Roxanne: From Addict to Hustler

by King Benjamin

  “Give me the keys, I’ll get them.”

  I was wondering when she was gonna ask me where did I get money to buy a car, but I was stinking up the house so bad, I don’t think she cared. I stripped, then eased off into the hot shower, staring down at my plump little belly as the beads of water dove off the top of it. I heard the door open and my bag of clothes hit the floor, before it slammed shut again.

  I got a chance to wash my hair with some good shampoo for the first time in months. I rubbed my fingers over the knot on my head, still in disbelief about the night AJ attacked me like a pissed off dirty cop. Mackey from The Shield came to mind from of the blue. By the time I finished taking care of my hygiene, Kiesha was getting ready for work. I couldn’t believe how she just welcomed me into her home with no judgment, after everything she knew about me. But she was the one person I’d never cross in a million years. I went through the house, admiring what she had done with the place. Kiesha stood in front of a vanity in her bedroom, wearing midnight blue slacks, a gray blouse and gray pumps.

  She was dress all conservative because she had a desk job now, working for a manufacturing company.

  “You got me running late,” Kiesha said, as she turned and blew past me.

  I followed her, still dripping wet, wearing some old sweat pants.

  “Well, at least I didn’t show up empty-handed,” I said.

  “What the hell does that mean?” she asked, grabbing her keys from a china bowl on the dining room table.

  I showed her the money I had stuffed in my pockets and my purse, grinning wildly.

  “Yeah and? What you have to do to get it? Never mind. Look, just stay here until I get back home, and then we are going to have a serious talk.”

  “Yes mother,” I teased.

  “I’m serious, Roxanne. It’s time out for all the bullshit now; you got a fucking baby on the way.”

  She threw her hand up in the air as if she was putting her mind on pause, before she got upset.

  “I hear you, Kiesha.”

  “I’ll see you when I get back.”

  She walked out and shut the front door a little harder than was necessary. She was the one who begged me to come and now she was acting like she was mad I was there. I waved my hand at the door and did a little dance as I played with the money in my hands, before I tossed it all on the dining room table. I pushed the china set out of the way, making room for all my cash. I counted all the loot and couldn’t believe I had made approximately fifteen hundred dollars over the weekend. Not bad for a working girl. My emotional high didn’t last too long before I ate a sandwich and passed out on the couch, with the money right next to me on the floor.

  I slept for the next two days with not much more than a few bathroom breaks in between. Kiesha must have known how much I needed the rest, because she only woke me up once and that was to eat some of the dinner she had cooked. When I finally woke up, it was the middle of the night and I didn’t remember where I was, but it came to me as I looked around and I got up to look for a clock. I found a clock on the refrigerator that read 5:30 and I peeked outside, confirming that it was a.m. I sat down at the kitchen table, trying to gather my thoughts. What now? I thought about my money and I couldn’t remember the last time I had seen it. I wandered back into the living room and looked around on the floor. I looked under the couch. I looked behind it. It wasn’t anywhere to be found. I figured Kiesha must have found it sprawled all over the floor and put it away for me. I raided the fridge and found chicken, mac and cheese, chef salad, and some lemonade.

  I pigged out like a hungry hostage high off weed. This was one of the only times I can remember feeling like I was eating for two. Crack usually spoiled my appetite for anything, except more crack. I watched re-runs of A Different World until the morning news came on, and I heard Kiesha’s alarm clock sounding in her bedroom. She came out in a robe and slippers and I remember thinking, she looks good for a girl just waking up. It was obvious that Kiesha was taking pretty good care of herself. Compared to me, she was the picture of perfect health. Lucky for me, I had youth on my side, so I didn’t look like I should have after such a hardcore existence.

  “I was beginning to think you had died on my couch,” Kiesha said.

  “Good morning to you too.”

  “You ain’t gon’ think it’s so good when I come out of this bathroom,” she shot back, slamming the bathroom door behind her.

