Luxe

by Ashley Antoinette

  “Do you have any spare change?” the woman asked.

  The old Bleu would have said no. She would have been quick to judge the woman and turn up her nose. In her current state, Bleu empathized with her. Bleu was saddened for her because she knew that the woman was at the beginning of the long road named addiction. Bleu pulled out a ten-dollar bill and passed it to the woman, who snatched it up quickly before scurrying away into the chaos of the night.

  Bree crossed in front of Bleu’s car and then slid into the passenger seat. “I got it; let’s go,” he said.

  Bleu pulled off as she held out her hand. Bree passed her a stem. “You’ll get the dope when you keep up your end of the bargain.”

  “Bree, just give it to me! Damn!” she protested, irritable.

  Bree leaned against the passenger-side door and peered at Bleu. He was taken aback by her persistence. This wasn’t the same sharp girl he had met months ago. “You know what, Bleu? I’m good on the cash; just pull over. You can let me out right here. You’re fucked up right now. You need to get a grip. This shit will kill you, and if it don’t, you’re gonna wish it does. It’ll have you walking around here like the walking dead,” he said. “I’ll take my chances out here. I’m not contributing to this bullshit. This ain’t gon’ be on my conscience.”

  She pulled over abruptly, causing cars behind her to swerve, to barely miss rear-ending her. “Now you want to develop a conscience? You ain’t have no problem leaving me on stuck in Mexico. Get the fuck out then!” she shouted, feeling judged as tears came to her eyes. “Leave it on the seat.”

  Bree shook his head as he tossed the dope across the car, hitting her in the face before slamming the door. “Do yourself a favor and get out of town before Cinco’s people find you. The way you’re headed, you’ll kill yourself before they even get to you.”

  “Fuck you, Bree,” she sneered as she sped out into traffic, burning rubber as she left him in her rearview mirror. He acts like I’m a crackhead or something. I can handle myself, she thought. She sped through the city streets, headed toward the school. She needed to grab the money she had stashed and a few of her belongings. She had no idea where she was going to run to. It felt like she had spent her entire life running away. She had run from Flint to L.A., and all of her dreams were supposed to come true. Instead of dreams she had found nightmares, and now she was on the run again … headed to nowhere … fast.

  * * *

  “No, no, no, no, no!” Bleu shouted as she tossed expensive shoes from her closet while rifling through the boxes, looking for her stash. She had hidden $20,000 in her closet, but it was nowhere to be found.

  “Bitch,” she muttered, knowing that China had beaten her to it. Bleu slumped to the floor and planted her face in her hands, distressed. It was her rainy day fund, and life had brought about a sudden downpour. She had nothing and no one. She needed that money to get by until she could figure out what her next move would be. She had never anticipated her hustle would end so suddenly. Dough had been pouring in by the boatloads for months, but now she was right back where she had started … broke. She couldn’t even get lost without money to help her hide. She stood up and walked through the bathroom that connected her room to Aysha’s. Maybe she will let me borrow some money until I land on my feet, she thought. She was desperate. She didn’t have a choice but to ask for help. She knocked on the door.

  “Aysha, you in there?” Bleu called out anxiously. “I need a favor. I’m in trouble.” The light shining under the door told her Aysha was inside her room. “Aysha, open up!” Bleu called. She frowned when she didn’t get a response and she twisted the knob before pushing the door open slightly. “Aysha?” Bleu crept into the room and when she saw her friend a scream erupted from her. She stumbled backward, back into the bathroom, falling hard onto the tiled floor. Aysha was hog-tied and gagged, her body hanging from a steel bar in her room, her lifeless eyes still wide open in horror. Her throat had been slit from ear to ear. Utter fear paralyzed Bleu as she sat there, staring at her friend. This was the work of the Mexican Cartel. Aysha hadn’t even been involved with Cinco’s death and she had still been dealt a brutal hand. Bleu hated to see what they were going to do to her if they ever caught her. She couldn’t help but wonder if Iman was behind this. He was the boss, right? It was his empire? Or had it been Cinco’s father? Whoever had tortured Aysha would come back for her; Bleu was sure of it. Cinco had been too powerful. There would be repercussions for what she had done. The Mexican Cartel would make her pay with her life. Her phone vibrated in her hand and Iman’s name appeared on the screen. Everything in her wanted to slide the bar across and answer for him, but she couldn’t trust him. His hands could very well be the ones that had slid the knife across Aysha’s throat. Bleu wouldn’t bet her life on a love that was obviously untrue. Iman was now the enemy. She had to push her feelings for him out of her mind in order to survive.

