by Sa'id Salaam
The bouncers dragged Marcus to the large dumpster and tossed him.
Pony had finished off in Jasmine’s mouth about the same time Marcus hit the bottom of the dumpster. He gave her a few more testers and told her to come by the hotel after her shift was over. He ran into Tiffany, who was still visibly shaken from being slapped. “You a’ight?” he asked sincerely.
“I’m cool. You need to be worried about your boy,” she replied, feeling the welts that the slap caused.
“They ain’t kill ‘im, did they?” he asked casually, secretly hoping they did.
“Naw, but they shoulda,” Tiffany spat.
“A’ight, shawty, I’ll holla,” Pony said, turning to leave.
“Say, I heard y’all got that fire,” Tiffany said contritely. “You forgot about ya girl.”
“My bad,” Pony said apologetically, reaching into his pocket. He handed the rest of the testers to her with a wink. “Fuck wit’ me,” he said over his shoulder, going to retrieve his buddy. Pony almost passed by the dumpster until he saw Marcus peek out. “Hell, naw!” He chuckled, unable to contain it. He roared with laughter until they got back into the truck and he saw how badly Marcus was beaten. “Damn, cuz. You a’ight?” he asked sincerely.
“Ima kill dat nigga,” Marcus vowed through his ravaged mouth. “I need a blast,” he announced urgently.
“A blast!?” Pony inquired incredibly. “Shit, nigga, you need a doctor!”
Over Marcus’s vehement objections, Pony steered the Escalade to Grady Memorial. On a typical Friday night, Grady would treat twenty or more gunshot victims, so a standard run-of-the-mill ass-whipping was a low priority. However, once they got a look at the bruises and contusions Marcus sported, he was rushed into triage.
Marcus’s mother, along with his sister and her kids, arrived twenty minutes after Pony called. They all waited in silence in the solemn hospital waiting room.
It was an hour before a doctor came out looking for family members. His grim demeanor unnerved the population of the waiting room full of praying friends and families. “Well…” the doctor sighed wearily from all the violence he’d witnessed that very same night. The corn-fed young Midwestern doctor could not believe how violent people could be. “He’s got some head trauma, lost quite a few teeth, a good amount of blood, and several broken bones, but he’ll live,” he explained. The doctor went on to explain that Marcus would have to stay for observation to ensure no blood clots developed.
While Marcus’s mother was worried, Pony was delighted to be free of the burden he was becoming, happy to have enough time to finish the package they had and a re-up. Without his partner smoking up half the work, he could maximize his profits. He resolved crack was to be sold, not smoked. He would pay Marcus his share of what was left and then go solo.
CHAPTER 14
“Fuck!” P.I.G. roared as the bad news was repeated on all local channels. A Mexican cartel operating in the city had been busted. Confiscated were hundreds of kilos of cocaine and millions in cash. They weren’t just any Mexicans. These were his connect. The bust stemmed from the seizure of fifty keys the week before. Together, it meant one thing: drought!
Under normal circumstances, P.I.G. loved a good drought. As long as he was in pocket, he would make a killing. The problem was, he wasn’t. The last of his traphouses just sold out, and he was catching hell trying to get back on. P.I.G. hated turning away money, but that was what he was forced to do, and he was in a foul mood as a result. The few junkies scattered around the room were feeling it as well.
He picked up the phone to call Blast again, but he changed his mind. He’d been calling her every five minutes since she left. She’d cursed him out thoroughly the last time, having grown impatient with his impatience.
Blast and Earl were out desperately trying to run down some dope. With her two-ounce-a-day habit, she was in no mood to be harassed.
P.I.G. had given her $30,000 to check some other dealers in town. Normally, putting that much cash in the hands of two smokers was begging to be ripped off, but he wasn’t concerned in the least.
What almost no one knew was that shortly after rescuing young Blast from the clutches of her ruthless pimp, P.I.G. married her. They had to hire a junkie to pose as her mother since Blast was only fifteen at the time. She was the only woman P.I.G. ever had actual intercourse with. Blast even got pregnant once, but her polluted womb was no place to form life. They didn’t have sex anymore, but she would blow P.I.G. several times a day if needed. Blast knew her husband was a trick. He would trick off every gram of product in the house if not for her. She was, by far, P.I.G.’s biggest asset, the driving force behind his accession up the ranks of Atlanta’s drug dealers. She was the brains, and Earl was the muscle.
