“Why do you talk that way?”
“I knew it.” He drops his hands. “You’d never understand.”
“Understand what? You’re a liar? A poseur? That you’re full of shit?”
“What’s that s’pposed to mean?”
“What that means is you can just stop with the rap flavaed whatevah.” Now I glare at him, head-on. My fake blond hair stands on end. I’m ready to fight. “I know the truth. You’re about as get-tow as me. And I’m about as ghetto as Mickey fucking D’s.”
“I grew up poor,” he says, defensive. “You don’t even fucking know.”
I pause. Take a breath. “Maybe you should stop,” the little voice in my head says. “Maybe you’ve said enough.” But I can’t.
“I know your stepfather got caught diddling your—”
Crack!
He slaps my face. It stings. So much for being “right.” Next time, I’ll use a smug, nonverbal look. I step toward the door. He blocks me.
“Let me out.”
“Who told you that?”
I thought that throwing the truth in his face would feel good. I just feel like shit.
“I’m sorry. Forget it—us. Let me go.”
“How,” he asks, refusing to move, “did you know?”
“Sugar’s journal. Am I right?”
He steps aside. I got my answer. I’m free to go.
“She don’t know the half of it.”
“The other half? That true?”
“Pretty much,” he says, looking down and away.
“The story you told me—about getting caught having sex with the fourteen-year-old. Or, the one about you and ‘Oskar’ planning to escape—”
“I knew someone,” he says. “Maybe, it wasn’t exactly like that. But, mostly, it was.”
“Exaggerated, or lied? What about you and Kidd: true or false?”
“You have to, like, trust me. Okay? There’s a lot of other stuff you don’t know.”
“Start with one fact.”
“Okay.”
I look him in the eye. Now, he’s the one who won’t return my gaze.
“Tell me, who are you. For real?”
He looks up and takes a deep breath.
Chapter 102
“I can’t tell you my bio. None of us can. Not even you. And I wouldn’t ask. It’s more important to you because you’re closer to the truth because … you still remember. Me? My family? My ‘real’ life? That’s what I remember least. You live here long enough, you’ll see. It’ll happen to you. You move things around in your head. Or you forget. Otherwise, you can’t get up in the morning. There’s life—what you remember—and life that you live. You can only live one if you forget the other. What happened with us … I never meant to hurt you. That’s the truth. The first time we talked on the roof, I wanted to be with you. And now, every night, I sleep with you and hold you in my arms … there’s truth in that. I know it. You know it.”
Done, he looks at me. His face is flushed. I see the effort it took for him to tell this “truth.” My head’s jumbled with thoughts. Sleeping together. Holding one another in our arms. He’s right, it’s true. There’s no denying. He sleeps with me every night, all night.
“Those kids?” he says, gesturing toward the safe house. “They act like they’re all ghetto, but they’re from the suburbs. Like us. But look around. We’re not in the suburbs. It is the ghetto. And the longer you live in it, the more it becomes you and your reality. Your reality stops being what you remember. Or where you came from. It’s where you are now. So, you tell me: What’s the truth? What’s a lie?”
“I dunno,” I say. I’m confused. Some of what he says, it makes sense. The rest gives me a headache. “You tell me.”
“I like you,” he says. “I really, really like you. That’s the truth. That’s for real.”
I believe him. But I can’t help it. My heart breaks a little. There’s a gap between “like” and “love.” He looks at me. Black eyelashes blink. One. Two. Three. The last time, his eyes stay shut, lashes resting on his cheeks. He leans forward, lips ready to kiss. I let him. We part. Our lips tremble with hope and fear and excitement.
“So?”
The moment of truth. I look him in the eye.
“You don’t love me.”
I walk to the door. My hand reaches for the knob. He doesn’t try to stop me. I can leave. The little voice in my head says, “You’re making a mistake.” I ignore the voice and step out the closet. I know I’ve been cruel and … foolish?
I’m dazed. At first, I don’t hear the fist pounding on the front door. Or, the voices.
“Let me in! Let me in!”
