“I didn’t stop because I wasn’t about to be out in front of no crack motel acting a fool.” I stood up and got real sassy with my hand gestures and stuff. “But trust me, baby, it’s all good, I know how the game goes. If anybody knows how to play the game, it’s Roxanne.”
“Then shut the fuck up because I’m tired of hearing about it.”
“Cool…cool,” I said. With that, I left it alone but I threw all the respect for our so-called relationship out of the window. I started seeing other guys and I bought a cell phone and gave them all the number. I talked to guys right in his face, hoping he’d get jealous and snap, but he never did. It was like he didn’t even care. That’s when I knew I actually cared about Terry because the more he distanced himself from me, the more I would try to get his attention.
It all began to add up one day when I came home and realized he had beaten me there. As soon as I came through the door, the crack aroma smacked me in the face. I immediately recognized the familiar stench, from being on the stroll with girls who indulged. My first thought was that he had a crack whore in the house, so out of instinct I grabbed a butcher knife from the kitchen and ran into the bedroom, but there was only Terry there, lighting incense and cracking windows open to hide the smell.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Nothing,” he answered, looking embarrassed.
“You’ve been doing something. It smells like crack up in here.”
“Whatchu talking about?”
“Terry, don’t even start with the lies. I know what I smell.”
“Girl, you tripping,” he said as he stormed past me, grabbing his jacket and hat.
“You need to grab a lot more than a jacket and a hat, if you think you about to be up in my house smoking crack. I’m not buying that,” I assured him. He ignored me and headed for the door. “Your shit will be packed when you get back,” I yelled, as he slammed the front door.
Just as promised, I packed up all of Terry’s things while he was gone. I wasn’t about to be in a relationship with a crackhead. The one thing I knew about drug addicts was they were untrustworthy. That’s probably why Terry didn’t have a place to stay, I thought. I may not have been the Virgin Mary myself, but I tried to have standards… sometimes. Anyway, like I was saying, he probably had stolen from and took advantage of all his loved ones. That’s what crackheads do. I knew my sister, Carrie, had started to experiment with it, but as far as I knew she wasn’t a heavy user.
I sat all of Terry’s belongings by the door so he could see them as soon as he came in. I stayed up waiting for him, because I knew if I went to sleep, he’d still be there when I woke up in the morning. Finally, at one o’clock in the morning he strolls in, reeking of alcohol. His eyes hung low and he looked a mess, I’d never seen him like this. He stopped and stared at all the bags, swaying back and forth trying to keep his balance. He mumbled something that wasn’t audible.
“What?”
“You gon’ put me out?”
“Hell yeah! You need a ride somewhere? I’ll gladly drop you off wherever you wanna go, but you can’t stay here.”
He staggered over to the sofa I was sitting on and fell down on both knees. I knew he was about to beg, but I had already made up my mind and I was getting rid of this mouse that had been masquerading as a man tonight.
“Please baby, just listen,” he started.
“Please listen to what, Terry?”
“I’ma stop. I promise, I’ma stop.”
He rubbed my thighs seductively, but it was the farthest thing from seductive at the moment.
“I can’t do this, Terry.”
“I know I fucked up, but I quit right now; I’m done. You know I love you, right? Right? Right?”
I dropped Terry off at a hotel and told him if and when he was completely cured of his addiction, he could come back home. After he left, it got really hard to pay all my bills working at McDonalds, but I kept in contact with my new male friends and they kept me afloat. I hated to worry about bills, food, and all the necessities, but I loved the freedom of having my own place.
It seemed like every time a guy helped me with my bills, he thought he owned me. After being brainwashed by a real pimp, I was never gonna let another man control me. One by one I told them all to fuck off until there was one that stood alone. He didn’t want to control me, but he wanted to live with me and I wasn’t having that either. I began to really wish for Terry to get his act together, so he could come back home.
I still really cared about him. I can’t say loved because I still didn’t understand the concept back then. So once the last guy realized I wasn’t going to let him move in with me, he stopped giving me money and I told him to fuck off with the rest of them. I tried to buckle down on my spending habits, but my weed habit was becoming increasingly expensive by the day. I started off with a blunt every day then a blunt and a half, but now I had to have a blunt before work and a blunt when I got home. Sometimes I’d be high at work and drop food on the floor and pick it up like it never happened.
I burned myself on occasion, loading too much grease in the fryer or standing too close to it. They began calling me Klutzanne and I started asking to work food prep. One day I was making Big Macs, when I heard some black chick, being loud and unruly. I moved closer to the front counter to find out what was going on, and saw that she was arguing with Keisha, who was working the last register. The dispute seemed to be about the girl’s chicken sandwich having mayo on it. Usually, Keisha just smiled and took the “customer is always right” approach, but this chick was just on ten and being foul for no reason.
“You muthafuckas think y’all can just give people whatever the fuck y’all wanna give ‘em. If this shit would’ve made me sick, I would’ve came back up here and whooped somebody’s ass.”
