by Hood Rich
TRAPHOUSE KING
Lock Down Publications and Ca$h
Presents
TRAPHOUSE KING
A Novel by Hood Rich
Lock Down Publications
P.O. Box 870494
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Copyright 2018 by Traphouse King
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in review.
First Edition June 2018
Printed in the United States of America
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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Acknowledgements
I’d like to take the time to thank my homie, Cash. Thank you for providing me a platform to showcase my talents and skills. It means a lot. I’d also want to give a shout out to our C.O.O Shawn Walker. You are amazing, Queen. Thank you for always going so hard for Lock Down. We appreciate you, Queen.
Dedications
This book is dedicated to my lil’ one. Everything Daddy do, he does it with you in mind. I love you with all that I am. Never forget that.
Chapter 1
My mother fell before my feet, looking up at me with eyes wide open. Tears slid down her cheeks as she wrapped her arms around herself and rocked back and forth, sobbing louder and louder. The black plastic garbage that we’d used to plug the hole in the broken window rattled continuously as the wind and rain blew harshly through the night’s air. All around her on the floor were cockroaches the size of beetles, along with trash. It looked like she’d went more than a week once again without cleaning the house. It smelled like something was spoiled, and it was so cold that I could see my breath as I looked down on her with anger and a slight case of sympathy. After all, this was the woman that had given birth to me.
She pulled on my pants legs, nearly pulling my pants down altogether and her tears mixed with mascara staining her beautiful face. “Baby, please, give me a hit. I’m begging you. Mama so sick right now. It feels like my insides are being twisted. I can’t take it. I need you.” She whimpered, making her way to her feet, shaking as if she were freezing cold.
I looked down into her beautiful face and shook my head. “Mama, when you gon’ let me put you in rehab? I’m tired of seeing you fighting this same struggle. Please let me take care of you.” I begged, wiping her tears away.
She shook her head, and bit into her lower lip nervously. “Un-un, baby. Not right now. I’m not ready to go right now. I’m not strong enough. All I need is for you to give me a hit, baby. Just one hit and I promise I’ll pay you back. You know I’m good for it. Has mommy ever lied to you?” She asked with a line of snot trailing out of her nose. She sniffed as hard as she could, drawing it back up.
I shook my head once again not knowing what to say to my mother, because the truth of the matter was that she’d been lying to me ever since I could remember. But I didn’t feel there was any reason to kick her while she was down. “N’all, ma.” I took a deep breath as my sixteen-year-old sister Keyonna came out of the back room with a blanket wrapped around her shoulders.
“Dang, mama, why you ain’t tell me that Rich was here?” She asked, walking over to me and wrapping her arms around my waist. “How long you been here, Rich?” She asked, looking up at me with her hazel eyes. She was light skinned like myself, and on the right side of her upper lip was a little mole. I thought it made her look so beautiful. Besides my mother, my little sister Keyonna was my everything.
My mother grabbed Keyonna’s arm aggressively and pulled her away from me. “Girl, can’t you see that I was in here talking to him about something important?” She hollered with spit flying into my little sister’s face.
Keyonna wiped her face, frowned and took a step back, looking our mother over with anger. “Dang, mama. I ain’t seen my brother in a few days. I just wanted to give him a hug. It’s not that serious.” She rolled her eyes.
My mother took a step forward and reached out for Keyonna’s neck with both of her small hands. “I done told this bitch about rolling her eyes at me. I’mma kill this heffa!” She screamed, then rushed Keyonna at full speed.
My sister backed all the way up until her back hit the wall, then she held her hands up defensively to block my mother from obtaining her throat. “Rich, get her away from me, please. I ain’t trying to have her black my eye again!” Keyonna hollered trying her best to fight her off without actually fighting her.
I walked behind my mother and picked her up into the air, while she kicked her legs wildly, causing her house shoes to fly into the walls. Her arms swung at the air.
She seemed as if she was losing her mind. “I’m tired of that lil’ bitch. Both of them. I want them hoes out of my house, Rich. I can’t take this shit no more!” She screamed, referring to Keyonna and our other sister Kesha. This night, she wasn’t home because she’d spent a night at my Aunt Leah’s house.
I placed my mother on her feet and blocked her from getting out of the living room that had no furniture. Outside there was a loud roaring in the sky from the thunder, and the rain was coming down so hard that it sounded like rice was being poured out on to the concrete. Lightning flashed across the sky, illuminating the living room.
