Still Candy Shopping

by Swinson, Kiki

  Back at the apartment Slim collected all of our money and then he retired to the living room sofa. He made sure he slept in the living room so he could keep watch on us to make sure we didn’t sneak out of the apartment.

  I went into the bathroom and snorted one of the capsules of heroin I got from that guy since I didn’t have the required items to shoot the dope into my veins. I figured I’d use this method this one last time, but when I went out on the streets the next night, I would make it my business to get what I needed to shoot up without Slim finding out.

  When I exited the bathroom I went into the bedroom where Jennifer slept. Before Paris got killed, she and Jennifer shared this bedroom while Tacora and Sabrina shared the other room. The room was very small. But somehow Slim was able to fit two twin-sized beds in there. Jennifer’s bed was only inches from the one I was about to sleep in, so if I wanted to reach over and touch her, I could.

  When I first entered the bedroom I thought Jennifer was asleep because her back was turned to me. But as soon as I sat down on Paris’s old bed, she turned over to her other side and faced me. I was high and didn’t want to make it seem so obvious by nodding my head or scratching any part of my body, so I laid my head on the pillow and tried to play it cool.

  “You get high, don’t cha?” she asked.

  She totally caught me off guard with her direct question. I didn’t know how to answer her at first. But then I looked at her and asked myself what I had to hide, so I came clean and told her the truth.

  “How long you been getting high?” she wanted to know.

  “A couple years now.”

  “Where you from?”

  “Virginia Beach.”

  “You got kids?”

  “Yeah. One.”

  “Girl? Boy?”

  “A girl.”

  “Where is she? In a foster home or something?”

  “No. She’s living with her daddy and her new stepmother.”

  “Ahhh, shit! I know that sucks!” she said. “So what’s your story?”

  I really did not feel like rehashing my entire life story with this young girl, so I kept it simple. “I used to have a good job, a beautiful home, a brand new car, and a husband. But I lost it all.”

  “I used to be a stripper before I got with Slim.”

  “Do you have any children?”

  “Nah. But I’ve been pregnant twice. Got rid of them through an abortion.”

  “I take it you don’t want any kids.”

  Jennifer sighed. “Well I didn’t at the time because I was fucking with this asshole who worked at the strip club. He was fucking me and a few other chicks there. I didn’t know it at the time. But when I found out he was playing me for a joke, that was when I went to the clinic and got rid of it.”

  “What about the other time? You said you had two abortions.”

  “I know,” she said and sighed once again. “I fucked around and let him talk me into hanging out with him one night after I got the first abortion. He took me to IHOP for breakfast right after we left the strip club and then one thing led to another. And then boom, I gave him the pussy and six weeks later I found out I was pregnant by him again.”

  “Do you regret having the abortions?” I asked as I began to nod. The heroin had started to take effect, which meant I wasn’t going to be in the mood to talk much longer.

  “Yeah, sometimes I think back on it and regret that I did what I did. But then when I think about who I was pregnant by, I start to feel a little better about it.”

  Jennifer continued to harp on her life and how hard it’d been for her. She even shed light on how she had dabbled in marijuana, and now she snorted coke from time to time so she could take her mind off the problems in her life. After she filled me in on the journey of her life that brought her here, she started reminiscing about her relationship with Paris and how close they were.

  I kept my mouth closed the entire time because I was high off this dope and I wasn’t going to let her fuck it up by talking me to death. I did, however, get an earful of all the drama Paris and Jennifer encountered during their time together. From the looks of things, Paris was a very decent person even though she was a prostitute on heroin. Too bad she and I didn’t get to spend more time together, because I was sure we would have made the most of our crappy lives as prostitutes on heroin.

  The very next morning I was up at the crack of dawn. It was a little after eight am and I was beginning to feel that withdrawal sickness coming on. I looked up and noticed that Jennifer was still asleep, so I sat up in the bed very quietly to avoid interrupting her sleep. The moment I retrieved the other capsule of heroin from my purse, I didn’t waste any time sniffing the drug up my nostrils. I tried to be as quiet as possible, but unfortunately Jennifer heard me and woke up. I wiped my nose with the back of my hand and said good morning. She gave me a half smile and said good morning to me in an early morning groggy voice.

  After I cleared my nose of any visible evidence of my heroin use, I laid my head back against the headboard and waited for the drug to take effect once again since I did not have my needle and other materials to help me inject the dope into my arm.

  “Gotta get that early morning kick, huh?” Jennifer asked.

  “You know it,” I commented and closed my eyes.

  “What time is it?” she asked me.

  “A little after eight.”

  She started stretching her legs and her arms and belted out a loud yawn. “I’m hungry as hell.”

  “Well I’m not.”

  She sat up in the bed and folded her legs Indian style. “I’ma go in the kitchen and get me a bowl of cereal in a minute,” she said.

  I kept my eyes closed and didn’t respond. I would have preferred complete silence, but I was the one who woke her up, so I knew I had to deal with the consequences of it.

  “You know what?” she asked. “I used to ask Paris how that heroin made her feel, but she couldn’t give me a straight answer. All she would say was that it felt good, and that it got her high.”

