Harlem Girl Lost (9 page)

His boys let out an eruption of laugher as they gave him high fives.

“You the goddamn man, nigger!”

“Pimp fuckin’ daddy!”

Jesse sadly realized that she was seeing a side of Kenny she had not known, and shook her head. “You're wrong, Kenny … this is your baby, and you want to deny it!”

Enjoying every moment, his crew told young Kenny to pimp harder, and pushed him closer toward her. He was stepping in her face now, but Kenny had the decency to look chagrined as she continued to stare at him in disbelief. He was unable to look her directly in the eyes. Jesse sensed his dilemma and took him by the hand, pleading softly.

“Kenny, please, baby, don't treat me like this. This is your child … yours! And together we can make this work.” Kenny remained silent. “Kenny,” she said, glancing at the men behind him, “let's go somewhere alone where we can talk.” His face softened and he opened his mouth.

“Oh, don't tell me this lil’ nigger is getting soft!” one of the boys hooted.

“Hell, yeah,” another man said. “Like a sho’ ‘nuff bitch!”

“Lil’ nigger ain't ready for the game. He's in love!”

In an instant, Kenny jumped back into character and smacked her hand away from him. His voice and eyes turned cold once again.

“Bitch,” he said, “I done told you once to get ya raggedy ass off my block before I get mad now. My name ain't
Herbie
, so I ain't
handing
out no
cock!
This dick is closed, and it don't come for free like last time!” He faced to his boys but continued to address Jesse. “Even though I did bet that I could fuck your skank ass in less than hour. And guess what, bitch … I won!”

His boys ran in circles as they let out an eruption of laughter.

“Pimp hard, nigga!”

Standing alone and humiliated, tears streaming down her
face, Jesse made one last plea. “What am I suppose to do now, Kenny?”

Kenny stared coldly at her, then reached into his pocket and pulled out a thick wad of cash.

One of his boys laughed. “Oh, no, what this nigger gonna do? I know he ain't gonna go out like a sucker and pay for an abortion!”

Kenny calmly peeled off a single dollar bill, balled it up, and threw it squarely in her face. “Buy a hanger, bitch!”

“King pimp
supreme
!”

“That's right, nigger—money, clothes, and hoes!”

“I say he gave the bitch too much!”

BACK TO REALITY

J
esse had her coat on and was heading out the door when Birdie stepped out of his room and startled her.

“Where are you going this time of night, girl?” Birdie asked.

“Oh … um … my period just came down and I'm out of pads. I gotta pick some up from the store—I'll be right back.” She slammed the door behind her.

“Bring me some vanilla ice cream on your way back,” Birdie yelled.

An hour later, Jesse was in the bathroom on her knees, sweating profusely as she frantically prepared her fix. She held two burning matches under a spoon, eyeing the steaming liquid until it bubbled. She quickly dropped a small piece of white cotton inside the spoon to absorb the liquid, then quickly tore open a newly purchased hypodermic needle and slowly drew the heroin up through the cotton and into the syringe. Working with the expertise of a seasoned nurse, she tightly wrapped a rubber hose around her arm to halt the circulation of blood. Holding one end of the hose in her mouth, she frantically tapped her arm with her fingers until a greenish, squiggly vein
protruded. She grabbed the needle from the edge of the sink and carefully plunged the dripping tip into her arm.

In an instant, her eyes began to flutter and her lips quivered as the powerful drug raced through her bloodstream. At that moment, life and all its problems no longer existed, for Jesse was in a utopia—a blissful womb with total disregard for time, life, or worry.

After an hour or so of peaceful nodding, a long rope of spit hung from the side of her mouth. It was then that the bathroom door suddenly swung open. Seeing Jesse on the toilet, Birdie started to turn away. “Oh … I'm sorry, Jesse. I didn't know you were in here.” But then he saw the needle protruding from her arm. Drops of blood had dried on her arm and on the tiled floor and walls.

Jesse glanced up to see Birdie shake his head.

“Oh, Jesse,” he said, teary-eyed.

Over the next few weeks
, Jesse's drug addiction spiraled downward. In addition to her heroin addiction, she started using heroin's deadly sister, crack. Saturday's girls’ night out became a thing of the past, and Jesse no longer walked Silver to school. Jesse stopped tricking in Times Square, opting for the seedy east side of Harlem's Park Avenue instead, right under the elevated train station on 125th. This area was reserved for the sleaziest of whores and transsexuals, most of them with drug habits. They favored this area because of the easy access to their drug of choice. Drug dealers stood by, waiting for the whores to finish a trick and cop soon after.

Jesse's appearance fell off rapidly as she sank deeper and
deeper into the grip of addiction. The cycle was so vicious it caused mothers to sell their own kids, or a man to get on his knees and suck another man's penis. And just when addicts thought they'd hit rock bottom, they found out that the bottom had a trap door—through which they sank lower and lower into squalor, degradation, and humiliation. The vast majority of these unfortunates had few options to get away from these monstrous and abominable cyclones, and the ones they did have were mostly death, jails, or mental institutions. The ones who survived had to live the rest of their lives with the trauma and damage they'd done to themselves and others.

No longer could you see the regal beauty Jesse had possessed only weeks earlier. She had quickly become tired of Birdie's constant preaching and soul-saving efforts. She wanted to be left alone to enjoy her high, so she began spending most of her time in drug-infested hotels or shooting galleries.

