Baby Huey: A Cautionary Tale of Addiction (25 page)

Hunger broke the routine. Daylight in the window, I tiptoed to the front door, opened it as quietly as possible, and almost had a heart attack. Spanky was standing there, his fist poised to knock.

He stepped in. “I didn’t think you’d be glad to see me.”

I closed the door, grabbed the woman’s coat he had on and shook him, upsetting the lime-green wig on his head. “I’m not the one! Hear me! I’m not the one!”

In a flash he pressed something hard against my temple. A small silver handgun. I let him go.

“Motherfucker, I’ll blow your brains out!” He was upset. “Don’t you ever put your hands on me!” I stepped back, held my hands up. “I just bought this damn coat!” He tried to smooth the wrinkles out of it with one hand. “What is your damn problem? Damn crackhead!”

“I didn’t know it was you, Spanky.”

He lowered the gun, pocketed it. “You came that close, you know that? That damn close. Y incision, scalp peeled back, the works.”

“Fifty left. He left days ago.”

“I know that!” Still upset. “I come here to see if you wanted a job, and then you put your filthy hands on me.”

“A job? I don’t sell dope, Spanky.”

“Did I ask you to sell dope? That was between you and Fifty. I’m talking manual labor. You got AIDS?” I told him no. “Jenny Crack, then.” He pointed at my clothes. “You had that shit on last I saw you. Damn crackhead, so predictable.”

“I need a job. Bad.”

* * * * *

In Spanky’s white Lexus we rode to Church’s Chicken on Twelfth Street. A glint of sunlight peered around a dark cloud. The aroma of fried chicken made my mouth water. Spanky stood in line with his hands on his hips, as if he were above waiting.

A white Lincoln Continental parked next to the Lexus. Usually I didn’t eat the skin on the chicken, but now I intended to eat every crumb. Might even suck on the bone.

I glanced over at the driver of the Lincoln. Dokes, in profile, cutting his eyes my way. Doreen was sitting next to him. Lewis in the back seat, his face pressed against the window, looking at me. Dokes said something and Lewis sat straight.

Spanky came back, a box of chicken in one hand, two drinks in a cardboard tray in the other, walking just like a woman, putting his hips into it, Dokes staring at him.

Spanky handed me the drinks and said, “Don’t spill nothing in my car.”

Dokes got out and went into Church’s Chicken. Doreen just sat there, looking straight ahead. She looked as beautiful as ever. The braids gone, her hair fell past her shoulders.

Dammit! The longer she and I weren’t together the longer her hair grew.

She knew I was looking at her, but didn’t even glance my way. I thought to get out, go talk to her, tell her I still love her, needed her--but I couldn’t. In the same clothes for days, unshaven, a couple teeth missing, I couldn’t.

Spanky, chewing on a chicken leg, said, “I thought you were hungry?”

“Naw. Let’s get out of here.”

* * * * *

Batman looked at me and I gestured toward Spanky. “I’m with him.” This time he wore a fur vest and gray wool pants. A college football game was on the big-screen TV. Again his shoes were off and a girl, a white girl, massaged his toes. I wondered if the Asian girl rubbed a bunion too hard and he fired her.

Spanky said, “Marko is going to have an accident soon. Cat here needs a job.”

Batman gave me another nasty look. “What accident? He’s our cousin. First cousin.”

Spanky clucked his tongue. “I don’t care. He’s got one more time to say something funky to me. He will, sooner or later. And he’s going to have an accident. Just letting you know.”

Batman didn’t respond to that. The girl turned, gave me a quick look, and resumed her work.
Cindy?
Yes, it was Cindy, wearing only a long-sleeve white shirt. Her hair was different. Brunette instead of blonde.

Spanky looked at me and shook his head. “I’ll start this cat on the crew. After the accident he’ll be in charge.”

“What’s wrong with the other two? Put one of them in charge.”

“Uh-uh. Crackheads. I don’t trust crackheads.”

Batman looked at me, head to toe. “Don’t tell me. He’s fasting?”

Back in the Lexus, Spanky said, “You saw Cindy you started to say something, didn’t you? ‘Remember me, I used to sleep on your couch?’”

“That was a helluva game you guys ran on Fifty. Beat him out of his dope, took his woman, tricked him into leaving town.”

