The shortest one gives the redneck a rock, he nods to his girl. She takes off her windbreaker, grabs shorty’s hand, and goes across the hall with him. They shut the door. The redneck splits and all the kids take turns fucking her for ten-dollar rocks.
They all get done and Quan says to me, “Take some dope and go get some guts, nigga.”
I ain’t hit puberty yet. I got a dick like a toddler. There’s no way I’m taking that shit out in public. I try to play it off and sound cool.
“Nah, man, you know…I’m good… She look scurvy as hell anyway. Your dick prolly smell like tuna fish after that shit.”
Quan says, “Fuck you talkin’ ’bout my dick for?”
I say, “You know, ’cause her pussy stank…’cause she like a hoe…I ain’t trying to get AIDS…”
“Nigga you sayin’ I got AIDS?”
“Nah, man, I’m just sayin’, I’m tight.”
One of the other guys just stares at me then leaves.
Quan says, “Whatever, you scared.”
He walks out and I’m stuck there serving. I’m thinking, Wow, that was real corny of me.
I end up selling three rocks in three hours. This is the slowest fast money ever. I shoulda brought my Game Boy.
I’m pacing the room. The air’s stale and sour. The lighting’s harsh, just a lamp with no shade and a TV with no sound.
Now the corny white dude’s got me next to his bed and he’s trying to trade me some Isotoner gloves for twenty dollars worth of dope.
He’s got the gloves in my face talking ’bout Dan Marino. I look away and see, laying on his cinder block nightstand next to the ash tray, a school picture of a girl my age. She’s got brown hair, she’s pretty, she looks like him.
He’s showing me the tags are still on. His kid got ’em for his birthday but they don’t fit, he says. It’d be a shame for them to go to waste. He’s damn near begging me. I’m thinking, This selling dope shit is depressing. I’m ready to go.
I tell Boo and Quan I’m leaving. Boo wants to roll too. We head downtown looking for a cab.
We’re standing at the light and see Quan come running up. He’s hollering. We walk over to him. Maybe he forgot something.
He’s bouncing on the balls of his feet.
He says, “What up then!?”
We’re confused, Boo’s like, “We going home. What up?”
He looks at me, he says, “Nah, bitch. What up witchoo?! Heard you was talking shit!”
I say, “Whatchoo talking about, Quan?”
He don’t say shit. He just hits me with a three-piece in my face and I go down. My head’s rocked. My ears are ringing. I’m lying in the gravel.
I hear Boo yell, “What the fuck, man!? Chill out!”
I feel a kick in my head, then another one.
I hear Quan say, “Boo, if you don’t let me go, I’ma fuck you up too.”
Now I’m sitting up dazed, I got my eyes open. He’s standing over me.
He says, “Get up and fight me, bitch.”
I’m scared, I’m trying to reason with him. “I ain’t got beef witchoo, Quan!”
He catches me with a looping right. “Shut the fuck up.”
Boo’s begging him to stop. “Quan, come on…”
I stand up. I’m dizzy and shook. I say, “Please, man…”
“Fight me, li’l bitch.“ He points to the ground. “For real, you not gonna fight me? There’s a rock right there, hit me with that shit!”
I look down and there it is. I’m afraid if I bend down to get it, he’s gonna catch me again. And I’m scared if I swing on him, he’ll beat even me worse.
So I run. He gives chase.
He catches me and whoops my ass till he gets bored. Then walks back to the dope house.
I’m banged up in a cab driving home down Perry Street and I’m looking out the window. We talk about it for a while and try to figure out why. Then we both go quiet.
I’m thinking, Getting kicked in the head hurts but not half as bad as going out like a bitch does. That takes years to get over.
I find out later from Boo why he whooped me. The west side dudes were giving him a hard time for bringing a white boy around who wasn’t a customer. So he beat me up to prove a point.