  25

  Bleu sat on the edge of Aysha’s bed, staring straight ahead, playing nervously with her fingers as the coroner rolled Aysha out of the room on a stretcher. The body was covered with a white sheet, but Bleu would never get the image of her friend out of her mind. Bleu’s nerves were shot. She just wanted to smoke. The pack of dope Bree had gotten her was burning a hole in her pocket. That was the escape she needed. Reality was too much for her right now. She wanted to zone out. Her mental needed some relief … some feel good … some get right. She hoped that the police didn’t search her. She was barely able to sit still as they questioned her, and her antsy nature made them suspicious.

  “Did Aysha have any enemies? Was she involved in anything dangerous or illegal?” they asked.

  Bleu’s leg bounced rapidly as she brushed her hair out of her face. “I don’t know. I don’t think so,” she replied, vague in her answer. She didn’t want to give any concrete responses, for fear that they would catch her in a lie. Not only had Aysha been involved in some hot shit, but Bleu was in it right with her also. She had to keep her mouth closed. She was already in enough trouble; she didn’t need the law gunning for her as well.

  “According to our medical examiner she was killed about three hours ago. Where were you around the time of the murder?”

  Bleu’s mind wanted to come up with a lie, but she couldn’t think fast enough. The police were flustering her. “I … umm … I was at the b-b-beach,” she stammered.

  “At night?” the detective asked skeptically.

  “I’ve had a stressful week. I failed a few finals and needed to clear my head,” she said, finally sounding believable.

  “What happened to your eyes? Your neck?” The detective motioned to the marks on her body and her bloodred eyes. She had forgotten about her appearance. She looked as if she had been to hell and back.

  “I had a fight with my boyfriend,” she lied.

  The detective sighed, fed up with her lies. He removed his card, passing it to her. “If I could I would take you in until you gave me some answers. I think you know more than you’re saying. If you feel the need to be more cooperative give me a call.”

  She nodded. “Can I go now?” she asked.

  “Yeah, unfortunately, you’re free to go,” the detective said.

  Bleu rushed out of the room and back into her own, closing the door behind her in relief. She rested her back against it and closed her eyes briefly as she took a deep breath. I have to get out of here, she thought. She hurried over to her closet and began stuffing her belongings into one large suitcase. She didn’t know where she was going. All she had was the money in her handbag. A few hundred bucks would only get her so far. She had nothing to show for the risks that she had taken. If she had been smart, she would have been stacking her dough and making it amount to something. More cash had gone through her hands than some people made in an entire year and she had recklessly blown it. The only things she had to even prove it existed were the clothes she was stuffing inside the bag. Even her car wasn’t truly hers—it was leased—and as soon as she stoppe
d making those payments the bank would take that back as well. She was back at square one. Out on the streets in a city that wasn’t her own with only one bag to her name. That’s the one thing about those tables; they always turned, and she had come full circle.

  She was about to walk out of the room when she halted at the door. A tingle traveled down her spine just as she crossed the threshold and she paused, her head whipping back to look at China’s side of the room. Bleu rushed over to China’s desk and opened the drawers, frantically searching through her belongings.

