by AP Jermaine
“Keisha somebody at the door!” Monique yelled from downstairs. Quick as greased lightning, Keisha jumped up from the floor, threw on her shorts and ran to the window.
“Oh shit, its Hood!” Keisha looked around nervously. Pulling my pants back on I smiled and gave her a smack on the ass before heading back downstairs. Sitting back down at the table with Monique, I could have cared less if Hood knew me and Keisha had just got through fucking. I knew he wouldn’t try me. But being the bitch ass nigga that he was, he’d probably beat Keisha half to death after I was gone. Monique got up and opened the door for Hood, just as Keisha rushed down the steps. “Hey baby! I was just washing my hands after messing with that coke. You know that shit gets in your pores baby, I ain’t trying to get strung out on credit.” Keisha lied like a pro as Hood mean mugged her.” Why didn’t you use your key baby?” Keisha asked Hood innocently as she walked over and retrieved the ounce of hard from the kitchen counter and placed it in front of me.
“You know I told you a week ago that I lost my key! I told you to get me another one!”
“I’m sorry baby. With all this stuff that been going on it slipped my mind. I’ll do it first thing in the morning okay?
“Yeah you better, or I’m gone beat yo red ass for being stupid!”
Monique gave me a hard stare before getting to her feet and stretching. “Well I see its time for me to go.”
“You exactly right bitch! Get yo black ass up outta here before I… WHAM!!! Hoods words were cut short by the right hook I gave him that landed him flat on his ass. Stunned, he looked up from the floor as I stood over him.
“Give the broads some slack brother.” I spoke calmly as faint memories of my father striking my mother invaded my mind.
“They just a couple ducks man. Why you trippin?” Hood asked as he struggled to one knee.
|“They women nigga, that’s why. Just like your mama and mine.” The looks on the girls faces told me they were just as shocked as Hood, although the gleam in their eyes also told me I was appreciated. Tough ass Hood didn’t look so tough after all. Yes, I had my pistol on me. But I knew I could drag this bitch nigga without it.
“Yeah you right my nigga.” Hood wiped his bloody lip as he got to his feet. “I’m just a little on edge cause of all them fiends out there looking for that fire and we out there without none. Keisha know how I get sometimes.”
“I know you didn’t mean nothing boo,” Keisha responded happily, as she took a rag and wiped the rest of the blood from the corner of his mouth. As soon as Keisha finished, she turned her back to Hood with the biggest Kool Aid grin plastered across her face, before winking at me and disappearing back up the stairs.
“Where Shell at?” I asked Hood.
“Oh, he up at the top. Trying to keep them heads from spending that paper. If the word hadn’t already got around that we got that “eye popper,” they would have been gone. One thing you need to remember about a crackhead, is when they ready to smoke, they ready to smoke. Time is money homeboy.” Hood was smiling again, but only from the mouth down. His eyes held a totally different story. I knew he wanted to try me in some way, but tonight he knew better.
“What the fuck we waiting on then? Let’s go!” I snatched the ounce of rock off the table and headed for the back door. “I’ll holla at you later chocolate” I glanced over at Monique just before we stepped back out into the night.
“My name is Monique,” were all the words I would get out of her that night, as she got up from the table and walked up the stairs to find Keisha.
Chapter 14 “The Dope Dick”
It would be easy enough for me to tell you, about how we dove out on the trap and within weeks were moving hundreds of kilos and landing helicopters in our backyard and all kinds of bullshit. But that’s exactly what it would be. Bullshit. That kind of book is phony and fictitious, not just fiction. Its fake. Any real trapper knows that it just doesn’t go down like that. Nine times out of ten you gotta start from the dirt and work your way up slowly. I’m giving you the real right here. The Untold Truth.
When Hood and I, finally made it back up the hill; we found Shell leaned up against a project building, laughing and talking with some dark-skinned cat with gold fronts. The dudes name I soon found out was Luke.
“What’s up dog? Goddamn what took yall so long? I damn near had to beat these fiends off me,” Shell laughed as he walked up beside us with Luke beside him.
“What’s good Luke?” Hood threw up his fist and gave him some dap.
“Not shit my nigga. I heard you snatched up one of my customers out here. That nigga Edgar was looking for me with that paper. Now you got one of my best dope fiends smoking crack.” Luke sold heroin. More commonly known as “dope” or “boy,” in the streets of the Bull City.
