Nasty (3 page)

The last time he had picked up his methadone, the nurse had counseled him about HIV and prevention strategies. She’d also told him that he didn’t have it in his blood. He had been so relieved. It was the one thing he was afraid of. The last couple of years, he’d gotten a little sloppy and had started sharing needles with his buddies. He realized that he should’ve taken the free city needles, but sometimes they weren’t always where he needed them.

Times were getting hard on the streets for him. He wasn’t as young or as resourceful as he had been. He remembered the days when crowds would come from all parts of the city, to see him paint on the canvases he set up in Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village. His specialties were portraits and landscapes. Though he was definitely talented, he was infamous for rarely finishing a painting. Before drugs had completely consumed him, folks with money, especially white Bohemian women with thick fat trust funds, had been so impressed with his skills, they’d invite him to stay in their New York City pads, hoping he’d develop great works of art.

Over the years, he had lived in some of the most exclusive addresses in Manhattan: The Dakota, the building where John Lennon was murdered; multi-million-dollar converted lofts in Tribeca, and his favorite hang, the Hamptons. Back in the day, he could always get an invite to bring his paint supplies and stay a month or two in the summer playground of New York’s obscenely wealthy residents.

His freeloading with the rich was always a short-time stay. Drugs always seemed to corrupt his ability to stay focused. When
patrons discovered his talent was limited and his need for drugs unlimited, even the women who kept him for sex had soon grown bored with him. Eli was never discouraged when they tossed him out. There were always new people who spotted him at his village “gallery” who were convinced they could tame the undisciplined artist.

But that was then. Seemed like now that he was older, folks with money didn’t want a down-and-out junkie around who couldn’t even complete a child’s paint-by-numbers project. Nobody thought he was special.

A correctional officer walked past his cell. He yelled out at him through the bars, as if testifying to the world. “Hey, officer, listen! Listen up!” The C.O. briefly turned around. “Look, look here. Now I’m gonna kick this habit, but send me some methadone now before I
die
!”

The officer looked at him in disgust and spit out, “Fuckin’ junkie, you’ll get it when the nurses call your good-for-nothing ass and not a minute before. Now shut the fuck up!”

He felt like screaming a million obscenities. But he just moaned to himself. Nobody cared about junkies. Even he didn’t care about junkies. Eli had long ago resigned himself to the fact that he had chosen a lifestyle that would eventually kill him. He was too chicken shit to use the old, tried and true, “bullet to the head” method.

If he’d only taken Alan Montana’s offer of money and a crack at a decent rehab facility two years ago, he wouldn’t be in jail. The wealthy comedian had been so grateful when Eli had helped him find his teenage daughter, he’d offered him the moon. But Eli had always admired him. He wanted to be on equal footing; man to man. To look Alan in the eye. He refused the offer. Alan, impressed by how he clearly needed help, had
insisted. But Eli had his pride. The more the comedian begged, his conviction to refuse grew exponentially.

He had bragged about his experience with the comedian later that night when he was getting high with a musician buddy he’d known for years. The saxophonist shook his head as he injected heroin, wondering why Eli refused the cash. “The biggest tool for a fool is his pride. Ain’t you never heard, pride goeth before a fall, and shit, nigger, junkies always falling.” Still shaking his head at Eli’s foolishness, waiting as the drug took effect, he leaned into a junkie nod.

Two months ago, when his own habit had him living out of cardboard boxes under the Manhattan Bridge, the young girl Eli and her father had tried to save, died from an overdose. All the money in the world couldn’t keep her from crack and the streets. He wanted to attend the funeral, and maybe ask Alan Montana for help. Once again, the demon pride intervened. He could not ask for assistance, especially since his life was in such a despicable condition.

Now he was in jail. For stealing. In all of his years as a junkie, he had never stolen. He had truly hit rock bottom. He’d fallen from a high of organizing creative art projects in African villages when he was with the Peace Corps to a new low of conspiring with common criminals.

He couldn’t help it. He needed money. Dope wasn’t free and the waiting lists for drug rehab centers in the city were longer than all the tracks on his arms combined. With a big hit of cash, he could buy his last stash and then enter a good clinic. He wanted a clear exit out of hell. He was getting too old.