  “What did you want her to say?”

  “I’m not sure. I mean I guess I wanted her to describe the feeling to me. Or maybe tell me that heroin gave her the same kind of high coke did when she used to use it.”

  “Well let me be the first to tell you that it isn’t the same. As you should already know, coke is an upper.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “OK, well heroin is a downer. It makes you really mellow and tired. You see me nodding right now?” I asked her.

  “Yeah.”

  “Well that’s what heroin does to you. It relaxes you. It makes you tired and it makes you scratch your fucking skin to death.”

  “I see,” she replied as she witnessed me scratch my face. “So how many pulls of heroin you go through in a day?”

  “If the dope is good, then I can go through about five to six a day. But if the dope is garbage, then I could go through like ten of them.”

  “Damn! That sounds like a serious habit.”

  “It is,” I assured her as I pulled the blanket back over my body. I had begun to feel extremely tired, so I wanted to be very comfortable. Once Jennifer noticed how relaxed I had gotten, she got up from the bed and left the room. I was happy to see her worrisome ass leave. I could finally enjoy my high in silence.

  The Candy Shop part 2 Kiki Swinson

  Junkies & Coke Heads

  I had dozed off for a bit, but that was short lived when I heard Slim screaming at Jennifer in the living room. I lay in the bed and listened to them go back and forth. I really couldn’t hear Jennifer all that well because Slim was talking over her, but I could tell that she was saying something.

  A few minutes later she stormed back into the bedroom and startled the hell out of me. I didn’t say anything about it because Slim was right on her heels. Before she could get in the room good, Slim punched her in the back of her head. And before I could blink my eyes, she was face down on the floor. I sat up in the bed to
see if she was all right.

  “Bitch, you gon’ learn how to shut the fuck up when I tell you to,” he yelled.

  Tacora and Sabrina both came out of their bedroom to see what had happened. They peered into the bedroom from the hallway. They looked at Jennifer on the floor and then they looked at me. I hoped that they didn’t expect me to say something, because I wasn’t going to say a word. Slim looked like he was about to kill someone, so I wanted to stay out of his way.

  “Get your stupid ass up!” he shouted, but Jennifer didn’t move, so he kicked her in her side.

  He had on a pair of Air Force One sneakers so I knew the force behind his kick was really painful. I figured Tacora and Sabrina couldn’t take seeing Jennifer getting kicked while she was down, so they both started begging Slim to leave her alone. I wasn’t going to get in the middle of that shit. I was on his shit list yesterday, so now I was gonna play low-key. And besides, I was high as a kite. I wouldn’t be able to help Jennifer even if I wanted to.

  “Y’all better shut the fuck up before I jump on y’all asses!” he roared. “I’m not gon’ have no bitch of mine talking back to me. That ain’t how shit is ’round here. So you better talk some sense into her dumb ass before I kill her,” he said and then he walked back out of the room.

  After Slim went back into the living room, Tacora and Sabrina helped Jennifer get off the floor and they laid her on the bed. “You need some ice for your head?” Sabrina asked as she took a seat on the edge of Jennifer’s bed.

  “No, I’m fine,” she finally said as she laid her head on the pillow.

  Tacora stood there and watched Jennifer from the center of the floor. She didn’t say a word.

  “What the fuck happened?’ Sabrina asked in a low whisper.

  Jennifer placed her right hand at the bottom of her tummy. I was sure she was in excruciating pain because Slim kicked her pretty hard in that spot. Before she spoke, she very quietly asked Tacora to close the door since she was the closest to it. Whatever she wanted to tell Tacora and Sabrina, she didn’t want Slim to hear it.

  Immediately after the door was shut, she started talking. “I was in the kitchen washing dishes. When he heard me putting some of the dishes away he got up from the sofa, walked over to the sink, and started grinding on my ass. I told him to stop and let me finish cleaning up, and he got mad and started cursing me out, telling me I belong to him and I ain’t gon’ be telling him when he can get some pussy. But I wasn’t paying him no attention and kept doing what I was doing. So he started yanking on my shorts, trying to take them off, but I told to him to stop and started walking away from him. When I started walking away, he started yelling and telling me to bring my ass back. But I kept ignoring him, and that’s when he ran down behind me and hit me in the back of my head.”

  Sabrina shook her head with disgust. “He hit you because you didn’t want to fuck him?” she asked.

  Jennifer nodded.

  Sabrina continued to shake her head. “That’s messed up.”

  “Yep, it sure is,” Tacora agreed and then she walked over to Jennifer and started rubbing her head.

  “I’m so tired of him putting his fucking hands on me. I swear, if I had a gun I’d blow his fucking head off,” Jennifer said. I knew what Jennifer had just said was heartfelt, because I could see how ice cold her eyes were. I also looked at Sabrina’s expression. I remembered when Paris warned me to watch out for her because of her sneaky ways. I hoped Paris had warned Jennifer about Sabrina as well, because I would hate to see another blood bath.

  “Stop talking crazy, Jennifer, because you already know how Slim is,” Tacora said.