“My fault bru. I aint know who the fuck that cat was. He coulda been the law for all I know,” Hood laughed heartily as he slapped Luke on the back.
“It’s all good. He can play around with that crack if he wants to, cause one thing I know for sure, he “Gots” to have this dope. You ever seen a dope fiend dope sick? Not a pretty sight,” Luke laughed just as hard.
The thing about heroin ladies and gentlemen, is that once you’re on that shit, you “HAVE TO HAVE IT every day! Or prepare to endure a soul baring, bone breaking sickness! People have actually been known to die from dope sickness. Most dope fiends won’t even go to bed if they don’t have what they call their “wake up,” right beside them. Heroin affects the body totally different than cocaine. If its user doesn’t have it where his or her body calls for it, it makes their bones ache, make them throw up, shit on themselves and everything else. Just as Luke said, dope sickness is an ugly sight. It’s a physical addiction, whereas cocaine is mostly mental. Back then “boy” dealers would label their bags, so the dope fiends could distinguish their particular brand of dope, from the next. They stamped names onto the small bags such as, Spiderman, Body Bag, Bonecrusher, Killer K, and Superhead; just to name a few. Another bizarre thing about “boy,” is that if a dope fiend dies of an overdose from a certain named brand of dope, then that’s the dope that people will ride to the end of the earth searching for. I’m talking about they’ll actually roll up on the block and be like “Yo, who got that dope that killed that nigga this morning! They say it’s called Cop Killer! I don’t want nothing but that!” Heroin is also legendary for its dick staying power. They say when you’re on it, your dick will stay hard for hours! That’s what’s notoriously known as “The Dopedick.” I’ve seen way too many young niggas get caught out there, and end up strung the fuck out, trying to fuck the shit outta some broad. They usually succeed in fucking the shit out of the chic of their choice, but also gain a back breaking habit that fills their lives with heartache and pain!
“Man that weak ass watered down dope you selling aint got nobody running,” Hood joked with Luke.
“Nigga you crazy as you look!” Luke stuck his chest out in defense, pulling two mule-knots out of his pockets. “Ever since that nigga and his bitch died off my shit three weeks ago, I’m the motherfucking dope king from here to Virginia! Guaranteed to keep a nigga dick brick for three days,” Luke spoke with an evil grin, nudging Shell in the ribs with his elbow. “Aint no more middle man shit either. I get my shit straight from African Dave. Raw and uncut. The dope can take a two, but I just put a one on it. He giving me the shit for the low, cause he want me to hook him up with my cousin Sonya.”
“Shit, if he knows like I know, he’ll leave yo cousin Sonya where the hell she at. That broad done had more meat in her than that freezer in the Rocky movie,” Hood laughed.
“Come on dog. Don’t talk about my cousin like that.”
“It is what it is homeboy. It is what it is.”
As Hood and Luke continued to go back and forth about his cousin’s whorish ways, a man and a woman rounded the corner of the building and called Luke’s name. “See, I told you. Here comes two of my loyal subjects now,” Luke stuck his chest out
proudly.
“You got that same bag Luke?” The lady whom looked to be about fifty years of age asked him. I noticed that she kept sniffling as her nose and eyes ran snot. Repeatedly she tried unsuccessfully to wipe them both with the sleeve of her shirt.
“Yeah Linda you know I stay straight. How much yall got?”
“We ain’t got but twenty- five right now, but if you give me four bags so me and Calvin can get the sickness off, we about to go boosting, and you know when we get back we gone cop at least two bundles.” Continuously Linda scratched at her arm, wild eyed with desperation and pain. At the time, bags of dope were selling for twenty-five dollars. “A bundle,” is ten bags sold at a discount. Probably between $150 and $200, depending on who you were selling it to. “Boosting” means going into the malls, grocery stores, outlets or anywhere else, to steal everything from pampers to Prada to sell on the streets for a much cheaper price. This is common with dopefiends. They don’t have a choice. They “have to have” their fix.
“I don’t know Linda, shit kinda slow right now,” Luke spoke like he was God, enjoying his moment of power. “Lil Jay got some dope down in the bottom. He can probably throw you something till later.”
“Please Luke! We can’t get our sickness off with that shit Lil Jay got! We need that Sky Walker!” Linda begged for Luke’s specific brand of heroin before she doubled over gripping her stomach as she started to dry heave. Linda and Calvin were good customers, and even if they possessed no money at all, Luke would have given them four bags to get their sickness off. He knew that as soon as they went out and made some money, they’d undoubtedly bring it straight back to him. The denial of the fix was all part of the show he was putting on, to prove to us how badly they wanted his particular brand of “boy.” Calvin finally stepped up speaking for the first time.