Earl was a known shooter, and as such, he didn’t have to bust his gun much anymore. When you’re known for shooting niggers, you don’t get tried often.
Because of Earl and Blast, P.I.G. had five traphouses throughout the city, all doing big numbers. The two million dollars in the bank was due to Blast’s business acumen.
P.I.G. knocked over his drink as he scrambled to answer his vibrating cell phone. “Yeah!?” he barked into the phone without bothering to check the caller ID.
“It’s me. We straight. Be there in a minute,” Blast said quickly before hanging up.
A wave of relief and excitement swept through P.I.G., causing him to summon his sex slave. “Gina!” he roared, loud enough to be heard in the back of the house.
Gina ambled out and went straight for P.I.G.’s exposed penis.
The junkies in the room knew he must have scored and perked up, some passing gas loudly from the anxiety.
A knock on the door didn’t disturb P.I.G. from the pleasure Gina was providing. “Get that!” he ordered without looking up.
“It Wanda dem,” the junkie closest to the door announced after looking out the peephole.
“Let her in,” P.I.G. growled reluctantly. He knew she despised him, and the feeling was mutual. If not for the business relationship he shared with Mike, he wouldn’t even sell her a crumb. He hated the constant insults and the haughty way she turned her nose up at him.
True to form, Wanda sucked her teeth as she and Tiffany walked in. “Girl, that nasty fat bastard at it again,” she hissed over her shoulder to Tiffany. “Where Blast? Let me cop so I can get da fuck outta here,” she demanded with as much venom as possible.
“She ain’t back yet, so you can push,” P.I.G. spat back, matching her tone.
“We’ll come back den,” she said, turning on her heels.
“A’ight, but, uh…might be done sold out before you do,” P.I.G. said, stopping her in her tracks.
Wanda was well aware of the shortage of cocaine in the city. The thought of going another day without a blast shook her to her very core. “Well, we’ll just wait, then, if you don’t mind,” she said contritely.
P.I.G. knew what the upper hand looked like, and he knew he had it. He decided to take full advantage of it and make Wanda as uncomfortable as humanly possible. “Mmmm,” he moaned loudly, grabbing the back of Gina’s bobbing head. When he had everyone’s full attention, he pulled out of Gina’s mouth and ejaculated. “Anyone want some of this?” he said, spewing semen all over the girl.
Tiffany fought the urge to throw up at the spectacle.
Suddenly, the front door swung open, stopping time in its tracks. Blast and Earl stormed in and headed straight to the back without saying a word. Their very presence set off another round of flatulence from the sofa.
P.I.G. got up as quickly as his massive weight would allow and followed them to the back.
Gina simply stared off into space as the semen ran down her face.
“Well? Whatcha get?” P.I.G. demanded, looking back and forth from Blast to Earl.
“One brick,” Earl said solemnly, as Blast removed a kilo from her purse.
“And it’s some bullshit,” she added painfully.
“Desean charged you
thirty stacks for a brick?” P.I.G. asked in disbelief.
“He charging more than that,” Earl spoke up. “He let you get it for the thirty, and it’s mediocre at best.”
“You need to get back wit’ dem New York dudes,” Blast ordered. She caught her tone and attempted to clean it up before P.I.G. cursed her out.
“I’m saying though, Daddy, they got that raw, and the price is right,” she purred sweetly. “We’ll have the city on lock!”
“Humph, we’ll see,” P.I.G. responded, glaring at her. “Earl, I want you to put the whip on the whole thang.”
“The whole thing?” Earl repeated, unable to mask the hurt in his voice. He could easily whip one key into to, but it was some bullshit.
“Hell, yeah. The whole thing!” P.I.G. barked. “I paid thirty for this. I gotta get mines back.”
As he spoke, Blast separated an ounce that she no doubt intended to cook properly for her personal use. P.I.G. saw her do it, but he said nothing.
P.I.G. smiled brightly at the name on his caller ID. “What up, young balla?” he said when he flipped the phone open.