The irony of the whole affair was that on the day he committed the crime, Al Montana had opened a new drug treatment center in memory of his daughter. If he’d only set pride aside, he could have been in that first group of patients in the new state-
of-the-art drug rehabilitation facility, instead of a Riker’s Island prison cell.

Damn that Badheart
, he thought. It was supposed to be a simple robbery. Nobody was going to get hurt. He told him to leave his crackhead brother, DJ, out the plan. He hated crackheads with a real passion. They weren’t cool at all. Garbage fried their brains or something. With Lady H, you just get mellow; not so with that wacky smack.

Why did DJ bring the gun? It wasn’t part of their plan. And why did he shoot the Arab in the neck? Why? Because he was a fuckin’ crackhead, that’s why.

Even though he didn’t pull the trigger. Even though he stayed behind to help the dying Arab out. Even though the store’s video camera substantiated all his claims, the court-appointed attorney could not get the self-righteous, junkie-hating judge to set bail at a reasonable level. A hundred thousand dollars! Hell, if he had that kind of money he wouldn’t have had to hold up the damn store. But if bail was a dollar, it wouldn’t have done him any good. He didn’t have that either. Nor did he have a place to stay. On second thought, mused Eli, the judge had done him a righteous turn.

Finally, they gave Eli his methadone. He swallowed the liquid and smiled to himself, knowing that soon, very soon, the razor scraping his insides out would soon be so dull, he wouldn’t feel anything at all.

A
fter a month of regular methadone and nutrition, Eli started feeling human again. Eli eventually ventured into the showers. He might as well get used to them. This would be his second time in jail and his public defender told him to expect some real hard time. Ten years or more. Why so much time? He quickly learned that the combination of robbery, homicide, and drugs made all the difference.

As he became more aware of his surroundings, his personality returned. His natural outgoing nature forced him to try and make small talk with the mostly younger inmates. It sickened him to know that the prison population could have doubled for a huge dormitory at any of the predominantly Black universities. Instead of spending time learning and expanding their minds to do something truly revolutionary and positive, society and the power elite had imprisoned his brothers and sisters when they were in the prime of their lives. Imprisoned like animals. The best and the brightest could be behind this wall, and nobody would know it. Nobody cared.

But who was he to look down on society’s corruption and its oppression of his people? He had a college degree. Was only a thesis away from a Masters. How many of his brothers and sisters had he inspired or helped to do better? He had spent the
last twenty years of his life looking for money to support his drug habit. The fact that he had had an opportunity to travel a better path was never lost of him.

Eli often looked at his only prized possession, a pocket-sized portrait of his family. The one he abandoned when he couldn’t conform to his wife’s world. Looking back, there was nothing wrong with that world. Especially when he compared it with the one he currently resided in.

The day the prison barber finally got around to cutting off Eli’s lice-ridden dreads and his even nastier beard, a spectacularlooking, distinguished man emerged. Unfortunately, his new look attracted the attention of Sebastian La Roux, a male prostitute from the Bronx who was by far the most brutal inmate at Riker’s.

At twenty-six, Sebastian towered over most men at six-footfive. A disciplined body builder with python-like muscles, he loved to corner HIV-negative inmates and, with the help of his gang, sexually brutalize them. Terrified of contracting the disease, a snitch in the lab gave him the results of all the men he considered as targets. When he discovered Eli was negative, he eagerly awaited an opportunity that would lead to an intimate liaison.

As prison food put much needed pounds on Eli’s six-foot-two-inch frame, Sebastian was mesmerized and completely turned on by his lean body. He had a thing for older men. He especially liked the idea of turning them out. It was the least he could do. After all, an old Catholic Priest had raped him when he was nine. He’d only be returning a favor.

He gazed at Eli with wanton lust whenever he could get a glimpse of his nude body in the showers. He dreamt of Eli’s mocha-colored skin and fantasized about the junkie tearing his
ass up. Usually a “bottom-man,” he didn’t mind playing “top,” as he was pretty sure Eli would never participate willingly. What he did know for sure was that he wanted to have sex with him; any time he wanted it; any way he wanted it.