Chapter 103
Peanuts peers through the keyhole. Nobody moves. It’s happening. A raid.
J.D. grabs my arm and pushes me toward the kitchen.
“Run!”
Blur, movement, bodies rush out the room like water sucked down a drain.
The front door shakes. Someone kicks—
Whomp! Whomp! Whomp!
“Run!” J.D. screams.
I can’t run. But I can hide, I think, leaving my body and—
Watching—
The door crack—
Split—
My bedroom door. It’s all happening again. They’re here. To take me away. Lock. Me. Up.
My vision fades. I’m blacking out.
“Run!” J.D. yells. His voice is far away.
I step into the closet. I dive down. I burrow, hiding under a pile of dirty clothes.
“Ben!” J.D. cries, “Ahmed!!!”
He calls me by my name.
“Ben! Ahmed!”
J.D. keeps calling me by my name. Both of them. He’s broken a rule. There are no rules. This safe house is closed.
“Ben! Ahmed!”
He wants me to follow. I would, but I can’t. I’m hidden.
“Ben!!!”
J.D.’s voice sounds so sad. Faraway. I peer out, my nose in-between a jockstrap and jeans. A blade splits the door.
“Ben? Ben! BEN?!?”
J.D.’s voice is close. He came back. The door cracks.
Whack—
Light hits the blade.
A man steps inside. He wears a helmet, uniform and boots. He holds a gun. Wow. A Real Live Cop.
“Freeze!”
“BEEEEENNNNN!!!”
I cover my ears.
Cops pour into the safe house.
Click-click. Handcuffs. I know that sound. They lead him out, wrists cuffed behind his back.
Passing the closet, J.D. turns his head and looks down, at my hiding place. Our eyes meet. His mouth forms the words—
“I love—”
And, then, he’s gone.
Chapter 104
My nose is stuck inside the jockstrap’s plastic cup. It smells. Oh la la. Hammer’s sexy self. I gag on the odor. It’s revolting. A nasty combination of dried cum and skank. Why didn’t Hammer take it? Isn’t his sperm-stained jockstrap worth hun-dreds—or thousands—of dollars on eBay?
It’s noisy outside. I peek through the tee shirts, running shorts and socks. The pile smells so bad, I might vomit. There’s a price Hammer pays to look like a muscle god: His clothes smell like a garbage dump.
My left hand’s cramped. I flex, feel a telephone cord.
Creak.
The sound stops me. I look up. A figure stands in the doorway. A gun’s barrel nudges the door. It swings open. A head look inside. Blue-Eyed Bob steps into the closet. He’s huge. Monster sized. He grabs the telephone cord and yanks. The cord snaps, and it hits my face. It hurts, but I don’t move. I don’t breathe. I don’t make a sound. He scans the closet. His eyes land on the dirty clothes. He smiles. He bends forward. His fingers plunge into the pile. He’s going to rip off my face.
I shut my eyes.
Chapter 105
“Ohhhhh!” he moans, orgasmic.
I look through the hole left by the jockstrap. Blue-Eyed Bob could see me—if he looked. Bu
t his face is buried in the jockstrap, his mind in an imaginary locker room, hand rubbing his crotch.
I move and a pair of shit-stained briefs fall, draped over my face.
Blue-Eyed Bob turns and leaves with the jockstrap.
I stand. Dirty clothes fall off my body. I plug the cord into the jack. I hope the phone works. It vibrates. I flip the lid. It’s an old walkie-talkie model. The Star Trek communicator model.
“Hello?” I whisper.
“Where are you?” Marci’s voice.
“Closet.”
“Cops.”
“Yeah.”
“Who’d they get?”
“J.D.”
“Shit! He’s gonna get deported.”
“Deported?”
“That’s it?”
“They axed the door and tore the place apart and, and—” I feel horrible. I start crying. My last words to J.D. were, “You don’t love me.”
“They’re gone?”
“Yeah.”
“We’re downstairs. Leave the closet and run down the hallway. When you get to the fire escape on the first floor, jump.”
“Unit four fifty-six, status check, Market Street raid?”
“Over, 806 in progress.”
