeing an image of her. His mother was standing before him with her arms folded. She looked so real to him, so in the flesh, that he reached out trying to touch her.

“Wash your hands first, son.”

Lonnie hurriedly moved to follow his mother's direction. Lathering his hands as best he could with the tiny bar of soap, he washed them just as he'd been taught, all the while, he saw his mother in the mirror standing over his shoulder watching. Rinsing and drying his hands, Lonnie spun around to hug is mother since he didn't get a chance to before she died—and she was gone.

“Ma! Mommy! Ma,” he called out for her, running through the tiny apartment, looking everywhere for where she could've been hiding. She looked too real to him to have been a hallucination. However, after not finding her underneath the bed, in the cabinets, or the closets, Lonnie chalked it up to his mind having, indeed, played tricks on him, and the side effect of those Chill Pills might've been too drastic for him to keep popping.

Finding his cell phone, with no missed calls as usual, Lonnie called Kevin's phone to see if he had some other type of pills or could get some from ole' girl at the clinic in the morning. Irritated when he heard the click on the line before hearing Kevin's voice mail greeting play out, Lonnie still left a message, then followed up with a text. He figured Kevin was either partying or with a girl, seeing as if it was the same late hours he used to be lifted and twisted with the crew.

Turning off all the lights in his apartment and turning the ringer up on his phone so he wouldn't miss Kevin's return call, Lonnie retreated back to his bedroom and got even more comfortable than he was the first time his mother came to visit him. He was trying to create the same moment again. Dozing off to sleep, this time, he didn't hear his mother telling him good night.

Lonnie woke up Saturday, shivering and in a bed of sweat. He was hot but trembling cold. The last thing he remembered was seeing and talking to his mother last night, but not having a nightmare. He didn't know exactly why his body was having the unusual reaction, but it was, and it was scaring him. Getting up from the bed, he rushed to the kitchen sink and drank straight from the faucet until his stomach felt close to exploding.

Lonnie wanted to blame this reaction on the Chill Pill as the hallucination from last night, but wasn't sure because it didn't have the same effect the morning or night before. Seeing that Kevin hadn't called or texted, he tried again, but was sent to voice mail once more. Just as the first time, Lonnie sent a follow-up text, then texted himself to make sure his phone's messaging service was working.

Lonnie was lost as to why his friend hadn't reached out. Kevin had hollered at him to bring in another condom while in the middle of stroking a broad, so a part of him didn't think it was because Kevin was partying. With his own set of problems before him, Lonnie shook the thought of Kevin completely out of his head. He had a long day of nothing to do ahead of him.

* * *

It took Lonnie the whole morning to get himself together. Not able to prolong washing any longer, he'd walked to the Dollar Store for some dishwashing liquid and some body soap. In the tub, he squirted some dishwashing gel in it, then filled it up with hot water. Then he stripped his bed of the sweaty sheets and gathered his clothes. Everything went in the tub and sat for an hour or two soaking except for a shirt and a pair of jogging pants, just in case he had to leave.

This was his way of washing the clothes while saving money on the laundry soap and change he'd need if he'd used the washing machines downstairs. Lonnie had learned how to survive without having a lot of means, and that was cool with him. It was luck, a blessing, and help that he needed a lot of.

Once the clothes were done soaking, he rinsed everything out and laid them all around the apartment on the floor and across the little furniture he did have. That way, he'd save money on the dryer too.

The day had passed, and Lonnie hadn't done much of anything. He'd spent it washing, looking over all his books and notes from the classes he had, and even doing homework with the wishful thought on his mind he'd be given a second chance and the expulsion reversed. His intention was to work hard for at least two solid weeks before graveling and asking for pity.

Kevin still hadn't called him back. Not knowing how to take it, Lonnie chose not to call or text him again and to hear from him only if Kevin reached out. He didn't even know if he'd speak to Kevin first if he saw him on campus. Lonnie had gone from feeling confused, to concerned, to angry.

Not feeling the side effect, good or bad, of the Chill Pill, Lonnie started feeling even more anxious that it was wearing off, and he didn't have one on standby. Pacing back and forth, looking out of the window wishfully, wanting Kevin to pull up and say his phone was broken or some shit, Lonnie watched the sun start to set. That's when he really started to panic.

They say a true fiend always finds a way to feed their body its addiction. Lonnie was a living example of that. Kevin didn't have to call him back. He remembered the bum from yesterday. Lonnie snatched up the money he had left. With a couple of bus passes in hand and a few Tylenol, Motrin, and Snapback pills stuffed in his pocket he was saving for his Monday medicine, Lonnie walked out the door in search of a needed fix.

