Still Candy Shopping

by Swinson, Kiki

  So the runners put their lives at risk and were not even compensated for it, which was why I never took the dope to that car. So instead of playing games with this guy, I reached inside my pocket and handed him the twenty dollars I owed him.

  He took the money from me and smiled. “Now, see, that’s what I’m talking about. Overnight express. I gotta new batch if you looking to jump over the moon,” he commented and smiled.

  Hearing him just said he had some good dope was like music to my ears. “Let me get a room first and then I’ll holla at you,” I said.

  “You ain’t gotta get a room. You can come chill with me in my room,” he told me.

  “All right, well let’s do it,” I replied and followed him from the front desk.

  The Candy Shop part 2 Kiki Swinson

  Back Where I Belong

  The Economy Lodge hotel was a low-budget, roach infested fixer upper. The exterior of the hotel looked like it needed to be condemned, so when I entered Bee’s hotel room it was no surprise to me that the conditions of it were wretched and sordid. In my former years, I would not have stepped foot in a place like this, much less looked at it. I was too high class. But now I’d take what I could get.

  “Come on over here and sit down,” Bee instructed me as he pointed to the queen-sized bed with a worn down headboard. The comforter on the bed was an old wool blanket with piles of lint on it. The pillows had no cushioning in them, and the pillowcases that covered them were in even worse condition. There were filthy. But that was what you got in a one-star resort like this. So I took a seat on the edge of the bed and waited for Bee to pull out his dope so I could get my first fix of the day. I wanted to ease my mind and forget about everything that had happened today. And as soon as Bee gave me a taste of his dope, I’d be able to do just that.

  “You got any needles?” I asked him.

  He walked up to me and stood directly in front of me. “You know I do,” he replied and then he reached inside his front jean pocket and pulled out about five syringes and a couple of ten-dollar bags of heroin. Bee’s bags were always black. He called his dope black widow, and it was good, so I couldn’t wait to get my hands on it.

  I reached for one of the syringes. “Give me one of them,” I said.

  Bee closed his hand and pulled it back. “Slow down. I ain’t going nowhere,” he said.

  I sighed. “Look, Bee, you need to stop playing games and hand that shit over to me so I can get busy. I told you I was in rehab for ten whole days and just got out today, so you know I’m trying to get high really bad.”

  Bee shoved the syringes and the dope back into his pockets and walked closer to me. “If you give me some head, I’ll give you two bags of dope for free,” he offered. But I wasn’t in the mood to suck his dick. I had my own resources to get what I needed, so there was no need for me to trick with him in exchange for a couple bags of his dope. And I had to let him know that too.

  “Look Bee, I had a rough day, and I am not in the mood to give you or anybody else some head. All I want to do is shoot some of that good shit you got into my veins. That’s it.”

  Bee looked at me like I had just disrespected him. “Look, bitch, you better be glad I came at you with this offer!” he replied, clearly offended.

  This guy was not too happy with me. And since I wasn’t in a position or in the mood to go back and forth with him on this matter, I got up from the bed and walked toward the door of the hotel room.

  My actions must have really made him mad. “Yeah, bitch! Get the fuck out of here before I spit on you!” he roared.

  I wanted to curse that bastard out so bad. But I kept my cool because I knew firsthand how these young guys were out here. They would kick your ass if you looked at them the wrong way. It was their way of proving to those around them that they demanded respect and they would stop at nothing to get it. So after I walked out of Bee’s hotel room without a scratch on me, I ran all the way up Tidewater Drive and didn’t look back.

  I started to head out to Kerry Park projects, but if you didn’t live out there or have a family member who resided out there, then you were bound to get a trespassing charge by the local police officers. So I headed back out to Huntersville, which was my old stomping grounds. I had my duffel bag thrown across my shoulders as I walked into the neighborhood. As usual the entire block was packed. I saw a couple of familiar faces as I walked down Washington Street. But the face that stood out the most was this cat named Ty. Tyrone was his real name, and he was the man to go to if you needed to know who had the best heroin in the neighborhood. He was an unattractive man, but he was kind. He’d always wear his red dingy baseball cap turned backward, so you could see him from a mile away.