  Bleu moved from the desk to the bureau, pulling out clothes and dumping drawers until finally a bag of crystal meth fell to the floor among the contents. She scooped it up and then grabbed one of China’s smoke pipes, tucking the paraphernalia inside her bag. It was no longer her drug of choice, but a high was a high, and she knew that the dub that Bree had scored for her wouldn’t last long. Life was turning her out.

  Looking around the small space one more time, she felt a pit form in her stomach. This had been her dream for so long, and once she had achieved it she had sabotaged it. When other people were the cause of your life being thrown off track it was easier to swallow, but when it was no one’s fault but your own, it ate away at you. Bleu had done everything wrong; from the day she set foot in L.A. her choices had been self-destructive. It was too late for regrets, however. What was done was done. There was no turning back.

  * * *

  With only $500 in her pocket, a motel room wasn’t in her budget. The inside of her car would have to do until she figured out where to go next. Going back home would mean failure. She couldn’t admit to her fuckups and tuck her tail between her legs. Not too many people made it out of Flint. There was an entire team of people waiting for her to fall on her face. She couldn’t give them the satisfaction. She would rather struggle to survive than book a ticket back home. Besides, there was nothing waiting for her there. She had no family and her only friend was locked away. There was no point in returning. The loneliness and struggle would be the same there as it was in L.A. She might as well stay.

  She sat inside the car, silent tears streaming down her face as she gripped the stem in her palms. She was at the lowest of lows. Nothing was stopping her from jumping off of the cliff. At first she had school to consider; she couldn’t let herself become addicted to drugs, but now, what was she depriving herself for? Why was she denying herself the right to feel so good when life had beaten her miserably, causing her nothing but pain? Her very body was begging her to just smoke the drug in her hand. She wanted it so badly that her hands trembled. Snot ran down her nose. She was a mess. Fear and sadness wrecked her as she sat idly parked in the lot in front of her dorm.

  This was that moment. She was at the point before the darkness when she should ask for help, but she didn’t want it. She could handle everything; at least that’s what she told herself. She reached for the Baggie filled with rocks and emptied a portion into her hand. This was it. This was the hit that would send her life on a downward spiral. She prepped the stem, placing the crack rock inside, and applied the flame. Her eyes popped out of her head like golf balls as she anticipated the smoke filling her lungs. The smell of it alone, burning, bubbling inside the glass, made her stomach groan in anticipation.

  Ssssss

  She pulled on the pipe, long and hard … desperately awaiting the moment when her problems would disappear into thin air. She was sucking on the devil’s dick unabashedly, waiting for that moment … for that ecstasy … for the climax. She wasn’t disappointed. As she released the smoke she exhaled her emotions right along with it.

  That shit was like a miracle drug. It felt so good she wondered how it could possibly be bad. She smoked it all without a care in the world. It numbed her broken heart. Her phone rang and Iman’s name flashed on the screen. She wanted to demand an explanation, to curse his ass out, to beg him for forgiveness, to tell him what had happened with Cinco, but instead she gave him the fuck you button, sending him to voice mail. Things were too far gone between her and Iman to look back. “You married, lying motherfucka,” she said to herself. She put the car in drive and headed back across town. Now that she had gotten her tongue wet, she wanted to feed her appetite. The meth in her purse she would save for a rainy day; she had a taste for another type of blast, and crack was surely becoming her preference.

  26

  Bleu climbed out of her car and immediately locked the doors as she frowned at the men and women around her. They were disgusting, pathetic … the lowest members of society. Skid row was home to junkies of all kinds, but while she was looking down at them she neglected to realize that she was out there for the same reason they were … to score. Her drug use was hidden by her expensive clothes, her shiny car, her pretty-girl looks, but many of them had once been shiny too. Years of living the street life had grimed them up, turning them into the walking dead. This was an entirely new world. These were the types of places her mother used to take Bleu when it was time to cop. She couldn’t believe that she was the one walking down this path now. How far she had fallen. Her hatred for her mother lowered slightly now that she fully understood the demons that Sienna battled. If Bleu had a monkey on her back, Sienna carried a gorilla. Bleu had seen her mother do things that no woman should ever have to do and felt herself sliding down that slippery slope, but still she didn’t care. Bleu was beyond the point of turning around and going back to her car. She wanted a blast and she had money to spend.