He did it for them and they didn’t even come out and watch.
the odd couple
Christina kicks the Jewish chick out of her New York apartment and moves back in. We get along great. We cook together, drink wine, do drugs, everything.
A year into it, Chris gets tired of my antics. My one-night stands, bringing drunk chicks home; they’re tripping over furniture, being loud, giggling.
Next morning, she’s gotta wake up to their shit in the living room and them pissing in the bathroom when she’s gotta get ready for work.
She gives me the business.
I tell her, “I’ma chill out.”
She says, “You better.”
I say, “You got it.”
That night I go out with Tino, this Croatian cat from the job. We’re at some French spot eating mussels when I get a call from Kristy, this porn chick I met in Vegas.
She says she’s in town for one night and needs a place to crash.
I say, “You can stay with me.”
We meet up at a cigar bar in SoHo.
She looks how one might expect a porn chick to look in ’06. Tight blue jeans, white leather jacket with the tassels everywhere, matching white boots with tassels too, fake tits, big hair, shitty highlights, and an orange-skinned fake tan.
She looks kinda like a slutty carrot.
We’re barhopping. She’s not drinking. I’m trying to loosen her up. She’s actually pretty cool, but surprisingly uptight for a chick who gets sodomized on camera.
We end up at some Wall Street bar. Tino wants to go there ’cause he heard Jenna Bush is s’posed to show.
The place is my nightmare, it’s a bunch of young Republicans, rich and cocky as fuck. They’re doing tons of blow, sweating through their Polo shirts, waiting to get old enough to take over their dads’ companies.
We lose Tino in the crowd, he’s in the VIP dick-riding some celebrity. I’m standing at the bar with the porn chick.
We keep getting bumped and jostled, these bitches keep stepping on my shoes and not saying excuse me. They’re awful people. I’m looking at Kristy, trying to apologize with my eyes.
I wanna make the best of it but when they all start singing “Sweet Caroline,” I grab Kristy and leave. We’re out the door by the time the second da da da das hit.
We hit a dive bar in the LES for a nightcap. I’m on whiskey, she’s on Sprite. We’re bonding over how much we hate rich people. I think I got her beat.
She’s shitting on my boy Tino, calling him a fake-ass starfucker.
She’s kind of right but I don’t got a lot of options out here.
I say, “Yeah, I guess so. But that’s why he knows the good bars.”
She rolls her eyes. “Whatever, good bars. That last club was filled with every kid I ever hated in high school.”
I raise my glass to that. “Touché, li’l mama. Touché.”
She’s pleased with herself and I finally talk her into having a real drink with me. We do a shot and go home.
We’re in the taxi when a switch flips. Her eyes glaze over; she’s staring in the distance. We’re driving blocks and blocks, she’s not talking.
Something feels off and the silence is making me uncomfortable.
I try to fill it. “You see that shit out the window over there? That’s a Picasso. He was the one that really got all that fucked-up-face-shit poppin’… You know, wit the ear on the cheek and shit?”
She doesn’t answer.
I point at another building, “That’s NYU. S’posed to be a good college.”
She stares straight ahead and whispers, “Shut up.”
I don’t know if she’s talking to me or the cabby. So I say, “What?”
She says, “Stop talking. Be quiet.”
I’m thinking she got me fucked up. I say, “You got me fucked up. You better chill out ’fore you end up walking.”
Dry as hell, she says, “Okay.”
“Anyway that’s NYU. That’s where the rich kids go…”
Under her breath she mutters, “Shut up, bitch.”
“Huh?”
“Shut your face.”
I nut up on her. “Alright Kristy, you gonna have to get the fuck out the cab talking to me like that.”
Nothing.
I say to the cab driver, “Pull over, man.”
But he don’t hear me ’cause he’s some type of Hindu and talking on his cell phone in another language.
I keep staring at her and telling the cabbie to stop at the same time.
Neither one of these motherfuckers are listening to me, so I start knocking on the plexi-glass.