  As I approached him, I could tell that he was very happy to see me. He smiled at me, revealing that he had at least ten missing teeth in his mouth. He was indeed a good guy, in spite of being a drug user.

  “What’s up, Ty?” I asked.

  “Ain’t nothing, baby girl. Where you been at?” he asked me as he scratched the open sores on his left arm.

  “I was in the Salvation Army rehab center on Virginia Beach Boulevard, but got tired of that shit and decided to check out today.”

  Ty found what I said very funny and he laughed. “I know so many people who went in there and left without finishing the program.”

  “Well, I count as one of them. Now tell me who has the good stuff around here.” I didn’t waste any time asking what I needed to know.

  Ty turned around and looked over his right shoulder. “That nigga Duke got dem half caps, but his shit is fire. That chick named Mary that lives on C Avenue by Shop & Go almost ODed off it this morning. So you know everybody ’round here has been scoring from him because they said his dope is mixed with horse tranquilizers.”

  “Shit! If his dope is that potent, then I need to cop me four of ’em.”

  “You gotcha money ready?”

  I reached into my pocket and pulled out all the money I stole from Denise. After I separated forty dollars from the rest of the money, I stuffed the wad back into my pockets. “Are you gonna take the money to him?” I asked.

  “Nah, Faith, baby, you know I don’t get into that hand to hand shit. A nigga ’round here won’t ever say that I dipped into their shit,” he replied.

  I smiled at him, tapped him on his shoulder, and told him to come on. The cat Duke was less than two hundred feet away from us, so it took me and Ty a matter of ten seconds to get to him. There was a crowd of dope fiends around him trying to get his product, so I got in what appeared to be the line and waited for him to serve everyone before me. And then all of a sudden the guy Duke announced that he only had five caps left. So I bum-rushed everybody and slid my ass through the crowd. I held my money up high, literally trying to force it into his hands.

  He looked at me and said, “Hold on, shorty. I’ma get to you.”

  Right after he assured me that I was next, he handed three dope fiends a cap each and then he handed me the last two caps he had. Instead of spending forty dollars with him, I handed him twenty. I was somewhat disappointed, but I figured I’d be all right since I had two caps with which to start off the night.

  As I headed away from the crowd, Ty followed on my heels. It was no secret he wanted to get a hit of my dope since he was the one who hooked me up with it, so I allowed him to tag along.

  It was his idea to take me to the new candy shop on the corner of Washington and Okeefe Street. The entire house was painted a soft pink color and it stood out among all the houses on the block.

  As we approached the house, Ty insisted that we enter through the back door. It was dark as hell traveling down the side of this house. Ty didn’t make it any better by having me walk through a bunch of fucking bushes. But this was the only way to get to the back door, so I had to go through the motions.

  The lady of the house met us at the back door. “Hey, Brenda, this is my girl, Faith. We just trying to get a little shelter for a few minutes,” he told
her, which meant we needed a spot where we could get high.

  She stepped to the side and allowed us to come in. “What y’all got?” she wanted to know.

  “We picked some of that fire up from that nigga Duke,” Ty replied.

  “Oh, shit! He’s back out there?”

  “He was, but he just left to go re-up. Me and Faith got the last two caps.”

  Brenda nodded and started smiling like she’d just struck gold or something. I looked at her troll looking ass like she was crazy. There was no way in the world I was going to share my dope with her and Ty. Both caps were only filled halfway, so they needed to get the fuck back.

  From what I could see, the house was packed with all the neighborhood crack heads and junkies. It never ceased to amaze me how every drug addict migrated to the same spot. When the narcotics police detectives shut down one spot, junkies like Ty and me always found another one. Candy shops were all over the fucking place.