“Pigs,” Marci says. “They’re outside. They have dogs. You have two minutes before they come back. They’re looking for drugs.”
Drugs? What about the kiddie porn? If they examine Hammer’s computer and find his pictures, I’ll get the blame! I imagine life imprisonment without parole. Men with bad breath, rough hands and smelly crotches. I’d rather die. All this had to happen just when I was starting to like sex.
“Still there?”
“Yeah.”
“They entered the building. Get out.”
Ten minus ninety, ten minus eighty, ten minus—and I know this—I mean, I really know this, but I can’t move. I’m stuck. My body won’t stand. My feet refuse to budge.
“I can’t.”
“If you don’t, the dogs will smell you, you’ll be caught and sent back.”
“Clear!”
The cops march down the hallway. Holsters bounce, guns slam, walkie-talkies squawk.
“This is your moment,” I tell myself. “GO!”
Now or never.
What’ll it be?
Chapter 106
The safe house is silent. I drop the cell. All I need to do is … Move. Fast. Well, probably not even fast. Cops are always late to bank robberies. They’ll probably be late with—
Woof! Woof! Woof!
I look back: German shepherds strain at their leashes, fangs bared and barking. They smell me. See me. And foam at the mouth.
“Hey, you!” shouts Piggie Number Whatever. “Stop!”
I ignore him and run. I jump out the window and land on the fire escape. I climb up, faster than Spider-Man on crack. On the roof, I look over the edge. Cop cars outside the building. A dirty Impala’s parked at the end of the street. This isn’t the fire escape or the second floor. I can’t jump. Well, I could, but seven flights up, I wouldn’t live. I’m trapped.
I need to go back, down the fire escape. I start to and then I see the Storm Troopers and the dogs. They’re trying to climb up the fire escape, but they’re slowed down by batons, gun holsters, walkie-talkies. The dogs’ feet slip on the metal stairs.
One flight down, I see an open window.
The cops look up, see me.
“Halt!”
I ignore the order, scramble down the metal steps and slip through the window. The apartment is empty. I slam the window shut, lock the latch and walk away. I hear them pounding on the window, “Open this window!” I give them the finger and run out the front door.
The moment I step into the hallway, two coppers walk up the left stairwell. I turn right. Spider-Boy’s wrist unspools web. In free fall, I drop down five flights.
Ground floor. I stand outside the emergency exit. I realize I hold something in my hand: Anita’s purse. She needs it. I need to warn her. I owe her that.
I open the basement door. It shuts. I walk into the dark.
Chapter 107
The door shuts. I’m back. The place I said I’d never return: the basement. I step down. The wood creaks. I hope Anita’s down here. I step off the wood. My bare feet touch cold concrete.
Click. Click. Click.
Rats? Lighter? I pray it’s Anita.
Click.
My hair stands on end. I pretend I’m Hansel looking for Gre-tel. I pretend the click-click’s the sound of crumbs landing on concrete.
Click.
I focus, trying to source the sound. It could be coming from here. Or, over there.
Click. Click. Click.
The sound’s a pack of rats, nails skittering on concrete. In seconds, they’ll swarm over my body, thousands of fangs digging into my flesh.
Click.
“Who, who’s there?”
Click. Click.
No answer.
Click click click.
“Hello? Hello? HELLO!?!”
No answer. I know I’m going to die here, in this awful basement. I escaped from Serenity Ridge, survived assault, and my parents. For what? Flesh-eating rats and Death. Something furry brushes over my foot.
“Ahhh!”
Click click click.
I put out my hand. My palm touches a … wall?
I use the flat, rough surface to guide myself toward the sound.
“Motherfuckin’ lighter!”
I exhale. I’m safe. Well, for the moment. Rats don’t bitch about lighters.
Chapter 108
“They gone?”
“Yeah.”
Ahead, light. I creep forward, look around the corner. The lighter sparks, and I see her. She sits on the floor holding a glass pipe. Her lips are wrapped around its end. She suck-suck-sucks hard. Her cheeks collapse, craters. She looks ancient. She holds her breath. The pipe slips out her lips and she looks up, seeing me but not.