I could tell Keisha was taken aback by the girl's tone, but Keisha was never soft. She got back in the girl's face and told her she better calm down. It upset the girl even more that Keisha wasn’t intimidated by her or backing down. This girl was bigger than me and Keisha put together, so I stopped what I was doing until the dispute was settled. Next thing I know, I heard Keisha get louder.
“Bitch? No, yo’ mama is the bitch, hoe. I don’t know who you think I am!”
The Amazon woman reached out and yanked Keisha over the counter as soon as she finished her sentence. Keisha kicked her feet wildly in the air as she slid over the counter and went crashing to the floor. Without consideration for my own safety, I ran and dove over the counter to aid my friend, who was in bad need of assistance. The girl had pinned Keisha to the ground and was pummeling her like a schoolyard bully.
I grabbed her ponytail with all my might and started wailing on the side of her face. Without looking to see who was attacking her, she jabbed me in the mouth with her elbow. By now, Keisha had slid from under Amazon woman and was now on her feet. She rushed the girl, hitting her with a combination of punches like a boxer.
My adrenaline was off the meter and I barely felt the elbow so I continued to hold onto her ponytail and swing wildly. It took all our coworkers to break up the mayhem and when it was over I was the only one bleeding from the elbow shot I took to the mouth. The police quickly arrived and arrested the Amazon who started it all. I got fired for jumping in the fight, but Keisha didn’t because she was only defending herself. At the time, I chose to believe she didn’t get fired because her sister was a manager, who just happened not to work that day. I knew I had fucked up and now I had no way to pay my rent.
Chapter 3
I picked up my last paycheck that Friday and Keisha was all apologetic about me being fired on her account.
“I’ma talk to my sister again and see about getting you back,” she promised.
“That’s alright, girl, this ain’t the only job in Toledo.”
“Yeah, but you know shit ain’t gon’ be the same without you here.”
“Well, how about you quit and we’ll go look for another job together,�
�� I teased.
“Hell no, I don’t love you that much.”
“Fuck you,” I said.
“Call me later,” she said, preparing to go back to work.
“If my phone is on. The bill is due and I’m broke as fuck. This little check is not gonna help,” I confessed, waving the check in the air as I made my exit. As I drove home, I debated on whether to put some money on my phone bill or not. If I paid the bill and put some gas in my car, I’d pretty much be back to nothing, which is where I started when the day began. I’d run all the men in my life away, so there was no one to talk to except Keisha anyway. I decided, fuck the phone bill and headed to the weed house to cop three dime bags. I refused to stress about the future; that just wasn’t in my nature.
I would enjoy my weed and my weekend somehow, and Monday morning, I’d go out and look for a job. That’s what I told myself as I pulled into the parking lot of my building. As soon as I put the car in park, it shut off. Just sputtered and died before I could even flip the ignition off. I tried to start it again and I got nothing. Again, I tried; nothing, again nothing, again nothing.
“Fuck!” I shouted as I opened the car door and got out, slamming the door hard as I could. “Piece of shit!” I insulted my red Tempo as if it had ears. I spent the next few days smoking weed and watching bootleg DVD's I’d bought from a guy on the street. Amazingly enough, my phone was still on, so I called Keisha and she continued to tell me I should come in and talk to her sister about getting my job back. I needed the job, but my pride was in the way at the moment and I didn’t feel like begging and pleading, just to be at McDonalds. Honestly, if I really needed some money fast, I knew exactly how to go get some, but I was surely hoping it never came to that.
I really needed to find out what was wrong with my car, but since I had no job, there was no rush. All I had was a hundred dollars, so if it was gonna cost me more than that, I was shit out of luck anyway. Maybe I could get one of those hood mechanics to take a look at it and do the work for dirt cheap. I began to regret running all the men in my life away.
Monday morning, my cell phone was off and I had to catch the bus to the pay the bill and get it back on.
Should have just given them the damn money in the first fucking place, but when my car broke down, I knew I couldn’t be at home with no phone and no car. I was supposed to go look for a job, but instead, I bought some more weed with ten of the thirty dollars I had left and went back home. Later on, I was in the basement washing and this dude who lived down the hall said he’d noticed me catching the bus and asked what was wrong with my car. I told him it just broke down on me and he offered to take a look at it.
Turns out I needed an alternator and he said I could get a used one for
around seventy-five dollars, and he’d put it on for another twenty-five. The problem was I only had twenty dollars to my name, eighteen to be exact. So now I really needed a job and so I go out job hunting the next day, and the next day and the day after that. Now my eighteen dollars had been spent on bus rides around the city and I was still jobless. On her off day, Keisha took me to apply for a job at the supermarket and I was sure I had that job, but they never called.
How could I not be qualified to work in a gotdamn supermarket? I sat at home feeling sorry for myself, which was something I rarely did. I couldn’t afford to get evicted because I couldn’t go back to my mom’s house. Not that my pride wouldn’t let me, but more like I wasn’t allowed to step foot in her house, since I’d slept with her boyfriend and then made him mine.
That night, my intercom buzzed and I knew it had to be a guy this late.
“Who is it?” I spoke into the intercom.
“Terry,” the familiar voice spoke back.
Speak of the devil, I thought.
“Wadda you want?”
“I wanna talk to you.”