  I thought about what she said and I knew what it meant. At 6:30 in the morning, she was about to lecture me. I knew she would say a lot of things that were one hundred percent true, that I absolutely did not want to hear. I believed I could figure things out. I believe I could somehow turn things around on my own. I sat quietly on the couch like a child waiting for a punishment to be handed down. Almost twenty minutes later, Kiesha emerged from the bathroom wearing only pajamas now.

  “I have your money,” she said.

  “I know.”

  “Fifteen hundred and twenty-two dollars, right?

  “I counted fifteen hundred and ten.”

  “Well, you counted wrong. I counted it twice.”

  “I was fucking sleepwalking by the time I counted it,” I admitted.

  “Mmm-hmm. Well here is the thing; I’m keeping it.”

  “What? What do you—”

  “What are you going to do with fifteen hundred dollars?”

  “Whatever the fuck I feel like doing!” I yelled.

  “That’s exactly why you’re not getting it.”

  “Oh hell no! Kiesha, you my girl, but you better stop bullshitting with me, seriously.”

  I wanted to stand up and confront her, but I knew Kiesha would: one, beat my ass and two, put me out of her house and I’d be broke with nowhere to go in no time.

  “I’m keeping it, Roxanne, until you tell me what you gonna do to get yourself together. You’re not about to blow all this money on drugs, when you don’t even have a place to live.”

  “How you just gonna take my money, Kiesha?”

  “Just like I did,” she challenged.

  I stood to my feet.

  “Just give me enough money to get a hotel room and I’ll leave your house, because you not gonna just take my money like it’s all good.”

  “I’m not taking it, Roxanne. I’m holding it until—”

  “I don’t need you to hold my money!”

  “Evidently, you do, because you haven’t been living anywhere stable in almost a year. If you didn’t want my help what did you come here for?”

  “Because you asked me to come,” I lied. The truth was I did need her help, but this wasn’t what I had in mind. Kiesha came over and lifted my shirt up forcefully.

  “It’s too late for you to have an abortion, so what you gon’ do about this baby? And I bet you been walking around this whole time getting high as fuck, ain’t you?”

  And getting beat up, contracting deadly diseases, and a bunch of other shit, I thought.

  “No, I haven’t, because AJ wouldn’t give me money like that to get high. He thought the baby was his.”

  “Whose is it?”

  “It’s Terry’s.”

  “So what are you gonna do, Roxanne?”

  “I’m gonna have a baby I guess, Kiesha.”

  As soon as I said it, a chill ran through me. Fear danced around in my body, but then I felt another strange movement.

  “Oh shit, come here,” I said.

  Kiesha came over and I place four of her fingers on my stomach.

  “Oh my God,” Kiesha squealed excitedly.

  “I can’t believe it’s a baby in my belly.”

  “Yes, it is. That’s your baby, Roxanne.”

  All of sudden, my fears began to be replaced by joy and hope as I smiled like a Kool-Aid kid. A tear streamed down my face as the baby continued to move around in my stomach. It was as if the baby was trying to communicate with me at that moment.

  “I know I’m not fit to be a mother, Kiesha. I can’t keep it and rai
se it,” I said.

  “You’re right, you’re nowhere near fit to raise a child, but it’s not too late to change. You’re not even twenty-one years old, Roxanne. Maybe this is what you needed to see the light.”

  She was right. I was way too young to just believe that my life was over. But AIDS didn’t care about age, gender, nationality, or class. AIDS was kinda like my pussy; anybody could get it.

  Finally, I was sober and clear-headed enough to face the facts of my life and all the possibilities.

  “There’s something else I never told you,” I said.

  “What?”

  I hesitated. I took a deep breath, then I told Kiesha everything about the night I was attacked by the maniac, along with the message he left on the bathroom mirror.

  “I don’t believe him,” I finished.

  “Roxanne, you can’t be this fucking stupid! If a man says he has AIDS, you believe him until you find out otherwise.”

  “He never said—”

  “He wrote it on a fucking mirror! Why wouldn’t you go get yourself checked out?”

  “I’m going to get tested,” I assured her.

  Kiesha flopped down on the sofa and let out an exhausted sigh.

  “Do you even care if you live or die?” she asked.