“I need to bump into you,” Pony said desperately. He had all but cut Marcus off and was blowing up quickly. Marcus was allowed to hang around out of sheer loyalty, but that, too, was wearing thin. Pony threw him a little work every day, fully expecting him to fuck it up, and Marcus never let him down in that respect.
“Shit tight right now, but I got a little something. Gimme a minute to cook up,” P.I.G. said before flipping the phone closed again. “Take twelve ounces to each house,” P.I.G. told Earl, who was preparing to sample the freshly cooked batch. “And set aside four for that young nigger.”
Earl and Blast both loaded large chunks of the pasty white product onto their shooters.
P.I.G. looked back and forth anxiously as they took long drags on their pipes. “Well? How is it?” P.I.G. demanded, causing Earl to blow out his hit sooner than he intended to.
“It’s straight,” he replied through a plume of noxious gray smoke.
“It’ll do,” Blast cosigned, blowing out her hit as well.
“Well, beggars can’t be choosers,” P.I.G. said arrogantly. “Tell them Js all we got is point five fifties.”
Blast silently multiplied the $100 a gram they were charging by the 2,000 grams they had and smiled.
“Hurry up and make them rounds. We going to New York when you get back,” P.I.G. ordered.
P.I.G.’s house was in full swing by the time Pony arrived. He silently prayed he wasn’t too late. There was no coke in the city, and if he could get on, he could really get rich. He had customers waiting to spend good money with him.
Wanda and Tiffany were pulling out as Pony pulled in. Marcus attempted to suck his teeth when Pony honked and waved at the women, but he didn’t have any. Pony had to stifle a laugh at the resulting sound. The men sprinted toward the house, both hoping for the best, albeit for different reasons. A junkie opened the door, and they rushed inside.
“Where P.I.G.?” Pony asked breathlessly.
“In the back. Go on. He waiting on you,” Blast replied.
Both men took off toward the rear until Blast stopped them.
“Just you,” she said to Pony before lighting her pipe again.
Marcus made that strange sound again with his mouth and then plopped down on a sofa. He wistfully watched as everyone around him smoked. He was dying for a blast, but nobody shares in a drought.
“Come on!” P.I.G. shouted in response to the knock on his door.
“What it do?” Pony asked, looking around as he entered P.I.G.’s inner lair. “Damn!” he exclaimed at the sheer elegance of the room. It was unexpectedly extravagant. His Jordans sank up to the ankle in the plush white carpet.
Gina was laid out on the huge custom bed, wearing a sexy nightie, looking like a Special Olympics version of Lil Kim.
The room contained all the latest audio-visual equipment all run by a huge remote control unit.
“I need a whole one,” Pony said, looking up at his reflection in the mirrored ceiling, pulling out cash from the pockets of his designer jeans.
P.I.G. took note of the expensive clothes Pony wore and nodded in approval. He had to admire the hustle the young man had. He’d quit smoking and totally transformed himself. The dingy clothes he wore were replaced by Polo and Gucci. The stolen hoopties they pushed were swapped for a new Tahoe sitting royally on twenty-eight-inch rims. “You know shit tight right now,” P.I.G. replied. “Best I can do is a couple of zones for a stack a piece, and it’s that whip,” he added, almost apologetically.
“Damn, P.I.G.! A stack? For whip?” Pony whined.
“Who else got dope besides me and now you?” P.I.G. asked.
“Ain’t nobody got nothing,” Pony admitted.
“That’s right. Nobody got nothing,” P.I.G. repeated. “So you charge a dollar a gram? Niggers got no chance, either pay it or stay sober, and you know they ain’t tryina stay sober.”
Pony quickly figured out he could at least triple his money. P.I.G. sold him four and a half ounces for $4,000, giving him a slight discount, and Pony thanked him profusely before turning to leave.
“Oh, and one more thing…” P.I.G. said, stopping Pony as he hit the door. “If you really wanna get rich, you gonna hafta lose that deadweight.”
CHAPTER 15
Tiffany felt like crying as she looked at the small amount of coke her money got her. She spent her last $100 and had only a gram to show for it. Being relatively new to the dope game, she didn’t understand the mechanics of a drought. Had she not been there, she would have sworn Wanda had cheated her. She was used to getting an eight ball for sixty and spoiled the extra gram or two P.I.G. would throw her. Tiffany felt a swell of anger as she watched Wanda cut large chunks from the package she had, knowing her money paid for it.