  “You got a needle?” I asked Brenda.

  “I don’t have any new ones, but you can use this one,” she said and handed me a needle from her pocket. I took it from her and entered into the living room area of the house. There were two other people in there nodding their asses off. Both of them were men and they looked like they were in a zone. I figured they must’ve gotten their dope from Duke too, because they were laid out across the floor in a deep zone. They looked high as a kite.

  Now of course there was nowhere for any of us to sit, so we got down on the floor and got into a small circle. Brenda pulled out a spoon and a lighter so we could get the party started. “I ain’t got no filter,” she informed us.

  Ty looked around the room and noticed that one of the other junkies had an old cigarette butt lying next to his needle. Some of the filter material was already hanging out of the butt of the cigarette, so Ty grabbed what was left of it. I was sure that junkie didn’t mind, since he was already in la-la land.

  “Let’s get this show on the road,” I said as I watched Ty pulling the rest of the filter from the cigarette. Seconds later the dope was mixed in with a teaspoon of water and it was sitting over an open flame from Ty’s cigarette lighter. When the dope started boiling, I took it out of Ty’s hand and stuck the filter in it to keep the garbage from being sucked up into the syringe. And then I pushed that bad boy right into that fat ass vein I had poking out in the creases of my left arm. If Ty and Brenda weren’t there, I would’ve emptied the entire needle into my arm. But he and Brenda both watched me closely, and when it looked like I was about to empty all the heroin into my vein, Brenda snatched the fucking needle from my arm.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” I snapped as I watched blood drip from my arm. I started to back hand slap the bitch, but the heroin started taking effect immediately. Instead of going off on Brenda’s ass, I laid my head back against the wall and mellowed out. I was feeling so good that I just closed my eyes and nodded my head back and forth.

  The Candy Shop part 2 Kiki Swinson

  Popping Shit

  I’m sure I looked like I was knocked out, but I was fully aware of what was going on around me. I opened my eyes a little bit and saw Brenda going off on Ty. “How the fuck you think you gon’ hit that shit before me? I’m the fucking lady of the house, and I’m supposed to get some of that shit before you,” she screamed.

  “I was the one who took her to score,” he explained as he shoved the needle down into his vein.

  “I don’t give a fuck! It’s my motherfucking needle, and y’all are in my house,” Brenda roared as she watched Ty inject the heroin into his arm.

  Being fair to all parties, he only injected half of what was left in the syringe. And as soon as he pulled the needle out of his arm, he handed it to Brenda. Without hesitation Brenda snatched the syringe from Ty’s hand and looked at it. Frustrated, she said, “There ain’t shit in this damn thing.”

  Ty ignored her and leaned his head against the wall. He went straight into a zone. Instead of Brenda relaxing and trying to get a buzz off the rest of the dope in the syringes, she stormed out of the room and slammed the door behind her. We heard her talking shit about us as she walked down the hallway, but we didn’t entertain it.

  After fifteen minutes passed I stood up from the floor and when I opened the door to leave I was greeted by Brenda and this big guy. He stood there in the entryway like he wasn’t about to budge. Brenda stood there alongside of him with her arms folded. The expression on her face spelled trouble in my eyes. “Where the fuck you think you’re going?” She roared.

  Instead of answering her question I threw my hands up. “Look Brenda, I don’t want any problems.”

  “You ain’t gon have no problems as long as you give me what you owe me.”

  “Brenda I don’t owe you anything. Whatever beef you got is with Ty.”

  Brenda took a step closer towards me. “Bitch don’t play games with me. Ty ain’t got shit I want. You got the dope so hand it over before I make my nephew take it from you.” She demanded.

  Before I opened my mouth to reply to her outlandish demand, her over grown ass nephew lifted his white t-shirt and showed me he had a pistol tucked away in the waist of his jeans. My eyes grew at least three inches. “Bitch hurry up! We ain’t got all day.” he barked.