  “Truthfully? No. But if I had a baby, I know I’d be different. But if I have a baby and we both got AIDS, then I’m really not gonna give a fuck about life, and that’s the reason I haven’t gone to get tested. I didn’t want to know the truth.”

  “Well, tomorrow you’re going to the clinic, if I have to drag you myself. You can’t make any plans until you know the truth. I gotta get ready for work. While I’m gone, don’t try and look for that money because you will never find it. Just know that if you want my help, you got two choices; rehab, and rehab.”

  ****

  When Kiesha left for work, I sat there all day having major crack attacks, and trying to be optimistic. I tried telling myself there was no way I had AIDS and that I could have my baby and start my life over. Have my crack-addicted baby and start over. I was really trying hard to convince myself, but in reality, I had no faith in myself as a mother. Who was I kidding? I was good at one thing; fucking dudes’ brains out. The ironic thing was when I thought about how I always went out of my way to protect myself from diseases. It was the only smart choice I ever made, yet here I sat petrified that AIDS was about to destroy whatever life I had left to live.

  When Kiesha came back home I had devised a plan to get some money to get high with. I told her I wanted to go shopping and get some things for the baby. I figured it was no harm in being optimistic at this point and I knew Kiesha would agree to it. We drove her Escalade to the nearest Target, where I proceeded to buy a stroller, baby bottles, bibs, and diapers. Hell, I even bought a car seat. As Kiesha handed me the money, I paid for the stuff and pocketed the change, trying my best not to look irritated by how long everything was taking. I knew if my crack attack was exposed, Kiesha might try and take the only twenty dollars I had. I hadn’t really been around Kiesha much since I started getting high, so she had never seen that side of me with her own eyes.

  By the time we loaded the baby’s things in the car, I was shaking like an alcoholic and steaming mad because I had to sneak around to get high with my own money. Back at the house, I quickly helped carry everything inside, all the while in complete silence. I could tell by now Kiesha probably knew what was on my mind.

  “You did the right thing, Roxanne. You should be proud. Tomorrow, we can go look at some cribs if you want.”

  “Mmm-hmm.”

  I couldn’t think about anything but a rock at the moment. Everything else was on the back burner. I was beginning to feel like I was being starved. As soon as we were done unloading everything, I grabbed the keys to my stolen car.

  “I’ll be back.”

  “See, you on some bullshit, Roxanne! Where you going this late in the evening?”

  “I’ll be right back!” I yelled and slammed the door behind me.

  I swear, sometimes I wondered why Keisha and I were even still friends. All she ever did was try to mother me and treat me like I wasn’t capable of thinking on my own. I drove to the Northside and went looking for my old dealer near Cherry Street. The headlights from a Cadillac shined on some working girls as I drove by my old corner. I thought they could probably help me find a dealer faster. I busted a quick U-turn in heavy traffic and shot back down to the corner. As I pulled up the Cadillac was pulling away slow with a date in the car. I wondered who it was. All the girls stood by, staring at the Bonneville as my window came down. I recognized all three of the women, but I wondered why they were breaking away from my car all of a sudden, like I had a gun. There was only one girl out of the three, who I was happy to see anyway. Bitches! Then, I spotted the flashing blue and red lights for the first time in my rearview.

  “Fuck!”

  I thought about the baby in my stomach for a split second, as I was tempted to step on the gas and take the police on a chase. I slowly took my foot off the gas pedal and put the car in park. A slow death from AIDS would be much worse than a quick suicidal police chase, but something made me just leave it all up to chance. Two cops hopped out and hustled down on me from both sides. One black cop, one white cop. The black cop on the passenger side glanced at the working girls, who were still dipping off into the night. The white pig on my side gave me a suspicious once-over with his hand on his gun.

  “License and registration.”

  “Umm, I don’t have my license on me, Officer. I’m sorry.”

  I didn’t have it on me because it didn’t exist, but he didn’t need to know all that.

  “Registration?”

  I fumbled through the glove compartment, growing nervous as seconds felt like minutes. I found the registration and handed it to the cop, scrambling my brain for a convincing lie but nothing came.