Wanda had been literally milking her dry since she came to stay with her. Every day, she had her hand out for something—$50 for the light bill, $80 for the gas, $100 for this, and $200 for that. When Wanda found out that Mike would toss her a few extra bucks here and there, she went after that as well. The attention Mike showed Tiffany was making her jealous.
The plan, tried and true, was to leave the girls broke, forcing them to strip and trick. Wanda’s blood began to boil as a drug-induced paranoia suggested that Tiffany must be trying to take her man. In an instant, she began to hate her young protégé, but she was far too shrewd to show it. “Phase Two,” Wanda said to herself as she pulled out her straight shooter in front of Tiffany for the first time. It was time for Miss Goody Two Shoes to earn her stripes. She felt the young girl’s eyes glued to her as she loaded a large piece of crack onto the pipe. Wanda twisted and turned the shooter dramatically as the flame danced on its tip, filling the quiet room with a loud sizzle.
Tiffany watched in awe as a steady stream of smoke rushed from the tip into Wanda’s mouth.
“Humph!” Wanda said desperately, causing a sense of urgency as she handed Tiffany the pipe.
Not knowing what else to do, Tiffany took it and inhaled. The effect was immediate, intense, and irreversible. As any junkie would tell you, there is nothing—nothing!—like that first hit. The rest of Tiffany’s crack career would be spent trying to duplicate that first hit, that first high.
The two women smoked in silence until time drew near to go to the club.
“Guess we best get ready to go.” Tiffany sighed, looking at her watch. In her heart, she felt like just smoking the night away.
“So what’s up? You ready to hit that pole?” Wanda asked for the hundredth time. Every night over the past couple of weeks, Wanda had propositioned Tiffany to take the stage, and every night, the answer was the same…until now.
Tiffany was almost as surprised by her answer as Wanda was.
“Excuse me!?” Wanda exclaimed, incredulous.
“I said, yeah, I’m ready,” Tiffany replied curtly as she headed for her room.
A lifetime of
lessons ran through Tiffany’s mind as she showered. “Sit properly,” “Act like a lady,” “Respect yourself,” reverberated in her head as she prepared to disregard everything she’d been taught. She fought the urge to masturbate as she showered. Tiffany reflected on her limited sexual experiences,, which until now consisted of the handful of times she and Marcus had done the deed, and of course her recent affair with her finger and showerhead. “I need some dick!” she announced, turning off the water.
As Tiffany dressed, she entertained herself by doing a few moves in front of the mirror. She had picked up quite a few moves by watching the girls in the club.
A knock on the door interrupted her routine, and Wanda peeked in. “You ready, lil mama?” she sang, handing her the loaded shooter. Wanda wanted to keep her primed up so she wouldn’t have a change of heart.
“Hell, yeah! Let’s ride!” Tiffany exclaimed, eagerly accepting the offering.
* * *
“You can ride with me since Mike got some business,” Wanda announced.
Once in the car, Wanda handed Tiffany a small white pill. “Here, girl. This’ll make you feel sexy,” she said as Tiffany plucked it from her hand.
“What is it?” Tiffany asked after washing it down with her soda.
“X. Yo lil ass gon’ be rolling good in a minute,” Wanda chuckled. Wanda pulled over a few blocks before the club, and they shared a quick blast.
Mike was holding court out front as the women pulled up. After parking, they went around to meet him. Wanda felt a swell of anger as Mike greeted Tiffany before greeting her.
“Lil Ms. Thang ready to hit the stage,” Wanda announced dryly.
“So nuff!” Mike gushed enthusiastically. “Make sure y’all call me. I don’t want to miss this.”
Tiffany was a nervous wreck as she waited for her turn onstage. She downed shot after shot of Alizé, attempting to settle down. The X she had taken earlier was now shooting waves of electric sexual energy through her body with every heartbeat. Remembering the loaded straight shooter Wanda had left in the ashtray, Tiffany slipped out for a quick blast. The effects of all the drugs coursing through her system were almost overwhelming.