Spanky laughed. “Now I know why I like you. You’re stupid.” He felt under the seat and came up with a roll of hundreds. “This is what it’s all about, baby. You can’t get this being stupid.”

My appetite back, I got a thigh and a brick-hard biscuit out of the box. “What that got to do with you running the man out of town?”

“Look at you. Mouth full of food I bought and talking shit. I’m not Fifty. I’ll bust your head. My clothes, that little something happened between me and you, don’t let that fool you. I’ll bust your head wide open.”

I rolled the window down and spat out what was in my mouth. “You said you had a job for me?”

Spanky stared at me a long time. “Yeah. I’m starting to regret I did.”

* * * * *

The detail shop, previously a gas station, was on the corner of Valmar and Fifteenth Street, two bays, three men in one standing around an antique Corvette. A handwritten sign on top read Too Clean Detail. Several paintings of luxury cars were on the window, and I wondered were they Fifty’s handiwork.

When Spanky and I walked up the men stopped talking, started messing around with the car.

“Marko,” Spanky said, and a tall, slender man in a green jumpsuit turned but didn’t look at him. “Cat here name John.” I shook his hand. “He’s working here now. Show him what to do.”

Marko went back to work. Spanky stood there for a minute, giving him a mean look, and then walked back to his car and drove off.

Marko mumbled, “Damn sissy.” He asked me was I one of Spanky’s friends. Was I gay? I said no to both. “Man wanting to be a woman--you know that don’t make sense. My cousin, but I don’t claim him.”

After castigating Spanky a long while he introduced me to Calvin and Botchie, an old guy who reeked of cheap wine.

“Slow now,” Marko said, “’cause of the weather. Sunny days we run seventy-something cars through, ten dollars a pop. End of the day we keep a third of the cheese, split it three ways. Four ways if you work out. You get high?”

Just like that.

I didn’t answer and he said, “We do,” and pulled out a joint.

The wash bay was where I started, washing ten cars and two trucks before Marko called it a day. Ten dollars in my wet pants, I started walking to the apartment, my thoughts filled with Doreen, the way it used to be, the way it would be when we got back together. The cold air made reminiscing and fantasizing difficult, made my teeth chatter.

The apartment door was locked, a no trespassing sign taped on it. The nosy white woman looked out her window. I walked away. The wind whistled. I turned my back to it and was pushed forward, without the slightest idea where to go. Inside an abandoned house on Booker Street I listened to the wind rattle the broken window panes.

Dokes told Lewis to sit down and stop looking at me, and Lewis obeyed him without hesitation.

Something skittered across the floor in the next room. I sat up and stared into the darkness. The wind stopped a few seconds before howling again.

Where was Dokes when I taught Lewis how to ride a bike? A hot day in July, I ran alongside holding him up, told him to keep pedaling, keep his eyes on where he was going, and helped him up when he fell, told him to try again, never give up.

Truth was, I missed him. Never thought I would…but I did miss him. A lot. I even missed him getting on my nerves. All he asked was I be his friend. And I stuck his head between my knees and took off my belt and…God, he didn’t deserve that.

The wind stopped howling and it started raining, the water rolling down my face.

* * * * *

When the cars lined up down the street we worked. When they didn’t, we played dominoes and got high. Marko smoked marijuana and sold crack. Botchie drank any liquor cost less than two dollars. Calvin and I smoked crack, forfeiting our pay at the end of the day. Marko covered lunch, Rally’s burgers or Church’s Chicken, both of which got old fast. Calvin, two-months paroled, taught me the tricks of the trade. The vacuum machine easily sucked up change many customers left in ashtrays and cupholders. If someone complained, blame it on the machine.

The best-paying trick was to let the air out of a tire. “Look here, you got a leak…New tires, huh?…Don’t make em like they used to, do they?…No problem, I can fix it in a few minutes, won’t cost you twenty dollars.”

Botchie showed up each morning in dire need of a drink, his hands shaking. Marko cursed him and gave him two dollars. When he walked back from the liquor store down the block, he was a new man, walking with pep in his step, grinning, ready to work.

His dipsomania sated for the moment, he reminded Calvin and me that crack kills, told us to just say no, “Y’all oughta leave that shit alone!”

Saturday evening, a long, rainy day, Marko upset after getting into an argument with a customer over a missing watch, Marko pointing a finger at Calvin, Marko telling Calvin he ain’t shit, Calvin blaming the vacuum machine, Marko telling him to go get it then.