Keyonna blinked tears. “You know what? I don’t wanna stay here no more either. I’m tired of all these men running in and out, and I’m tired of being your punching bag. I don’t care if I gotta sleep on the street. I will, Rich. I’m so serious.” She cried before running through the dining room and into the back of the house.
This seemed to infuriate my mother. She started to swing her arms wildly once again
with her eyes closed. “Let me go so I can kill that bitch, Rich. That lil’ girl so disrespectful. She don’t appreciate shit!” She pulled on my polo shirt and ripped the collar.
I continued to block the doorway. “Look, mama, just chill. I’ll take care of her and you, too. Here,” I reached into my pocket of my Marc Jacobs leather jacket and pulled out the Ziploc bag full of aluminum foiled wrapped $10 heroin hits. I gave her three of them as much as it crushed my soul to do so. I figured it was the only way that she would calm down and allow for me to get my sister out of the house without her trying to kill her for real.
You see, my mother had a temper that was so bad, that whenever she got mad she tended to black out. By the time she came to, she’d caused so much chaos that things were almost always ten times worst. So, I tried to avoid that from happening. I loved my sisters, and I wasn’t cool with nobody putting their hands on them, and that included my mother. The comment Keyonna had made about so many men running in and out of the house I was going to explore as soon as I got her away from our mother.
My mother took the dope, took five paces away from me and fell to her butt, sitting Indian style. She pulled the sleeve of her sweater upward and started to smack the deteriorating vein at the top of her inner right arm, just below her bicep. Then in one quick motion she jumped up and came back into the living room with her works that consisted of a syringe, a spoon, a lighter, a rug, and a small bottle of water. I stood there with a tight throat as I watched her prepare the dope that I had given her. I was feeling like the worst son in the world but knowing that I really didn’t have a choice. It made me sick to my stomach, and it took all the will power I had inside of me to not shed a tear, especially as I watched the needle go into her vein, before she pushed the feeder down, injecting the poison deep into her system.
As it began to flow, she closed her eyes and licked her lips. Smiling, two dimples appearing on each cheek. “Umm-hmm. That’s what I’m talking about right there.” She ran her tongue across her dry lips and squeezed her thighs together, before opening her eyes and looking me over in a daze. “You always take care of your mama, Rich. It’s the one thing I can say about you.” She uttered through glossy eyes.
I inhaled loudly and exhaled, shaking my head, feeling like a straight chump. What type of nigga fed his mother drugs to keep her from wilding out? I felt like a loser on so many levels.
My mother reached forward and grabbed another package of heroin, opening it, and going through the same process as Keyonna came out of the back room with a book bag on her shoulder.
“I’m out of here, Rich. I can’t take this crap no more.” She stopped at the door and took her coat from the rack. Tears fell down her face as she zipped it up and pulled up the hood.
I frowned and stood in front of the door. “Look, Keyonna, I ain’t about to let you go nowhere without me making sure you’re straight. Just chill for a minute, and I’mma drop you off at Leah’s crib until we can figure something else out. It’s just so much going on that I can’t think straight right now, but just chill out. Let me make sure mama straight, then we’ll get you squared away. A’ight? Here, take my car keys and get in my whip. I’ll be down in a minute.” I handed her my keys and watched as she opened the door to the house.
She tightened her hood on her head and ran into the rain with her book bag on her shoulder.
I closed the door back just as lightning flashed across the sky. Thunder roared overhead. I turned to look down at my mother as she pushed the dropper downward on the syringe, sending the third hit of heroin into her body. The third hit that I had given her. “Mama, you need to take it easy with that stuff,” I said feeling sick to my stomach. I wished that I could have taken her away from that drug, but ever since my father had gotten her addicted when I was only three years old, heroin had been an escape for her.
She looked up at me and attempted a smile, then her eyes got bucked, and she dropped the syringe that she’d been holding. She tried to stand, but wound up falling to her knees, holding her chest.
I ran over and kneeled along the side of her. “Mama, what’s wrong? Talk to me!” I moved her hair out of her face and looked into her pure brown eyes that were wide open, yet unseeing.
She started to shake within my grasp, coughing repeatedly before the white bubbles formed inside of her mouth. It looked like she’d eaten a bunch of soap and the suds were spilling out of her orally. The coughing intensified, along with the kicking of her legs.
Now there were tears streaming down my face. “Mama! Mama! Please!” I cried, before laying her on her back, pulling out my phone and calling an ambulance. The whole time I talked to them on the phone, my mother continued to shake and seize on the floor with roaches crawling all around her convulsing body.