  “Hey, you,” she said, noticing the woman she had given money to just hours before. “Hey—”

  The woman hurriedly walked in the opposite direction of Bleu, tucking her head as she stuffed her hands in her pockets.

  “Hey!” Bleu said, going after her.

  “If you want your money back, I ain’t got it,” she said.

  “I don’t want it back,” Bleu said. She pulled the woman’s arm and the woman turned on her, whipping out a switchblade before Bleu could even blink.

  “Whoa! Whoa!” Bleu said as she backed up slightly. She went in her purse and pulled out five hundred-dollar bills. “I’m just trying to spend,” she explained. She looked around nervously and then back at the woman. “I’ve never bought any myself. I just … I wanted you to…”

  The woman’s eyes sparkled in the moonlight as she eyed the money in Bleu’s hand. “What’s your poison?” she asked.

  Bleu hesitated. It was the first time that she would have to say it aloud. She fidgeted from foot to foot, growing anxious. She just needed one hit to calm her nerves. “Crack.” Her face burned with embarrassment as she added, “Just a little. It’s nothing serious.”

  Her inexperience oozed off of her. She was too shifty, too nervous, too worried that everybody was looking at her. “Yeah, nothing serious,” the woman replied sympathetically. She knew that vice all too well. “Look, sweetheart, I’ll go cop for you and you can stay here, a’ight?” the woman asked.

  Bleu knew that crackheads were fast talking. She had seen her mother beat plenty of suckers for their dough, and Bleu’s skepticism was written all over her face. “You think I’m going to run off with your money?”

  Bleu didn’t want to offend the woman, but that’s exactly what she thought. “I can come with you,” she said.

  “Well, come on then,” the woman replied. “Shit. But don’t be all on my ass when I’m buying. You stand back.”

  Bleu nodded and then followed the woman as she started up the block. “I’m Lady,” the woman said.

  “I’m…” Bleu paused because she didn’t want to give her real name. She didn’t want anyone, not even this woman no one would ever know she met, to know that Bleu Montclair was on crack. “I’m Blake,” she said, giving her alias. She had once used the name to move bricks; now she was using it to smoke rocks. She couldn’t fall any further from grace.

  “You be careful out here. A pretty girl like you … these streets can be dangerous,” Lady said. “A lot of people looking to come up off a young girl
like you.” She stopped abruptly, causing Bleu to bump into the back of her. “Get off my ass, nah,” she chastised harshly.

  Bleu put up her hands. “Sorry.”

  “My guy is right over there. Give me sixty dollars,” Lady said.

  Bleu gave her a hundred-dollar bill and Lady walked up to the guy who was posted by the liquor store. “You working?” Bleu heard her ask.

  Bleu watched, shuffling from foot to foot as she rubbed the goose bumps that had formed on her arms. The transaction was quick and Lady was back at her side in no time.

  “Here,” Lady said, handing her a dub.

  “Where’s my change?” Bleu asked.

  “Do it look like the dope man give change? Lesson number one, have correct change or they keeping your shit,” Lady schooled Bleu, lying through her teeth. She had already overcharged Bleu. Lady had only purchased a $20 rock but had told Bleu it was $60 and on top of that she kept the $40 that the dope boy had given her back. So not only did she cop herself her own smoke, but she also pocketed some paper for later. She turned to Bleu. “You sharing?” It was just like a fiend to be greedy. Lady was going to smoke up Bleu’s little high before she started in on her own. Bleu was too green to the scene. It was inevitable that she be taken advantage of.