“Yeah Luke come on man. Please. You know soon as we get…. AAAARF!!!” Calvin who was tall and skinny with raggedy cornrows; buckled mid-sentence as he fell to one knee and hurled something thick and yellow from deep within his insides onto the concrete!
“Goddamn man! What the fuck!” I yelled turning my back on the whole scene. Shell and Luke found the whole thing hilarious. I glanced over at Linda and I’ll be damned if she didn’t look like she’d aged ten years in five minutes!
“Here take these four bags, and you better hurry the fuck back!” Luke shoved the four bags into Linda’s hand, and Calvin damn near tore her arm off trying to get at his! I thought they’d use something to scoop the dope out with, but to my amazement, they both simply ripped off the top of their bags, and in one swift vacuum sucked motion, inhaled the light brown powder from inside. In complete awe, I watched as Linda’s nose and eyes stopped running almost instantly! Her stooped over posture erected itself to boarding school straight, and as if by a miracle, the years slowly started to descend from her face! She was once again, a 26-year old, beautiful young black female. Calvin wiped the rest of the vomit from his chin, straightened his back and stood up smiling like an insane fool.
“Whew! Thanks Luke! We getting ready to hit the malls now. You don’t need nothing?”
“Yeah bring me back some butter Timbs. You know my size. And hurry up. Its already seven o’clock.”
“Ok Luke baby, we’ll be back in a couple hours. Make sure you got at least two bundles of that same stuff.”
“Yeah, I got it. Just make sure you got my fuckin money!”
“We will, we will,” Linda said with a final smile, as she and Calvin disappeared around the building just as quickly as they had come.
“I told ya’ll I got this dope game on smash out here.”
“Yeah whatever nigga. I don’t want no parts of it,” I said and I meant it. Hood stood over by the side of the building, slinging rocks hand over fist. We hadn’t cut anything up yet, so he was selling straight off the ounce. “We got our own paper to make Luke, so we’ll holla at ya. Let’s roll Shell.” Shell gave the nigga some dap and we left to go see what was up with Hood who was still surrounded by crack fiends.
“Looka there! Three hundred dollars just like that!” Hood yelled excitedly as we approached. Actually, if he’d added the two hundred he’d snaked away in his sock, the total would have been more like five hundred in less than five minutes! “I told yall this block paper is where it’s at! I made this lil change so quick I haven’t had time to breathe! I ain’t hardly touched this ounce either!”
“Yeah that sounds real good. But what the fuck you still holding our bread for?” I asked snatching the money from his greedy paws.
“Oh, my fault my nigga. I was just holding it for you,” Hood answered with that shit eating grin that I was starting to despise. “Come on its getting late. Time to go hit Kats crib and see what’s popping up in there. I don’t know who the hell ya’ll got this blow from, but they looked out like a motherfucker!”
Chapter 15 “Latonya”
For seven months, shit pretty much stayed the same. Routinely anyway. We were caking like a motherfucker. Every night we’d meet up with Hood in the projects. Hood was a real player. In his own mind, anyway. He had three or four thots on his team. Each one of their cribs, he called his own whenever he was there. Shell’s sister Latonya, the one who had introduced me to Hood in the first place, was one of his so called “main chics.” But she didn’t have no crib. Hood could now afford to put her up in hotel rooms three or four times a week, even if he wasn’t there. Of course, when he wasn’t there, you could bet your life savings that somebody else was up in these rooms he’d paid for, beating the wheels off her dick hungry pussy. Latonya was an official, superfreak! Yeah, I fucked her; for those of yall that are wondering. But only twice. To tell you the truth, I didn’t really want to, but she’d been begging me to fuck her for years, before she finally came at me where she knew I was weak. She offered to pay for the dick. Hood loved to walk around with knots of money in his pockets to flash. When you sell work on the block, you most times collect money faster than you can count it, so you simply keep making sales and keep cramming money into your pockets, hoping for the largest amount imaginable when you finally count up. Tonya clipped money from Hood’s pockets all the time. On this night, she was willing to give me some of it, if I would in her own words, “Let her see, what my cum tastes like.” Her offer was $200. You know that shit boosted my ego like a motherfucker, but I still had to make her earn this dick, so I told her my price was $500. “Hold on.” She said as I listened to what sounded like paper shuffling in the background. A few seconds later she came back to the phone. Her words were