Cabbie says, “What?”
That’s when she finally turns her head to me, cracks a devilish smile, and real syrupy says, “I’m sorry, Jude. I was just playing.”
I say to the cab driver, “Nothin’,” then say to her, “Motherfucker, you better be.”
She’s like, “God, I’m sooorry. Don’t be so sensitive.”
I’m shaking my head, these motherfucking white girls don’t know how to act. I prolly woulda kicked her ass out the cab if I hadn’t just popped this five-dollar dick pill.
We get home, she throws her shit on the couch and goes to my room.
We’re making out on the bed when she hits me with, “You know, you’ll only be the third guy I’ve slept with for free…”
I say to the porn chick, “Wow, that means a lot. Thank you.”
She’s kisses my neck and says, “Yeah.”
I wait a beat then ask, “So, uh, how many dudes you fuck all-together then?”
She’s thinking, “I don’t know, like a hundred–hundred fifty?”
I say, “So that’ll make me only the hundred and fifty-third guy you ever fucked. What can I say? I’m honored.”
She slaps my arm. “You’re such a dick. You’re the third civilian!”
I can’t help myself. I’m laughing, “That doesn’t undo all the other dudes’ come that’s landed on your face.”
Oh, she doesn’t like that joke. She shuts down. I walk it back, I’m kissing her neck trying to talk her down.
“Nah, girl, for real. I’m honored.”
She finally forgives me and five minutes later we’re making out again.
It’s going cool, but every time I get hard she pushes me away, pretends like she’s going to sleep, waits a minute, then rubs her ass on my dick again.
This off-and-on shit goes for a half an hour, it feels like high school. I’m getting annoyed. She does it one last time. I hop out of bed.
I’m looking out the window onto my street down at the trannies turning tricks on the corner, and the bridge and tunnel kids drunk on the sidewalk. Some chick’s crying about her friend who ditched her for a dude. She’s sitting on the curb in a red dress, missing a shoe.
It’s getting late. I’m tired. I want this one gone.
Porn chick says, “Come back to bed, Jude.”
For what? So I can get blue balls?
I say, “You know what, Kristy? This isn’t working. Maybe you should just leave.”
We stare at each other; she’s lying in bed, glowing orange from the street light shining through the window.
She coos, “Come lie down.”
I say, “Nah.”
She sits up in bed and with ice in her voice, says, “Come lie down or I will fucking kill you.”
She’s not smiling. I believe her. Not that she can, I’ll beat the breaks off of her, but that she’ll try.
I don’t really negotiate with terrorists and I should put her out the house. But I’m thinking I’ll never hear the end of it from Chris if I fist-fight some porn chick over a death threat at three in the morning.
So I do as she tells me. I get back in bed, and a half-hour later I fuck her. Every time she’s about to come she stops me. And every time I’m about to come she does the same.
This goes on for an hour. She’s dry and we’re hot. My room smells like latex and old pussy.
After she pushes me off for like the tenth time, I say, “Are you even enjoying yourself?”
She says, “Yeah. Kind of.”
This needs to end. But as long as my dick can get hard, it won’t.
I’m like, I gotta sneak a nut before she can stop me. But that’s easier said than done because I literally hate fucking this girl.
She usually pushes me off when I’m pounding it out. So I get deep in her and I go real slow. I’m barely moving my hips. I got my eyes closed tight, I’m concentrating. I keep switching rhythms to throw her off.
I’m edging. I’m almost there.
I feel her palm on my chest. I don’t know if she’s gonna rub me or push me away.
I go for it. I hit her with a jab jab jab sloooow.
And I finally get there.
I come with a whimper. Like a squirrel dying.
She like, “What was that?”
I roll off. I say, “I nutted.”
She says, “Well, I didn’t.”
I say, “I know.”
I get up, go to the bathroom, wash my dick off, and go to bed.
I wake up the next morning to her leaning over me, watching me sleep.