* * *

“Ahh, if it ain't my li'l buddy from the other day,” the drunk bum slurred when Lonnie approached him.

“Yeah, what up, O. G.? You looking to make good on ya' word and do me another favor?”

Seeing Lonnie approaching, the bum felt like it was his lucky day. His reddened eyes would've widened to the size of saucers had they not been strained from watching the hood and out for an opportunity to scam someone out of a few dollars for hours. Assuming the teen was coming for his services again, the scheming bum planned on working Lonnie out of a fifth of alcohol, if possible, and a burger from the woman who sold dinners out of her house a few blocks down. He figured the odds of him getting his needs met were high since Lonnie seemed not to have any other person to go to. The liquor shots, potato chips, and juice from the other day pumped his addiction, fed his hunger, and quenched his thirst; but also made him want to try his hand at getting more. The bum didn't know where Lonnie came from, nor did he care. As always, he was out for himself.

* * *

After running down what he wanted from Lonnie in exchange for the ninety-nine cent can of beer he could legally purchase, the bum happily shuffled into the store leaving Lonnie wishing he didn't have to come up off so much money for such a small favor. Especially since it was taking away from what he could spend on pills. Lonnie was tired of always finding himself in situations where he had no control or options. Feeling cheated, had he had it his way, Lonnie would've only sprung for the fifth of liquor to be pointed in the direction of the trap house.

The bum told Lonnie what he wanted, and Lonnie agreed to the terms, though he really didn't want to. He wanted the bum to only buy the fifth from the liquor store, not want the food, but couldn't set the terms since he was the one in need. Sending the bum in with a ten-dollar bill, Lonnie now only had fifteen dollars for his pills before he'd only have lint in his pocket. The store run wouldn't cost the whole ten since he only asked the bum for a tall can of Milwaukee's Best beer. The can would only be ninety-nine cents of the ten. The bum had nine dollars to spend on whatever he liked. Lonnie felt that was more than enough for the bum only pointing him the right way.

Lonnie carried his beer along with them as they walked to the woman's house who sold food. He tried to talk and responded shortly when the bum said something to him. Lonnie wasn't looking for a person to help keep him up with conversation; all he wanted to do was get his pills and push on.

Walking down a couple of blocks, then around the corner, Lonnie sat on the porch while the bum ordered his food. He didn't get any because he needed his money for pills, plus he still had tons of food from the box he'd gotten from the shelter. He did, however, take the condiments that the bum didn't want. Lonnie laughed to himself, never having met a privileged poor person before, who had the nerve to be picky when it came to food.

Lonnie's mother always told him that if he didn't eat the veggies she'd cooked or the canned meat that was left at the end of the month before food stamps disbursed on the first, that he wasn't hungry enough and would starve. Knowing his mom wasn't the type of woman who'd lie on her back, spread her legs, and let a man bust it wide open for her to afford some groceries or him some name-brand clothes, Lonnie learned to work with what he had at all times.

As he took the onion and tomato from the bum, he ate them without a second thought. The seasoning that was on them from the burger and the sauce tasted good, so much so that he planned on going back to the house for a burger whenever he touched a large enough piece of money. Even a few scraps were considered a delicacy to Lonnie. He wondered what made the bum act privileged like Kevin when his knuckles were bruised just like his were from barely surviving day to day.

The bum was like a savage eating the burger. The house in the hood always sold food, no matter what time of the day it was. The grandmother cooked a lot of food all day while she was awake, stored it, or served it fresh, then her daughters and all their children served the folks of the neighborhood. Even if the whole house of people were asleep, which was rare, someone would rise and answer the bell. Pooling together three sets of food stamps, the house-run business was how they maintained with so many family members. It was the grandmother, her two daughters, and each of their three kids who made nine of them in a three-bedroom house.

The bum would've made number ten in the house had he been a good husband to the grandmother. The two dollars he'd spent on the burger was for him to cure the hunger pains in his stomach. The other three was his contribution to the household as a husband, father, and grandfather. He'd filled up the old juice container he'd gotten off Lonnie's buck with water from the hose on the side of the house he'd built for his family back in the day. That's before he experienced a hardship he never bounced back from.