  My first thought was to push my way by them and make a run for it. But I decided against it. My body weight was no match for this big guy. And besides, he had a gun so I had no chance of winning either way you looked at it. I let out a loud sighed and then I reached down into the front pockets of my shorts and grabbed the other pill of dope I had. Brenda immediately snatched it out of my hands and I gave her the meanest expression my face mustered up. “Okay, she got what she wanted. Now will you let me by?” I growled.

  “Nah bitch! Now you gotta pay me.” he replied.

  “Pay you what?”

  “Ho don’t play stupid! Empty out your pockets and let me see if you’re holding out on us.”

  I swear on everything I loved, I wanted to cry right there. Here I was in a fucking dope spot all by self. I looked back at the nigga I came in here with and he had nodded off into space. So I had no one to defend me against these monsters. Brenda and her nephew looked like they wanted to tear me apart and rob me of everything I had. I played it cool and did what he asked. This was the only way I could get out of there in one peace. I tried to push most of the money I’d stolen from Denise down into my pocket but Brenda’s nephew caught on to what I was doing and snatched my hand out of my pocket. “This bitch is trying to be slick.” he roared. And once my hand was by my side, he reached down into that very same pocket and grabbed all the contents inside. When he pulled his hand back out, my pocket was completely empty.

  “Look at this shit here.” he said as he opened up his hand. This bastard acted like he’d just hit the lottery.

  Brenda got excited as well. She reached for the money he had in his hand. “Give me a couple of them twenties.”

  “Hold the fuck up.” he growled and closed his hand before she could grab one dollar.

  I stood there in disbelief. I wanted to grab my money back from that ass hole so bad but I decided against it for fear that he’d rip my fucking head off. So instead of reacting in the way I knew would cause me harm, I asked them both if I could leave.

  “Yeah. Carry your ass!” he said without even looking my way. He and Brenda stood there at the entryway of the room and argued about how much money he had to give her. I walked by them and found my way back to the back door. As I exited the house I felt so defeated. And just think that I had just went in there with two pills of heroin and a pocket filled with money, but I left empty handed. What in the hell was I going to do about it? I couldn’t go back in there and demand that they give me my stuff back so I threw my duffle bag across my shoulders and headed up the block.

  My mind started racing. I immediately went into hustling mode. I had to get some money back into my pockets. I had a major heroin addiction and I knew that in a matt
er of a couple of hours, I was going to need to feed it. So when I got to the end of the block I stood at the corner and tried to pick up a trick or two. All I needed was twenty bucks. That would get me two more pills of dope and that would do me good for the night if the heroin didn’t have a bunch of cut on it.

  Thank God a car finally pulled up curbside. It was an old clunker with a middle aged black man in the driver seat. I leaned down into the passenger side window and asked him if he needed a date. He was your typical desperate looking man who looked like he wanted his dick sucked. I tried not to look at him head on because he was not easy on the eyes. In fact, he looked somewhat scary. He also acted like he was paranoid. He looked over his shoulders at least five times while I waited for him to tell me what he wanted. “Whatcha need baby?” I asked.

  “How much for a jerk off?” he spoke. His voice sounded husky.

  “Whose gonna do the jerking?”

  “You. I want you to jerk me off.”

  I thought for a second. “Give me fifty bucks and I’ll jerk you off so good, you gon think you’re inside my pussy.” I told him.

  He looked over his right shoulder and then he turned back around to face me. “Get in the car. he instructed me.

  I opened the passenger side door and sat down on the seat. Right after I closed the door, I asked him to pay me up front. He retrieved his wallet from his back pocket and then he pulled out a fifty-dollar bill. Instead of handing it to me he balled it up in his right hand and said, “I’m gonna hold it right here until you make me cum.”

  I was instantly turned off by his response. I was not happy at all by his arrangement and I made it known. “Look, I don’t know what type of mess you got going on and I really don’t care. But, I’m telling you right now that I am not going to touch you or your dick if you don’t pay me up front.”