She says, “Last night was fun, I had a really good time.”
I lie, “Yeah. Me too.”
She’s like, “I wanna do it again but maybe next time…”
I cut her off, “Yeah sure.”
She goes on, “Only next time I wanna ride you with a gun to your head.”
I say, “A gun?”
She says, “Yeah, like a real one… It doesn’t have to be loaded, though.”
I say, “Put on your clothes. I gotta be somewhere, I’m late.”
We get out the bedroom and Chris is on the couch watching the morning news. Next to her is Kristy’s purse with her MAC makeup and Marlboro Reds spilling out of it, the white leather jacket’s thrown across the cushion and at her feet: a pair of white knee-high boots with with buckles and frayed leather.
I say, “Good morning.”
Chris says, “You left something in the bathroom.”
I go in and see a used condom, filled with semen and water, floating in the toilet. I flush it down. I’m gonna hear about this shit later.
I take the porn chick outside and walk her in circles so she can’t find my place again, then put her in a cab.
I come back in. Chris is in the kitchen drinking orange juice. I play it off like we’re cool. I give her a wink and the A-OK sign.
She winks back, shoots a finger gun at me, and says, “You’re getting kind of old for all that, aren’t you?”
She turns her back on me and finishes her juice.
I let that sink in.
I shuffle to my room, take a Valium, and sleep off the night before.
Later that day I send Chris flowers at her work with a card saying, “Sorry for banging random chicks in the house and leaving rubbers in the toilet. Won’t do it again. Love ya, Jude.”
She never got ’em.
heathen
It’s been months since I talked to Taz, so when he calls I pick right up. The only problem is I just did half a gram of ketamine ten minutes ago.
I’m wasted.
My brain’s like soup. I barely know where I am and my mouth’s not working right. Had I been less fucked up I’da been smart
enough to not pick up the phone.
I’m breathing into the receiver.
I think I hear him say, “Hi.”
I yell back, “Hello!”
He says he’s in New York, I’ll be there in a few weeks. We’re trying to work out our schedules to link. He’s telling me his dates, but it’s gibberish to me.
All I hear is nonsense and numbers.
This is going nowhere. I wanna tell him, “Lemme hit you back, I’m a little faded.” But it just comes out, “I’m fugggged upp.”
He says, “Me too, brother, me too. Finishing up dinner right now.”
He’s gracious. This further endears him to me.
Taz’s a relatively straight-edge Muslim and I’ve been going off the deep end as of late, so we don’t kick it like we used to.
I’m looking forward to seeing him in New York. He’s running a high-end rug event out in Manhattan and I got it in my head that I’ll help him plug it on my show.
Thick tongued, I say, “Whaa daay tazay? We blowid up.”
He tells me more dates but I’m fucking retarded and not getting it.
He tries to duck out gracefully. “I think we got a bad connection, bro, I’ma get—”
I cut him off. I wanna encourage him and tell him that we’re gonna really succeed at this rug event that I have no part in. I’m like, “Wegon getitman weegone gettid! Gah iiideas.”
“Inshallaha, it’ll go well, brother—”
I keep going, “Nahman gah ideeas!”
I’m trying to tell Taz I have some ideas to help his event reach new heights.
I have none.
This goes on for too long. I’m not tracking his words, but I can hear in his voice that he’s uncomfortable talking to me and he’s too polite to say it.
Finally, I’m like, “Aight bruh I’ma go. Luh you, dawg.”
He says, “Love you too, man. We’ll talk tomorrow.”
I hang up thinking that went pretty poorly.
So I text him, “Tazzy I’m in a K-hole but I got you, dog! When I sober up I’ma brainstorm some shit!”
He hits me back two minutes later but it seems like forever.
“I appreciate you, Judey. I know you got me. I’ma call you tomorrow, brother.”
I read it and I’m feeling a little better about that talk now.
Hummingbird Page 6