Spanky drove up, as always at five o’clock, to collect the money, just as Calvin was starting out the door.

Marko gave me an envelope and told me to take it to Spanky. “A sissified fool, that’s the last thing I wanna deal with now.”

I got in the Lexus, gave the envelope to Spanky, who looked inside it and stopped working the lollipop in his mouth.

“This it?”

“That’s what he gave me.”

Spanky tapped the horn.

Marko stepped outside and said, “Damn sissy, can’t you see it’s been raining! Nobody wash their car on a rainy day.”

Spanky tossed the lollipop out the window, reached under the seat, brought out a monkey wrench, said, “Wait here a minute,” and got out of the car.

Marko crossed his arms and watched Spanky approach him. He started to say something and Spanky hit him with the wrench. Marko grabbed his head, blood turning his hands red, yelled in pain, and Spanky hit him again. Marko lay on the concrete, convulsing, blood spilling out of his head. Calvin started running down the street.

The thought of running crossed my mind too as I watched Spanky walk back to the car.

He got in and put the wrench under the seat. “I told you he was due for an accident, didn’t I?”

I nodded, looking at him in a new light. Blood stains dotted his yellow dress sleeve and the back of his hand.

Spanky drove off, in no big hurry. “It’s too hot now. We come back tomorrow you be the head man.”

I didn’t like the sound of that, already thinking of another rainy day, the money not what Spanky thinking it should be, Spanky getting out the monkey wrench again. I would not just stand there, though. He would have to hit me running.

Spanky said, “You need some clothes, don’t you? Stepping into a managerial position you gonna need new clothes, right?”

“I guess so.”

Marko didn’t know me from Adam, but gave me a twenty on my second day, told me go to GoodWill and buy a coat. Marko told me to guard the shop at night but keep the lights off--a tactful way of saying, “You don’t have a place to stay, stay here.”

Marko was probably dead, and I was riding with the man who killed him

Spanky said, “We’ll go to the mall. My treat. No strings attached.”

In a Dillards store in McCain Mall, Spanky insisted I try on designer clothes. Shopping made him happy. Shopping with him made me nervous, self-conscious. People stared at us, and I searched for an expression that conveyed I was shopping with a transvestite in a lime-green wig because he just killed a man and may have killed me if I told him no.

The cashier totaled three hundred and forty-three dollars and Spanky paid it without batting one of his fake eyelashes.

On the highway Spanky said, “Spend almost four hundred dollars on a cat the least you expect is loyalty. You feel me?”

Here we go!
“Thought you said no strings attached?”

Spanky pulled over onto the shoulder, and I noticed blue lights behind us in the side mirror.

“Let me do the talking,” Spanky said. “I wasn’t speeding, no reason he pulling me over.”

Cars and trucks zooming past, the policeman walked up and asked Spanky for his license and registration.

Spanky reached inside a black leather bag and said, “Sir, was I speeding?”

The policeman took the license and registration paper and said, “A mile back you made an improper lane change.” Then he walked back to the cruiser, stayed there a long time before coming back. “Mr. Hampton, I’m writing you a warning this time. In the future signal before changing lanes.”

The twenty Marko gave me to buy a coat I spent on crack. The next day he gave me a black wind-jacket, the one I had on now, the sleeves a little too long but it kept the chill off.

Spanky took the warning ticket and started to drive off. I said, “He just killed a man.”

The policeman hunched down, looked at me through wrap-around shades. “What? What did you say?”

“He just killed a man. He hit him a couple times with a monkey wrench. Marko, nice guy--he gave me this jacket.”

Spanky stared straight ahead, drumming his fingers on the gearshift.

The policeman told me to get out of the car. Spanky put the Lexus in drive. “Don’t you move!” the policeman shouted. In the back seat of the cruiser I told him again. “When did this happen?”

“Not an hour ago.”

“Where?”

I told him and he picked up the mike, called for backup, asked was I sure Marko was dead.

“Yes--I mean no. When we left he was on the ground, shaking.”

“Where’s the wrench?”

“Under the seat.”

I watched several policeman converge on the scene, watched them point guns at Spanky and pull him out of the Lexus, watched Spanky’s wig fall to the ground, watched one of the policeman put it back on crooked. Another policeman retrieved the monkey wrench, held it up for all to see. Spanky mouthed something to me as he was being led to a cruiser.