  “I’m just so tired of him putting his hands on me.” Jennifer replied.

  “You don’t think we’re tired?” Tacora asked.

  Sabrina smiled and said, “Yeah, Jennifer, we are all tired of getting our asses kicked, but what can we do?”

  Before anyone could comment on Sabrina’s question, Slim opened the door and came back into the bedroom. “Y’all in this motherfucker talking about me?” he roared, scaring the hell out of all of us. I wasn’t going to open my mouth. I was a newcomer and from day one I found out that when you went toe-to-toe with Slim, no one was going to save you.

  Wearing the exact same thing he had on yesterday, he walked to the center of the floor and waited for one of us to answer his question. Sabrina got up the gumption to respond.

  “Slim, we ain’t talking about you,” she began to lie. “We’re just sitting here making sure Jennifer is all right.”

  “Whatcha mean you’re making sure she’s all right? I ain’t did nothing but hit her in the back of her damn head. Shit! She better be glad I didn’t hit her in her face,” he snapped.

  “What time you want us to hit the streets?” Tacora asked, trying to change the subject.

  “I don’t know,” he replied in a somewhat agitated manner. “I’m gon’ have to go out there and see what’s going on first before I put y’all out there to work.”

  “You think we might need to go back down to the other spot on Washington Street and Tidewater Drive?” Tacora asked.

  “Didn’t I just say I don’t know, Tacora?” he snapped.

  She nodded.

  “So why you keep asking me those stupid ass questions? Y’all know it’s hot out there, so whatever we do is gon’ have to be right.”

  “Can I ask you something?” Tacora asked.

  “I hope it ain’t nothing stupid.”

  Tacora sighed. “Have you thought about what we gon’ do with Paris’s clothes and stuff?”

  “Can any of y’all fit her stuff?” he asked, looking around the room at everyone.

  The way I remembered Paris, she was really thick. She definitely had the apple booty of a video vixen with B cup breasts. And no one in this room, including myself, could fit any of her clothing. We all had to be at least ten to twenty pounds lighter than Paris. Tacora and Sabrina had to be a size five or a six. And Jennifer looked like she was a size four. She was the smallest of us all, so I figured the best thing to do with Paris’s clothes would be to throw them away or donate them.

  “I don’t think any of us can fit her clothes,” Sabrina said. “You might as well throw them out.”

  “Well pack up her shit and throw it in couple garbage bags from the kitchen. I’ll put that shit in the dumpster when it gets dark.”

  As instructed, all of Paris’s things were packed away in huge garbage bags. I saw Jennifer and Tacora keep a few shirts for themselves, but I would be damned if I pocketed a couple of her things. There was just something about inheriting things from dead people. I just couldn’t get with that program. I even got an unsettling feeling just thinking about it.

  Six hours had passed since my last hit of heroin, and I was starting to feel it. I was completely out of dope, so I was thinking of some clever shit to get my hands on some more. I knew Slim would kill me if I asked him to go and cop a pill of dope from the streets. All I needed is for him to play Mr. Nice Guy and give me a chance to get myself together. Even if he’d cop me a half of pill of heroin, I would be just fine. My life at this point would be smooth sailing.

  I was sitting on the sofa in the living room watching TV with Jennifer when my stomach started cramping up. I tried to play it off, but Jennifer knew what time it was. “You’re starting to get sick, aren’t you?” she asked.

  I nodded.

  “Whatcha gon’ do? I mean, you know Slim ain’t gon’ let you leave out of the house,” she said.

  “I know.” I replied sadly.

  “You know he be having meth pills sometimes.” she whispered.

  “Get the fuck out of here! You joking right?”

  “No, I’m not.” she assured me. “I seen him with a couple of them in a medicine bottle yesterday. I think I seen him stick the bottle in the hall closet where he keeps his clothes.”

  “You think he’ll give me one of them?” I wondered aloud, hoping Jennifer would say yes.

  “Oh no
, you can fucking forget it. I know for a fact that Slim isn’t gonna give up a damn thing. ” she said. “He’ll rather see you suffer first before he would do anything for anybody.”

  My heart sank when Jennifer told me that my chances of getting a pill of meth from Slim were zero to none. I was devastated because I needed something right now, and like Jennifer said, Slim wasn’t going to let me leave this place, so what the fuck was I gonna do?

  Slim was outside in front of the building talking to a couple of guys he knew who lived in the neighborhood. Now I knew Jennifer informed me that there was a slim chance that Slim would give me a pill of methadone, but I refused to believe it. I got up the gumption to look for the medicine bottle. Jennifer told me that she’d seen him place the bottle inside the hall closet so I knew that that was the placed I needed to look first.

  As I slid off the sofa, I looked at Jennifer and said, “Look out for me, because I’m about to check the closet.”

  “Wait, check the refrigerator first because he might’ve taken it out of the closet and stuck it in there.” she instructed me.

  The kitchen area was less than five feet away and it was an open space next to the living room, so it wasn’t hard to see everything from where she was sitting.

  “Where in the refrigerator?” I asked as I walked quickly toward the kitchen.