  “What’s your name?” the white cop asked.

  I spit out Kiesha’s name, because she was the only alias I could think of, who I was sure wouldn’t have warrants. As soon as I saw that cynical eyebrow raise up, I knew I was going to jail. The white cop asked me to step out of the car and place my hands behind my back. The white cop cuffed me, then headed back to the squad car as the black cop came over, flashing his light all in my eyes. As white as I am, I doubt if he really needed the extra light.

  “You know this is the hoe stroll, right?”

  “No sir, I didn’t,” I responded.

  Just then,, I realized I knew the black cop and knew he had probably recognized me. “Why do you have that flashlight all in my eyes?” I questioned.

  “Your name ain’t no gotdamn, Kiesha,” he snapped.

  He was so relaxed with a sarcastic grin, I thought I might actually stand a chance with him. “Your name is Roxanne,” he continued. “I took you to jail twice out here.”

  “Okay, listen, the only reason I never came to court—”

  “Yeah, yeah, you can save all that for the judge,” he said, as he began to escort me in the direction of the squad car.

  “Please, please, please, don’t take me to jail. I swear, I will take care of my warrants.”

  “You got anything on you I should know about?” he said, ignoring me.

  Now I was wishing I had stomped the gas when I had a chance.

  “Can we please just talk for one second?” I begged.

  “Do you have anything in your pockets that can stick me?”

  “Just money, that’s it.”

  “Okay, step on back here with me.”

  He guided me to the back of the squad car and emptied the contents of my pockets on the trunk of the car. My crack pipe rolled off the trunk and hit the ground. I tried to kick it under the car before he realized what it was, but he caught me.

  “Un-un. Don’t even try it.”

  “Try what?”

  “I see that crack pipe you just stepped on.”

  “Huh? That’s not mines. Yo
u’re not putting that on me,” I fussed.

  “I got it out of your pocket, who else can I put it on?”

  “Can you give me a break, please?”

  “Roxanne, you know you going to jail,” he confirmed.

  “Can’t you see I’m pregnant?” I said, hoping for sympathy.

  “With a crack pipe in your pocket. Come around here so I can put this other stuff back in your pocket. You know damn well you going to jail.”

  “Oh my God. So you really gonna take me to jail?”

  “Don’t I always?”

  Just then, the white cop got out of the car and shook his head as he approached me.

  “You pretty white for a black girl,” he said.

  “He already knows my name is Roxanne and I have some misdemeanor warrants, but I was trying to explain to him that the only reason I never came to court is that when I got out of jail, my crazy ass boyfriend kidnapped me and took me to Detroit to sell me to a pimp.”

  As I was talking, they were slowly loading me into the back of the squad car. There was no doubt about it; I was going directly to jail, but I was now trying to think of an excuse as to why I was driving a stolen vehicle because I knew it was sure to come up. Oddly enough, as the time went on, they didn’t bring up the car being stolen so I kept my mouth closed. The worse part of it all was that I knew I wouldn’t be able to get high that night; maybe even the next week or two. I felt like turning into one of those psycho bitches I’d seen on Cops and just banging my head against the fucking windshield. The officers began to comment on how young and pretty I was, and that it was a shame how I’d fucked my life up at such an early stage.

  “Since y’all think I’m so pretty, I’ll fuck and suck both of you if just take these handcuffs off,” I offered, thinking it didn’t hurt to try.

  At the precinct, I was stripped and thoroughly searched a second time and fingerprinted. I had more warrants than I even knew about. Two for solicitation, indecent exposure, drug paraphernalia, etc. It was a bunch of bullshit that I felt was a waste of time and paperwork. Too bad the Toledo Police Department didn’t agree with me. The lady who searched me told everyone I was pregnant and all of sudden everyone, began to treat me like a human being. One female officer even came to my cell and offered me some McDonalds, but I was too upset to eat. I paced the floor, listening to the other prisoners whining about a phone call. I just wanted to get in front of a judge so I could get a bond. I knew with the money I had at Kiesha’s, I would more than likely be able to bond myself out.