simple and to the point. “Come get it.” That was the first time. The second time, I’d stopped by their mom’s crib looking for Shell and nobody was home but Tonya. I told her I’d find him and turned to walk back out the door. She grabbed my arm and called my name. “Banks.” I didn’t resist. I took her in the kitchen, bent her across the kitchen table and beat up her pussy like I was Mr. Marcus. I fucked her like an inmate out on pass! Shit, to be fair, LaTonya had some good tight pussy. Either the niggas she’d been fucking was some lil dick niggas, or the things she kept screaming out about my big fat dick rung true, as I gripped her waist tighter, bent my knees and dug deeper up in her pussy! WHOP! WHOP! WHOP! WHOP! WHOP! WHOP! Our standing doggystyle, sounded off through the kitchen like thunder clapping! Of course, I never told Shell about our shall I saaaaay; occurences. Even though she whined and begged constantly, banging pussy, superhead and all, I wouldn’t fuck her no more. My refusal only seemed to intensify her thirst for some more of this pipe. But I felt a lil bad about fuckin my right-hand man’s sister. There was plenty more pussy I could beat up out there. In Durham, you have a ten to one ratio of women over men. Even the lamest niggas stay knee deep in pussy. Ten to one! Go figure. They may not be what some cats would call, “top of the line” chic’s that they’re fucking and getting sucked off by, but fuck what you heard, pussy is pussy. It’s all what you make it. But anyway, back to what I was saying. Seven months later, shit was going gravy. After th
e initial fifteen thousand I’d given mom dukes, she wouldn’t accept another dime. She flat out refused, even though I tried and tried. Told me to save it so I’d have something to fall back on. Every day she got up and went to work like always. She did break down and let me put the down payment on a house for her. A three bedroom with a huge backyard she could start the garden she’d always wanted in. She allowed me to give her the down payment of $9,500 but wouldn’t let me make no house payments. Shit, I didn’t even know what they were. She worked out all the details of that with the bank herself. I was still happy as a motherfucker. Due to the circumstances, I didn’t know if she was proud of me or not. I hoped that she was. All I could do now was keep doubling.
Chapter 16 “Disappearing Acts”
Shell was spending money like a drunk fool. We were now copping our work from a Panamanian that had been in Durham for a while. Latonya turned us on to him too. For now, we’ll leave him unnamed. My phone was now my main source of trapping, although I still hit the block sometimes, just to look for new scores to put on my phone. Shell went and copped a smoke gray Cadillac Deville and an apartment in Hope Valley, not far from where Fletch had lived, and died. He tricked like it was going out of style. Blowing two and three grand a night, on worn out mouths and pussies in the strip clubs. He was also spending more and more time with that heroin nigga Luke. It didn’t bother me though. Shell was a big boy and he was my nigga from the doorstep, so I’d always have his back. I pride myself on being a man of honor. And loyalty is number one on my list. Me myself, I rented a town house in Raleigh off Six Forks Rd. The rent was high as hell, and my neighbors were mostly caucasian, but it was quiet and out of the way, which is what I needed and liked. I still kept a room at mom dukes crib though. She wouldn’t have it any other way. Damn, excuse me for a second as I rewind back a lil bit peoples. I forgot to fill yall in on the shit I’d encountered when I returned to see Tika, two days after I’d given her and her mom’s the ten stacks to help them get up outta Fayettville Street projects. As soon as I stepped out of the crib in front of their apartment, the first thing I noticed was their front door standing wide the fuck open! It was January and around seventeen fuckin degrees outside, so right off top I knew something wasn’t right! Like a speeding bullet I took off for the apartment, with the African cab driver screaming at the top of his lungs about me paying him his money, as I burst through the front door, whipping out the gun I now carried as I did! The scene that was in front of me, shocked me beyond words. The apartment was a ghost of its former self. Empty as a playground in Iraq! No call. No word of where they were headed. Nothing! They took my money, packed their shit and were gone. I was hoping like hell that they just hadn’t reached their destination yet, and Tika would call as soon as they did. But deep in my heart, I knew my first love was gone. I was heartbroken to say the least. It was the first cube of ice to invade my heart. Now, the sole reason for me getting into this shit was gone, and all I was left with, was a terrible addiction. I was hooked on motherfuckin money.