Eli was aware of Sebastian’s intentions. Walking through the exercise yards or sitting in the prison cafeteria at mealtime, he could feel those steel gray eyes tracking him. Rarely taking glimpses at him, he was intimidated by the multiple, thick keloid, imbedded scars that stretched across Sebastian’s forehead, back, and abdomen. They each shouted tales of battles he had been in. Battles where one could only imagine the violent fate the ‘other guy’ had experienced. He looked like a man who regularly battled Satan and, Eli figured, Sebastian La Roux usually won.

For as long as he could, he tried to avoid the body builder and his two equally menacing cohorts, Jerome and Lady P. His time ran out the day they cornered him in the yard. Guards not around, Sebastian and his crew gagged Eli and dragged him to an abandoned building in a secluded area of the yard. The guard responsible for the old storage unit winked at them as they entered.

“Don’t take forever; you only paid for fifteen minutes.”

“Don’t worry, officer. We’ll be as quick as we can!” promised Sebastian.

Eli fought, clawed, and kicked as hard as he could. The white rag they shoved in his mouth prevented his screams from escaping. His mind filled with terror, knowing what they were about to do to him.

“He’s a tough one. He ain’t gonna give in easy,” squealed Jerome. The smallest in the gang, he had sustained quite a few bruises trying to subdue their victim.

“Don’t like it easy. Hold the bitch still!”

They pinned Eli against the wall. He tried to jerk his body to avoid his attackers.

“Lady P, you bring the Crisco this time like I asked you?”

Lady reached in his pocket and pulled out the stash of lard he had stolen from the kitchen. Sebastian grabbed it from him.

“Gonna grease this pole good. Won’t hurt that much if you hold still, dammit. Hold still; your ass might like it.” Sebastian, growing weary of his resistance, hammered Eli’s head with his powerful fist. Dazed, confused and with blood trickling from gashes in his face, Eli finally had no fight in him.

Sebastian ripped Eli’s pants and underwear down, and slathered the white shortening on his cheeks and anus.

“Gonna hurt me more than it hurts you; believe me. JUST HOLD STILL!” The monster zipped open his pants and released, stroked, and lubricated his eight-inch long, rock-hard dick, preparing for penetration. He stooped down to position himself against Eli, forced his cheeks wide apart, and jabbed his prick up his anus. He thrust his huge member as deep as Eli’s anatomy would allow him to go.

“Damn, this shit is good and tight!”

Intense pain shot through Eli’s rectum. It traveled up his spinal column and hit his brain like a nuclear explosion. In epileptic style, his body violently bucked back and forth.

“Keep him still. I don’t wanna hit him again; might kill him.” Lady P and Jerome tightened their hold on Eli.

A rapid knock at the door reminded them that time was of the essence.

“Gonna have to speed this up.”

And speed it up, he did. Like a jackhammer tears through city streets, he thrust his steel-hardened penis into Eli’s uncooperative
body repeatedly without remorse. The sound of flesh pounding against an unwilling body echoed throughout the metal-lined room. Torrential sweat poured over Sebastian’s curly hair and banana yellow skin. His beady eyes bulged out as his massive chest heaved rapidly. He was approaching climax. Riding Eli like a stallion, every muscle in Sebastian’s body tightened as he prepared for what he knew would be a fabulous orgasm.

He cried out, “Papa coming soon! Papa coming real soon, Daddy! OOOOOh!” An electrical discharge of pleasure exploded throughout his pelvis. He released his load and ripped his dripping penis out of Eli, totally satisfied with the experience. A trail of blood-tinged stool and thick semen seeped out of Eli’s anus.

“That shit was GOOD!”

“What about us?” “This tail is mine!”

“But you ain’t never been an ass man!” shrieked Lady P.

“I am now, so just get your own. Come on, let’s drag him outta here. Don’t want nobody to find out about our little chalet here, now do we.” They carried Eli out and dropped his limp body beside the dumpster in the back of the prison yard.

Eli’s moans were audible to no one but himself. He tried to move. His body would not obey his commands. Sebastian had escorted his soul to hell. He’d never be able to look at himself in the mirror without feeling the demon entering him. Tortured by a pain he never knew existed, he fainted…more from not wanting to be mentally present for the mentally degrading ordeal he had experienced, than from the actual physical discomfort.
When Eli came to, guards had surrounded him, demanding he reveal his attackers. He refused. After a brief stay in the infirmary, authorities assigned him to an isolation cell. Honoring strict prison code, he still never revealed the identities of the vicious crew that had violated him.