I pondered the options for a minute and I decided to hear him out. I invited him up to my apartment and was pleasantly surprised to see he had cleaned himself up, and had bought me some much-needed weed. He didn’t look drunk or high and I was honestly glad to see him at that moment.
“So how you been?” Terry inquired.
“Mmph… I been good,” I said nonchalantly.
“Don’t sound too good.”
“I’ll be good soon as I roll that weed up.”
He tossed me the weed and a Swisher Sweet cigar. I was a phenomenal blunt roller if I do say so myself.
“So are you clean, Terry?”
“I’m here, ain’t I?”
“How’d you do it? Rehab?”
“I can’t go to rehab; I’d lose my job.”
I pondered the information. He was still working, which was a good thing.
“Sooo, you just quit cold turkey?”
“Cold turkey like the day after Thanksgiving,” he claimed.
“Hmph.” I didn’t believe him, but I figured for now, it was best to give him the benefit of the doubt. We smoked weed and talked for hours about the spectrum of problems on our reciprocal plates. Nothing was left unsaid. I could tell Terry hadn’t come back to me for a booty call. He wanted back into my life and more specifically, back into my apartment. I never asked him where he had been staying and he never offered.
****
I let Terry move back in the following day, not really sure if he was clean or not. Of course, Keisha thought it was a terrible idea, but keep in mind at this point, I’m on the verge of an eviction notice being sent my way. My options were the biological twins, slim and none.
Terry paid my rent without me asking and a few weeks later, he got my Tempo fixed. He began to act like the man I always knew he could be. He began to fuck me like the man I had fallen hard for in the beginning. So hard, that I chose him over my own mother. On my nineteenth birthday, he took me to Mancy’s Steakhouse. I’m sure I looked a little hookerish in my skintight red mini, and my low-cut, see-through, white blouse.
My stilettoes were red and white. Terry was nicely dressed in brown slacks and matching button up shirt. A few times, I caught some black girls checking him out, smoking me over with displeasure in their eyes. Haters. I’d taunt them by feeding him food and laughing extra hard at all his jokes. That was the most memorable, joyous night I would ever spend with Terry. After that, things got weird again. Money got spent quicker, time got mismanaged, and hygiene was once again demoted. I never knew Terry’s whereabouts or why money was so tight all of a sudden, but I had my suspicions, of course. This time, I feared the confrontation because ultimately, it would lead to me telling him to pack his shit and the apartment manager telling me to pack my shit for failure to pay rent.
I accepted his habit, but for the life of me, I just couldn’t understand why he couldn’t shake this thing. I mean, I just knew I could stop smoking weed anytime I wanted. What was so alluring about crack that made him a slave to its call? So, the next month rolled around and I asked Terry for the rent money and he told me to wait. Another week went by and Terry still had made no mention of the rent. When I asked him again, his response was the same.
He wanted me to wait. I explained to him that my apartment manager didn’t play around with delinquent renters. We already owed a late fee and I knew he wasn’t about to let me fall behind again. He ran me some bullshit about his hours being cut and that he might have to get a second job. His hours had been cut alright. The next week, I found out Terry got fired for missing too many days from work. I found out when Keisha drove me up to his job on payday, so he wouldn’t have any excuses to not give me the rent money.
I figured I’d get the money before the dopeman got it. They told me he had been fired over two weeks ago, and I cried on the way back home. What the hell was wrong with him? I sat at home waiting for this coward to show his face. I was so mad I could punch him in the face as soon as he walked through the door. Because it was supposed to be his payday, Terry tried to outlast me by staying out until the wee hours of the morning, thinking I’d be sleep.
Foo
led his ass! I did doze off for about an hour, but once I woke up and realized he wasn’t there, I began calling Keisha back-to-back, trying my best to wake her up so she could take me to look for him. I heard keys jingling at the door and slammed the phone down. I shot him the coldest stare down ever as he breezed in the door drunk and smelly.
“Why the fuck didn’t you tell me you got fired?” I shouted.
“I was gonna tell you in the morning,” he lied. “And good morning to you too.”
“I should’ve known to keep looking for a job instead of depending on your sorry ass.”
“I’m gon’ get another job just calm down.”
“Calm down?” How the fuck are we supposed to pay the rent while you looking for another job? And how are you gonna keep a job when you can’t show up for work because you been hanging out all night smoking crack?”
“That don’t got nothing to do with it.”
I couldn’t believe the words that were coming out of his mouth.
“Nothing to do with it? Nothing to do with it?” I repeated, still in shock. “ That has every fucking thing to do with it! That shit got you fucked up and it’s dragging me down with you.”
I was so mad, I immediately started packing his shit right then and there. “You’re getting out of my house, and I’m not letting you back in this time,” I promised as he followed behind me, pulling my arm trying to stop me. “Let my fucking arm go!” I growled.
It was very possible, at that moment, my head could have spun completely around on my body like the girl in The Exorcist. How could I be so stupid? But no, this wasn’t about me; this was about his stupidity, his weakness. As I was packing his things, he was unpacking them, but I failed to notice engulfed in my frustration.
Roxanne: From Addict to Hustler Page 3