I crawled back over to her and held her in my arms as she continued to shake and choke for the next five minutes. Then, all at once, her soul left her body.
By the time the ambulance arrived, I’d already given all my dope to Keyonna and cleaned up my mother’s works. The emergency technicians came into the house and kneeled beside her. The first thing the white lady did was take two fingers and place them to the side of my mother’s neck. She looked over to the other technician, a short, stubby Indian man, and shook her head.
He lowered his eyes and pursed his lips in sympathy. “I’m sorry, but it looks like she’s already gone,” he said handing the kit over to the white lady.
She pulled out a syringe and filled it with Narcan. She flicked the syringe before picking up my mother’s arm and injecting solution. The man placed the pads on her chest that could revive her heart. He hooked them up to some sort of a machine and turned it on after the white lady pulled the syringe out of her arm.
I watched the pads pull at her chest, causing it to rise. Her body jerked upward but there was still no positive response. I blinked tears and swallowed my spit, feeling like I was about to die alongside of my mother. I felt like I was the blame.
The technicians continued to go to work on her. The whole time I felt sicker and sicker, until finally I had to stand up, and in the doorway of the apartment so I could inhale the fresh air that breezed its way inside. I took deep breaths, looked out into the night and made eye contact with Keyonna as she sat in the passenger’s seat of my 87’ Chevy Caprice Classic. She wiped tears from her face and lowered her head.
“I got a pulse! I got a pulse! It’s faint, but it’s there!” the female technician yelled, just as a big fire truck pulled in front of the house, right behind my car.
They unloaded and ran up the porch steps, right past me and inside. My heart skipped beat after beat as I watched them load my mother onto a stretcher, and out of the house, into the back of the ambulance.
***
Two hours later, me and Keyonna found ourselves sitting in the waiting room of the intensive care unit of Mount Sinai hospital in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, preparing to receive the worst possible news that we could have about our mother’s condition.
Keyonna laid her head on my shoulder. “I’m getting sleepy, Rich. I hope she’s okay in there,” she said before exhaling loudly.
I rubbed her soft cheek before kissing her on the forehead. “We know that mama is a fighter. I ain’t worried about her pulling through this battle. It’s what happens after this win what I’m worried about.” I said, pulling her firmly into my embrace.
“Rich, even if she do pull through, which I know she will, I still don’t want to live with her anymore. I can’t take it. I feel like something bad is going to happen to me under her care, plus I can tell that she hates me now. It’s common sense. I miss our dad,” she whispered.
Just then the doctor appeared into the waiting room. He and I made eye contact and he waved me over.
I kissed Keyonna on the forehead once again. “Hold on, ma. Let me go see what this doctor talking about,” I said, rising with butterflies in my stomach.
The waiting room had about ten other people inside of it besides me and Keyonna
. Out of the ten, seven of them were fast asleep and the other three were looking around as nosey as news reporters.
When I got to the hallway, the doctor extended his hand and I shook it reluctantly. Our eyes me, and he gave me a look that told me he was about to give me some unfortunate news. I felt my knees get weak in preparation for it.
He took a deep breath and slowly blew it out. “Well, these things are never easy to tell a family, so I’m going to come right out with it,” the older white man said with the blue hospital mask around his neck.
I swallowed. “Alright, just give it to me like it is. No sugar coating.” I looked him in the eyes.
He broke our eye contact and looked at the floor. “I’m sorry to tell you that your mother expired twenty minutes ago, after falling into cardiac arrest.”
It seemed like the entire world stooped, and suddenly I had been thrown into a furnace. Sweat poured from my forehead and all down my back. My own heart was beating so fast that I couldn’t breathe. I took two steps back and bumped into a stretcher that was in the middle of the hallway. I shook my head with my eyes wide open in disbelief. “Nah, not my mother, man. My mother is a fighter. She can come from under anything. You telling me that she had a heart attack and died?”
The doctor stepped forward and nodded his head. “Yes. Well, she had a heart attack that was brought on by extremely high blood pressure, and she over dosed today off one of the most potent versions of heroin that we’d seen. I’m sorry for your loss, son. We’re going to need for you to claim the body and to make further arrangements.”
That entire day continued to replay itself over and over inside of my mind’s eye a week later as I stood, watching my mother’s casket being lowered into the ground. She was buried on March 21st of 2018.