The typical shooting gallery was an abandoned building converted into a one-stop drug haven. Inside you could cop any kind of drug you needed. The in-house dealers sold everything from China white heroin to dirty beige Peruvian scale cocaine. Pushers even sold syringes and glass pipes so you had no reason to want to leave—and so they could get every dime of your money. In some cases, the dealers would even buy you food to eat, not because they were kindhearted—no, never that—but because they knew that you stayed higher for a longer period of time on an empty stomach, and that would take profits and residuals out of their pockets.

You could get high peacefully without worrying whether someone would try to roll your pockets while you were nodding or geeking out, because the dealers wouldn't have it.
White boys were treated no different than blacks or Puerto Ri-cans, because in the dismal world of addiction, there was a mosaic brotherhood among dope fiends—color didn't matter. The only color that mattered in their world was dead-president green.

Addicts could spend days, even weeks, inside these houses shooting and smoking themselves into oblivion without once seeing the light of day. Walking inside these hellholes was like entering the devil's den. The filthy candle-lit apartments reeked of decomposing blood, vomit, and the pee-stained mattresses scattered sparingly throughout the rooms. Scores of dope fiends greedily stabbed needles into any viable vein in their body— arm, leg, neck, or groin. Many, in order to save a buck or two, used the same dirty and dull needle over and over again, cleaning it only when blood clogged up their works, causing horrible, black, and insidious abscesses all over their bodies. Other wounds oozed yellowish pus. Some men—those who had a “dope dick”—openly received sexual services from men or women or both in the midst of these abominable and repugnant conditions. Soon Jesse was turning tricks for two dollars, if that.

CHANCE'S STORY

B
efore the crack of dawn, Chance ran out of the tenement, looking behind him all the while, when an older man yelled out the fifth-floor window.

“I see you, you little fucker. I ain't stupid! When ya lil’ ass come from school, you better come straight home. I'm giving you a bath … you hear me? And don't think I didn't see you go in that ‘frigerator and take that food out!” the old man hollered after him.

Chance slowed to a walk once he was out of sight. He went about two blocks before he entered an alley, looking over his shoulder. About halfway down, he lifted some boxes and kicked rats out of the way. Under the boxes shivered a frightened little street boy named Hollis, wrapped in heavy layers of blankets. He held a knife for protection but laid it down and smiled when he saw who it was. Chance handed him some food wrapped in aluminum foil, along with half a loaf of Wonder bread, and sadly watched the homeless boy dig into the food as if he hadn't eaten in weeks. Chance reached in his pocket and pulled out a bag of bones, then lifted one of the thick blankets to reveal a little mixed-breed puppy.

As time passed
without her mother, Silver and Chance grew even closer. She found sincerity in Chance that she had never known in any person other than her mother. Even though she and Missy were close, Missy's answer to everything was to kick ass and ask questions later. Chance didn't act or talk like anyone else her age. He was more serious and focused, as if he were a grown man at times. Even though Chance was only twelve, his deepness enthralled her. When Silver asked him about his parents, he turned unresponsive. She had learned from her mother never to pry into anyone's business and made a mental note never to bring the subject up again.

As they grew closer, she began to tell him all her darkest secrets. He never even batted an eye. That's what she loved about him. He listened and didn't judge—which was the ultimate way to a person's heart.

One day, while walking home from school, Silver looked over her shoulder and gestured. “Chance … I don't know if you been noticing, but that dude has been following us since we left the school.”

Chance turned around and saw a scraggly-looking boy walking some distance behind them.

“Oh, don't worry about him. He's a friend of mine—his name is Hollis. He lives on the streets, so I be helping him out from time to time. He's harmless.”

Silver remained silent as she stared at the crazed-looking boy.

During the next few weeks, Silver and Chance often stopped in the park, where she tried to teach Chance how to
read and write. She borrowed a second-grade book from the school to teach him the most basic English. She pointed to a word on the page and pronounced it for him to repeat.
“How.”

“How what?” Chance asked.

“Say the word.”

“The word!” Chance answered.

“Not
word … how!”

Chance frowned in confusion. “Not word how?”

Then he gave her a sly smile, and she realized he was joking with her. She gave him a love tap. “No, Chance, stop playing. We've got a lot of work to do, and it's gonna get dark soon. Now, say
how”

Chance lifted his hand like an Indian chief and said in a deep voice, “Say how … me Tonto.”

Silver couldn't help but laugh.

Chance stared at Silver for several moments, then spoke.

For a moment they just stared at each other, Silver more perplexed than surprised. “Wha … where did you learn that from?” she asked.

Chance smiled. “I just made it up for you. You like it?”

“Liked it? Chance, I loved it. It was beautiful. How did you —”

He interrupted her. “Silver, I haven't been totally honest with you.”

Silver frowned in confusion. “Honest about what, Chance?”

“Well, I think it's best I show you.”

Chance stood up and walked to the other end of the park to the trash bins and began looking though each of them. She watched curiously as Chance pulled out a newspaper and walked back to the bench where she sat. Still silent, he sat down beside her and began scanning the pages until he found what he was looking for. Then he proceeded to read from the editorial section. Chance read every word perfectly. He even read words she didn't even know how to pronounce. After he finished, he looked up at her. She was speechless.

Taking her by the hand, he paused to gather his thoughts. Finally he told her, “Silver, right now, you are the only friend I have on this planet. You are my only true friend, and for that I will be forever loyal to you.” Looking into her eyes, he continued. “You asked me some time ago about my parents, and I thinks it's time I tell you … I have none. I'm what they call a ward of the state, which basically means the State of New York owns my black ass until I'm eighteen. Over the past three years, I've been bounced around from one foster home to another for being too much trouble.” Chance stood up in front of the bench. “Which actually means I fought back—I didn't let them touch me, and I didn't put my mouth down where they wanted me to.”