Silent, she waves me closer.
Click click.
The flame pops, flickers, trembles and sputters. Dark, Death, it’s all the same. I’m trapped in the black. I can’t get out.
“What the fuck brought you down here, child?”
Anita, the animated Buddha. She exhales. Thick white smoke pours out her head. It swirls, circling her head like dragon’s breath. Or, fog. The air reeks. I stick out my tongue, curious to taste. Tacky-heavy on my tongue, it tastes like lead. I feel lightheaded.
“What are you smoking?”
“Between you and me?”
“I don’t see anyone else here.”
“See, don’t see that, is—” The light blue flame dips, gone. “Shit!”
“I brought your purse.”
“Oh, baby, thank you! Gimme that, would you,” she says. Dead lead smoke blasts my face. I cough. “Sorry, baby.”
“Here.” I hand her the purse. She opens it. Zip. Plastic compacts clink against metal lipsticks.
“There!”
A blue flame explodes against the black, a mini–blow torch. It speaks, too. Ssssssshhhhhhh.
“‘Nita, what’re you doing with a blow torch two inches from your face?”
“Sweetheart,” she says, using her G-L-A-M-O-U-R-O-U-S voice. “What does it look like?”
“Um.” She sticks the glass pipe between her lips. “Smoking crack?”
She sucks, inhaling, filling her lungs with more dead lead. She holds it in. Exhales, tilts her head up and aims her mouth. The white blast drifts up, toward the ceiling.
“Oh, baby boy,” she says, and shakes her head, No-No-No. “Crack’s so eighties. Girl, I wouldn’t even know where to get that shit. Lies. ’Course I would. This here’s—” She hacks, spewing out smokey leftovers. “Tina.”
“Whatever, Anita Tina Fixx, it smells awful.”
“Speed, crank, meth, tweak—all the same.”
“Crack and speed are the same?”
“Here,” she says, offering th
e pipe. “Why don’tcha take a hit. Decide for yourself.”
“Thank you, but no,” I say. “There’s more for you.”
“Riiight?” She smiles. She holds the blue flame under the pipe, warming the glass. “You remembered.”
Her brow furrows and she sucks, hard, like she’s trying to pull the last drops of a chocolate milkshake up, off the glass bottom. I want to look away, but I can’t. It’s so dangerous. And exciting. And a little bit depressing. No. A lot depressing.
“You swear,” I say. “Your face looks like Buddha when you do that.”
“I’m guessing, but Buddha prolly didn’t smoke Tina. Ganja, maybe. Or heroin.”
“‘Nita, why do you smoke that stuff?”
“At this point, it’s—” She moves the torch’s blue flame away from the pipe and exhales. “So I can act normal.”
I stare. At her. The pipe. And I totally get it. They feed off one other. PipeAnitaPipeAnita.
“Bring it on,” she says. “Here’s your big opportunity.”
“Oh, no, thank you but—”
“Got it. More for me. I see you have quesssstions. Might as well, you know, ask. You sit with a real live drug ad-dick!”
“Questions? Like what?”
“Somethin’ real Oprah. ‘So tell me, Ah-nee-tah, why are you smo-king speed?’”
“Oprahtobehonestwithyou,” she says, back to herself, taking a quick hit, “an’ allIcandoisbehonest’cuzyouOprahIswearcan youhandme some tissues?’ And then, you know, I’d stop, slow it down, you know, like how they do.”
“She doesn’t have issue shows anymore,” I say. “We were just watching her and—”
“Okay, so Old Skool Oprah. Early Oprah. Rerun Oprah. Greatest Hits of Oprah! Crack pipe in one hand, microphone in the other Oprah. ‘Yo! Oprah! Lady! It be true! I am the world’s original Crack Baby. I’m whatchacall Crack Baby Numbah One.’ Yo, Ben, yo mama smoke crack?”
“My mama’d get upset it didn’t smell like French perfume,” I laugh, imagining Haifa with a crack pipe. “Is that you asking? Or Oprah?”
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