No longer wanting Lonnie's company, he settled into his own pit of depression. Knowing he'd just kicked a crack habit, the bum made the decision not to go close to a spot with his feelings on his back. From experience, he knew a monkey could replace those feelings and wear him down even further than he was already wallowing. The bum pointed Lonnie in the right direction, described the house, and then hurried back to the store for some more liquor. He was using one vice to stay clean from the other.

Against his better judgment but thankfully getting his pills and leaving without a problem, Lonnie was back on the bus headed back to his apartment with a pocket of three different pills. They were five dollars each, set his pockets on zero, but was told to test each one to see which high he'd like. The blue one was for mental stimulation. The white oval one was for sleep. The third star-shaped purple pill freaked him out and was supposed to make Lonnie think he was Superman. He planned on welcoming the out-of-body experience if it was true. Lonnie wanted the hero's powers in real life.

Back home, Lonnie chewed up a few slices of bread and drank a glass of water to fill his stomach up. Since he'd cooked and eaten a decent meal earlier, there weren't any hunger pains forcing him into the kitchen.

The impromptu adventure had drained Lonnie. Finally cracking the beer open, he sat on the couch and turned the TV on. He didn't plan on watching it. He planned on it watching him. Popping the white oval-shaped pill, he drank the beer within a matter of five minutes, then got caught up in the lineup of old sitcoms that played late at night.

In the middle of an episode of
Sanford and Son,
Lonnie jumped, startled by his ringing phone vibrating across the table. Hurrying to pick it up before it stopped ringing, he thought it was Kevin returning his many calls and texts, but it wasn't. It was Trina calling.

“Hey, hello,” he answered, slurring, and then wiped some drool from off the side of his mouth. He hadn't even realized he was slobbering.

“Hi, is this Lonnie?” she questioned, with a tiny voice he could barely hear.

Scrambling to find the remote, he turned the television down, then answered her question. “Yeah, this is me. Are you good?” Not like he could play captain and save a ho. He couldn't believe she was calling his phone so late. Remembering her saying she'd use the number, he hadn't expected her to do so at this time of night.

“Yeah, everything is as good as it's gonna get. I just wanted to thank you again for looking out with that food box. It really helped both me and my dad out of a cramped spot,” she expressed her gratitude once again.

“Trina, please stop thanking me. It's getting kinda weird. I didn't do the shit for you to be forever in debt to me, but because I wish someone would've done that for me. I've caught a bed at that same shelter, although I'm putting in some free hours of work nowadays,” he opened up with the truth to her. It wasn't that Lonnie was necessarily hiding it from her; he just hadn't given her his autobiography.

“For real? Say word,” she sounded surprised. “You sho'll clean up well.”

Lonnie took her words as a compliment, especially since it sounded like she was smiling on the other side of the phone. “Thanks. It ain't hard to clean up when you've got a little somethin' somethin' to work with.” He remixed Mr. Reynolds's li'l speech to him. “I ain't got much, but it's ten times more than what I had.” The more Lonnie divulged, the more he realized he'd fucked up royally by not saying no to drugs. He wished he had a beer to drown his reality in.

“I can't wait until I can get up on my feet. When I get a nudge on the back, I ain't never gonna look back.” Trina sounded like she was wishing upon a star. The homeless girl, although without a place to call home, never stopped having a positive spirit. She truly believed she and her father's misfortunate circumstances would be temporary, and they'd be relieved from their ultimate stress any day.

Lonnie was lost in Trina's words. He'd gotten a chance, one similar to the one he was about to ask for again, and lost it all. Whereas Trina reminded him of his mom before; she was reminding him of his faults at the present moment. Listening to Trina talk about her unfortunate conditions and her personal story, he tried not to feel some sort of way.

“Hello, Lonnie, are you still there?” Noticing he hadn't responded to anything she'd said, she called out to him, thinking he'd hung up or fallen asleep.

“Uh, yeah, I'm here. My bad. I'm listening. I've just had a long day,” Lonnie half-lied, knowing the pills and beer had him feeling a little loopy.

She giggled. “It's okay. I guess it's really my bad because I shouldn't have called this late without knowing if you had a girl or side chick.” Trina was bold with her attempt to phish for information on Lonnie. She'd thought he was cute when he walked up on her digging for food in the trash, but was blown away by how nice he was. Trina wasn't looking to get wifed, play the side chick, or even be the girlfriend. All she wanted was a friend, someone with a few connections that could help her stop struggling at the level she was at, or upgrade. She wasn't necessarily using Lonnie because she thought he was cool and wanted to chill; yet her moves were somewhat strategic.